Captain Shrugs Interview
Q: Can you talk about your history as a musician?
A: Over the years I’ve always played around in bands and projects, but my main thing was always writing and recording my own stuff alone. Everything else has always been fun to be in, but not “the real deal” for me. So I’ll focus on those projects here.
I started having guitar lessons around the time I became obsessed with music, and I was recording riffs and ideas right away, from day one, filling piles and piles of CD-Rs. In a couple of years I was able to write full songs that did not completely suck, I dropped the lessons as they became all about scales and technique, and I formed this band called Worlich with three other guys I knew from high/secondary-school. We jammed and demoed stuff. I wrote and recorded by myself a full album and like three EPs of songs that in rehearsals we translated in the live band setting, we played around… and that thing (and era) came naturally to an end around 2013.
Then I joined this Ravenna band called The Spacepony where I still play, and I did three releases under my own name, Nicola Serafini, doing instrumental music, but I grew a bit bored with that. I created from scratch this Captain Shrugs project in early 2019, in a pretty weird period when I was probably not in my very best mental state, and I needed something to do. I just wanted to be creative again, to make something new, and to be 100% free to do what I found interesting, muting out other voices.
I literally recorded the drum track of the first song of the EP ("Spooky Parking Garage") in two takes without thinking, no click-track, just playing this drum groove for four minutes, and started to build a song on top of it. I recorded another song, but by the third one I was not sure about what I was doing… those voices were still there, and I actually shelved the master tracks and the whole thing in a couple of DVD-Rs for some months. But after a while I realized I was basically still in that same place. So I listened back to the tracks and I said like "fuck it, this is what I did, that's me.” So I went on and I did the EP.
Q: What are some of the themes on Boredom City?
A: There’s definitely an aesthetics with this release, and with the whole project, and I’m happy it was noted in your review. I’m interested in that now, not in themes. I decided very early on not to include lyrics in the equation for this project. I really don’t have anything to say with words here. I don’t have a message for you. I wrote lyrics in Worlich and back then it felt very natural to me to say things, and to type them out in our little myspace page and site for everyone to read. But after that era I never felt the need to do that again. 75% of the lyrics I now write in three minutes on a piece of paper when I have to do the vocals are nonsense, and the idea here is that my voice is like one of the 50 parts of the song. I prefer to play with aesthetics using sounds, titles and artworks; there’s a lot to do just with those.
Q: What is the creative process like?
A: It’s always very easy for me to come up with ideas for songs, but in order to do that I have to be in a particular mind space. In the end the process is probably something that comes out of boredom, as an escape to the daily life drag. That’s the dynamic that works best for me.
So you pick up the guitar by the couch, you start strumming, maybe you find a nice riff, going “ha, that’s cool,” you press rec on your phone to demo the thing, and you start to build something that was not there before. Something that was definitely not inside that spreadsheet on your laptop. Escapism, really. In those three minutes you are basically locked in the groove of that idea, and the demo I do is basically to document the chords and variations I find when I’m riffing in that vein I just opened. Most of the time I find all the arrangements in that very same moment, and the demo is typically like: the intro, one verse, one chorus, the outro, and some noodling at the end that may or may not become overdubs. If I’m lucky I also find the vocal melody there, or that may come later listening back to the demo and humming things. But this process it’s not a rational thing, it’s like being able to see the whole song five seconds after that first chord, and it’s really trying to ride that vibe.
Also, I typically only bother to record a song if all of that happens, so for me it’s always like “yah” or “nah” with no B-side grey zone in the middle. If I believe in a song, it’s going to be on the next release; if I don’t, it stays in the riff-land limbo forever. But to be able to be surprised by that chord you find, and to start this process where you can ride that idea without thinking, you have to be tuned in for it. And almost every single thing you experience during your day pushes you in the very opposite direction.
One thing for example is that I don’t really look at socials a lot anymore. I’m not erasing myself pretending it’s 1998, but I don’t really scroll the feed anymore. I log like once a week on the laptop to check the events and the notifications, and that’s it. I can’t be in that zone I was talking about if every single downtime of my day is occupied there. Unlock the phone, scroll, repeat. It’s escapism again, but it’s really numbing, and I don’t really want to feel numb in that way, it’s really exhausting. I can’t do that anymore. I don’t want a button to press to be in the numb-zone. I want to be bored and I want to come up with something out of it, and doing something else instead of being inside that grid. I used to do that all the time before the bottomless pit.
