‘Radio Calisthenics’ — Lex Squier’s Debut Solo-Project LP Aims to Get You Moving

(EDITOR’S NOTES — You may know the very talented Lex Squier as the bassist for the Buffalo indie band Romcom Victims, the recently formed punk trio The Jake King Band and/or the art-folk duo The New Dionysians. But in recent months, Lex also has been making waves with an excellent solo synth project called ‘Radio Calisthenics,’ for which she recently dropped its debut LP. The album spans a fascinating range of emotion and artistic exploration with a retro feel that’s weaved into the fabric of a unique sonic journey. It’s an intriguing work of art, so much so that halfway through our first spin, we reached out to Lex and requested an interview to which she graciously agreed. A gifted artist and animator, Lex was kind of enough recently to speak with 1120 Press about ‘Radio Calisthenics.’ We’re thrilled to bring you an abridged version below of that two-hour conversation. Follow, listen and purchase ‘Radio Calisthenics’ HERE. — Photos provided.)

Lex Squier

1120 PRESS: Thank you so much for speaking with us and congratulations on the new album! This project and LP are called ‘Radio Calisthenics,’ and what you’re doing is pretty fascinating. The name traces back to a storied national exercise program in Japan. So, given that, we were wondering how the concept of ‘Radio Calisthenics’ translates to this project?

LEX SQUIER: I guess my aim was to get people moving, get people limber, in an auditory sense. I was looking for a name for this project, and then, like a year ago, my brother told me that every morning he was doing ‘Radio Taiso.’ I was like, ‘What does that mean?’ (laughs) So, I checked it out. I just loved the idea — especially because this project was inspired by stuff like ‘city pop’ — that here was this physical connotation associated with an auditory broadcast that gets people moving every day. So, I was thinking the same thing, but in a musical sense.

1120: A lot of your music that we’re familiar with — Romcom Victims and New Dionysians, for instance — is more traditional band stuff, for lack of a better term. What inspired you, sonically speaking, to head in this direction on ‘Radio Calisthenics’?  

LS: I love pop, especially '80s pop. I feel like Romcom Victims is pretty poppy, but it's more power pop. I've never been that drawn to guitar enough to do guitar-based songs. I've always been more oriented toward the keyboard, and I feel like '80s synth pop is very keyboard-centric.

I normally play bass in bands, but I think it's hard to say bass is my main instrument unless I was, like, Jaco Pastorius or someone. I do love playing bass though in a band setting and if I need to improvise or something, I will probably pick bass just because it's so familiar. But for songwriting I lean toward keyboard over guitar. It just feels more approachable to me.

I wasn't thinking this when I was going into it, but later when I was mixing stuff, I realized it's pretty close to Supertramp or Steely Dan. Not that I was trying to write, or that these songs sound like, Supertramp songs. But those ‘70s keyboard bands became kind of a touch point, I guess.

1120: That sort of leads into our next question: You mentioned you weren’t trying to replicate Supertramp or anything like that, and we heard you mention on WBNY shortly after the album came out that you were listening to a lot of Jack Stauber around the time you began this project. So, when you started writing, what was your goal in terms of the sound you wanted?

LS: I love that mid-fi stuff. I feel like when I started recording this, I was too bogged down by making it sound lo-fi because I discovered the trick of making things sound lo-fi — or even, mid-fi — is all in the gear pretty much… I used all stock plugins for the album, and I think I just wanted to make it sound as good as I could make it sound, but the bar for that style of music is so high … and I don't have crazy gear or anything. It's, like, one microphone… I feel like you probably have to know a lot about mixing to make it work. There's so much to learn. I had Nate (Weise) — who plays guitar in Romcom Victims and who also runs Sycamore Sounds studio — master this record. So, I was able to get his thoughts on what I was trying to do, which helped.

1120: We imagine putting together an album like this is different than recording an LP of more traditional music. How long did it take to write and record this project and were there any specific challenges you encountered? 

LS: It probably, when all was said and done, took two years. Half the challenge was just that I didn't know how to record. I don't know whether there was a moment that switched in me where I suddenly figured out how, but it kind of felt like that. I feel like there was just one day where I opened up all the files and I just thought, ‘What am I doing?’ The structure of it was all was wrong. It wasn't exactly a back-to-the-drawing board moment, but it was almost like, ‘Okay, take everything off, and then start over again.’ 

1120: How much traditional instrumentation is used on this LP?

LS: Really, pretty much none except for bass, and one song has guitar — acoustic guitar. There’s another that has electric guitar. But otherwise, you know, it’s all auxiliary. All percussion in general is emulated in Logic Pro. Same with horns and strings. Logic has such good assets and sounds. They’re excellent, and you can tweak them however you please. With Logic Drummer if you want a fill here, or a fill there, you can kind of let it ride and see what fill you like. Obviously, I would rather have a real drummer, not just for musical reasons but because I like to work with people, of course. But our drummer is in New York City for the summer.

1120: When you performed ‘Radio Calisthenics’ live for the first time, what was that experience like? It had to feel noticeably different than what you were normally used to.

Nathan Weise, Lex Squier and Jake King perform at Revolver Records

LS: It was so weird. Yeah, it was definitely strange. And I'm no stranger to stage fright either. There’s a sense of confidence that comes from being on stage with a band and having someone there backing you up. But when it's just you and a laptop and keyboard, it's ambiguous. I'm always so paranoid before shows that there's going to be a failure or something catastrophic is going to happen. Logic has crashed on me before. That isn’t the end of the world. I'm sure I would be able to get it back on its feet, but, you know, an actual person on stage with you doesn't crash.

