DISAPPEARS show up at The Constellation Room Apr. 4, Casbah Apr.3 and The Echo Apr. 5; photo by Oran Zorlic
Chicago based Disappears makes their first trip to Orange County on April 4 at The Constellation Room having played several times at The Echo in L.A. They will also be playing Casbah on April 3 and returning to The Echo on April 5.
“We have a lot of friends that live in L.A. now so it’s nice to visit them,” vocalist Brian Case remarked.
“It’s a different music culture than Chicago so it’s fun to get out there and be around that.”
Living in Chicago affords the band plenty of time to think about their music and make plans.
“I think because the winter is pretty extreme and intolerable, it gives us a lot of time to rehearse and work on stuff,” Case laughed.
“We have a lot of time to really focus on our art, which is nice.”
Rounding out Disappears are guitarist Jonathan van Herik, bassist Damon Carruesco and drummer Noah Leger.
“I’ve known Jonathon and Noah for 10 or 15 years. Jonathon knew Damon from a restaurant they both worked at so he brought him along,” Case said.
“We just kind of got together to play and to see what would happen. And it ended up working out.”
The band name came about as a way to describe the sound that was happening when they played together.
“Disappears seemed like a good one,” Case explained.
“What we wanted to do was make more of one sound than the sound of four instruments playing together. We thought that was a good way to describe it and a good thing to keep in mind when making music.”
During the early days the band listened to a lot of droning rock such as Loop, Spacemen 3 and Velvet Underground. Now the band has veered toward more minimalist and experimental music, with the latest album, “Irreal” sounding the most minimal, yet.
“I’d say it’s stark music,” Case described.
“I’m not sure how it turned out that way, but it did. I just think we’re getting better at distilling our ideas down to the main focus, the main point.
“We’ve been working with the same producer for three records and I think he really understands what we’re going for now. I feel like the latest album clicked and made sense in a way it hasn’t quite in the past.
The recently released, “Irreal” is their fifth album, which gives the band quite a lot of material to pull from when playing live.
“We play stuff from the last three albums, we don’t really do anything from the first two. They just seem kind of far away from where we are now. We try to present some sort of variety,” Case laughed.
“There’s a song on the newest album called, ‘Halcyon Days’ that was kind of a surprise that it worked as well as it did live. We weren’t expecting that so it’s always fun to play because people really enjoy it and it’s a song we really enjoy playing. “
Disappears has toured all over and played numerous shows over the past few years, but now that they’re all older they’ve gotten a lot of the craziness out of their system.
“We’re pretty mild, we kind of save whatever anxieties and expressions we have for on stage,” Case laughed.
“And then afterward we go to the hotel and watch a movie.”