CAPYAC Can’t Read *not clickbait*

I sat down in a hotel lobby with Capyac, to talk about their recent and upcoming releases, their tour listening rotation, music videos, and clickbait. Their live show is one-of-a-kind, and full of surprises- just like this interview. 

Delwin: None of us know how to read, so journalism is not like a big thing for us. Yeah, that can be the headline of the interview.

Obie: Capyac can’t read.

Eric: We usually try to dictate the headlines. It's all about dictating the headline.

Delwin: It's just we know the headline comes first.

Eric: Yeah, punchiness. What is it? Clickbait. And as millennials, we need to do everything we can to get people to click. It's all about the clicks

Michaela: Yes, the views and engagement…Ok, I’ll interview now… You guys have started your tour, and last night you played Salt Lake City. I saw you were leading some, it looked like mindfulness exercises. What was that? Crowd engagement?

Eric: Yeah, great question. This goes back to our friend Isabella. 

Obie: Our friend Isabella showed us this book one time in her living room, and her living room is empty except for a big carpet and a few cushions and it’s beautiful.

 Michaela: I feel like I can picture it.

Delwin: Yeah, and a rare Italian leather couch…designer.

Obie: And she showed us this book called ‘Sensory Relaxation.’ It's from the seventies, and it is like a book of poems and small little sensory exercises and  beautiful black and white photography of these people holding themselves

Delwin: Like hippies in the early seventies. It was done at the Esalen Institute.

Eric: That makes so much sense.

Obie: There were a bunch of people on this beautiful bed of grass and they're all just stretching and tapping and it's great. I was very inspired by that book. I now have a copy of my own that Isabella gave me. And I bring it with me everywhere. And I love the fact that everyone last night just kind of dove in.

Delwin: Yeah. We did some of the exercises from the book, and everyone followed along. Everyone was down. Yeah.

Eric: Yeah. Delwin, in an ambiguously German accent, led the exercises. I was just surprised because when I looked out, literally everybody was doing it. I mean, you saw the video…That was me taking it, and I was laughing so hard. I was like, “Okay, I'm gonna ruin this bit,” because they were so stoic and I just was cracking up.

Delwin: Yeah, everyone did it, I was so surprised. 

Obie: Yeah. Well, I think they were just disarmed because we started the show by introducing ourselves as not us, and then we left the stage and came back on the stage as German brothers. It's like no one knew what to do… We were having fun.  

Michaela: Do you think you'll do something similar tonight for Treefort?

Eric:  No, tonight's gonna be real just by the book.

Obie:It's gonna be song after song after song.

Eric: It's actually Speedracer just 10 times in a row. Our most popular song. That's what our management wants. That's what everybody wants.

Delwin: That's what our label wants. Just play the hits. Yeah, just play the one hit. Just play the one hit. You only have one hit.

 Eric: No…We might do things tonight.

Michaela: Okay. I'm excited. And while you’ve been on tour, do you have any songs or music that you've had on repeat? Road trip playlists or any recent favorites?

Eric: It's Margaritaville.

Obie: By Jimmy Buffet

Eric: Because it's a perfect song. It's so good.

Obie: And the more you listen to it, the more you realize how beautiful and perfect it is, yeah.

 Eric: I'm trying to convince them for us to do a bunch of Jimmy Buffett's songs for a Valentine's Day show, like Capyac covers Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville.

Obie: Is it Margaritaville 10 times?…

Delwin: I mean, we've been listening to a lot of good stuff….yesterday. We found Touch Milk.

Eric: Yeah, but we listened to the song twice, which was ‘Riding a Slug.’ By Will Sprott. Yeah.

Eric: It's a really good song and it's a great concept.

Delwin: All of this stuff is good. Yeah. Will Sprott

Obie: The Men I Trust Album and Villagerr.

Eric: There might have been a JT song that we listened to maybe just a couple times. That's all we can say.

Delwin: We've been listening to The Fifth Season by N.K Jemisin, The book. Yeah. We're like three chapters in. Yeah. It's pretty good.

