Q+A with GRACE KRICHBAUM of SHALLOW ALCOVE

Stella: So where are you calling in from today?

Grace:  I'm calling in from my parent’s home in Syracuse, New York. This is my childhood home.

S: Starting off with a question that is very personal to me, I’m a huge Pinegrove fan. Does the “alcove” reference come from that [Pinegrove’s song “Alcove”] at all, or does it just stem from the need for escape/solace that the name evokes?

G: So, we are huge Pinegrove fans. We had formed before that song came out, but when that song did come out, we were like, ‘Oh my god! This is gonna be like our song!’  We actually like, became a band, because we were friends and just would get together and play all the Pinegrove songs, all their albums, front to back. I always compare it to jazz standards. A lot of jazz people will get together, they all learn standards, so they can communicate without having to, like, learn music or even speak. And that was us with Pinegrove. And then, then we became like an actual band that wrote songs and not just did  covers. 

S: That makes me so happy because if I asked that question and you were like, ‘No, who's that? That would have been really embarrassing’.

G: I also, I can answer why the band name is what it is. It's actually, it was named by my bandmate, Dan. Shallow Alcove used to exist as a boy band before I joined it. It was crazy.  It was very Fleet Foxes inspired. It was a bunch of like male harmonies folk. Dan named it all the way back then. It's named after this beautiful little part of his childhood home above his bedroom. That is like a nice little alcove with some windows. And he would sit up there and write songs. 

S: I have a friend, I don't know if you know the band Comfort Club? 

G: I think I do. 

S: It reminds me very much of Shallow Alcove, just like what the name provokes. It's like a little hideaway for the people that are listening. I especially love the name Comfort Club because when you're going to a Comfort Club show, the whole goal of it is to bring you together.

S: Next, a little bit in the starting of the band, what inspired the band aesthetic? I love the prom shows, the picnic tour, the famous picnic tour shoes, of course. I feel like it ties back again to the whole “outlet” thing and trying to go to a place that comforts you, but I want to hear what you have to say about it. 

G: The aesthetic, I want to say, I don't even have to think about it because it's just whatever I like at the moment I turn that into whatever branding we’re doing. But at the same time, a lot of thought and attention goes into all of it. I really just follow my heart on that shit. And I'm just like, what am I into right now? With the picnic tour, I was just like ‘I'm really into gingham. I'm into like the aesthetic of fruits and little bugs.’

S:  I don't know if you saw, but I have an Ampersand shirt on.

G: Wait, I have to show you something. I look crazy right now because I was in a manic painting episode. I do all of our like graphic design and aesthetic stuff.

S: That's a whole other job you’re talking about.

G: Yeah, it's like a whole other job. It takes up way more time than the music thing. I swear, but I’m making a poster for our next tour and it's happening in the fall. I am painting something that literally looks kind of just like your shirt. When you see it, you'll know. But yeah, the aesthetic is really just whatever I'm into. We lean towards playful and whimsical and childlike energies in everything that we do. It really just comes from my whimsy honestly. I'm very lucky because whatever whims I have, they trust me. Right now, we're planning pictures for our next song that's coming out. I decided I wanted to make, like, a life size music box where I'm the ballerina and they just let me. They let me do whatever I want. It's amazing. 

S: I love that trust. There are three people who started Disaster and we have one person that does all of the graphics and it's all her vision, but somehow we're all reflected on it. Just because when you become so close like that, like it really becomes all of you.

G: I totally agree. I feel like we always have this conversation when we're coming up with a new idea or we want to anything aesthetically, it's like, ‘Oh, is that cohesive with the stuff that we've done before?’ But automatically it is because it was made by the same group of people and like it comes from our hearts. So somehow whatever we want to do is always gonna fit in our world, which is cool. Even if it clashes like it's still fun and oddly makes sense. You know what I mean? 

S: Over the past few months you guys have been covering songs on TikTok and Reels, Clairo’s “Bags” went especially crazy, in a stripped back style, that kind of reminds me of Tiny Habits. These covers have kind of been directing a lot of attention to you guys.Do you feel this attention reciprocated in your own releases? How are you working towards that happening?

G: First of all, we went on tour with Tiny Habits, so we love them, they're amazing! Yeah, they're amazing. I think we are very careful about how many covers we do because if we did too many, we get scared that people won't care about our originals. We haven't struggled with that too badly. Covers are always going to get more attention because there's a wider net for them. Kickstart the algorithm literally just before you're trying to put something out. Sometimes it can be really awful when you do covers and nobody gives a shit about your actual music at all, but I feel like we put a lot of intention into how many covers we do, and we only do one cover per night like at our shows. I love a cover. We do little things to maintain a boundary, you know, like we make other music and that's what we're here to do. Primarily.

S; What is kind of your rotating roulette of covers that you have when you're playing live?

