CHECK OUT AN INTERVIEW I DID WITH THEM BEFORE THEY "STARTED BREAKING."
The Stark Online: We Break Bands. Period.
Showing posts with label interview. Show all posts
Showing posts with label interview. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Thursday, April 22, 2010
The Inquisition: Stark vs. Steel Train
An interview with Jack Antonoff of Steel Train
by Andrew Daniels
Nervous, awkward and maybe in just the slightest of a rush, Jack Antonoff fumbles his words around on the other end of the telephone line, half a world away in California.
“Well … I,” he trails off, with broken sighs and pauses so audible you can hear the motors in his head turning, scanning around for the right thing to say before deciding, “I legally can’t say much.” It’s hard for him to even get to that point.
“We’re a band that exists doing our own … ” there’s another ellipsis, “thing,” he says, referring to his band, Steel Train, for which he’s sung and played guitar since 1999. “I’m stuttering, I’m sorry,” he admits. No kidding.
It’s hard for Antonoff to disclose much about his time with Drive-Thru Records, the once-venerable, now-vulnerable record label that very nearly killed Steel Train. Yet pain and resentment clearly linger in the front man’s words, however veiled they must be.
“It would be pretty easy for anyone to look at the past couple of years, just do a little research and make an opinion on how all parties feel about this,” Antonoff says.
For the rest of Jack's interview, including the inspiration behind the band's new self-titled album and why New Jersey was instrumental in its creation, continue reading after the jump.
A little research yields this: After Antonoff formed Steel Train in high school, Drive-Thru snatched the band up in 2002, smack-dab in the middle of the label’s heyday. Hoping to vault the young, shaggy-haired New Jersey folk act into the same spotlight as its other successful bands at the time – chief among them New Found Glory, Something Corporate and The Starting Line – Drive-Thru took a bet on Steel Train.
But it never quite worked. For starters, it didn’t make sense to pigeonhole the band in the same snug pop-punk genre as the other names on Drive-Thru’s roster. Steel Train’s first three releases on the label – 2003’s For You My Dear E.P.; 2004’s 1969 E.P., a covers collection featuring songs from the titular year; and 2005’s Twilight Tales from the Prairies of the Sun – were psychedelic, slow and often acoustic, a far cry from the fast, heavy sounds that had come to define Drive-Thru. The label scarcely marketed the releases, opting to fund some of the band’s touring but little else.
Things didn’t change much with the release of 2007’s Trampoline, which found the band transitioning into its current indie rock sound. While the album landed the band high profile festivals including Chicago’s Lollapalooza and Tennessee’s Bonnaroo and a performance on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” Drive-Thru hardly paid attention to the band post-release, slowing the momentum it had earned with the album.
“There were so many things back then that seemed like a necessity for a band that we were never able to do,” Antonoff says. “Like releasing music. We could never release any music! All of the music we released had to be thought out, planned out, and that’s why only a few records ever came out.”
Somewhere in between Trampoline and the present (when exactly is unclear) Steel Train finally split with Drive-Thru. Though Antonoff must be vague with details – “one of the agreements with the label as part of the whole thing,” – he is remarkably candid and positively flighty when conversation moves to the band’s forthcoming self-titled album, which was recorded in the most uncertain of times.
“We went in to make this record at a time when our label was really falling apart, and didn’t understand what we were doing artistically,” Antonoff says. “We really sort of bet on ourselves and spent our own money on it knowing there was a chance it could never come out and we could find ourselves in a lawsuit. Without sounding cheesy, we just made the record we were dying to make.”
Steel Train, produced by Steven McDonald (Be Your Own Pet) is being released on the band’s own label, Terrible Thrills, on June 15. The first song released from the album, “Turnpike Ghost,” is larger than life, the sound of the band bursting out of the cage it was in for the better part of last decade. “You don’t have to live like that,” Antonoff sings repeatedly during the chorus, a snapshot of self-assurance when he needed it most.
“When [the album] was all done, there was so much turmoil and intensity that went into making this record that it’s sort of like when you go through a really, really horrendous experience in your life and you come out of it and sort of don’t know how you did it, but you did,” he says.
Antonoff and his band mates – bassist Evan Winniker, guitarist Daniel Silbert, keyboardist Justin Huey and drummer Jon Shiffman – also drew inspiration for the album from their roots in New Jersey.
