The Children… and the Long Road to A Sudden Craving

Self-proclaimed gothic-blues-ambient collective The Children… have a stellar origin story. 

Back in the mid ’90s, vocalist and lyricist Michael Wiener wound up interviewing electronics noisemaker Jim Coleman of downtown New York City noise-rock OGs Cop Shoot Cop for a magazine article. From there, the two struck up a friendship and, ultimately, years later, their very own experimental project called The Children… would be conceived. Throw in Coleman’s ex-Cop Shoot Cop bandmate, drummer and multi-instrumentalist Phil Puleo (currently of Swans) into the fray and the core trio was rounded out, making for a supergroup of sorts.

With all the noise-rock cred Coleman and Puleo bring to the table, one would expect The Children… to be cut from a similar grimy cloth. Not the case. In fact, their sophomore full-length, titled A Sudden Craving is more beautiful and meditative than brutal, although there are certainly feedback-driven fits and spurts and electronics streaks and splatter that form a glorious sonic din. Theirs is a ritualistic-type experimentalism that is spearheaded by Wiener’s idiosyncratic whispers and wails and the doom-folk picking and strumming that is downright hypnotic. Swans enthusiasts should certainly take note (guitarist Norman Westberg guests on A Sudden Craving).   

But it was a long and winding path for A Sudden Craving to even see the light of day. Recorded in the early-to-mid-2010’s, it sat on a shelf as the members of The Children… splintered across the country: Coleman to Savannah, Georgia with his focus on new band Human Impact, Puleo in Chicago and always on the road with Swans and Wiener still in New York plus other core members, John Nowlin (bass), Rock Savage (drums) and Kirsten McCord (cello) also figuring in the mix and playing crucial roles. 

A gathering (Puleo’s wedding) also served as a Children… reunion, setting the stage, finally, for the wheels to be put in motion for A Sudden Craving to be released.

The Rock & Roll Globe had the pleasure of catching Wiener and Coleman at home on Zoom to talk about the origins of The Children…, the road to A Sudden Craving, possible live shows and more.      

 

A Sudden Craving is out now on Erototox Decodings

    

A Sudden Craving has been in the works for a while, as in years. What took so long?

Jim Coleman: So, we recorded most of it through the mid-2010s and it was a long process recording it–it was spread out. We had a couple of different sessions: one upstate in an artist studio in Sutherland County  (New York) and we did one session at Hoboken Recorders but also a lot of pickup recordings, like at musicians’ apartments and stuff like that. It was really spread out and took a while then it sat there for a little bit. It was, like, “Okay, I don’t know if anything’s going to happen with that.” Chandra (Shukla) from Erototox (Decodings) came in and said, “Hey, I’d be interested in putting this out” so we revisited it and whipped it into shape, which didn’t take much. It’s funny, when we left it off, I was like, “There’s so much production work left to do on this thing.” But by the time we got around to it, it was some edits but, really, the imperfections spoke to us as well. 

Michael Wiener: It has all the more impact and resonance. It’s just when you have to be patient in life and when you have to wait for something to form and coalesce, it’s exciting. So we’re trying to breathe and just let it flow and let it just go out there and see where it goes.

 

One would think that you might want to experiment with it, plug in overdubs, add new effects and sheen but the record didn’t need much, just some edits, even after sitting on the shelf since the 2010’s?  

Coleman: Yeah, although the recording was multi-staged. We’d spend days in one location and record stuff and walk away from that then get that into shape because a lot of it came out of longer improv sessions into distilling what was there. Then working with other musicians that we’d bring in as well. Kirsten McCord has a lot of cello on there and that’s really integral to it. A lot of that was back and forth into the studio and to hone the tracks a little bit. But by the time we came back to it after it sat there for a while, it’s kind of what it was.

