Brooklyn-based Social Creatures is one of those individualistic and genre-bending bands you’ll have to see live to understand their sound. It just makes more sense.
From synth rock to rock and roll, Social Creatures are one band you do not want to miss. I spoke with frontman Jono Robertson about the band, their album, new music, and their upcoming single-release show at Baby’s All Right on Monday, August 21st in New York City.
Music Vault Magazine: How did you all meet, and how did you all get started?
Jono Robertson: This band is kind of a re-branding of another band. We had been playing around New York City under the name called Kindergarten for a couple of years. We had been playing all of the clubs around New York City, and we were trying to figure out what kind of band we wanted to be. We were playing all different styles of music and people would quite often after a show would be like, ‘This is all over the place, there’s so many different styles going on.’
The lineup would kind of change, people would come and go. Eventually, when we struck kind of a good lineup, and we were happy with the live show, we kind of started to find this synthier-dancier sound. We were kind of having success with that at live shows. ‘Okay, I think we actually found we’re good at, let’s kind of just do this.’
We wanted to wipe the slate clean and start over and we re-named the band to Social Creatures and we’ve been doing that for 3 years.
MVM: I really like the band name. How did you come up with that?
JR: My wife and I go on these super long bike rides. We were six hours into this bike ride from NYC to upstate, she was helping me bat around some band names. Honestly, we’d been biking for like six hours, and there’s like this moment where your body is just crashing, but then you get this wave of endorphins rushing through your body. During a moment like that, for some reason, the word ‘social creatures’ came into my head, and I just started shouting it ‘Social creatures! Social creatures! Social creatures!’
MVM: Does all the band come from musical backgrounds? If so, what were your backgrounds like?
JR: Oh wow, we’re all pretty wildly different. Our bass player, Jacob, has played all kinds of R&B, jazz, and all kind of music. When we’re writing music, he’s super versed in theory. Then we’ve got a couple of guys in the band who are more intuitive and don’t know as much theory, and I would say that I kind of bridge the gap, between the two parties like I know a good deal of theory, but not as much as Jacob. I grew up playing in rock bands, whereas Jacob grew up playing in R&B, jazz music. And I’m fairly certain our guitar player, Dan, grew up playing in hard rock bands. It’s a kind of band where essentially none of us are playing music that we grew up playing. It’s a different thing for all of us. I’ve never been in a band that’s anything like this.
MVM: I listened to your record. I really, really love it. It’s awesome. It came out about a year to this month. Talk a little bit about how that record really introduced you as a band musically to the industry, to the world, and to your fans.
JR: Just having a record out and traveling around the country touring to support the record has really put a sense, there’s this feeling that’s changed in the band ‘this is the real deal, we’re actually doing it now.’ We’ve kind of done the thing where you’re a New York City band and you’re playing shows in New York once a month and there’s this plateauing cycle, where it’s like is this actually going to go anywhere, or is this it? Once we actually threw down a full-length LP, and we started playing all over the country, doing runs on the East Coast, Southeast, Midwest, we’re going to be on the West Coast pretty soon. It’s just kind of taken it to the next level having a record out and going around promoting it. I think it’s more fun for the people who see us that there’s a whole album to sink their teeth into. All the time, I’ll fall in love with a new band, but they’ll only have one or two new songs.
MVM: How do you think the band has changed or evolved since you formed in 2018?
JR: I would it’s all of the touring that is the biggest change. There’s something about playing every night for 8 nights straight or something like that where you get to know each other a lot better. There’s just this other level of commitment. Because when you’re traveling on the road, you’re sitting in the car, for 12 hours, just to play somewhere for half an hour. Then piling into some crummy hotel room. It’s just like the next level of commitment; literally, every hour is about that half hour tonight of music that you’re going to play or forty minutes or whatever. It’s really brought a level of commitment that wasn’t there before. In terms of playing together every night, there’s a tightness that you can’t any other way every night like that.
MVM: I heard your new song, “Nothing Changes” that you guys just released today. Can you talk a little bit about how that song came about?
JR: We’ve been touring on this first album, but we were just hungry to start writing new material. That first album was written during the COVID/lockdown chapter. It was written in a room without an audience and then recorded. And then, we took that music out on the road and just saw how it did with audiences and we would slowly tinkle with songs, adjust songs, you know, to make them work better with live shows, but it’s too bad because the other one is already out, and we can’t go back and change it.
Whereas, with this new music, we’re writing basic sketches with these songs, and taking them out on the road, and we’re able to see kind of what works, what doesn’t work, like adjust things from night to night, based on the reactions we’re getting. With this song, “Nothing Changes,” for example, the chorus and the bridge were really both hitting, but for whatever reason, it was losing steam during the verses, so it’s like we scrapped the entire verse.
The other side of that is that you’re writing a new song, you’ve already played it in 15 cities, and you’ve gotta record it before it loses its initial magic.
MVM: Your next show is on Monday at Baby’s All Right in New York City. For fans that haven’t seen you perform yet, what can they expect from your live show?
JR: I think the thing that we have to offer that’s a little unusual is that we’ll begin playing and we’ll get into a dancey groove that gets the whole room movin’ a little bit, but then we’ll really quickly pivot back, and forth between danceable grooves and blowing up kind of hard rock moments. That’s kind of the thing I’ve heard at shows, it’s an interesting blend going back and forth between those two things, going back and forth between everyone’s dancing to rocking out.
MVM: Do you have any other touring plans throughout the rest of the year?
JR: We are going to be doing some West Coast dates. We’re going to be playing some shows in Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, and a bunch of places out there. This fall, we’re going to be doing some more East Coast dates this fall. And then, I think we’re going to be planning a whole Midwest tour surrounding the SXSW tour.
