[Film School w/ The Depreciation Guild] [Monday, 9 p.m.]
When it comes to being a band, it's not too uncommon to see members come and go.
At least it isn't for Film School's lead singer and guitarist Greg Bertens.
The L.A. band's been through a few lineup changes - each can be accounted for on Film School's four albums that have been released over the decade: "Brilliant Career" in 2001, "Film School" in 2006, "Hideout" in 2007 and their latest, "Fission," released in late August.
"It's going to affect the product, but I think in the end what happens is we're looking for what is a Film School song, what isn't a Film School song, and we're not just throwing on any song that comes about," Bertens said.
"There's a common thread throughout all these songs, and I'll let you figure that out. But to us, there's a common thread that binds all the albums together."
Bertens and keyboardist Jason Ruck are the only two original members still in the band.
Since the original lineup, the band's dynamic and sound has changed. On "Fission," you hear less of Bertens' vocals and more female vocals, that of bassist Lorelei Plotczyk.
"On ‘Hideout' there were a couple songs that had some female backing vocals, but Lorelei was singing a lot of that at shows and I liked our combination of vocals a lot and I thought, you know, this is something I want more of in the band in general, so that was one side of it," Bertens said.
"So it was both sort of an organic change due to the songs and a planned change due to playing on a few different tours with Lorelei singing."
But it's not only Plotczyk's vocals that set "Fission" apart from other Film School albums, the band was generally inspired to make songs with more energy and felt free to write whatever they wanted, Bertens said.
"We were getting kind of labeled into this shoegaze genre and we thought that we had a lot more to offer than just like the shoegaze songs," Bertens said.
"So we kind of went with whatever we felt was inspiring to us at the time."
For Bertens, the new album is really one that he can feel a bond with.
"I like all the tracks. A few that I think, for me, particularly stand out would be ‘Still Might,' ‘Sunny Day,' ‘Waited,' ‘When I'm Yours,'" Bertens said.
"To be honest, I feel like sometimes, you know, you have albums where you connect with some of the songs more than others, but I feel like I'm connecting with like a lot of these songs right now."
Bertens deems "Fission" to have more diversity and more to offer different people, giving appeal to new fans but room for faithful Film School-ites to complain.
The live show really does a lot to bring it all together.
"I think that sometimes people hear the new album and some people say, ‘Well how does that fit into the old material?'" he said.
"It's like the old material has a certain vibe, the new material has a certain vibe.I think a live show kind of gives a clear explanation of how it all fits together. I've always said if fans want it, I'll try to put something together."
So if any Film School fans "want it" enough, they may see "Brilliant Career" being released on vinyl next year.
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