Interview: Lars Finberg of the Intelligence
The Intelligence's vocalist, guitarist and founding member Lars Finberg discusses his affinity for short songs, Eat Skull and a naive view of the future
Chad Radford: Your records have a particularly hazy sound, but I wouldn't call them Phil Spector-esque. Your sound is a little more damaged sounding for an aesthetic effect.-
Lars Finberg: With the bands that we like, and are influenced by, the recording is just as important as the songs. I like Kanye West and Maroon 5, which are recorded very well, but I don't think it's all that interesting for weird rock bands to be recorded all that well, or made to sound super slick with a lot of compression and a radio sound. I like analog tape and old microphones and those kinds of '60s and early '70s recording techniques.-
On the subject of being a weird rock band, your songs are very concise which suggests a lot of editing, which you don't see with a lot of "weird" or experimental bands...-
You mean with bands where there's just so much stuff thrown into the pot? I try to work really fast and the songs that work best for us are the ones that are recorded in like 20 minutes or something like that. But I try to keep it really simple from the beginning. The best songs are simple, two chords and a super simple piano part. It's more impressive for a song to be good by doing way less. Really, there isn't too much stripped away from our songs because from the start I'm trying to keep it super simple. There are songs where all four of us are playing the exact same riff. We're trying to have one unanimous personality as opposed to different things.