Pop As Art With Sealions

Here’s the thing about pop music: it’s not easy. Why can’t making pop music be art? In all honesty writing a pop song that people connect to and loosen their tight locked hips to is harder than getting rid of a body. Sealions are trying to create their own perfect concoction fusing ‘90s club beats and dreamscape guitar riffs. As the band is putting the finishing touches on their first full length Strange Veins one thing they’ve learned is that a live drummer is a key part of the formula.

“The difference was like night and day,” Joey Patino (vocals/guitar/keyboard) remarked on when the band added drummer John Craig to the live set up, rounded out by bassist Keith E. The band’s core is Patino and vocalist/guitarist Jason Travis, and for a time a Sealions’ show was just the two.

Joey Patino

“They’re kids that are super into electro music and we’re fine with that. But the average person (when we added a drummer) were like ‘God these guys are legit now.’” Patino laughs, “It’s a weird thing.”

When I asked the band what’s a formula for a great pop song, silence made a brief appearance in the room. “I guess if we figured out that we’d be a lot more famous than we already are,” Patino smiled, quick to challenge a rule of pop. “I don’t necessarily think they have to be short.  There are some great pop gems that are out there: Prince tunes and Led Zeppelin. Stuff like that is much longer than three-minutes and they are totally pop.”

John Craig

Part of a good pop song is the self-indulgence of it; it’s creation has to be for the satisfaction of the artist, if not, then pop as an insult is in order. Before the full band line up Patino and Travis mulled around in varied Atlanta bands. Never finding the sonics they wanted and struggling to find other players in tune with their vision they opted to keep Sealions a duo. A pop mixture uncompromised and hard to categorize at times.

“There’s not one specific sound really,” Travis explained. “We want every song to be individual. A lot of bands just have a formula they just do, but each one of our songs — and every band says this, but we really try to make each one its own entity. I think that’s why some go one way and some another.”

Jason Travis

One thing Sealions don’t have a formula for is getting each crowd lost in the moment and dancing. As much as clubs are a part of Atlanta this is a big city, which means folded arms and bobbing heads make up most audiences. “It’s almost impossible,” says Patino on the struggle, the entire band laughing but in agreement that their most ready to throw down crowds have been at the Highland Inn Ballroom.

“You either get a crowd that wants to do it or doesn’t,” says Craig. The hope is when Strange Veins is out in the fall they can look back on the shows behind them, as the ones they had to fight to get movement, before people knew their lush pop gems.

Keith E.

Sealions will be playing our super fine launch party at The Earl on August 1st with The Selmanaires and The Coathangers.

Photo Credit: Tim Song