Suzanne’s band, Melodyguild — spelled here as Melody Guild — were interviewed for the Winter 2004 issue of Gothic Beauty. You can find print copies of this magazine in gothic leaning stores or pick up a digital copy of Gothic Beauty Issue 15 from the zinetastic site.

Melodyguild Interview by Poseidon for Gothic Beauty

Suzanne Perry, known for her work with Love Spirals Downwards, bas a new band to introduce us to called Melodyguild. This dreamy, swirly, dynamic creation is simply astounding. Suzanne and her drummer, Nick, sat down with us for a chat about the new album, the future, the creative process, and music in general.

Poseidon: How did Melodyguild come together?

Suzanne: Essentially through friends we’d known through music. I wanted to do some work beyond my contributions with Love Spirals Downwards – something that fit my voice, That’s really how we came together, just trying each other out.

Nick: As our friends got together we noticed certain people fit together very well. When I first started working with Suzanne her voice really struck me. From then it was just deciding what we wanted to do, what we wanted to sound like.

Poseidon: Who is in the current lineup?

Suzanne: Nicholas Pallos is primarily on drums, with some synthesizer and guitar work. Cris Miller is our guitarist, and myself, Suzanne Perry, on vocals for now. We also have some others who have contributed on the album and on bass guitar when we play live. We are a developed band but still at a young stage.

Nick: We’re planning on some possible sequencer and synthesizer work in the future, such as a drum machine, but for now we’ve been sticking to a simple drum, guitar, vocal lineup.

Poseidon: Could you tell us what is your favorite song from the EP you’ve just completed? My favorite is “Un Parallel.”

Suzanne: I love that song. I do think that one is my favorite of what we’ve done so far. We actually have a couple others that are similar to that one, but that’s certainly my favorite on the EP.

Nick: It’s certainly one of the moodiest.

Suzanne: See, if you can listen to a song that you created, that you wrote, and it still gives you the chills even after listening to it over and over again, that’s a good song.

Poseidon: How many live shows bave you played so far? I noticed on your website you’ve performed with Bethany Curve…

Nick: About five or six shows.

Suzanne: The audience has responded very positively so far. We have more people playing live with us now. I’m a little more into recording because you can reach more people than just whoever is in the room at the time.

Poseidon: Are you performing anything from the Love Spirals Downward catalogue, or is this exclusively Melodyguild material?

Suzanne: Just Melodyguild right now. I have received a lot of inquiries for places people want us to play. We’re receiving the same feedback from Projekt.

Poseidon: What made you want to get into performing music at all?

Nick: I started playing piano at age 5 and then got into percussion and study. I think it’s something that you just want to do. You like the attention you get from performing in front of people, sharing your music, and getting a reaction from people as selfish as that may sound. It just feels good.

Suzanne: That’s a tough question that I’ve been asked before. Maybe I’ll answer it differently now. For me, it just comes naturally to do it. It’s a totally natural creative drive for me to do it. I do it completely on the side of everything else I do in life, but I feel like it’s something I ‘have’ to do. Money and attention aren’t really a focus for me or I would go about it differently. If I ever compromised that I don’t think it would be as good or enjoyable. I never labor over my lyrics, if that makes any sense. I just let whatever I do come out naturally. I never try to sound any other way than how I sound, I simply do it.

Poseidon: As I mentioned earlier, “Un Parallel” was my favorite. Could you tell us a bit what went into creating it?

Nick: Really, it was just a study of dynamics. We wanted a song that wasn’t on ’10’ or ‘1’ volume-wise the whole time. In terms of music, we wanted a longer-than-your-average-pop-song piece that would be very fluid and changing as it went along.

Suzanne: I think Nicholas’ description of that was pretty accurate, but that’s the same approach we’ve been using to all of our songs, but really it’s unintentional. We just have little snippets of songs that we assemble during the creative process. There’s not a lot of discussion about it as we’re sharing a common goal of getting variety. The EP itself is very diverse, especially for a four song release. I can tell you that the full length album will be even more diverse. It will be consistent, but with a lot of variety.

Poseidon: Who is producing the album and where is it being recorded?

Nick: We have some friends who have actual recording studios who let us record there. Much cheaper than going through a full studio. We’re pretty much self-produced. We knew and know kind of how we want it to sound, and we enjoy being able to do it ourselves and have control over the final product.

Suzanne: These are people we are close friends with who know what they are doing as far as the recording equipment goes.

Poseidon: You’ve mentioned you have a song coming out on Projekt’s upcoming Holiday CD. Could you tell us about it?

Suzanne: Definitely. This is a song I’ve wanted to do for a long time, “Sally’s Song” from The Nightmare Before Christmas. It came out really well; I’m so pleased with how it came out. I think anybody who enjoyed the film will be really pleased with our version. It’s not a very long song, probably under three minutes, but I think people will be pleasantly surprised.

Nick: Yeah, we really like how it came about and with the finished product.

Poseidon: Which one of your songs do you think will attract people the most when the full-length comes out?

Suzanne: I’m not sure as it’s more of a complete collection. That was the case with Love Spirals Downwards. Most people had a favorite album but never a favorite song, if you get my meaning. I get very willful about not even finishing a song unless it’s a song that every [one] enjoys and is a strong song as well. I mean, sometimes you hear songs on an album and they’re throwaways. A good example is when an album is basically one or two singles and the rest are just junk. I figure why waste the time? If it’s good, finish it. If not, let it go. You’ll know when a song has a strong melody or attraction.

Poseidon: Does the future success of Melodyguild represent an end to your work with Love Spirals Downwards?

Suzanne: No, not at all. The work we did in that is pretty timeless. A few years may have passed but I still feel like that possibility is always out there. I get a good feeling when I see an LSD disc out there. It’s still going on in its own way, even if I’m not doing any actual work. For me, Melodyguild is a lovely extension of what I did with Love Spirals Downwards. I had other opportunities, but this connection with Melodyguild was the most enjoyable to me.