Honest Music: An Interview with Caged Animals
Anna Cieslik ’16 / Emertainment Monthly Music Editor
Brooklyn-based band Caged Animals might have started out as a solo project of Vincent Cacchoione’s, but it has since grown into something bigger and better than ever imagined. Now a full-fledged band with four members, Caged Animals is gaining credibility in the music world for their eclectic, indie-electronic sound and impressive live shows. Vincent took some time to talk with us at Emertainment Monthly about touring, recording, remixing, and lots more.
Emertainment Monthly: How did Caged Animals come to be? I know that you started solo, so how did it grow into this full band?
Vincent Cacchoione: We were about to start playing shows, and there wasn’t really a band yet. It was kind of just a home-recorded project. We needed to make a band to play shows so I ended up playing with my friend Pat, who plays the drums live, and then Magali plays the synthesizer, and then Talya plays bass. We basically got it together pretty fast and started playing shows as a band because we didn’t want to just play through a track. We wanted to give it more of a live feeling.
EM: So do you record together or is it just a live band?
VC: On the first album it was pretty much all me, but on the new album that we just made, there’s a lot more of the [live] band.
EM: You’ve had a few artists do really awesome remixes of some of your more popular songs, so how did that come about?
VC: We had Cole from Dive remix a song, and we’ve been friends for a while so that was just a friendship thing. Then Star Slinger – I think someone at our label knew him so they sent him the track, and he was like, “Ohh I’d love to remix it,” so that was really cool.
EM: You mentioned earlier that you don’t use the typical “go into the studio with a producer” type of recording process. You started recording on GarageBand, so can you describe what the recording process is like for Caged Animals versus other acts?
VC: I’m not sure what other people do. But what we do, typically, is we’ll have an idea for a song [and] usually it all starts in the computer, and we just start coming up with musical ideas and work on getting them down. It flows and changes with time – it’s like painting kinda. You make a couple really broad strokes, you kinda create a tone, and then you refine that tone over time. I feel like the basic feel is that the majority of the recording happens in the first four or five hours, and then I spend the next seven months obsessing over it.
EM: Where do you find inspiration? What makes you really want to sit down and write a song?
VC: All kinds of things. I feel like it’s an emotional reaction. You have a feeling that’s in you and to me, writing songs is a powerful way to communicate that feeling. And it seems like a more direct way of getting in touch with that than anything else really.
EM: What’s the most important thing you’ve learned from touring and playing live?
VC: I feel like I’ve learned something at every single show. The thing I like best about playing live shows is learning how to let more of the self-conscious part of yourself go and let that caged animal out of the cage, so to speak. I’m really into the idea of doing something onstage that is honest. There are all kinds of levels of your personality that are shy or afraid, and for me, it’s about every show getting closer and closer to something that’s totally honest and totally pure in its expression.
EM: Do you have any final words about why people should come out and see Caged Animals?
VC: Well, I feel like we’re the best band around. But then again, it’s made completely to our taste, so why wouldn’t we love it? Hearing our sound feels to me like the perfect music. And that’s not to be in an arrogant way. It’s just like, if you can paint your room any color and you pick the perfect color, and you live in your room every day, you feel so happy about that room that you live in. That’s the kind of feeling I have getting on stage with my band. I personally think everyone would love it and I hope they do.
Caged Animals continue to paint their proverbial room with the perfect musical colors. Their EP, This Summer, is available on iTunes and according to their Facebook page, we can be expecting to hear some brand new music from them very soon. Let us know what you think of their sound in the comments below!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4v9FSyyrkZU&w=420&h=315]