“We came up at a time that was really important,” Antonoff says. “Going into this record, we realized our little niche in musical history. New Jersey in the late 1990s is just as important as London in the late 60s or [Washington,] D.C. in the early 80s. Something really happened there, and we’re lucky to be a part of it. That’s something we wanted to bleed into our music as much as possible, and in many ways it’s sort of the biggest thing on this record.”
He proudly refers to Steel Train as a “late 2000s music industry Cinderella story,” and is the first to admit he’s kicking his band’s newfound sense of freedom into overdrive.
“Now that we’re off [Drive-Thru], it’s absolutely incredible and amazing to do what we want,” Antonoff says. “We always had to put all our cards into touring and merchandise and stuff like that. The biggest part of being in a band, which is music, was the part that we could never fully share. And that’s something that was really devastating to us, so we’re overcompensating for lost time with releasing and touring as much as we can.”
Somewhere in his absurdly packed schedule, Antonoff also manages to regularly record and tour with his other band, fun., which includes ex-members of The Format and Anathallo, and date celebrities like Scarlett Johansson and “Arrested Development’s” Alia Shawkat. Though, for the record, he says he isn’t in a relationship right now.
“I have no problem literally giving my whole life to all this stuff,” he emphatically says.
The Jack Antonoff who has to get off the phone now – because Steel Train needs to prepare for its upcoming performance at the Coachella festival (his reason for being in California) – is decidedly different than the uncomfortable, guarded one from fifteen minutes ago. This one is confident and eager for the future of his band, his baby; he’s as sunny as the weather must be over there.
“We’re standing out here and saying, ‘we’re gonna make this happen.’ We believe in ourselves,” he declares. “Whatever success we have is already heightened a million times because we’re the ones doing it.”
Steel Train will open for Ben Folds this Saturday, April 24 at Lehigh University's Sundaze festival, which begins at noon at Sayre Field in Bethlehem, Pa. The festival is free to the public.
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
The Inquisition: Stark Vs. Hoots & Hellmouth
STARK vs. HOOTS & HELLMOUTH
An interview with Sean Hoots of Hoots & Hellmouth
by Andrew Daniels
Good morning, Sean. Where are you calling from right now?
We're in Atlanta right now, we played a show there last night and pretty soon we'll be on our way up to Athens.
You guys are known for touring pretty heavily. In fact, one recent press release calls the current tour you're on the "never-ending tour." Does that kind of schedule ever take its toll on you?
Certainly there's wear and tear any time you're in constant motion. Any machine that has moving parts is eventually going to experience some weaer and tear. But we keep it pretty well-oiled with a good sense of humor, good friends and food along the way. Life on the road is certainly different from a life style at home, but it's what we're all interested in doing at this point in our lives. We've got a certain momentum with the new record out, too. It keeps it going. It sort of renews our sense of purpose and reason to get out there to keep connecting with people.
We're in Atlanta right now, we played a show there last night and pretty soon we'll be on our way up to Athens.
You guys are known for touring pretty heavily. In fact, one recent press release calls the current tour you're on the "never-ending tour." Does that kind of schedule ever take its toll on you?
Certainly there's wear and tear any time you're in constant motion. Any machine that has moving parts is eventually going to experience some weaer and tear. But we keep it pretty well-oiled with a good sense of humor, good friends and food along the way. Life on the road is certainly different from a life style at home, but it's what we're all interested in doing at this point in our lives. We've got a certain momentum with the new record out, too. It keeps it going. It sort of renews our sense of purpose and reason to get out there to keep connecting with people.
For the rest of Sean's incredibly in-depth answers, continue reading after the jump.
That "no end in sight" mentality is interesting for a band your size. You're an independent band on a small label with limited national exposure or promotion, but you tour like crazy. How do you accomplish that, with the means to continue touring in a shaky economy?
It's funny, the economy being what it is. It certainly affects everything around us in pretty obvious ways, but we've always lived in the "hand them out" sort of way, regardless of what the economy is doing. So quite honestly, the economy hasn't really affected us. We've been used to living pretty meagerly on the road. Having a good booking agent to secure guarantees here and there is a help to keeping us afloat financially. We're not frivolous with our spending. We're just focused on the job at hand, and we find a way to make it work. When we're at home, a couple of us do some side work here and there, but we're home so infrequently that it's not a major part of our lives. We're just able to make ends meet by staying on the road and hitting a lot of the same places. Again, with the new record out, we have a new source of revenue on the merch table every night, so that's really what helps us keep going. Beyond that, it's plugging ourselves into these communities around the country, having friends and developing relationships. That makes it a richer experience without financial considerations.
