“We’re looking forward to getting this pizza into your ears.”
Photo by Kati Baldwin, from left to right, Cam Powell, Alex McCollum, Brendan Bull, Emily McCollum, and Roger Caughman
Siblings Alex and Emily McCollum started Stagbriar over 10 years ago on a back porch. All though the band has since grown from a duo to a full band, and their sound has evolved as a result, their perfectly synchronized harmonies and poignant lyrics remain. Read on to find out what they have been up to and what’s next.
JASPER: What are you guys most excited about right now?
STAGBRIAR: We finished a new record in August. We’re pretty excited about how different this one sounds compared to our first two, and it’ll be fun to begin sharing bits and pieces of that in the next few months.
JASPER: What is your favorite song off your last album?
STAGBRIAR: We’ve really leaned into Bought the Rights when we play live—amped it up a bit and used it for sound check pretty often. It’s a good mid-tempo bop and it always feels good when we get to it in the set.
JASPER: What does your writing process look like? How has it changed or evolved over the years? Do you each write something and bring it to the other for input or is it more collaborative?
STAGBRIAR: The writing process has generally been centered around the songs we siblings bring to the band, but that’s changed a lot on the record we just finished in July. The band really put this one together as a team, and our new guitarist Roger Caughman had a heavy hand in a lot of the heavier guitar stuff you’ll hear throughout. A much more collaborative effort from the beginning through the end.
JASPER: Do you have any tips or tricks for finding inspiration or getting over writer's block?
STAGBRIAR: Write a lot of bad songs. There’s probably another record’s worth of incomplete stuff that was thrown away for this latest session. We like to record everything twice—once at our house, and then a second time in the studio, hopefully giving us a chance to hear things from beginning to end. This can spark ideas that are more album focused instead of sitting down and trying to write from scratch — you can ask yourself “okay now what does the *record* need” instead of “what song am I going to write today.”
JASPER: How do you know when something is done?
STAGBRIAR: We don’t. We put it down and come back to it and repeat the pattern until one of us says stop or the money runs out.
JASPER: If each of your albums were a meal, what would they consist of and why?
STAGBRIAR: Quasi-Hymns is like a really good hot dog and fries you made at home. It hits the spot cause it’s the best you could muster up at the time. It’s familiar and you can watch Wheel of Fortune while you eat it.
Suppose You Grow is like a rustic bistro dish that took some time to get right but is still rough enough around the edges to appeal to the mentor that taught you how to fish. Served on a steel plate.
The newest unreleased record is like a surprise pizza party in elementary school. You didn’t order pizza but it’s really tasty and you don’t know why but you suddenly feel like a ninja turtle.
We’re looking forward to getting this pizza into your ears.
You can see Stagbriar September 24th at New Brookland Tavern with Alan Charmer, Cor De Lux, and Twin Toasters. Tickets and details on New Brookland’s website.
-Bekah Rice