A Conversation with Purple Corporation

Purple Corporation was formed by University of Chicago students Matt Williams and Miles Donnelly. Self-described as “psychedelectric,” the band has three studio albums (Mind Phonics, Atomic Bionic Sonic Chronic, and Memos from Space) and two EPs (BeatPack and BeatPack: Season 2) available on all digital streaming services.

The band features Miles Donnelly on guitar, vocals, trumpet, and production, Matt Williams on bass and production, Nick Olosky on the guitar, Sam Jacobson on the drums, and Jacob Walter on the guitar. Their next album, Indigo Sesh, is dropping on Monday, November 18th, and their next gig is on November 19th at Martyrs’. The following pictures were taken at their most recent gig at Tonic Room in Lincoln Park on November 5th.

Nick Olosky on a Fender Longboard Stratocaster

Can you talk about the initial inspiration for the band? How did you meet?

Miles Donnelly: Matt and I met up through this RSO (Recognized Student Organization) called Blue Maroon on campus and we just decided to do our own thing and turn the studio into our instrument. We started about a year ago.

Matt Williams: Word, we just wanted to make songs. Blue Maroon was doing more covers and we wanted to do originals, so we started songwriting in the studio.

How would you describe your music to someone who has never heard it?

MD: It's eclectic. I would call it "psychedelectric" because I don't know if we could fit into any genre already. But it's got definitely rock and roll, a little bit of hip hop in there.

Nick Olosky: I think the produced versions lean a little bit more into hip hop and the live versions lean a little bit more into rock.

Sam Jacobson: It's a little bit proggy (progressive rock) at parts too.

MW: But it's definitely psychedelic overall.

SJ: Yeah, I would say so. It's pretty atmospheric, too.

MD: We definitely set out with the goal of making something that doesn't sound like anything that's been made before.

Do you have specific artists that you're influenced by?

MW: For me, Parliament Funkadelic. I'd love to be a little George Clinton but with less drugs. And I think Metro Boomin's a genius with the production. I'm inspired by him.

NO: Lately I've been inspired by Tame Impala with the guitar sounds, less shred-dy and more atmospheric and out there.

SJ: That kind of approach fits a lot of our sound better.

MW: When I make riffs for guitar, King Krule. All of the guitar shapes that I know are from King Krule songs.

What does your songwriting process look like?

MD: It depends a lot on what we're working with in terms of instrumentation. Sometimes I'll just start with the acoustic guitar, lay down some chords, and write lyrics. Then I'll bring it in to the rest of the band and we'll flesh it out.

SJ: I'd say there's a lot of fleshing out. Most of the tracks come from a chord progression or a melodic hook. A lot of those have come from Miles because he had written a lot before we met him and started playing with him. Matt, too. They started a while before I met them.

MD: They'll take something that Matt and I wrote in the studio, and it's very electronic, and they'll translate that into a live instrumentation.

NO: Jacob and I will try to figure out the chords -

SJ: That sometimes takes a while.

MD: When I learned the guitar, I kind of just made up chords. I never took lessons. I have no idea what I'm playing. It's kind of just like, "This sounds good, right?"

NO: And then Jacob and I are like, "Um, I think that's a G minor seven with an add 9?"

MW: We come in with ideas, they make it sound like music.

SJ: It's a two step process.

Do you have specific topics currently inspiring your music?

MD: A big thing that gets me going is climate change.

SJ: He's pissed.

MD: And then I write songs about that, like protest songs, calling back to the sixties when they were protesting Vietnam. I think a lot of musical movements are tied to some kind of protest.

SJ: We've got some of that sixties psychedelic rock sound too.

MD: And then love and shit. Also I like making up stories. I imagine I'm a little kid playing with action figures.

Can you talk about the visual component of the band and the album art?

MW: I’ve got Photoshop. I've been messing around with that.

MD: I have an art connect through my family. We've been collecting art for years, but it's always artists making art in the moment, it's never after the fact. And when you collect an artist's art, they become your homie, just because you're supporting them. So I have a lot of connections with young artists, for example Louis Granet. He's out of Paris. There's also Christian Schumann and Michael Bevilacqua. My mom also runs an art gallery where she represents all these artists. I call her up and am like "I need an album cover," and she'll be like "Alright, I'll see what I've got in the portfolio." And so I pair it up with these paintings that these artists are making.

MW: Shoutout Yara, she's on campus, she did our most recent album cover. It was a picture I took on vacation with palm trees.

How do you feel like your music has evolved since you started the band?

MW: Well, the production's gotten better.

MD: When we started, I'd never played the guitar before, and I'd never played synth or produced. So I've been learning all of that stuff as it's gone along.

