One of the most surprising new acts that I saw at SXSW this year was the diminutive 23-year old Zee Avi, from Malaysia. Plucked from obscurity half a world away in Kuala Lumpur through her homemade YouTube videos, which were seen by Raconteur’s drummer Patrick Keeler and passed along to White Stripes manager Ian Montone, Zee is freshly signed to Brushfire Records.
Her debut self-titled album comes out on Tuesday, with a sound that is a refreshing throwback to jazz vocalists of the 1920s, cross-bred with an island vibe of acoustic guitar and ukulele.
Zee and I bonded over Colorado beers in a noisy bar in Austin after her daytime set at the Filter Magazine party. She looks maybe 17, so I had to double-check before I ordered us some drinks. Still electrified from her well-received set a few minutes prior, Zee was utterly approachable, and completely passionate about where her music is taking her.
ZEE AVI INTERVIEW
F/F: When you were studying in London, were you focusing on musical education, or law?
Zee: Well, primarily fashion design, at first. I did my undergraduate there at the American Intercontinental University in England, but I eventually decided I no longer had “the passion for fashion”…. I did do eight levels in law when I was seventeen – I joke that I was “bred to be a lawyer.” My dad’s whole family were lawyers, so they had that driven mindset. But I’m really glad that they pushed me towards that, because it did teach me a lot about hard work.
I started teaching myself to play the guitar, though, in Malaysia. I had a lot of free time when school ended each day and I bought this guitar for 19 ringgit, which I would say is around thirty bucks. After I got back from London, I bought myself a chord book and decided to take the guitar out of the closet where it had been sitting and….you know, started jamming my A and G chord. It took me some time to figure out how to stretch my hands around it, I have the tiniest hands – you should see how long a bottle of nail polish will last me (laughs). Oh – and it’s an ongoing joke at practice that a ukulele is actually a normal-sized guitar for me. So, I played rhythm guitar in a couple of bands, and then moved to London. When I moved back to Kuala Lumpur, that’s when I really started with the songwriting.
The first time I heard your music, it was kind of surprising (to me, at least) for a girl from Malaysia to have a sound that’s very much throwback to American music styles from, say, the 1920s onward. Where did that influence come from? Were you exposed to women in jazz a lot growing up?
I actually had that comment once on a YouTube video, something like – “How did a twenty-something Malaysian girl sound like she’s from the Mississippi delta?” But I guess for me, it just came naturally. Of course, listening to music that was from that era really helped a lot, it inspired me. Sure, I went through my rock periods and my British indie phase when I was in London, but I felt like none of them really fit me. So I fell back into listening to jazz, and I connected with its simplicity and honesty and just the lack of sugar-coating to the lyrics. Vocal-wise, I would say that 1920s music has a lot of impact on how I write my music today.
In Malaysia, jazz is a pretty big circuit, so I was exposed to it, but I would certainly never call myself a jazz singer even though I love it. Among my friends I am probably still one of the only one who listens to that era, or looks for vintage vinyl, old pressings, of this music from a different time. But American music in general – I mean, blues and jazz came from here and have shaped and defined modern music. I love going back to the roots to see how it shapes music today. I mean, if it weren’t for Howlin’ Wolf, Led Zeppelin wouldn’t have been around.
The way your music was discovered, through your personal YouTube postings, is pretty cool. Tell me about why you started doing that – was that primarily driven by a desire to have your creativity heard?
Well yeah, the whole internet thing has definitely been a blessing. I think it is such a good outlet to help you put your work out there no matter what you do. It does seems to be a more common story these days, that someone, somewhere has their talent first seen on the internet. It’s been pretty crazy to be heard by so many people, and that Patrick (from The Raconteurs) took an interest in my work. I hadn’t even told my friends or family about it until I got the deal. It was really just a place where I could let things out and just write songs for me.
I mean, I don’t talk much about this part of the story, but the whole reason I had even started with YouTube in the first place is simply because a friend of mine missed my first gig and he’s a poet and I really wanted his feedback on “Poppy,” which is the first song I wrote. He wanted me to send him and mp3 but I didn’t know how to do that, but I did have a crappy webcam and an old IBM laptop, with a call center headset. After he watched it, I was going to delete it, with all of the grainy and crackly sound, but he said, “No, why don’t you just let it nest there for a little bit?”
So I left it up instead, and within a few days I started getting other comments on it from around the world, from random strangers. It was just more encouragement for me. I found that the more videos I started recording, the reception was great and more people started coming to the channel to see them and comment and sharing them with their friends. It was all a big, crazy snowball effect
Tell me about the new record that you recorded at Brushfire Studios in Southern California – was that the first time you’d been in LA?
Yes! It was the first time I had been to the U.S. at all, so you can just imagine everything being brand new, and me being a trainwreck of nerves and jetlag. The material that I arrived with was a blend of older stuff from YouTube and new things I had written more recently that they liked when I played for them, they said, “You know what, we should put that on the record!” It was an incredibly good experience – I feel like they are all family now.
One interesting thing on the album is the Morrissey cover song! Why did you decide to cover “First Of The Gang To Die”?
Well, I’ve always been a really big fan of the Smiths, and that particular song was actually played all the time in this indie club in KL (Kuala Lumpur) but it became kind of like an anthem for all of us in that club. It reminds me of feeling like warriors, and a pact of being different from everybody else, and it is just such a beautifully written song. And apparently Morrissey has heard my version of it — which is daunting for me to think about – apparently Ian (Montone, manager) sent it to him. It’s just crazy!
Are you still writing these days? It has been a pretty crazy few months for you.
Yeah, I’m creatively exhausted at this moment. I plan to go home and recuperate for a little while and be a hermit and grow a shell. I need it. Because this summer I have a lot of touring, some cool festivals coming up for me like No Depression in Seattle (with Iron & Wine and Gillian Welch) and Bonnaroo and Outside Lands in San Francisco. It’ll be a good summer.
VIDEO: FOUR ZEE AVI ACOUSTIC PERFORMANCES
Live at the Solar Powered Plastic Plant
ZEE AVI TOUR DATES
May 17 – Boulder, CO Etown taping (opening for Mike Doughty)
May 19 – Long Beach, CA – Fingerprints Instore
May 20 – Los Angeles, CA – The Roxy
May 22 – San Fran, CA – The Rickshaw Stop
May 26 – Towson, MD – WTMD Listener event
May 27 – Charlottesville, VA – Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar
May 28 – Washington, DC 9:30 Club (opening for A Camp)
May 30 – Philadelphia, PA – World Cafe Live
May 31 – New York, NY – Mercury Lounge
June 1 – Hoboken, NJ – Maxwell’s
June 6 – Pittsburgh, PA 3 Rivers Arts Fest (opening for Medeski, Martin & Wood)
June 13 – Manchester, TN – Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival
June 15 – Chapel Hill, NC – Night Light
June 16- Kill Devil Hills, NC- The Pit Surf Shop
June 17 – Columbia, SC – Hunter Gatherer
June 19 – Opelika, AL – Eighth & Rail
June 20 – Birmingham, AL – City Stages Festival
July 9th – Spokane, WA- Knitting Factory
July 11th – Redmond, WA – No Depression Festival
July 12th- Vancouver, BC – Media Club
August 28th San Francisco, CA – Outside Lands Festival
Through non-stop touring over the last two years and a pair of very strong albums (their latest, Furr, on Sub Pop), Portland’s Blitzen Trapper is accumulating a critical amount of deserved buzz behind their music. Straddling genres of expansively golden CSNY rock, the wide-open folk underpinnings of the wilderness, and the squalling rock of fellow Portlanders Pavement, their music delights simply in its unpredictability.
I sat down with half of the band when they were in Denver a few weeks ago, playing a very sold-out show at the Hi-Dive. Brian Adrian Koch (drums and vocals), Eric Earley (lead vocals and guitar) and Marty Marquis (guitar, keyboard and vocals) piled on a sunken green couch and we chatted about their year, while waiting for Ramen from the bar.
BLITZEN TRAPPER INTERVIEW Fuel/Friends:Last time you guys were here in Denver I saw you open for Malkmus, which must have been pretty cool. Your non-stop touring seems to have generated a good deal of enthusiasm in the crowd refracted back to the stage – the singing along with each word on songs like “Furr”….
Eric: Yeah, that’s been great and surprising. People also really seem into “Black River Killer” on this tour…
Marty: Oh, and also “Not Your Lover”, when the three of us do it all singing together
F/F: I’d read about a thematic connection between Black River Killer and (author) Cormac McCarthy. What about his novels inspire you creatively?
Eric: On the one hand, that song is a classic murder ballad, but in other ways it’s more ambiguous as well, with some spiritual aspects. To me the imagery of the song feels related to the world McCarthy creates.
Marty: And I think there’s also the same recurring theme of regeneration through violence and some sort of redemptive quality in the most mindless, pathetic slaughter. It’s an interesting character in that story of our song and I think people are drawn to those contradictions. I mean it’s an American myth, that’s one of the things that makes us tick as a culture. I think Cormac McCarthy also taps into some of that.
Eric: He’s like our classic, our Hemingway or Faulkner, our Steinbeck crossed with Joyce. And he does it with an amount of experience that’s strange, and he’s writing right now. It’s amazing.
Brian: As rife as those novels are, when they’re translated into film – I watched No Country For Old Men, and there’s no music in it at all, and I didn’t even notice until someone pointed it out to me afterwards and I had to go back and check. There’s not a stitch. It’s so effective, I was flabbergasted.
F/F:It’s consistent with his books I think, though, since there’s such a space and a stillness and a silence in them.
Eric: Yeah, completely.
F/F:How do you possibly maintain creativity while you’re on the road? How have you been able to work on finishing your next album being on tour so much?
Eric: Well, I don’t write on the road, I write when I get home. And I can write really fast, I can write a whole record in a month. January I spent the whole time recording and writing.
Marty: You can barely think on the road.
Brian: The road’s a really good place to form ideas, for things to bubble and boil in your head. But as far as developing them into actual songs, it’s not very realistic. A lot of time to think though.
F/F: I also read that you have a record made between each of your records? Do you ever revisit those songs or play them live?
