Graveyard Club members Matthew Schufman and Michael Wojtalewicz open up about their songwriting influences and how they work to go beneath the surface of a song’s lyrical and musical themes to create an experience. They describe their new record Moonflower as their most honest work yet.

Graveyard Club will celebrate the album’s release with a show at Fine Line Cafe in Minneapolis on July 30 with special guest Aaron Rice.

Transcript edited for length and clarity

Diane: I love this quote, I'm pulling it from your bio: "This band began over a shared love of '50s crooners, sci-fi novels, John Hughes films, and 80s pop music." It definitely makes sense why you've found a fan in The Current DJ Jake Rudh. I can also relate to the love of '50s crooners. I'm a huge fan of Nat King Cole and Bing Crosby and the like. But I'd love to hear more about these shared loves and how it relates to Graveyard Club. 

Matthew Schufman: Yeah, I think we both, Mike and I, had quite a few interests in common. We were both teachers at the time, we work in different places, but at the time we were teachers at the same school. And it was like a new staff orientation situation where I think we were maybe the only two males as well. So we ended up sitting by each other and talking about music. And it was kind of surprising where we have a lot of the same kind of musical references growing up, which included a lot of '50s kind of vibes, but also '80s pop, but also the classics like Weezer, maybe some more embarrassing emo bands. We were both like, "Yeah!" We both loved those. So we just in general, we have a lot in common. 

So I think Graveyard Club kind of started with — what references were inspiring to us to package and draw from for a band. We both love a lot of different types of music. So it wasn't only those two, but I think we just felt inspired by those eras. And it also felt like maybe there weren't as many artists at the time. Now, I feel like '80s vibes are huge now. But at the time, it felt like maybe there weren't as many artists pulling from those sources. That was the initial idea. And also, I don't know if it's in the bio anymore, but there is a band that actually Ryan Gosling started called –

Michael Wojtalewicz: Yeah, Dead Man's Bones.

I didn't even know Ryan Gosling was a musician.

Matthew: I know. It's like you kind of want to hate it already. Because you're like, "Ugh, Ryan Gosling. What can't he do?" But it was surprisingly cool. It's sort of a lo-fi, spooky, almost Halloween band, I guess. And we both are like, “That band is so cool.” So that's kind of a source of inspiration more in the earlier days than now. I don't think we're — we lean into the spooky vibe as much as maybe we once did. 

So emo as in like The Promise Ring or Sunny Day Real Estate? Or emo as in, what's more—

Michael: I think it spans the range. It definitely spans the range of more creditworthy like Sunny Day all the way to like, OK, we all listened to some Dashboard —

Matthew: I still feel like Jimmy Eat World holds up. Like I'll put on Jimmy sometimes —

That record Bleed American is insane.

Matthew: Their first record — well, not first one, but Jimmy Tamborello produced the second record...

Yeah, I can definitely hear that in your singing. You have really playful melodies, but you also really open up to bring in this intense emotion that I really appreciate about your songwriting.

Matthew: Oh, thank you.

Yeah, let's talk about that theme of darkness that Graveyard Club really embraces. I know that y'all have been known to be a Halloween-themed band. And whereas many people fear darkness, what do you find about it worth embracing?

Matthew: Well, I think, maybe two separate ideas. I think one is our initial embrace of it was almost maybe a little kitschy, or tongue-in-cheek where our brand of spookiness isn't like an actual horror movie, it's probably more like the Disney Haunted Mansion version of it, I guess. I don't think we ever went too dark with it.

But I think that a big part of life is dark feelings or dark experiences, whether it's a loved one passing away or there's a lot of tragedy out there. And I think usually dealing with those things are – it's like an internal process. You just kind of go through it alone. And you don't, at least for me, maybe it's more of like a Midwest repressed thing, but you don't talk about some of those experiences much. So I feel like the band, or at least for me, lyrically, some of the songs are just ways of like abstractly, even, expressing some of those feelings or experiences or darkness in an effort to air those feelings, but also make it more of a universal thing. And not have it be just the internal monologue kind of thing.

Michael: Yeah, I think on top of that — that's all very true. And there's a sort of dichotomy, where yes, all the dark themes, lyrically, and our band name and imagery. But I think, we really wanted to break away from the white-boy guitar bands we'd always done that were a little more mopey or folksy, and do something where people could dance to it. So I think a lot of people comment on how it doesn't sound as gothy as you would imagine, just on paper.

