Mario Quintero was sitting at his home in Brooklyn, New York, checking his email, when the multi-instrumentalist saw a strange message from an individual that claimed to represent a "large rock band." It was early 2016, and the guy wanted to know if Quintero's post-metal duo Spotlights was available to tour that August. At first, Mario and his bassist/singer and wife, Sarah, thought the note was from scammers and they almost deleted it. Then they Googled the sender's name and discovered he was from Creative Arts Agency and worked with some pretty major acts.
"We wrote back and said, 'Yeah, we're interested,' without even knowing what band they were talking about," Mario recalls. "So, he wrote us again and said, 'OK, it's with Deftones. Here are the dates. Let us know if you're available and we'll start the process.' We were like, 'Holy shit!' Our first record [Tidals] wasn't even out yet."
The unexpected invitation to tour with Deftones stemmed from a chain of events that started in 2012 when the Quinteros were living in San Diego and playing in the mostly instrumental indie/post-rock band Sleep Lady with guitarist Mike Hayden and his keyboardist wife Kristy. Mike, a big Isis fan, found out that their drummer Aaron Harris was producing bands. So Sleep Lady hired Harris to mix their second album, So Long Lonely Ghost, and Mario Quintero and Harris eventually became friends. When Harris' new band, Palms — which featured ex-Isis members Bryant Clifford Meyer and Jeff Caxide along with Deftones vocalist Chino Moreno — came to San Diego in July 2013, they invited Sleep Lady to open.
Soon after, the Quinteros moved to New York, but they kept in touch with Harris and when they formed the new, heavier, Spotlights, Harris — who was then working as a drum tech for Deftones drummer Abe Cunningham — recommended the band to Moreno. The Deftones singer was instantly captivated by the way Spotlights combined delicate atmospherics and crushing, mesmeric waves of sound (hence, the tour offer). Since then, Spotlights have only improved.
Their second full-length, Seismic (which was just released via Ipecac), pushes both ends of the spectrum. The textural parts are hazier and the doomy sections are faster, heavier and more apocalyptic, which stands to reason since it's a loosely constructed concept album about the end of the world and the desolate aftermath. Revolver talked with Mario Quintero about the creation of Seismic, the beauty of destruction and the danger of being blindly motivated by politics.
SPOTLIGHTS PLAY ATMOSPHERIC POST-ROCK FILLED WITH TENSION. WHAT INSPIRED THAT SOUND?
MARIO QUINTERO I've always liked playing guitar with delays and other effects, mostly from listening to the Cure. We also really like the Copenhagen [indie rock] band, Mew. They were a big inspiration.
MUSICIANS OFTEN COMPARE BEING IN A BAND TO BEING IN A FAMILY. YOUR BAND IS LITERALLY YOUR FAMILY — DOES THAT PRESENT ANY ADDITIONAL CHALLENGES?
Not really. Sarah and I met through music. I used to own a recording studio called Black Box Studio and her band came in to record. We became friends and we were friends for years. Eventually, we started dating in 2009. Music has always been our most common ground and we're at our best relationship-wise when we're working on Spotlights.
WHAT BROUGHT YOU FROM SAN DIEGO TO NEW YORK IN 2014?
Keeping the studio going was no longer sustainable. So we thought, Why not give it a go in New York? My initial thought was to keep working in a recording studio as much as possible and try and make that work out, but the music thing started taking off faster than the job opportunities. We landed in some of the right places at the right time. But we've definitely put our work in. We've played to two people and the bartender plenty of times.
MANY POST-METAL BANDS HAVE HARSH SCREAMED VOCALS. YOU TEND TO SING MORE IN A CLEAN STYLE. WHAT INFLUENCED THAT CHOICE?
I like screamed music. I like yelling and the intensity behind that, but every other day you hear a new band and they're screaming, doing the same thing as everyone else. I don't want to feed into that trend or style. But to be honest, I'm also not a good screamer. And the contrast of quiet vocals with massive-sounding music behind it is very appealing to me.
EVEN WITHOUT THE SCREAMING, THE LYRICS ON SEISMIC ARE DARK AND APOCALYPTIC …
The whole album is based on the destruction of humanity. That's why we included the lyrics because even though they're a little vague, they paint a picture of what we're trying to say.
