INTERVIEW: Cliffdiver's Highly Anticipated Debut Album "Exercise Your Demons" Initiates The Beginning of a New Sound For Tulsan Rockstars
Genre-surfing, self proclaimed “Elevator Emo Pop” 7-piece, ‘CLIFFDIVER’’ get ready to embark on their new journey as they prepare to release their debut album “Exercise Your Demons.” They continue to persevere with their honesty and vulnerability as they touch on heavy topics of affirmation, self-expression, and transformation.
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How excited are you for the album?
Joey: Oh, I’ve never released an album before– I never thought I would. I always wanted to be in a band when I was a teenager. You know, Hayday, warped tour, I wanted to be playing those shows. To be able to do it now at 34 when I’ve grown up quite a bit; It’s a privilege. It’s so cool that I get this opportunity to do something that I’ve always wanted to do, and taking a swing at making an album, I think it turned out pretty good. I can't wait for people to hear it because I think it really encapsulates this new direction, where ‘The official Cliffdiver Experience’ is now off and running. I’m excited to introduce this new sound [and] new vision, and start playing shows for it. The new songs we all wrote together are so much more fun to play live because we’re not fitting people into old songs, these are songs we created as a unit. I’m so excited, I can’t wait.
Bri, Has your career goal always been music as well?
Bri: Always, yes. It’s something that Joey and I have always bonded over a lot. Actually there’s never really been another option. I’m really really lucky to say that everyone in my life– whether or not they have opinions on how I should've gone about it– everyone has always been very supportive of it. My parents always pushed me to sing, and my family would always [be like] ‘’Whatever gaps we need to fill in so you can do this..,” you know, “We believe in you..” So, I always have a team behind me to support me. I even did one of those reality TV singing shows, and after that it was kind of like ‘I think I can do this and use this new confidence.’ I mean, I stood in line with 12,000 other people and that was just one city, and then to make it to the top #16 young adults in the country on X factor, it was massive for me. It was really really validating. So when I came home from that, it was off to the races and I haven’t stopped working [since]. I emailed every venue in Tulsa, I found some guitar players that I could stand being around– like ‘Hey, learn these covers!’ and I started working and working. So yea, it’s kinda been the past 10 years just doing that. And It led me right back to DIY emo. [Laughs]
I feel like at the core you guys are midwest emo, but you guys call yourself elevator emo pop. Sooo, what is that? Can you explain what that means?
Joey: I feel like it needs to be longer, we’re like easy-core, pop-punk, emo…
Ska, a little bit?
Joey: Ska, a little bit. You know, on the album we have some post-hardcore on there, some me without you, some spokenword style in there. We like to go back and forth and oscillate all our genre options. I think elevator emo-pop was just the first one that stuck– but that was 3 years ago– I don’t even know if we’re that anymore.
Bri: I think that was, like, It’s just a joke now. It was truer around the time they released [their single] Cameron Diaz, and now it’s like, this is just what we say.
Joey: We’re disc golf emo I’d say, It can mean whatever you want it to. [Laughs]
So the album is going to have a little bit of everything?
Joey: Oh yea.
Bri: Big time! We worked really hard to make sure that we kinda of touched a lot of facets of the genres that people enjoy and kind of taking [it] back to when the line were a little– I don’t know, we kind of blurred the lines, I think, to a lot of different expressions of genres that we all love– and micro-genres even– in alternative music. It’s a lot of fun.
Joey:And it does tie us into a next album, you know, we can still do whatever we want. We can explore: we can pick up things people like, and the things we like. I doubt LP2 will sound anything like LP1, ya know? and that’s a nice thing. Or it might be exactly the same. Who knows, we will see. We haven’t started.
Bri: It’s like in Track 1: [New Vegas Bomb], Matt was like “I’m thinking about a ska break right now” and I was like “Do it!” Just like that. We were so bold about it, but it was like, If we liked it we worked with it.
