'If you don’t like something, scrap it.' Great Northern on the power of its new single ANMIL

Plus, a QNA with Tyler-Ferris Masteller of Lokeigh.

May 14, 2023

Great Northern is deep in the midst of a reset phase.

After almost a decade’s long hiatus from releasing music, the duo — Rachel Stolte and Solon Bixler — have taken to producing, engineering an releasing a slate of songs on their own, first from a make-shift art/music studio in Napa and now from their home in Fresno.

They’ve collected more than two dozen tracks, which they have been releasing as a series of singles, building toward a full album release later this summer.

In January, they released a batch of four tracks that hinted at a new sound and energy — heavy on keyboards and drum machines, with Bixler’s guitar attack laid over Stolte’s soaring vocals.

On Wednesday, the band releases its latest single ANIML.

The song was a bit of a revelation, Stolte says. It shifted the duo’s perception of how they heard songs and wanted to make music.

ANIML was actually the left overs from another song the dup was working on and had been struggling to get recorded.

“We did 32 mixes of it and just couldn’t get it right,” Stolte says.

Eventually, they tore that song apart, down to just a beat and a short bass line and reconstructed it into ANMIL.

That process, “shifted the way we heard songs,” Stolte says.

“There are no rules. If you don’t like something, scrap it.”

In a way, ANIML encapsulates this whole collection of songs, which Stolte and Bixler have been revisiting with this new frame of reference and also a new live band that includes longtime Fresno drummer Andy Saldate (Haunt, Beastmaker).

“They really become alive in a different way,” Stolte says.

“Playing the songs live with him is informing things.”

ANIML is is being released in advance of a series of high profile performances, where the duo hopes to regain some traction, possibly even land a management deal. That includes a gig opening for The Smashing Pumpkins May 25 at the JaM Cellars Ballroom in Napa followed by a pair of performances with Bottlerock Napa and iHeart Radio.

Before that, the band plays May 20 at Fresno’s Tower District Records with Cosmic Space Bunnies.

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QnA with Lokeigh’s Tyler-Ferris Masteller

Tyler-Ferris Masteller was looking to release a full length album but stuff came up.

“I got divorced, came out as trans and had to move twice, crashed my scooter, got a concussion and had to quit my job and spend most of the year recovering,” says Masteller, singer/guitarist with the Sacramento (by-way of Fresno) band Lokeigh.

“Tending to all those things really cut into my music time.”

So, we get an EP, instead.

“Destined to Eat Your Flesh,” is out Tuesday on streaming platforms and on cassette tape pre-order through Stay Tough Records.

“This is my first personal and original release in almost a decade, so I didn’t want to put things off any longer,” Masteller says. “I chose that day because that’s the day that the planet Jupiter moves into the sign of Taurus.”

I emailed Masteller to catch up in advance of the release.

Let’s start off with the band itself.

“I don’t know how to make this a short story.

Lokeigh started its journey in the spring of 2021 shortly after vaccinations started to roll out. During that time, Beautiful Rat Records put out a call asking for DIY musicians to submit tracks for a My Chemical Romance cover compilation.

Days before that announcement Lucy, my friend and bandmate from Dandelion Massacre, had sent me a My Chem cover they were working on. It was a clever and beautifully executed cover of ‘Thank You For The Venom’ played on the banjo.

I pointed them in the direction of Beautiful Rat Records, and they responded by asking me if I wanted to sing vocals on the final recording. I had never said yes to something so fast in my life. I had wanted to be a part of that cover the instant I heard it. The timing of everything felt like fate.

That recording session was some of the most fun and empowering days as a musician I had ever experienced up until that point.

A lot of it had to do with the fact that Lucy is a savvy, disciplined and talented producer, but I think most of the warmth and beauty that started Lokeigh was a result of love: The mutual love and admiration we had for each other as artists and the love and inspiration that we both had for My Chemical Romance.

We decided to start our own band almost immediately after that. We played a lot of covers together and recorded demos of songs I wrote. I’d write the lyrics and sing, and they would record everything in their ‘lil home studio in Oakdale, and play guitar, drums and bass.

Once we had enough demos, we reached out to Chung to be our drummer, because I wanted to be in a band with Chung from the first day I met him. I had known of him as a metal drummer, but when I got introduced to him through mutual friends at a jam session at The Red Museum in Midtown (Sacramento), we were in the pocket playing Blink-182 songs, silly pop punk shit. Metal drummers who are willing to play pop punk are some of my favorite kind of people.

Lucy, Chung and I had our first band practice together on Easter 2022.

