They Don’t Want to Watch the World Burn

By Zac Russi

Kaleidoscope Crux is a band from Lafayette, Louisiana. This August, they are jointly releasing Through the Portal with Pleasure Tapes (Portland), Candlepin Records (Boston), and Julia’s War (Philidelphia). I sat down with Max, Laura, and Vai via a Zoom portal on a Sunday evening in early April. It’s either the first, the fifth, or the thirteenth year of the apocalypse depending on who’s counting. What follows is a collage of our conversation, edited for aesthetic and narrative cohesion, mixed with their lyrics, songs, and videos.

Let’s start here:

Swiftness

“I don't want to watch the world burn

The pendulum sways; days spent waiting my turn

The despair lingers on, and what's fair might be wrong

It comes in waves and it never stays for long

They just want to watch the world burn

Stay stuck in their ways and pay no concern

The swiftness in which they take everything away

and make their way through life is not okay”

Max: Is this a good angle?

Zac: I can’t see anything.

Laura: All we can see is this.

Max: Oh, shit.

Laura: Start video.

Zac: We’re in business.

Max: Yeaaaaaaaah

Zac: I think to get started– how did you all meet?

Max coughs a bunch while Laura and Vai laugh. 

Laura: We shared common hobbies, back in high school. So we met, probably just through friends in high school who shared common hobbies…

Zac: What were these hobbies?

Max coughs louder and louder.

Laura: … 20 years ago…or… 

Max is still coughing. They’re all laughing like they know something the rest of us don’t.

Laura: A little more than that. Probably like 22 or 22 years ago. I think I was a freshman or sophomore in highschool. Somewhere around there.

Max: I had a big brother figure that I played in a band with when I was like 14. He was 20 or something and he introduced me to Laura. Laura’s an English teacher, too, and this is Louisiana not California, so we had common interests–

Laura: Music being one of them.

Max: …music being the main thing bringing us together. And then the subculture that comes with that did its thing, or whatever. We would go to shows and hang out, and Justin, who ended up doing some of our video stuff, was part of our friend group. We just met by being kids growing up, being into the same kind of music. 

Max and I met about 13 years ago, also through music, but that’s a story for another time.

Max: And I found Vai on Craigslist.

Zac: Hell yea, nice. Okay– so, Vai, coming into a situation where the 2 other people know each other and you’re integrating into the group. How has that been?

Vai: It's been pretty easy, pretty seamless, especially when you start to play music with people. 

Zac: What’s your background with music, and just in general?

Vai: Born in the same area, Lafayette, a couple years younger. But we met through Craigslist because I've been a drummer since I was 14 or 15. Never really been in a band. Wanted to look for other musicians in the area and I found Max. It wasn’t long after that we formed the band and got Laura and it all clicked pretty seamlessly, easily.

Zac: That’s awesome, so wait, is this the first band you’ve played with?

Vai: Yeah. It’s my first band.

Zac: What’s your favorite thing about it?

Vai: Playing music with them. Just hanging out. Favorite thing to do.

Zac: What’s the process been of putting together this current project Through the Portal?

Max: So the first record, and I say it that way because we basically have the second written, but the first record– I brought in a lot of the songs on Through the Portal. Those songs have more of a songwriter quality to them. Almost like I could play them on an acoustic guitar, and it would make just as much sense. A lot of rock is made– especially in the genre we're working within– there's a lot of bedroom artists, so to speak, who do the whole entire album themselves, in their bedroom, and then assemble a lineup for it. So this isn't too far from that. But, the difference is, the band was here for the whole time. But I did bring the songs in, you know, ready to go in a way to give us something to get out there and start gigging with. And now the process is much different when it comes to putting songs together.

Zac: The first set of songs, you [Max] threw together. If the new one is more like, you're all working on it together, is it the same feel as this first project? Or is it a different feel entirely.

Max: With the new one we were all able to hash it out like in the practice room, cranked, like experimenting with stuff, you know, having our sound a little more figured out… It's heavier. I think it speaks to everyone's interest a little bit more.

