The seed of Granite Garden was planted when long term partners Cameron Silliman and Seamus Good found themselves in separate countries writing songs over email to stave off the tediousness of long distance communication. Upon reuniting, they immediately started performing and collaborating with local talent to bring these songs to life. What emerged was an otherworldly sound blending the smoother elements of R&B and jazz with the grit and grime of grunge and the jagged angular textures of post punk.
Silliman and Good caught up with A Grrrl’s Two Sound Cents to discuss their latest song “EXO,” the rich artistic communities in their home base of Harlem, and how the medium of visual storytelling and film affects their performances.
How and when did you start making music and how did Granite Garden come to form?
Seamus Good: The first inklings of Granite Garden began to emerge when Cameron and myself spent a little over a year living in separate countries. One of the best ways we found to break up the humdrum of long distance communication was to write songs together. We would swap guitar parts and melodies over email. Neither of us had any previous experience creating music, so a lot of these ideas have not carried into the current chapter of Granite Garden, but if you wanted to look for the seed that everything grew from, it is somewhere in a series of emails between a young, post-grad couple, trying to navigate a foreign world alone.
“EXO” is a banger. How did that song come about?
Cameron Silliman: In late 2020 I was battling an internal conflict. I had always experimented with the presentation of myself, especially throughout high school and college, but at a certain point that outward expression was no longer helping whatever that deeper, more internal experience was. I started to write “EXO” as a way of working through the two elements that were clashing with each other. The hardest part was realizing that I had to choose between one or the other. It was impossible to hold onto both. The decision was painful, angering, and violent, but absolutely necessary for me to exist as my most authentic self.
I loved how the music video was very cinematic, theatrical, and intricately choreographed. Would you describe what was included in your treatment/proof of concept before it was shot?
Silliman + Good: The visuals for “EXO” were inspired by a number of different sources, primarily from theater and film.
Silliman: I personally am obsessed with older movie musicals and disturbing imagery in film, so this was like letting little Cameron geek out.
Some of our main sources of inspiration were:
– Cabaret (1972): specifically the number “Mein Herr”
– Suspiria (2018) + Damien Jalet (choreographer)
– Dead Class (1975) A filmed performance of Tadeusz Kantor’s play of the same name
– Twin Peaks (1990) *This was not intentional, but once we realized the space we were in (Jalopy Theatre) and the dominance of those red curtains we leaned in as hard as we could
How does your music influence your visual storytelling and vice versa?
Good: Visual storytelling is a language that Cameron and I are more comfortable with. Our education was in theatre and film, and we’ve both spent a lot of time investigating forms of visual art. In many ways our inexperience with music is what drew us to this medium. This has meant that our songs have a lot of visual vibrancy in the lyrics. One of the best parts of working on our recorded music has been the opportunity to translate some of our songs into visual formats and bring in this language that we’ve both spent so much time developing.
I really love how your band fuses grunge with jazz and folk. Is that blending of genres intentional or did it happen naturally?
Good: The development of Granite Garden’s sound was an extremely natural process that grew each time we brought in a new collaborator. None of us are capable or interested in sailing this boat alone, and so we draw on each other’s interests and strengths in order to discover what’s possible with each song we bring to the band. At the end of the day, it would be impossible to do anything without the talent and influences of Jon Schneider, Peter Michaels Jr, and Ren Wilson, and we wouldn’t have it any other way.
As musicians who are based in Harlem, how does location influence the sound and direction of your music?
Good: An interesting thing about living in NYC is that every street has a deep, local history and tradition. Cameron and I have only been living in Harlem for 2 years, and it feels presumptuous to claim any part of Harlem’s history or identity. What we can say about Harlem is that we haven’t felt more comfortable living in any other part of the city, and we are curious how this space could influence the music and modes in which we create.
As a group, how have your influences evolved over time?
Silliman + Good: The biggest change in our influences over the last 10 years has been that we now know all of the artists that most inspire us. They are the people we play shows with, the people we hang out in bars with, the people that come over for dinner on a weekday. Our community feels unbelievably gifted and the support for one another is unparalleled.
KEEP UP TO DATE WITH GRANITE GARDEN
LISTEN