SOM keep reaching for the light
“We can be dark. We can be funny. They’re giving that little bit of levity because, without that little bit of hope, what are we doing here? There’s enough doom and gloom. We don’t need to contribute to it.”
Sometimes life gives you lemons. Ask SOM what to do about it, and they’d likely say, “Buck up and make the best record you’ve ever made.”
That’s the line of attack that self-described “doom pop” outfit SOM are taking with their third and strongest effort to date, Let the Light In, out now via Pelagic. Written, performed and produced entirely by the band, the story behind the making of this introverted yet liberating listen is very much intertwined with the real-life circumstances of the four-piece itself.
The group experienced a major setback in the creation of Let the Light In when SOM’s original drummer left the fold after writing and recording the album was already underway. Nonetheless, the band—Will Benoit (voice, bass, guitar, electronics), Justin Forrest (drums, bass), Mike Repasch-Nieves (guitar, piano) and Joel Reynolds (guitar, synth)—soldiered on with a standout set of heavy music that’s equal parts metal and shoegaze.
We spoke to Benoit about Let the Light In, staying positive in trying times, understanding your own music halfway through a tour, and more.
Treble: It seems like there’s only one way to start a conversation these days anymore: As an artist, how are you dealing with this horrifying new reality in which we’re all living?
Will Benoit: I’ve been trying to meditate regularly. I started to take more supplements and dialed back on coffee and alcohol as best I can, hoping to get more exercise in. It’s been tough. I’ve actually been in the process of moving into a new house, so I haven’t really been doing that as much as I’d like. [But I go] on long hikes. Try to carve out an hour or two, twice a week, and just go out in the woods. That’s always been how I clear my head and stay focused and step outside the craziness of life.
Treble: Are you good about not checking your phone too much when you go out for walks?
WB: Yeah, I try to either turn it off or leave it in the car sometimes.
Treble: How long would you say you’ve been on an upswing—or trending in a good direction, to put it another way?
WB: I would attach it to my daughter, who’s 6 now. It was getting to the point in life where you’re realizing, “Why am I being negative?” And having this beautiful little person and being like, “Why would I bring that shit to her? I’m not going to do that.” And I do my best not to.
It’s funny because that was … you know, she was born in 2018. Two years in, we had a pandemic. So, it was really hard to stay positive. But I think, honestly, SOM really helped get through that because we were Zooming and writing music a lot. That’s been part of the upswing–just like staying busy, being creative, trying to take care of my family. There’s dark days, for sure. But everybody has dark days.
Treble: My interpretation of Let the Light In is that it encourages holding close to, and becoming more intimate with, your friends and family members amid the horrors that are going on in our country right now. Or do those themes that seem to permeate the album relate more to SOM’s lineup change?
WB: So, the last record, The Shape of Everything, was the first and I guess only release we did as a five-piece. That’s when Joel and Mike stepped in as guitar players. And with this record, Justin [Forrest] had tracked bass already, but then Duncan had left the band, so we reworked the drums, and then the bass parts to fit that, so [the record is] this layered and has a lot of personalities in each part.
I’m still too “in it” to really be able to reflect on it too much, if that makes sense. But we’re about to go out on tour, and what helps me figure stuff out is playing the song every night and [figure out], “Oh, this is what this is about.”
Treble: In that case, to what extent does the final version of your new record reflect your initial ambition?
WB: That’s a good question. So, usually, we have the beginning of an idea at the beginning, right? I guess that’s kind of obvious.
Treble: Right.
WB: And then, about halfway through, we sort of realized what this record was and what our sound is, and then by the end of it, we were really trying to get to that. By the middle point, I had a conversation with [guitarist] Joel [Reynolds] during which we talked about how we’re best at making, like, melancholic, dark music—but with some hope in it.
Treble: And in every song, right?
WB: Yeah. It can get pretty dark or stay gauzy and light, but there’s always that glimmer of hope in it. And that’s something … once we kind of … that was, like, an “a-ha!” moment for the record. We decided every song can be heavy, dark, weird, spooky—whatever adjective you want to use—but it’s got to have that glimmer [of hope] in there. Even if it’s just one note on a guitar.
Treble: What drove you to that realization, do you think?
WB: I think it’s who we are as people. I think the guys in the band were all pretty thoughtful. We can be dark. We can be funny. They’re giving that little bit of levity because, without that little bit of hope, what are we doing here? There’s enough doom and gloom. We don’t need to contribute to it.
That was another thing: We decided during the previous album, Shape, that [SOM material] can’t all be dark. It’s got to have something else. This record was the glimmer of hope at the end of the tunnel.
Treble: I sensed a similar spirit in bands like Caspian and Junius. When I first heard SOM, I think Isis had just broken up or ended, and I was a really big fan of theirs. There was not a lot of hope in their messaging. I’m not sure if they’d have as much of an appeal now. It seems like we need a glimmer of hope in almost everything.
WB: Whether you’re an underground band or a bigger band, it’s like, “You gotta give people a little bit of something, right?” “Younger bands” now should offer something a little bit different. You’re talking about Isis, one of the best [bands] to ever do it. Neurosis is [another] one of those—the bands that you, and it’s like, “I am emotionally crushed right now.” Right now, the music I listen to tends to have a little bit of something for me. A piece of candy.