Eric: Well, we’ve used em for a few things… the Tour EP that we’ve had the last couple tours is stuff that was outtakes from Furr, and then all the Wild Mountain Nation outtakes were released here and there, on blogs and stuff like that. There’s probably an album and a half of stuff that hasn’t been put out.
The next record is definitely going to have some older songs that have been recorded years ago, some that were written when I was like nineteen, mixed in among all the new stuff. Generally when I’m making a record I record 25-30 songs, so yeah there’s a whole lot of stuff out there.
F/F:Do you ever play those unreleased rough cuts live?
Marty: Well you know, we want to make everyone have a good time, and it helps when they know the music. But we do play some stuff that’s pretty obscure in our set. As far as your average person who knows about Blitzen Trapper, they mostly want to hear the album Furr and even some of the hits from the last record, but we will also play stuff that they are totally unaware of.
F/F:I wanted to hear more about your record label….Lidkercow?
Eric: Yeah, Lidkercow – that’s a Joyce reference.
F/F:….Are you planning to release your own solo projects on that label, or signing some other bands you admire?
Eric: We are always feeling like we hear bands whose records we’d like to release….
Brian: In our fantasy life, we’ve always looked down the road to a place where people can collaborate and create together, and thinking of ways that we can be a part of that.
Marty: I mean, we’ve learned a lot in the past couple of years, we were a band for a long time and we didn’t know how to get the word out. We were just pretty naïve and playing music around Portland for a long time. So when we finally pushed out, we were really innocent, and it’s been a pretty steep learning curve for us. Now we’re getting to a place where I feel like we could help other artists ascend that curve and it would be pretty cool. There’s definitely some bands and musicians I’ve talked to a little bit that we’re pretty impressed with, but yeah, you don’t want to shortchange people either. What we do is a pretty spartan, bare-bones approach.
F/F:Well, and it is a crowded music market out there.
Eric: It’s difficult to navigate it.
Marty: I think people are getting pretty savvy about navigating all the data that’s out there, though. With music these days you can go and hear something immediately, and that communicates on some super-rational level with your core being and you don’t have to rely on what other people are saying about the music.
F/F: Do you think that people seem to have less patience to some degree for bands that don’t fit into a mold or genre? Like for example, people seem to have no idea how to classify your music – it’s quite amusing reading all the descriptors assigned to you guys.
Eric: Yeah, but all of that stuff is writers though. What I’ve learned on this record the last two tours is that there’s a big difference between writers and the fans. You know, and the fans just hear the music and they connect with it, whether it’s classified a certain way or not, it’s unimportant. But you need the writers to communicate to people about the music too.
Marty: I mean, it’s human nature to want to classify stuff. I definitely think that, yeah, if we had been a more focused band maybe, and we’d just said, we’re gonna be a straight country folk act and we’re all going to wear cowboy hats in our photo shoots….we might have been able to penetrate the marketplace a lot earlier because it’s a sharper instrument that people can comprehend a lot easier.
Eric: But you know, I think the way that we’re going though will have more lasting value, as opposed to being sort of like, “Well, you got your year.” I’d rather be able to make 5 or 6 records that will all last, or at least all contain songs that can stand the test of time.
All photos by special arrangement, from a little fly-by-night session we did shortly before the interview with the amazing Todd Roeth.
A few weeks ago, I helped dragged a table out into a bar parking lot on a lovely Sunday afternoon and interviewed last summer’s winners of Denver’s best alt-country band title, The Hollyfelds. They have a new EP coming out Friday, and they played at our Hillbilly Prom last weekend (oh wait, that was the Lurleens).
Head on over to Gigbot to read my interview with Cody Dickinson, of Hill Country Revue and the North Mississippi All Stars. Cody plays the electric washboard. That’s pretty rad.
In the short time I’ve been listening to Scotland’s Frightened Rabbit, something in their music has hit me hard. Their latest album Midnight Organ Fight has been more or less on constant repeat and haven’t even come close to getting tired of it. You can read all about it here.
Scott Hutchison formed the band with his brother Grant (who is an insanely ferocious and passionate drummer) in 2004. I was curious to learn more about the person largely behind these gorgeous songs, so Scott and I sat in a Denver parking lot in the deepening twilight this past weekend and talked a bit more about the emotional core of the record, the songwriting, and the production that Peter Katis (The National) brought to it.
They are Frightened Rabbit, they are on tour in the US, and yes, they are happy to meet you.
SCOTT HUTCHISON (FRIGHTENED RABBIT) INTERVIEW
On Midnight Organ Fight you sing about working on erasing someone but lacking the proper tools. It seems that many of your songs on the record are a sort of catharsis, or a tool for working through a difficult situation, but at the same time, a constant reminder of some pretty rough times. Is that ever a difficult dichotomy?
Well, during that part of my life, that relationship and that situation was a really major part that wasn’t going to go away anyways, so I didn’t really see the songwriting as therapy or anything like that. It was just the most important thing that was going on at that point in time, and the only thing I really cared enough about to write about.
And now, each time I sing the songs I definitely think about that time just naturally, like imagery pops into my head, but the whole thing’s not hard anymore. Performing them every night definitely takes some of the edges off of it, but you still have to transpose whatever energy or emotion you’re feeling that day into those songs when you perform them. When the record was recorded it was still pretty fresh. It’s not really anymore. I’m really concentrating on different things when I’m doing it live, like playing it well, and getting energy into it.
I know as a writer that there is some sense of fulfillment when you can string together words that perfectly pierce the gut of what you are trying to express. All of the lyrics on the new album are extremely rich, but do you have any personal, small favorites?
Yeah, I really like the whole of the song “Poke.” I feel like something definitely happened with that one whereby I was able to exactly compartmentalize one particular time in my life – something about it, I don’t really know exactly what. I summed something up perfectly in that song, I really like the line about tying a navy knot, just how two people can be interlaced like rope:
“You should look through some old photos I adored you in every one of those If someone took a picture of us now they’d need to be told That we had ever clung and tied a navy knot with arms at night . . . I’d say she was his sister but she doesn’t have his nose”
And then I also like the line about “I might never catch a mouse and present it in my mouth / To make you feel you’re with someone who deserves to be with you.” There is a sense of compressing three years of worry on my part into that one line. Those words kind of appeared from nowhere.
But I don’t usually write in the moment or at the time of feeling, I usually write after the fact so that I can them almost fictionalize events and distance myself from them slightly. I’ve always thought that there’s one thing to be personal in a song, but then you’re really a fine line away from being selfish if you’re not externalizing it so other people be invited into your songs. I hopefully try and write so that there’s enough vagueness so that the emotion is specific, but the personal is not specifically mine anymore. People can attach their own emotions onto my songs, and I can let the songs go.
That must be kinda difficult to balance, because the emotion all by itself means less without any details or context.
Yeah. Of course, people close to me are well aware of lines meaning really specific things, which is fine, but I think the metaphors used are still idiosyncratic enough that not everyone feels those things as intensely as I personally would. I mean, I think anyone can even take most of the songs on that record and just enjoy them as rock songs, it depends what frame of mind they’re in.
But I definitely do try and get as much out of each line of lyric as I possibly can. I don’t like throwaway lines in other people’s music. I tried to make the whole record and each line matter. That helps with what we were talking about before, to make the live delivery of each line as if it really matters.
My first introduction to your music was actually a YouTube video where you covered a bit of Fake Empire before My Backwards Walk. The National are a bit formidable to cover, not many bands have attempted that that I’m aware. What is your relationship with their music other than sharing a producer?
I came to that song before we worked with Peter and got to know the record and loved it. I’d heard The National in a bar in Glasgow, and that song definitely came at the same time as when I was writing and finalizing some of our songs on the record. When I first heard “Fake Empire” –on MySpace cheesily enough– I don’t know, there’s something about it where I just visualized myself inside of that song during that time in my life.
The National have a way with lyrics; there’s a line with them so often that really hits you so directly, and there’s wit which I really appreciate as well. I’ve never met the band, although I’d love to, so I cover that song 100% from a fan perspective.
I love Peter Katis’ work with The National, and you’ve said that with Peter you knew there was a certain way the record was always going to sound. Can you tell me more about that? How did that working relationship come about?
I got mostly what I’d expected from working with Peter, I just really appreciate the atmospheric quality he brings to all his records. Up to that point our demos and our first EP had sounded very closed, not really big. I really wanted to achieve a grander scale with this record. There was a completeness to the whole album and to the writing process, and I didn’t want the power of that completeness to be brought down by the music not being sonically powerful enough.
So Peter brought a muscle, I would say, to the record. He approaches things in production from a more scientific perspective than I do, which is good. He has his tricks that he uses on all his records, but he was really clear about the fact that he wanted to make our record unlike most of the other records he’s produced, which are quite dark. We got to the point at the end of mixing where he felt that this should really not be a dark record, actually. Hopefully we kept the power and the muscle without turning into Interpol. I mean, I think there’s black imagery, but also a hopeful aspect to the songs.
I can definitely appreciate the grandness on this record — I mean, there’s a place for the intimacy of bedroom demos, but the atmosphere and the beautiful sonic feel of the album kinda lends itself to expanding into new emotional areas through that as well.
Yeah, see the beautiful thing about Boxer is that there is so much breathing space for people to jump into the record. You can visualize yourself in the record and in the room . . . they definitely have a great way of describing rooms as well. The whole record has so much space, you can absorb yourself in it.
One of the nicest things that Peter brought to our record, actually, was that pulling back sometimes and taking things out. In my demos I tend to be all about filling the whole thing in. When I was younger, my mom tells me that I would always want to color in the whole piece of paper, rather than just drawing a person and a house and leaving it at that. I would want to color in all the white space to the very edges. I think that’s something that’s still there in me, I like to use all my colors. But Peter was very good at trying to make space so that there wasn’t that overload.
Is there a certain song you can point to on the record where you feel he did that really well?
There’s one called “I Feel Better” that I think I could have really taken over the top, going for more of a Phil Spector feel. But with what Peter did with that song, I feel like he made a difference in it. It’s completely different from the demo.
How has the response been in this leg of the tour?