At this point, I’ve played five or so shows now. But the first show, I had Nate play bass with me the whole time, which was cool, and then I had Jake King come up for one song that has acoustic guitar in it. It was at Revolver Records on Elmwood, and they have a Rhodes (piano) there, so I got to play the Rhodes the whole time. So, it was a little easier to switch between instruments. I felt like Herbie Hancock: I had a Rhodes in front of me, and I had the MIDI keyboard next to me. That was awesome. That’s the ideal way to do it because I didn't have to worry. And there were songs at that point where I hadn’t even gotten around to recording bass for yet, but Nate was on stage with me and playing so it didn’t matter.

1120: Whether it was intentional or not on your end, there is a real genuine retro feel to this album. There’s a strong late-70s-to-early/mid-80s vibe. Is there something about that period that appeals to you in some way?

LS: I think the rise of the synthesizer is definitely very interesting because you would have these lead parts in a section of a '70s song that featured the synth, and then all of a sudden by the '80s, the synth was the whole song. So, it's like it went from being an experimental thing that even experimental artists would only play for 30 seconds, but then people warmed up to it, especially as technology got better and they found ways to make it more palatable.

With technology so much better now, it's hard sometimes to even recognize when a synth is in a song because it's so produced and blended. I feel like the '80s style synth stuff is coming back in a huge way in radio pop. A lot of Chappell Roan songs have a really nice '80s synth sound, which is cool.

We were talking about good karaoke songs the other day and I agreed with someone that I think ‘Last Christmas’ by Wham! is not only one of the best Christmas songs, but I think it's one of the best songs ever. I want to start listening to it year-round. I think I'd be more jolly. (laughs) I didn't quite want the same synth sound on this. But I was like, ‘I should just use that as a reference track for things,’ just because it's in such a cool pocket.

1120: We’re aging ourselves here, but for a lot of us who grew up during the 70s and 80s, radio was a significant part of our formative years. Again, we’re not sure whether this was intentional on your part, but this album also has a feel to it of what it was like listening to the radio during that time — the style of music you’d hear on some AM stations, etc. Radio was not as prominent in your generation, but were you influenced at all by radio growing up?

LS: Honestly, yeah. I don't think there was a specific touchpoint in my life where I realized distinctively that radio was really important to me or anything like that. But I've always been way into college radio. There are little moments where I realize, ‘Oh, other people don't listen to the radio.’ But I feel like I still listen to the radio. I still like using it as a way to find music. It's so easily accessible. It's there every time you're in the car. You can tune in and hear something selected for you. I almost went to Buff State because I was so interested in college radio. But I couldn't find anything at that particular school to go for. They didn't have what I wanted.

I almost wanted to do something on this album where I made the whole thing sound like you were listening to the radio — you know, tuning sounds in between songs and things like that. But then I realized (Buffalo musician and producer) Bran Schlia had just done that on one of his recent albums, so...  

1120: On any level, is this a concept album?

LS: I guess it is. I mean, the concept would be a certain pocket of the '80s. The ‘Radio Calisthenics’ thing has the Japanese connotation. But also, I like combining that with the '80s ‘workout craze’ type stuff. I feel like this album fits somewhere in between there. I love the imagery of that whole '80s workout craze: the sweatbands and leg warmers. I feel like that really plays into the synth music.

1120: Part of our reason in asking that question too is because of the last song on the album, ‘Death of a Poptimist.’  What was the inspiration behind that song, and what was your thinking in ending the album with that track? It seemed to us like the perfect way to end the LP.

LS: That song was so last minute. I struggled with the lyrics. I knew I wanted it to be ridiculously positive. But I guess it ended up being kind of ‘melancholy positive.’ I don't know. It's definitely melancholy. A lot of the Romcom Victim stuff is like that. It sounds really happy, but the lyrical content is kind of melancholy. I don't write the lyrics in Romcom. That's all Bella (Celeste). But I love a song that sounds happy but with melancholy lyrics.

1120: By the way, Owen Shotwell — (musician, engineer/producer and bassist of Buffalo indie band, Prairie Pavement) — came up with the name ‘Polyester-core’ for your music. What does that mean?

LS: Yeah, Owen spewed that out one day and I was like, ‘That's it!’ (laughs) I feel like it reflects a new era or something. It's definitely very '80s. No one wants to admit that polyester is a thing. If people are describing their own music, they would want it to be ‘suede’ or ‘leather.’ I feel like no one wants it to be polyester, but that's the reality.

1120: What else do you have planned for ‘Radio Calisthenics?’ Do you have any other elements coming out associated with this album and will you keep this project going?

LS: Yes. There's going to be a music video for the song, ‘Pistachio.’ I have to finish it up, but I got a lot of help from Silas Rubeck. They live on the floor below me. I wanted to have it out at the same time as the album, but I did not have the time. But having it come out later, I think, might be a good way to keep people interested. I would love to do a really short follow-up EP, too. But I just want to keep the train going and explore other projects and other ideas as well that aren’t related to this.

1120: Thank you again for speaking with us. Before we end, is there anything else you want to say about the album or anything else that we haven't asked?

LS: I’m definitely very grateful for people being into this album and asking questions after shows. I love like when people come up to talk with me after a show and say things like, ‘Oh, I really like that like synth part,’ or whatever. I love putting together the arrangements on these songs and writing different little counter melodies and harmonies. I feel a lot of joy in that. Like, half the joy is writing the song, and then the other half is writing stuff for the song that you didn't think of when you first had the idea. But, yeah, if there’s anything else to say, I guess I just want to express gratitude to everybody for listening.