Audio By Carbonatix
To call A Life of Science “ambitious” would be an understatement.
The Phoenix band’s debut concept album, The Apneist, has grown
into a multimedia project that spans both coasts and makes the
cross-promotional efforts of bands like Coheed & Cambria seem
almost underwhelming by comparison. A Life of Science released The
Apneist digitally on iTunes in late April, but that marked only the
first stage of a multi-tiered assault on the senses that is slated to
include a film, a novel, and a comic book series — all based
around the album’s storyline.
The creative force behind A Life of Science is the duo of
singer/bassist James Keenan, 25, and guitarist Zakk Geist, 24. The
longtime friends met in grade school and have been musical
collaborators since their early teens. They began writing music for
The Apneist in 2007, eventually bringing drummer Angel Garcia
and guitarist Scott Passamonte onboard to complete the lineup. The
scope of the project expanded as the songwriting progressed, Keenan
says.
“Originally, we were just going to do your classic concept album,
with the story and lyrics,” he says. “Then, as we started telling
everybody about it, we really started to get attached to the story.
(Our friends) were like, ‘Why stop there? Why don’t you do a comic book
and a video and really make this as multimedia as possible?’ We were
like, ‘Oh, yeah, yeah, right. Sure, we’ll do that.’ But then we started
to realize, wait a minute, so-and-so writes novels. Wait a minute, we
know video production people. Wait a minute, we can do this.”
And a franchise was born. The band enlisted New Jersey comic book
artist Will Torres to create a three-part miniseries based on The
Apneist, with the first issue due in July. Keenan has been
traveling back and forth to Phoenix and Hollywood, meeting with
director Joe Homokay of Talent by Association Films. Keenan says the
film will serve as a long-form music video for the album, combining
animation with live-action footage. Filming is set to start in July for
a tentative release late this year. The novel, meanwhile, is being
penned by Phoenix author Josh Isaac and should also be completed by
year’s end. The band has also created theapneist.com to serve as an information
hub, keeping fans updated on the status of the various projects.
The Apneist is set in a war-torn, dystopian future and
follows the story of Jon Tate, a child prodigy forced by his father to
work for the government in the underwater city of Seascape. Tate
designs a robot army intended to disarm the warring factions and save
mankind from imminent destruction. Predictably, things go horribly
wrong, and Jon must find a way to save himself, his one true love,
Sandy, and the rest of humanity from his marauding robotic creations.
The album was recorded by noted Valley producer Larry Elyea (Jimmy Eat
World, Authority Zero) at his Phoenix studio, Mind’s Eye Digital.
“Larry we connected with pretty much from the second we walked into
his studio,” Keenan says. “He was totally into the project. I think the
big thing with Larry is his patience and his relaxed environment. He’s
always willing to experiment. He’s always willing to do whatever you
want to do.”
Musically, the album is all over the map, combining elements of prog
rock, electro, metal, indie rock, and power pop. Keenan’s slightly
nasal delivery sounds a little like Fountains of Wayne’s Chris
Collingwood and is occasionally augmented by Auto-Tune and other
effects. Spacey, psychedelic keyboard passages segue into distorted
guitar riffs and Geist’s metalcore screams.
“We all bring a lot of different tastes to the table,” Geist says
when asked about the album’s diverse sound. “[Keenan] is always on
Pitchfork and all these indie sites, bringing up random bands like
Evangelicals and all this stuff that I would never find. I love Daft
Punk. I’ve got their poster on my door. I love electronic music and,
like, fringe electronic stuff, but at the same time, I’ll be listening
to Black Dahlia Murder driving around in my car. We’ve always loved
bands like Weezer, too, through high school. I think, at a base, I want
it to be power rock, like Weezer, but obviously it can go from one end
of the spectrum to the other . . . I think, at times, we try to follow
a pop structure and not make people have to think too hard about it. I
mean, Mars Volta is cool, but at the same time, sometimes you’re like,
‘What the hell? I’m kinda lost during this trumpet solo.'”
A concept album also presents a unique set of challenges, especially
for a relatively new band. Playing mostly opening slots, ALOS rarely is
allotted enough time to play the album in its entirety. The numerous
overdubs and effects on the album have also proved tricky to replicate
live, forcing ALOS to occasionally rely on prerecorded backing
tracks.
“When we were first starting out, we had so much shit to set up,”
Geist says. “I remember one show where it was just embarrassing —
we took, like, 45 minutes to set up. We fucked up the whole night for
everybody without even realizing we were doing it. I was working as
fast as possible, and (I realized), ‘Holy crap, we’ve gotta streamline
this project.’ Even now that we have backing tracks, which a lot of
bands play with, it sounds good, to an extent, but it’s not something
we can just set up like a punk band in five minutes and just bleed it
out onstage.”
To avoid such pitfalls, the band has started booking summer festival
shows, which offer longer set times. They’re also not afraid to ask for
help.
“We’ve played shows with just guitar, bass, drums and vocals, like
raw rock versions of the songs, as well as done the backing track
thing,” Keenan says. “For this upcoming show at the California Music
Festival, we’re bringing on a drummer and a bassist who are actually
two members of Comfort for Change that are going to help us out at the
show. Angel’s gonna move from drums to keyboards. Ben [Anderson] from
Comfort is gonna play drums. I’m gonna give the bass to [Comfort for
Change guitarist] Anthony [Gabuzzi] and I’m gonna focus on keyboards,
so that way, we’re gonna be able to get the full experience.”
Perhaps the biggest challenge looming for ALOS is determining what
they will do for a follow-up, having set the bar so high with The
Apneist. At this point, they’re not sure if they want to follow in
the footsteps of Coheed and Mars Volta by making additional concept
albums.
“If this becomes a really big success, people are just gonna expect
concept albums from us,” Keenan says. “I definitely wouldn’t rule it
out, but at the same time, it sounded like a great idea at the time
— ‘Oh, let’s do this (multimedia concept), we’ll get everything
and it’ll be awesome!’ But the scope of the whole thing, it’s
definitely a ‘cancel your social life’ type of experience. It’s just
such an enormous time commitment.”