Nice. Bri and I were talking earlier about her addition to the band but, How did you guys meet? How did that come to be?
Joey: Before I joined Cliffdiver I ran a local music podcast in Tulsa called The Sound of Tulsa and so I was working for a radio station called the Edge and they had gone away from supporting local music because It just wasn't financially viable for them to care about it. So I was going to shows [about] 5-6 times a week for like 5 years. I was at every show, I was even [at] 2 shows a night trying to experience everything that is Tulsa. I saw Bri’s other band Nightingale play a show and I knew her guitarist when I was younger and [Bri and I] connected because I was like “Holy crap, this woman is a force. Like her voice is insane!” and It was an instant “Whoa” [moment].
She is in the upper echelons of singers I know in general, so we kind of became friends over the years and would send each other little side things about band dramas, ya know. Then when I joined Cliffdiver, it was like [we are] two front people in a band, and we connected over that. Then it just transformed into what it is. I don’t think we knew at the time how important our friendship would turn out. It was just like someone who just got it, and now Bri is one of my closest friends. We talk about everything, like our deepest darkest fears and problems, and then we are able to put them into our performance, our song writing, and being transformative in my life in general.
When we brought up the idea of her joining after we recorded Gas City I remembered thinking “This is a true musician” and it's so crazy that she’s gonna come work with us. It’s an amazing thing that just worked out and is gonna continue to change our lives because we get to be completely vulnerable and through that write songs that I think would be a little too daunting be ourselves. We are able to hold space for each other emotionally, and intellectually and performance wise.
Does Oklahama inspire you guys in your writing at all? I’ve only been to Oklahoma once, and I was driving through from Wichita to Dallas. It seemed like a lot of nothing, like just fields.
Bri: I think so.Yea, Tulsa is very different from the rest of Oklahoma. Even Tulsa has its problems but there’s a little bit of normality here and some different attitudes than [the attitudes] you’d find in the rest of Oklahoma.
Joey: I love Tulsa, It’s a really cool music city. We’re really really blessed to have such great bands, any day of the week, any genre, we got it going on. So yea, I think so.
Alright so, let's talk about Ikea. What’s up with y'all and Ikea?
Joey:Fun little fact, I never been to Ikea. Never been inside. But Bri is an Ikea fiend, loves Ikea so now It’s become a thing. We’re an Ikea band somehow? I would love to get sponsored by Ikea. I would turn everything in my house into Ikea– like, change my mind.
Bri: Imagine my surprise when we are recording the album and I’m like anytime I’m out I’m like ‘Where's the closest ikea?’ because you know, I got to. I just, I love it. And so, I find the nearest one and I’m like, alright guys I’m going to Ikea who wants to come with, and learn that none of them have been there.
And with Ikea Strikes Back; Lost in Ikea obviously was the biggest song on [the] At Your Own Risk [EP] and it was kinda anthemic and had the “I know I’m good enough” and the mantra idea. So when we wrote Ikea Strikes Back and were in the studio we were kinda like Okay [we want to do] kind of the same thing. We’re doing this big affirmation. And we love affirmations in songs because If you’re [listening or] singing along to the song, “I’m good enough, good enough for anyone” you'll still hear yourself saying it. We put it in there to make you talk good about yourself. So we were saying how it kind of is the same thing [as Lost In Ikea] and I’m pretty sure it was Matt who was like silently sitting somewhere and was like “Ikea Strikes Back” Wait, was it you or Matt?J
oey: It was me. I was like “I kinda like Ikea Strikes Back” and we were all, “Well that’s it, that’s the name of the song” and we just got over it and moved on passed it.
Bri: It was out of nowhere, I was like obviously, like “Yea, you’re right.”
Joey: One cool thing about Cliffdiver is we are never afraid– or we never shy away– from doing stupid shit. Like we love being headasses. We’re like “that is so dumb! yea lets do it!”
That’s amazing. So like.. is there no Ikea in Tulsa or..?
Bri: There’s no Ikea!
What the hell?!