Wiener: Perfection in our society is so counterproductive and inhibiting, really, isn’t it?  I’m sure the three of us can probably appreciate music from labels like SST, Homestead Touch & Go and what have you. These classic, seminal records, including some that Jim himself was involved in, whether from New York or from Chicago or what have you, they’re a perfect time capsule. They’re rough jabs, right? The work, the substance, the pure inspiration, needed no, as you put it, sheen and needed no smoothing. It exists and it speaks and breathes and it will always do so. We get a little too hung up, I think, sometimes as human beings with that everything’s always in formation so I love this idea that wherever we stop, boom! Let’s release it and leave it wherever we decide to leave it.

 

Whenever A Sudden Craving was recorded, it sounds great and particularly seamless, the songs really flow into one another.  

Coleman: Nice. That makes me happy to hear it. It was recorded on no budget and some of it was extremely limited in terms of equipment and not recording in studios and stuff like that. It was against odds that we would get where we got. 

 

Let’s go back a little bit. I assume both of you go way back but how did the band actually come together? 

Coleman: Michael, you want to take that?

Wiener: Yeah. Jim and Phil had even earlier routes than I did playing in Cop Shoot Cop and I came in a little later. As a music critic, as a writer, I came into New York, I was writing about bands, I was writing about culture. I had the pleasure of interviewing Cop Shoot Cop for a magazine, which I’m blanking on which one, but we met, we started a conversation there and I think over a slow burn over time we formed this dialogue, Jim and I in particular, the dialogue that serves as the kind of fundament of the whole whole thing. I knew Phil as well but I think that Jim and I, there’s a lot of layers and depth to our dialogue…all of us. 

But Jim and I started that a long time ago and evolved in our lives and both have gone through a lot of transformation in our personal lives and the way we approach life and all kinds of things since then. But the grain, the kind of kernel of that was established early on then we built on that. The Children… itself, it’s been a long process of gradual emergence as well–even to the point of this record. 

So Michael interviewed Cop Shoot Cop, a friendship developed then ultimately you started The Children together…?

Coleman: It was much later. 

Wiener: Yeah, there’s a span of time that elapsed between that, for sure.

 

Was there any overlap with Cop Shoot Cop being active and The Children… doing music? 

Coleman: There wasn’t any overlap. Cop kind of like self-imploded around ‘96. I was doing solo electronic stuff, coming out of that, and also scoring a bunch of indie films and some TV stuff. I had some different collaborations  but it was some years until Michael and I connected creatively. I remember we went into his apartment and it was funny because I was, like, “What the hell are we doing?” and he’s like, “I don’t know. Make some sounds and see what happens.” 

 

Did that go down here in New York?

Coleman: That was in New York. Midtown, on the east side I think. Wasn’t it, Michael?

Wiener: It was in the relatively faceless neighborhood of Murray Hill, the proverbial 53rd and 3rd immortalized by the Ramones. It’s amazing to think back and I’m having a lot of this, at this moment, this feeling of…deja vu but it isn’t quite the right word. But we come out of a collective public health crisis and here we are savoring our connections and looking back on the history that lies before and after certain events and I’m finding myself, at a certain time of life, appreciating it. And to think that Jim and I, there we were at 53rd and 3rd, playing on an eight-track or whatever we were doing and here we are, now, talking about it is incredible, having our first really proper release. It’s a mind-blowing concept. When you’re talking meeting up in the late aughts and now here we are. That is something that I have a lot of gratitude for and appreciation and just savoring that feeling, that moment of recognition. 

 

Were you all living in New York at the time the record started coming together? When about was that?

Wiener: It’s the mid-to-late 2010’s for this record. 

Coleman: Michael was in New York, I was out in Jersey and Phil was probably in Jersey at that time – I think it was split between New Jersey and New York. Kirsten was in New York and John and Rock were in the New York area.

 

The songs on A Sudden Craving seem to have a free-improvisational element but the songs also sound composed at the same time. 

