LAZY SALON is the brainchild of New Jersey musician Sean Byrne. Over the last decade Byrne has released multiple albums and built an impressive discography leading up to his most recent E.P. “Deep Time”.
I caught up with Byrne to talk about his early musical experiences, how he started creating songs and the making of the new record.
CMM-What was the first music that really made an impact on you as a kid and what artist or band did you enjoy the most?
Sean-When I first started becoming aware of bands and pop/new wave radio at a young age in the very early 80’s I was a big fan of The Police followed by stuff like Duran Duran and XTC. I was also beginning to learn how to play the drums around then and would try to play along to records by bands like Rush and Yes. That stuff all fell by the wayside a few years later when I discovered punk & hardcore. My Dad was also a music enthusiast of all kinds of stuff so I was always absorbing whatever he had on around the house or in the car when I was growing up.
CMM-When did you start playing music and writing songs?
Sean-I’ve drummed since I was in elementary school and have been in bands since middle school, and by the time I was college I would pick up guitars to mess around with ideas, but songwriting didn’t really take hold until later in the 90’s when I started actively writing and learning to home-record. That situation evolved into The Twin Atlas which was a home-recording project I did with my co-writer Luke Zaleski during the 2000’s as a thing to do outside of my usual drumming role with other bands.
CMM-You have a new record out called “Deep Time”. What was the writing and recording process for those songs like and what gear and instruments did you use during the sessions?
Sean-The new EP was primarily created through a combination of sensory percussion samples, some live drumming which I would then create loops from, and a variety of plugins and effects in the production/mixing process. I was trying to keep things very much in an electronic & dub approach in terms of how the songs are structured, adding & subtracting elements throughout a song in a way that felt right.
CMM-If you could do a score for any film director, who would it be and what would the film be about?
Sean-Tough question, maybe a great skateboarding or surfing video.
CMM-What do you have coming up next?
Sean-Lazy Salon is only a recording project and I’m happy just working in that capacity, I’ve never come up with a satisfying way to translate this music in a live setting. That said, I do perform live on drums with the instrumental trio Camino Sound and we play shows in the New Jersey & Philadelphia area several times a year.
