Q+A with Syracuse's Settle for Saddler
By Libby Cultra
If you’re a Syracuse freshman, you probably know how great (and how bad for you) the dining hall is. One local band, Settle for Sadler, chose to name their band after one of the best, Sadler Dining Hall. The nostalgia is real. We caught up with this experimental pop-rock band a few years back when they released “Did it Ever Cross Your Mind.” Since then, they released the album Counting Windmills, a collection of solemn yet powerful alternative rock songs. Although Syracuse has officially gone remote for the rest of the semester, we still wanted to catch up and see how Settle for Sadler was doing.
Images taken from https://settleforsadler.bandcamp.com/community.
It’s been a while since we did an interview back in 2018. How have you been? How would you say your music has changed or grown since then?
We’ve been swell! We’ve been spending a lot of this last semester working on some passion projects that are seperate from the band and shifted focus away from the group. That allowed us to reflect a lot on ourselves as musicians, and how we each individually contribute to the greater group. Because we’ve been working on our passion projects we’ve been able to release some of our more individual, and conflicting, artistic preferences and it’s allowed us to find a more cohesive sound for the band.
First, could you reintroduce yourselves? What do each of you do? If you had to describe each member with one word, what would it be?
Rylan: Rhythm guitar, vocals, “alive”
Andrew: Lead guitar, “creative”
Kyle: Bass, “enthusiastic”
Jimmy: Drums, Kevin Muldoon, “librettist”
For those who are new to 20 Watts Magazine, how would you guys describe your music?
We started out as a more standard pop-rock band but over the last year or so we’ve transitioned into a more experimentally driven sound. We tend to focus a lot more on texture, ambience, and dynamics, rather than just catchy hooks and chord progressions. Some of our influences in this direction have been bands like Radiohead, Bon Iver, Death Cab for Cutie, Covet, and t\oe. We also have a soft spot for j-rock bands like ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION and KANA-BOON that is distinctly influencing some of the songs we’ve been writing recently.
Explain the name Settle for Sadler. Where did it come from? How did you guys meet and eventually form the band?
Oh boy, it’s not a very interesting story. The four of us are all music students in Setnor and we began jamming with other friends in the music school when we all were freshman. After jamming, people obviously wanted to get food but couldn’t decide on where to eat and Sadler dining hall is the closest to Crouse college. Therefore, we were “settling for sadler” which was the name of our group chat for a while and when we couldn’t decide on what to name the band, we went with the only name any of us had ever come up with. In all honesty, it’s not a very good name and we have a very love-hate relationship with it, but it’s served us well so far.
You released the album, Counting Windmills, in May 2019. How would you describe the album as a whole? How does it compare to your older music?
We would categorize it as the exploration of the sound you’d hear today. It’s when we broke the mold of the two singles we had released prior to it and started risks with production, instrumentation, and writing. We really view it as more of a “collection” of songs, rather than a cohesive album. If there was a unifying factor it would probably be the common use of story-telling in our lyrics rather than more abstract lyrics. Also, each song was mixed and produced by a different person so they feel as though they’re all unique sonic experiences. Each song had their own particular “aesthetic” and we’re proud of the fact we were able to express that.
What track speaks to each of you the most?
Jimmy: The World is Too Loud - It started as just me and Andrew jamming and it turned into its own song. The fact that we recorded it in my room, with my new drum set- and we didn’t know how it would turn out until it was done- made it a really special song to me”
Rylan: Flowerheads - Honestly it’s a toss up between Flowerheads and Eye for me, but I think Flowerheads pulls ahead by a very thin margin. When writing this song, we started with a loose concept of a story/theme, being the title, “Flowerheads.” It was inspired by a drawing on the wall at The Ark, and it gave birth to the idea of ‘flourishing,’ viewed from differing perspectives. Our first attempt at expressing these ideas was honestly, put lightly, just bad. We struggled with it for a while, cycling through different guitar and vocal ideas, before finally landing on the one that made it on the album. Once we landed on that guitar riff, the rest of the song just fell into place. The lyrics and arrangement felt like they came naturally, which feels rare, so I think that satisfaction of a song “clicking into place” plays a big part in why I love it so much.