Zac: In what ways?

Max: Laura does vocals on a song in the new batch of songs. And now it's more of like an involved process, you know. A little bit more of a collaborative process.

Zac: So the first one, Through the Portal, has a very distinct narrative arc. It’s like the first few songs, and then "Rave" is basically a switch up song. It's got three parts to it, essentially. The jungle breakdown shit in the middle with the breakbeat, and then the harder part at the end. But then it cascades after that in a story structure. ​​It really feels like a classic, pyramid structure of a project, and with the collaborative element on the new project, are the songs still as connected?

Rave

“Not gonna go to the rave

Need to stay inside and behave

Not gonna buzz around the beehive

What's the point of trudging 'round a past life”

“Rave”, an unreleased song from Through the Portal, is structurally similar to tunes from Max’s genre agnostic electronic alias Raspy. 

Max: I think that's something that just happened. Naturally. So if it happens again, it does. I'm getting more comfortable with recurring themes, and like part of that is using the same chords. In previous years, I'd be scared to do something that sounds like something else I've already done. We have a couple of songs within the new album that go together seamlessly, like super easily. It may be safe to say the newer album is going to be even more like that.

Zac: Word. So, this project feels very current to me, very 2025. Things are falling apart in a lot of ways. It seems kind of like: Old World out, New world not yet here. So I wanted to ask each of you, what kind of new world do you want? After you go through the portal, what new world would you want to see?

Laura: I wanna see more people reading and writing. I wanna see a more literate world.

Zac: Nice.

Max: Just two English teachers having a Zoom meeting.

Zac: [laughs] Yeah, it’s like I’m at work right now. Reading and writing… like what kind of stuff?

Laura: Anything. Anything. And I want to see people have more time to be creative. Hopefully, with the written word, but you know, whatever creativity. 

Zac: OK. How do you think that can happen? How are people going to find that space?

Laura: Ooof. Less work. So that’s another thing in my new world: less work, more play.

Zac: Less work, more play, more writing, more reading. What grades do you teach?

Laura: I teach high school English.

Zac: Ok. And do people– are they reading? Do they read?

Laura:  I have 9th graders who are functionally illiterate. And then I have 12th graders who are like honors kids. But reading for them is just like a check box, you know, it's a task to do in order to– they're not interested in, you know, imagination. Yeah, most of my students are going into technical fields and nursing and health. They're not– the arts are, you know, not as prominent, which I get, but I feel bad for them. They're too worried about having to make money, and it's too young of an age to have to worry about that.

Zac: Yeah, I'm in a bunch of freshman Comp classes. There's tons of students, at all different ages. But a lot of them are getting a two year degree. And they're like, “I don't need to read this fiction, or nonfiction book because I'm gonna go be a radiologist” or something like that. 

Zac: So it's hard to find ways to get people to read in that way or to engage in that way. But okay, I like that answer. I'm down with this new world, where there's more reading and writing. What about you two? What do you want to see in the new world?

Max: I was just starting to get on my feet right before Covid and all that. And so, five years later, I'm just starting to see glimpses of being able to get there again. I just want to be able to get from paycheck to paycheck. I'm still suffering the downfall of what Covid did to the job and housing market, and I had to move back home and fortunately, I'm able to switch careers now, but that doesn't just hit the ground running all the time. So I, personally, just wanna a new world where I can get by. Because, like, that's always been a pipe dream for me. It sounds kind of selfish. But you know, I say that to say, if I can get by, I can keep making art, keep writing songs and so that's my personal goal. I just want to see a world where art can still exist, and we can afford to keep pushing out art and being creative. Cause it'd be really shitty to not even be able to write songs about how horrible the world is. 

Everyone laughs for a second because what else are we gonna do?

Zac: Yeah, yeah, I fully know when I can't do any writing stuff, that's how I feel. Like I can’t even write my angst at how shit is going down right now! And I actually think, like you said, it's kind of selfish, but I don't think it's that selfish. I think most people actually just want to be able to get by. And if people were able to get by and then be able to do the thing that they wanted to do, shit would be okay for the majority of people. What about you, Vai?

