A Superluminal World with Locket

A Superluminal World with Locket

Locket is an indie-alternative pop rocking band based out of Ontario who has just released a brand-new album entitled Superluminal via Fearless Records.  The band formerly known as Safe To Say present a whole new collection of tunes that will jangle on within your senses and set the imagination in flight.  Contemplating the passages of time as one approaches their late 20’s and early 30’s, the themes found within Superluminal will surely resonate with music fans of all ages.  Highwire Daze recently caught up with singer/guitarist Brad Garcia to find out more about the world of Locket and the dynamic Superluminal. Read on…

Is there any overall story or concept behind the album titled Superluminal?
Yeah, when we started writing it and this is beginning of the pandemic, I guess. We’re in our late 20s and I feel like that’s a time when things start happening very quickly.  Things outside of the band, like our members getting married. people buying houses, having kids and life away from music seems to accelerate at almost an unbearable pace at times.   But that’s where a lot of the theme for the record comes from.

Before we talk about actual songs on the album, how much of the album was actually influenced by the pandemic and recorded during the pandemic?
The entire record was recorded and written during the pandemic. I wouldn’t call it a pandemic record in the sense that there’s no songs about being bogged down and shutting doors and stuff like that, but it’s more of a realization of time and how quickly things skip along and reflecting as well on what you have done, what you will be doing. That sort of thing.

Okay. We’ll talk about a few of the songs. Let’s talk about Kilayear, which we’re already in September (November now) where we’ve almost killed this year.
[laughs] Yeah, totally.

Talk about that song and the inspiration behind it.
Yeah. That song would probably be the thesis statement and at least in our band world, there’s this sense of needing to stay young forever and a grip onto things. You almost get sidetracked by how quickly you’ve almost ticks all the boxes, at least in our case, where we’ve toured the places we wanted to tour, we’ve made the music we’ve wanted to make. We’ve kind of done what we would have wanted to do as a band. If you told us 10 years ago, “You’re going to do all these things.” I’m the kind of person who tends to stay up at night and have panic attacks and think, “Oh my God, why am I not doing X, Y and Z.” It’s like a reminder more or less to hit pause when you’re in certain moments that might seem like a more grand point in your life as opposed to just having it constantly click rewind. I think I used that term a lot in the song. But yeah, taking it in as things are happening as opposed to reminiscing in the past.

Rearview Memory, tell me a little about that one.
For Rearview, a lot of this stuff has overarching themes, but that one in particular is almost an appreciation of the past, whether it’s a relationship or something you’re a part of. Even if there’s been a negative side to that ’cause it kind of helps you, or at least for myself, helps navigate the way you make decisions and the way you go about treating other people, having learned from mistakes or having learned from past experiences. It’s always keeping that in the back of your mind as you move forward with people.

Tear Me To Pieces, tell me about that great song. 
I think that was the last track we wrote for the record. Funny enough, It’s one of those moments where it’s like, “Oh shit. We don’t have a 10th song,” and we had a million demos and we kind of “frankensteined” instrumentally that song together, which was fun. The way we write music, because we self-produce and self-engineer and mix everything on our own. Everything’s kind of happening at once. We’re never writing months in advance and then going to the studio. It was fun to have all these pieces from other songs that we had been actively trying to record and make them make sense into one song. While that was happening, I feel like most bands get in a rut at some point in recording, where you’re sick of your own lyrics and you’re sick of listening to the same guitar parts over and over and over again. That was channeled a little bit into lyrics as well.

Why don’t you select any other song from the new album and the inspiration behind it?
I would say, You & I is probably our favorite, not just my favorite, even though it’s a deeply personal song. Across the board, when we finally put that song to record, we all found ourselves silent just listening to it over and over again. It’s very different than the rest of the record. It’s a slower love song. Like I said, a lot of things were happening with us at the time. I got engaged and married within the span of making the record. This was, again, taking that idea from Kilayear and other songs about celebrating what you have, not getting stuck in the past. It’s almost flipping that and saying, “I’m happy with everything I’ve done, good and bad with the people of my life.” Because of those decisions and because of those little deviations you take in life, that’s why I have what I have now. I have a loving wife, we have great family lives, things like that. So, it’s almost like, “Yeah, I would do it all over again.“

Your previous album All Out was released a few months before the pandemic. Did you get to properly tour on it at all?
Dude, no. [laughter] That was the worst timing, obviously, it was worse for a million other reasons. But yeah, that was probably the worst time to put out a record as a band in 2019, especially as what you’d call a debut on this label and everything. We maybe got some handful of shows. We were halfway through a tour at the time when the record came out and then we may be played 10 more shows until they shut everything down.

You covered Fleetwood Mac song “Everywhere”. What made you decide to cover that song and has anyone in Fleetwood Mac heard or commented about it?
I would be shocked if they have.  If you hear otherwise, please let me know. Yeah, it was just we couldn’t play shows and the record was still so new but it’s, “Well, what do you do?” as a band if you have already just put out new music and you’re not ready to write new stuff yet and you’re not able to get on the road. You’re not able to play shows so someone at our label actually said, “Hey, would you guys ever consider covering something?” I don’t think they had something like Fleetwood Mac in mind because so not probably the style of music we’re known for playing but that’s the band all of us grew up listening to, whether it was from our parents or older relatives and stuff like that. That’s personally my favorite song by the band, so that’s where that came from.

