The Manimals On the Making Of “Detonate”
What was the initial spark or idea that led to the creation of "Detonate?"
I was feeling really blocked at the time but was trying to commit to writing every day regardless, so I started writing a song about reasons not to write songs. Self-sabotage, creating chaos in my life that distracts me from art, the joy of quitting something that’s making you crazy, and the excitement that comes in the liminal space afterward. Whether it’s a breakup, moving to a new city, or leaving one music project for another, it’s a place where you get to be a little messy and lazy in the aftermath. That’s where “Oh the songs I’ll write in my next life!” came from- I keep blowing things up with this promise in mind, and then just dwelling in the rubble instead of actually regenerating. We built the song to act as a slow burn into an explosion that really lets it rip in a cathartic way because I do believe that sometimes you have to burn things down to start over you just have to go all the way.
Were there any memorable or standout moments during the recording sessions for "Detonate?"
Every time we got the vocal takes we ended up using, it was when I was absolutely exhausted- either frustrated by not getting quite there, or having sat around all day waiting to get in the vocal booth. I think that the song benefits from that exhaustion, it starts in such a soft place and the escalation really needs to abandon and a sense of “f— it, let’s blow it up”. We recorded it throughout the summer with our friend/producer Ben Schrier, in his new studio space a bit upstate from NYC. My favorite elements are probably everyone shouting “fire in the hole!” and the real firework sounds that our drummer Trevor captured to use as samples in the song.
What has been one of your favorite memories along the path to making this track?
Because everyone had tough schedules this summer, I thought I’d make a very DIY little visualizer to go with the song that only featured me. The idea came to go out to the beach and include the weekly Thursday night fireworks for the big anthemic moment in the song. But the concept started to take shape, and my girlfriend filmed me for three hours while the sun set, moving through the elements of air (the roof of my parents’ garage), earth (crawling in the sand), water (jumping into the ocean), and fire (the fireworks after dark). It was a really special and almost spiritual experience- I never appeared solo in any of The Manimals’ stuff, and I got to act out this very personal song and connect to it physically and emotionally.
How did your band members initially come together?
I’ve known Chris (guitar) the longest, we went to acting school together and met in 2003, but were theater outsiders who always toyed with the idea of making original music together. Jack (bass) went to my high school a few years behind me and we met when he played in the band for a musical I directed in my hometown, and we originally reconnected when he lived near the city and I needed a bassist for a No Doubt cover act. Michael (guitar) also went to my acting school a little after Chris and I, but I met him through a guy I was dating at the time. We split up, and I thankfully got to keep Michael. We all started this version of The Manimals in 2015- its second life, after one of my famous detonations where I stupidly quit music for a year and a half. Trevor (drums) joined the band in 2019, and we met through a band he was playing in previously that shared a wall with us at our old practice space. They came by and introduced themselves after hearing us play “The Bear & The Maiden Fair” from Game of Thrones very, very loudly about twenty times in a row.
What do you enjoy most about performing live and connecting with your audience?
The Manimals are a live band, first and foremost. I think it’s impossible to really capture in a recording. To me, a live show is a sacred place, a moment that can never happen the exact same way again. It can be transcendental, and that’s what I try to create through the theatricality of our show. We create rituals for our audience- like making everyone kneel and take jello shots together on the floor of the club, for instance- and every single set we play tells a different story that leads to a moment of transformation. It’s partly selfish- I want to transform, I want to have an epic, mystical experience- but I want to also give that to these people who left their houses and came to the venue and paid the cover. It’s a big deal to go out to clubs and see live music these days, and I think it has the power to change you. That should be reflected in the show, it shouldn’t just be a band standing there playing what you could just as easily hear on Spotify. So what I enjoy most is surprising people with the possibility, that maybe they happened to wander into that magical place where everything could shift, where they could transcend this plane and feel real wildness.