Right now you're happy with making ends meet, but do you strive for more than that? It'd be foolish to think that you don't, but it seems like you're pretty happy chugging away like you have been for the last couple of years.
You know, if you're not happy doing what you do, you should find something else to do. Money for myself and the rest of us is not the reason for doing this. Certainly having some sort of stability so that we're not constantly worrying about making ends meet is important to anyone's psychological well being. Do we want us to get bigger? Yeah. We're in a band that's traveling across the country and we want as many people to hear our music as possible. Of course we want to grow and continue to develop, and with that, perhaps a little more financial freedom will come. I don't know, but that's not really of any major concern at the moment. Like I said, we're not doing this just to make money. It's something that's a viable trade. Our culture is a commerce culture, so there's going to be some kind of money exchanging hands, and that's cool. It's helping us continue doing what we want to do and love to do. There's no strategy to get rich quick, because this is not an industry where anyone can really map that out in any sure way. The industry is going through a complete overhaul, and it is what it is. We're happy to be where we are.
After this stretch of Southeast dates, you'll come back up and play up here, including the Musikfest show on Aug. 5. How familiar are you with the Lehigh Valley area?
We played at Godfrey Daniels a couple years ago. Other than that, we played in Scranton once... but we don't really have a lot of exposure in the Lehigh Valley, to be honest with you.
We've done the Philly area and New York, and other than that our touring is all over the country. It's easy for a band like ours who tours everywhere to neglect the back yard that's right there with easy access. I'm really looking forward to being in front of these people. Does the radio station from Philly, WXPN get all the way up there?
Yeah, we get it, and it's fantastic. Those kind of listeners definitely exist in the Lehigh Valley who appreciate XPN and all that they do. There's a station around here, WDIY, that's kind of similar to XPN. But I know you guys have a good history with that station, right?
Yeah. They're the local Triple A station, and one of the big tastemaking stations in the country with the playlists they have and some of the bands they give extensive airplay to. It's just a really beneficial ally to have, and we've all done as much as we can to be associated with them as possible. We all have our different relationships with the station. And in Philly, it's such a big city, but there are certain aspects to it that make it feel like a small town sometimes. When you're talking about a listener-supported station that's non-commercial, there's a common element of struggle there, and we all have that.
Let's talk about the making of "The Holy Open Secret." You, Andrew [Gray] and Rob [Berliner] are all credited with writing the ten songs on the record. In general, is the writing process usually that collaborative?
No, I think the way we presented it on the record itself was that it was made by the three of us and our producer, Bill Moriarty. As far as the songwriting process goes, I write most of it.
The songs that I'm singing lead on are mine, and the songs that Andrew sings are his. On this record, he has two or three songs and the rest are mine. When the actual songs are being written, that's sort of individual processes for he and I, but once we've got the basic flow for the song, we bring it to the table and then everybody sort of adds their parts. And really, the biggest sort of refining moment for any of our songs is taking it out live night after night. That always helps the song for sure.
How did you hook up with Bill Moriarty to produce? Had you known him before?
A: We had met him through Dr. Dog. They share a studio together in Kensington (The American Diamond.) He's just been a really great guy for the Philly music scene. We were familiar with him but hadn't gotten a chance to know him very well until we started looking for people to work with. We went in and recorded a song in a day just to get a feel for the studio and him, and it was really comfortable and laid back. We knew there was something to the relationship with him and the studio, and it ultimately proved to be a rewarding experience.
You had mentioned Dr. Dog. They're playing this year's Musikfest, too.
Oh yeah! We're always out of step with them. We did a tour with them a couple years ago, but we're now just really busy and going off different directions all the time with them. Andrew's actually roomates with Justin, their drummer. So he sees them a little more often. But those guys are just great, I love them.
They've pretty much blown up over the last few years.
It's incredible. Everywhere we go, we'll mention we're from Philly and almost every town we're in, people will be like, "Oh, you know Dr. Dog?" Your phrase, "blowing up" is definitely not misused. They're on a meteoric wise, or at the beginning of one.