It’s been consistently good. I mean we knew people were enjoying the record and it was doing quite well, but you’re never really sure what to expect until you get in each city and meet people and get their reactions about the songs. It’s been really nice. People are excited to talk to us as well, which is kind of weird for us, they want to meet us and talk to us about how they came to the record and why they like it. People are really forthcoming and very honest, and so many people apologize for being weird about it and taking it to heart but hey, they’re in good company with us. Really a big part of coming over here has been meeting the people that have connected with the record.
Do you feel like it’s been a long journey for the band to get to this point?
It’s been a really nice, steady growth. There’s not been a point with this band since its inception where I’ve felt that we’re moving backwards at any point. That’s the whole motto of the band, as soon as we feel that we’re traveling backwards perhaps it’ll be time to shake things up. But as for now, we’re moving forward and I don’t have any other ambitions aside from that.
In terms of our records, I really don’t feel you should be producing your best work on your first record either, or even on your second for that matter. I would say that I am in fact prouder of our second record, as a fan of albums – that’s definitely an album and not just a collection of songs. That first album was really written over a period of time when songwriting and playing music was more of a hobby to me so it’s more disparate. But this one is more a representation of me as a person, so I enjoy giving that to people more.
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And giving to people from the depths of their gut is definitely what this band does superbly well. Later that night they blazed brilliantly through almost every song from Midnight Organ Fight, as well as several older ones from Sings The Greys (the chanting fraternal harmonies of “music now!” felt like a rebel yell). I think I felt walls shake at the Hi-Dive from the emotion reverberating through the near-capacity crowd. I doubt that I will see a better show this year.
Here’s the video I shot of the Fake Empire/My Backwards Walk. Their agitated intensity seeps out of every part, and watch Grant on the drums. The way he can barely contain himself as the song winds to the place where he comes in mirrors the way I felt in watching this song come to life:
Frightened Rabbit is playing tonight at Holocenein Portland, and on Saturday all you San Franciscans should absolutely head out to see them at The Independent. More tour dates follow in the coming weeks; I strongly recommend going home with the albums, a handmade t-shirt (like I did — thanks Steve!), and a renewed faith in the power of good songs and live music.
[My other pics from the show are here, and my creative friend Kate took some artsy shots which can be found on her Flickr]
Sitting in the intimate Swedish American recital hall with a few hundred strangers on a recent rainy Saturday night, Nada Surf cast a spell. Almost akin to stepping inside a little jewel box for a few hours, these three guys out of Brooklyn worked through much of the material on their wonderful new album Lucky, as well as some gems from their back catalog that soared and reverberated in this acoustic setting.
The Swedish is a community hall in San Francisco with dark carved woodwork everywhere, not your typical nightclub. The stage was dim and warm with only a reddish glow illuminating the trio; Matthew Caws on acoustic guitar and vocals, Daniel Lorca hiding behind the amp stacks on his bass (from my perspective), the impressively moustachioed and good-natured drummer Ira Elliot sitting happily on his cajon, hammering out the rhythms with his palms and fingertips.
My friend who was at the show with me wrote about the intimacy of the set in his review, how “there wasn’t a person in the room that didn’t know every little bit of the songs they played” and he’s right — the intense level of fandom in this very sold-out show was impressive. We hushed when we needed to hush and enjoy the songs, we yelled along when Caws said to (even though he warned the parents of infants in the room before he encouraged us to sing along).
It was a night of melancholic catharsis snugly interlaced with their gorgeous melodies and harmonies. The arrangements of their new material in the acoustic setting really shone, and when they kicked into those chiming, golden opening notes of “Blonde on Blonde” during the encore? Forget about it. I was in love.
This is a band I will see again and again if I am given the opportunity [setlist, more pics here]
Before the show, my friend Brian and I got to sit down with lead singer Matthews Caws and discuss a bit about the new album’s old roots, the artistic inspiration, and how hip-hop informed the new disc in surprising ways. Caws was a delight to talk to — someone who feels the music like I do, which always seems like kismet to discover.
FUEL/FRIENDS INTERVIEW: MATTHEW CAWS OF NADA SURF by Brian London & Heather Browne
FUEL/FRIENDS:Congratulations on the new album, it’s really a great record. You guys recorded it all in Seattle right?
MATTHEW CAWS: Yeah, actually this is the first time we had someone to record, mix and produce it. On other records we’ve had a producer and an engineer, so this time just having one guy was really great.
We’ve been asked a lot the classic questions ‘What direction did you guys have in mind’ with this album and ‘what makes this record different than the last record’ etc., and . . . we actually had no direction in mind besides wanting John Goodmanson [Rogue Wave, Pavement, Death Cab, Soundgarden, Harvey Danger] to do it. And that is kind of its own direction because we knew it would sound . . . rich. He mixed “What is Your Secret” and “Do It Again” on the last record which are my two favorite mixes so he was kind of an obvious choice. And I don’t know if this album’s process was any different, besides possibly being more focused. At least we tried to be more focused!
So The Weight Is A Gift was recorded in Seattle and San Francisco, Lucky solely in Seattle — do you guys write in the studio, or back at your homes and rehearsal space in New York and then take it to the West Coast?
Most of the writing is done in my apartment and then I bring it in. I finish a lot of songs in the studio. I find that I can never write in the practice space. I’ve found that I need to have total peace and be at home, or have total pressure and be in the studio with the clock ticking.
With the producer looming over you to finish lines.
Yeah, but actually John was the first one I could actually have there because he was so accepting and calm that I could be working on a verse and just ask him to work on something else for a bit while I got it ready to show him, which is something I had never done with anyone before. We would go through and he would say “yeah yeah, that line’s cool, that line’s bad,” and I found it really valuable to have someone you trust that much.
You described John’s work as always sounding ‘rich’, and to me a really good example on the new album would be “I Like What You Say,” because the song now really does sound ‘richer’ than the one previously released on the John Tucker Must Die soundtrack.
Oh I’m glad! Some people seem to like the original better, but I’m not so sure I’d agree. I would agree with you though, and credit John for being so good at that. “Beautiful Beat” is also a good example — when we were listening back he would say ‘You know, that’s a really tall mix’, and I feel like the songs really have some space to them.
It’s interesting to find one person to see the record through the whole process. Has the band ever tried to produce a record all by yourselves, and really maintain your vision over the entire process?
Well, Let Go was kinda me. Because the engineer wasn’t really producing and a friend of ours Fred Maher was supposed to produce but we didn’t have a lot of money, and he was really broke and wound up getting a job auto tuning the bass on the Korn record at the time. And we would always see him totally despondent on the couch because it would be like trying to tune a motorboat, you know [makes a motorboat noise].
I heard a great rock n’ roll ethics story that you paid for the recording of Let Go with 1′s and 5 dollar bills.
Yeah, it was all t-shirt money. It looked like a lot when all stacked up, but it really wasn’t that much money.
. . . And I remember reading a clip in the back of Rolling Stone that said Let Go was “the indie Pet Sounds”, so thank God for the t-shirt fund, right?
Wow, I never heard that. Really? That’s really nice of them.
So tell us a little about the songwriting process on Lucky.
These days I have a very chaotic songwriting process. I hesitate to even call it a process. It’s a mostly dubious adventure, because I write lots of little pieces of songs and not whole ones so there are lots and lots of tapes littered about that I haven’t listened back to in years. And so for this record I decided I was going to go through each and every one and do my homework to find what was on them.
What came out of that process? Any stuff that made the record?
Yeah, a few lines here and there. A few melodies–
[gets excited, interrupts] –By any chance was one resurrected bit the “Behind every desire, is another one / Waiting to be liberated, when the first one’s sated” (from Weightless)? That song shifts so much, that whole segment feels like it might have dropped in wonderfully from somewhere else.
That is actually the oldest thing on the record! You’re totally right. I remembered that line, but I could never find the melody. I knew it was somewhere on one of those cassettes, but the problem with all those tapes is most of it’s awful snippets of me in the middle of the day thinking I’ve got something when I really don’t.
Are there any other places on the new record where older material resurfaced?
Yeah, just things like . . . in See These Bones where it goes [sings] “Do you remember when the light was low? do you remember when it fell?” That melody was maybe five years old, just lying around.
That must be exciting and gratifying to find a home for an idea that had been percolating for so long, and have it fit so perfectly.
Totally. I guess the biggest change in the band for at least these last two records is that I am much more open to that kind of juxtaposition. Daniel [Lorca, bass] and I used to try that more on the first record because he used to write more so we would smush parts of songs we both had and make one whole song and it work which was always exciting to us. But I had never really been in the habit of seeking that out, until these last two records. On “Do It Again” the end section has this really different type of melody which was a separate section added on.
It actually was because I was listening to so much hip-hop at the time, stuff like Nas. What I feel like I really got from that was how in a rap song every verse can be completely different — different point of view, different narrator, different feeling and sometimes obviously different people/voices — mainly how the atmosphere would change. I really like people like Nas who focus on storytelling.
It’s funny that you say hip-hop was an influence on this album, especially hip-hop that has different voices on each verse, because I noticed in John’s credits that he’s also worked with the Wu Tang Clan.
Oh yeah, that’s right! [laughs] But don’t forget he also worked with Hanson.
An all-around guy, then.
Very much so. I think that [the hip-hop storytelling element] freed me up for songs on this record like “Are You Lightning?” That song was recorded for the last record, but the whole end section that starts “I see you in my sheets, I see you in my sleep” — that whole bit was new. The song had been done for five years, words and melody, and the end was just going to be this three-minute fade out.
But since the song was asking the question ‘Are you the person I want to be with’ and not really knowing who that person is and getting to the point of being tired of looking, that by the time we were making this record I was in a very serious relationship so I felt like I had the answer, meaning that there was still stuff to sing about.
It’s interesting because if “Are You Lightning” had gone on the last record without the outro, it would have been a very nice sequel to “Inside of Love.”
Right, exactly. And the fact that it was a whole different melody for the new part was really something that excited me then and now. It was funny because a song would be unfinished, or actually they would be done, but wouldn’t feel that they were good enough. “The Fox” and “See These Bones” were both recorded for The Weight Is A Gift, but weren’t right at the time. And I would add melodies, which might have frustrated some, because there were no words and I was adding these things that were making the song feel completely different. But luckily open minds prevailed and we were accepting of the new parts.