Coleman: They all came out of these improv sessions. It’s funny, I think all music does, right? No matter what, songwriting is like “Let’s try this idea, what does this sound like compared to this?” There’s always this going into the unknowns, trial and error and intuitive seeing how that goes. But this was more grounded in that than other bands and songwriting processes that I’ve embarked on, for sure. Definitely we strive for that kind of openness and there’s no bad ideas. There might be down the road but right now there’s no bad ideas–just see what works. Basically, if something’s going to work,  it’ll live, it’ll survive. We’ll  latch on to it and say, like, “Okay, what else can work with that?” We record as we go and then there’s a lot of editing involved as well. 

Wiener: We’re not really, dare I say, echoing too much. We’re not really echoing too many other artists. We’re voracious. I think all of us are big fans of music and culture and take in a lot of stuff. There may be some things subliminally present, some things that we echo or that we are reminiscent of. But I definitely don’t think we’re emulating anything. If  anything, it’s subliminal. We all have antennae, everything’s kind of osmosis. So, hopefully, there’s a dialogue happening in culture and society, and we bleed off each other, feed off of each other and become part of the fabric. But that being said, dare I say, this record is pretty unique and I think you can tell that we stayed pure, we stayed with the moment, we stayed present, listening to each other responding to each other, seeing where it went, rather than trying a riff that we heard before. 

 

Phil is in Swans and the record conveys a similar feeling I’ve gotten from Swans’ music: emotion and physicality and it’s also cinematic. Both of you have worked in film so you have that visual, soundtrack-like vibe. 

Coleman: I can see that. I really love something that Swans does that I would take as something that we’ve investigated, is that really landing in a space and just stay in there. They do that so deeply. 

 

All of you are spread out geographically. In terms of operating as a band and playing shows, how do you approach that? I know bands not living in close proximity is not exactly a new concept and they make it work. 

Coleman: We’ll have to see. We’re in discussion about shows and that’s the puzzle piece to put together. We were more geographically connected while we were recording the record and we still have a lot of ideas that are totally pertinent and usable. What happens next? That’s the question.

Wiener: Listen, where there’s a will, there’s a way. It’s up to us. The response to the record and our dialogue with each other, we’re all in this together. We were able to communicate and empower ourselves to do whatever we want to do. I think about it in terms of we went through everything, referring back to the public health crisis; it’s a period of, first isolation and atomization and a kind of nomadic quality of life. I think we’re all still readjusting and finding our way to settle back into ourselves in a certain way. So, I think it’s really important for people to connect and to have live shows and to create things together, and so on and so forth.

But, in the making of this particular record, we already had this stuff recorded many years before. We met up at a wedding and we were signed at Phil’s wedding at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. A wonderful wedding in which Jim and I were actually both instrumental, dare I say, in the ceremony. That was an example, indeed. It was the first wedding I went to during the pandemic, it was the first flight I’d taken. There we were all gathering together and all of a sudden things happen. Chandra expresses interest in the record and we start working on that so it’s just interesting how things…and I think it’s important, how we can all be in different places but we can find ways to come together. I hope it will happen this year as well. 

 

So Phil’s wedding put The Children… record in motion. It wouldn’t have happened without it? 

Coleman: Pretty safe to say, yeah. Everybody getting together in the same place kick-started it for sure.

 

VIDEO: The Children… “Smothered My Traces”

 

There’s a first Children… record. What was the evolution like from that first album to the current one?

Wiener: It’s a different stage of development, it’s a different kind of record and we’ve grown. It’s like the Neanderthal Age progressing into the age of flight or something. It’s a giant leap and we’ve evolved dramatically. There are interesting things there on the first one. It’s an art pop record that has an almost kind of restrained quality. It feels a little rigid and a little calculated in a way, like it’s trying for something in a way. It also has some beautiful music on it and some really interesting lyricism. In a way, it’s more melodic and the songcraft is more evident on the surface. But this one’s much more subtle, nuanced, complex, expansive, rich and textured and so on. It’s a different kind of animal. It’s a huge leap. 

Coleman: For me, there was some stuff in terms of differences in songwriting and the depth and reach and expansiveness of it. But, I think what was so different, was production value. At that point, I feel like I was producing more and in this album, I had that inclination and that tendency but I think enough time had passed between when we recorded it and when I listened to it again, where I was like, “Ah, there’s beauty in there, there it is.” The roughness of it was more endearing.

