Interview: Paul Hammer from Savoir Adore
Music would seem like the only option for Paul Hammer’s career. His father, Jan Hammer, was a multi-award winning composer who worked with some of the industry’s biggest names like Mick Jagger, Carlos Santana and Jeff Beck. However, Paul wasn’t going to be stuck in his father’s shadow, instead opting to helm indie-pop-rock project Savoir Adore. The New York outfit’s latest album, ‘The Love That Remains’ dropped last month and we sat down for a chat with Paul about influences, paper worlds and how the Olympics were related to the album’s creation.
Firstly, congratulations on the album! What was the story behind the creation of ‘The Love That Remains’?
There are sort of two parts of it. There’s the part that came from our last album, and then there’s the part that’s a little more autobiographical. Our last album was a little bit of a fairytale fantasy about two characters who fall in love, but then their love is too dangerous and chaotic and it falls apart. Our main character is left all alone. I’d always imagined that our next album would be from that character’s perspective on some sort of journey.
The funny thing was that about the same time that I started thinking about this record, we played a festival in Brazil, and I met a girl, and now we’re married. She was a fan and now she’s my wife. She told me this phrase that’s only in Portuguese, “Saudades”, and it basically translates as “the love that remains”. At the time it was amazing for me ‘cause I had been travelling so much, and I hadn’t had a massive relationship for a long time, and between meeting her and learning this phrase, and thinking about what I wanted to do with the album, it was impossible to ignore all the parallels. From there I decided that this record had to be about finding that love again and everything that that means.
It’s a great album, and we’re loving so many of the tracks on there! The first single from the album, Giants has a very big and grandiose sound to it, what sort of musical influences were you drawing upon when you were writing and recording the track?
Woooh! It’s interesting with that song, because it was sort of the biggest thing we’d done, and in a weird way it was almost like a challenge to try something different. I think the biggest reference we had specifically for that track was the band Son Lux, and there’s a song called Change is Everything, which i just love because the whole idea was very aggressive phrasing. It comes across as rock music that feels almost a little bit orchestral.
When we were writing that song and arranging it out, we kind of wanted it to have that same feeling with pulses of percussion followed by something that’s just a little more anthemic. The other record around that time was Bleachers, Jack Antonoff’s band, which is the same kind of thing. They’re very sweet love songs but they’re built into these anthems, and I was really into that idea for our record.
That song’s been in our head’s for a few weeks! There are some pretty diverse sounds on the rest of the album too, were there any other influences, musical or otherwise that you drew from in the album’s formation?
That was the interesting part about working on this record and taking my time with it. I would say the biggest influence was listening to a lot of new dance music. I think it’s kind of funny when you hear a bands that play to both crowd. We were playing with a lot of bands in the club scene, but then we also played with a lot of bands that were more rock and guitar driven. I tried to combine to those two worlds. I would say that some of my favourite bands often are the ones that do that.
It was sort of a combination of listening to a lot of dance records. And then there was like Blood Orange and that was sort of a bigger influence on the R n B and smoother parts. The song Lover’s Wake was very much influenced by listening to Blood Orange a lot. That’s what’s interesting. Looking back at it now, I had a lot of theses different moments, where I would be writing from a dance perspective, but then a song like Giants I would be writing from a rock perspective. Trying to make it all cohesive was the last challenge, that was sort of the production and arrangement stage, but I hope I got about 90% there.
The music video for Giants has a very cool visual style with the lighting and the simple but effective motion. Did you craft the song with the visual aspect in mind or did that come after?
That one came a little more after. It’s funny, the song Lover’s Wake I had the music video idea as as soon as I wrote the chorus, but for Giants it was a little bit trickier, because I was torn. It was such a huge anthemic feeling song. How did I want the music video to enhance it? I ended up going more with the meaning of the song which is confronting your vulnerability and your individuality. The music video came out of that idea, and it’s almost a theatre piece, I think.
It would seem like you have quite the knack for creating fun visuals, as one of your older tracks, Regalia has some of the most stunning shots in it. Where did you come up with the idea for that clip?
That was an interesting collaboration! The artist. who created all those paper worlds that were the other half of that video – I grew up with her – I’d always wanted to do a video with her. She’s an animator, named Hayley Morris and we was doing some amazing videos. I finally was like “do you want to do this video”. Originally it was just going to be all the paper world stuff, but she didn’t think she would be able to make enough in time, so she asked if we could have the band playing in that world too, so we made a concept out of it. She worked her butt off and handmade every little sculpture and we merged the animated world with the performance.
Obviously, the Olympics are going on at the moment in Rio, and Brazil was very intimately linked in the core idea for the album. Does seeing these images from Rio and Brazil bring back any of the memories or emotions that are at the centre of this release?
Rio is just the most visually stunning cities in the world. As soon as you see Copacabana or the Sugar Loaf Mountain or anything, its so nostalgic. It’s kind of crazy, especially enhanced because I went back and spent so much time with my wife there. I just can’t help but think of playing there the first time, playing in Rio and travelling around. It’s been cool and I’ve been watching a tonne of it to get that feeling.
How did you find the experience of playing South by Southwest earlier this year?
It was especially fun this year! I always say that South By Southwest can be the best of times or the worst of times. If you go and don’t have experience, and take on too many shows, or party too much, or you’re not staying in the right part of town, it can be really miserable. Just cause there’s nowhere to hide. It’s 90 – 100°F [30 – 37°C], you don’t get soundchecks and there are just people throwing beers. That’s why it can be fun, but if you don’t know how to take it easy, it can be pretty rough.
This year was a really nice exception, because we were finally in a position where we could play better shows, so we weren’t too overextended. It was probably the best South By Southwest experience we’ve had.
Finally, you’ve been surrounded by music most of your life, and your father has quite an extensive musical history. What draws you towards music as a medium for your art and expression?
It was almost just a natural progression. Growing up, watching my Dad composing and also just working with synthesisers at home every week; as soon as I had those in my disposal – my dad bought me my first synthesiser when I was in high school, as well as getting a guitar and writing sons with friends – it just made sense. As soon as i started having emotions of any kind, I would go to an instrument. When I went to college, it was originally not for music, but then when I moved to New York, I went to a couple of open mic nights and I thought “well I have to do this”. As soon as I started writing songs and performing them this way, it was almost unavoidable. A beautiful part of it too is the community and meeting people. It just had to be that way, and then from there the rest is history!
Unfortunately, there are no plans for the band to tour Australia in the foreseeable future, however, head below to check out the videos for Giants and the amazing Regalia!
