"BUMMER is the people's rock album."
I met Luke Gruntz a few months ago, in the middle of October. He was very kind, quiet, and respectful. His band's music was very loud, honest, and good. cleopatrick's music has meant so much to me for almost 3 years - I love it because their music expresses how I feel. Their music reminds you that you're not alone in life or in what you experience.
The following is an interview I did with Luke over email (also done a few months ago, so some of these questions are dated). I pestered him with my questions on the inner workings of BUMMER, cleopatrick, and himself. He answered them thoroughly, and what I can only assume, happily.
1) How was your summer?
my summer was pretty good!! we put out our debut album!!
2) What was the journey to BUMMER like?
we started writing the first BUMMER tracks back in 2018, from which it was a long, challenging, and exciting journey toward its release this past summer. we took a lot of these songs on the road with us over the course of the writing process. we wanted to make sure they felt right in the live setting before we tracked anything. recording BUMMER was an absolute blast. we learned a lot about our band in that studio.
3) What are your favorite tracks off BUMMER?
i think my fav is 2008. that song means a lot to me. we all had so much fun producing it together, and i think it signifies a new energy to be explored by this band.
4) How did cleopatrick become cleopatrick?
our friends liked the songs we made up, so we drove around playing them as much as we could.
5) There are film references in some of the songs on BUMMER like "Kubrick stare" and "Wilhelm scream," what influenced that? What are some of your favorite films?
i like watching movies a lot. i get nearly the same thing out of a good film as i do out of a good album. though, i'm not sure i can say what exactly influenced those lines. those references just helped me get my point across in the way i wanted. oh and my favourite movie of all time is Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2
6) What's been some of your favorite cities to play shows in, and why? What do you love about them?
London, UK. hands down. every single time we have played London, it has been the most iconic cleopatrick show of all time. the energy in those rooms is unparalleled. i have no idea why. i think culturally they just love guitar music in the exact same way ian and i do. we are so grateful they have let us into their club.
7) Explain the tom holland thing. Is it an inside joke?
we are big fans.
8) How do you feel about the response to BUMMER so far?
it's been awesome. we finally got to get on the road and play these songs live for people last month, and every single night was absolutely epic. BUMMER is the people's rock album.
9) There's a line i love in "NO SWEAT" - "I'm tryna stay gold but it's getting hard," which automatically makes me think of the line, "Stay gold Ponyboy," from S.E. Hilton's novel, The Outsiders. Was that line influenced by The Outsiders, and has any other literature influenced your lyrics?
good catch! yea that's an outsiders reference. truthfully, literature influenced nearly all of my lyrics on this album. growing up, i found a lot of myself through reading. so of course as i hyper-analyze myself across BUMMER, a number of literary references came out through my poetry. in a lot of ways these coming-of-age characters from my favourite books handed me huge parts of who i am today. infact, there's actually another novel that inspired my lyrics so much that, from the moment we started to write BUMMER, i had planned to name the album after this books protagonist. it was only within the last week or so of prepping the album for release that i decided such an obvious reference was corny, and we changed the title to BUMMER.
10) BUMMER was created with the help of friends ZIG MENTALITY, what was that like?
those guys are wise beyond their years. i think making our first album by ourselves + with the help of our best buddies was the smartest decision we have ever made. together we made an album that is far from perfect, but holds this undeniably boysterous, underground, self-betting energy that is central to who we are as musicians and artists. BUMMER is the beginning of something special for this band.
12) Outside of your own music, what have been your favorite releases this past year?
VINCE STAPLES by vince staples
ALPHA by charlotte day wilson
WILDS by andy shauf
GLOW ON by turnstile
TALK MEMORY by badbadnotgood
13) What have been some of your most memorable experiences so far in your musical career? Have you met any rock legends, like Mick Jagger or Tom Morello yet?
lol we actually did meet Tom Morello at a festival once. our first big tour (the youth tour) is an incredible memory for us. same with our first shows in the UK and EU. yo actually another good one is meeting BROCKHAMPTON at lollapalooza. ian, sanjay, and i listened to them obsessively back in 2017. then when we played lolla in 2018 we were on the same stage as them, and got to hang a bit backstage. it was really surreal to go from blasting saturation 1 through a bluetooth speaker at sanjay's college apartment, to shaking merlyn woods hand and seeing them perform from backstage.
14) What are your tour essentials - stuff you absolutely HAVE to bring with you, outside of the basic stuff like clothes and IDs?
well for 2021/2022 we are stocked up on hand sanitizer and extra masks. i personally like to have a couple books with me, my headphones, a journal, and my op-1.
15) What helps you overcome writer's block? What do you do when you're in a funk and can't make yourself write anything, how do you clear your head and get the ink flowing again?
i haven't quite figured out a good method for this. i'm the kind of artist that really can't force creativity. so if i find myself hitting a wall, i will typically just step away and focus on something else.
16) What are some of your favorite places to eat at while on tour?
yo ok we just went to this sandwich place in chicago called RAMMYS SUB CONTRACTORS and i am telling you right now this place made me the best sandwich i have ever had in my life.
17) If you could give new bands one piece of advice, what would it be?
do stuff that you think is cool. don't try to be anyone else. fight that imposter syndrome: nobody knows what they're doing. do NOT look to the "industry" for approval / a golden ticket - they don't know what's going on either.
you are an innumerable collection of vibrating particles, briefly coalesced and endowed with divine sentience as you float through nothingness, pinned down to a rock in a universe governed by a few fundamental laws that keep you locked in a cold, silent, relativistic dance around the very same ever-burning nuclear inferno in which your being, and everything you know was forged. all this, as you now attempt to comprehend, quantize, and ultimately deliver unto the cosmos a perspective of which, from the beginning, could have only ever been uniquely yours. just have fun!
18) Lastly, why did you choose music? If you weren't in music, what else would you be doing with your time?
i chose music because it made me feel like myself. when ian and i play music together, i feel like i'm in the right place, doing the right thing. it's hard to imagine my life without it. in my spare time, i've always been really fascinated with science; stuff like cosmology, astrophysics, thermodynamics, quantum physics, and a bunch of other super nerdy shit. maybe without music i'd be poking around more in those fields. either that, or i'd be back to making macchiatos in downtown cobourg. not sure.