There is a certain kind of emo and melodic indie rock that has always got to me very quickly. It has enough edge in the guitars to keep things interesting, but it never treats emotion as something that needs to be pushed to the limit. Time Spent Driving have always understood that balance, and “Lost Leaves” is full of those small decisions that make this kind of music work: a chorus opening at exactly the right moment, a guitar line left alone instead of buried under another layer, a melody strong enough to carry the song without asking for attention. You can hear why people with a post-hardcore background would connect with it, but these are simply very well written songs, with patience, taste and just enough tension underneath. This corner of guitar music has been close to me for years, and “Lost Leaves” got there fast. My heart is already infected. Now it is your turn.
And yes, we have the whole thing. Santa Cruz veterans Time Spent Driving release their fourth true full-length, “Lost Leaves“, on August 21 through Thirty Something Records, and today we are giving you the full album stream ahead of release. Press play below.
A lot of “Lost Leaves” was already taking shape before “Estrangers” had even come out. Most of the writing happened between October 2022 and January 2023, during a period when Jon Cattivera had finally found a setup that made writing easier rather than something he had to squeeze into whatever time was left.
“I spent far too many of my years leading up to this record in a dark place, and when I finally came out of it, I felt like I had a new lease on life,” Jon said. “After building a small home studio, I found myself more creative, inspired and focused than ever before. Writing the majority of this album felt effortless, and I found myself editing things down more than trying to fill in the blanks. We also did a lot more file sharing this time around, so it became a much more collaborative process than in the past.”
That burst of writing had a pretty practical explanation. Jon had more time, a room where he could disappear for a while, and a much better way of getting songs into shape before everyone met at rehearsal.
“A lot of it was that it took so long for us to finish Estrangers and finally get it released, so I was intent on not repeating that, especially after Covid was mostly behind us. I built a detached home office/studio at my house after closing up my office and going remote, which gave me more time, and a good place to get away and focus on music without bothering the rest of the family. It gave me the ability to create much more complete demos/ideas than previously, which we then passed around to the others in the band to work out their parts in advance so once we were in the practice space we could move much more quickly.”
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The practical setup helped, but so did where his head was at. The practical setup helped, but so did where his head was at. Finishing one song made him want to finish another, and he kept that rhythm going instead of slowing down.
“I just felt like I was in a really good place mentally compared many of my past years, so once I got rolling, I had a lot of momentum and got hooked on finishing songs and moving on to the next sequentially without slowing down. The creativity was there, and when it’s raining, you might as well put a bucket out…”
At the same time, not everything on “Lost Leaves” started in 2022. A couple of songs had been hanging around for a very long time.
“Red Dress” is the clearest example. The first version dates back to around 2008, but Jon never finished it or found a place for it. During the “Lost Leaves” sessions he opened it again, kept what still worked and rewrote most of the rest.
“This was originally written around 2008 or so if I remember correctly, but it was never finished or used for anything, but it had a lot of potential so when I was on a roll on writing the album, I decided to crack it back open and see what I could do. I basically rewrote most of it and kept the good parts, so it really feels like a brand new song, and we’re really happy with where we landed.”
The idea behind it came from Seattle. Jon and his wife had tried to see Chad Price and Rocky Votolato at a club there, only to find the show sold out. They watched what they could from outside, then Jon’s mind took a fairly dark turn on the walk back.
“My wife and I have spent a lot of time in Seattle over the years and we tried to go see Chad Price and Rocky Votolato in a club up there, but it was sold out, so we tried to watch it a bit from outside. She was a little edgy that day for whatever reason as we were walking back to the show, and I came up with the concept that I was somehow shot during the walk, and that would be a bad time to die and lose someone after all we’ve been through.”
There is another old connection inside the song. Chris Wicky of Swiss indie-rock band Favez joins Jon on vocals. Time Spent Driving and Favez toured together in Germany and the US years ago, and the record gave Jon an excuse to call him back.
“It features guest vocals from Chris Wicky from Favez, who we toured with in both Germany and the US, so was stoked to bring him out of retirement and get some of his chops involved.”
Jon has done this before. If there is still something in a song he likes, he tends to keep it around, even when the first version does not convince the rest of the band. Then it goes home and gets worked on again.
“I’ve kicked songs around for a long time many times in the past as well. If I feel like there’s something special about it then it’s hard to let it go, and sometimes I bring something in and can tell the other guys aren’t head over heels for it, so it’s back to the drawing board. I knew it had potential so I broke it back open and made enough changes that it’s really an altogether fresh song that could have been written yesterday, but probably still has a bit of a throwback thing going for it just due to the timing.”
And “Red Dress” is not even the oldest song revisited here.
“Europa” goes back to around 2002 and was played during some of Time Spent Driving’s final shows before their original break-up. A rough, self-recorded demo eventually appeared on 2007’s “I’m Your Stab in the Back”. It was never quite the version Jon wanted people to hear.
