Can you introduce everyone in the band and what instrument do they play?
Careful Gaze is Gabe on vocals, Preston and Bailey on guitar, Aslan on bass, and Ben on drums. I (Gabe) started on this in 2013, Preston and Aslan joined in 2015/16 and have been with me since!. We brought Bailey and Ben on post-pandemic shutdown when we started playing shows again and they are a great fit.
How did you guys decide on a band name?
We were renaming / rebranding the project in 2018 and decided to take our name from the lyric of one of our earlier songs. The song was called The Life and Death of an Oak Tree and in that song there was a lyric: "Keep me safe under your careful gaze. Let every naive leaf that stems be a memory we've made. Every autumn night the memories start to fade." We took Careful Gaze because we felt like it encapsulated our concept of wanting to love / care for the things and people we care about, and also still paid respects to the time we spent before being Careful Gaze.
(Photo Credit: Nels Potvin)
Does anyone have a pre-show ritual to get yourself in the headspace to perform?
I think we all have our own variation of this. Common ones seem to be coffee, walks, and warmups (and maybe some adult substances.) Depending on how large or important the show is we might hug each other and say "holy shit" a bunch of times. Personally, I do a lot of stretching and warming up of my throat / tongue / voice and try to get in the mental place I need to be to talk about the things that we do.
Out of all of the cities that you’ve played in, where was the most memorable show?
There are so many good ones and also some bad ones, I should probably do a good one. I'm going to say Sante Fe, NM in 2019. Not only is that area just beautiful and great to explore, but the show was really cool. We played in what was essentially a large storage space of sorts and everyone there was super cool, including the other bands that played. Afterward, one of the local showgoers took us over to his storage space which was full of horror film memorabilia and also was a practice space. We are going back to Santa Fe this spring and I am very excited.
Can you tell us a bit about your creative process when creating a song?
It varies and has changed over time based on our life circumstances. I would say one of the most common ways we write is I will come up with lyrics and an idea on an acoustic, record it, and send it to the band. We then meet and turn it into a larger, full band sound and then the band will work on re-writing parts as well. We also sometimes just start out by jamming and I almost always have some sort of lyrics ready to go to try out with the song. There is a lot of recording, reviewing, and refining. We've gotten a lot more into demoing things out remotely lately, as two of our members live outside of MN now.
What was the song that you rang in the new year with?
I officiated a gay wedding in Denver, Colorado on NYE and at midnight we all sang Auld Lang Syne. So that was how I literally rang in the new year, but otherwise I've been really vibing with Tragedy of The Commons by Band of Horses.
If you were talking to a new band about playing shows, what is the best advice you could give them?
Don't ask to borrow anyone's drums on the day of the show. Also no need to introduce the band individually by member on stage, especially 3 times in the same set. Also also: no one wants to watch you have a band meeting on stage while you try to decide if you should play the song you just wrote before the gig.
These are all brutal, I'm so sorry. I'd also maybe just say: keep the audience engaged and leave them wanting more. Don't overstay your welcome, but make the most of your time. Don't give up, because you will play a lot of shows and release a lot of things where it feels like no one cares before it starts to feel like people do.
Where can we find you guys at?
You can find us at carefulgaze.com and @carefulgaze on socials.
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