Christian Davis:

Morgan, now that “Dealer” is out, there has been such a noticeable buzz about Foxing outside of the standard “emo revival” scene. What’s your experience been like listening to this sort of stuff in a community? For music that stresses emotional catharsis, I feel like people that live in places outside the standard Midwest, East Coast locales have a harder time connecting with fans of these sort of bands.

Morgan Mitchell:

I’ve found though that these bands are aware of that and have a huge online presence. Everything I’ve learned about Foxing, I’ve learned through their tumblr blog. I feel really connected with the emo revival community online, so much so that it almost makes up for not having a stronger one here in person. We are all so tight knit and it starts with one band and then you’re exposed to all these other bands through the community and it feels like home and I love it.

CD:

I love what you said about this scene feeling like home. The Hotelier put out “Home, Like Noplace is There” during a really formative and tough year for me, and I remember belting the lyrics to the first track when I saw them live. “Home” is really the only word to describe that feeling.

Let’s talk about “Dealer.” I feel like “Dealer” is another example of how bands in this scene are constantly growing and changing. How are you feeling about the record right now?

MM:

I was nervous about “Dealer” because “Albatross” has to be my favorite album of all time and like you sort of mentioned, bands in the emo revival scene like to experiment and mix it up like Empire! Empire! (I Was a Lonely Estate) did with “You Will Eventually Be Forgotten” and The World is a Beautiful Place did with “Between Bodies.” Sometimes it goes well and sometimes it goes not so well.

“Dealer” definitely went well. They wanted to produce an album that was in their words “a record full of songs that mean a lot to us; every song speaks to a specific part of our souls. A record about loss. A slowburner; a night record.”

Unlike “Albatross” that has a feeling of frustrated despair and almost uncontrolled anger, “Dealer” has a feeling of slow sadness and hopelessness. Instead of raising your fist up, you want to just sink into the floor.

The lyrics are more personal and I love that they mentioned exposing their souls because I feel Foxing on a soul level.

CD:

I get the nervousness thing. I think we were all on edge in terms of how TWIABP was going to follow up “Between Bodies.” The scene reacted pretty visibly to that change of direction, too.

I love that quote, and I think the term “slowburner” is really telling. Before we had even started messaging, I had actually thought about bringing up the album’s pacing. I feel like “Dealer” ebbs and flows in this really natural, almost glacial sense. I think of “Winding Cloth” and how it just slowly evolves and shifts, and it totally reminds me of Sigur Ros, and even some Sufjan Stevens.

“The Magdalene” is so crushingly sad, and discusses the guilt associated with losing one’s virginity. This is one of the other ways that I feel Foxing has evolved — the stories told on “Dealer” strike me with so much more clarity.

MM:

I saw another fan also say that “Dealer” reminds them of Sigur Ros!

It’s interesting that you mention that the lyrics strike you with more clarity. Foxing formed a week and a half after bassist and backup vocalist Josh Coll got back from serving in Iraq and a lot of the lyrics he wrote for “Albatross” are about his experience, albeit vague. But for “Dealer,” he decided to explicitly talk about it in the song “Indica” and that song rips your heart out and stomps on it. With lyrics like “The frames and faces I’ve mistaken / for kids whose lives I may have taken / and if so, do I haunt their parents dreams? / And in so, am I summarized by young lung screams?”

The lyrics in “Dealer” exposing such personal and intimate moments and fears of Connor Murphy and Coll is what makes this album so influential for any young artists. This is what bearing your soul into your art looks like.