MW: We were making beats and he was like "Yo, I wanna sing on this." And he'd never sung before, just started the summer before this past summer. So over the course of the year we've grown together.

MD: And then the biggest shift has definitely been when we brought the whole band together. That's the crucial shift. Now we're playing gigs and we've got this really energized sound that the guys are bringing to the group which is sick.

What's your dream gig in Chicago, or dream gig period?

MW: Madison Square Garden.

MD: Staples Center.

NO: The Aragon Ballroom in Chicago.

MW: That would be sick. Yo, Soldier Field though.

SJ: It'd be sweet to play Lolla. I think a festival would be cool.

NO: Yeah, then you can hangout with the other artists.

SJ: But also the whole outdoor aspect, everyone is just hanging out, everyone is clearly there just to experience music for the day.

MD: I mean, even Summer Breeze would be sick. Put that in the post.

What are you currently working on?

MW: We're trying to do a live album before the quarter's over.

NO: We've got the current versions of a lot of the songs we've recorded. But a lot of the live versions are rather different, so we want to get a session in the studio or something where we can crank out and record some of the live versions, which would be fun.

SJ: Something to mark the transition of when they brought us in. It's such a completely different feel and sound, but a lot of them are the same songs with the same ideas. It'll diversify the Spotify page a little.

MD: And it'll also give something for us to send to venues. And then we're also about to drop a studio album next week. So that's about to roll out, it's 12 songs called Indigo Sesh.

Do you improvise during live performances?

MW: We opened with a jam at our first gig we ever played.

NO: Oh yeah, the bar night gig.

MW: Yeah, so there's a lot of improvisation in our songs. We have pretty large solo sections on most tracks too.

SJ: We like a good solo. We've got a couple of virtuoso guitarists on tap.

To finish off the interview, who are your favorite artists?

SJ: That's a huge question. I'm going to throw Jimi Hendrix in there.

NO: John Mayer's my guitar hero. I really love a lot of his songs. That's not the direction I try to go towards, but I love his guitar playing and a lot of the stuff he does is really cool.

SJ: Yeah, that's a tough distinction to make. All of my favorite drummers aren't necessarily part of my favorite bands. Benny Greb is probably my favorite drummer, but purely as a drummer. I was also revisiting some Led Zeppelin last night.

NO: I listened to some Santana on our record player. Some of the percussion stuff that he does -

SJ: It's the Latin rock thing which is so cool.

NO: Yeah, right. And the way he plans it how you have one beat in your left ear and one beat in your right ear, it's just weird but it works.

MD: MF Doom is my favorite hip hop artist.

SJ: I think he's my favorite hip hop artist too.

MD: And then Freddie Hubbard is probably my favorite jazz musician, on the trumpet.

NO: I already threw Tame Impala out there.

MW: My favorite has got to be Parliament Funkadelic, George Clinton.

SJ: Yeah, P Funk's so sick.

MW: I love those guys. In terms of inspiring me to produce, Metro Boomin definitely. Pharrell has got to be in there. And let me throw SZA's name out there. She's a modern artists that makes albums, like complete works that are just phenomenal.

NO: Yeah, Ctrl is great.

MD: I mean like, The Beatles. You've gotta mention The Beatles. The thing I strive for is being The Beatles with the last fifty years of context, because they were making weird stuff for their time.

I was definitely reminded of Joy Division at your gig.

SJ: I was about to say - when we're hashing stuff out in the rehearsal room, I think of Joy Division and Radiohead a lot.

MD: But it's interesting because everyone who is like "Oh, you know who you sound like?" it’s always something different.

What else have you gotten?

MD: The Killers. Jim Morrison of The Doors.

SJ: I've gotten Jim Morrison before I had a haircut. Sometimes it gets really heavy and we kind of sound metal-y.

MW: Oh, King Crimson.

SJ: I mean, Metallica.

NO: Would you go that far?

SJ: Yeah, I don't know if I would go that far. Maybe more Black Sabbath.

MD: And we've got a lot of jazz and classical roots in there.

NO: These guys like to throw in a lot of Major Seventh chords, which is very jazzy.

SJ: Sometimes I swing the hi-hat rhythm. It's that jazz influence.

MD: Yeah, I started out of classical composition at pre-college at Juilliard in New York. I learned music theory and ear training, but now I just don't think about any of that. I've learned the rules in order to break them.

Any last words for the interview?

MD: We’ve got an album dropping Monday the 18th and then gig Tuesday the 19th at Martyrs'. And then we've got another gig on December 13th at Silvie's Lounge.

NO: That's the Friday of finals week so it will be a send off for winter break.

Check out Purple Corporation on Spotify and Apple Music, or on their Facebook and Instagram pages.