You did a tour with The Dangerous Summer. What was that experience like?
I feel we’ve all been pretty open about this since it’s happened. We did not enjoy that experience. The shows were great and the people that came to see us were fantastic, but there was just a weird vibe in the air. I feel like these bands – like we’ve been touring, whether it’s with Locket or previous projects for 10 years, I guess now at this point, we’ve learned to deal with personalities we butt heads with. We’re a pretty quiet group and there are some pretty rambunctious very loud personalities which makes a tour that’s 20 days seem like 120 days sometimes. The other band that opened the tour Arms Akimbo, they were fantastic. They were more our speed but because we hadn’t been on the road in so long at that point, it was just something I feel like we’re very open about now. Either not enjoying or just really hoping that 30-minute set goes well, whether it’s five people come to see you or 50 people or 100 people. The shows were great and the fans are great, but just the experience was a little weird for us.

You do have a 10-year anniversary coming up, with Everything Im Between by your previous band Safe To Say. When you look back at that and realize it’s been 10 years, what do you think of it now in that album in retrospect?
You know what, I actually was listening to it yesterday. For the first time, I’ve actually listened to the record front to back in maybe 10 years. It’s awesome. Especially working on this new record, something we kept going back to was just writing music like we did when we were 20 years old, picking up a guitar and writing a riff as opposed to having a songwriter brain – just having that young, youthful energy of being in a punk rock band. So, yeah, influence-wise on this new record, that was probably actually the biggest influence was going back and listening to our younger selves as kind of a little reminder of what we like doing, what we like playing live, what we enjoy, bouncing around ideas between the four of us.

Brad from Locket during our Zoom interview

What was the summer on Warped Tour like with Safe to Say, and do you miss Warped Tour?
Someone described it to us, especially when you’re one of, if not the smallest band on a tour where there’s maybe 50 bands. Someone said, “It’s going to either be the worst best time of your life or the best worst time of your life.” Both of the statements were accurate. Worst as in, it’s just so much work. It’s a lot of grinding. You’re up early every day in the hot sun, especially if you’re Canadian, it’s like punishment in some states.  But yeah, the opportunities to get to not just play a one-off tour gig but to actually go on the tour was maybe the bucket list item as a kid who grew up going to Warped Tour when I was in high school and stuff like that. I made so many friends since then that we still keep in touch with that were on that tour and fans as well that have now become friends of ours. When we’ve rolled through cities, there’s always familiar faces now that we see and it’s always, “Oh, yeah, the first time I saw you was in 2016 on Warped Tour.” So, I guess it did good things.

Are you involved with any other bands or projects outside of Locket?
Yeah, I play bass in a band called Like Pacific.” They’re on Pure Noise Records. That’s more just straight up pop punk stuff, and then I produce for a few other artists as well. But yeah, primarily just those two bands and then every now and again gigging with other friends around doing stuff. I have solo stuff that I’m working on as well right now, which is the first time I’m taking that step in that direction. We’ll see how that turns out.

What’s going on with Like Pacific?
I think, they’re in the same boat as Locket and a lot of bands our age, we’re touring when it makes sense to tour. We’re still writing music and we’re still jamming and we’re still playing one-off hometown shows and the odd weekend run here there. But that band like Locket are all late 20s, early 30s, where the priorities have almost shifted from the band being the number one thing, to the family-life being the number one thing, and then the band being the cherry on top. All this is awesome, we still get to do this. So yeah, same boat us Locket, I guess.

Would both bands ever want to play a show or a tour together or that maybe already happened? 
Yeah, we played together a handful of times. We actually did Warped Tour together before I was in Like Pacific. We shared a bandwagon with 11 people on one bandwagon, so I think from there that’s how I got roped into playing bass for that band. Yeah, we played shows together. Luckily, Like Pacific is at a more established level than Locket. Locket can play an opening or second of five spot or something and Like Pacific will headline or play direct support or something. I got a bit of a breather which is nice, but I think we’re maybe planning something, the two of us around release time for this Locket record.

What’s up next for Locket now that the new album is coming out?
Ideally, I’m sure the label would want us to be touring, touring, touring. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but things have changed very much since the birth of TikTok and yes, pandemic putting a hold and people taking a second thought at finances. As a Canadian band, you would not believe how much it costs to tour the States. I wouldn’t say it’s impossible to make money, but other band our size, you know when you’re going out, you’re coming home with less than you’re left with. No. For us, the conversation we’ve had is “What do we like doing as a band, as a unit and it’s just creating and making stuff.” Like I said, we record and produce and direct mostly everything ourselves. Taking the money that would be spent on touring and opening a package and trying ways to be more creative, more present online or with what we’re sharing on the creative front and then getting on the road, is what it makes sense to do so.

Do you have any messages for Locket fans out here in the States who are reading this right now.
I promise, we will try our best to be there soon. I know we get comments, a lot of people asking us to come to certain cities. That’s not something that’s not going to happen. I promise we’ll be playing shows in the States at some point.

(Interview by Ken Morton)

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