To start, can you share a bit about the origins of Beware of Safety?

Adam, one of the guitarists, and I went to high school together. We played in a band called Chambers back in Boston in our early 20s, and we agreed that if the band ever broke up or if we quit or whatever, we would move to LA to start a new band because we had friends that lived out there and the weather was obviously better than the weather in New England. So eventually I quit the band and Adam left as well. Jeff was my college roommate at the University of Hartford and he moved to LA shortly after Adam and I did so we decided to do the three guitarist thing. Then while in LA in late 2005, we met Morgan, our drummer, through Craig's List. That's basically how the four of us met and Beware of Safety began.

The name “Beware of Safety,” does that take itself from anywhere particular?

Basically, at work, I had one of those calendars that you rip off a page per day, and this one had stupid things people say or random weird stuff like signs from foreign countries that people capture. One day, there was a sign that said "Beware of Safety," in China, which I thought was kinda funny and good, in a way, and it was right during the time we were looking for a band name. So I took it home when we were going through rounds of band names, added it to a list of contenders we kept in an Excel spreadsheet where we ranked the potential names, and "Beware of Safety" seemed to be one that we all didn't hate.

Another staple question, what are some of your influences?

It’s kind of hard to answer that because ultimately, everything influences you. Even the things you don’t want to influence can somehow influence you, like you want to be able to say “oh, these bands never influenced me,” but in the end they still do. If you listen to music and talk to friends and look at art, ultimately everything has an effect.

Musically, Do Make Say Think was probably the band that brought us all together.

I love Mogwai, I love Pearl Jam, so there are different aspects. I grew up on 90s alternative rock, the whole grunge movement; Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Soundgarden. Soundgarden was a huge influence in just the idea of guitar just being ugly, and heavy, and sort of atonal. I love the way Kim used a lot of drop tunings, early on in the late 80s, early 90s, long before Korn were doing it. He just employed a lot of weird tunings and made the guitar sound muscly and muddy. Pearl Jam was also a big influence on my childhood, growing up.

As for the other guys, Adam, Jeff and I basically, more or less, grew up on the same heavy-hitters. We were all huge Pearl Jam fans, as you can see from the framed poster. Pearl Jam, for us, is pretty much the best band in the world. Jeff’s seen them like 30 times, Adam and I 20 times, we go touring with them whenever they come around. We just love them.

Morgan, on the other hand, is a bit different. His influences are more obscure compared to the typical way of post-rock or instrumental rock, it was just totally different, and he was influenced by a wide variety of genres. Unfortunately, I couldn’t really tell you who or what.

Did you have particular themes in mind when you were constructing the whole of It is Curtains, or was it more on a piece-by-piece basis?

More piece by piece I think. We had a lot of material before we met Morgan, songs like “Kaura” or “O’Canada,” those songs were already kind of constructed before Morgan so he just added the drums.

It was kind of difficult for Morgan I guess, and I know I’m gonna kind of be speaking for him now, but when he first joined the band we basically handed him some sheets and said “here, learn these songs.” And that’s not really creative, because Morgan is clearly a talented drummer,  and the stuff he did was great, but because he didn’t really have a part in writing these songs, it wasn’t easy for him. But as soon as we began writing new songs, he really came out of his shell.

But as far as themes were concerned, we didn’t have any in mind. We were just trying to write music. But this was two, two and a half years ago, and the writing sessions taking place now are on a totally different level, thematically.

So things like the song titles and that were more or less placeholders? Like, it obviously wasn’t a concept album or anything like that right?

It absolutely was not. [laughs]

So the whole quiet-loud, dynamic contrast element is quite evident in your work. What’s the creative process behind that; how do you go about structuring dynamics?

Different sessions offered different results. Back then, we were still trying to discover Beware of Safety’s sound. We were just following what we thought sounded cool and thought we were capable of achieving during those sessions we were talking. With the sessions now for the new album, things are quite different. I don’t think the quiet-loud thing is as prominent, probably because we didn’t really feel it was something difficult to do, and we didn’t find it challenging enough to do again. But there’s definitely something to be said about the impact of crescendos, I mean, nothing is really loud unless it’s next to something really quiet, and vice versa. There’s a very immediate emotional response.

