Transmissions from the Dorm Room Heart: Zac Little of Saintseneca
words: Jordan Weinstock
Zac Little is the creative force behind the Columbus, Ohio-based band, Saintseneca. The band (although a more apt descriptor might be collective) has been around in some form since 2007, releasing their debut, “Last”, in 2011. The attention surrounding them grew in 2014 after putting out “Dark Arc” and once again in 2015 after releasing their fantastic LP, “Such Things”, on Anti- Records. The band is a staple of the Ohio DIY scene and has spent a long time developing close relationships with bands of incredibly varied styles from all around the region. It is a beautiful Thursday afternoon (the rain has just subsided), sometime around 3:00 as I call Zac from inside my dimly lit dorm room…
Jordan: Your last album was Such Things, you put that out in October of last year and then the single “New Coats” in December, what have you been up to in the time since then?
Zac: Since it came out we’ve been on the road as much as possible. We did a full U.S tour, east coast and west coast, and went to Europe, did a few things here and there. That’s been the primary objective since the record came out, just to put the work in to support that album.
Jordan: Moving back to the album, would you mind explaining the title? What are Such Things?
Zac: I liked the ambiguity in the title. It’s a phrase that a lot of people use to conjure up and solidify something that is abstract, or even fantastical, or ethereal.
I also like that parallel in the language there where if you said that something is “such a thing” you are grounding it in its status as an object in the physical world. I thought there was an interesting duality in the phrase, the capacity to conjure up mystical things but also be grounded in the world that we inhabit.
Jordan: I think that’s fairly descriptive of your music as a whole, the only phrase I’ve ever been able to use to describe your sound is this kind of “Cosmic Nothingness”. I get this image of kids hanging out underneath the stars and being amazed by how real everything here is and how real everything there is but how different they both seem. Does that fantasticalness have anything to do with the album’s cover?
Zac: The cover is actually a combination of two ideas. One being an optical illusion called a Necker Cube which is the box feature motif. There was a scientist whose last name was Necker who devised this particular pattern or game almost to illustrate the way that our minds function when using our visual perception. That image is objectively a two dimensional trapezoid. It is just lines organized in a specific way, but the way in which our minds perceive it, we take that objective, 2-D, flat drawing and making it into a 3-D cube whose interpretation can be ambiguous. Its orientation flips back and forth without ever really reaching a definitive way, whether or not it’s facing you or facing away. Then the two creatures are cherubim which is a riff on the idea of the ark of the covenant. For the Israelites, the ark was this alter which was this physical locus where they could interface with god. It was this place in which the divine realm could inhabit. I just thought it was this interesting notion of this real and imminent place but also being a window into this cosmic and mystical world and to riff on that with the ambiguous of the Necker Cube and how we perceive it.
Jordan: I read in an interview, I might have read this wrong, but that at times you purposely keep your work ambiguous, how true is that?
Zac: I think that, the way I understand it, is that I’m trying to express something in its most distilled, crystalline, articulate way that I can, it just happens to be a nuanced and often complicated, dualistic, ambiguous thing.
Jordan: How conscious is songwriting for you? Do you sit down and try to think of the purest way to state something or are you just writing and later on you look down and say, “oh, I guess this is what I’m writing about?”
Zac: I don’t really have a single way of doing it. I try to not let myself get too reliant or comfortable with a single approach to songwriting. It’s probably closer to that second option. When you’re writing songs I don’t believe that you’re authoring anything, you are finding something and presenting it. It’s not as if you invented melody or notes or words or anything like that but you can discover the orientation and orders that they might be in and how that corresponds to a concept or emotion or whatever. You’re presenting that, not making anything from scratch
Jordan: Is there a specific kind of portrayal of things or image that you often find yourself drawn to?
Zac: I try to just be curious and learn about things. For Such Things so many of the songs grew out of readings I had done and had a lot to do with ideas in contemporary physics. I found a lot of those ideas inspiring and the strangeness and the seeming contradictions or whatever felt relatable to everyday life.
Jordan: You mention how you are constantly curious, is that how you got involved with using such unique instruments like the dulcimer or bouzouki? Has using those instruments given you a new view on music?
Zac: Definitely. It comes out of the same sentiment. I feel a little by just doing one thing and I’m excited by being able to have that extensive palate to find things. It’s exciting to see after tinkering around with a new instrument how they intertwine and overlap with what I already know. For example, a mandolin is like a much higher pitched, upside down bass guitar. You kind of look at these overlaps and you might come up with these little fragments and then years later find out that the rest of the song was hiding inside another instrument. That whole process has always been really exciting to me.
Photo: Nick Fancher
Jordan: Besides instruments, the band has evolved significantly, how has growing up or lineup changed how the band exists?
Zac: When we first started out where were this weird bluegrass band playing punk shows. I guess the first big change happened during Dark Arc. That was when the first lineup dissolved altogether so then it felt like we could do whatever we wanted. We were just focused on making a recording that felt interesting. That opened up other things too, I was fairly dogmatic about wanting it to be this sort of acoustic presentation with more traditional folk instruments and then I started writing songs on the electric bass and that flipped everything on its head. That has pretty much been the band’s trajectory since then. That openness to experimentation and finding a way to try new things and push yourself but still feel true to what you want to be or express.
Jordan: On a different note, members of Saintseneca have also played in bands like All Dogs, The Sidekicks, and Tin Armor, has their experience changed the band in any way? How collaborative is it?
Zac: I write the core of the songs, the structure and the melody. For the last album I had pretty elaborate recordings set up myself before we even entered the studio to work out the other parts. Those become more like a framework for people to do with what they will though. I was open to parts being revisited and explored and changing. I don’t know, I write the songs but I would never want to seem like I was trying to diminish working with other people. Even the band changes all the time, the only other remaining member from last tour is our drummer, Matt. It changes all the time but at its core, what I want this project and the songwriting to be is something that depends on other people to be fulfilled and to exist. I would never want this to be a one person show. It’s about minds coming together to present something together.