“We actually also ended up putting a brand new version of ‘Europa’ on the album. It was written on 2002 or so and we’re playing it live on some of our last shows. We released it after we broke up as a demo on 2007’s ‘I’m Your Stab in the Back.’ It was super rough and self-recorded, and was missing extra guitar parts.”
The band initially re-recorded “Europa” for another reissue. Then two other new songs intended for “Lost Leaves” did not quite fit, which opened a space for it. Guitarist Derek Pabich added a lot of new work to the song before they finally called it done.
“We originally re-recorded it to put on another reissue, but two of the other new songs we recorded for the record didn’t quite fit, so we decided to get it out now. Derek our guitar player went in and added a lot of new stuff and I feel like the performance and finished product finally represents the song in the way it should.”
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The old songs are only one part of what is going on here. Another noticeable change is how many other voices turn up across the record. Jon has handled almost all of Time Spent Driving’s vocals himself over the years, so this time he decided to call some friends.
The original idea was actually bigger than what ended up on the album.
“I had a crazy idea that I could get a bunch of friends singing backups on the record and on every single song, and cross-pollinating with other projects they are doing or have done. It’s been almost exclusively all me vocal-wise on all of our stuff, so I thought it’d be a good opportunity to mix it up and add some extra texture.”
He reached out to Tim from Pop Unknown, Robby from Crumb/Taxes, Blair from Jealous Sound and Mike from Benton Falls, among others. Some said yes, others were maybes, and getting everyone’s schedules to line up turned out to be harder than the idea itself.
“Turns out it’s harder to wrangle it with busy schedules, but maybe next time. Fortunately, Chris, Marc, Dain, Pete, and Casey made it happen, which is really cool.”
So alongside Chris Wicky, “Lost Leaves” features Marc Allen of Counterfit, Helen Earth Band and Finch, Dain Griffin of Merit, Pete Johnson of Cutlass Supreme and Casey Linstrom of Fighting Jacks. Amanda Cattivera also contributes, and Paul Nolan adds keyboards.
There is already another piece of that extended circle waiting outside the album too. Ryan from Cross My Heart recorded for one of the songs that did not make the final tracklist.
“Ryan from Cross My Heart actually contributed to a song we didn’t end up putting on the album, but we’ll be releasing that separately in the semi-near future, it came out really cool.”
The title came late. Jon was still looking for both a name and an artwork direction when the record itself was nearly finished, and because he now designs Time Spent Driving’s artwork himself through Sleepless Media, those two decisions ended up developing together.
“Naming the record was a bit of a chore this time around, and I didn’t have the title or even the artwork until it was down the wire. I wanted something that felt right with the mood of the music, but that also tied into both the artwork, a theme running throughout the album, or a song somehow (which is usually my goal).”
His brother Rob Cattivera took the photographs that became the basis of the finished artwork. The name eventually came from “Motion Lights”, one of Jon’s favourites on the album, and specifically the line, “I’m the shadows of the trees, when they lose all of their leaves”.
“My brother took the photos of what I ended up using in the artwork, which I thought were pretty awesome. There’s a song called ‘Motion Lights’ on the album that I really love, with the line ‘I’m the shadows of the trees, when they lose all of their leaves’, so I played off that and I felt like it was a great fit overall.”
Doing the artwork himself gave Jon room to try different titles and visual ideas at the same time until something finally clicked.
“Because I design all of our own artwork at this point, I got to play with a bunch of other ideas and titles as I went, so at some point I was able to settle into a sweet spot. We’re pretty stoked on how it came out.”
“Lost Leaves” was produced by Olav Tabatabai and Jon. Most of it was recorded at Compound Recordings in Santa Cruz, with additional recording done at Jon’s Breathing Trees studio in Boulder Creek. Olav also engineered and mixed the album through Noise Eater, while Dan Coutant mastered it at Sun Room Audio.
All of this arrives from a band whose history now stretches back to Santa Cruz in 1998. Time Spent Driving were part of that late-’90s and early-2000s emo and indie-rock world, touring across North America and Europe while releasing stuff through Sessions, Doghouse, Deep Elm, Rise, Cardigan, Negative Progression and other independent labels. Their catalogue includes “Walls Between Us”, the J. Robbins-produced “Just Enough Bright”, “I’m Your Stab in the Back”, “Passed & Presence” and 2023’s “Estrangers”. Some readers may also have come across them without realising it through the Xbox games “Amped: Freestyle Snowboarding” and “Amped 2”, which both used their songs.
The current line-up is Jon Cattivera on vocals, guitar and keys, Derek Pabich on guitar, Steven Borella on bass and Kem Gallione on drums. They are also due back on stage later this year, bringing the new songs into the live set.
“Lost Leaves” is available on two limited vinyl variants: an Orange Mix edition of 100 copies through Thirty Something Records and the band, and a Translucent Red with Black Marble pressing limited to 200.
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