Joey: The closest one is either Dallas or Kansas City.
Ya’ll love Tulsa so much, but don’t have an Ikea? Hmm..
Joey: We’re working on it Lou!
Bri: It takes 4 hours to get to Ikea!
Joey: We can be the change that the city needs, and maybe we can talk about Ikea enough where they can just be like “You know what!!” and then we can cut the ribbon at the Ikea opening.
Get them an Ikea!
Bri: Yes!
Joey: Ikea, we’re reaching out to you right now. If you or a loved one worked for Ikea please call us at this number– [Laughs]
Bri: [Laughs]
What were some creative differences between your first EP and the album?
Joey: I’d say the biggest one is on the first EP, well At Your Own Risk because the first EP Matt wrote pretty much everything before I joined Cliffdiver in 2018, and I only wrote one song on [the] Small Hours [EP] which was “Why Wouldn’t I Wear A Windbreaker?” and that was the first song I wrote for the band. Then with the second EP, I kind of took over from a creative side of things, like what I wanted to talk about. I was starting to figure out that I could write lyrics, because as a former gifted kid anytime I’d write something that wasn't perfect the first time I just told myself I wasn’t good at it and never tried again, Much to my chagrin at times.
So on At Your Own Risk, I was like ‘Here's a story about my life, how do we tell it?’ Matt, our old bassist Dan, and I would sit around and we’d be like ‘Okay what’s this song about, let's write lyrics,’ but I had the final say in all the lyrics. And then when Bri and Gil joined it became a collaboration, where I didn’t have to come up with everything. And at first, it was a weird resistance, where I’d be like ‘Oh, no one is listening to me, i'm the guy who blah blah blah’ and It was a bunch of egocentric stuff, but I was able to see that everyone had to same intentions and everything had the same respect and reverence for [the] lyrical side of things. Which is really important to us as a band, these are all stories and we want them to be vulnerable and nothing less than truthful. With the addition of other people it just became more of a collaboration and so that way when we are playing these songs or listening to these new songs it becomes Cliffdiver it’s not Joey, Matt, and Cliffdiver, or [anything] less than a whole band. It’s a Unit. We now create together.
That’s why on the album it says music and lyrics by Cliffdiver. It’s not important to us to be recognized for individual contributions as much as it's important that we have a total product that makes sense all together, and that’s been liberating for us as band not to have to be one person holding the entire weight. Now it’s just what’s next, and getting to do it together. I can’t wait to write LP2. I really can't because we’ve come together so much more since we wrote this album. [We are] understanding how we were together and it's gonna be so much fun. So there’s been an improvement for sure, a lot less pressure on me. I get to watch other people be brilliant now, and that makes me focus on the things I do well instead of having to focus on everything. I love that. Did you want to add anything, Bri?
Bri: It felt harder in the moment but looking bad it was so easy just finding our groove. Like what Joey said about how there’s so many lines blurred between what we created because everyone contributed so much to it. It matters to me alot because as a singer– especially a career singer because that’s what I was doing full time before I joined the band– it's other people's music. It’s ‘Oh, here’s what you’re doing’, especially doing studio work. I didn't really create, I just performed. And so getting to step into a role is like..I don't know, I’m just so proud of it. It’s important also [that] on one hand it’s super collaborative but at the same time there's individual parts that I’m so proud of contributing. I think even from a representational standpoint that it’s important to take ownership of it and talk about the fact that this album is largely contributed by more of what I represent than it being me: Briana. It’s important as a black woman that I contributed as heavily as I did. I am proud of that, and I own that. This is the first thing I’ve ever written that I’ve released. This is the first thing ever. So, I get all the thrill of the first time excitement and becoming a person that I could have used when I was a kid. Yea, I understand that completely.
