If you haven’t gotten the hint yet, here’s your third reminder: Suburban Sprawl Music’s El Boxeo is a bizarre band. Consisting mainly of violin, bass, and drums, and occasionally very little else, they’d have to be. Here’s a little insight, thanks to the wonders of Gmail, into the history of the band and the very brains of the three wonderful people that make it up: Lisa Norton, Zach Norton, and Danny Sperry.

So, who are you guys? How did El Boxeo get started? What’s your story? Paint me a picture of your journey from a five-piece pop band to the three-piece experimental entity you are today.

It seems to me that at the same time that Zach and Danny and our Swedish friend Lars were making noise in the basement, Jenny and I were in my driveway listening to Rainer Maria or something like that, and Jenny was saying, “We could do this. We do this.” So we went inside and scheduled a practice with the guys. Funny because neither group thought the other was serious. But we ended up writing songs. They weren’t the Apples in Stereo-esque jams that we had intended – quite far from it – but we sort of liked what we ended up with. We lost Lars when his stint as an exchange student ended and he went back to Sweden, which is when Danny started playing drums. Zach did double duty as bassist/guitarist for a while, but thankfully we banned the guitar completely at some point. Then Jenny quit and we were keyboard-less, which was a bit frightening at first. But that is how we found our niche. And people seemed to like it. So that is where we are today. – LN

You recently went out on a three week long tour out west. What was that experience like?

Really awesome. Overall, the shows had pretty low attendance numbers, being our first time out west. Despite that, there weren’t more than a couple cities that we crossed off the map (and just one state… sorry Oklahoma). We made many friends, stayed with amazingly generous people, and saw many beautiful parts of the US; we really can’t complain. -DS

Tell me about your favorite show from the tour. Did you play with any bands that particularly impressed you?

My favorite local band that we played with wasn’t even a band, it was a shadow puppet show by a girl in Reno, Penny And Her Lower Case Kindred. It was the best. She had a bunch of different skits with music and it was just really funny and interesting. I think I fell in love with her. -DS

Since the tour consisted of quite a few six and seven hour drives, I’m sure you guys listened to plenty of tunes. What were your favorite albums to jam out to in the van?

Oh geez. Let’s see… Sun Kil Moon was played quite a bit, per Phil (our friend who came along on the tour and played with us). Jason Anderson, New Grenada, David Sedaris books on CD, Sufjan, Neutral Milk Hotel, Deerhoof, Ida, Lightning Bolt… shoot… lots of different stuff. –DS

And some classics, too. Springsteen, Harrison. I snuck in a few Sepultura jams here and there. -ZN

My favorite was when we were driving an all-nighter and I told the boys I had something special to play them. They were all like, “It better not be Celtic Woman.” I lied and then put it in. Funny thing is, they all sort of liked it. -LN

According to the Suburban Sprawl website and the liner notes in Awake and Dreaming, “Awake is about being awake, conscious and real. Dreaming is about the opposite of all of that – it is dreams as songs and songs as dreams. This is one album, divided into two separate, but inseparable parts.” Can you elaborate on this? What brought about this concept?

It’s simple; the first half of the album is , meaning it can be played live by the three of us, just violin, bass, drums and sometimes vocals, and the second half of the album is the half, full of tons of overdubs, additional instruments, voices and sound, most of which simply cannot be performed live as is on the album. The songs on the half were our attempts at creating the narratives, sounds and feelings of dreams, the subconscious and the like. This was insanely fun and it allowed us to be completely free, and per the guidelines we set for producing this, we had many of our friends contribute to the recordings however they wanted, many choosing to improvise.We are really into dreams and how fun, weird, scary they can be. Some of my most vivid memories from growing up are actually from a handful of reoccurring dreams and I guess that is partly why I’m interested in the subject, why we started talking as a band about taking on a project like this. -DS

The song “The Rope” is about a personal experience you had on tour over a year ago with your friends, Javelins, right? What is the story behind it?

Matt Rickle helped to write the lyrics for the song, but he was not actually there. This was actually before we met Javelins. We were watching a rehearsal of that our cousin Michael Mason was performing in Richmond. One of the characters was supposed to swing onto stage on this rope, but there was a mishap and he ended up falling through the air. It’s sort of about that moment when you realize an accident is going to happen, but you can’t do anything about it. An interesting coincidence – I snapped a picture of the guy in mid-air as he was falling. – LN

Your songs, particulary on the Awake section of the new album, consist of mainly violin, bass, and drums, nothing else. How does a band with that sort of instrumentation go about composing songs? Where do the initial ideas behind songs come from, and where do you prefer to take them?

For this album, the ideas for songs on came from various places, but mainly the titles are afterthoughts… maybe there are not so much as “ideas” behind the songs as much as moods. We often just write songs together, starting with a little idea and working a song out of it. However, there are “ideas” behind The song “Tri-colored Tricycles…” is about a reoccurring dream that I had about looking out my bedroom window seeing tricycles, dogs, kiddy pools, beach balls, basically, what you would find in a backyard of a house of a family with little children, all floating in an orange sky, all colored in a red, blue, yellow color-scheme. “Chopping Up Vampires,” was written about a dream that our friend Matt Howard of Javelins had about having to insistently chop up vampires with his hands. Stuff like that. –DS

Some of our songs just lend themselves to certain titles, I think. Like “Tokyo” just makes me think of Tokyo, however unlikely. – LN

Our writing process is pretty lengthy. Most of it’s collaborative, and we spend a lot of time jamming things out, and building ideas. It’s impractical and inefficient, but it allows everyone to contribute. -ZN

Thanks to the creativity and success of bands like Thunderbirds Are Now! and Anathallo, the Michigan music scene seems to be bursting at the seams with talent. What is your take on the Michigan music community? What currently unknown Michigan bands do the entire United States need to know about?

It is amazing, really. There are many bands that ought to be getting much more attention. The Word Play is one of the best bands in MI, and absolutely the most modest dudes in the world! It drives people nuts at how they don’t know that they are amazing. Really. Just so good. –DS

In addition to the SSM bands, which without bias I think are all extremely talented, The Pizazz are one of my favorites. They are so creative and fun. Quite loveable. – LN

I second Lisa and Danny. The Word Play and The Pizazz are super awesome. And all the Sub Sprawl bands. They’re all doing such awesome things. -ZN

And now for the cliche ending: What is on the plate for the band next? Do you anticipate any sort of break from the insanity that is being in a rock band?

The insanity is the fun part, right? I’m actually hoping that we will all keep loving the suburbs, and being a creative community.I also have a vision of opening up my own business, which I will convince Zach and Danny to help me with. We are going to make lots of arts & crafts, starting right away. Tie-dye shirts, buttons, silk-screened stuff, etc. And one day we will have a cute store where we will sell these things, along with coffee and muffins, and Danny’s special recipe ramen concoctions. Then we can have shows there and expand the art and love in a physical domain. Give me 5 years. –LN

As far as the immediate future goes, we’re going to have two release shows for Awake & Dreaming, one in Detroit, one in Lansing. And we’re working on new songs and talking about an EP about ghosts.

MP3s
Tons

Websites
http://www.elboxeo.net
http://www.myspace.com/elboxeo
http://www.subsprawl.com