One of my opinions about It is Curtains is that it is, in the end, instrumental rock, or post-rock; there’s really nothing flashy about it, it’s just guitars, drums, boom, done. We weren’t really concerned with thinking outside the box at the time, which is okay, because we were brand new.

One of the songs that comes up for me is “To the Roof…!” which to me is, let’s face it, a post-rock song. I mean, it starts quiet and pretty and then builds and then crescendos and drops and then it’s pretty again and then goes off again at the end.  One of the things that we achieved without really trying was the very last section of that song where we blow it up and then come back up, but we come back down at a medium level and then sort of cruise at that for the rest of the song, demonstrating some sort of restraint. I think it’s good, it shows that we’re capable of knowing when to let go but also knowing when to be quiet, and generally being able to maintain a level of sanity, something that’s definitely important to have.

How do you let the dynamics translate into your live performance?

Well, we kind of run the gamut because obviously there are some bits that are quiet and chilled and I even try to sit on a stool because certain parts are hard to play and it’s more comfortable. But we definitely like to let go, and really move. Jeff tends to hold the centre, and Adam and I are on either side going nuts, and then Morgan on the drums is just insane, it’s really a blur back there. So yeah, we do rock out pretty hard, but it’s not specific to a certain time, it’s just when we feel it. There are shows where I don’t do much because I just don’t feel it. We don’t cater it to the songs, specifically.

The whole dynamic contrast thing is definitely apart of it, but it’s not compulsory. If you take a piece like “The Difference Between Wind and Rain,” there are no evidently loud bits in that. It’s generally quiet and rather melodic. How did you see and fit something like this in the context of the quiet-loud thing?

That was a choice, we definitely chose to leave it constrained. We’re exhibiting restraint because we always knew that we could go loud, but felt that it wasn’t necessary for the piece, and ultimately, what makes sense for the piece is what makes sense in the end. I mean, with that piece, we even inserted that bit of silence in it, purposely. In fact, Morgan even wanted to make the silence thirty seconds, but that didn’t feel like a smart move on a first release.

That chunk of silence is notorious in a lot of pieces I think, “Crawlspace” comes to mind and the big Sigur Ros track from Agaetis Byrjun that translates to “A Nice Day for Airstrikes.” Especially live, the latter song really tests the audience’s ability to hold their applause and know whether or not it’s over. I’m sure it’s no different with “Wind and Rain.”

We actually had “Wind and Rain” played on a radio show called Now Like Photographs, and it was funny because at that silence part, they actually ended the track and said “okay, that was ‘The Difference Between Wind and Rain’,” and I was like “but it’s not over!” So we did manage to trick people, and that was kind of the idea that we were going for, to cause a little gyration.

Going back to “To the Roof…”, I’ve always been curious about the title. Was that a significant thing when you guys were writing it? Did you have a story in mind that you were trying to tell?

 Not specifically. The thing that we do with song titles is that whoever brings the principle part to the room when we get together to jam, that person in essence gets the right to name the song. We want it to be democratic, and plus we don’t really care too much, so long as it’s not something totally stupid. I think Jeff was the one who brought “To the Roof! Let’s Jump and Fall…” complete with the exclamation point. I don’t know why he did, but I liked it so I didn’t ask. And in a way, I didn’t want to know either, because I never want to tell people what our song titles mean, or our music in general. It detracts from the personal feeling you get when you listen to it. For me personally though, on “To the Roof!”, and I’m making this up now, there’s that crescendo so it’s like someone climbing up stairs, and then jumping off, and then the quiet pretty bit could be the falling, and joy of falling because you’re thinking nothing can hurt you, until of course the crash at the end.

Yeah, I think the fact that you just made that up now yet it still fits the title so aptly proves how flexible the music medium and its creativity is, and the immense imagery something as seemingly arbitrary as a song title can put on the sound. Like, if you renamed it to “Going to the Zoo,” I’m sure a narrative could form from that as well.

