Buzz Blog
"The band decided to call it quits largely because Kellazor decided she wanted to spend an indeterminate amount of time traveling in the near future," Chamberlain says. “She was slowly becoming the main vocal presence in the band and it wouldn't have felt right to carry on without her.” Chamberlain and several of the other members of The Suicycles will continue work on new projects, including Totem & Taboo. But, who knows, The Suicycles might one day return. “We had a blast doing it and it felt like a good, healthy time to put it to rest. At least for an extended period. Never say never,” Chamberlain says.
The final album from the five-piece is a hodgepodge of material from the two years that the band existed. This includes the first six songs were the final songs completed as a band. Tracks 7 - 9 were intended to be part of a separate full-length with New York-based group The Ladies Of Sport. Finally, tracks 10 - 19 are more or less B-sides from the first full-length.
Sri Whipple did the cover artwork -- he had done so for the previous The Suicycles releases. “I love the contrast between the ‘soft/pretty’ and the ‘obscene’ imagery,or at least what some people might consider obscene,” Chamberlain says. “I think it fits what we tried to do with The Suicycles overall.”
The Suicycles are:
Camden "Winky" Chambermaid: Vocals, guitar, additional keys/programming & lots of other stuff.
Vanimal: Drums, time.
Black Rob: Guitar, whiskey
Kellazor: Vocals, keys, flava
Brian "La Breeze" Jensen: Bass, guitar, Responsible Dude
The CD release show will be Saturday, Sept. 1 at The Woodshed, 9 p.m. You can purchase the album at The Suicycles’ Bandcamp page.
Camden Chamberlain writes about several tracks from Love, Light, and Life:
"Family Of Fuck Ups":
"Like most of the songs that were written towards the end, this one was conceived in the early morning hours after a show -- most likely a circus of chemicals hanging out in the vicinity. The lyrics are more or less about our band, our "family," who at the time all lived in the same house apart from our drummer Van. Needless to say, sometimes there was tension and sometimes that tension got written about."
"Scorpio Black Magic":
"I originally wrote this song intending it to be used for a side project, which has since become Totem & Taboo. As soon as that project really started coalescing, though, it became clear that the song wasn't a great fit and got shifted over to Sewage Recycle territory. Kellazor then got her hands on it and really made it come alive. I think this was the song that made me start to feel like she needed to be the main vocalist of the time."
"Quit You":
"This song is about my friend, my ex, my bandmate, my baby-mama, Vanessa Angulo. In particular, it's about the internal struggles that occasionally rear their ugly heads in my brain in regards to her. I think this was my attempt at writing a "final" song about her. She was my muse for many years, and I wanted to try and move beyond that and into new territory."
"8 In The Morning (feat. Ransom Wydner)":
Kellazor and I fleshed the bones of this out together one long night/morning after a show, while we were a little out of our minds. The chorus originally was just a placeholder, vocally. It was the first thing that popped into my mind on our first attempt, and we just never changed it. Kellazor and I each wrote our own lyrics separately and then came back and smashed them together. We were pretty tripped out that our stories (about totally different people) lined up more or less flawlessly as a whole. That was one of the most emotional sessions I've ever been a part of -- explaining these stories/lyrics to one another and then immediately recording them."
"Slipslide (The Suicycles vs. The Ladies Of Sport)"”
This was the first song I ever heard by The Ladies Of Sport, and it hooked me right away. I'd made my feelings clear to them for years that I wanted to play with this song someday. So, when they came to me and said we should collaborate, this was the first song I asked about. It was one of those personal little dreams to come true for me. I hope we did it justice. Check out the original version here: TheLadiesofSport.Bandcamp.com.
