Richmond pride has always offered a much needed boost to the local music scene, with some artists simply flourishing because of what their area or zip code is. As fervent as the local community is though, there are always going to be instances of amazing artists and bands getting overlooked here in town, even as they make their name across the country.
Richmond pride has always offered a much needed boost to the local music scene, with some artists simply flourishing because of what their area or zip code is. As fervent as the local community is though, there are always going to be instances of amazing artists and bands getting overlooked here in town, even as they make their name across the country.
Writing out the reasons why could take days and it’s never been an isolated problem to a specific scene in town with everyone from hip-hop to metal being affected in town. Post-rock trio Comrades sadly fit into this category, but whereas other artists have let it hinder them or render them bitter, they’ve shrugged it off as they’ve forged their own path to success, armed with their impressive musicianship, shrewd songwriting, and unbreakable connection. But no matter how far they travel down their own path, the glimpse of an RVA banner will always be visible and the band will always be willing to showcase their true hometown.
To Comrades though, the absence of Richmond attention is easily explainable. “We’ve always been a long-distance band so to speak,” guitarist Joe McElroy reasons. “Our drummer lives in Massachusetts and we didn’t live in the city at times. It never bothered us too much though and it actually made those shows where we played in town mean a bit more. Even now, it’s kind of cool to actually, so-to-speak, play a hometown show even though we’re not all from there at the moment.” McElroy currently resides in Colorado Springs, CO along with his wife and Comrades bassist, Laura McElroy. The two have enjoyed their stay, and are more than happy to talk about the virtues the city has to offer, but for McElroy himself, as much praise as he has for Colorado Springs, he has even more for his original home. “I’ll always love Richmond,” he gushes. “How could you not? We still have a strong connection even though we’re all the way out in Colorado. Blood & Ink are from there and my family lives there and has for years and years. It will always be the most home place we have in the country and no matter where we end up, I’ll always consider myself a proud Richmonder first.”
Location hasn’t been the only thing to change for the band in recent years though. Last year, Joe & Laura started a side project alongside musician and friend Shane Riley called Borrowed Spirit. The new trio even put out an exciting EP, Overcome, that showcased both McElroys’s musical talents in a new light even if it was simply a side project. “That was something Laura, me, and [Riley] were doing just cause none of us were touring much,” he explains. “We weren’t touring as much the last part of last year with Comrades so we just thought about doing stuff. Now though, all three of us are touring a lot. Laura and me are doing a lot with Comrades right now and [Riley] joined a band from Colorado called Tigerwine. So we just haven’t had any time to mess with it in months. It will be one of those things where whenever we get a chance between doing other tours, we’ll try and do something. It was always a side project for us though.”
Out of all the intriguing musical concepts on display in Borrowed Spirit’s music, it was the presence of Laura McElroy’s voice that was most exciting. For years, the vocal presence in Comrades music had been few and far between, simply used without rhyme or reason and in the background of musically overpowering songs. But Borrowed Spirit reminded fans how well Laura’s voice fit in the space between her and Joe’s instruments, and the depth that it could provide to certain songs. Luckily, this aspect wouldn’t stay Borrowed Spirit exclusive for long as Comrades began working on a new record that suddenly had a much larger vocal presence than ever before.
“The new record has vocals probably 2/3rds of the time,” McElroy details. “It’s not primarily an instrumental album anymore even though we didn’t start the band as an instrumental band. It’s just something that happened over time and it’s just been slowly un-happening. We didn’t feel locked into it and we had stuff to talk about it so we went for it.” It’s exciting news for the trio, even if it might cast some doubt on their new release. For years, Comrades have been lauded for their sonic identity and as is the case with any artist known for a specific quality, tweaking or adding to it could always lead to some disastrous results. But for Comrades, the process of re-introducing vocals was always broached with the band’s identity in mind, so as to compliment the sound as opposed to hinder. “What we’ve tried to do with bringing vocals back into our music is to not lose any of the musicality of any of the parts,” McElroy states. “It’s not like there’s a lead singer overtop the whole thing. The vocals are another instrument involved. A lot of bands, there will be a part where the vocals are predominant and everyone else is backing up the vocals and it’s not like that at all. The singing is definitely a featured aspect, but it never overpowers the other aspects much like the drums or guitar never did before.”
The new album, recorded at Glow In The Dark Studios in Atlanta, is an exciting step forward for the band as the trio not only re-introduces the vocal aspect, but also builds on all the concepts and tricks that made Comrades worthwhile in the first place. “This album is a bit more upbeat and more musically intricate than what we did before,” McElroy describes. “There’s just a lot of things going on. That’s the best way to put it — there’s a lot of everything happening. The new album has a lot more of the weird time signatures and math-y stuff. It has quite a bit of looping too. I’ll record live loops as I’m playing and we’ll play stuff on top of that. This stuff has more of all that than the last one did and it’s just exciting.”
According to McElory, the new record will be ten songs, with “about as much music as we could fit on a vinyl,” and it has a release date tentatively set for late summer and early fall. Fans of the band won’t have to wait for the new songs to appear in Comrades’ performances though as they’ve already began to assimilate these new sounds into their live repertoire. “We started playing one new song a couple tours back,” he says. “This tour, we’ve been playing three. We just love the new songs a like and we wanted to mix them in. We kind of intersperse them in the set to not make it sound weird, but it still sounds like Comrades. Just Comrades with singing. I think it all flows fine. It’s almost probably more noticeable with one or two old songs that are completely instrumental. They almost feel like the odd songs out at this point rather than the new ones.”
What’s even more exciting than these new songs though is the chance for Comrades to prove that they aren’t bound to one style or sound and still have plenty more to offer musically than most would even expect. “It’s definitely cool to show people how much more we can grow,” McElroy states. “Unfortunately, I think in modern times, a lot of bands have gotten — I don’t want to use the word “stuck” — but a lot of artists will do something in one specific sub-classification of one sub-genre of music and feel that if you move too far away from that, you’d better start a new project. We’ve never felt like that. From the beginning, it wasn’t governed by we are this style band or that style band. We just have a lot of freedom to do a lot of different things stylistically and therefore, there’s not a foreseeably end to what we can do.”
Comrades have been showing crowds this year just what this entails, with bolder and more innovative approaches to their songwriting that yields breathtaking musicality and impressive cohesion. Now, they look to their Richmond return to show their hometown just what Comrades is capable of now, hopefully with a bigger reaction than ever before. “Being a long distance band, we were never able to play Richmond a lot,” McElroy responds. “That always made those shows a bit more exciting and this one is no different. We’re in a weird place now coming back to Richmond after not playing here for a while — it’s almost like a reunion. We’re excited to see our friends and vice versa, but it’s more of a positive homecoming experience now than it was when we lived there and played shows. Not that we ever needed one, but it will be a great reminder of the amazing place we came from.”
Comrades return to Richmond tonight at Strange Matter for the “Blood & Ink Records + Friends Tour” alongside Withered Bones, Vagabonds, and Black Pages. Tickets are $7 with the doors opening at 5 PM. For more information on this show and where to buy tickets, click here.