When talking about song titles, I think Mogwai are interesting to talk about, because they really don’t give a shit. They name their songs like “Golden Porsche,” what the hell is that? On the other hand, some of their song titles are quite moving, like “May Nothing But Happiness Come Through Your Door,” which is probably in my top 3 Mogwai songs. The title really conveys for me what the song is about: the thought that even for someone who may not care about you, you wish them well. It’s simple but genuinely emotional. That’s what I like about our song titles, and some of the song titles on the new record we strive to have that aspect.

Song titles, we agree, are pretty significant. I’ve always thought album art was just as important. What are your thoughts?

I think it’s absolutely significant. I find that a lot of bands take album art for granted, and they don’t think it’s a big deal, but it’s a huge deal. For me, personally as a consumer, and as a fan, the album art could almost be the biggest deal, the deal breaker even. I mean, the last Pearl Jam record that came out had a fucking avocado on the cover, and I was like “are you kidding?”

Us as a band, and a lot of other bands I know, we really do focus a lot on the album art. Even though the art on our first record was really minimalistic, we actually care a lot about it. It was centrally around the idea of doing a stamp, because we didn’t have any money (actually, we still don’t [laughs]), so we didn’t want to pay disc makers or whoever so we decided to just get stamps. And I think it worked out great, I think it’s a very bold image with just the name and title. It’s very bold, it contrasts well with the rest of the packaging, and it’s very DIY which always plays into the whole post-rock scene mentality, and it’s just classic.

What you certainly don’t want is for some poorly chosen album art to ruin what could’ve been an otherwise exceptional record.

Thinking about an album like The Tired Sounds of Stars of the Lid, the yellow glow and that very specific trace of a burn at the bottom of the cover. It makes you wonder where that burn is coming from, and why it’s doing that. There’s so much more beyond it.

This is why for the new record, we’re doing very specific album art.

So moving on nicely, all this mention about the new record, can you share a little bit about that?

Indeed, we’ve finished recording our first full-length, dogs. It’s a ten track album, pushing about 65 minutes, so it’s pretty lengthy. That’s one small issue I guess, is the album length. I remember Sigur Ros’s ( ) was quite long, and you also got albums like Lift Yr. Skinny which span two discs. For me though, ( ) was perfect, I thought there was nothing wrong with that album and I don’t care how long it is, and if people are complaining that stuff’s too long then, really, don’t listen to it. I know Caspian got ripped for that on The Four Trees, “oh it’s so long, it’s too long” etc. which really perturbed me, because we consciously wrote a 65 minute record of which I’m actually really quite proud. There are ten quality pieces of music that depart from what we had previously done, Curtains specifically. But then again, there may be a bit of bias because I’m involved, and things like subtle changes which may not mean that much for the average listener, for me are huge.

In the end, I look forward to seeing how people receive it, I hope well. One of our good friends, Patrick Murphy, is the producer. He worked with us on Curtains, and has also done all of dogs, and is a phenomenal person at what he does. Another good friend of ours, an artist, Bodin Sterba, has done all of the artwork, and he is extremely talented. We didn’t even realize he was so good until he was recommended by Murphy, and just the sketches that he came up with off the bat from what Morgan suggested for the concept of the album art were amazing.

It’s also cool that we’re keeping it local and within the family, because Murphy and Bodin are in a funk/jazz band called Heliphino, who are local from LA and our really good friends.

We're releasing dogs in early December on CD and vinyl, through the Mylene Sheath, a fantastic label who did the vinyl for Curtains. We're very excited to get some feedback and finally unleash it to our fans and supporters that have been patient with our yearlong production process. As for upcoming shows, we're eyeing a potential Boston date with Caspian in late December. It's a tough one with them being in Europe, but we're trying very hard to get it done. After that, we're hoping to rock a national tour in 2009. I mean, who doesn't wanna see the country from a van?!

The Silent Ballet would like to thank Steve for his time. The debut LP, dogs, is scheduled for release later in 2008 through the Mylene Sheath.