In 2020, album release cycles aren’t necessarily a mystery anymore. Most artists will release announce an album, release a few new singles, then eventually, drop the full album a few months later. So it comes as a breath of fresh air when a band like Circa Waves decides to shake things up a bit. For Sad Happy, Circa Waves are releasing the album in two diametrically distinctive pieces with Happy (Side A) out now and Saf (Side B) coming out March 13th. The full album with both sides together is getting its physical release on March 13th once both sides are out. Inspired by the extreme ups and downs that fuel modern culture, the separate release dates for each half of Sad Happy is the perfect move.
With side A, Happy out now, we caught up with Circa Waves to chat about the creation of the album, the growth as a band and more. Read the full interview and listen to Happy now below.
You guys are wasting no time starting 2020 off with a band, releasing the first half of your album, Sad Happy this month, playing a handful of UK shows throughout March, and you have plans to release even more music in a few months as well. What are you looking forward to the most this year?
I’m just looking forward to getting back on the road and playing these new songs live. It’s always a bit of a challenge to work out how to recreate things that we made in the studio and we’ve gone a little bit overboard with adding synths and piano’s and string quartets so it’s going to be fun working out how the hell we’re going to make this work now.
Sad Happy is a two part album, with the first half, Happy dropping this month and Sad coming out in March. What inspired you to split the release up like this?
It was during the recording process that we started to realise what we were making was starting to fit into a bit of a pattern. It was only when we finished that we could step back and see that what we’d made was an album in two halves. We wanted to release them separately so that people could get to know each of them individually the way that we have come to think of them. But we worked had to make sure that as one album it still makes sense for anyone that still listens to music that way.
You’ve talked before about how Sad Happy was inspired by the extreme ups and downs that fuel modern culture. What do you hope listeners take away from these songs?
A lot of people have already picked up on the fact that some of the songs on side 1 are lyrically quite happy but musically have a bit more melancholy to them. I think the thing that we’re driving at here is that these two extremes quite often sit comfortably next to each other in our lives. It’s hard to experience any true measure of happiness in isolation from sadness, maybe we should have called the album bittersweet.
You recently released your single, “Jaqueline” as well – can you tell us a little bit about this track?
This was one of the last songs that got written for the album so it nearly didn’t make it to the recording process. I think some people have listened to it and think it’s a bit of a love song but it’s actually about a young mother that is struggling. It might be the only pop song about that subject matter to be honest.
The release of this new music comes less than a year after What’s It Like Over There? A lot of artists will take some time off between albums, but you were quick to start working on this project. What made you want to jump right into Sad Happy following the last album?
I think that we just knew the songs we had were good enough to go and make new album straight away. Sometimes it takes longer to come up with a record but this one just came together so quickly. It wasn’t something we planned really, there was never a deadline that we were rushing towards but we knew that this album was going to be ready by the end of last summer so we thought, why wait?
How do you feel you’ve grown between What’s It Like Over There? and Sad Happy?
Sad Happy is our most musically ambitious album so far. The last album was us stepping away from our first two albums a little bit and testing the waters maybe. When people reacted so well to that it was like the restrictions that we might have put on ourselves before had disappeared. There’s a lot of songs on this album that I don’t think we could have done on our other records and I think people will be a bit surprised by some of it.
With Happy out soon and Sad dropping in March, you also have a handful of tour dates coming up! What can fans expect from these upcoming shows?
We’re going to be doing what we always do and putting on some of the best and sweatiest gigs you can see. Our fans are actually incredible, you can feel the energy in the room as soon as it starts and it’s just so powerful. Right now we just have to work out how to fit four albums worth of songs into one gig so now the setlist is going to go on a bit of a journey.
Do you have any big goals in mind for the new year?
Every year we just want to get out and play as much as possible and to see how far we can possibly take this.
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