One lyric from Lightning – “Just look at the size of you” is so unique and interesting, do you have anything to say about that or would you just like to leave it as it is? . . . Is it about the way one person can eclipse everything else?
Yes exactly — the amount of room one person can take up in your brain. I’ve always thought about describing lyrics and how it can be defensive, but it would be silly for me to hide behind such a simple metaphor.
On the last album, “Your Legs Grow” has such beautiful, yet elusive lyric, and I’ve always wanted to ask, what made you write that song and what does that song mean to you?
What I meant was . . . contemplate if you’re in a relationship and it’s ending. One spends so much of one’s time thinking that would kill you, or that you would just be lost. It could be whatever, a break up, disaster….I haven’t been through a lot of family death and I know it’s coming to everyone. So if something happens that you feel you won’t be able to get through, it can be sometimes comforting to remind yourself that you do get through it. Like if you were out to sea and drowning, or you walked out to sea and it became too deep, I think the way our minds work is that our legs grow to the bottom of the ocean, and then we walk out. It’s really just a song about the ability to recover.
It’s kind of magic realism because obviously our legs aren’t going to grow, but we do become strong in ways that would seem impossible at other times.
Yeah, I think sometimes –to use your phrase– that “magic realism” is exactly what people want and need from music, with all the stuff that people are supposed to handle in this world. Just to take a concept like that, and place it inside a metaphor, and deliver it in a song – that really seems to be a consistent thread through your band’s body of work.
A frustration I have a lot of the time with life in general is that it’s hard to hold on and remember how magical it can feel. And that’s kind of what the album title is about. Because it’s not necessarily that I feel lucky, it’s that I want to remember that I am. I wish I could turn that on at will because we get so caught up in whatever particular stories are happening with work, love, family, work, or whatever that just being alive and healthy on a planet that might be going down the tubes is totally fascinating. Still we can get caught in the cobwebs of everyday problems and forget how amazing and incredible life is.
The album cover seems very appropriate for the feel of the record, just the weight one can sense when lying down and looking at the sky, yet to still feel lucky and blessed to look around you.
Don’t people say that water at night is the perfect visual representation of the subconscious? And that’s why people are so drawn to it, just staring at it? With the cover I was also thinking about how trees and sky and stars are such extraordinary things…and they’re free. On another corny level, how lucky we are just to have them.
There is a great story about Yoko Ono before she was successful, she was broke and living in Greenwich Village and to make money she put up a poster that said ‘meet me at 5am tomorrow, bring a towel and five dollars, and you will see the most amazing show on Earth. If you don’t agree, there’s a money back guarantee.’ So some people met her, and she brought them up to the roof of her tenement building and they all sat down on their towels and watched the sun come up.
And you know what? Nobody asked for their money back.
We were going to post some Nada Surf b-sides but then we found this (free registration required), and now there is absolutely no use for anything else that we could add. Rad.
I’m pleased to have another entry this evening in our awesome guest-post series, an encore interview conducted by my roving reporter Brian London in California (who did the Superdrag piece in October).
This time I sent Brian off down the coast to the land of sunshine, traffic, and Disneyland to catch up with the guys from the literate and lovely Scottish megaband Travisabout their new album, their songwriting philosophies and influences. Plus, he got some exclusive news about how the band is in talks to work with producer Steve Lillywhite again for their next album, a return to rock form. Read on — and if you’ve never listened to Travis before, Brian ably handpicked a fine little mix at the end of the post, just to start you off solidly in the right direction.
INTERVIEW WITH TRAVIS by Brian London
As I was led through the empty House of Blues in Anaheim, Travis’ manager looked back and offered the caveat that “the boys have just woken up and are waiting in the car park, hope you don’t mind doing this outside — all very peace and love.” I emerged outside into the cool southern California evening, and was greeted by one half of the group that Chris Martin of Coldplay recently claimed “invented his band.”
Fran Healy [lead vocals, songwriting and rhythm guitar] and Dougie Payne [backing vocals and bass] of Travis leaned up against the cement load-in ramp –looking just like the scene where William meets Stillwater for the first time in Almost Famous– and greeted me warmly through their mild, yet present, Scottish brogue.
Yes, the wee music geek inside nearly had a coronary at the situation I found myself in.
In the twilight of the afternoon, I sat on the ground and chatted with one-half of the band have been rocking and rolling around the world for the last sixteen years, selling millions of albums, but more importantly staying true to what people gravitated toward Travis for in the first place; a band that is all about the songs and, as their first single announced to the world, just wants to rock.
THE NEW ALBUM Brian: First, I want to congratulate you on a really great new record (The Boy With No Name, 2007). Fran, I heard that you gave up smoking. Did you do that before or after you had recorded the vocals for the album?
Fran: Before.
Your voice has always had a real clarity to it, but some of the vocals on this new record I think really come across as some of your best.
F: Thanks man. I’ve got to say for the vocals, maybe one or two of the songs I’m really proud of singing-wise, but most of the time I still have that feeling when you hear your own voice that you just can’t believe that’s what you sound like. But I do agree that it’s gotten better without cigarettes.
Like on which songs specifically?
F: Well, “Battleships” and “Under the Moonlight” I think are really good vocals. But the Under The Moonlight is a bit jiggery-pokery, lots of clever editing going on there. When I think about it, I’m probably more proud of the editing [laughs], but no matter.
I heard you guys wrote around 40 songs for this new record?
Dougie: Yeah, about that. I mean, we were recording for a long time, around two years. We would record sporadically and we ended up with around forty songs. But it wasn’t like we had forty songs written before we went into the studio.
So you guys would do a session, take some time, and then next time bring in another two or three tunes?
D: Exactly, so we ended up with about forty but we only mixed around twenty of them and then we picked the album from those twenty.
And regarding those other twenty, are there any plans to revisit them in the future?
D: There were a couple that were left unfinished, but you know, everything that’s usable I think was pretty much used. It’s strange now because with the way music is distributed you need three extra tracks for Japan, three different extra tracks for Europe and then b-sides! So I think it’s all pretty much used up.
“FLOWERS IN THE WINDOW” That leads me into a question I had about your band’s method for sequencing records in the past. Your song “Flowers In The Window” on The Invisible Band record wasn’t going to be included until the last minute, right?
F: With that song, we had recorded the album and that was a song we had never got better than the demo which was me, Dougie and Andy sitting around in France just playing it live in a room with a piano and 12-string guitar and us all singing. It just had is really cool vibe with we could never get better. But the song was strong so we tried to record it umpteenth times after that.
D: Had to been about six times right?
F: Yeah, so then we went to do this album The Invisible Band. And Nigel [Godrich, uber-producer behind Radiohead, Beck, Paul McCartney, Air] always hated that song. Really, really didn’t like it.
D: He really had a real problem with it.
F: And when Nigel doesn’t like something, you really know. So we just didn’t go near it. But it was really bugging me, so on the last day I phoned him at 7am, woke him up and naturally that pissed him off.
A great start to any persuasion.
F: A very good start. So I told him I really think we need to record Flowers and, I mean, he got really upset, what with that being the reason for me waking him. Anyway, to cut a long story short, we ended up in the studio arguing like cats and dogs over this, but we put it down and I think the version we got it okay. But the version we do live is much more true how it was meant to be [as they did that night, the band crowds around Healy, who is playing guitar, with arms around each others' shoulders singing into the same mic]. The demo still really is the best version and it never saw the light of day.
Any chance of putting that out as a b-side?
D: That’s a good idea.
F: Well, actually, it is on the DVD as an extra. It’s video of us making the demo and it’s lovely.
B-SIDES Your band has always been really reliable for putting out quality extra tracks. “Just The Faces Change” to “Village Man,” there are a lot of great gems. Have you ever considered packaging them up for fans outside the areas where they are readily available?
D: Yeah, I think at some point we will put out some kind of compilation. There have been some ideas floating around. Like you said, there are a lot of places like America, South America, that can’t get hold of this or that track so it would be nice. Eventually we’ll get around to it.
Have you guys ever consciously tried to write a b-side, or do you just sequence the album and pull from what’s left over and hope it’s enough to satisfy the different bundles of extra tracks?
F: You can’t try to write a b-side or a-side, you just try to write a song and if enough people think ‘oh, that’s amazing’ then it’s obvious it’s an album track, or a single.
Was it that way with “Coming Around”? (A stand-alone single that came out in 2000 and was not featured on any album)
D: That was going to be a b-side wasn’t it?
F Yeah, we had a bunch of extra songs that we were recording and the record company guy said ‘that’s not a b-side that’s an a-side!’. I still don’t think it is. I mean it’s good but…
If not a single, do you think it might have been an album track?
F: I still feel it’s a b-side [laughs]. A really good b-side. But it just didn’t have that certain….I can’t put my finger on it.
D: You want to make sure you are happy with everything you put out. Sometimes we have to go into the studio and record b-sides just to be able to put out a single, but we still try to do the best songs we have at that point.
Is there a sense of freedom with b-sides, like, we’re going to try some experimenting and if it doesn’t work out we can always just relegate them to extra tracks?
F: Well, lately it’s been hard because when you’re headed towards an album you really want it to be great so you’re kind of restrained under the pressure of that. Kind of your own pressure I guess of trying to make a record you can listen to from being to end. And not only that, but a record you can take out and play live as well. I think it’s really hard to write really good up-tempo songs. It’s really easy to write a slow, mid-tempo burner of a tune.
I totally agree. It does seem that everyone I know who has tried to write songs, their first ones are always slow and sad.
F: It’s always going to be hard restrained to some degree and I think that does hurt the chances of cool, random things happening.
THE RECORDING PROCESS Do you guys jam out the songs before recording to make sure they work live?
D: Not really because we record live pretty much, and especially with this record because we were doing it to tape most of the time, so if it didn’t work there we generally wouldn’t bother with it.
Do those backing tracks usually come fast?
D: We get the takes pretty quick. I mean, everyone gets an idea for a part and the song falls together pretty quickly.