 

As far as A Sudden Craving is concerned, the songs sound tailor-made to be performed in the live setting. I know you guys don’t perform live often but gigs you have done are unique. Can you touch on that experience? 

Coleman: The (past) live shows were pretty open. We can touch on the songs but we’re really leaning into this open space of improv. They included theatrical elements, they included multiple projections and weather balloons and in non-traditional spaces. So, they were fun, they took a lot of effort but they were outside the norm. 

 

If you do play live in support of this new record, will it be a more conventional show since it takes a lot of time and effort to put a theatrical-type experience together? 

Coleman: I don’t think so. I think we’ll still reach (laughs). 

Wiener: I agree but I also think that we’re more confident as collaborators and musically that I feel that we might home in a little bit closer to focusing on the attunement to each other, the stage dialogue and the musicianship. Listen, I’m a trained actor, I’m in theater, I’m in film. Jim makes film. He directed this beautiful video for “Smothered My Traces.” Phil went to Rhode Island School of Design and is a beautiful artist as you can see from the LP packaging. We were liable to bring all these multidisciplinary aspects to a show but I do think that we’re a lot more confident as a band, too, even though we had a number of years off from playing together (laughs). I think we’ll find it. I also think we’ve evolved and we’re just more comfortable in our respective skins at this point. But, yeah, it’ll be interesting to see. It just depends on what opportunities we’re given or budget or situationally to see what we would do. 

 

One thing that strikes me about the songs on A Sudden Craving is their strangely catchy. They stick in your head in a weird way. You may be thinking I’m listening to some other record. 

(Laughing)

Wiener: Really? Great!

 

You may be thinking I’m listening to some other record. 

Coleman: It’s funny. It’s not by design but it’s there…

Wiener: …which I love but it’s not by design. I love that it’s not by design because we’re just following our instincts. There’s no attempt to and that makes it more powerful that way, though.

 

A Sudden Craving seems to have a conceptual thread line through and recurring themes in terms of lyrics.

Coleman: Musically, there’s different kinds of themes that we touch on, kind of emotional resonances and realities. But that’s through exploration. 

Wiener: I like to speak of that in holistic terms. We call this band The Children ellipsis The Children dot-dot-dot… we’re leaving a pregnant space, a liminal space of possibility. It’s called “A Sudden Craving,” it’s about impulse. It’s about trusting your impulses. It’s about primal instinct. I think that there’s also that piece of the polarity of our society between the kind of the prurient and the lurid and then the puritanical and the rigid. And it’s like this idea that as children, if we’re healthy children and if we’re in a healthy family structure, we have the opportunity to get comfortable with our hidden superego and ego and find the balance and not be ashamed of our impulses and our instincts. But, if we’re not, and I think our society in some ways is a little toxic and a little unhealthy but gladly there’s a little more focus on people’s mental health these days. But if we’re not, it can go very much off the rails. 

I think that’s what The Children… are about and on this album… I’m writing often in these poetic fragments, I like to think they’re a little bit Cobain-esque but in my own way, my version of that. There’s a certain literary quality to it. They’re not linear, the narratives are not linear, it might even be a little impenetrable at times. But there’s no specific storytelling arc that’s very clear but there are themes that are running through it. There’s a confrontation of this spiritual, there’s a confrontation of the primal. I’d like to think that we’re looking back, retrospectively, with wisdom as grown men, as humans, as adult humans at finding, again, the primal and finding the comfort in that and finding our way towards the light through the darkness–because you gotta go through, right? You can’t alight it, you can’t go around it. You have to journey through. So, I think that this record is about finding being in your skin, being comfortable in your skin, finding a settled place of being present, just as we’re talking about in our collaboration, being attuned to each other, you have to be present, to be able to be attuned and to have a functioning society and a functioning family and community. We’re trying to help unearth that, excavate that and expose that.