Have you seen a ripple effect from their success in Philly? Has the scene benefitted from it?
I think so. They're definitely a force to be reckoned with in the area, but they're like us in that they don't play in Philly very often just because they're always out elsewhere. We're sort of experiencing the same thing. The music scene in Philly over the last five or six years has become this really interesting melange of styles. There's a pocket of folk-influenced stuff, noise, psychadelic, neo-soul with The Roots, so the scene itself is really diverse. But any time anyone from Philly makes a name for themselves and starts turning heads obviously makes a difference. People will say, "You must have so much good music in there." It's true. It's raising the city's profile for sure, to people who care about music.
What were some of your influences in terms of lyrical content on the new record? What drove you to write these songs?
I personally go through phases of writing, where for a while it'll be an extroverted sort of subject, and inevitably the pendulum will swing back the other way to kind of keep the well continually refilled. I think this record in particular for me was more extroverted than introspective. It was more about the community on the local level and the network of communities that we come across in the country, and also extending that notion globally.
Especially in reference to the various issues going on with the world right now, with resources being what they are. Concepts such as peak oil and that sort of thing. I don't know, I guess there was a certain fire stoked from reading people like Derek Jensen's "Endgame" and that sort of thing: taking a more hollistic view of what's going on. I wanted to get away from turning my gaze inward and putting it out there and see how that affected me. That said, the last song on the record is one of my most personal songs I've ever written, too. So obviously it's not all one or the other. I've been reading about alchemy, natural sciences, and and a lot of my inspiration comes from what I'm reading. Also, the conversations that I'm getting into on the road that get beyond, "what do you like to listen to?" Trying to make deep connections.
Ultimately, that's where I was coming from on this record: trying to make connections and digging a little deeper than the surface and getting a bird's eye view of what's going on while balancing that with occasional slumps to the ground level to see things from that perspective.
I think your biggest selling point is the fact that it's so hard to pigeonhole your sound. At one point, you can sound like down-home roots rock, and at the next, you can be a lot more conventional, almost like alt-country. Is it a conscious effort to try and throw those curveballs at the listener and sort of keep them guessing?
No, it's not a conscious effort with regard to the listener. I think it's more of a personal conscious effort to continue to push ourselves as writers and artists and really explore. The song can be influenced by so many things. The lyrical content can influence the way that something is sung, and vice versa. Doing things in deference to the song, and where the song wants to go. That was one thing we were really able to accomplish with Bill: allowing the songs to take shape on their own. I mean, none of us want to be in any kind of band. It really allows for a certain level of honesty that I feel like some of the rock posings and aesthetics cover up; there's glitz and glamour in other styles of music that become the centerpiece of what you're listening to. With acoustic music, just strumming the guitar and feeling the vibrations is a visceral sort of connection with your instrument. That goes even deeper with the song.
Stylistically, we never attempted to be conventional or unconventional. It's just all about where the song is leading to, which makes it hard for us or anyone else to call it anything in particular. It is, like you say, one of the things that sets us apart, but it can also be kind of confounding for people who like their styles neatly boxed and packaged.
Well, has that balance that you guys have found helped you achieve a wider fan base?
Absolutely. This band can play to almost any room that you put us in. We can do a listening band where everybody's sitting with their hands folded politely, or we can really drive it home in front of a rowdy crowd at a bar. It's amazing where this band has been, and as a result, the kinds of people that come out and listen to it. There's a diverse cross section when we play. Sometimes people will drive hours to see us, like old folks. And we're like, "Really? You drove three hours to come see us?" It's amazing. We always joke that we're really good with parents.
Parents love us. The music is a palatable style of music that's enabled us to cross a lot of those deliniations of demographics. People are just responding to the honesty of the music and what we're doing. That sort of levels the playing field and welcomes all comers. That fits into our ideas of community and those relationships and digging beneath the surface of the every day. They're responding to that, because so much in our culture works against that.
There's so much that separates and divides and defines things against one another. There's a lot of contrast in advertising and marketing. Speaking for myself and hopefully the people that we're appealing to, there's a type of unrest and discontent with that sort of prevalance in culture. Hopefully we're helping to gather people together in a different way and bring it all back home to the front porch or the kitchen or the city hall. Really, just wherever people gather and have meaningful interaction.
Can you talk about your history with Mad Dragon Records? It's really a remarkable little label and story that's going on at Drexel University. Talk about what it's like to have that team behind you.
