For a band once dismissed as “dumb party kids from Kentucky,” Cage the Elephant have a lot of receipts—and most of them are scored like horror films. “We always wanted this record to be cinematic,” Brad Schultz says of Social Cues, their fifth studio album. “Like, dark cinema. Horror scores. John Carpenter.”
They weren’t kidding. Carpenter—also from Bowling Green, Kentucky—dated their bassist’s mom back in the day. Which somehow makes sense once you learn the band almost made a movie called The Broken Boy around the new album’s themes, but ran out of time. “Just didn’t happen,” Brad shrugs. “But we wanted to.”
That cinematic bent shows up everywhere: in the claustrophobic twitch of “House of Glass,” in the ghostly Beck collaboration “Night Running,” and in the orchestral touches from Beck’s actual dad, David Campbell, who helped them build the record’s score-like backbone. “It was meant to be,” Brad says. “I’ve never felt that more.”
The album’s darkness also comes from real life. Singer Matt Shultz was going through a divorce during the writing process, though Brad is quick to clarify it’s not just another breakup record. “Everybody’s been depressed. Everybody’s been low. If you’re brutally honest about it, people connect.”
Matt’s honesty comes with a chip on his shoulder—one forged in the small-town grind of weekend gigs at Phoenix Hill Tavern and Tidball’s in Bowling Green before fleeing to England just to get taken seriously. “They wanted to paint us as these dumb party kids,” he remembers. “Over time, you just have to follow through. Prove there’s more to the story than your origin.”
Now, years removed from their early misfit days and major-label rise, the band seems at peace with being hard to define. “We just don’t want image-projecting-based creativity,” Matt says. “We’re not writing music to be seen as intellectual or poetic. We just want to make good songs with great hooks.”
Unpeeled, their semi-live string-and-choir detour, gave them a chance to rethink that entire catalog. “It’s like a snapshot,” Brad explains. “Some of those songs didn’t get their due the first time. Now they can breathe.”
They’ve already moved on from Social Cues anyway. “We’re always writing,” Brad says. “We write on tour. We’re not looking back.”
By now, Cage the Elephant have gone from the band you tried to pigeonhole in 2009 to a rare act whose best work might still be ahead of them. “Every record’s a surprise,” Brad says. “But we just want to say something. That’s it.”
Listen to the interview above and then check out the videos below!
