Spirit Machines: Building The Scene
DAve Crespo had just moved to Salt Lake City from Boston to reset aspects of his life and to find a music scene that was more accessible than those of much larger and more expensive cities. After exploring various facets of the city, he would eventually stumble across vocalist Pepper Rose, drummer Michael Collins and bassist Sergio Marticorena. With DAve wielding the guitar, the quartet would become Spirit Machines. Now their hope is to create a music scene of their own in here in Salt lake City; and they want to use what they refer to as the “fifth and sixth” member of the band, the studio Suite J - their rehearsal space and a space where DAve hosts his online live music show, The Spo Show - as a sort of nucleus for the scene- a place bands like themselves can look to as a sort of home base and where the scene all connects.
I sat down with the group to go over what life is like for a band in a pandemic, what makes Salt Lake City special and what makes their record Feel Again unintentionally sound metal.
DAve: I feel like Serge brings the Salt Lake City metal into the band. I don’t know if you feel that Sergio but...
Sergio: A little bit [he laughs]. I’ve always been surrounded by Salt Lake City metal kids. My little brother was the bassist for Chelsea Grin back in the day ... I’ve just always had metal surround me even though I didn’t really partake of it, when I was younger.
DAve: I’ve never really played metal, and I don’t think you can call this band a metal band, but it definitely has metal parts to it. I’ve never played metal in my life but I’ve started to write things that were metal, and I feel like that’s because of the metal scene here. It just seems like people want it … It just feels people will respond to it … As an outsider coming in, I don’t know, it just came out and I really feel like it was the environment of Salt Lake, whether it’s like the social climate mixed with the mountains, mixed with the mormons.
For whatever reason, it does seem like it has the most traction out of all the genres you’ll find here.
DAve: Yeah, and that’s not everywhere.
Pepper: Maybe it’s a blue-collar thing … [It’s] relatable. There’s no high-brow hipster aspect to it
If you guys sound metal without intentionally doing so, I’m curious what the songwriting process is like.
DAve: The songs usually start on the guitar, [then] to Pepper and then to the band.
Pepper: Yeah. Things might change once Michael gets in. Often that’s, you know, when the structure comes in and he will demand a bridge or an alt-chorus or the interlude.
DAve: Yeah, usually we’ll come with at least a bridge, a verse and a chorus, and then an idea for an interlude. And then we can see how it feels with what Mike and Serge add to it.
It's a weird time to be alive. What is it like debuting a record during a pandemic?
Michael: Well, we’d like to have a show.
[we all laugh]
Michael: But, I mean, we can’t, so might as well get it out there. There'll be plenty of time to party... eventually, I hope. And I think it’s good ‘cause a lot of the promotion we wanna do is all gonna be online anyways. So it’s a good opportunity for that because people are online more than ever. So...
So do you see that as an advantage then?
Michael: Kind of. I mean, DAve has been running a ton of shows online … There might be an advantage. Ad cost might be a little lower right now and [it is] easier to get engagement, but I don’t know. I would say, all things considered, I’d rather not be in this situation. But life isn’t over.
DAve: I think it’s amazing. But I don’t mean like, “Oh, it’s awesome!” I mean it’s like such an amazing situation to be in just because it’s like, unprecedented … There was an idea of making this recording in June of last year. So we could have put this record out in like, I don’t know - if it was like the same math, like six months later is what we did - in December [of last year]. And I don’t know. We were trying to put it out in like February. So this is just like when it landed and it landed in a time that is like- people really need music right now. And [the record is] not happy which is, I don’t know- we can kind of speak for people.
Pepper: I feel like people are going to be ready for the themes of the album. I was worried that people wouldn’t like it ‘cause for a while everybody was into just chillin’ music, like bopping along. And here we are: we come out with this moody … album. And so I’m hoping that people will be more receptive just to the mood. That’s one advantage.
DAve: You know, I always say that no one moves to this city because anything good happened to them.
To this city? Or cities in general?
DAve: This city … There’s just so many people who are like, “I got away from my life” and they ended up in Salt Lake. Kind of like San Diego used to be, at least. [There’s] a lot of people with interesting stories. I think we all have them in the band. But there’s some dark shit that these songs come from and I think they at least match what people are going through right now, you know. Even though what we are going through is like the worst thing. But there’s a lot of worse things.
On that note, how do you guys feel about being a rock band in Salt Lake City? Would you ever try to relocate to somewhere like Boston?
Michael: I think we would go where the amazing opportunity is, personally. That’s how I’ve always been. I feel like that’s in Salt Lake, personally, ‘cause it’s a small city but there’s a lot of heart, I guess. A lot of good people.
Do you feel like there’s enough outlets or a big enough landscape for a rock band here?
Michael: Yeah. On some level, if you’re really going to make it in music it’s not so much about the local scene anymore… This is just a comfortable home base- small, clean, not a shit ton of competition… As far as that part goes, I really like Salt Lake. I do feel that we have to make a scene, you know? With Suite J and stuff I feel a lot of the times that we’re making a scene where I feel like there should already be a scene. Like, there’s not that much support for local music, I feel, compared to what there could be. ‘Cause Salt Lake City has a ton of talent because all these mormon kids grow up learning piano, like me at an early age. There’s plenty of talent… What DAve is doing is pretty awesome, if you really could see the perspective of me, because I’ve lived here this whole time so I know what the scene was like before DAve came. And he’s definitely created his own scene out of nothing in a lot of ways. And I just feel like that’s awesome and we’re gonna continue to do that and we’re gonna grow our scene as big as we can grow it. But I do feel like we could have gotten a lot more help from some of the people that have connections and are running things. I feel like a lot of times there’s a disconnect where they may not be searching for talent. Maybe they’re just helping their friends or something like that. That’s the vibe I’ve gotten. But, I mean, you get that a lot of places … I’m not sure that’s a Salt Lake problem specifically…
DAve: As far as moving goes, I left [Boston] to come here to make music. So I think I’ve already made that decision … I also think Salt Lake is a place to be.
Why here of all places?
DAve: I had for many years done a lot of [research on] places to potentially move to … I went to Austin a lot and I lived in L.A. really quickly at the end of college. And I would go to New York City all the time. I did a lot of shows in New York, and like booked them and played them… But to be able to live in a city [and] actually work on your music… Boston was outrageous price-wise. Every city was gonna be outrageous. So to actually do it and to do it correctly… Salt Lake City seemed to be really the only place. I think there’s some other places that could have also worked but I don’t know. The mormon aspect… there’s just so much appreciation for music here because of it and it as a medium to rebel against society… it just seemed like a good idea [to move here], versus like Cincinatti, which is just, like… it’s just Cincinatti. [Salt Lake City] had an identity whereas some of these other budding cities didn’t really have an identity.
Spirit Machines debut record Feel Again is out now. Unfortunately, it'll likely be a few months before we can catch the group at a music venue, or any group for that matter. But you can watch their scene grow with the band and other group shows streamed live from Suite J on The Spo Show.
