(Daylight's For The Birds Official Website) -- Philip Wann and Jay Giampietro, the leaders of Daylight's for the Birds, have an obsessive love for film. The downtrodden songs on the band's debut release Trouble Everywhere have film influences scattered in the music and lyrics. "Since our songwriting process works out that we always start with music before lyrics and vocal melodies we often use films as a reference point to each other for the tone and feel of the song," says Giampietro.
The sixth track on Trouble Everywhere, "Early Summer", is a perfect example of how Daylight's for the Birds utilize film as a reference point for its songs. "After Jay and I laid down the music, we decided the song felt like the film 'Early Summer' (LINK) by Yasujiro Ozu," said Wann. Wann and Giampietro gave Claudia DeHeza a burn of the music so she could come up with the lyrics. DeHeza came back with personal lyrics about her life at the time, and it told the same story of the movie "Early Summer". Here's where it gets crazy – Claudia has never seen the film "Early Summer"!
Both Wann and Giampietro wrote some of the songs Trouble Everywhere as direct inspirations from watching a film. For instance, Wann tried to capture the essence of the film "In the Mood for Love" (LINK) by Wong Kar Wai moments after watching it. The result was the seventh track on Trouble Everywhere, "Bad Sleep Well".
While most people are out partying until 4AM in the city that never sleeps the members of Daylight's For the Birds used the night time from December 2005-April 2006 to create the band's own brand of cinematic, atmospheric music. "At the time of making this record, all of us were going through some sort of break-up of long term relationships both personally and professionally. I think a lot of that personal emotion that everyone was feeling individually came out during the writing process," says Daylight's For the Birds drummer Brad Conroy, who used to be the drummer for The Boggs. For the core members of Daylight's For the Birds, the night provided the perfect setting and outlet to express the heavy emotional baggage that comes with the end of what started as a new beginning. With the end of a relationship or a professional venture, there's suddenly a chunk of time that used to be filled by another person or venture that is all of the sudden free.
The members of Daylight's For the Birds decided to take the newfound free time to converge and play songs that expressed the emotional heaviness of their current individual states. The quiet of night time in studio's and basement apartments provided the perfect setting to find the melody and words in the cacophony in the band member's heads. "The record is all about the vulnerability of nights spent alone when you're lost in your own head," says Daylight's For the Birds co-founder and guitarist Jay Giampietro. During the recording process, the band's thoughts drifted freely into a cloud of noise. In the wee hours of the morning, Daylight's For the Birds collectively came up with several personal songs about love, loss and new beginnings. The end result is a new beginning with Daylight's For the Birds' debut release, Trouble Everywhere.
Don't forget to check out Daylight's for the Birds at Galapagos in Brooklyn on 11/17 with The Real Ones, Ashford Breaks and The Affair. Please e-mail Katy Martineau for guest list.
Philip Wann's top three films:
1. "The Last Life in the Universe" – Pen-ek Ratanaruang. "If I could make a song that feels like this film I could retire. It's calming, transcendent, funny and heartbreaking. Also this is the most perfect love story I've ever seen, which could probably tell you more about me than I want anyone to know."
2. "The Mother and the Whore" – Jean Eustache. "The story of my life, Jean Eustache killed himself right after he finished this one."
3. "Manhattan" / "Stardust Memories" – Woody Allen. "Woody Allen's films embody everything I love (and hate) about New York City. The great love of my life."
Jay Giampietro's Top Three Films:
1. "The Loves of a Blonde" – Milos Forman-this is my favorite film by far-gentle and harsh, joyous and sad, it's a really gentle and sweet depiction of the way people make themselves vulnerable when falling in love.
2. "In a Year of 13 Moons" – Rainer Werner Fassbinder
3. "Stroszek" – Werner Herzog
