SET IT OFF

For years, Set it Off has been projecting themselves through the alternative pop-rock world, bending genres and entrancing people with their purposeful aesthetic and narratives of hard-ship. While the band is already notable for the intensity of vocalist, Cody Carson’s voice and epic moments in his songs, it should not go unnoticed the sheer amount of determination and ambition that drives this group of people. Even before we were able to sit down with the band, they had experienced some troubles with their vehicle in North Dakota. With how cold it had gotten in their travels the Diesel fuel had gelled up, leaving them no choice but to stay the night at the truck stop that they had been towed to. Luckily, the generator still worked enabling them to have a more comfortable time in an uncomfortable situation. While this meant that they would have to miss out on the Winnipeg date of their tour, they still were able to make it to Calgary on time for their set, including their VIP. There’s nothing that would stop them from continuing on, something that the band as a whole continues to prove time and time again. One of the first times that Set It Off had come to Calgary, it had been at a small upstairs venue. I had brought this to the attention of the guys noting their ability to push forward considering Carson had been unable to make it across the boarder. While for many this would mean that they would just turn around, for Set It Off it just meant the rest of their members continued the tour in Canada while Carson waited to finished the rest of the American dates. What they had in Carson’s absence was fans would come up and have a bit of a Karaoke, or what guitarist Zach DeWall, called a “Sing Roulette.” Different people would come up and sing to the songs, and DeWall remembers one in particular where a younger girl came up on the stage, “[She] came up while we were playing ‘Dream Catcher,’ and it was during the epic part of the song, and she came up and [whispers] ‘Today!’” Everyone in the room laughed in the sweet nostalgia before Carson commented, “Everyone stepped up in my absence,” even noting that this present time across the boarder finally took down the red flag that’s been looming over Set It Off for years. A monumental visit to the country this time around!

On the day of the interview, we were able to celebrate the day of release for the EP, After Midnight. Originally, the songs off of this EP were meant to be on Midnight but due to contractual obligations they would have to cut them out of the record. It had been decided that they would keep them as B-Sides of a sort. “Rather than creating an arbitrary release, we created a theme around it, showing the era is coming to a close, and that was our chance to do so,” Carson explains. This made a series for the band when it comes to the Midnight Blue styling. It’s no secret, that Set It Off has a huge brand presence, even having fans take on the midnight blue colour, wearing it like a badge of honour, something that Carson notes is both intentional and really heartwarming to see. It’s as if their fans are all members of their sports team and can make a note to Set It Off that they genuinely like their band.

When asked about the move into this era from the diamond to the hourglass Carson explains, “We had a band meeting about this and Max was leading the entire creative process on how this would change. We wanted to show we were back and meant business while also being relevant to before [and] realized with the diamond you could easily turn it into an hourglass. The hourglass was really important to us because we realized you need to take advantage of every second in a minute.

A year in High School I did a show on Time and Imagine The Possibilities. I loved it so much because it was really impactful when we talked about the value of a second or a minute. It opened us up to go into some surrealism stuff since it’s also a very mysterious thing in general.” With the motif of the hourglass, they allowed photographer, Shelby Sparks to do all of the art direction of the images. With the final piece of the series, she kept it consistent and bought an hour glass. She shattered it and took an image of it, arranging it to look how it does in its final form, something that Set It Off was stoked on. “This was my first time going into an album with a theme,” Cody comments, “That helped me lyrically quite a bit.” In order to give an example of how this helped him he started to talk about the original structure around songs such as “Hourglass.” Originally, the track had been called “Linoleum.” “The lyrics to the chorus went like, ‘I thought I was Napoleon because I never lost I always won ... So I fight plastic soldiers, plastic guns, they can really hurt someone ... War on the Linoleum,’ and saying Napoleon in a chorus was strange. So, 2 o’clock in the morning on a Warped Tour day I was up in our AirBnB and I was like, ‘We have the hourglass so let’s see if this verse makes sense,’ and it made total sense because it [was] about time already and I didn’t know why we didn’t think of it earlier. Now it is how it is today and feels more cohesive. It was really helpful and fun!” Similar to the album art, Shelby Sparks brought creativity to them music videos as well. Previously, Carson had taken a lot on with the direction of music videos, even going so far to say, “I’m a theatre kid, so I’m very dramatic,” before laughing it off. He alluded to getting too caught up in everything that was happening, stressing over times and details and over all not enjoying the process as much as he could have. “I used to be too literal. That’s not always the right answer. In fact, it can be a little too on the nose. Putting it in the hands of someone else because you’ve seen their work is a little difficult at first but it’s necessary. It was a great exorcise for me mentally.” With this shift in place it has also enabled the band to have more unique experiences as they build these other artistic endeavours. With Sparks at the wheel, she had suggested for the song “Lonely Dance” that they do something taking place in space, especially with the theme revolving around isolation. After all, what’s more isolating than space? “We had never done a Sci-Fi video and it made sense with the concept of the song,” Carson excitedly stated. They were able to meet and work with an actor by the name of Alan Maxon, an actor known for his motion capture for King Ghidorah and Godzilla: King of the Monsters. Certainly an experience they wouldn’t of been able to have if it wasn’t for the creative mind of Sparks.

