A Check-In with Antigone, By Ethan Copperfell (Jazz Times Magazine)

I was recently invited, through a mutual friend, to visit the home of Tobia Elverum, the pianist and main head behind the jazz group Antigone, in Colorado. At first assembled in Florida, the group has gone through many changes and different sounds. I decided to check in with Elverum, as well as his fellow bandmates via a zoom call, on the group's upcoming projects and the recent additions of some new members to the fold, making the band a borderline orchestra. Elverum received me warmly in his home, which he shares with two cats, Clef and Trebby, as well as an extensive collection of handmade clay potteries. The home is rustic but eccentric in ways that keep on surprising. There is a specific order to the mess Tobia apologizes for as he walks me around the property. When we finally get to sit in front of a laptop, we are face to face with the Rockies in the far distance. Before the whole group joins in, I decide to ask him a few questions in private.

Ethan: There’s rumors that Antigone wasn’t ever meant to take off in the way that it did. Had you planned anything in case you and the rest ended up propulsed into stardom?

Tobia: *Laughs* Oh my god, not in the slightest, man. This whole thing started out as a school project. I had just gotten a job at the university, most of the students there were planning to either join orchestras or things like that. Guile Garamond, our drummer, he had been there for a while teaching percussions, which is how we met. Cécile and Desmond were students, Meredith we found by chance because Cécile knew him already. We had similar interests and just wanted to throw that down on Soundcloud or somewhere small.

E: It was more of a fun activity than a serious project.

T: Yeah– Well, no not really. It was kind of both. It's kind of like these groups of friends on the internet that get massively popular playing Dungeons and Dragons on stream, right? People liked what we were putting down and they just picked that up.

E: Do you think the other members are receptive of that kind of attention?

T: Yes and no. Personally, I love it. I've always wanted to be in the jazz landscape, if only like, with a hundredth of the influence we have now. I know Desmond struggled with that. He always liked the idea of having something small and really stuck to that.

E: Is that why he left?

T: Yeah. That and while he enjoys jazz, it's not what he wants to create all his life. As far as creative disagreements go this is the biggest one we've had. Pole Position was kind of his lead project in the group before striking it out with U-Decks. We ended up finding someone that aligns with the group's vision a bit better.

E: With him and Charlotte gone, is it kinda strange to navigate Antigone's success without them?

T: Charlotte's only gone for a short while, I think. She had to take some time off to be a mommy for a while, and we encouraged her to go. If she does end up coming back to playing horns, she'll be back with us in no time. But like with Desmond, yeah she didn't anticipate the growth. The last few months were really stressful for her, so to make sure not to fuck with the pregnancy too much– oh my god wait, can I swear?

E: *Laughs* It's fine, we can edit it out if it's not okay.

T: Haha, well yeah, so uh, yeah we just wanted to make sure she was okay and that the baby was okay. She's with her husband back in the Keys so we all wish her great health. But to come back to what you said, yeah it is a bit bizarre. It's kind of like having to present a group project all by yourself. There's always the fear of not really respecting the other members' original vision and stuff.

E: Does Sanford and Matthew do a good job at replicating that?

T: Naaah, no it's not really the point. That fear I have is more an insecurity than anything else. Antigone's an ever changing thing. Baier and Rainier are two fantastic session musicians. We had the chance to play with them a bit during the Human Spirit recordings. When the two spots opened up we didn't even have the time to wonder who could fill them. They were just right there this whole time.

E: The wandering musician you guys paired up with once was also pretty good.

T: Rudy? Rudy Perdu's great. He messaged us while on the plane to Antwerp while we were planning to play there for a few days. We met up, knocked a whole recording session in one shot and we were golden. I think the collab blows everything we've got out of the water.

E: It's your only certified Diamond record, right?

T: Yup. Rudy likes to sell himself short at times but in reality we all felt really small in that room with him. You've got to be made of something special to do this all by yourself. We were just a backing band for him *Laughs*. He'd never accept that, though. He's a great guy.

E: And now you share a label!

T: Yeah! With Foghorn, too. Heathered isn't all that big but it's gold plated from top to bottom.

E: Tooting your own horn there a bit, I see.

T: *Laughs*

The interview kept going over a zoom call where the entire band, old members included, grouped together into a cluster of little faces on my laptop. Everyone seemed very happy and even slightly emotional seeing Charlotte again, her having taken a bit of a hiatus from anything band related since she left. I decided that the rest of the questions I had should be more open-ended.

Ethan: A thing I've noticed throughout your releases is that the themes and the messages tend to change throughout. Someone who doesn't know you that well might feel a bit of whiplash seeing Pole Position and Somewhere In The Paint in the same catalogue.

Tobia: The idea behind the band is that we don't like to stick to one niche. There's lots of us in here and we have such wildly varying personalities and whatnot, we want to project a bit of everything and keep things fresh.

E: Some people really don't like the releases with the more playful themes. I've heard really weird things said about Pole Position and Everlasting High.

