Finding Inspiration in Every Moment with Braids

The darlings of the indie world share tips on making album magic in our new interview series The Lowdown.

Pushing the Edge

Braids are a 3-member art rock band from Montreal. Raphaelle Standell-Preston, Austin Tufts and Taylor Smith started making music in high school. Now in their twenties, Braids’ hopeful melodies and sharp-tongued lyricism are redefining indie rock.

This is a band making their mark. Not an easy feat. Working hard, staying inspired, and forgiving yourself when things don’t work out makes all the difference.

Recording Your Inspiration

For their latest album Into the Iris, Braids chose to lay out ideas in quiet, out-of-the-way places.  Recording ideas whenever the moment strikes was a key part of their process:

“The biggest thing for us is to have everything always set up, and ready to go. We always have a mic on everything.” – Austin

Allowing room to build on these ideas, when you’re tooling around, is equally important:

“I really like the moments when we’re in practice, and then we just start riffing off of a little section, and everyone joins in, and we just kinda create a song.” – Raphaelle

Being open and ready for those lightning bolts of inspiration is an important building block for any recording project, especially albums.

If It’s Really Hard, You’re Not Doing It Right

One of our favorite interview questions we ask musicians is how they get over creative blocks.  And let’s face it – we’ve all experienced it. Whether you’re an artist, a creative professional, the insights are universal:

“We work a lot and we work hard at what we do. But there’s  a certain point when you have to back off and not just force something.” – Austin

Knowing when to step away is a necessity. Not giving up is a challenge. But staying open to changing course is paramount:

“It’s not always going to be good and easy, but if it’s always really, really hard, then you’re not doing something right.” – Raphaelle

Watch the full video interview below:

Check out Braids’ new album Into the Iris on Flemish Eye and keep up on live shows and news via their website.

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