Sep 29

Sep 29 Atlas Genius

“On the first album, I was very guarded with most of the personal things that inspired the songs. Because there’s the real fear that when you put a song out there, somebody will realize the song is about them,” says Keith Jeffery, the 33-year-old frontman of Atlas Genius. He's scanning a quaint Los Angeles Vegan restaurant for open seats and talking about the period when he started writing their new sophomore album Inanimate Objects. “I was always very cautious about changing facts or not mentioning certain places on When It Was Now. But there are definitely some lyrical moments on this album that I made less cryptic. A lot of the songs are autobiographical, we were just a little bit more bold with these songs. I leave myself wide open for those people.”

Anchored by Aussie brothers Keith and Mike Jeffery, Atlas Genius’ signature electronica-infused indie-rock has seen a magnetic boost, not just in lyrical sincerity, but sonically as well. It's been three years since the band's debut and a lot of major changes occurred while writing Inanimate Objects, including moving from hometown of Adelaide, Australia to Los Angeles, personnel shifts and subsequent romantic break-ups. Which all lended to this record being even more dynamic than its predecessor. The album is still of the familial Atlas Genius variety, but it's richer and thicker, reflecting their personal lives with sincere clarity—the good and the bad. As Keith puts it, “You’re not supposed to be happy when you’re writing good songs.”

“There’s this odd bunch of times where I’d sit there and question the decision to move,” he says, gaze drifting across the table. “I was throwing away a huge part of my life, and hoping it's worth it. It's such a risk, especially when you’re in the middle of making an album, where it all relies on you being in the right head space and creating something from nothing. When you haven’t created that yet, and it’s caused you a breakup, it takes you to a pretty dark place.”

But after a year in Hollywood, the duo have found their footing. Hearing them talk about IO, it's clear the album functions not just a document of their emotional growth, but as a display of their advancing artistic talent. They take up just about all the sonic space they can. After they saw major commercial success with their hit single "Trojans", they traveled the world many times over, touring with mega-bands like Imagine Dragons. After touring for years in a row, it became a way of life, which had to temporarily end to facilitate the recording of the new album.

“We were touring so hard that I wasn’t in the right head space, I didn’t have the energy to start writing,” Keith explains. “It was a huge shock, there was a definite depression that set in after touring for so long and then stopping. I found it very hard to deal with that. We hit every city about six times, which is a lot. We were only home for a couple of months in an eighteen month period.”

“It’s such a routine, every day being in a different place, then all of a sudden coming to a grinding halt,” Mike adds. “There’s a certain excitement every day when you play live, it’s extremely tiring and unhealthy, but also exhilarating at the same time.”

The shellshock of wrapping the tour may have been difficult, but it wasn't too difficult for them to deal with commensurate pressures that come with following up a very successful debut. “It was always in the back of my mind, this kinda pressure there that you hope people don’t get so married to the first album that they only expect you to repeat it,” says Mike. “We tried some new things and different sounds on this album, and I was wondering if we strayed too far away, if we would lose people. So there was that pressure. Keith didn’t feel it as much.”

“The pressure of doing the 'sophomore album' is that so many people constantly ask us if we're nervous about it, and I say 'well I wasn’t until you didn’t shut your fucking mouth!' So that was the biggest thing. It’s just like the background noise that you have when you’re writing something,” Keith continues, leaning in closer from across the table. “The job is to just block out that as well as a whole bunch of other things. Just being totally present in what you’re doing, as opposed to worrying what someone else is gonna think.”

Song by song, listeners can hear the Jeffery's working through everything that was holding themselves back, from post-breakup sentiments, to the other intensities of the world. They both recognized the need to expand musically as they had in their own private lives, resulting in a solid series of songs that manage to be as reflective as they are dance-worthy. “If we didn’t evolve, that would've been a much riskier thing than changing. What we did on the first album was we trusted our gut. Thought it'd be riskier to then all of a sudden stop trusting your gut. No matter where that gut took me.”