And if the song isn’t falling together quickly, it’s a sign.
F: Yeah, totally. We just go and work on something else.
The band did a great studio blog while recording this album, and it always sounded like you’d come in, start a song around midday with a few takes, have a listen back and from that be able to pick the best and be done.
D: It’s funny, but more often than not it was the first one after dinner that we’d keep. Something to do with having a full stomach or whatever. I think time away from the takes really let the parts settle. It’s a weird thing, but true.
INFLUENCES Are there any bands or sounds that you guys are big fans of, and you’ve tried to write songs or simply incorporate into what Travis does — and it just hasn’t worked?
F: No, I’ve never felt the need to because I feel even if someone writes a song and you’re like ‘oh, that’s a great tune’ you can only express yourself. You can’t express anyone else. I think what happens a lot of the time.
For example, the song “As You Are” was born completely listening to a song by Grant Lee Buffalo called “Fuzzy,” and “Across The Universe” by The Beatles. I think it’s Across The Universe . . . [hums a little bit, Dougie chimes in and then they both nod to each other in agreement that it is, in fact, Across the Universe]. But it’s not done consciously. Things come into your little world and your brain starts connecting the pieces without even your conscious control over it. And then you record it and that’s what it becomes.
D: I think sometimes bands consciously will take that bit from this song and this bit from that song and string it together to get a result, but that’s not why we’re doing it. It really comes down to the difference between art and design. I think people will design songs for whatever reason, to fill stadiums or to try and have hits, but there has to be a distinction between that and the art of songwriting.
And I wonder if those artists look back years later and listen to the record and reminisce about the time when they put A and B together? Since you guys are in it for the process, you can lean back and remember sitting in a room in France with two of your friends having a cool moment actually creating something out of nothing.
F: Yeah, but we don’t listen to it two years later! [Both Fran and Dougie break into laughter]. We play them every night live so there is no need. I mean, sometimes I do and think ‘that’s nice’ or ‘that sounds great.’ I don’t think there are any songs where I’m like ‘oh God’.
Any that you would pluck off of an album if you could go back?
F: Yeah, maybe. I think “She’s So Strange” from The Man Who, “Safe” off The Invisible Band might have gone, to make more lean albums. Maybe…..I don’t know, there are a couple of songs.
D: But it’s not really worth thinking about. It is what it is, and I believed in it at the time and still do. By the time you’re finished making it, you’ve literally heard it hundreds and hundreds of times, and then you’re going to go out and play it for the following however-many years, so there really isn’t a need to go back and listen to it.
GOOD FEELING & LILLYWHITE Here’s a question I’ve always wondered about the making of your first album Good Feeling — your Scottish band worked with English Producer Steve Lillywhite in a studio in upstate New York. How did that string of events come together?
F: Steve had recorded The Dave Matthews Band at this studio in Bearsville that The Band set up and he really liked the assistants and the sounds and wanted to do it there, so we went.
D: We kind of thought, brand new band recording their first album, Steve Lillywhite is asking us to go to New York, it was just [laughs] well, alright! ‘Oh, we’re going to stay in Robbie Robertsons’ house? Where’s the ticket?!’ It was great.
The sound on that first record is a bit more rough around the edges and really seems to capture the energy of a young band who is excited to be in a real studio, see how loud the amps go and just having a blast. Not to say that you would want to repeat yourself, but would you ever think about maybe letting yourself return to that version of Travis?
F: Yeah. Definitely. I think the next record you’ll probably see that happen. We’re planning on that anyway. We’re going to go write for eight weeks, and then go record the album in a week just like we did with Good Feeling. I think the band is good enough to go and do that, you know. If we spend too long on the album it will end up sounding too slick and polished and there’s really nothing to hold onto.
And those cracks in the marble are usually what make a record interesting.
F: Interestingly we’ve been talking to Steve about producing again.
Is there anything written, or have you just been gathering up sketches?
F: There are a couple of ideas.
D: And a few of those unfinished ideas from the last record so we’ll see what happens.
F: I’m really excited, man. It should be really cool.
Where are you guys planning to go away and write this rock record?
D: Just going to head back home to London because we’ve been away for a lot of the year. So we’re going to get back and find a little cubbyhole.
Are you all located in London, or do any of you still live in Scotland?
D: Pretty much yeah. If not full time, we all have places there. Only Neil [Primrose, the drummer] lives up north.
F: But I think he can, because generally me, Dougie and Andy are the ones who are hands-on twiddling with ideas.
D: Neil will come in and nail his part in, like, never more than three takes. He gets really impatient with us fucking up our parts all the time!
Well, thanks a lot guys, and I’m looking forward to the show and the next record.
F & D: Thank you.
. . . And then Travis were off to soundcheck. The next time I saw them was their grand entrance to the stage. To the sound of the Rocky Theme, they entered from the back and moved through the crowd wearing silky boxer uniforms. They made it onto the stage and began with the fantastic new single “Selfish Jean.”
They rolled through the set of crowd-friendly singalongs, but kept it interesting by introducing tricks that only seasoned bands who know exactly how to control a crowd can pull off. One part that we all loved was when Fran asked the crowd for total silence while he showed what truly unplugged performance is. He unplugged his acoustic guitar, stepped back from the mic and belted out a beautiful version of the hymn-like extra track from The Man Who album called “Twenty.”
Travis is a band that upholds and respects the qualities which every band would value in an ideal world; pride in the craftsmanship of their art, giving the audience a show that embraces, amuses and entertains on every level. They also preserve that quality which seems to be the most difficult to maintain; the ability to be a complete success on every level while remaining as approachable and decent as they undoubtedly were when playing pubs in Scotland.
So raise your pints up high to another five albums worth of tunes that celebrate what can happen if you start a band for all the right reasons.
Fuel readers, you guys are lucky today to get an interview conducted by my new special correspondent in the field. It’s an on-site, in-depth chat with Superdrag frontman John Davis at the latest reunion show in Chicago. Brian London is a musician friend of mine in the California Bay Area, and he has been a fan of Superdrag for a long and very intense time.
I sent Brian out armed with a tape recorder and his encyclopedic memory, and he turned in a really interesting look at the music of John Davis and reunited Superdrag (together again in the original lineup for the first time in 8 years), with enough arcane contextual history in the questions to make even the jaded chuckle at this enthusiasm. Remember, for the full stereophonic experience, you can click the little blue arrows next to the songs embedded throughout to listen as you read, and make sure to dig the zip file of all the tunes at the end. Enjoy.
INTERVIEW: JOHN DAVIS OF SUPERDRAG METRO — CHICAGO 10/13/2007
BL: So the guitars are tuned, amps are humming, Don counts it in for the first rehearsal in eight years — what was the first song you guys played back together?
JD: Slot Machine into Phaser.
Awesome. Did you just kinda look around and let out a grin?
That’s pretty much exactly what I did. Man, we were so fired up to be doing this. I was talking to someone earlier about this and I was saying that I wasn’t really worried about us pulling the set together. That actually was the least of my worries because while there are some songs in the show that we never played on stage with this lineup, and some songs come from the third album [In The Valley of Dying Stars] which Tom wasn’t even in the band when we recorded, there are songs that we literally played hundreds of time together on stage. It really becomes a very limited process of having to re-learn something like that. It was pretty weird actually how well it jived right off the bat, but it really was just like you described. We were all just so excited to get into it.
The progression from your last solo record (John Davis 2005) and into your new solo effort Arigato! (2007), seems to be a sound and energy that gels really well with the early Superdrag vibe. Would it be fair to say that that sound is where your head is at musically these days?
I think the first solo album I did in retrospect was me trying to push my writing in directions that I had never done before. I think it can be good for a person who produces any kind of art to every once in a while step back from what your default deal is and try to push yourself outside of that.
It sounded like you were starting to push the walls of the Superdrag sound certainly with the 2nd record, and with demos like “Doctors Are Dead.”
It is still just rock n roll and pop music. I mean, its not like My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless where there seems to be no precedent set before or since. It was just guys who bought Jazz Masters and learned to bend and hit chords at the same time and loved playing together.
But getting back to the first solo record, there seemed to a more rootsy, piano-led vibe. That record really turned out exactly the way that I had wanted. I would have liked more people to know about it, but it was kind of, on one level, ideologically swimming upstream, and on the flip side stylistically it was swimming upstream in accordance to what prevails in “Christian music.” “Christian” anything really is an irrelevant way to approach the Gospel anyway because it is not mean to be under glass.
The irrelevance of questions like “what does Christian music really sound like?” becomes apparent when referring to a piece of art like your first record because on one hand anyone who likes well-crafted rock n roll can get into it, and on the other someone seeking for a sympathetic voice or a joyful prayer could find that as well.
For me, it was the only honest type of music that I could have recorded at that time. I think the new record is no less bold, but it kind of comes from a different point on the line so to speak. That other record felt like the immediate aftermath after having that kind of revelation I had about even the smallest pinpoint realization about the nature of God is and how you relate to it. It basically smashed me.
Stained Glass Window – John Davis [note: this is the classiest of chord changes]
I remember reading an interview where you describing how you pulled the car to the side of the road and you felt like you couldn’t even breathe. That happened as you were recording what would become Superdrag’s last album Last Call For Vitriol right?
It basically bisected that session.
Did any songs come after that and make it onto the record?
All the writing was done but I still had to do all the singing that led to me fixing some stuff because [long pause] I guess I was trying to drink myself to death. I don’t remember ever explicitly feeling like I wanted to die, but the life I was leading was not that of a person that wanted to live. It was so radical and blindsided me so much. I’ve met so many people since that have told me that they prayed for me everyday. [long pause] What do you say or do with that beside fall to floor and bust out in tears?
Looking at some of the lyrics and the title Last Call for Vitriol, would it be fair to say that in hindsight they read as cries for help? Lyrics like “What am I trying to prove/Every time I get too fucked to move” and “I don’t know if living’s too attractive/I don’t know if God is interactive.“
I think there is a weight to it, in light of what happened after that for sure. But long story short, I didn’t even approach writing a song for a solid year after that. And I think the biggest problem I had what that I didn’t know how to express the joy I felt and be taken seriously. Because people have a much easier time taking you seriously if you’re pissed.