That "no end in sight" mentality is interesting for a band your size. You're an independent band on a small label with limited national exposure or promotion, but you tour like crazy. How do you accomplish that, with the means to continue touring in a shaky economy?
It's funny, the economy being what it is. It certainly affects everything around us in pretty obvious ways, but we've always lived in the "hand them out" sort of way, regardless of what the economy is doing. So quite honestly, the economy hasn't really affected us. We've been used to living pretty meagerly on the road. Having a good booking agent to secure guarantees here and there is a help to keeping us afloat financially. We're not frivolous with our spending. We're just focused on the job at hand, and we find a way to make it work. When we're at home, a couple of us do some side work here and there, but we're home so infrequently that it's not a major part of our lives. We're just able to make ends meet by staying on the road and hitting a lot of the same places. Again, with the new record out, we have a new source of revenue on the merch table every night, so that's really what helps us keep going. Beyond that, it's plugging ourselves into these communities around the country, having friends and developing relationships. That makes it a richer experience without financial considerations.
Right now you're happy with making ends meet, but do you strive for more than that? It'd be foolish to think that you don't, but it seems like you're pretty happy chugging away like you have been for the last couple of years.
You know, if you're not happy doing what you do, you should find something else to do. Money for myself and the rest of us is not the reason for doing this. Certainly having some sort of stability so that we're not constantly worrying about making ends meet is important to anyone's psychological well being. Do we want us to get bigger? Yeah. We're in a band that's traveling across the country and we want as many people to hear our music as possible. Of course we want to grow and continue to develop, and with that, perhaps a little more financial freedom will come. I don't know, but that's not really of any major concern at the moment. Like I said, we're not doing this just to make money. It's something that's a viable trade. Our culture is a commerce culture, so there's going to be some kind of money exchanging hands, and that's cool. It's helping us continue doing what we want to do and love to do. There's no strategy to get rich quick, because this is not an industry where anyone can really map that out in any sure way. The industry is going through a complete overhaul, and it is what it is. We're happy to be where we are.
After this stretch of Southeast dates, you'll come back up and play up here, including the Musikfest show on Aug. 5. How familiar are you with the Lehigh Valley area?
We played at Godfrey Daniels a couple years ago. Other than that, we played in Scranton once... but we don't really have a lot of exposure in the Lehigh Valley, to be honest with you.
We've done the Philly area and New York, and other than that our touring is all over the country. It's easy for a band like ours who tours everywhere to neglect the back yard that's right there with easy access. I'm really looking forward to being in front of these people. Does the radio station from Philly, WXPN get all the way up there?
Yeah, we get it, and it's fantastic. Those kind of listeners definitely exist in the Lehigh Valley who appreciate XPN and all that they do. There's a station around here, WDIY, that's kind of similar to XPN. But I know you guys have a good history with that station, right?
Yeah. They're the local Triple A station, and one of the big tastemaking stations in the country with the playlists they have and some of the bands they give extensive airplay to. It's just a really beneficial ally to have, and we've all done as much as we can to be associated with them as possible. We all have our different relationships with the station. And in Philly, it's such a big city, but there are certain aspects to it that make it feel like a small town sometimes. When you're talking about a listener-supported station that's non-commercial, there's a common element of struggle there, and we all have that.
Let's talk about the making of "The Holy Open Secret." You, Andrew [Gray] and Rob [Berliner] are all credited with writing the ten songs on the record. In general, is the writing process usually that collaborative?
No, I think the way we presented it on the record itself was that it was made by the three of us and our producer, Bill Moriarty. As far as the songwriting process goes, I write most of it.
The songs that I'm singing lead on are mine, and the songs that Andrew sings are his. On this record, he has two or three songs and the rest are mine. When the actual songs are being written, that's sort of individual processes for he and I, but once we've got the basic flow for the song, we bring it to the table and then everybody sort of adds their parts. And really, the biggest sort of refining moment for any of our songs is taking it out live night after night. That always helps the song for sure.
How did you hook up with Bill Moriarty to produce? Had you known him before?
A: We had met him through Dr. Dog. They share a studio together in Kensington (The American Diamond.) He's just been a really great guy for the Philly music scene. We were familiar with him but hadn't gotten a chance to know him very well until we started looking for people to work with. We went in and recorded a song in a day just to get a feel for the studio and him, and it was really comfortable and laid back. We knew there was something to the relationship with him and the studio, and it ultimately proved to be a rewarding experience.
