It’s pretty unconventional for a band that’s only been around five years to drop a singles collection, but listening to Varsity’s The Basement Takes (2015-2016) it makes sense for the burgeoning Chicago collective, whose early tracks cohere into a convincing narrative across the record’s eight tracks. Sounding more like the NPR-lauded dream pop collective than the group storming dive bars (and literal basements) across Chicago at the time these songs were written, their Run for Cover debut and follow up to last year’s twee-tinged Parallel Person is as good an entry point as any to Varsity.
With the LP getting an official release this Friday, today the band is offering an early stream of the record—comprised of three early 7-inches and two unreleased tracks, “Second Act” and “Taken By Surprise”—along with commentary on each individual track. Read on to hear about how the band has evolved since these tracks were released, and how they’ve remained live staples—and for confirmation that bandleader Stef Smith’s boyfriend is not, in fact, in a cult.
The Basement Takes (2015-2016) is out this Friday, November 15, via Run for Cover. You can pre-order it here.
1. “Cult of Personality”
This was one of the first songs we wrote as a band, probably back in March of 2015. It was a pretty collaborative effort, with the intention of just writing a fun “rock n’ roll” song. It’s usually the first song we play in a live set because the energy is so high and it gets us all real pumped up. Stef wrote the lyrics at a time when she thought her boyfriend might be in a cult…turns out he wasn’t, but we still got a good song out of it.
2. “So Sad, So Sad”
This song came from a chord progression Dylan wrote after listening to a lot of Pet Sounds / Smiley Smile–era Beach Boys. It’s also one of the first songs where we experimented with tempo changes. We recorded it live relatively quickly at Public House Recordings, which was the name of our friend Dave Vettraino’s basement (“basement takes”…get it?). It ended up being a fan favorite and we didn’t see that coming. It’s still one of our favorite songs to play, and we often hear from people that this song gives them “feels,” or describes something they’re going through at the moment. We’ve all been there, trying and failing to escape an unhealthy situation.
3. “Taken By Surprise”
There was no real reason to shelve this song except that maybe it didn’t fit with the vibe of “So Sad” or “Cult of Personality.” It’s a pretty straightforward song that fit what I (Stef) was feeling at the time. Sort of trapped in my hometown and not moving forward, whatever that meant to me at that moment. Looking back, I want to tell myself to chill out and shit will just happen!
4. “Eye to Eye”
“Eye to Eye” started out as a jam at our practice space. Sometimes jamming with no intention turns out to be fruitful! There was a period during 2015-2016 where we were listening to a lot of angular, punky guitar bands (Women, Ought, Protomartyr, etc.) and this was sort of our skewed take on that. This was a pretty heavy song for us at the time, especially that last chorus where we tried to get as noisy and chaotic as possible. This song is about our first mini-tour together in the current line-up of the band.
5. “Kelly”
This song was written by Stef at home on her Casio keyboard and then brought to the band to flesh out. We tried a ton of different full band iterations—louder, faster, part-loud / part-slow, etc. We’d always come back to the slow, somber, cathartic mood of the demo. Stef wrote this song for a good friend of hers but decided to change the name because she had been burned in the past for using people’s real names in song titles… The name Kelly was taken from an American Wrestler’s song that we all really loved.
6. “Second Act”
This song was written during a time when a lot of friends were moving out of Chicago, including our drummer Spencer. It’s about wanting to hold on as long as you can to the way things are in your early twenties. This was also the first song we recorded with Paul on bass and Jake moving over to drums, which is still our current lineup! We never released this song (until now!) because we still really enjoyed releasing two track digital singles, and decided to pair up “Eye to Eye” and “Kelly” instead. By the time we got around to recording Parallel Person (our second LP) we had a whole new batch of songs, and this tune just kinda fell by the wayside.
7. “Smash”
This was one of those songs that came together really quickly. It was born out of a jam we stumbled upon at the end of a band practice. Stef laid down some crispy vox real quick at the next practice and boom, there we go. It’s really fun and exciting when a song comes together like this. There’s also a really cathartic bridge that still feels vulnerable performing.
8. “Still Apart”
The verse melody was something we had been jamming for, like, a year, and we forgot about it (sensing a theme here?). Thank goodness for the voice recorder app. Dylan made a demo with a new chorus and it re-energized us to finish the song. We remember feeling this was a new type of a song for us. The song “Heart of Glass” by Blondie was an inspiration for the end. There’s a part in the bridge where they play the chorus melody on a synth, but they skip a beat at the end of the phrase and it catches you off guard. We feel like we achieved that with the outro on this song.
