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“I SANG IN A MILLION CHOIRS, STUDIED OPERA FOREVER, AND TOOK A LOT OF MUSIC THEORY IN COLLEGE, BUT GUITAR IS ENTIRELY SELF-TAUGHT,” SAYS ELIAS SPECTOR-ZABUSKY (OR HIS ALTER EGO COLD WEATHER BOY). “I’VE NEVER TAKEN A LESSON IN IT, I’VE NEVER PLAYED MY SCALES, I DON’T KNOW MY POSITIONS, SO I DON’T SEE GUITAR IN TERMS OF THEORY. I DIDN’T WRITE THINKING ABOUT IT. I LIKE HARMONIES THAT I EXPERIENCE AS ANGULAR, THAT DON’T NECESSARILY MOVE QUITE AS YOU EXPECT THEM, BUT ONE OF THE THINGS I WORK ON IS NOT COMPLICATING THINGS JUST FOR THE PURPOSE OF COMPLICATING THEM. SOMETIMES THINGS HAVE TO STAY COMFORTABLE AND EASY.”

A city transplant from the frigid upstate New York, Elias recently finished undergrad and slowly got burned out on pursuing a career in theater. “For the longest time I really thought I was a theater person who did music,” ESZ admits. “But I was frustrated with theater, and when I was working this office job I only had a flexible-ish schedule, and so I wasn’t really going on auditions—for a variety of reasons—but I was able to somedays go home and play guitar for a couple of hours and try to write something.”

In Brooklyn, Elias dove head first back into music discovery, both at shows and on his laptop late at night, listening to a mixture of the current Brooklyn scene music and older groups. Exploding in Sound was a big point for him (e.g. Palm, Pile, Stove, Krill, and other monosyllabic bands), alongside the psychedelic production of Elephant 6 Collective and the experimentalism of Northern Spy. ESZ says, “I like stuff that’s fuzzy but also soft at points, occasionally dissonant and noisy while also harmonically interesting—slightly off-kilter but accessible.”

On November 10, 2017, Cold Weather Boy’s debut EP How Did It Get So Late? arrives on all digital platforms and as a cut-to-order 10” vinyl LP via Figure & Ground. Each cover will be personally designed and collaged by ESZ and Lily Wen.

This EP comprises five original tracks developed from these original demos. All the songs feature fellow NY-natives Miles Arntzen on drums and Doug Berns on bass, who Elias met the same day that they tracked the EP. Entirely Brooklyn-based, the EP was produced and engineered by Lily Wen at her storefront studio, the Chamber of Commerce, in Ditmas Park and mixed by Eli Crews at Figure 8 in Prospect Heights.

The lyrics in each song is like a snapshot in his life, which comes from his background as a classical vocalist: “song cycles sometimes aren’t straight up, step-by-step narratives, but rather vignettes that tell the story of a larger experience,” says Spector-Zabusky. “I think the songs I write are largely trying to do that.” 

ELIAS SPECTOR-ZABUSKY – GUITAR, VOCALS, KEYS

MILES ARNTZEN – DRUMS

DOUG BERNS – BASS