What we actually did for this record is wrote two albums’ worth of songs. We didn’t really realize that until we were tracking. So we had to sit down and have a band meeting about, like, “What songs fit this record and what songs fit the next record?” So we already have half of our new record, maybe a little bit more. It’s more or less ready to go. We just kind of have to fill in the blanks. It’s the first time that’s ever happened where it was like, “We have too much stuff we like and we just need to figure out what’s going to fit this motif,” you know?
We’ll see how much of it lives. Some of it is gone.
Treble: Was there ever any point during the process where you thought about scrapping and starting over?
WB: No. We were all really, really stoked on these songs.
Treble: I’m fascinated by your earlier remark that it usually takes midway through a tour for you to really get the sense of what the album you’re touring behind actually is. To what extent is the audience involved in that process of realizing a song or is it a situation where, because you’re living in different cities, when you can tour together and play together as a unit, that’s when that learning process can take place more.
WB: I think it’s all of it. The way an audience reacts to a song tells you everything you need to know about the song. If it’s working, you can tell if it’s working. Like, I couldn’t tell you what I’m seeing in the audience that tells me it’s working, necessarily. But there’s some songs that we’ve played and it’s like, “I don’t wanna ever play that again,” because [we were] met with blank stares. It could be a really good song, but nothing is happening [with it]. There’s no interaction. And then there’s some songs you play that it’s like, “Oh, wow, this is really working.”
I try to hang out at the merch table every night at least for a little bit, and you’ll have people say, “That song, I love the lyrics in it. It got me through something here.” And that’s important [to hear]. That means that what we’re doing is resonating back and forth.
As far as playing [goes], I think you nailed it: Playing the songs every night and getting [the performance] to that point where it’s a muscle memory feeling and the way we’re all interacting on stage together, yeah, that’s beautiful. We don’t do long tours very often anymore, but when we toured with Katatonia in Europe, we did almost six weeks with them. And [we were] in the throes of it every night, playing in front of Katatonia’s huge, amazing audience. Beautiful venues, and we’re just firing on all cylinders. And it’s like, yeah … that’s when it all makes sense.
Treble: What you just said is probably one of the most optimistic things I’ve heard about the state of the artistic process in contemporary society in a long time. There’s so much toxic and negative interactions between fans and artists right now, between the social media shit and everything else. It’s awesome and reassuring to hear those meet-and-greets are going so well for you. That you have a positive, healthy relationship with your fan base.
WB: I’ve said this to my friends and in the band all the time: “I don’t know what we’re doing right, but we have very cool fans.” Like, it’s shocking.
But … I’m also able to hold two thoughts in my head at the same time. There’s things that make me very mad about the music industry and dealing with all the bullshit. But I also think that we live in a very special time. We’re all connected in a way that we were not connected 10, 20 years ago. That might be bad in some ways. But it can definitely be really good because you can find your people. That’s true. Sometimes that’s people that believe in crazy shit and probably shouldn’t be together, but for people that are artists, like you have to learn to take the good with the bad.
Treble: How would you describe the personality of the current configuration of the band now versus … before?
WB: Honestly, I think we’re still figuring that part out. We kind of know where we’re going.
Treble: Do you mean SOM’s music personality or interpersonal relations?
WB: More what somebody like me ends up seeing or listening to. … We’ve all known each other for almost 20 years. So all these bands you mentioned—Junius … I filled in on tour with Caspian … Justin’s in Caspian. There’s so much overlap. Justin designs all the lights for tour, and we know what we want to look like onstage. We know what the color is, the mood, all that stuff ahead of time. We want to continue to grow that. We try to keep a pretty DIY mentality about what we look like and how we appear, but hopefully over time that’ll sort of grow and mature, and we’ll continue to find interesting ways to present it.
Treble: These days, bands are taking on a lot of responsibilities they weren’t accustomed to 10 or 20 years ago. Are any of the additional roles you’re serving beyond creating music enjoyable or a hassle?
WB: So, it’s cool, because we have a pretty good distribution of work. I produce music—that’s what I do—so when it comes time to make a record, I’m the guy that’s going to make the record. I’m stoked to do it. Mike has worked in video production for probably 15 years at this point, so all the producer stuff outside of the music—videos, art, all that—he’s got a full handle on that. And he loves it.
[With] social media, we divvy up the duties because nobody loves doing that. But again, our interactions have been so good on social media. We’ve been so lucky. Our fans are really cool. We haven’t gotten anything that’s been a nightmare to deal with. So, yeah, we try to divvy everything up and outside of social media. I think we enjoy 99 percent of it.Treble: As a producer, you have final say. How do you keep the band’s decision-making democratic and ensure that it’s collaborative throughout?
WB: I try to be encouraging to everybody and make sure everybody gets their voices heard. It can be easy to steamroll people. And, like, something that I’ve tried to do before I was in this band (because I’ve recorded a ton of bands) is just make sure that everybody’s comfortable and make sure that everybody’s having a good time. Try to keep things like a clubhouse as much as you can, which fosters openness and creativity in a way that no one’s shut down and not expressing themselves. That was something that, coming into this band, I really wanted to do. I had a whole … I don’t want to say “manifesto,” but ideas of how I want to make sure everyone feels like they can be open and honest about things.
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