Joey: Yea, that is something really important that we’ve had conversations about. I think that was all very intentional too. Briana got to just be. [She got to be] who she was and who she was trying to be. It was a beautiful thing to watch; the blooming of this soon to be international super star. Finding her voice has been one of the greatest privileges of my life, watching Bri grow in confidence, and becoming this person. Sorry Bri, you know, she doesn’t like it when I say nice things about her. [Laughs]
But she deserves it! Everyone can see it, like even me. It’s crazy!
Joey: She does!
Have you guys toured nationwide before?
Joey: We’ve done the midwest! The farthest east we’ve gotten is Florida, we’ve done some south-east stuff, we’ve been to Texas alot. But this run will be our first time going up east. I’ve never been to New York, I’ve never been to Boston, I’ve never been to Philadelphia. And we’re playing all these cities! so I get to experience Brooklyn for the first time! Like, playing a show in Brooklyn is bizarre. If you told me that 5 years ago? I wouldn’t have believed you! I’d be like what the hell are you talking about. We’re super excited, we wanna play everywhere. We wanna play in the UK, we wanna play Japan, Australia– We’re trying to see it all! Mexico City, Brazil, just let me travel!
Is there a certain place where you’d be like, “Okay If I perform here I can retire.”
Joey: I mean, Japan would be really cool. Like, playing in Tokyo and seeing all the stuff. They have a really cool emo scene there. And I think playing [a show] in Dublin because I’m Irish. That would be insane. Or even London! Playing a rock show in London? That’s the dream.
Bri: We wanna play everywhere! But I mean… Madison Square Garden, ya know. Dream gigs for me are Madison Square Garden..
Joey: Lollapalooza
Bri: Right! Yea, a big stage at Lollapalooza, and like, Saturday Night Live.
Joey: Oooooo, Yea SNL would be sick! I would love to work on some sketches. I’m a religious SNL watcher, I watch it every week. That and I’d like to do the Colbert show, I think that would be cool.
I haven’t yet listened to the album, but I just wanna thank you for being so vulnerable. I know all of that is pretty tough to deal with.
Joey: The more I talk about it, the less power it has. And I always found that it’s true. I’ve dealt with some pretty intense things in my 20s. This guilt and this shame that comes with these kinds of violent [acts], being able to reclaim myself from what happened when I was finally able to talk about it. Like [saying] “This happened, and It wasn’t my fault that It happened” and “I’m not a bad person because I didn’t fight hard enough” and through that, this thing that I couldn’t even think about, I could talk about very comfortable and calmly now because it doesn’t own me anymore.
But that took years and years of therapy and medication and work to get past that. But that’s how I felt with this album, and being able to talk about these things that made me feel incapable of going on. Everytime I’m able to talk about them, they don’t feel so scary anymore.
I love the opportunity [to speak about these things] because people need to be able to talk about the things that hurt. You gotta talk to somebody. You can’t keep it in, that's when it gets bad.
Bri: That’s when you lose people. When I joined the band I knew that there was going to be this new sort of demand for honesty. It was something that Joey and I spoke about privately, I was like ‘Hey as another musician in Tulsa, I feel like I have to put on a front and you're very honest, about what you’re going through. I really admire that. I felt like if I did that as a musician I’d lose everything and people didn't want to see that. And It changed me, you know, that honestly changed me so of course we want to continue that work. I wanna widen the umbrella, I wanna be that for more people. I want to look like people who need to be talking about it more because there’s a lot of stigma. As a mom, as a woman, there’s all these barriers just like men experience with not talking about [their mental health]. Everyone has a different kind of pressure or barriers against the kind of bravery it takes to talk about things. We just want to tear those down little by little and validate them, or draw your attention to something else, but starting the conversation saves lives. Maybe someone will reach out instead of getting worse. Maybe someone will reach out instead of giving up. It does take bravery but it’s so worth it
Joey: It’s a privilege to be able to be honest.
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I am very much more excited for this album now, but I feel like it could be for anyone ya know? I feel like people can use it for affirmations, or they just wanna fucking dance or something, but also It could push them to start having conversations about their feelings. And I feel like It’s going to be a great album.