Eric: They got pretty frustrated at me for falling asleep in the first minute of it. We were like, “We're gonna do book clubs. This chapter, we're all gonna listen to it and then we're gonna talk about it.” 30 seconds in and I’m like *snores*

Obie: This was really sly. The first chapter ended, and Eric was like, “So who did you guys get outta that” So someone would just give a full summary,

Delwin: Yeah. But no books in the afternoon…After we eat like, a huge lunch, I need the loudest, fastest possible music, which today was Pedrito Martinez. I think I found him because he did a Tiny Desk Concert like 10 years ago or something. And he's amazing. His band's so good. It's just Cuban jazz.

Obie: It was that and then Aretha Franklin's 1980 album: ‘Aretha’

Delwin: Yeah, she does a cover of the Doobie Brothers’ ‘What Fool Believes.’ It's a perfect song.

Eric: That's 20 answers right there for you.

Michaela: And your latest release was ‘Songs from a Celestial City’…And I know you guys are frequent collaborators with Reggie Watts. How does that friendship, or even your friendship with each other,  influence your creative process, or does it?

Obie: It's been a journey, collaborating with Reggie. His workflow is so much different than ours. The way that we get together and write music is so different than how he approaches a recorded song…Because he's an improviser through and through, all the way. So, the way we became friends was through improvising together. So when we started like, “Hey, let's make music,” they jammed for a few hours. He was just singing amazing hooks in a 30-minute jam. And Delwin was like, “I could make music out of this.” So it's very much like, “let's record the entire jam, and see what's in there.” And then we take from that hook.

Eric: Yeah, but the friendship element is definitely there because I feel like with improv, it’s the more comfortable you are, the more weird or vibey or soulful or intimate, like all the different emotions get amplified because of the comfortability and trust.

Which, I think for us has always been a thing, is we feel like because we’re comfortable with each other, we can do these bits, we can try different things, and most importantly we can kind of like try something and like fuck up and then not like hold it over each other's heads, right?

But what's nice for us at least, is like, I think we're also super prepared and we want the songs to be really good when we play. But friendship is definitely an element there. And when we went on tour with Reggie, we did like five shows in Europe.

The first show, we had never played live with him, and I don't think he had ever really heard our band.

Obie: Yeah. He had never seen us play.

Eric: Which he said on the stage in front of everybody, like, “Oh yeah, playing with these guys. Never seen them before.” And we were like, “Cool.”

At least for me, sharing a stage with this person who I've known for so long and admired is a weird psychological thing, let alone to get up and improv next to him. You know what I mean? It's like you get the imposter syndrome of like, “Who am I to improv next to like one of the greats who's doing it,” you know?

Obie: And then, he's so happy to be there. And I think because we were friends first, before we started touring, we were all just having a lot of fun on stage…Delwin and Reggie are musically linked at birth.

Delwin: Yeah. Even though I'm years younger, but yeah.

Obie: Yeah. The way that they've improvised together is beautiful to watch.

Delwin: Yeah, love Reggie.

Michaela: And with the latest release, how do you feel it's different from past releases? Or do you feel [it’s] different, whether that's within the creative process or performing…

Delwin: Well, I mean, when we wrote Celestial City, we were super inspired because we had all been clubbing together. A lot of our early friendship, we were clubbing. Lots of dancing.

Obie: Lots of dancing. So much dancing. It was very much “Let's make dance music.” …That EP is so fun too…I'm not even dancing, but I ride my bike to it. and I'm on my bike just bouncing to the music.

Delwin: Yeah. But then in the shows, we'd go everywhere…We would be doing some New Wave or R&B, but he loves rock music.

Eric: Yeah, I was gonna say he loves that, like Brit Pop, Brit Punk.  I feel like he does that at every show.

Delwin: It’s just fun to play. It's just fast and loud.

Eric: Yeah. And he’s got a great accent.

Michaela: Awesome. And just in my research for this, I've had so much fun going back and watching your music videos…how much of a hand do you guys have in creating those, and do you have any inspirations?