Desmond: I remember when SITP dropped we gained a pretty notorious following of people who had very little to say about even Airwalk, that came just before. Especially with how we themed the album, I think people were expecting this really heavy and dark jazz project, kind of like the Nine Inch Nails of jazz? It was fun for a while but when it came to making something fun for a change, we have this small contingent of like...

Lucky: You can say it! *Chuckles*

D: *Laughs* We have this contingent of dorks who piss and yell because Antigone "isn't deep anymore". As if we hadn't dropped Heathered at all and we were just doing these really moody pieces all the time. They probably expected us to be a Greek band too, with the name and whatnot.

E: Speaking of which, why Antigone?

T: I saw the play in theaters one time and really, really liked it. At a first glance it also sounds really cool, so it was a no-brainer. There's this Québécois film that redoes the play in a modern setting, too, that I really like.

E: And with Somewhere In The Paint, was it a more concrete attempt at making an homage to it?

T: It's kind of hard to do with the music we do, so not really. The album title and the closing track were more deliberate attempts to connect with the play, but otherwise I think people just heard most of the EP and thought we had this weird pocket of angst we lived in. I find it really interesting how people will find meaning in art that doesn't explicitly states its own purpose.

E: So what does that mean for the general themes of your albums?

Cécile: I think we all pretty much agreed that the theme follows the music in the album instead of vice-versa. The only two records we made that strictly had a set theme were Somewhere in The Paint and Human Spirit, and even there as Tobia said, it's always more of a loose allusion than anything else. We play a session and if the inspiration finds us, we agree on what the music makes us think of, then establish the finished product on that.

Guile: It makes things so much easier to record because you're not expected to follow something super strict that was tailored beforehand.

Ce: Yeah. If we record two hours of sad stuff because it's raining outside, then the album's theme's gonna reflect that on the post-prod side. I think the only exception to that is Pole Position and Late For Lunch.

D: Pole Position was my pitch. I wanted to make something that sounded like it would be played during an F1 championship. It's also technically my first time leading a band on a project.

E: I could tell, it sounds so vastly different from even Everlasting High.

D: It was also an homage to some of my influences on the jazz side, like T-SQUARE and CASIOPEA.

E: And what about Late For Lunch?

G: *waves at the screen* That was me! Mostly me and Lucky. We wrote a few pieces together while we were on tour in Germany and pitched it all to the band in one night.

L: Most of the pieces we wrote while waiting for the train, which as you might've guessed, came in late. We were supposed to meet the rest of the band for lunch time but made it like, two hours late. We dicked about on a songwriting app on my tablet for most of the ride. We were pissed as hell first, because we didn't want to make the others wait, but we eventually calmed ourselves down and realized the ride was really pretty. We let ourselves be inspired by that instead.

E: And now you've got something else in the works, is that right?

T: Yup.

E: Any secrets about that?

T: *Laughs* it's a bit embarrassing, but this one's theme is also kind of predetermined. We wanted to write something special for Desmond and Charlotte, and test the chops of Matthew and Sanford at the same time. All of it's done already, but Des and Charlie haven't heard any of it yet!

Charlotte: He said it would make us cry a little and I'm really inclined to believe it.

D: He's such a huge softie about us. The blurb at the back of Late For Lunch makes it sound like I died!

The whole room erupted in laughter at that moment. I could tell Tobia was really embarassed about it by how red he got in the face.

Tobia: Well! *Chuckles* You know, the kid's been with us since his uni days and he's the youngest out of all of us. He kind of feels like a nephew to me now. And watching what used to be my students grow into such talented and accomplished people, y'know, it makes a guy emotional. Charlie's also a big thing for me, because I also met her when she was young and now she's a wife and soon to be mom. Growing old makes me feel a lot of things I can't quite describe yet, lots of good, some bad.

Cécile: Well, that's what the music's for.

T: Yeah.

Matthew: It's one of the things I noticed a lot about Tobia and the rest of the crew, it's that it really feels like the really solid group of lifelong friends it is.

Ethan: Does that make you feel any sort of way as someone who just joined?

Sanford: There's certainly some kind of a barrier in-between us that we're desperately trying to tear down still. We're like, consummate professionals about what we do so it's hard to integrate something that feels so personal.

Matthew: Which is insane because you watch the band play together and it doesn't feel like a friend thing at all. It's a bunch of pro's putting down all they got on the spot. That makes it feel a bit easier while we record but there's definitely a sauce that's eluding us a little yet.

S: Yeah.

Meredith: It felt like that with me too when we first started the band, but I think with just a little bit of time you'll make it in just fine.

Ethan: It was really fun getting to talk to all of you. I didn't think I'd get both old and new Antigone all at once. Have you guys thought about coming together for at least one project down the line?

Charlotte: I don't know if I'll ever have the time to get back into that but if I do, that would be so fun.

Desmond: I'm never one to turn down a big party!

Tobia: That would be very interesting. Or a mess. Maybe both?

Ethan: *Laughs* Only one way to find out! Well, thanks a lot to all of you!

Antigone: Thank you!