Vai: A perfect new world… I'm about to piggyback off Max a little bit. A perfect world is having enough money to have a roof over your head and then food. 

Max: I knew food would come up! I knew that shit. 

Vai: Cheaper food would probably be the best thing ever, of all time. But yeah, just enough to make more art. Not have to fit it in so much and be so stressed outside of it. Like, just have more time for it. 

Zac: To be able to have more time. If you get this perfect world where food is not a problem, what kind of foods are you eating?

Vai: Okay, I'm going steak, like some red meat. Steak. [Max and Laura buckle over laughing] I like eggs. I like chicken. I like a lean meat, you know. 

Zac: [Laughing] I like a lean meat.

Max has pulled his shirt over his face.

Vai: [A real full laugh] Starting, you know–

Laura: Healthy protein.

Vai: Healthy proteins, but vegetables and fruit too. I’d love some cheaper bell peppers, that would be awesome. We need to start gardening; we can just get it for free. 

Max: We need, like a KC community garden.

Laura: There’s no time to garden, that’s the point.

Vai: More time to garden, more time for food.

Zac: More time to garden. More time for food.

Vai: That's right. That's about my perfect world. 

Vai: Healthy food, too. Like inexpensive but good quality.

Zac:  Yeah, there was this era when me and Max first met in Portland where you could spend 5 bucks and get a legitimate, really good meal from some food cart, or whatever kind of food.

Max: Yeah. Bro, I mean, maybe not 5, but definitely like some cheap shit man, or like–

Zac: 8. 8 is real. I’m doing too much. But great food for 8.

Max: Facts.

Guided Away

“Longing for a glimmering skyline

Lost in a pocket of space

Shuttle me home to be left alone

Far away from this place

I'll see you in a thousand weeks

I'll see you in a fever dream

Guided away”

Zac: Okay, what are each of your favorite songs on Through the Portal, and why?

Max: It’s changed over the course of writing and what not, but probably the next single “Guided Away.” Just because I was able to capture, like the way I wrote the lyrics, I really feel like I was able to encapsulate what I was trying to encapsulate. And that doesn’t always come through so well. You're trying to capture a moment or a feeling, and it just doesn't really come through very well. But for that song it came through pretty much the way I was going for. And so I like that one a lot. And it mixes a lot of different influences in the same song. So that's probably the one for me. We actually just met up earlier, and talked about the video that we're going to be shooting for that.

Zac: What’s the video going to be like?

Max: Like a bar scene like a spiral type of situation.

Zac: OK. Spiral how?

Max: You know, just like the downward spiral, like whatever, you know, emotional turmoil.

Zac: Is it gonna be a plotline video?

Max: To an extent. I don't think we're really gonna do much lip syncing or anything like that. It’s gonna be a little more abstract, just like a movie scene where [makes flowing gestures with his arms] things are happening in passing. I don’t know, we’ll see how it comes out.

Zac: I like how all the videos that have come out so far have a really different vibe to them.

Max: There's nothing new under the sun. I don't think we're trying to reinvent ourselves every time, but the same way that the first album, we didn't intend for it to be seamless, we don't intend for things to be different every time. Yet they still kind of are. But we listen to a lot of different shit. A lot of musicians will hold themselves to this one subculture, this one genre, and they got the outfit and this, that and the other. But that's not really how we function. It's not how we think. 

Zac: Other favorite songs?

Vai: Max said his was “Guided Away”...

Laura: What’s yours?

Vai: I’ma say “Fluoride Stare”, yea “Fluoride Stare” is my favorite. I just really like how that song builds into the end and the drum pattern I really like as well, that I play.

Zac: Does that feel the best playing that song, to you?

Vai: Yeah, that one. And I like playing “Rave” too, honestly.

Zac: Do you play the breakbeat sample, is that a sample? Do you play that live?