G: “Yellow” by Coldplay on our last tour, we did “Soak Up the Sun” by Sheryl Crow. We did “Kyoto” by Phoebe Bridgers. “Glue Song” by Beabadoobee. We're all over the place. I, we, love covers. It's such a love language for me. 

S: In “Dream Song” you say, ‘I have a rule, if I dream about you three times in a week, I have to reach out’. What are some other rules you live by? I live by no socks in bed. I live no runny eggs. And I live by, well I try to live by, no phone before 10pm. What are three rules that you try to live by? 

G: That's an amazing rule.  What rules do I live by? I feel like I'm not a super regimented person. 

S: I also live by no Jello.

G: I would say, always eye glitter. I love eye glitter. I always wear eye glitter. If I want to feel good, I'm gonna wear eye glitter. Never travel without eye glitter. Never leave the house without my water bottle. I have it with me at all times. 

S: I agree with that rule.  Never ever leave the house without my water bottle. 

G: Maybe if it's not on my calendar, it's not happening.  Like literally my lifeline, everything that I need to do, including literally like shower, brush my teeth is literally my calendar. Those are probably my rules.

S: Coming up on fall, what is your go to fall album? What are some albums that you've been listening to a lot lately?  

G: I love fall music. That's my favorite kind of music ever. I listen to a lot of early aughts fall indie folk type music all of the time. When it's fall, it feels so perfect. I've been listening to “The Weatherman” by Gregory Alan Iskov. “Helplessness Blues” by Fleet Foxes. “The Shepherd's Dog” by Iron and Wine. “Our Endless Numbered Days” by Iron and Wine. I listen to a lot of Iron and Wine around this time of year.

S: My next one is what is your favorite line you've written and your favorite line from another musician? 

G: I think my favorite line I have written is probably in our song Heart Shaped Locket. There's an outro and it says, ‘The hard part is the time that passes, the best part is the time that passes / The hard part is that never lasts, but the best part is just that you had it’. I struggle a lot with the passage of time and letting go of things. That song's kind of about graduating college. When that line came to me, I cried a little because it felt so perfectly what I wanted to say. So I feel like  that line, not only for what it is, but for what it continues to teach me. We write a lot of songs because we're trying to learn the things that we're talking about, not because we already know it. I'm like saying, the hard part is the time it passes, but the best part is the time it passes. And I totally accept that. I'm just saying this as a mantra and I'm trying to accept it every time I sing it. In terms of my favorite line ever,  I don't know.  

I kind of feel like my favorite lyrics are gonna come from “Clouds” by Jodie Mitchell.Our guitar  player, Peter, would say the Beatles, something about the Beatles, he's such a nerd.

I think it might be just the chorus of “Clouds”: ‘I've looked at life from both sides now, from win and lose, and still somehow, it's the illusions that I recall. I really don't know life at all’.

 She feels like God, looking down at all of us little people, just telling us, like, diagnosing the human condition. I love so many of her lyrics too. One of my favorites from her is, I don't know why I would say this, but I think one of her best lyrics, ‘Everything eats and is eaten, time is fed’. 

S: My last one is, what is your most and least genuine song in your discography? 

G: Oh, least? Wow. Let me look at our fucking discography. I think our most genuine song is a song that's coming out next week. It's called “Mangoes” and it's about panic attacks, OCD, and anxiety. That song we wrote, like, a lot of our songs we write in retrospect. Like “Dream Song”, I wrote it,  many, many, many years after I felt 100%. It took me years to really write a song about whatever we're talking about. But “Mangoes”, I wrote it in the middle of panic, essentially. So, that one feels urgent, very genuine, I couldn't have even given myself time to think about what that was. 

This one was like, I'm writing this now. I need to write it now. Like, this is how I feel in the moment. So even when we sing it now, like, it's very tender for me because I'm like, still very much like processing what the song is about.Usually I wait many years until I'm ready to talk about something. I kind of like that song is not about being ready, bitch.

Our least genuine song. I feel like I don't know.  I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna say this song called “She Stays Quiet”. I'm sorry Dan.  I wrote this song and it was fun at the time, and it's not even a bad song, like if we did it better it would be good.

It's just  about a situation that has nothing to do with us. It was just like a story that he wrote, which is a cool way to write, like Christian Lee Hutson is a good example. It's just a story that he wrote and none of our other songs are like that.

All of our other songs are like, ‘this is my life. I don't know,it's about a couple, and the boy is like an alcoholic, and the girl is sad. 

S: The way that you're describing this is like, obviously you don't care. 

G: No, like we just don't care about it anymore. Like, I would love for somebody else to like, sing that song and like, make it sick, because like, we just didn't. I'm sorry, Dan. I love you so much. It just doesn't fit with our other songs and, but a lot of people like it to this day.

S: Well thank you very much for baring your heart to me over the last like hour. Super duper excited for your show in Philly with the Staves!!