People have a habit of falling hard for Now, Now. The on-the-rise local trio—née Now, Now Every Children—expanded from its two-piece origins after a super-fan guitarist (Jess Abbott) living in Maine decided to uproot her life and relocate to Minnesota for the opportunity to play with vocalist-guitarist Cacie Dalager and drummer Brad Hale. Death Cab For Cutie guitarist Chris Walla became so smitten with the group members that he helped them lug their gear all around Austin during SXSW in 2011, and subsequently made them the second signing to his freshly launched record label, Trans. It only takes one listen to Threads, the band’s long-awaited sophomore album, to understand why Now, Now tends to birth true-believer fans. The sound is at once instantly inviting—plenty of earworm-worthy angular guitars and seductive synthesizers—and surprisingly deep, with Dalager’s wounded alto the perfect conduit for the band’s tales of fragile relationships in flux. Dalager took time prior to the trio’s April 15 show at the Vic to talk to The A.V. Club about pre-recording jitters; Now, Now’s high school origins; and the importance of maintaining equilibrium in the hype-heavy music industry.
The A.V. Club: Up until this album, Now, Now recorded almost everything independently and at home. For Threads you trekked all the way to Vancouver, British Columbia to record in multiple studios with established producer Howard Redekopp, who has helmed records by the likes of Tegan And Sara. Was there anxiety within the band about transitioning to a traditional studio environment?
Cacie Dalager: We were so, so nervous going into the studio, because it was the first time that we had ever been in a real recording environment working with a producer, and our first time going out of town to record. Almost all of our prior music we had recorded in Brad’s basement, just whenever we felt inspired and with no real timetables. We would try to set deadlines for ourselves, but no one was enforcing them. We were definitely freaking out a fair amount by the time we got to Vancouver. As a band, we never feel fully ready to record and are always working on the songs until the very last minute because we like to have every layer and part written before we ever hit record. In the case of this record, it was crazy; we were literally writing it for years, and the months right before we went into the studio were insane.
AVC: Were you able to find a comfort zone fairly quickly once the actual recording got underway?
CD: Howard was a really good person for us to work with because we have a really hard time giving up creative control, and he totally understood that. [Laughs.] We were really up front about not wanting him to be writing any parts or trying to make us into something we weren’t. That was never an issue at all. He was so easy to work with and understood what we were trying to do completely. He made a lot of little suggestions—things like having a particular break in a bridge happen just twice instead of four times, or slightly changing the tempo on a chorus—that ultimately made the songs so much stronger.