We were practicing for our first show, the 916 Pride show in June, but Lucy told me they needed to leave Lokeigh before that first show ever happened.

It was devastating, but for the best. Lucy leaving gave me the opportunity to learn leadership skills and things about myself that I otherwise never would have learned if they continued the be as invested as they had been.

We’re still friends and collaborators, and will still be playing live and on records with Lokeigh in the future. They just have a smaller role now.

Oh, and they did still play that first full band Lokeigh show. They are impeccable with their word.

After that, there was a brief void. Lucy is a hard worker, so they were essentially doing the job of three musicians. We cycled through a few very talented people, but nothing felt quite right until recently.

After a year, our band now consists of myself playing guitar and singing, Chung on drums, Erica on bass, and Eric on backing vocals and lead guitar.

Eric and Erica are, like Lucy, also from the Dandelion Massacre crew. Eric was Dandelion’s second mandolin player. Erica is Kevin’s partner.

Kevin is Dandelion Massacre’s bassist. They are a cute bassist couple.

I can tell by the way it feels when Chung, Eric, Erica and I are together that this combination of people is what Lokeigh is supposed to be.

Things have finally settled, and I’m beyond excited about it.”

In the past, you’ve been very acoustic. Why the decision to plug in, so to speak and how has that changed the essence of the songwriting/what you do?

“I started playing solo shows when I was 17 because I wanted to be a punk musician, but I had neither the collaborative or musical skills necessary to be in a band. Luckily I had just learned about folk punk, which I immediately fell in love with. Through folk punk I learned that I didn’t need to have electricity or even other people behind me to express the depths of my emotions.

I am also very sensitive to sound. I do love singing more than anything, but I actually don’t care to be very noisy if I can help it.

I used to joke that I was afraid of electric instruments, which was kind of true. I didn’t understand all the speakers, cables, and knobs necessary to make an electric band work, and I was young with low self-esteem so I let all that intimidate me. I became demystified over time by playing bass in other people’s projects and years of experience, but I didn’t become truly confident until I became a guitar teacher.

When we started Lokeigh, I didn’t want to play guitar, I just wanted to sing.

That’s still the long-term goal, but I feel capable and confident in my guitar playing ability like never before. It excites me, and I think it adds an energy to my songwriting that just couldn’t exist in the same capacity as my ukulele.

I was dazzled by the ukulele because NOTHING sounds sad on it. You could play the saddest song, the most morose chord progression, but it would still sound twinkly and dreamy, especially once you threw my voice into the mix.

But guitar? Guitar can sound fucking miserable. It has a capacity to express devastation, mania, and ennui, and ecstasy in a way that I didn’t know I needed.”

What are the influence? I hear the things I hear, but ... I'm interested in what you think?

“There is no mistake about it: Lokeigh is first and foremost a My Chemical Romance worship band.

Everyone in the current lineup has a passion for hardcore as well. I like hardcore, but I don’t take a lot of influence from it. My influence is mostly folk punk — my favorite band AJJ, pop music, Broadway musicals, and pretty much anything Jeff Rosenstock does.

Oh, and of course, I carry the heart of Friendcore with me wherever I go, specifically Sci-Fi Caper.

As far as non-musical influences go, I think the general consensus is that all of us combined have a deep passion for Cronenberg movies and the Ninja Turtles universe. We also hate cops. I understand if you don’t want to print that last part.”

Tell me all about the album?

“The album is called ‘Destined to Eat Your Flesh,’ which is a line from track one, ‘Kid Again.’ It’s a reference to Saturn devouring his son, which I use as a metaphor for getting in touch with one’s own personal power.

It’s three songs (and a bonus track on the physical release).

It was recorded during the in-between phases of Lokeigh at Cuddle Heaven Studios and at our practice space, The Red Museum. That’s all in Sacramento. The record features Chung on drums and guitar, Nina Lee on bass and backing vocals, and I play guitar and sing. Chung recorded everything.

It was mixed and mastered by Fresno’s own Jacob Lee or Plastic Skull Recordings. He’s also kind of like family to me. He recorded all of my solo albums, and he also briefly offered me a place to live at his apartment near FSU for free when I was 19 after I had just got out of a bad breakup.

I love what he does and I love the way he makes me sound. Hearing his mix of this EP for the very first time in January felt like coming home. I trust him with my life.”

Any upcoming plans? Like, will you make it down here with the full band at some point?

“The official Lokeigh EP release party will be on May 25 at Golden Bear in Sacramento California. I am currently in the works of booking full band shows in Fresno, the bay, and Reno for the summer.”