Anthony Green is perhaps best known as the charismatic singer of Circa Survive, but the musician’s name holds up well on its own. During some time off from Circa Survive, Green holed up and created his first solo album, Avalon, which collects songs from the past few years and offers them to the world in a cohesive, conceptualized package. Green discusses the making of the album and the future plans for Circa.
What motivated you to do a solo record?
We had time off and these songs were burning a hole in my pocket. I almost felt like I couldn’t write properly without getting rid of them. I had to digest and shit them out before I was able to actually consume any more songs. I just felt like I had to get them out of my system and this was the perfect time to do it. I’ve kinda been putting it off for the last couple years because I had other stuff I had to focus on so timing-wise it was perfect.
When did you record the record?
I recorded it in-between February and March.
How much time were you able to spend on it?
I spent eight days in Avalon, NJ, at a house that was right off the beach. I just had a computer-recording program, nothing super high tech. Good Old War came down for two days and we just jammed through a lot of the songs. We came up with a lot of the songs on the spot, just as we went. The way it used to be when you couldn’t afford to be in the studio for three weeks, when you just had to do it and get it done and work all day. So that’s what we were doing—we just spent all day playing, every day.
The momentum that gets you going is sort of the same that tells you when you’re ready to do. You need to do it and you’re excited because you’re hearing things develop and it snowballs so you don’t realize until the end of the day that you’ve spent all day staring at a computer screen and trying to play things in time and now have nearly two songs finished. It was a very gratifying experience to work on a timeline like that. It feels like you actually got shit done.
Were you alone on the day the band wasn’t there?
My wife was down there and my friend Joe who was engineering and recording everything was down there, but I play everything on the record except for the stuff with a full band so the majority of the time I was by myself.
Are you actually a pro guitarist that no one knew about because you just sing in Circa?
No I’m not. I’m actually probably the worst guitar player I’ve ever met. There’s a period of time where you can be bad but also still be learning stuff. I’m beyond learning anything. I’ve been able to pick things up from people who are really good over the past few years and the more I practice the better I get, but overall I would say I’m a pretty horrible guitarist.