The thing, to wrap up, is probably to have some free space in the head, for everything, not only for these lo-fi pop songs. This project came up after freeing up time and attention from the numb-land I was talking about, and everything a bit more substantial than a meme comes from that space. In the end you are going to need an escapism anyway, and creativity has always been the first choice for me. In the past it was the first choice because I literally spent all my time on the guitar. I mean just literally. Over the years I kinda went full circle to realize it was probably the best way to spend your time anyway, I’ve never found the same rewards in being just a user and curating this online persona. I was like “That’s it, really? It’s all a bit shallow, isn’t it?”
Q: Can you talk about your history as a musician?
A: Over the years I’ve always played around in bands and projects, but my main thing was always writing and recording my own stuff alone. Everything else has always been fun to be in, but not “the real deal” for me. So I’ll focus on those projects here.
I started having guitar lessons around the time I became obsessed with music, and I was recording riffs and ideas right away, from day one, filling piles and piles of CD-Rs. In a couple of years I was able to write full songs that did not completely suck, I dropped the lessons as they became all about scales and technique, and I formed this band called Worlich with three other guys I knew from high/secondary-school. We jammed and demoed stuff. I wrote and recorded by myself a full album and like three EPs of songs that in rehearsals we translated in the live band setting, we played around… and that thing (and era) came naturally to an end around 2013.
Then I joined this Ravenna band called The Spacepony where I still play, and I did three releases under my own name, Nicola Serafini, doing instrumental music, but I grew a bit bored with that. I created from scratch this Captain Shrugs project in early 2019, in a pretty weird period when I was probably not in my very best mental state, and I needed something to do. I just wanted to be creative again, to make something new, and to be 100% free to do what I found interesting, muting out other voices.
I literally recorded the drum track of the first song of the EP ("Spooky Parking Garage") in two takes without thinking, no click-track, just playing this drum groove for four minutes, and started to build a song on top of it. I recorded another song, but by the third one I was not sure about what I was doing… those voices were still there, and I actually shelved the master tracks and the whole thing in a couple of DVD-Rs for some months. But after a while I realized I was basically still in that same place. So I listened back to the tracks and I said like "fuck it, this is what I did, that's me.” So I went on and I did the EP.
Q: What are some of the themes on Boredom City?
A: There’s definitely an aesthetics with this release, and with the whole project, and I’m happy it was noted in your review. I’m interested in that now, not in themes. I decided very early on not to include lyrics in the equation for this project. I really don’t have anything to say with words here. I don’t have a message for you. I wrote lyrics in Worlich and back then it felt very natural to me to say things, and to type them out in our little myspace page and site for everyone to read. But after that era I never felt the need to do that again. 75% of the lyrics I now write in three minutes on a piece of paper when I have to do the vocals are nonsense, and the idea here is that my voice is like one of the 50 parts of the song. I prefer to play with aesthetics using sounds, titles and artworks; there’s a lot to do just with those.
Q: What is the creative process like?
A: It’s always very easy for me to come up with ideas for songs, but in order to do that I have to be in a particular mind space. In the end the process is probably something that comes out of boredom, as an escape to the daily life drag. That’s the dynamic that works best for me.
So you pick up the guitar by the couch, you start strumming, maybe you find a nice riff, going “ha, that’s cool,” you press rec on your phone to demo the thing, and you start to build something that was not there before. Something that was definitely not inside that spreadsheet on your laptop. Escapism, really. In those three minutes you are basically locked in the groove of that idea, and the demo I do is basically to document the chords and variations I find when I’m riffing in that vein I just opened. Most of the time I find all the arrangements in that very same moment, and the demo is typically like: the intro, one verse, one chorus, the outro, and some noodling at the end that may or may not become overdubs. If I’m lucky I also find the vocal melody there, or that may come later listening back to the demo and humming things. But this process it’s not a rational thing, it’s like being able to see the whole song five seconds after that first chord, and it’s really trying to ride that vibe.