Outside of the visuals, a lot more was changing with Set It Off. In the past year they have gone through the loss of a band member as well as some severe health concerns that needed to be addressed for Carson. He started to relay the story of his first severe health concern of the year, “I was playing a show in Singapore, and I was really dried out. It was the last show and we were going to be off for about a month or two. Often times as a singer you think, ‘Oh, it’s the last show, I can feel bad and be hoarse tomorrow, so fuck it.’ I will never do that again. I abused my voice by drinking nothing but coffee that day. I drank some whiskey and I don’t think I drank any water ... Maybe a little bit. The venue was dry, like an air-locked chamber. I went for a high note in ‘Uncontainable’ and I felt something,” Carson gestured to his throat with his hands, making a notion where you could sense he was remembering the pain in that moment, “So for the rest of that set every time I went for a note it was like my voice skipped over a range. I have a friend who has nodules at home and her voice does the same thing ... I was like ‘Oh my god, I sound like her. I’m having the same vocal reactions I hear her have.’ I was terrified. Long story short, we had to post-pone a tour, which we are now making up for in a month and will be overseas. I had to get surgery. I shut up for three whole weeks. I couldn’t speak a word, which was hard for me, I love to talk.” Carson laughed it off before continuing, “Me not talking allowed [the doctors] to see my vocal chords. That’s how red they were. Once they looked a little bit more healthy they sedated me ... I have a very good vocal doctor. Probably the best in the United States, does not take insurance, very expensive, but I wanted to know I was getting the right person. Since then, vocally I feel amazing. I feel stronger and more confident. I had a feeling something like that would happen to me eventually, I just didn’t know how or to what extent. But, you can’t just live in fear from it the entire time. You just grow from it and that’s it.”

It’s commendable how much the members of Set It Off push through, work hard and make things work no matter what the situation. Even outside of Carson’s vocal hemorrhaging he also experienced an atrial fibrillation in his heart after going out for a Halloween Horror Nights. He had to go into sedation and have his heart shocked back into rhythm, being a cherry on top of health-issue infested journey. It wasn’t even long before the band would jump back into touring again. “I knew how I felt and as long as you listen to your body you’re fine,” Carson noted while also staying, “It’s either that or you look at the negative side ... That’s too easy to do and then life sucks and you don’t want that.”

Almost as soon as Carson was able to get his voice back, he jumped back into the studio to write again. I had asked if he felt there was any shift in their writing process due to becoming a three piece versus their previous four piece but found out that Carson goes into the studio alone. Or rather, has time working with Mike Green alone. “He’s a really talented guitarist. I can play guitar but I’m not really riff based, I’m chord based. He’s really good at coming up with riffs,” Carson explained before also stating, “I wanted 12 songs before the year ended and we started in November ... We have 14 now. I’m really happy with that. I want 40 before we narrow them down.” When they are done touring into April Carson plans to take about a week off to himself to decompress before jumping right back into the writing process. For him, he’d much rather have a plentiful amount of songs finished and have the worst time narrowing them down for the recording process. “It’s really hard, especially on this last one,” Carson comments, “We

wanted so many songs. Sometimes you just know. Every song kind of has to play its own role. Like, ‘This one has a swing feel’ and ‘this one also has a swing feel’ ... Which one is better? We don’t need two swing songs on a record ... You narrow them down, put them in sub-categories, use your own opinion, band opinion, label, manager, everyone. Get everyone’s ears on it who is on your team and try to make the best decision. The hardest part is finding singles. Which song is going to get the most attention? What’s the budget for the music video of that single? It’s the most challenging thing among the whole thing before it feels like there’s some magical combination in the full songs where if you get it right that’s when you can make it. It has to make sense with the theme and what you sound like as a band. It has to be a hell of a song. It’s a challenge but it’s fun.”

With their tour cycle coming to a close, Set It Off is already preparing to start writing some more, as alluded to earlier. “I realized I’m not going to see my girl for another 50 days or so,” Carson laughs before saying, “It’s nuts, but, we love what we do.” Between the touring and recording, Carson is always on the go finding some way to fill his time artistically. It’s not to say that he wasn’t excited to mention the six days that he would be home before flying to Australia, then to Asia for two shows with Jimmy Eat World, and then some more headlining shows in Asia. “We’ve never been to that area. We are going to Thailand and then we are go and do a really extensive UK and Europe tour. We are going to Mullion, which I’ve heard great things about it. We’re going to Russia, which we have never played Russia before. A lot of touring on that aspect.” Even when talking about working on this all, and how it was already looking like they were booked up to the end of the year he states wanting to travel some more as a vacation. “We can hopefully block our a week where we can get a cruise or something and turn off our phone.”