Avi Kaplan – I’ll Get By

Release Date: 02.28.20 via Fantasy Records

Avi Kaplan has more voices than he is known for.  In the group Pentatonix, he was primarily known for his deep bass voice – but trust me, dear readers, Avi Kaplan is so much more versatile than that.  In fact, his range is quite amazing.  He still delivers that low range power but his mid-range vocal has probably become my favorite part of his repertoire.  The tone of his voice in that register is something to be aware of.  It’s that special.  But I don’t want to leave out those incredible harmonies that hears his voice soar, hitting high notes that will leave you astounded.

I was first introduced to the different voices of Avi on his 2017 release – Sage and Stone.  There’s a song on that EP called Fields and Pier that blew me away when I first heard it.  It has remained on my personal playlist all of these months later.  Also on that record was the song Sweet Adeline – another favorite of mine.  When I first saw the track list for this new EP, I was super excited to see the track – Sweet Adeline Pt. 2.  Dude knows how to tell a story and we are treated to another piece of that story.

I’ll Get By is a seven song, extended play solo album that is full of power, passion, freedom, optimism as well as some dark and somber moments. Overall, it has such an epically big feel to it and while I don’t like to throw around the concept record term out there too much – this certainly has the feel of one or at least a journey.  Maybe a journey of a person longing to find himself.  If this is true, only Avi knows if he’s found what he’s looking for.

I can tell you that, when speaking to him, he seems to be in a great place.  Avi Kaplan is lucid and centered. And to bring it back in.. he is probably one of the most down to earth people I’ve had the privilege to speak with.  To get started with our conversation I wanted to hear about how things went in the studio, which included working with producer Mike Mogis. 

Avi tells Sound Vapors, “With Mike we had a lot of conversations on how we wanted to produce it.  One of the things I spoke to him about before we even got into it was, how are we going to put all of these eclectic different songs on this EP and all the different ways I like to sing.. and make it all feel like it’s part of the same thing.  That was something early on that I was concerned about and he was just excited to dive in.  So for each song we would kind of just sit down and talk about what we both imagined for it.  Then start laying stuff down and then from there we just figured out what else it needed.  One thing he brought to the table.. he was like – hey man, I have this really amazing drummer, Scott Seiver.  I really, really feel like we should bring him in.“

Avi continues, “We all just kind of got together and we would play the song with Scott and we would do a bunch of different passes.  Whether I was singing with him or I wasn’t playing with him, he would put down a bunch of ideas.  We had that solid rhythmic foundation and really the rest of it was just adding stuff where it needed.  I already had a very clear idea of what I wanted to sound like, but Mike definitely expanded it.” 

Talk about great working environments!

I mentioned earlier about the journey of this record.  I asked Avi about that, even while explaining the overall theme to this album, you can hear the passion in his voice about the music.  He says, “Life isn’t easy and the only thing that has helped me through life.. is music.  I listen to my favorite artists, my favorite songs when I’m going through dark times.  Anxiety.  Depression.  Whatever it is that I’m going through.  Music is what gets me through.  That’s not only just listening to it, but also creating it.  So for this album, it was therapy for myself but also in hopes that it could also be therapy for other people, just the way music was for me.  And still is for me.” 

The power of music really is unrivaled.

Avi even went into the two parts of Adeline.  I started to put it out here for you to read but I didn’t feel like I would do it justice.  So, I’ll leave it up to you to go listen and hear from the man who wrote the two songs.  He also told me what Fields and Pier was about.  Ever since our conversation I have listened to that song with new ears.  It’s added such a perspective to the song, for me.  Maybe you’ll have the same reaction I did.  Honestly, it’s this sort of backstory that keeps me coming back for more and inspires me to conduct these type of interviews.  So there’s that music thing again.  It just has that power over everyone in it’s radius.  He also makes a reference on this album about going back to those fields.  Love it.

I asked Avi if he wanted me to play one of the songs from the new album on the podcast and he said to play the one that I felt was a good representation of who he is and where he’s going.  That song for me is Born In California.  This is definitely my Fields and Pier of this album.  It’s been on repeat, dude.  Seriously, all day long.  There’s magic on that song.  There’s magic on the entire record.  I can’t wait to hear these songs played live.  That’s the next journey.

You can hear my entire conversation with Avi Kaplan by clicking on one of the links to your favorite place to listen to podcasts or you can watch the video on YouTube. 

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-Tommy Marz

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