Also, I typically only bother to record a song if all of that happens, so for me it’s always like “yah” or “nah” with no B-side grey zone in the middle. If I believe in a song, it’s going to be on the next release; if I don’t, it stays in the riff-land limbo forever. But to be able to be surprised by that chord you find, and to start this process where you can ride that idea without thinking, you have to be tuned in for it. And almost every single thing you experience during your day pushes you in the very opposite direction.
One thing for example is that I don’t really look at socials a lot anymore. I’m not erasing myself pretending it’s 1998, but I don’t really scroll the feed anymore. I log like once a week on the laptop to check the events and the notifications, and that’s it. I can’t be in that zone I was talking about if every single downtime of my day is occupied there. Unlock the phone, scroll, repeat. It’s escapism again, but it’s really numbing, and I don’t really want to feel numb in that way, it’s really exhausting. I can’t do that anymore. I don’t want a button to press to be in the numb-zone. I want to be bored and I want to come up with something out of it, and doing something else instead of being inside that grid. I used to do that all the time before the bottomless pit.
The thing, to wrap up, is probably to have some free space in the head, for everything, not only for these lo-fi pop songs. This project came up after freeing up time and attention from the numb-land I was talking about, and everything a bit more substantial than a meme comes from that space. In the end you are going to need an escapism anyway, and creativity has always been the first choice for me. In the past it was the first choice because I literally spent all my time on the guitar. I mean just literally. Over the years I kinda went full circle to realize it was probably the best way to spend your time anyway, I’ve never found the same rewards in being just a user and curating this online persona. I was like “That’s it, really? It’s all a bit shallow, isn’t it?”
Q: How did you approach recording the album since it was DIY?
A: I never went around waving the DIY flag and being sentimental about it in that punkish way, as I said I kinda always did my things by my own and that’s always been the way. That’s just how things work for me. So… after all that I have a song, and at the end I have this blueprint. I know the parts, I have an idea of the production style I want, and I just record every instrument and every part very, very quickly. Most of the time it’s all first takes, I’ll do more only if I fuck up a part, or if there’s a background hum on the track or something. A lot of times a rough part that was meant to be re-recorded stays there, for example solos.
Three tracks here are done without click-track, and that’s a very extreme thing for me because the vibe has to be right to do that, and also because I’m not a great drummer. I fucking love drums, though. It really depends if the song is about getting loose in that garage-y vibe or it's about being precise. It’s like a production choice. I tend to always use a click-track for reference, so I can always choose to swing it a bit, and it comes handy to move blocks if I have to do editing. But sometimes I just go “no-click!” if I’m stuck in the grid. Also, I don’t use midi, everything you hear is played in a take, effected that way straight to the multitrack, no pitch correction, no fixes if a beat is a bit off.
I used to spend years mixing stuff but know I have everything decided in advance, so I know how to record and mix every instrument, and how to do the final master. But getting to the final master can take a while because when I play back the thing every level must be right, so I’m really moving things microscopically until I get to “ok! that’s it! done.”
Q: You mention that is all more to come in terms of music - what else can we look forward to?
A: I’m recording another EP, same structure, five tracks again, same approach, out later this year. It’s called You Betrayed Yourself. It’s already on my Bandcamp page with the only completed song so far. The title, the cover art, that first song, a couple of other riffs, all came together pretty quickly during the first days of lockdown. The rest is yet to be recorded, and I’ll update the thing as I complete the songs. I kinda always end up doing that now, it’s like working on a beta version until I go like “ok, done, next!” After that I think I’m gonna start working on something more “expansive,” both in length and in sounds. The first two EPs are like that GIF of Ralph Wiggum waving hello in front of the lockers. I really had zero plans when I started recording the first songs for this project.
I’ll keep sticking to the “ok I have a riff, now let’s spend 20 minutes writing a song around it, so I can record it in two afternoons“ approach. I think that’s the philosophy behind this project, but I think I’m going to shake things up a little bit, because if you keep playing inside the same rules you are going to hit a wall after a bit. So basically for this second EP I’m playing in that same box as the first one, and after it’s done I’m going to dismantle the box and build another one to play in. So release #3 is going to probably take a while longer.
Q: What else should we know about your music?
