INTERVIEW BY: ALLEEN HUGHES

As musicians grow and change, so does their music and musical approach. This is evident in the now husband and wife team up between Courtney LaPlante (vocals, ex-IWABO) and Michael Stringer (guitar, ex-IWABO) in their newest creation, Spiritbox. Today, the duo have launched their Self Titled EP that shows a different side to the musicians that illustrates the magnitude of their talent not only as performers but writers as well. The two wanted to take their intensely personal and technical musical focus in a new creative and personal direction and have worked extremely hard at incorporating Courtney’s sense of vocal style and lyrical quality, hovering over Michael’s exquisitely forceful guitar riffs in their new band.

Since 2015, iwrestledabearonce fans have been wondering what the fate of the band was after they went silent with no statement as to what their current status is. Jump ahead two years and Courtney and Michael have unleashed their raw capability in Spiritbox and Courtney gave us more incite to what this project means as a whole and to her personally as well as what is currently going on with IWABO.

Going right into this new project, what made you and Michael want to branch off from the familiarity of IWABO to something new with Spirtbox?

Courtney: For me, whatever Michael writes I make it work. For this new thing I think going into it, he wanted to focus more on song writing as a whole and not relying so much on shock value of the intensity and intense genre changes of our old band. To focus more on the overall song and more progressive aspect of music. He will do whatever he wants regardless but I also made the decision that I don’t want to just only scream a lot, I want to sing more. We had out of the 30 songs created for this and the ones we were most drawn to had a more natural place for me to stick a melody in.

Did you record the EP with anyone or any specific studio or did you keep everything very DIY?

Courtney: We physically recorded at our home studio in Victoria and we had our friend Tim Creviston come over from Vancouver and he engineered it. We worked on this on our days off so on some days Michael had to record my vocal parts. When it was finished we sent it over to Tim and he cleaned it up and prepared it for us to send it over to the producer Dan Braunstein in Los Angeles (ex-Volumes). He understands my voice so he did a really good job at mixing and mastering this and put his creative spin on it. So this was pretty much a collaboration between Michael, Tim and Dan.

Since Spiritbox consists of just you and Michael, drums can be heard on these two released tracks, do you have someone guesting on the EP for drums or did you use programmed drums?

Courtney: Drums were written by someone but we’re keeping quiet on who that was for the time being but they were programmed drums for this release.

Is Spiritbox going to always stay just you two or do you see more members in the coming future?

Courtney: We have some people that are playing with us but we can’t say just yet who they are.

The two tracks already sound completely different than what were used to with IWABO, but the two tracks released already also sound different from each other. Is each track on this EP different from the next?

Courtney: We’re at that point in our lives where since we’re in our 20’s and in those gap years after finishing school that we’re trying to find ourselves. We’re trying not to think about it like that and think about are we going to have more singing, are we going to have more heavy parts, is there going to be more breakdowns? I really admire bands that are genre-less. They can do whatever without having to really step out of their comfort zone. We don’t have to feel pressured for anything.

As far as vocals, the EP is mixed 50/50 with screaming and singing. For instance the song The Mara Effect 3, parts 1 and 2 are similar and have a lot of singing and then the back half of the EP are more screaming. I like singing a lot more now because I feel like it’s how I can express my voice more.

As far as the lyrics go for the EP, are you the sole writer lyrically for the songs or was that something you and Michael worked on together?

Courtney: I’ve always been the sole song writer as far as lyrics go. But I always had help from the other guys when it comes to the editing and making sure it works.

I read that each track has an actual spirit box incorporated in it, what made you want to add this different component into your sound?

Courtney: We’ve always been very infatuated with ghost hunters and the strange technology used by paranormal investigators. A spirit box is something that is used a lot on those TV shows and one of the main reasons probably is the dramatic wow factor of it and how it can chop through radio frequencies and its very eerie sounding. Michael and I are skeptics but we really love those shows and we have always loved that sound whenever one of those spirit boxes would come on.

I noticed the tie in of the album art into the two videos released, does the bouquet of flowers have any symbolism?

Courtney: We really wanted to do an actual photograph compared to an actual album art because we’re really drawn to photography for covers compared to drawings. We chose big bouquet because flowers are given for all occasions whether good or bad and the hand seen is for an offering for whatever the circumstance. The bouquet seen in the videos is the same one used for the album art but we just let it die for a month or so after the photos were taken and used it in the video. So it was great for the video because nothing is more depressing than a bunch of dead flowers.

Do you still have the bouquet?

Courtney: Yes we do. We filmed everything at Michael’s parents house on farmland and so all of the stuff is still there all over the place. We made sure to tell them to not throw it away until after the EP releases.

What would you say is your favorite track of the EP and why?

Courtney: It keeps changing. But I love the Mara Effect Part 3 because I like how groovy and heavy it is without having to rely on actual definite breakdowns until the end. It’s such a slow build and the crazy breakdown at the end is kind of like the reward for putting up with the song for 5 minutes. It builds and keeps getting more intense and I’m sonically proud of that breakdown every sound and lyric is hard. Michael wrote that whole thing in one session of writing.

Do you have any tours or shows lined up yet?

Courtney: Right now I’m not going to just go out and create my own self serving DIY tour just to go because the real thing I like to do is to actually play for people. Touring is my favorite thing to do. We’re not going to do anything anytime soon however if someone did ask us to be on a tour that we felt comfortable on then we would drop everything to go do it. We’re just starting from scratch and being tour ready is an even bigger investment than recording. The time will come and we’re just being patient for the time being.

What is the actual current status of iwrestledabearonce?

Courtney: We all decided that we didn’t want to be in that band and ended it 2 years ago and Michael and I left. We left it up to IWABO to decide when it was time to say what they were doing and that statement never came. So here we are two years later and now we’re out and saying what we’re doing but that doesn’t mean that it’s over. There are so many people that have created stuff for IWABO and put music into IWABO that they could very well doing something again. So I’m not in the band but no one from IWABO has even said if they were calling it quits or not. When they’re ready maybe they’ll say something publicly or who knows, maybe even create new music.