Ahead of SANDYalexg's new album 'God Save the Animals,' Jonathan_Smth caught up with the musician about the new album, fireworks, animals, and scoring a horror film.
JONATHAN SMITH: A lot of your earlier work dealt with youth angst and the tensions that come from figuring life out as you age. It seems like there’s a bit less of that on this new album. It feels written from a more pulled back vantage point—maybe a person who doesn’t necessarily have it all figured out but is still sort of looking at life from above, in a way.
GIANNASCOLI: I guess as far as hermetic stuff, I think it’s cool that it gives off that impression. I actually wasn’t aware that it was giving off that impression. The faith stuff I think was definitely inspired by my life—or I shouldn’t say my life—it was definitely inspired by my surroundings. But I think it was my surroundings before the pandemic and during the pandemic and in the aftermath.
SMITH: But I do remember when people have asked you about that, you’ve said one of the things that interested you about video games was their potential as a storytelling device. And I wondered if thefor “Cross the Sea,” with its video game aesthetic, was your way of trying to tell a story through something that felt like a video game.
GIANNASCOLI: Yeah, it was kind of surreal. It was cool. We played on Monday morning and we learned about it at 11:00 PM Saturday night because the other act had dropped out. So, it was kind of nice having no time to think about it because we didn’t have to dress up and worry if we needed a big light show or something. We were just like, “Okay, let’s just do it.” So, that was nice.
SMITH: Some of your music has the vibe of late ’90s skate video soundtracks, specifically the ones that I grew up with. A few years ago your songs were even featured in afor Frog, which is a very niche skate company. Did you grow up skating? And how do you feel about your music being so beloved by the skate community?
GIANNASCOLI: Oh, that was great. It was nice because basically the director would send me the scene and the tone that she wanted it to have. And so I would just sit down and bang something out without having to do the work of making an album. When I’m making my own song, I’m trying to think of a theme, I’m trying to think of a tone, all that stuff. But since she did the hard part, I could just sit down and bang something out that worked.