Vai: Yeah, he [Max] plays the sample.

Max:  No, I jump on his back, live, and I play the breakbeat. I rip the sticks out of his hand, and I sit on his back and I play the I'm like [pantomimes playing drums while making snare sounds].

Zac: That would be an entertaining show.

Max: Nah, we’re not Slipknot.

Max: No, the breakbeat’s on a 404. There’s a lot of noisy ring-out stuff going on for transitions.

Zac: Do you play straight through? Will you play the songs straight through at shows? 

Max: As opposed to what?

Zac: I don't know, playing random songs in a random order.

Laura:  When we first started playing, we played those songs in the order in which we wrote them. Like the first song he showed us. That was set number one, or you know, song number one in the set. We did that for the very first show and then the second show we already had the two new songs that he talked about earlier, and we worked those two songs into it, but we didn't change that much.

Zac: Laura, what’s your favorite song on the album?

Laura: “Fluoride Stare” at the moment. Like he said, it kind of has always ebbed and flowed. My favorite song is always the one we're currently writing. So to look back on a project and say, "I have a favorite song out of a certain era" is a fun question, but it’s “Fluoride Stare.”

Zac: Is that how you feel about making stuff? Are you generally into the thing that you're making right then, and not really thinking about the old stuff?

Laura: Kind of. It's like getting hyper fixated on it. And like, I wanna hear what this sounds like. I wanna put this together.

Zac: So because of that, does stuff that you've worked on in the past, does it still influence what you're doing now?

Laura: I would think so, yeah.

Zac: You're going on tour with this one this summer. Are you gonna already have physical stuff ready to bring with you on the tour, or is it coming after?

Max: The album's not gonna be out until after.

Zac: How does that work with the three labels?

Max: Pleasure Tapes is handling the physicals as far as the cassettes are concerned. All three of those labels have experience doing various forms of multimedia. It's an open ended thing. We're feeling it out. I think they're feeling us out. Part of the equation was that there was going to be a tape release. And I think, if it were to go really well, they would probably be like, hey, Let's repress and do a CD. But we're all just feeling each other out and seeing how it goes. 

Zac: [talking to myself] What other things did I have? We talked about the tour; we talked about how you met. 

Zac: What's your relationship with Abraxas? You say on this song you talk about. [Scrolling through the lyrics; screen sharing] Let's see ... .where is this…  I want to get these lines out. 

Vai: He's reading back the minutes, dog.

Zac: Where is the line… I can’t find it.

Max: It’s “melt into the morning dew, Abraxas I am here with you.”

Galactic Door

“Face down

In space town

We made no sound

And stood our ground

Each time getting farther

Like a rock skipping on water

Galactic door counteracts

Four AM and can't relax

Melt into the morning dew

Abraxas, I am here with you”

Zac: Thanks. Okay, so yeah, when you're in that morning dew with Abraxas– what does that mean to you? [The band collectively laughs] What's going on?

Max: So I wrote that song right after moving back from New Orleans at a point where I was staying up until the sun came up a lot, and pursuing psychedelic endeavors. Things down here, it gets very, very humid in the wee hours of morning leading up to the sunrise and all that. Especially in summer, it gets extremely humid. I have a Raspy track called “Abraxas Realm” and there's a Santana album called Abraxas. I like the word, but there's also some esoteric meaning to it. And there's different interpretations of it. You know, like in the same way that Cedric from At the Drive In and Mars Volta will play with vocabulary based on how it sounds and the picture it paints rather than the literal meaning. 

Zac: I was listening to some interview with Armand Hammer recently and Elucid was talking about how ​​he writes a lot of his lyrics in the style of Mars-Volta-bruh and trying to do basically what you're saying, like create more of a feeling with the ways that certain words, or ideas, or concepts land for the listener. So if you say Abraxas in a line, it doesn't necessarily mean you're directly referencing Abraxas. But you're also referencing whatever comes up for the listener when you say that word, or whatever. I just thought it'd be funny to ask you about what you were doing with this Abraxas person, who seems like maybe he was an Egyptian god or a demon. 

