Casper & the Cookies satisfy your artistic mind as well as your sweet tooth

By Melanie Cox McCluskey
Published: June 23rd, 2009 | 7:00am

Avant-garde art has always influenced Casper & the Cookies’ aesthetic. But the trio from Athens, Georgia, uses its precious pop sensibilities to turn inaccessible concept into addictive, infectious sound. Over the phone from their home base, noise popsters Casper & the Cookies connect the conceptual dots of their latest album, Modern Silence (Happy Happy Birthday To Me Records).

“Modern Silence is so much information or so much communication that it almost becomes a washout,” says guitarist Jim Hix. “It means a whole lot of things; it’s fuzzy but they all kind of connect.”

“We take any good, inaccessible ideas we can find and make them as accessible as possible,” frontman Jason NeSmith notes. “Which is still not always accessible,” concedes vocalist-keyboardist Kay Stanton, finishing her husband’s sentence for him.

In support of the late-May release of Modern Silence, Casper & the Cookies just returned from a one-day trip to NYC Popfest 2009, where they co-headlined the festival’s Sunday all-dayer at Cake Shop. Performing with friends from around the globe — including labelmates Afternoon Naps, Rose Melberg, Sweden’s Suburban Kids With Biblical Names, Finland’s Burning Hearts, and the Icicles — was the best part of the day, according to Stanton. “These Popfests really bring people in from all over, both as performers and as audience members,” she says. “It’s like a little reunion with loud music.”

Now through September, Casper & the Cookies are taking their experimental sound to the eastern, southern, and midwestern U.S. The upcoming tour follows a busy spring spent playing the Deep South and a trio of shows at SXSW.

Despite the demands of Casper & the Cookies, Stanton especially manages to stay involved in other creative pursuits. The adventurous vocalist-keyboardist refuses to limit herself to just one or two instruments; in addition to Casper & the Cookies, she plays bass and sings backup for Supercluster, a local music collective including members of the gone-but-not-forgotten Athens darlings, Pylon. Stanton also just started playing drums with an all-girl band called Let’s Bolt. She even plays a little guitar. “I always feel like I have to be learning something,” she says. “I’ve been so focused in on music for the last several years that I want to be able to play all the instruments, and write songs, and play in the studio.”

When she’s not honing her multi-instrumental talents, Stanton works as a graphic designer in the University Of Georgia’s Classics department, where she landed a gig illustrating Roman graffiti for a Latin professor’s textbook. Titled SCRIBBLERS, SCVLPTORS, AND SCRIBES, this anthology of authentic classical Latin readings is scheduled for publication in 2010. The book covers traditional literary texts, but also “scores of graffiti and inscriptions that provide insights into the lives, loves, and loathings of the average Roman guy and gal on the street,” according to the book’s author, Richard LaFleur.

A painting major in college, Stanton exhibited some of her work last November in “The Visualization Of Sound,” a group art show and performance from Supercluster. She also says she’s looking forward to tackling art projects that combine sewing and painting. The Modern Silence song, “Little Lady Larva,” which Stanton wrote in 1999, reflects the Renaissance woman’s interest in drawing mechanical insects.

“I have this whole feminine-masculine thing with everything I do: my personality, my illustrations,” says Stanton. “I’ve been pulling that together with the traditional sewing and knitting stuff, but then with these mechanical insects that I do.” Stanton picked up knitting while on tour as an outlet to keep her hands busy; during one particularly grueling four-month tour stretch, she finished a beautiful wool dress, which she still wears to work.

Like the Fluxus art community that inspires Stanton and her bandmates, Casper & the Cookies see all of their creative interests as interconnected. For Stanton, avant-garde art and her interest in performance art originally inspired her to play music — which, in turn, led to opportunities she’d never expected. Amid all of their creative outlets and obligations, the band members remain devoted to warping artistic ideas into pop songs in their signature Casper & the Cookies style.

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