SO IT'S A CONCEPT RECORD?
It's a scene of the afterview once all is said and done. "Seismic" is the beginning of the end and it goes on from there. There's this hidden beauty in all the destruction that is impending on humanity, that we're bringing on ourselves. The album kind of pictures the idea of an empty planet. The song "Ghost of a Glowing Forest" is written from the perspective of the earth itself. What's left is just … nothing. It's a shell of what humans were at that point. There's nothing, there's nobody. What used to be lights and cities are just gone.
DID THE CURRENT POLITICAL CLIMATE, TERRORISM AND THE GROWING NUCLEAR WAR TENSIONS DRIVE YOUR CREATIVITY?
Well, it's kinda hard to look at the world at this point and not think about these things. All of us just feel this anxiety that's building and building with all the stuff that's going on. So turning those feelings into music created a kind of release for that tension. Destruction doesn't all happen at once. A lot of it is about the tension before the end comes. Also, I like delicate, melodic music and heavy music. And I wanted to be able to put both into this idea of the album.
DID ANY PARTICULAR INCIDENTS IN YOUR PERSONAL LIFE FUEL THE LYRICS?
I'm used to writing the music first, so for me, a lot of that feeling goes into the actual music first before I write the lyrics. But being online and seeing people's disregard for animals and humans and just simply not caring about anything is pretty distressing.
WHAT'S THE UGLIEST, MOST DEPRESSING EXPERIENCE YOU'VE HAD ONLINE?
This summer, with all the earthquakes in Mexico and the hurricanes and things, seeing the way some people reacted to it all was pretty awful. A lot of people used politics to form their opinion of whether somebody should be saved or not. I find that disgusting – to use that as criteria for whether we should care about helping people or not. What happened in Puerto Rico is a perfect example of that and it's turned into a political issue where you have idiots on either side just making a decision based on what team they're supposed to follow. It drives me crazy.
DOES THAT MAKE YOU FEEL LIKE WE MIGHT ALL BE BETTER OFF IF WE HIT THE RESET BUTTON?
In a way, the idea of burning everything to the ground so maybe something else can come next seems like a really positive and wonderful thing.
AARON HARRIS PRODUCED SEISMIC. WAS THAT LIKE A BIG REUNION?
He was really into our last record Tidals, so he said, "Let me know if we can collaborate or work on anything," so we decided to ask him to record the new record and help produce it. Having the three of us in the studio making a record was a great experience. It wasn't like he was directing us or trying to put his stamp on anything. We were just all trying to make good songs. In the past, Sarah and I have recorded everything ourselves. We haven't worked with anyone else. But Aaron helped us make the record sound great. We'd definitely consider working with him again.
WAS TOURING WITH DEFTONES A GOOD EXPERIENCE?
It's definitely the biggest thing we've ever done. And everyone was so cool to us. As soon as we showed up we felt like we belonged there. They all came out and greeted us and were totally friendly. And as far as playing those huge places, it was so nice to actually be able to hear yourself and feel your music.
DO YOU PREFER PLAYING ARENAS OR CLUBS?
Doing that big tour was great, but it really doesn't make a difference. It's nice to play giant venues and have thousands of people there, but it's also just as nice to play a small place for 50 of your own fans. Just playing for people who like your music is rewarding.
NOW THAT YOU'RE REGULARLY TOURING ARE YOU ABLE TO MAKE SPOTLIGHTS A FULL-TIME JOB?
I actually just quit my job in New York because it was no longer realistic to think I could keep it with the amount of touring we were doing. I was working at Barnard College in New York running their AV department. I was able to work remotely quite a bit, but at this point, we have another tour booked in December and are working on filling up 2018 with as many shows as possible. They could only take so much of that and still be willing to pay me.
WAS TAKING THAT LEAP OF FAITH LIBERATING OR TERRIFYING?
It was super liberating. As stressful as it can be worrying about bills, I think we've come to a place now where we just have to go for it. We've been doing this for so long, so to finally have a little bit of a glimpse of the place we've been striving to reach, and see a little bit of that light at the end of the tunnel is pretty satisfying.
