Vigil and Thieves on make sure they hear you ahead of Friday’s Granada release show

Lawrence’s Vigil and Thieves have been making what its members call “loud and pretty” rock ‘n’ roll since 2014, but its new album, make sure they hear you, is the band’s debut full-length. I sat down with Vigil and Thieves’ vocalist, Sarah Storm, and guitarist, Steph Castor, outside of Lawrence’s Bourgeois Pig, to talk make sure they hear you and this Friday’s album release show at the Granada.

The Pitch: How did you approach make sure they hear you, given that it’s a proper album, as opposed to the collection that was the Neverland EP?

Sarah Storm: I think that we took it a little more seriously this time. We vetted the songs that we had, and cut some. We sought out a professional producer [John Burke], went to Nashville, did, like, 40 studio hours, literally hired a legit mastering engineer [Sarah Register]. We found her because she produced some albums that we love. We were super-stoked that she even wanted to work with us at all.

We even had a budget this time. It wasn’t like, us trying to do it ourselves, so I guess we felt like we had been doing this for too long without having real, professionally recorded music to show for it.

Steph Castor: In the past, we’ve been demo’ing stuff out at home. Sarah has a certificate for audio engineering and stuff like that, so we’ve always had the means to do that at home. In the past, we’ve always wanted to be on the road, so we saw that as a reason to just put stuff out, and didn’t really take our time with it — at least, not as much time as we should’ve.

It’s been months and months — or, really, years, at this point. You’re going to hear some old songs on it, and some songs that we’ve never even played live, but it’s a collection of all the stuff that just sums up the past two years, really.

What was the vetting process that determined what got on the album or not?

SS: I think, thematically, a lot of the concepts of the songs that are on the album are pretty politically motivated by things going on today. Like, just trying to grow up and how fucked up the world is right now. We’re trying to learn how be adults, and I’m just like — I dunno. I was told at my high school graduation not to bother to go to college if you wanted to [make] art.

It was 2010, and I was straight-up told by my principal, “If you’re going to waste your parents’ money to go to college, you better do something that can be a job.” That’s never been anything that’s been appealing to me — lifestyle-wise or just, like, humanity-wise — just to be trained to do something, so you can do a job. It’s exhausting.

“Parasites” almost didn’t make it on there, ’cause we released it live on that punk comp [Lawrence, KS Punk Rock Vol. 3], but thematically, it was just so relevant, that I was like, “I can’t not include this song.” It’s just, basically, “Fuck Trump.”

SC: We put out the EP, Neverland, before he was even elected, so that needed to be reintegrated. We recorded “Heroin & Automobiles” with the same guy who recorded the full-length, but we went back to him, after he relocated to Nashville. He was in this amazing studio, The Record Shop, and he had more resources.

He invited us to come out there, and we were like, “Hell, yeah — let’s do this.”

SS: I feel like he basically mixed it for free. Love that guy.

How long was the recording process? At 40 hours of studio time, and given how good the record sounds, I’m assuming it wasn’t knocked out over a weekend.

SC: Four or five days.

SS: I honestly feel like we could’ve used more time, but we came really prepared. It was our own money that we were spending, so we came in knowing exactly what we wanted our clicks at, having pre-recorded rough tracks that we could send to him, so he could get the song structure down and get the feel of it.

We did a lot of research, even before that process started. I think it’s just because we’ve done it before, and because I know stuff about studio time, we didn’t want to waste our money, because it’s hourly. I wanted us to show up ready to kick ass, and I feel like we did that.

I don’t feel like I could be any happier with any of it. Individually, I’m my own worst critic. I’m always like, “Oh, those vocals could’ve been better,” but even I listened back to these tracks, and I’m like, “Yeah, I’m really happy with that!”

SC: I feel like the way that we did it was super-authentic, too. We didn’t program drums or anything like that. A lot of it was like, live recording, but it was super-real, organic, and cool.

On “Drones,” there’s this amazing part where Sarah’s vocals have this little yelp, and then Steph’s guitar mirrors them with a pick slide. It’s instantly catching, and amazing. Where’d that come from?

SS: That’s just my thing. She asks me about my squeaks all the time. That’s just a thing I like to do.

SC: I feel like there are a lot of happy accidents in the recording process. There are times where I might play the wrong note, but it’s still a right note. There are a lot of string-sliding sounds that we wanted to keep in there, because it added to that atmosphere — just a lot of cool things that were totally accidental.

The release party for Vigil and Thieves’ make sure they hear you is at the Granada on Friday, August 24, with Mess, The Dear Misses, and Life Coach . Details on that show here.