It really is easier to call a happy song “cheesy” than it is a sad or angry song.
But God eventually ministered to be, songs began to flow, doors opened and it became clear that I was going to get the chance to make a record and put it out with distribution. I was able to record where I wanted, work with the producer I wanted, and I got to play all the instruments which was so much fun. I think I secretly harbored that desire for a long time, and not because these dudes don’t rip, but because I wanted to try it as a new challenge.
Had you done that in the past with your demos before you brought it to the boys?
Totally. I did that for years.
A friend years ago gave me a disc of your alter-ego Johnny Flame covering loads of Beatles songs to arrangement perfection. Is that all you on those tracks?
Yes sir.
All those harmonies? That’s amazing.
Thanks man. Some of them have good quality, but some of them really don’t sound so good.
But the fun you’re having really comes through even on those rough 4-track recordings.
Doing that was a big part of how I learned to record. Because if I didn’t have a song of my own, I would do a Beatles tune just because I wanted to record. And then if you listen to all of the 4-track records, there is sort of an invisible line from where I started mixing down to a real deal tape deck instead of a jam box and then after that I got a 4-track that improved things by leaps and bounds. Pretty much by 1997 the 4-track starts to sound pretty good.
Well that box on the cover really was just in my cabinet all those years. I just started going through it and I ripped all the music that would possibly ever want to hear. Some stuff I let sleep on those cassettes just because I felt like I never wanted to hear again and I’d just fast forward and see what’s next. But it was a lot of fun.
The double disc is really cool for the fans because when the band went of hiatus in 2003, you had talked about a 100 song box set, a book and a DVD, but when Road To Ruin came out, it seemed like such a small glimpse into such a creative band’s archives.
To be frank, we kind of bided our time initiating any of that until we were completely at liberty to do it the way we wanted to, and most importantly to do it ourselves. There is a projected series of releases that is planned. What we just did basically brings us up speed until the first Elektra record [Regretfully Yours] and we could turn around and do the same thing for every other record.
Is that the stuff from the Bearsville, NY sessions for Head Trip In Every Key and the Knoxville sessions for Valley of Dying Stars?
Exactly.
Because the fans have been treated to songs like “I Wanna Rock N’ Roll” live, which are great.
The demos are proof that we were always hard workers and put in time to write a lot of songs and be prepared to record.
You were definitely a band that could never be cited as underwriting for a record. It never seemed like you would show up with seven and a half songs to the first recording date.
What is amazing to find out is that there are still a good number of people interested in that stuff and want to hear it. Which is humbling and flattering to death.
There are some songs that you guys never recorded in a proper studio, which in my opinion rate as some of the best things you ever did. One of my favorite songs to play when I’m jamming with my friends is “Relocate My Satellites.”
Man that song totally should have gone down. I think we felt it should have been arranged better and so it just kept getting pushed off to the side like ‘oh we’ll get to that later’ and we never got to it. But now with it coming out on the rarities disc, we mastered it up and it feels done. I really enjoyed mastering a lot of that stuff because you can really bring the music to life and compensate and temper some of the bad hiss and keep the good hiss when you want it and rescue whatever low end frequencies might be in there. So Lord willing, there is tons of music we could put out and we hope to make it super reasonable. We’re lucky for the fact that we are not obligated to anyone except the people who like the songs and want to hear more songs. That’s the first time we’ve had that luxury in about 13 years, so it feels really nice.
Going by your band’s extreme productivity in the past, in these latest rehearsals while you getting the set list ready, did you guys kick out any new jams and if you did, any chance of a new release?
I do have a lot of new songs and that’s mainly due to the fact that my new album was finished a year ago. It wasn’t mastered until recently, but it was recorded in the summer of 2006. Actually, the guy that mastered it was the guy who also mastered [Dre's] The Chronic.
That’s awesome!
Yeah, I was pretty stoked on that. I mean, he’s done a million records, but that’s a record I love and get hung up on every once in a while.
Every time I drive through L.A, that’s one that has to go on.
It’s banging man, even after sixteen years.
I read that you recorded Arigato! at the Foo Fighters’ Studio 606 in Los Angeles, and not only did you track the entire album in two weeks, but that your drummer Yogi Watts did all of the drum tracks in two days. Is that really true?
Yeah man, he’s just sick with it. He’s real funny because he doesn’t mind telling you how good he is. He’ll be wearing it out on the kit, playing something like a fast punk rock of the song “Never Changing” and from the neck up he’s not even moving. It was rad. He’d just take off the headphones and sit back say, “Well boys, I could play it again but I don’t really know why you’d want me to. I don’t really know what else you’d want.” And Nick [Raskulinecz, co-producer who has worked with Foo Fighters and produced Superdrag's In The Valley of Dying Stars and earlier pre-Elektra work] would just lean in and say “Do it again and I want some different fills.” Those dudes got along really well.
Yogi has been playing with me on my solo tours and I just really love his drumming. He plays like Don [Coffey Jr] sometimes, like Bill Stevenson [of The Descendents] sometimes; he really can just play anything. His main gig is playing in a band called Demon Hunter. They are straight up metalcore with a straight up Gospel message. Their new album is called Storm the Gates of Hell and man, it is tough. Check out their Myspace page man, they’re very cool.
You’re the man who would have the answer about a question I’ve had for a while, when Superdrag went on hiatus you and Mic Harrison both put up songs on Superdrag.com that would later appear on solo records, but Sam Powers (Superdrag bassist from 1999-2003) also posted a tune, yet a solo album never appeared. “World Surrounded” is such a great song, are we ever going to get any more from Sam?
I love that song. I know for a fact he has more because a while back he gave me a cd with six songs on it and truth be told they’re some of my favorite he’s ever done. I’m such a fan of Sam’s music from when he was in Who Hit John and Everything Tool.
I do like the studio version you put out on the split with The Anniversary, there’s something about that demo you put out on the Rock Soldier EP. It sounds just like a lost track from the greatest ‘60s garage band.
Yeah man, that’s truly the 4-track sound. “Her Melancholy Tune” was meant to be on the Disheverly Brothers too. Sammy P and I basically tried to rip off the Beatles as much as possible.
Well, no two men are better equipped for the job or got better results in my opinion.
Yeah, not only Sam’s rock music, but him as an individual, a dad, a husband — he’s a dude I completely admire to the fullest. The same goes for Mic Harrison. He’s actually going to support on some of these dates with his band The High Score. The fact that those dudes aren’t going to be involved with Superdrag, by no means should that represent a lack of respect or love because they are the shit.
I’m happy because this is the incarnation of the Superdrag experience I’ve never gotten to see. My first show was before Valley came out and Willy T (a temporary guitarist for the tour following the completion of Valley) was rocking the guitar.
[laughs] That’s another cool element about this thing because after the Elektra thing came and went, the second effort of the band began. We sat around and said ‘Wait, we’ve got a van, we know how to book a tour, lets go.’ And as a result of that, we kind of generated a new set of fans that weren’t on board from the beginning. It’s really just a win win win for all of us.
And the fans as well. We all get another chance to go out on a Friday night and rock out to one of our favorite bands. Speaking of your fans and giving them a chance to see you, looking on your message board you guys have fans as far as Israel. I know you took your solo record abroad to places like Amsterdam, any plans to take the Superdrag carnival international?
I would love to. Not just a business or rock level, but on a personal level it is life enriching to go to a place, take Japan for example, that really makes you feel alien. Something like 99% of the population there is native. I think any of us would jump at the chance.
That’s the one piece of Superdrag audio I’ve never been able to come across.
Man, I wish I could help. I don’t really know how the licensing works for that thing because it was licensed through Arena Rock to a Japanese label that I think is done now. But that was a wild thing. This record company in Japan licensed the Valley record and the deal was they would bring us over to play and while there they wanted us to record a 10 song Japanese-exclusive EP. So they booked this recording date the day after the last show and we all thought ‘cool, we’ll go in and treat it like a radio session and just blast through the ten songs live, no overdubs.’
Well we got in there and the room was like a tiny dressing room. And all they had were these little headphone amps, which meant that, even though there was no room for it anyway, there could be no isolation. Don’s crash symbol was right in my face and we were just laughing because there was no way we could sing, much less play, all together and get a decent sounding record. Also the two guys who were working the board were way more conversational in English than we were in Japanese, but needless to say there was still a huge language barrier. So when we said, “Dudes, we’re going to need to overdub” they just stared at us with very stern faces.
So anyway, we ended up only doing four songs instead of ten which was kind of a situation itself because they were afraid we would go home and not send then the other six. But we convinced them that we were honorable and would follow through, which we did in like three days.
And didn’t they mix it themselves, but there was a problem with that so you had to recall like 1,000 copies?
Man, there was some serious Pokemon keyboards on there. Some of the strangest processing I’ve ever heard. And they didn’t use some of the harmony vocals, entire guitar parts we’d recorded; it was just a mess. And they were pressing records before we had a chance to approve anything, so let’s just say that the lines of communication were sub-par and we ended up re-mixing it ourselves. That’s a cool artifact though.
Well, thanks for taking the time John, and I know I’m not alone when I say I’m really excited to see the band rock tonight.
Thanks so much for coming all this way and for the support. It means the world to us.
* * * * * *
And rock that night they did. There was a sticker attached to one of Superdrag’s albums that read, “If you don’t like Rock n Roll, you won’t like this” — and that pretty much summed up the experience I had that night at the show.
Don Coffey Jr. pounding the drums as ferociously as he ever did, Brandon’s guitar work was airtight, John Davis was, well he’s John Davis, isn’t he….what do you expect. And Tom Pappas, armed with a mirrored pick-guarded bass and leather pants, scissor-kicked his way through a truly blistering show by one of the best bands I’ve ever seen. Three shows left, I can’t say more than this — go beyond your usual effort to see a show, and this band will do the same for you in return. Head trip in every key indeed.
