INTERVIEW: Sitcom
WTBU DJ Danya Trommer spoke with Jake Lazovick, the mastermind behind Philly’s indie pop project Sitcom. They chatted about Sitcom’s latest albums, music videos, and Lazovick’s furry companion. Check out the entire interview with bonus content here:
Danya Trommer: I wanted to talk to you a little bit about your latest album Be The One You Love, and firstly the album video Grassy Field On A Sunny Day. What was the inspiration behind that video and was it done in one take? Could you tell me a little bit about it, because it seemed very impressive.
Jake Lazovick: That was done with Rich Smith, who I work with a lot–he’s a frequent collaborator. We knew we wanted to do some sort of album video, like longform to replace the album stream, and it was done in one take. We just showed up and performed the whole thing on the field. It’s over on Kelly Drive, this empty soccer field. We both had played around with picture in picture, so I thought it’d be cool to have one camera moving around and one stable and play around with the HD footage and also the DV footage. I can’t really think of anything that’s like major inspiration. I don’t know, I had a good time doing it. It was really cold.
DT: Oh?
JL: Yeah. We just shot the video for “Orange Slice,” the first song on the album, on July 1 and it was like 90 degrees outside, and the whole time I was thinking about the last time I was filming outside was the Grassy Field video and it was like 40 degrees outside, maybe even in the thirties. It was so weird, the weather extremes we film with.
DT: So you just shot your video for “Orange Slice,” are there any other videos you’re doing for the album?
JL: No, I’ve been writing a lot, so I’m kind of moving on to the next thing.
DT: Oh that’s awesome! So I saw that[in the description of the video, “Larry” is credited as “Eternal Boy.” Is that your brother?
JL: That’s my dog.
DT: Oh that’s your dog. Gotcha, because he’s also mentioned in a verse on the last song on the album.
JL: Yeah, “Still Alive”. He passed away in November, he lived to be 17.
DT: I guess that’s an Eternal Boy.
JL: I wrote a song called “Eternal Boy” that week that he passed. I don’t know what to do with it yet, but I liked that as a credit and maybe it’ll keep appearing or something.
DT: So do you write about your dog a lot?
JL: I have in the last couple of years. I had another band called Foozle, and with that band Larry came up a couple of times. Back then, a lot of the writing was about domestic life and about the suburbs, and I think that when I think about [that] I think about my dog.
DT: Me too! So I wanted to talk to you about the whole theming of the album, because Be The One You Love feels very personal, at least that’s how I interpreted it. I was wondering what you thought the unifying factor of all the songs on the album was.
JL: Probably trying to self-actualize. Thematically I think that’s what ties everything together; trying to figure out how to love both someone else and myself. Production-wise it was me trying to make pop music. I definitely wanted it to be polished and I thought more about the beats, which I feel like–not that I’ve gotten it out of my system–but in the recent stuff, I’ve been going back to just playing guitar. Yeah I’m definitely playing the guitar a lot more now. For 2 or 3 years I was really into drum programming and synthesizers and I think that Be The One You Love is the peak of that for the time being. I’m not saying it’s going to go away; it’s kind of like a pendulum.
DT: So you think your next album is going to be more guitar-based?
JL: It’s looking like that now. I’m unsure; I’ve been trying recently to work without thinking about the result of anything. I just keep writing and letting things flow and when that’s done, I’ll reassess it. That’s been something I’ve really struggled with: jumping to like “Where’s this going to be?”, “What’s this look like in context with the album?” Now I’m trying to take a step back and be more like “What is this object of a song.”
DT: That’s super hard with to do with art I would imagine, not thinking about that final product. I had a question about a specific song. I was wondering if “Oh My Goddess” is it a positive or a negative song?
JL: That’s a good question.
DT: I know it’s hard to put your songs into a box.
JL: I think if you’re asking that question, you get it.
DT: I was just wondering because there’s those lyrics like “not growing any closer” and stuff like that, and I was like “Oh man that hurts but I understand.” [Laughs] So basically your answer is–
JL: I think you get it.
DT: Gotcha. So I noticed while watching you at the show, I immediately got–especially when you were talking–Andy Kaufman vibes.
JL: I love Andy Kaufman.
DT: I noticed he was mentioned in your lyrics for “Be The One You Love” along with a lot of your other idols seemed to be mentioned like Sting, Marvin Gaye–
JL: Sting the wrestler.
DT: Gotcha, so not from The Police. Are you into old wrestling?
JL: Yeah, I like wrestling. I grew up watching wrestling.
DT: Like Andy Kaufman!
JL: Yeah.
DT: I was wondering if first you could tell me about how those people have contributed to your art, and then also that song is about breaking away from idolizing people. I just want to dig deeper into the meaning of that song.
JL: For the first part, I think Andy Kaufman–just as a figure–has shaped the way that I think about art making a lot. He’s been this constant anchor for me and something I can come back to and be like this is kind of what I think of as–I don’t know if perfection is the right word, but I’ll just use that for now–the perfect artist. What his work looks like, his way of thinking, I feel like there’s a fearlessness with ending up successful, but still being like “I’ll just do my own thing.” Like, still experimenting even after the success, and having somewhat of a tragedy. The thing about those specific idols mentioned in the song is they all died young in tragic ways. Except for Sting, but he’s in a different verse so it’s a little bit different.
DT: So you separated it by tragedy?
