The Chicago-based trio Autograf has mesmerized crowds with their unique electronic music, playing a style called “future house.” The group will be performing on Halloween at Albuquerque’s historic El Rey Theater.
Before the band’s show on Monday at the El Rey Theater, the Daily Lobo got a chance to sit down with Mikul, a member of Autograf, to discuss the group’s music, history and creative influences.
DL: What can you tell me about the “Future Soup” EP?
M: It came out back in February I believe, it’s been out for a little while now, but we’ve put out some other tracks since then. We put out a stream-only version of “Future Sauce,” which is the follow-up to “Future Soup,” and then a song called “Don’t Worry” as well.
DL: What’s unique about your latest releases?
M: For the original “Future Soup” EP, it was the first we’ve ever done as kind of a body of work, and that was in the intention with that EP. So it’s kind of like a story itself, it takes you through each song.
It’s meant to be listened to together as opposed to everything we've done prior to that, which has been all singles that have stood alone as work. “Don’t Worry” was kind of an inspirational track in the sense that at the time when we were working on that track, there was so much going on in the world and it was this whole idea of “don’t worry, go out and do the things you’re passionate about.”
”Future Sauce” is the follow-up to “Future Soup” in the sense that it continues the play on the whole pop-art and factory days of those times.
DL: What events inspired the writing of “Don’t Worry”?
M: It’s not particular events, but just the state of people’s worry in everything from whats going on in the world, politics, to environmental issues, to everything, just kind of this sense of worry about our future. We wanted to make something that was a step back from that, so you’re a little bit more happy.
DL: I noticed you have pretty unique album artwork, can you tell me about it?
M: Both of those, we did the artwork before the actual songs and it’s a play off of the Warhol pop-art of the time. With everything we do, there tries to be two components, both a musical and a visual component.
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With “Don’t Worry” we did the song first and then did a bunch of street art that corresponded with it. With “Future Soup” and “Future Sauce” we made these pop-art prints and then made the music to kind of reflect that.
DL: You do street art?
M: Yes, for “Don’t Worry” we made these pieces that said “Don’t Worry,” and then there was some others like “don’t worry, live your life” and “don’t worry, eat ice cream”, so we kind of had more fun with them, more inspirational. There were these wood cut-outs measured anywhere from 8 feet by 16 feet to 4 by 4 feet, and we posted them around the city of Chicago.
DL: Are you looking forward to playing in Albuquerque?
M: I have not played in Albuquerque before, so I don’t know what to expect. I really don’t know too much about Albuquerque, to be honest, I’m excited to go out and explore. Maybe you could point us in the direction of things to do!
DL: Was there a particular moment where you knew you made it as a band?
M: The thing that’s awesome about this project is that it’s always been about the journey of what we’ve been doing, so there’s never been this moment, per se, where it’s like, “oh yeah, now we’ve made it!” Because I think we’re constantly growing as a group, and growing musically and with the art we’re making.
There’s not this one point where we have a break-out radio hit or a song that just went platinum, there’s nothing like that for us. It’s more just this very D.I.Y. project that we started that’s been just as much about the journey as where we are now.
We can look forward to the journey this project has, creating more things that we’re interested in. I don’t think there’s ever been a super-direction for the project either, where we planned out where we wanted the project to be in a year from now. We’re just doing things that we think are interesting, and that’s kind of worked out for us.
I don’t know if there’s this one moment where I felt, “oh yeah, now we’ve made it.” We do always see ourselves playing at a big festival or a huge show or something, and take a moment to reflect before those shows, at what we’ve accomplished. Because I think that too often you also get worked up in just going and going and going and never having a chance to reflect.
DL: What is Autograf’s creative process like?
M: Jake is the main producer of the group, and he’ll start stuff out usually and just send us overall the ideas that he has. We’ll kind of start filtering through them and be like “this sucks, this suck, this sucks, oh yeah this one kind of has some potential,” and we’ll continue to work on that piece that he started.
Having three people to criticize something has brought it to the point where we get things we like, versus when you work alone where it’s very much just you doing it yourself instead of being a collective. You listen to other people, and that’s why Autograf has become what it is now versus doing it on our own.
Fin Martinez is the culture editor at the Daily Lobo. He can be reached at culture@dailylobo.com or on Twtitter @FinMartinez.
