An Interview with Cicada Summer

By: Chris Parish

If you listen to Cicada Summer you can hear the sound of Georgia in the summertime. Their sound reminds me of bits and pieces of Elliott Smith and The Eels. Although, the clever guitar riffs mixed in with a banjo, mandolin and a Greek instrument called a bouzouki give these young men a true sound of their own. They are quick to compliment each other on the talents they each bring to the indie folk project known as “Cicada Summer”.

Cicada Summer hails from Atlanta, Georgia. The three of us sat down via conference call and talked shop the other day. From Chicago, I called Max who is in school at Appalachian State in Boone, NC and we buzzed in Speros in Atlanta who is attending Georgia Tech. I asked the guys some questions to get a feeling of where they are coming from and where they want to go.

How they met:
The two met in a freshman high school guitar intro class, which they attended all four years of high school. Max joked with Speros over the phone that he was somewhat of a band nerd at the time when Speros accused him of being a jerk when they first met. Speros grew up playing classical guitar and Greek music while Max was raised on classic rock. After pairing up in class, they began to get to know each other better but played in their own separate bands in high school.

Instruments:
Acoustic guitar, electric guitar, banjo, mandolin and a Greek instrument called a bouzouki which Speros learned to play in Greece. The bouzouki can be heard on the track “On the greyways” and gives a Middle Eastern flair to another track “Backwoods and Bullfrogs”.

How they record:
It wasn’t until they were in college that they really started collaborating together. They do not live in the same town so they share tracks via a file sharing dropbox online much like the strategy used by the group The Postal Service. They send samples of songs back and forth to each other and edit them. Max says when writing songs he always has to establish a melody first, and the lyrics will come later.

Their first song:
Lake Powell was the first song the guys collaborated on together. Max got back from a trip out in Lake Powell and had the song planted in his head. He had been working on the melody out there and was playing it constantly. Speros had the electric riff waiting for him that Max insists “makes the song”.

Influences:
Speros mentioned Elliott Smith as well as the mandolinist Chris Thille of Nickelcreek as big influences. Speros said he listened to Elliott Smith nonstop this summer although it was Max who came up with the song “The Hollywoods”.

The Hollywoods-

“The Hollywoods” could pass for a track on Elliott Smith’s critically acclaimed “XO”. When I heard Max sing “The Hollywoods” for the first time I was convinced it was an Elliott Smith song that I had never heard. Max lists Kurt Vile and M. Ward as the kings of low-fi and mentions how careful those artists are in their recordings and how they are ahead of the times.

The name:
If you have ever been to Atlanta in the summer you know all you ever hear are the cicadas. They came up with the name while throwing a baseball at the park. Later in the summer, a friend of Speros shared a letter with him that talked about the cicadas being the “sound of summertime in Georgia”…

“It makes sense to us now, more than ever” Speros finished.

Cicada Summer has recorded an exclusive track for Harmon Drive called “Lavorgna”, take a listen below…and stay tuned for more about Cicada Summer.

Lavorgna-