JL: It was just a different narrative path in the song. rthur Russel, Marvin Gaye, Andy Kaufman–
DT: Arthur Russel was the cellist, yeah?
JL: Cellist, he made a bunch of other stuff too. He died of AIDS in ‘92. Andy Kaufman died of cancer in 1984, Marvin Gaye was shot by his father. What I’m trying to get to in that song, and maybe I’ll explore more later, is seeking success and seeking fame. Like there’s a 27 club; there’s this “live fast, die young” lifestyle, where a lot of my goals in life were to get successful, and almost to have this fame, but also recognizing that the people that I idolize have all died at either the peak or right after. Maybe there’s something about living to old age without achieving the success that you think you–
DT: Deserve?
JL: I don’t know about deserve, but what I personally thought I would get. I might not see it, I might see it, it doesn’t really matter either way. I think there’s a line in the chorus like “I don’t want to be 97 regretting things that I thought about at 22,” which is just to me like stuck in this loop of always trying to chase money or success or anything that’s fleeting. I guess [it’s about] just looking at my idols and being like what do I like about them what do I not like about them.
DT: Gotcha. I was wondering about “Still Alive,” because the way it spoke to me–the way I interpreted things may be not what you meant at all, but I guess that’s what the nature of art is. The way I interpreted it is kind of going at this art thing and just [thinking] “What if I just went back?” and gave up on it like it’s been such a shitty or hard time. Could you tell me what exactly the song meant to you?
JL: It’s just about struggling with the same things over and over again and figuring out how to live with the struggles.
DT: So is it specifically with music or with your life?
JL: My life; I have OCD. I just accepted it within the last couple of weeks. I don’t mind saying it in an interview; I’m pretty comfortable with it. A lot of the things that I was trying to figure out on this album, I’ve now been kind of looking at with a new kind of lens, just understanding this disorder that I have and how it’s shaped my thinking. I think specifically when it comes to that song–without specifically saying I have this disorder and explaining what OCD is–it was me kind of talking around it. A lot of reevaluating my narrative constantly. There’s lines about different junctures about being 15 and 21 and now I’m 24 and always being like “Things aren’t right. When are things going to be right?” This constant search for–
DT: Waiting for it to be right?
JL: Yeah. I think that’s like the wrong attitude. Things aren’t ever really right, they don’t really fall in place like that. So it’s more about–
DT: Framing?
JL: Yeah. Like the rigidity that I had set up in my own head, but I’m learning how to let go and be a bit flexible.
DT: So, when you were writing the song, were you aware that you had OCD?
JL: I’ve been off-and-on about it since high school. Now I’m being more proactive about understanding it and understanding how to live with it, which has been working really well–just more of addressing it head on. I didn’t think I would need therapy in high school and even college. I just started therapy recently and that was when I was like “Ok I’m going to deal with this.” Before that I was like “I can figure this out myself through writing songs,” but there’s a lot of loops that you create for yourself with this specific disorder. It’s a lot of mental acrobatics that you put yourself through. So I think that song is addressing that without addressing it.
DT: I noticed that blue shoes have showed up in your music a lot. I know that refers to the New Balances that you wear–
JL: Yeah, how’d you know that?
DT: Because I’m creepy. I was wondering why you mention shoes a lot. You also wrote about white Reeboks. Shoes seem to be a thing for you.
JL: It’s what I had at the time.
DT: There’s no symbolism?
JL: Maybe I like the idea of balance…on What’s Up; I thought it was a nice narrative device. It opened up with “White Reeboks,” and halfway through there’s the song “Blue Shoes,” and the blue shoes are actually just the white shoes, but it’s midnight so they’re blue, and I was like “that’s kind of quirky.” It just comes from writing while I’m walking. When I’m walking around, or biking, or driving, it’s noticing what’s in my mind or what’s in front of me.
DT: Gotcha. I noticed that a lot of your stuff is produced in Baltimore, and also I saw something was produced in Amsterdam. I just wanted to know the story of both of those places.
JL: I went to school in Baltimore for four years. I’m from Maryland originally.
DT: How’d you end up here?
JL: I just moved here. By car, I guess. [Laughs]
DT: So tell me a little bit about Amsterdam.
JL: It was a program with the school. We did a spring break trip to Amsterdam to go to Steim. They have a bunch of synthesizers there, and it’s like an electronic music school.
DT: Did you major in music?
JL: I majored in sculpture. Though I took a lot of sound classes; that’s how I learned Ableton. When I started taking those classes is when I started working more in electronic music and beat making rather than playing guitar. It’s been probably three or four years that I’ve been doing that, and I’m now just switching back to wanting to play guitar. So we went to Amsterdam for a little bit and spent some days working in that studio–or school–I honestly can’t remember what it was. I was jetlagged the whole time and couldn’t sleep. It was like four of us who came from my school, and I remember waking up at 5 a.m. and just walking around and meeting everyone at the studio. The whole thing is kind of a daze. But I like the songs I made there.
DT: So on Snow Joke, I noticed all your lyrics are written in paragraphs and then everything after that is more traditional lyrical form.Why did you decide on that EP to write like that?
JL: I think I saw a friend’s album, and they had it written that way and I was like, “I like the way that looks.” I forgot that I did that until you just said it.
DT: It was very poetic.
JL: I’ll take that into consideration.
[Interview has been edited for length and clarity.]
Sitcom’s music is available on Bandcamp.