Max: Like I said, there's different interpretations of it. And like, when it comes to Gnosticism, theisms and all that, it'll be like a demon in one culture, and then in another culture it'll be a god. It's interchangeable like that with almost everything esoteric related.

Zac: Is the upcoming, second album equally esoteric? 

Max: Oh, probably more so.

Zac: Laura’s shaking her head no–

Laura: I think there’s a lot more nature. It’s a lot more grounded in like, images of nature.

Zac: OK.

Laura: Rather than space.

Max: Okay. But esotericism isn't “space” oriented. 

Laura: I understand that, but it's not like Shamanism, like what you're doing with herbs.

Max: But that's not really necessarily esotericism. I talk about alchemy. I talk… and like “Ripple" and “A Distant Laughter”...

Laura: I feel you. 

Max: We're not any one thing at any one time so she could have a different interpretation of it. Some of the songs that have a really esoteric meaning for me lyrically are like some of our heavier songs. I don't want it to sound like Pink Floyd, when I'm talking about blasting off, or whatever, it should have a really heavy riff. It's not like Dark Side of the Moon, dog [laughs].

Zac: Clear. I like the idea of it meaning different things to all of you. It's cool that you both had a completely opposite reaction to that question at the exact same time, I feel like that means it's good, right?

Laura: Author intent is, does not— to me reader experience is more important, and it's awesome that he thinks about that, too. It's open to interpretation, just leaving it up to the reader's experience, too.

Zac: Yeah, yeah, for sure. I like everything that you're all saying. It's weird, cause I'd like to, it would be sick to be able to see you play, live, and then be able to talk about that as well. Are you gonna record any of your shows soon?

Max: I mean, we have little clips here and there. A lot of it has been on Instagram or is on Instagram, we have a video that compiles a bunch of our early footage.

Zac: What are you all listening to right now? What other types of stuff are you taking in?

Max: Olipop, dog.

Zac: Olipop, big influence.

Max: Honestly dude I've been listening to stuff that has been coming out on the three labels we're on for the past few years, you know, and that’s part of the excitement.

Zac: What should people listen to from those labels and those artists? What are your recs for listeners of Kaleidoscope Crux, once you come out, and you’re on the same shelf as these other people– who are you telling em to listen to? What songs? What albums?

Max: There’s a lot to unpack there. Glaring Orchid. Heavy Trip. Ringing. 

Laura: IX of Swords. their newest album is awesome. 

Max: House of Warmth. Husbands. If you aren’t listening to they are gutting a body of water already, like you know…I like Wednesday a lot. Wednesday and MJ Lenderman have some stuff out on one of our labels Julia’s War, which is owned by Doug from They Are Gutting a Body of Water. And I love Full Body 2. They’re super awesome. I've been listening to Tombstone Poetry from Asheville. That’s a lot more than I can usually name at one time. Small Talk.

Vai: Small Talk.

Max: We have a band out of New Orleans called Fish Band, with an exclamation point at the end. FISH BAND! They’re the homies.

Zac: If people haven't heard you before, and this is their first time hearing of you, what do you want them to know about you?

Max: I don’t think we think about shit like that very much. I mean, I will say that I think that the time that we get together and practice and hang out and talk shit is, for the three of us, it's one of the highlights of our week. We practice like twice a week, week in, week out, for the most part. It's like church, man.

Laura: Fellowship.

Max: We're able to come here and just relax. And whatever has gone on like during the week, 1e can kinda either bitch about it, you know, or turn off the week, too, for a little while. Yeah. And just play really loud. What else [looks to Laura]?

Laura: Camaraderie. Hanging out, having fun.

Zac: It was cool talking with all of you.

Max: Can I ask you some questions now?

Zac: Yeah, I guess.

Max: What are you gonna have for dinner?

I won’t bore readers with my dinner choice monologue. After we ended the call I walked down to Nick’s Pizza on Shattuck and got a couple of slices. 

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