You had mentioned Dr. Dog. They're playing this year's Musikfest, too.
Oh yeah! We're always out of step with them. We did a tour with them a couple years ago, but we're now just really busy and going off different directions all the time with them. Andrew's actually roomates with Justin, their drummer. So he sees them a little more often. But those guys are just great, I love them.
They've pretty much blown up over the last few years.
It's incredible. Everywhere we go, we'll mention we're from Philly and almost every town we're in, people will be like, "Oh, you know Dr. Dog?" Your phrase, "blowing up" is definitely not misused. They're on a meteoric wise, or at the beginning of one.
Have you seen a ripple effect from their success in Philly? Has the scene benefitted from it?
I think so. They're definitely a force to be reckoned with in the area, but they're like us in that they don't play in Philly very often just because they're always out elsewhere. We're sort of experiencing the same thing. The music scene in Philly over the last five or six years has become this really interesting melange of styles. There's a pocket of folk-influenced stuff, noise, psychadelic, neo-soul with The Roots, so the scene itself is really diverse. But any time anyone from Philly makes a name for themselves and starts turning heads obviously makes a difference. People will say, "You must have so much good music in there." It's true. It's raising the city's profile for sure, to people who care about music.
What were some of your influences in terms of lyrical content on the new record? What drove you to write these songs?
I personally go through phases of writing, where for a while it'll be an extroverted sort of subject, and inevitably the pendulum will swing back the other way to kind of keep the well continually refilled. I think this record in particular for me was more extroverted than introspective. It was more about the community on the local level and the network of communities that we come across in the country, and also extending that notion globally.
Especially in reference to the various issues going on with the world right now, with resources being what they are. Concepts such as peak oil and that sort of thing. I don't know, I guess there was a certain fire stoked from reading people like Derek Jensen's "Endgame" and that sort of thing: taking a more hollistic view of what's going on. I wanted to get away from turning my gaze inward and putting it out there and see how that affected me. That said, the last song on the record is one of my most personal songs I've ever written, too. So obviously it's not all one or the other. I've been reading about alchemy, natural sciences, and and a lot of my inspiration comes from what I'm reading. Also, the conversations that I'm getting into on the road that get beyond, "what do you like to listen to?" Trying to make deep connections.
Ultimately, that's where I was coming from on this record: trying to make connections and digging a little deeper than the surface and getting a bird's eye view of what's going on while balancing that with occasional slumps to the ground level to see things from that perspective.
I think your biggest selling point is the fact that it's so hard to pigeonhole your sound. At one point, you can sound like down-home roots rock, and at the next, you can be a lot more conventional, almost like alt-country. Is it a conscious effort to try and throw those curveballs at the listener and sort of keep them guessing?
No, it's not a conscious effort with regard to the listener. I think it's more of a personal conscious effort to continue to push ourselves as writers and artists and really explore. The song can be influenced by so many things. The lyrical content can influence the way that something is sung, and vice versa. Doing things in deference to the song, and where the song wants to go. That was one thing we were really able to accomplish with Bill: allowing the songs to take shape on their own. I mean, none of us want to be in any kind of band. It really allows for a certain level of honesty that I feel like some of the rock posings and aesthetics cover up; there's glitz and glamour in other styles of music that become the centerpiece of what you're listening to. With acoustic music, just strumming the guitar and feeling the vibrations is a visceral sort of connection with your instrument. That goes even deeper with the song.
Stylistically, we never attempted to be conventional or unconventional. It's just all about where the song is leading to, which makes it hard for us or anyone else to call it anything in particular. It is, like you say, one of the things that sets us apart, but it can also be kind of confounding for people who like their styles neatly boxed and packaged.
Well, has that balance that you guys have found helped you achieve a wider fan base?
Absolutely. This band can play to almost any room that you put us in. We can do a listening band where everybody's sitting with their hands folded politely, or we can really drive it home in front of a rowdy crowd at a bar. It's amazing where this band has been, and as a result, the kinds of people that come out and listen to it. There's a diverse cross section when we play. Sometimes people will drive hours to see us, like old folks. And we're like, "Really? You drove three hours to come see us?" It's amazing. We always joke that we're really good with parents.
