Jocie Adams and Zach Tenorio Miller of Arc Iris speak with KGNU’s Doug Gertner. They explain the band’s shift towards a fresh sound with their latest album, We Found Home. The duo also revisits their reinterpretation of Joni Mitchell’s Blue, titled Foggy Lullaby, and iTMRW, a collaborative dance-music project with HDC Dance Ensemble (Interview date: 11/4/2024)
Doug Gertner: The band is Arc Iris. That is the title cut from their 2023 release, We Found Home. Right now I’m joined on the phone by Arc Iris founder, guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter, Jocie Adams, and the keyboardist, Zach Tenorio Miller. Welcome to KGNU.
Arc Iris: Thank you very much for having us.
Doug Gertner: I’m a fan of The Low Anthem, Jocie, your previous band. I’m curious what prompted the pivot to form Arc Iris.
Arc Iris (Jocie): Sometimes it’s just time to start writing your own songs and expressing them in new ways.
Doug Gertner: Time to step forward and rather than be a band member, be a band leader. Right on. We just heard the title cut from We Found Home, which dropped last year. I think your fifth full length album with Arc Iris. In my opinion, a stunning release. I wonder if you can talk a little bit about We Found Home.
Arc Iris (Jocie): We made We Found Home after moving out to Los Angeles in 2020. In that time, Zach, who’s with me here, learned a lot more about how to use the DAW Ableton. And I think that really contributed to a growth in our sound from the previous record. He can talk a little bit about that.
Arc Iris (Zach): Yeah, I think we were also just inspired to put music out. Our whole campaign was, we’ll just put out a single every month until we have a full record. By creating deadlines for ourselves, we were able to get it done, which seems easy and a no brainer. So it was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun to learn Ableton and use that as the fourth member of the band. There’s just so much you can do on that program that I had no idea about that I learned during the pandemic.
Arc Iris (Jocie): This record, We Found Home, is the first record that is written as an observation of the world and didn’t have any agenda. Our previous records were all concept records to some degree or another. And many of our future records are as well. I think there is a freedom in the creation of this record that is also special. Having a concept is special, but having freedom is special in its own way and sets it apart.
Doug Gertner: That makes sense. I’m talking with Jocie Adams and keyboardist and sample artist Zach Tenorio Miller of Arc Iris. It seems to me that 2023 was a busy one for the band. I’ve been enjoying this release, a revisioning of Joni Mitchell’s classic Blue LP. Talk a little bit about the name and the backstory that brought your interpretation of Joni to us.
Arc Iris (Zach): Yeah, so we actually recorded that record in 2018 and it started as an idea from our friend Ryan Miller from the band Guster. He wanted to start a band with him and Arc Iris. He was like, we should just cover a whole record. Like Harry Nilsson or Joni Mitchell’s Blue, and we’re like, that’s a great idea. And then he decided that we should do originals, so we started a different band. But as a result, we ended up doing all of Joni Mitchell’s Blue and reinterpreting it as a completely different record. A lot of the chords are changed. I’d say the only thing that really stays the same are the melodies. But it was so much fun to make and we toured it for a solid year. Now that Joni’s kinda active again, we’ve been bringing back a lot of those songs. We’ll definitely play at least one of those songs on the 7th at the Savoy, because it will also be Joni’s birthday that day.
Doug Gertner: Oh my goodness, we’ll be celebrating. Foggy Lullaby is what you called that Joni Mitchell release. I’m a huge longtime fan, but I may be missing Where you got that name from?
Arc Iris (Jocie): “Foggy Lullaby” is a lyric in the song “Blue”.
Doug Gertner: There you go. Maggie would know that. You’ll meet her at the Savoy as well. But beautiful. And you weave in, it looks like, some interviews with Joni in her own words.
I’m talking with Arc Iris, a couple of members who will be coming to town. Their home is Providence, Rhode Island, and I noticed that you have a collaboration going with the HDC Dance Ensemble of Providence. It strikes me. I think it’s called “iTMRW”, and we have a fantastic dance company in Denver, Wonderbound. Just saw their latest, “Devil’s Crush”. They most often perform dance with live musicians. I’m wondering if that’s how “iTMRW” works, where you perform live to this multimedia performance that includes dance.
Arc Iris (Jocie): Yes, that is correct. We premiered the show “iTMRW” right before the pandemic. Our last performance of that show was literally the night that everybody was sent home, and everyone was weirded out and scared. But people came anyway, and it was apocalyptic, much like the music. There’s a little montage-y kind of clip of what the show looks like on our website. It is performed with HDC Dance Ensemble, which is from Providence, although since then, one of the members has moved back to Spain, and one has moved to Montreal, and we have moved to Los Angeles. So when it comes back around it may be performed with a different ensemble, though I suspect the same choreographer. We don’t know when that will happen because we will need to raise a whole bunch of money in order for that to occur. Or, like you said, team up with a willing and excited pre-existing dance ensemble.
Doug Gertner: I see. Plans to release the music anyway?
Arc Iris (Jocie): Definitely. We finally came back to that record and dusted it off and got it ready to send out the door. We are currently shopping it around and figuring out how people release music in 2024. So if anybody knows the answer to that question, we are interested. Feel free to reach out. But yeah, we will be releasing it soon.
Doug Gertner: Very good. We’re talking with Arc Iris’s Jocie and Zach, and we’re very excited to see you. KGNU presents Arc Iris, part of the MAS Presents series. That’s going to be Thursday, November 7th, 7 o’clock show. You’ve probably picked up that Arc Iris is a wildly adventurous genre blurring trio that pulls inspiration from an incredible diversity of genres. They’ve toured and shared stages with so many of our favorite artists and they take the stage to headline on Thursday.
Can you let folks know what to expect? I heard a little bit of Joni Mitchell, probably something from We Found Home. Just tip your hand a little bit and let us know what else to expect from an Arc Iris show.
Arc Iris (Zach): Yeah, we will be playing songs basically from every record that we’ve put out. We’ve been a band for 12 years now. We’ve made a lot of records and it’s been fun going back through the catalog and picking some songs that we haven’t played in many years. We’re going to be playing a lot of new stuff.
We call this our acoustic-ish set, which basically means that Jocie’s role is the same. She still plays guitar and sings, and she uses all of her effects on her vocals, but I play piano. So that’s the big sonic difference. There’s so much fun. We’ve done these a bunch of times and we’re super psyched.
Doug Gertner: Fantastic. Yeah, there’s a nice piano at the Savoy and you’re not bringing your Ableton, your sample collection, anything like that. It’s the acoustic version. Couldn’t be more excited. Arc Iris comes to the Savoy Denver, this 7 o’clock show again. I’ll see you in Denver.
Guys, we’re going to go out on a tune from We Found Home called “Gin and Chocolate”, partly because those are two things that I really enjoy myself. I enjoy the tune as well. Can you talk a little bit about that song before we say goodbye and play the tune “Gin and Chocolate” by Arc Iris.
Arc Iris (Jocie): Yep. I think this song is just a little picture of a story of a woman who observes the world through a window. Not literally, but figuratively, and doesn’t take the time to go experience life for herself and is confused about emotions and the way that people behave as a result. The song speaks for itself.
Doug Gertner: Fantastic. Thanks so much, Jocie and Zach, for giving us a call at KGNU today.