Kyle: Vignette or Flowerheads “I’m pretty torn because each of these tracks is very special to me for different reasons. I mixed Vignette, and it was the first song I had ever worked on almost entirely by myself that saw an actual release on somewhere other than Soundcloud. I felt a really huge
Do any of you have funny memories from your beginnings as a band?
The first show that we were going to play out of the SU area, was supposed to be a show in Potsdam for a radio station during the summer. It took a lot of planning and involved Rylan having to purchase a flight to the NYC metro area to meet up with the rest of us because he lives in Columbus, OH. A couple of weeks before we were supposed to go, the show got cancelled and we were left having already spent money on travel. We decided to use the time to go to Long Island and stay with our manager, Rory, while we played a couple of gigs. The first one was a coffee shop and only about 4 people came (one of them being Jimmy’s mom) and the other one was at a bar. The bar gig went very well but we had to fill about 2 hours worth of time and we only had about 5 songs written at that point, so we ended up learning a dozen or so covers in only about a week. Rylan forgot all the words to Everybody Wants to Rule the World and we’ll never let him live it down.
Does Sadler Dining Hall have the best food on campus? Any favorite dishes?
We honestly couldn’t tell you. None of us have been to a dining hall since we were freshmen and couldn’t comment on the quality of any of the food. However, Rylan and Jimmy insist it’s the worst one.
Do you guys have any shows coming up? Any future plans for a tour?
We don’t have any coming up right now, but we play fairly often so if you follow us on instagram (@settleforsadler) you can find out when and where we’ll be playing. We just went on tour last summer, so we haven’t discussed plans very extensively, but it’s always a possibility.
Where do you see yourselves in 5 years?
We’ll definitely all have graduated by then, so not in Syracuse. We all have differing life aspirations and don’t have set plans on where we want to be (both geographically and career-wise) so we’re not sure if we would be able to continue the band post-college. However, we all are very good friends so it’s very likely that we will stay in touch and still want to make music together.
Where is your favorite place to perform in Syracuse?
It’s a tough question because we’ve enjoyed playing at a bunch of places here. It would probably be tied between The Ark and The Deli because of our personal histories with the people who run each venue. We’ve played The Ark dozens of times and it’s arguably where the majority of people heard us, or saw us play live, for the first time. We’ve been with The Ark since it was just a concept and we’ve been really blessed to watch it grow into somewhat of an icon for student life at SU. The Deli is also operated by some of our best friends, and has had some of the most special musical and artistic experiences that we’ve experienced in our time here. We’ve recorded and performed there and always had a blast no matter what. Each venue we’ve played has been great and has given us a different audience every time, which we are truly thankful for.
Finally, who are you all listening to right now? If you could choose your favorite music genre (other than your own), what would it be?
Jimmy: Rap music mainly l Kendrick, A Boogie Wit da Hoodie and BROCKHAMPTON
Rylan: Revisiting same ol’ same ol’ - like Death Cab, Bon Iver, toe, Jeff Buckley - and also folk music like Gregory Alan Isakov, Volcano Choir, Phoebe Bridgers, George Ezra, Damien Rice
Kyle: I tend to listen to a lot of noisy stuff with genres like post-punk, shoegaze, and noise-rock. I’ve been listening to artists like Daughters, Joy Division, IDLES, and Downward. Also mainstays for me like Daft Punk and Interpol which never leave my playlists.
Andrew: I tend to listen to a lot of emo stuff as of late. Still on the Death Cab year round kick. To name a few Underoath, Glocca Morra and Touché Amore. Also I enjoy listening to Anime intros and math instrumental music like Toe and Totorro.
Listen to more of Settle for Sadler here.