Matthew: Also, too, one of my inspirations as a songwriter is Conor Oberst. And I love Bright Eyes. And I feel like there's something so special about those emotional payoffs in some of his music. Where, it's like, the melodies are good. You could just leave it at that and be like, "Ah, it's like a catchy song." But some of them are like, he says something important, and his delivery too, you can feel it. And I think, yeah, we want it to be danceable or catchy like that. But we also want it to feel like there's something beneath the surface with the music as well.

I, too, am a huge fan of Bright Eyes and Conor Oberst. I was raised on Lifted, that album. So good.

Michael: All of our Jake Rudh fans that grew up with New Wave are going to be so confused why we keep talking about 2000s emo.

(Laughs) Because you're talking to me, I'll emphasize so much because I was into it.

Michael: You get to the real influences and the real truth of it. Yeah, nice work.

Another topic I hear and see get brought up is the immortality of being young. I guess my question is, are there specific memories you have where you remember feeling immortal?

Matthew: Maybe a way to explain this, we're also fans of Ray Bradbury. And he has a novel called Dandelion Wine, which came out in the late '70s, early '80s. And it's all about his childhood. And it's kind of like, there's obviously science fiction in there. But it's like, there's some real, kind of, drawing from childhood. And part of the early part of the story is the main character, which is supposed to be him, basically, realizes that they're going to die. As a child, I don't think you even think about it. You're not faced with it ... The age you kind of realize is different for everybody. But I think it's more of that kind of vibe, where it's not the feeling of immortality, but it's the lack of comprehension of mortality.

I think as a kid, I was happy. I had friends who were like, "Can't wait to grow up and get my license and do all these things." And I was more of the kid that I was like, "I don't want to grow up, I want to play outside." The endless summer kind of vibe. So I think I've kind of kept that with me a little bit. Even in my career, I work with kids, and I illustrate kids books, and I just kind of like that childlike spirit. So I think it's more of that than necessarily intentional immortality.

Your new record was just released in June. And a lot of the songs, I heard, were written in 2020. I'm curious to know how the pandemic has played a role and affected the functionality of the band.

Matthew: I think it's changed quite a bit. And I mean, we're not unique to that. But the record – the first single, which was "Valens," actually came out a year or two before the record. But that was the only song that we were together in a studio working. And the rest of the record, we got a little creative, and we still had chances to touch bases about certain things. But in some ways, it was a bedroom record. We all were in our homes, we didn't really get together practice. We didn't see our engineer/producer friend Andy Thompson, who worked on the record. We would just send him our own stems and he would put things together. And then even the mixing, we worked with Andy as a mixer, but also Beau Sorenson was out in San Francisco. So the whole process was really digital. Life became that way. I was teaching on Zoom. And I think we all – our jobs just kind of went online.

So in some ways, we got more creative, because you have these roadblocks and maybe some parts of the record turnout unexpected, because we weren't all in a room together bouncing ideas and kind of refining things. So I think in that way it's fun, and it's unique. It still does sound like us. But in other ways it was harder to work on. I think we felt a little disconnected from each other at certain parts of the process. Definitely affected that, and shows have been – I don't know if they're quite back to normal, even though it seems like it's kind of backlogged in some ways, and shows are still getting canceled. We just played LA, which is really cool. But the idea of tour for us has been sort of off the table. And part of that is our own lives have gotten busy with other things. But yeah, it's getting more difficult to be in a band and to kind of wait through what's going on.

Yeah, I know what you mean. It's tough having to cancel shows. All the work you put in ... And you mentioned, you're both teachers, what do you teach?

Michael: We met at an elementary school, a public school. I was a third grade teacher at the time. And now I'm like a teacher's coach, where I support teachers and work with our principal and things like that. It's very glamorous.

Matthew: I'm an art teacher. So I teach K-4 arts. And yeah, like Mike said, we did work in the same school for a little bit. Now, I'm down in the West St. Paul-Mendota Heights area teaching.

Michael: We always joke about — we work with a lot of middle-aged women in the suburbs and things. Or it's like lovely people that have slightly different scenes than we do, so to speak. And we always laugh when somebody finds out we're in a band because we mostly keep those worlds a little separate. And then somebody asks us, “What's your band's name?” We're like, "Graveyard Club." It just sounds different, like the connotation behind that, I think, is a little more evil than we actually are. It's like, "Yeah, it's synth pop." Okay.

Matthew: We're mostly at the age where they're like, it's not like we're middle school teachers, where they'll definitely Google us and find out, like, what's going on outside of school for us. But sometimes there'll be like a fourth grader that's like, (whispered) "Graveyard Club."

Your music has been featured on HBO, MTV, and Netflix. What's the experience like of hearing your music as a backdrop of a show? 