 Obie: The hands are big. 

Eric: We have many hands.

Delwin: We fight with every director.

Obie: So then we just started directing our own…

Eric: Uh, most of them we've conceptualized ourselves in some form. All of us love to do music videos. It's such a fun side quest, it feels like.

Delwin: I don't even really like watching music videos. I almost never watch them, but they're really fun to make.

Obie: I feel like I watch the most music videos a few weeks before I'm about to direct, like, “What are they doing? What are the kids doing?” Directing is super fun. So yeah. And we've had some amazing directors.

Delwin: Even when we brought directors in, we were definitely throwing ideas into the pot.

Obie: Eric does a lot of the production so the visual language of the videos is a lot about Eric.

Eric: I love building weird props. I feel like that's where we bonded. In the very beginning, we were building some giant fruit props for a music video. And it's just  a good way to spend an afternoon. They want an eight-foot pineapple? Paper Mache, I'm gonna make that. Oh, you got $5 for the budget?  Fucking hell, even better. You keep the money. I'll take the challenge.

Obie: Yeah, I'll pay you.

Eric: I’ll pay you, yep. Take my pants!

Michaela: …And do you guys have a favorite music video of someone else's?

Delwin: Most recently, I love the ‘Eusexua’ videos.

Eric: Or what's the other really chaotic AI one? 

Obie: A$AP Rocky did the AI video.

Eric: That video is amazing. That was crazy. It's so chaotic. Yeah.

Obie: The one that I was obsessed with was the Fontaines D.C. one. The one with the angel wings and he's just wandering around.

Eric: Yeah. That one's so beautiful.

Michaela: Is that the one with the inhaler, too?

Obie: I think so, yeah. So good.

Michaela: So for the rest of the tour, do you have any other stops that you're looking forward to the most? Do you have favorite spots to play at?

Eric:I'm excited about Seattle just 'cause we have a bunch of friends there and it's in two days. In two days, yeah. 

Delwin: We only think two days ahead.

 Obie: No… I'm always six months ahead of my brain. I am really excited about the East Coast tour dates because I've never played, we've never played West Virginia, or North Carolina.

I'm excited about that 'cause the tiny towns in the East Coast I feel like are little pockets of culture that I haven't experienced. It's springtime too. Cherry blossoms.

Eric: I like that on the East Coast, like every 50 miles, there's a sign that says “Battlefield” right here. “Civil War Battlefield.” It's like a bunch of people died right over there. Every 50 feet it's another battle. 

Obie: It's definitely haunted. Like, super haunted. 

Eric: Anyways, I don't know. I like that. 

Delwin: We'll stop at some battlefields. 

Eric: Yeah, thanks…We’re trying to do this thing where we cut my hair in weird spots, and I feel like a Civil War battlefield…

Delwin: Maybe we can find one where they're doing an active reenactment.

Obie: I don't know about that…

Delwin: They do reenactments, like, every weekend.

Eric: Who was it that was telling us that they were high on acid in the woods and they stumbled upon a Civil War reenactment?

Obie: Gosh, I forgot about that.

Eric: Yeah. I was like, “That's the worst possible thing that could happen.”

 Delwin: Like, having men in uniforms with muskets spinning everywhere, shots, people falling on the ground.

Obie: That reminds me of the movie the Sweet East…

Michaela: I don't think I've seen it. 

Obie: It's really cool. 

Delwin: We should watch that again. 

Michaela: So many good recommendations… Do you have anything else you want to shout out before we close?

Eric: Song coming out.The song's called, ‘U Know Y,’ We got a funny little music video that's going to accompany it. 

Obie: It's more like video art than a music video. 

Eric: That's kind of the big shoutout, I would say.

Obie: Who's birthday is next? My mom's birthday is on April 6. So maybe just  happy birthday Tara, my mom…

(Tara ⬇️)

The song “U Know Y” is out now, and Capyac has more in store… Keep up with them here.