-BWL
REMAINING SUPERDRAG SHOWS November 02 – New York, NY @ The “Fillmore” November 03 – Boston, MA @ Paradise November 08 – Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club
You can tell their passion for music by seeing them play, and know that they are good with words from listening to their lyrics. But just passing them on a city street, you’d never know from their dark sunglasses and, yes, ubiquitous black leather jackets that the guys of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club are thoughtful, well-spoken and articulate, and also some of the best interviewees that I’ve yet had the pleasure of chatting with.
Peter Hayes and Robert Levon Been were friends as teenagers in the San Francisco Bay Area (yay!). Robert is from the Boulder Creek/Felton area as a kid, and Peter spent his teenage years all over the East Bay – Concord, Daly City, Oakland, Lafayette. The guys met in high school, shortly after Peter had just gotten out of the morale-shattering tumult of the Brian Jonestown Massacre.
Along with drummer Nick Jago, a transplanted Brit, they decided to form a band and first played together in 1998. Their original name was The Elements, but after a few months they changed their name to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, taking the moniker from Marlon Brando’s group of young ruffians in the 1953 movie The Wild One.
The nascent BRMC recorded a demo album independently in 1999 which quickly circulated and generated a buzz at home and abroad. Owing to the energy of their live shows, the quality of their songwriting and perhaps the impressive range of influences that echoed some of the best sounds of decades past, they were signed by Virgin and their self-titled debut album was released in 2001. After their Screaming Gun EP of b-sides that same year, they’ve been pretty regular in offering a release every two years — Take Them, On Your Own in 2003, the folk/blues/acoustica of Howlin 2005, and the anthemic haze of this year’s Baby 81.
Before they rocked the Monolith Festival last weekend, Peter [guitar/vocals] and Robert [bass/vocals] took a good chunk of time from their grueling pre-show demands (mostly drinking Red Bull I think, and doing other interviews) to sit down at a little table backstage at Red Rocks with me to talk, in-depth and from the heart, about music.
BLACK REBEL MOTORCYCLE CLUB INTERVIEW I’d be remiss to not note your awesome roots in the Bay Area. As a San Jose girl myself, I have to ask — do you ever miss things about the Bay Area now that you’ve left for the shining shores of LA? Those great venues like The Fillmore or the Purple Onion …
Robert: Purple Onion! Yeah, we played the Purple Onion lots of times. You know Tom? That crazy fucker? He was that eccentric owner. He’d introduce the bands, and he called us the Black Leather Jacket Gang when we first played there. Couldn’t get the name right. Or he didn’t wanna get the name right.
Peter: (in a nasally voice) “You’ve got the coolest name ever man! Black Leather Jacket Gang, that’s awesome!“
Robert: I think it was the first time we were ever announced . . . we were called The Elements for about nine months and then we changed it. And that was like our first gig as Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, and aw, they just took a piss with it. Definitely it was a scary name to try and introduce.
It helps to have a good name, a lot, but that’s all stuff you’ve probably read about. There’s just a lot of great history with that film that we kind of ended up learning later. I mean, it was the first real [depiction of] what rock and roll took, like kind of the spirit of it and the imagery. I mean The Beatles got their name from it –maybe– and Elvis took, you know, his whole look from a lot of it. It’s a kind of campy film, but in its time it was a really edgy cool thing.
Since you are here in Colorado, I wanted to ask you about an article I read that cited the “beat poet scene of Denver” as one of your influences. Now, other than sharing the title of an album with the Allen Ginsberg poem (Howl), is there a direct influence of his work in your music?
Peter: As far as the beat poets themselves and all that – I’m not real schooled on that stuff and we don’t have a whole lot of knowledge of who lived where. But from my understanding –could be absolutely wrong– the beat generation (even though they didn’t want that label, just as the label of rock and roll isn’t something you necessarily want or look for), they were talking out and speaking against things that they felt the need to speak out against and speak up.
So yeah, we’re fans of that. Not sure if they were the first – you know there were other people before that . . . I mean you can even call Jesus a rebel and a revolutionary. But we’re into that thought, and getting back to that idea and ideal of living.
So the title of your album was a direct nod to that?
Peter: It was a direct nod to that idea, which is speaking out against whatever you feel the need to speak out against.
Robert: And also that album is heavier on the lyrical side and poetry side. Some of the songs were poems before they were songs, and then they were . . . that thing of hoping that poetry could be more present in rock and roll music, and just the fantasy that there’s something more to say than what maybe it’s being used for a lot of the time.
I find it interesting how a lot of critics couldn’t seem to conceptualize how Howl fit in with your “sound.” There was all this commotion about how different it was from your first two albums. Was that hard for you guys why people couldn’t just, I don’t know, allow different kinds of music to come out of you without having to extrapolate out what this meant for your sound or your career?
Robert: I like the tug and the pull, and I like that that was put on the table, because it’s something that people should talk about, you know, why musicians and bands aren’t more free to be musicians and to experiment and do more, and just the fact that it was a shocking thing to discuss, “Who wants this sound? Who wants that?” I think it’s good to have that example for other bands to push things, but it’s also a shame.
We were nervous about it for sure because we knew the reality of the music business today; it’s about repeating one thing over and over again, and make as much money doing it as possible. We weren’t sure of the fans who loved us would want anything to do with us after Howl. Turns out that wasn’t the case, there was really strong support for the most part. That was a really, really nice feeling after being nervous for such a long time. Before we even started recording it, it was in the back of our mind, you now, just because we love it doesn’t mean anyone else will love it. But it ended up working out really well in the end. It was a good reminder to trust the passion of music.
Peter: It was a surprise and it is a sign that the state of things is not good, it’s a sad thing that it was even such an issue. It should be kind of obvious for anyone, we all want to express our freedom, and that’s all it should be taken as. If you like it or don’t like it, so be it.
Robert: We had to be really honest with ourselves though – there’s a lot of bands I love that had done the kinda “different” record, the experimental record, where you could tell that the band loved that sound or that style, but that they couldn’t quite make it work or pull it off. So their heart kind of got in front of their ability to actually really make something worthwhile. So, I think that’s why we waited so long – that record wouldn’t have been so good if it came out as our first or second album, we needed time to grow up and write better. I think if we’d gotten too excited and wanted to do something free and different without any holding ourselves accountable . . . I think we really needed to hold ourselves accountable.
Robert, you’ve said “People forget that the ‘roll’ is as important as the ‘rock’” and Peter, you’ve said that you are continuing to write a growing stash of new acoustic tunes. Do you think you’ll do another full album in the Howl vein, or integrate the folksy, bluesier stuff along with the rockers next time around?
Peter: I don’t know if this is possible, but when I think of albums, I think of a soundtrack, where you create a work with, say, an acoustic song next to a wall of guitars, just noise, no singing at all, next to a song that’s punky, whatever you want to call it. That to me is what makes sense. We’ve always been tryin to dodge the “Well, they sound like that . . . they sound like this,” – I want to be able to include all those types of music on an album and have that make sense. I think that would make sense to our fans. But I don’t really know! It’s hard to really talk about because to each his own, really.
I mean, a lot of people don’t like Howl. A lot of our fans didn’t like Howl. A lot of our fans really loved it. A lot of people got really turned on by it, a lot of people got turned off. A lot of people hate this one because they loved Howl. But what’s amazing is that we’ve made music that has turned people off and turned people on and we’re the same fuckin band. You know what I mean? That’s cool. We haven’t grabbed one big huge chunk of people that want that one sound – that to me is great. It’s up to the listener to be open to it, it’s not our job. Our job is just to do what the fuck we want in playing music, and it’s up to people to have ears to listen and be open to new things. It’s not our job to tell people how to hear.
Robert: I’m surprised more people don’t go along with the ride, as it should be. They’re very judgmental, quick to decide. I hear a lot of people talking and ranking, you know, “I like this one better than this one, which isn’t quite as good as that one.” But they’re all coming from the same place? So I don’t know why it’s . . . I mean they’re all good and bad for different reasons, but they’re all The Ride. Why not just enjoy the ride? It’s like being all uptight during the ride, like [scrunches up shoulders] “I don’t like this dip in the road right now.” But no, there’s this really cool turn coming right in a few seconds.
I agree with everything Pete is saying, especially the soundtrack idea as being the highest thing to achieve, something that emotionally can go from one extreme to the next, but kind of not be too tied down to one thing. That’s the only way you can keep a consistent kind of forward motion. But then again I don’t want to say what the next one’s gonna be because I don’t want to have that much control over it. I mean, whatever’s gonna come is not going to be really up to me so much, or Pete, or Nick, individually, but we all kinda let go of the wheel.
With Baby 81, if we thought about it too much we would have probably gone crazy: “What are we gonna do after this record that was so different?” And then thankfully Nick came back and we did “Took Out A Loan” and “666″ in one day, one take. No one was talking, sayin a fuckin word, it just happened. We followed that and made ten more songs like it. I don’t know — that’s the most natural and innocent the music can be, and that’s our job to let the music be that. It can be a natural extension, something that’s not too conceptualized or pulled in one direction because your head wants it to go there and your heart wants it to go someplace else. And we’re the only ones that can get in the way of that, you can blame other people, but it’s you allowing it or not.
Like the next record, I was actually thinking . . . I’m curious to hear what we’d sound like if we took a little time to let things evolve because we haven’t done that for awhile. We’ve done all records pretty fast, just kinda pushing to finish the next one and the next one. So I’m just curious to hear what we’d sound like with time to let things breathe and kind of come around in their own time.
I wanted to talk a little bit about your perceptions of the British media feeding frenzy throughout your career, and specifically the early buzz Noel Gallagher generated for you when he told MOJO magazine that you guys were his favorite band, and he wanted to sign you guys to his own [Brother Records] label. That must have been a bit crazy for you. Did you ever consider taking him up on it?
Peter: We considered it only to the point that we didn’t want to be anybody’s band. We didn’t want to be a record company’s band, or a guy at the record company’s band. That was the only reason we didn’t follow that up because we wanted to stand on our own. We don’t belong to Virgin [who they eventually signed with] and we don’t belong to who we’re with now. They don’t own us. Record companies make your lives a little bit easier, as far as, you know, you’ve got your rent paid. They make your art a little bit harder, but they make your life a little bit easier. [laughs heartily]
None of that really sunk in for me with though [with Noel Gallagher]. I was never that big of a fan — I became a bigger fan, but at first I didn’t understand it, it’s not for me. But then I went over there and I saw that it was for a huge amount of people, a lot of people loved it. So I give them respect, it touched the people somehow, I’ll give that to them absolutely. I respect that.