Michael: It's definitely surreal. But it depends on the show and the placement. A lot of times we have an agency that places things for us. And it's always flattering to know somebody wants to use it. And, I mean, in this day and age, as you probably know, it's a great way to get exposure. We definitely had placements, I think there was an MTV show called Awkward we got placed on a few times. There was apparently like a reboot of the '80s show Dynasty that got one of our old songs placed. And that always brings in fans from random corners of the internet that you would have never reached otherwise.

So I think growing up with a little bit more of a quote, unquote "punk ethos," that sounds like selling out to be placed in some random reality show segue music or something. But it's sort of the game now. And it's just a way to reach people in an ever-changing world where it's harder and harder to grab people's attention. But I mean, we got placed — I don't know there's some show on Netflix called Trinkets. It's always some very teenage shows, or I think we got placed in an HBO show that the woman who wrote Girls did as a follow-up show. But a lot of times it's like a 10-second transition, you just hear an instrumental track in the background faintly. And it's set up three times faster. So my mom would be like, "I couldn't tell if it was you or not, but I tried to listen for it." And I'm like, "I don't know, mom." It's not the feature of the show all the time. 

One of the singles you released off of Moonflower is "Halloween." The music video showcases a woman in a house that looks like she's moving out of and is looking back at pictures and little memories. And then in pops someone who's perhaps a deceased best friend, and they share present moment times together, and joy. And I guess I'm curious to hear what your take is on that. It's a really well done, powerful music video. 

Matthew: Yeah, we agree. It turned out really cool. So in that particular video, we have a good buddy who is in Minneapolis part-time, but he's in LA, as well. And he works in the film industry. His name is TJ (Schwingle). And we've worked with him on a number of different music videos through the years. And the "Halloween" idea — he just approached us early on in the process and was like, "Hey, I really dig this song." We sent him the record early. And he's like, "Could I make a video treatment and run it by you?" So he kind of sent some ideas over, we thought they were cool. But yeah, very much like you said, the idea of someone kind of mourning the past, flashback to flashforward – I guess, a present to past kind of flashing back and forth. And we thought it was such a cool idea. We didn't really have much other than just being like, "You can use our song." We didn't have much to do with that whole process. He rocked it and pulled some strings and got all the equipment and filmed it himself. So we feel like it turned out really, really great. We agree. 

Michael: Yeah, TJ, that same director we collaborated with to make the "Witchcraft" video a few years ago. And similarly, I think kind of like Matt's lyrics, we are usually aiming to evoke a mood, and really prefer the listener or the viewer to interpret things how they want to. So leaving some room there, where it's like, yes, clearly that video deals with loss and deals with some strange time-warp kinds of things going on, and some nostalgia. But I always appreciate when the audience can make of it what they want to and be able to overlay their own experiences onto it. I don't like it when a music video is like, "Here's a really, really quick story with a clear beginning, middle, and end," and a very concrete movie within three minutes … I'd rather just have really cool imagery and some thought-provoking stuff. 

Yeah, and there's room for interpretation in this music video. I think there's a lot that's understated in it.

Michael: Well, and even expanding off of that, that particular song "Halloween," I think Matt has stated before that the inspiration for a lot of the lyrics, or at least some of it, was – there was a documentary we've all been watching on Heaven's Gate cult, the comet, and stuff. So there's some lyrical reference to that in there. But it's not like that song is like, "This is a song about this cult." Just like, we have that single "Valens" from years ago references Richie Valens. It's often written about by blogs or people that — “This song is about the life of Richie Valens." And it's not. That's just a little moment in the song where there's some colors of that kind of vibe from there thrown in. But rarely are we writing, or is Matt writing just one concrete narrative linear thing. Matt has used the word "collage" a lot before and I think that's a good way of putting it. 

Yeah, and I know a lot of lyricists write very stream of consciousness. Would you say that's how you write as well? 

Matthew: Yeah, I think so. I think it's different for every song. Some come together really quickly. Let me think off the new record – maybe more like what was called "Cherry Blossom", which is now the second half of "Broken Wide Open". It's more of these kind of abstract, really quick images. So I think I just like putting anything that can give me kind of a vivid mental picture. Whether abstract or realistic, I kind of just like working through it that way, rather than thinking of a narrative, or telling any full-story arc, more like smaller vignettes of the pieces of a story. 

