The Scarlet Opera Press Conference
On March 21st, 1824° held a press conference for The Scarlet Opera, a flamboyant five-piece band signed with Republic Records/SB Projects. MIC had the incredible opportunity to attend the conference to ask them questions about their debut EP, Comedy. They released 3 singles prior to the EP, “The Place To Be”, “Big City Thing”, and the major hit, “Alive”. Comedy was released on March 24th, 2023.
The Scarlet Opera consists of Luka Bazulka, the lyricist and frontman with Colin Kenrick on keyboard, Justin Siegal on drums, Chance Taylor on guitar, and Daniel Zuker on bass. We had the opportunity to speak with Luka, Colin, Justin, and Chance about their excitement for the release, their inspirations behind it as well as what the fans can expect from their upcoming tour on the west coast, starting from April 3rd in Sacramento, CA.
They recently had their television debut on The Late Late Show with James Corden, an opportunity that they reveled in. They described that it somewhat made them realize how theatrical their usual tour performances were, as they had to tone it quite a bit for the TV debut. Even still, they gave a grand and memorable performance, specifying how much they loved planning the outfits for it, Luka wearing a gorgeous new age renaissance gown as Colin was playing on an incredible grand piano. It was an incredible performance, one that built up even more anticipation for the fans, waiting patiently until the release of the EP.
Question: You have explored some different topics in your music so far, from fearlessly living in the moment to working to achieve your dreams, what would you say is the most interesting songwriting topic for you guys to explore when making music?
Answer: Luka - Without it intending to be, I would say my youth and my childhood. It’s a cross between that and wild nights out that I’ve had with my friends, it has made for a great wealth of stories to tell. I pull a lot from childhood and it actually kinda surprised me while we were writing this EP. Not so much lessons learned as much as just the stories and memories.
Question: You guys have a very distinctive and gorgeous sense of style that has been prominent in your concerts, were there any inspirations or influences behind your stylistic choices?
Answer: Colin - Luka dresses us, if it were up to us we would be in sweatpants. Until we met him, we were always in sweatpants and he said “This is not gonna work if you’re backing me on stage boys” [They all laughed for a little].
Luka - I was dressed like a clown asking them to dress for the occasion.
Colin - We’ve worked with some wonderful people including Athena Lawton (stylist and friend), who has done a lot of the personal styling for Luka and the custom designs. Kenn Law (stylist) as well who jumped on board to help design with us. Luka always comes in with inspiration from movies.
Luka - I have a couple of movies that I really love like Sing Street and Velvet Gold Mine. It’s that kind of Euro-punk glam rock that I think is just so romantic and youthful. It is also paired with this sort of Renaissance jester right now of me just being the biggest clown I can be.
Colin - Here’s how every show goes: Two days before the show, we call Luka and ask what he is wearing and he sends a picture. Then the four of us scramble together to find something that will complement whatever he is wearing and we try to make it work. So far it has been successful.
It was so wonderful and refreshing to see the four of them laughing and joking about each other all together. It was clear throughout the whole conference that they really enjoy working together, complementing each other’s skills and talents beautifully.
Question: Alive is a great hit with incredible and relatable lyrics, what was the writing process and inspiration for the song?
Answer: Luka - That was one of the first days that I got to sit down with the producer. David Stewart (producer and lyricist) sat down at the piano and started playing this idea, and it started really slow, as the beginning of the song does, but then as it developed and he kept playing different parts, it ended up gaining energy and momentum. The song revealed what it wanted to be in a way because it just wanted to pick itself up and start running. It immediately made me think of my ideology on life and the difference between giving up and giving in, and making a choice to really give in to life and the experiences I believe are worth having. We kept changing the lyrics and reworking them so everybody could fill in the blanks as to what their memories worth having are. Then the boys come in and flush out their parts and give their input on the overall aesthetic of the song. And we got what we got.
Question: This is a bit more niche, but the artwork for each single so far has been beautiful and very fitting for each song. Could you tell me a little more about what the creative process was like behind the artwork for the recent singles?
Answer: Luka - Absolutely, I love that question. The artwork has been really fun to pick out. The first one, “The Place To Be”, came out and I was tired of having our faces so obviously on the cover, as we did in previous projects. At least at first, I wanted something that represented the feeling of it instead. We ended up getting this photo from our friend Julian Buchan (photographer) and it felt very “Fred Astaire”, I was wearing my grandmother’s ruffler and slippers and there was an expensive Dior bag sitting in front of me. It was a full-body photo but I thought cropping it from the stomach down made it feel like we were heading somewhere out of this time and era.
It felt right for “The Place To Be” because it showed us “heading to the place to be”, showing the movement in the photo. For “Big City Thing”, we had another photoshoot with Julian as well, and I had this dream of this photo I found, of doing a band photoshoot that felt caught in the moment. A very obviously curated but candid moment, we did this dressing room scene where we had the boys dressing me while we were getting ready for the most glamorous show. The felt very big city thing and I was wearing Dior and all these designer brands even though literally the next morning I had to go open a restaurant and serve burgers, so that felt very much in the moment.
“Alive” was my mad conductor moment. Since we started performing that song live, I always do this crazy conductor thing just because it feels so good to do. We did a photoshoot based on that and it was really fun, my hair is going everywhere and my arms are up. Ashley Pawlak (art director) received both “Big City Thing” and “Alive” and edited them with that Euro-punk glam rock aesthetic that we all really love. She edited the EP cover for Comedy as well.
Listen to The Scarlet Opera’s flamboyant new EP Comedy, here!
