Cold War Kids drop their fifth studio album, Hold My Home, tomorrow (Oct. 21). Serving as the follow-up to 2013's Dear Miss Lonely Hearts, the album explores the notion of "home" and features production from guitarist Dan Gallucci and frequent collaborator Lars Stalfors (Mars Volta, Matt & Kim).
We chatted with frontman Nathan Willett about the inspiration behind the new effort, how the band has evolved, their tour plans, and the special memorabilia available to fans on their PledgeMusic campaign.
Cold War Kids will play at Brooklyn Bowl on October 21 as part of the CMJ Music Marathon. Admission is free with RSVP or a CMJ Badge. Hold My Home is available in the United States via Downtown Records.
Music Times: You've drawn inspiration on past albums from literature and film. Did any other body of work help inspire the writing on this Hold My Home?
Nathan Willett:I feel like this time around it wasn't so much a single thing. It was more from all over. All of the songs kind of have a separate identity.
MT: On your PledgeMusic page, you talk about home being "ephemeral." When did "home" stop being a concrete place for you? Did you come to this realization after being on the road so much touring?
NW: Yeah, we've been a band for 10 years. We've toured so much, and that experience definitely changes you a lot, but I also think there's a universal side of it as well. Where your version of home changes as you get older. There is a sense of journey and travel in a bunch of the songs. So much of security comes from having a home and knowing how to get back to it. I think that things get really interesting when you don't have a home and it's always shifting beneath you. So that's definitely the most unifying theme of the record.
MT: What other themes were inspiring your writing on Hold My Home other than the concept of "home." Was there anything going on in your life that is directly reflected in the album?
NW: I actually had a baby girl in the past year; she's about seven months old. Now three of the five of us have kids at home, so I think touring this record will be the first time that we've been gone extensively. I think that was some of it. It's the kind of thing where it's hard to say when you're in it. I think it all makes more sense after the fact.
MT: Going back to the PledgeMusic campaign, it's a pretty awesome opportunity for your fans to get unique music memorabilia. Is this the first time you've promoted an album this way?
NW: We have never done something like this before. I know they came up with some ideas and we said, 'Yeah, we're down.' I was actually having breakfast and starting to do all these...people requested all these handwritten lyrics sheets. It's kind of cool, especially for some really old songs; to re-write them out is kind of bizarre. I like it when people are requesting some lesser-known songs that we haven't played for a long time. It's kind of stimulating for my mind.
MT: Other than the handwritten lyrics, have you played a private acoustic show, had a beer with fans, had fans tour your studio or anything like that yet?
NW: No. I think that stuff will come more once we're on tour.
MT: Five albums in, how has the writing and recording process changed for you guys?
NW: It has changed quite a bit. We've always had people record us who we really trusted. None of us had a background in engineering or producing or anything. When Dan [Gallucci] joined in on the last record, he produced that one and this record as well. So we recorded in our home studio and definitely felt a sense of everything being in-house. Since the beginning we always loved to do all the artwork and all the songwriting, and everything is like under one small roof with us. So I kind of felt like the last piece of the puzzle was for us to be able to like use our home studio, which is our place of comfort, to do everything — write, record, finish records. That was kind of like the last step for us in a way.
MT: You've had a few acts, especially British female singers, cover your songs before. Is there any particular song you've written on Hold My Home that you would like to see another artist cover?
NW: Oh man. I mean I would love to see the song "First" I think would be a really cool song to hear. I'd be interested to see somebody else do it their way, do it in a different style. It's a cool honor to have your song covered.
MT: So this month is Cold War Kids month on ESPN. How did that come about, and are you guys big sports fans?
NW: I'm a big soccer fan. I know Dan follows everything football and baseball. We're not all watching games together or anything like that, but we thought it would be a cool, different audience.
MT: Do you have anything special planned for this upcoming tour?
NW: We're just really focusing on playing a lot of new songs. There are 11 songs on the new record, and we're probably just going to play as many as we can every night and just let the set kind of revolve around that. It's kind of nice because doing some smaller shows I feel like it's a lot of fans that have seen us a lot of times, so yeah it will be cool just give them a lot of new stuff.
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