And like Mike said, with the video too, I don't think the band is ever trying to convey a singular message with a song. I think my favorite things are when people write us, and they're like, "Oh, this song helped me with this situation," or they send their interpretation of what it is. And then they ask, “Is this right to have this interpretation?" Which I always feel like it is. That's my favorite thing about music. There's so many songs that I love, and I have my own idea of what they're about. And I almost don't want to know if the artist was like, "No, that's not what it's about." Because I think that's part of the whole music experience is making it your own and internalizing it. So yeah, I think we intentionally – and I wouldn't say every song is this way, because there's some that are more autobiographical narrative. But most of the time we intentionally keep it open-ended.

Michael: Witchcraft is autobiographical, right? You spent a lot of time doing a lot of witchcraft. I heard that rumor around town for like a good year.

Matthew: I had a ring of candles in the garage ...

(Laughs) Yeah, I mean, witchy vibes are back in with Kate Bush topping the charts again. Anything else you'd add about your new album Moonflower that separates it, and makes it different from perhaps your past records, and the growth of the band in general?

Michael: We were talking about recording during the pandemic, and how that was kind of tough and tedious. But I think it made it — almost turned it into our best record. Because we didn't have some budget or some really tight timeframe in a recording studio, where we felt like, "Okay, we've got a dozen songs, these are the songs we have. Go." It was more drawn out with no clear end date. So it sort of helped the process, like the best songs rose to the top and you didn't feel the same sense of urgency to say, “Well, we gotta make that song count, because it's what we've got.” 

So I think early on, yeah, we had "Valens" — it was immediately one of our favorite songs we've ever played. But then a full two years later, we figured out the song "Halloween". Maybe not two years, but a year and a half later. And in a normal process, we may never have had "Halloween" on the record, because we don't have a year and a half to spend thinking over different demos. So in that way, I think it resulted in 10 really strong tracks. And we haven't had major departures in our sound, but I do think it has evolved and been refined over the years to sort of slowly become the best full realization of what we've been trying to do all these years. I know a lot of bands say clichés like that all the time, but this time, it's true (laughs).

Matthew: I agree with all of that. From my perspective, it's probably the most honest record we've made. I feel like part of it's how we made it. And I think part of it is our age. We're all different ages in the band, but Mike and I are in the later half of our 30s here and it's like you're less self-conscious. You're less worried about what the world is going to think about a song, and there's less of a mask or a front. I think we just kind of made songs we'd liked and didn't necessarily overthink, or turn into something else. There's almost kind of a midlife crisis vibe to some of the songs. We're just kind of honest, where we've been a band for a long time, and there's some different perspectives seeping into it. There's no one right meaning for each song, but there are more confessional moments on the record. "Goodnight Paradise" kind of laid the groundwork for some of that stuff, too. But I think our earlier work is more like ... There wasn't really as much of a personal element to most of the lyrics. It was more of just like, "What words do I like to put together? What kind of environment am I trying to create?" So it's maybe more like a human touch to some other words.

Michael: I think it honestly might have both our heaviest moments and some of our quietest moments on the same record. Maybe not quite as, but yeah, I think that's pretty cool. I'm excited to play it live too. Because we've just rehearsed last night. We have a local women's choir that is going to be singing a few songs at our release show at the Fine Line on the 30th. So it's just been fun to think of new ways to be creative and mix it up.

Michael: I think we used to shy away from breaking the formula live, where it would be like, “Here are the songs that everybody loves.” And that worked. Let's avoid the quiet ones. Let's avoid this or that. And now I think we're embracing a little bit more diversity in the set, trying to find a way to play a couple songs that we've had for years in previous records that we've never really played live. So I think the setlist should be a nice little change up too, along with obvious old "favorites," but I'm excited.

That's wonderful to hear. That's cool. Choir? Heck yeah. You don't see that often onstage.

Michael: Yeah, I've got a shout out Amanda (Zimmerman). She is the most trained, proper musician in our band. Which it's a really low bar in our band, but she is very talented. And she arranged all of these parts for this multiple harmonies 12-piece choir. Sort of translate what we do into proper sheet music and proper arrangements and helping direct them. So that was a huge project that she did a big labor of love for her to nerd out on. And I know she's really excited to see it come to life on stage. And we all are. So come check that out for sure.

Yeah, Amanda does an amazing job of singing with you (Matthew). You both have such a seamless tightness that works really well.

Matthew: Yeah, I agree. And that's another thing about this record too. I think we've kind of realized what a strength that is and feature that more or hopefully people notice it more in the last couple of records where I think maybe on the first EP it was just me singing, and then I pitched my voice up to try to fulfill that part. And it was pretty frightening and hideous. So we're all very lucky. And after this many years, I feel like we really fit together well. The four of us have played quite a few shows.