And it was nice of him, you know, him saying that? A lot of people would come to us and say, “I heard about you through Noel Gallagher,” and that’s amazing, that’s lovely to have. That feels like a community of artists, as far as someone who is at that level saying, “Check these guys out, I like this” – Having that is great, we try to do the same thing now for bands that we like. So that, in itself, that is how it’s supposed to be.
Robert: Music just carries a bigger weight in [British] society or culture, at least for the time being, and it has for awhile. It’s the good and bad that come with that. You know, people’s voices are heard and the media is stronger, and it’s a community that’s actually . . . can be inspiring and infuriating at the same time. But I’d rather have that than just a kind of place that doesn’t care so much, where music doesn’t really matter so much. The States kind of feel like that — there’s lots of places that have it a lot worse, but music’s not as built in to the [U.S.] network as far as the culture. They’ve got a ton of, say, television shows over there [in the UK] that are constantly showing different bands playing and there’s only a few over here.
Peter: It’s amazing, they have so much crap over there, and you know, they gave us a lot of their crap, as far as “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire,” or “Who Wants To Be The Next Pop Idol.” That all started over there … but it’s all bullshit! But it seems like our filter in America is just like, “Oh let’s just take the shit. The nonsense.” But over there they also have another side of it, that they have a good side too, they have both sides. Over here it’s weird how we siphon out the good stuff and just go for the shit. I don’t know why we do that.
We’ll make the last question massive. Do you see art and commercialism as being fundamentally at odds?
Robert: Oh, God. Well the question isn’t that hard to answer. We’d all want to live in a place where it wasn’t a music business, it wasn’t a film business, it was just people making music, making films, and it was their art form and it wasn’t controlled and tampered with by all these other elements. But the long answer to your question is how do you blend the two together in a world where you have to. We could be here for a while. [both laugh]
Peter: Your question is, are they fundamentally at odds? Fundamentally, yes. Money gets in the way of all of it. They don’t belong together . . . [pauses] . . . but it’s okay? I think it’s okay that it does? Kind of? [laughs] Because good things can come from money, I guess, because the world has decided to live that way.
Robert: It is kind of that ‘asleep at the wheel’ mentality. It’s not the industry itself, but the bigger society around it that’s – it’s the byproduct of society, not the other way around. It’s a Catch-22. No one really knows why some people settle for just sleepwalking, but it affects music and everything else.
I’ve always been kind of naïve or youthfully angry and rebellious against the music industry. You know, all those beginning thoughts you have when you’re like, “Fuck corporations, capitalism,” all that. But then T Bone Burnett was talking to us and he’s a good guy with a good heart. He was talking to us about trying to buy Sun Records and relaunch it and do it the right way and get the right people behind it, and for one glimpse I was truly inspired by that idea of that record label. We were just finishing Howl and he wanted to bring us on if it went through.
I was really excited about getting behind a brand that meant something. My imagination started sparking as far as I would want to make different great music and videos to represent this label and help it become what it would want to become, for the albums to have the same strength.
When you sign to a major label, the mentality can just kind of be “I wanna get mine, and get out,” in a way. It’s a survivalism thing that has nothing to do with connection to other people. But talking to him, I just got this vision that a label could be a beautiful, inspiring thing and I never even had a glimpse that that could be a reality, kind of growing up with labels that were always deemed the enemy or the devil, something you constantly had to fight against to keep your sanity and your art intact. That’s not the way it should be, and it doesn’t have to be. You realize, wow, we’re a long way from what could be, and yeah the music suffers from there on.
Peter: What’s frustrating is that you make a record –tons of bands do, you make art in a way you consider to be art of some sort– and you put it out and if it doesn’t do well, all of a sudden there’s no longer any support for you. And that’s a shame. I think government should be funding the arts – I guess Canada does it a bit, they cherish and take care of art and nurture it in a way. That’s unbelievably cool. Here we nourish those who’ve made it, and if you can’t be proven to have made it, you’re left by the wayside. So that’s wrong. That’s just wrong, that’s destruction of our culture.
And by following what you love, what you believe in, you have to be careful because your love can change. Next thing you know, your love turns into money. You know, this “I love what my music can get me.” Almost to a point of self-destruction, we’re so afraid of turning into that little asshole, you know? We’re like, is there money involved? Well make that go away. Make sure that goes somewhere else.
Robert: Just to finish that thought, it’s similar to what I was saying earlier about the label. It’s kind of trying to get away from self and not having it just be about ourselves and making money, but about the bigger community. Even when I’ve looked at, okay, you could make an indie label, stand for something new, get a bunch of great bands together and go really far. But you just know in the back of your mind, if you actually do make enough money it’s bound that it’s gonna be sold out from under you because someday it’s just gonna be an offer someone can’t refuse. You can’t even follow that dream because you know how it ends. . .
* * * * * Pete pulls out a lighter from Cleveland brandished with ‘Rock N Roll’ and a red electric guitar on the front. With a self-effacing laugh, he points it out, and says, “See? Put a little stamp on a lighter. And that’s rock and roll.”
All you need to know about what a show from The Format is like can be learned by watching this (bouncy, sometimes too loud) video that I shot on Friday night at the Gothic Theatre:
Don’t you just want to be a part of that? Yes, yes you do.
The concert was every bit as fantastic as I was expecting (a few more pics here) and I was pleased to get a chance to catch up with Nate Ruess, the frontman of the group. The Format was formed in 2001 by Nate and his longtime friend Sam Means; they make great music.
A FEW QUESTIONS WITH NATE RUESS Me: One of my favorite songs from you guys is “The First Single,” where you sing “You know the night life is just not for me.” However, you have chosen this nightclub-rock&roll-saturated 2am lifestyle, at least for now. Do you find it draining or do you love it? Or both?
Nate: We are fairly boring people so I’m still sticking to our guns on this one. And because we are so boring I think the “rock n roll” lifestyle gets to us really quickly. Unless it involves watching a good movie. Then I am game.
Denver is honored to be the last proper show of the long-running tour for Dog Problems. What’s next for you guys after this?
Gonna take a break from touring and being in a band, and try to write and make a record all at the same time I’m looking forward to it. But the first thing on my mind is finishing the tour.
Now, no pressure (who am I kidding, I’m eager) — but are you already working on writing a follow-up to Dog Problems?
Yeah we have five or so songs in their incubent stage. I’m anxious to hear what it’s going to sound like. In my head they’re great songs so far, but we have so much work left.
Here’s a possibly hard question – Everyone always asks me to “describe the sound” of The Format when I rave about you all to whoever will listen. How the heck do you usually answer that same question when people, doubtlessly and ad nauseum, propose it to you? How then shall we refer to you?
It’s the question that angers me most. I say pop if I’m not scared of the person asking me. But I’ll say rock if I think they pose a threat. But really I don’t know.
What new and distant horizons would you like to explore musically with your next album? I read something about steel drums?
Maybe a little bit, I tend to throw crazy words and instruments around but in the end it comes down to what’s best for the songs. With that being said…I hear a gospel choir.
[New song] Swans is fantastic, and I gotta say I loved the fact that there are jingle bells in there. Far underused outside of December festivities. I am curious to know what your studio space looks like, in terms of the dozens of instruments you use. You’ve got some awesome wacky stuff, eh?
Yeah for awhile before Dog Problems was recorded we spent a lot of time collecting crap, but the studio we recorded at in California had so many great instruments that we never used our own stuff. We are toying with the idea of make the next album in Arizona so I guess we might get to put 5 out-of-tune pump organs to use.
I am very interested in hearing about any new developments with your Vanity Label. Are you planning on adding some other artists to the roster? It must be a pretty cool feeling to be able to help and actually get good music heard by the general populace.
Yeah, we tend to forget we have the ability to sign other artists because we are so wrapped up in running the label for The Format. But once we hear something great or get a significant amount of time to work with someone, it’s something we would take very seriously.
[Me and Nate and my friend Jill after the show]
Bonus reading: A highly entertaining two-part tour blog written by Nate for Spin Magazine, wherein they crash a frat party and hone their skills in competitive drinking. [Part One] [Part Two]
Name: Heather Browne Location: Colorado, originally by way of California Giving context to the torrent since 2005.
"I love the relationship that anyone has with music: because there's something in us that is beyond the reach of words, something that eludes and defies our best attempts to spit it out. It's the best part of us, probably, the richest and strangest part..."
—Nick Hornby, Songbook
"Music has always been a matter of energy to me, a question of Fuel. Sentimental people call it Inspiration, but what they really mean is Fuel." —Hunter S. Thompson
Mp3s are for sampling purposes, kinda like when they give you the cheese cube at Costco, knowing that you'll often go home with having bought the whole 7 lb. spiced Brie log. They are left up for a limited time. If you LIKE the music, go and support these artists, buy their schwag, go to their concerts, purchase their CDs/records and tell all your friends. If you represent an artist or a label and would prefer that I remove a link to an mp3, please email me at browneheather@gmail.com
Submissions
Got something I should hear? Email me at browneheather@gmail.com. Digital's usually best, but music submissions can also be sent to: Fuel/Friends, PO Box 64011, Colorado Springs, CO 80962-4011.
Zee’s self-titled debut album is out Tuesday May 19th on Brushfire Records, and you can stream the whole thing on her MySpace.
My friend who was at the show with me 
Before the show, my friend Brian and I got to sit down with lead singer Matthews Caws and discuss a bit about the new album’s old roots, the artistic inspiration, and how hip-hop informed the new disc in surprising ways. Caws was a delight to talk to — someone who feels the music like I do, which always seems like kismet to discover.
[
might have gone, to make more lean albums. Maybe…..I don’t know, there are a couple of songs.
[photo above from Santiago, Chile show. Band pics from 
Before they rocked the Monolith Festival last weekend, 
[Me and Nate and my friend Jill after the show]
Name: Heather Browne
