The Casual is a three-piece pop/electronic/rock band from Lancaster, Pennsylvania consisting of Zach Anderson (singer/songwriter), Chris Norton (drummer), and Chris Arcand (bassist). The band recently announced they will be releasing their debut EP entitled Lust, August 18, 2015. We recently chatted with the band’s songwriter and frontman Zach. Read our interview below!
With this being the band’s first EP is there anything you liked or disliked about the production process?
“I have probably three albums of music written already for this band so it was just picking the songs to debut first and going through a million different changes with what songs would go on the EP. That was the hardest part, besides waiting on the engineer to finish with everything.”
You guys have a pretty eclectic sound, who would you say are your biggest influences?
“I draw from a lot of different things. I was raised on and taught classical and jazz and then on my father’s side I got more of the hard rock, The Police, was a big one. As I got older I went into the pop thing which is where I find myself now. So, as far as different artists go its between Panic! At The Disco, Frank Sinatra, Weezer, Foo Fighters, there are so many.”
I know you guys have played with Panic! and Vinyl Theatre and both of those are pretty big names, you say you’re a big fan of Panic!. Was playing with them it for you or is there like another dream band you would want to play with?
“We wanna go to the top, we wanna play with like Bruno Mars, Ed Sheeran, all of them, that’s where we wanna be. Of course at the end of the day, as a band, you wanna be playing Madison Square Garden. That’s where we wanna get to, but we’re super young. Panic! was a huge step. It was pretty surreal playing with them in front of 3,500 people and no one knowing who we were because it was our first show, but it was awesome.”
Has the performance with Panic! been your favorite so far or have you done any smaller venues that you liked better?
“I think one of our favorite shows was the Trash Bar in Brooklyn for some reason, there was hardly anybody there, but it was nice to have that intimate environment. It’s called the Trash Bar for a reason. It just kind of takes you back to hearing those stories about bands that were raised and grew up on the Sunset Strip and thinking about all those little dicey venues and living that experience, I really liked that.”
I saw something about a Casual Documentary, is that something we can still look forward to?
“A Casual Documentary? Yes! We have mini clips already made from making the EP and everything. We’re going to release it in little spurts on YouTube, they aren’t that long of clips, but yeah.”
I saw a fan ask about making a Snapchat, so that they would be able to see all the behind the scenes stuff, is that something we can still hope to happen?
“Yes, we are talking about doing a Snapchat. We’ve been talking about it and we’ve been a little torn about doing it. I think we are going to end up just doing it because we’ve had a couple of fans ask us if we could do a Snapchat. Yeah, we’ll probably do a Snapchat.”
Is there anything else the fans have to look forward to with finishing the EP and other stuff?
“As far as stuff we are doing this year, we are planning an EP release show, working on getting music videos ready and getting things going. There’s a lot to look forward too! We have a couple covers and a couple other things that will be coming shortly.”