A: Dunno, that’s it really. I just like the process of making stuff, being it music or something else, and the process is 80% of the thing. From the process I get things I can share, but it’s the process which is the thing to focus on, not the final songs. I had a bit of hard times in the past, seeking validation out of it, but then I realized it was the same dynamic as when you post a joke and you’re sad because you got few likes. That’s really dumb.
I completely removed that, and I realized that the reward is having that idea in your studio that particular night you were not in the mood to go out or something, making that song, do your little album in Bandcamp and say “I did this,” and not if the chick you liked for a year in high-school or <insert name here> liked it, or not.
This is what I’m doing anyway to not go too crazy, and I’m not looking for validation, or for a prize I think I earned. If someone likes it, hey that’s ubercool, jackpot. If they don’t, or don’t care, fair enough, I’m probably in the studio doing a fucking drum take anyway, at that moment.
A: I never went around waving the DIY flag and being sentimental about it in that punkish way, as I said I kinda always did my things by my own and that’s always been the way. That’s just how things work for me. So… after all that I have a song, and at the end I have this blueprint. I know the parts, I have an idea of the production style I want, and I just record every instrument and every part very, very quickly. Most of the time it’s all first takes, I’ll do more only if I fuck up a part, or if there’s a background hum on the track or something. A lot of times a rough part that was meant to be re-recorded stays there, for example solos.
Three tracks here are done without click-track, and that’s a very extreme thing for me because the vibe has to be right to do that, and also because I’m not a great drummer. I fucking love drums, though. It really depends if the song is about getting loose in that garage-y vibe or it's about being precise. It’s like a production choice. I tend to always use a click-track for reference, so I can always choose to swing it a bit, and it comes handy to move blocks if I have to do editing. But sometimes I just go “no-click!” if I’m stuck in the grid. Also, I don’t use midi, everything you hear is played in a take, effected that way straight to the multitrack, no pitch correction, no fixes if a beat is a bit off.
I used to spend years mixing stuff but know I have everything decided in advance, so I know how to record and mix every instrument, and how to do the final master. But getting to the final master can take a while because when I play back the thing every level must be right, so I’m really moving things microscopically until I get to “ok! that’s it! done.”
Q: You mention that is all more to come in terms of music - what else can we look forward to?
A: I’m recording another EP, same structure, five tracks again, same approach, out later this year. It’s called You Betrayed Yourself. It’s already on my Bandcamp page with the only completed song so far. The title, the cover art, that first song, a couple of other riffs, all came together pretty quickly during the first days of lockdown. The rest is yet to be recorded, and I’ll update the thing as I complete the songs. I kinda always end up doing that now, it’s like working on a beta version until I go like “ok, done, next!” After that I think I’m gonna start working on something more “expansive,” both in length and in sounds. The first two EPs are like that GIF of Ralph Wiggum waving hello in front of the lockers. I really had zero plans when I started recording the first songs for this project.
I’ll keep sticking to the “ok I have a riff, now let’s spend 20 minutes writing a song around it, so I can record it in two afternoons“ approach. I think that’s the philosophy behind this project, but I think I’m going to shake things up a little bit, because if you keep playing inside the same rules you are going to hit a wall after a bit. So basically for this second EP I’m playing in that same box as the first one, and after it’s done I’m going to dismantle the box and build another one to play in. So release #3 is going to probably take a while longer.
Q: What else should we know about your music?
A: Dunno, that’s it really. I just like the process of making stuff, being it music or something else, and the process is 80% of the thing. From the process I get things I can share, but it’s the process which is the thing to focus on, not the final songs. I had a bit of hard times in the past, seeking validation out of it, but then I realized it was the same dynamic as when you post a joke and you’re sad because you got few likes. That’s really dumb.
I completely removed that, and I realized that the reward is having that idea in your studio that particular night you were not in the mood to go out or something, making that song, do your little album in Bandcamp and say “I did this,” and not if the chick you liked for a year in high-school or <insert name here> liked it, or not.
This is what I’m doing anyway to not go too crazy, and I’m not looking for validation, or for a prize I think I earned. If someone likes it, hey that’s ubercool, jackpot. If they don’t, or don’t care, fair enough, I’m probably in the studio doing a fucking drum take anyway, at that moment.