K: I kinda think that “The Ballad” from Yes. No. Shut It! presaged Exit Dreams!. Do you disagree? And how did the slight shift in sound work from disc to disc?
“Not Invented” seems like a direction that you guys could take and use for an entire disc – and while that isn’t gonna happen, was this the musical direction that the band sought to embrace on Exit Dreams?
CG: First of all that song is called Not Invited. I have seen it called Not Invented a lot on the Internet and I honestly might like that title better but that is not what it is called. Maybe that’s an MP3 thing? I don’t know.
The songs on Exit Dreams were written over the course of the five years between it and our last album. This was a pretty depressing time period for our band. We were just kind of draining down into the inevitable end. I do think that this type of unavoidable depressing reality allowed us to write more honest music that was free from the conventions and genre mind games that had ensnared us before. This made for an album that I feel is more fluid. The songs do not jump from genre to genre as much as on previous albums. We were not afraid to mess with verse chorus verse structure. The stylistic changes happen within songs and I think that makes it more translatable and easier to believe. Not Invited is the one song that is pretty much just a straight pop song and I really see it as more of a throwback to our old albums as opposed to a glimpse into the non-existent future. It does sound like “the ballad” and that’s why it is more of a link to the past.
Oddly enough, I expected this album to be overwhelmingly dark and bleak and one of the things that surprised me with the end product is an odd current of joy and hope that runs throughout it. It almost seems like “Hobo Sunrise” is way darker. I saw one review that claimed “Exit Dreams” was devoid of humor and wrought with dramatic angst and that does not strike me as true at all. Carnival Debris is about a day at an imaginary circus for god’s sake. Swim Hole is overwhelmingly sprightly and filled with some sort of nostalgic hope. Once again, that aspect of humor is always missed and I think that is a big key to understanding our band.
K: Your drummer’s in a band called the Real Pills? Have you guys performed together? Do other members of the group have other bands or projects pulling them away from the Hunches?
CG: Ben was in the Real Pills before he joined the Hunches back in the year 2000 or so. He quit when he joined our band.
K: Your Myspace page (and yes, I know it’s lame to begin a question like that) says that there is/are a member or members in SF? When did that occur and how did that work for the recording of Exit Dreams?
CG: I live in San Francisco but I moved here after Exit Dreams was completed. It is going to pose a minor problem practicing for this tour but I don’t think that it’s too big of a deal.
K: Has the band accomplished everything that you wanted it to?
CG: Yes. We did a bunch of major tours, played with a lot of bands that I looked up to, got to put out albums on the record label I had always wanted to work with, we made music that I am proud of, and I think that we got out of the game before we started to suck too hard.