A few weeks ago, Scattered Trees released a video featuring storm troopers for their song “Love and Leave,” and emo nerds everywhere rejoiced, myself included.
So I was ecstatic when frontman Nate Eiesland agreed to an interview, and it was the most pleasant of surprises that I was actually given bandmate Jason Harper’s phone number by accident. Jason was the creative genius and film-maker behind the video, and I was so pleased to be able to say hi and compliment him on his work.
Jason gave me Nate’s digits, explaining that Nate had lost his cell phone for a few weeks and had been using Jason’s number, and I got my chance to ask Nate about songwriting, making music with family, and the plight of a storm trooper.
Today, Scattered Trees release both their new LP Sympathy, via Roll Call Records, and a new track off the album, “Four Days Straight.”
Scattered Trees | Four Days Straight
Your video for “Love and Leave” recently went viral. It’s obvious from the care you took with it that you all are big Star Wars fans. Had you been planning on doing a Star Wars video for a while, and how does “Love and Leave” relate to the plight of a storm trooper?
[chuckling] It was actually all Jason’s idea. Jason’s the film-maker in the band, and he had a different idea for a video for “Love and Leave,” and late at night he just had this epiphany that this would be a great storyline to do with the song. He texted me that night, “New idea for the Love and Leave video. Think storm troopers.” And I thought he was joking. And so he called me the next day and told me, and I was like, “That’s awesome. This is going to be great.”
Yeah, the storyline is a very loose take on Star Wars, but it’s just using the idea that these storm troopers, this army of people we only see getting killed, and we don’t care about, we don’t think about… What would it be like to see their everyday normal things that they do? But it’s a storyline, you know? So they fall in love with the princess, and she kills them all. Pretty simple. [laughing]
Scattered Trees includes a set of brothers, Jason and Baron Harper, and your wife Alissa. Do you think that working with family makes things easier?
Easier in some ways and more difficult in others, but I would say, overall, much more enjoyable. Because we get out, and we’re used to being together, and we’ve all been really great friends for a long time. We know what it’s like to take really long road trips with each other, and we know each other well enough to tell each other off and not get too pissed about it. And also, we really know how to take care of each other. We know how each person’s strengths can build on the other person’s strengths, and I think we’ve focused on that, and it’s served us well.
You’ve said that you’ve been writing songs since you were fifteen, and that the songs written for Scattered Trees’ debut Songs for my Grandfather were written when you were nineteen or twenty and falling in love with Alissa.
In contrast, you’ve also said that half the songs on the Sympathy were written as a dialog between you and your father, who recently passed away. Since your songs are largely autobiographical, how do you feel you’ve grown as a song writer over the years as you’ve grown up?
I think life experience has been the teacher in maturity and understanding what’s important to me, and I think there’s a certain… not charm, or depth… but there’s just something to a song that you know that a person went through. I think you feel safe enough to relate to it, knowing that someone’s being sincere.
I think I’ve become a much better writer as I’ve grown up, and most of that has been because I’ve kept writing, and my standards for myself have changed from, you know, “I just want to write as much as possible” to “I don’t want to write something that I don’t love.”
I think circumstantially, life is so full of material that you can write about. At this point in my life and as a writer, I’m just more interested in real-life things. Marriage, and the hard things about marriage, the great things about marriage. I’ve always been more interested in real people than anything else.
Stories and everything that can come out of real life, I feel like people can relate to that, and connect to that, on a level that I think is very interesting. The experience has brought me along as a writer and as a person.
Which song do you think your dad would have enjoyed the most, as a conversation between the two of you?
Hmnn… Between my dad and I, which song… That’s a great question. I’ve never thought of that. Probably “Love and Leave.” I try not to give away what I wrote the song from completely, even though a lot of it’s pretty obvious on this record; I want people to be able to put themselves into it. But for me it was about, sort of humanizing the idea of… the memory of him.
Thinking about those times that, you know, every day you sit in this warmth of this memory, and it’s so good… I had an awesome childhood, and my dad was great, and he was there, and it was awesome. I can’t complain, I was so lucky. But even though those are great memories, you think about them, and they hurt, and you don’t want to think about those good things because it’s a sign of what isn’t there anymore. And so it’s this really painful dance. You almost want to forget about him because it hurts so bad that he’s not there anymore, and that that relationship isn’t alive anymore.
So it’s this thing that I think discussing with him would be very interesting. Because I think he would have had a great perspective on that, and there are a lot of questions that could be answered that I think everyone would be interested to hear.
Tell me about the documentary that’s being made about the band.
Well, we started this process of this album so long ago, and we had been working on, “how can we expand our art?” You know, Jason’s a fantastic film-maker, Alissa’s a really amazing artist, and Ryne is too, so you know, how do we use that? Because we’re really a collective of artists more than just a band who plays these songs.
One of the things was this documentary idea that Jason had because it was such an interesting thing for him to think about all five of us, or six of us at the time… We all have just incredibly interesting stories that all are leading and funneling down into this record, and all of our stories meet and become parallel at this record, at this point in all of our lives.
It’s definitely about the record, but it’s more about the humanity of… You know, how on the record the main theme of it was that when you die you become a story and how that can move on and live on. So he was just thinking on that level of these stories, how everyone’s unique stories were just lining up for this record, what a unique film that would make. It’s not out quite yet, but it should be out within the next six months or something like that.
Last question. Choose one: Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, or Darth Vader?
I would have to say Han. Han Solo. I relate to his attitude under pressure.
Scattered Trees are currently on tour promoting the new album, including playing in their hometown of Chicago later this month. You can listen to Sympathy this week while it’s streaming at Spinner.
Scattered Trees:
Nate Eiesland (Lead Vocals, Guitar)
Ryne Estwing (Bass, Vocals)
Alissa Eiesland (Vocals, Keys)
Baron Harper (Drums)
Jason Harper (Keys, Guitar, Vocals)