Parents love us. The music is a palatable style of music that's enabled us to cross a lot of those deliniations of demographics. People are just responding to the honesty of the music and what we're doing. That sort of levels the playing field and welcomes all comers. That fits into our ideas of community and those relationships and digging beneath the surface of the every day. They're responding to that, because so much in our culture works against that.
There's so much that separates and divides and defines things against one another. There's a lot of contrast in advertising and marketing. Speaking for myself and hopefully the people that we're appealing to, there's a type of unrest and discontent with that sort of prevalance in culture. Hopefully we're helping to gather people together in a different way and bring it all back home to the front porch or the kitchen or the city hall. Really, just wherever people gather and have meaningful interaction.
Can you talk about your history with Mad Dragon Records? It's really a remarkable little label and story that's going on at Drexel University. Talk about what it's like to have that team behind you.
Sure. We started with the label because a manager for our old band went on to the music industry program at Drexel and worked his way up through the ranks and is now the president of that label. We maintained contact, and as we developed locally, the label was just getting started. I remember we played a show at the Tin Angel where he brought the other head of the label and program, and it was this sold out, crazy show where we ended the night standing on tables and shouting at people's faces. There was that real intense atmosphere, and they just fell in love with it and wanted to be involved. The label was really appealing to us because they were going to give us complete creative control over what we wanted to do, and giving us the resources of the music industry program to promote the records. In that respect, it's been awesome. Now, they're college kids. Some of them are really into what they're doing, while some of them are just there because they feel like they have to be in college. You have to take it as it comes. There's been some outstanding people coming out of that program who just seem to get it. So much of the industry is changing and evolving, and the label is trying to create a new paradigm, and they're engineering that attitude in the students as well. The students are at an age where they're aware of everything that's going on. They're in touch with all this stuff automatically by default of being a teenager in America. That's really helped the label define its trajectory and figure out ways to utilize different channels. There's a lot of important give and take there. At the same time, they're college kids, so they're not always gonna be on the ball. And also, we're very particular about how we're represented, and we like to be in control of everything we do as a band. There are some things they offer to other bands that we just decide to do on our own. We like to do things to keep our hands involved in every step of the way. So we'll redirect their energy to things where they can really help us. On the whole, it's been a great relationship.
What's next for the band? Answer this question however you want. What's in the band's future as well as your future?
Well, it's hard to say. This band didn't start out with us saying, "let's be in a band." Andrew and I just sort of started trading songs on front porches late night in West Chester where we lived at the time, and the band sort of evolved out of that. There was never any specific intention to get to where we are right now. It just sort of...happened, which is why I think it's happened the way it's happened. There hasn't been a lot of effort. There's never been that moment where we're totally striving to become something that we aren't already. With that in mind, that's still sort of the approach we take with this band, and seeing where we can go with it. Certainly there's at least another record in us, which we will probably start to get down to in the winter once we're off the road. We're wide open with where we can take this, and we've already started to talk about some ways we can expand the instruments and the sounds. I think there's gonna be some experimentation in the near future. Obviously touring is a constant. We're on the road a lot, and we're looking to build those relationships for the life of the band. I know that ten years from now, I want to be a farmer in North Carolina. We have a family orchard out there, and that's ultimately where I think I'll end up. I'll never abandon music, though. We're sort of taking it as it comes. Every step up is progress. Once we get to a point where we're sort of making steps to the side or standing still, that's when the conversation about "where do we see ourselves going?" will come from. At this point, we're just sort of taking the whirlwind as it comes, and hopefully riding it to wherever the next level may be.
A huge thank you goes out to Sean for taking the time to talk to me, and to our good friend Howard Wuelfing for setting up the interview.
Monday, August 3, 2009
A Little Bit Heiress, A Little Bit Irish
STARK vs. RUFUS WAINWRIGHT
An Interview by Andrew Daniels
Rufus Wainwright is tired.
The acclaimed troubadour, whom none other than Elton John has called "the greatest songwriter on the planet," has a penchant for doing things rather lavishly. In the last three years alone, he's performed an entire Judy Garland concert album in its entirety at Carnegie Hall, set Shakespeare's sonnets to music in a collaboration with the Berliner Ensemble and penned his first opera, "Prima Donna," which premiered in Manchester, England, two weeks ago.
So it's natural that Wainwright, who is calling from Long Island on a July afternoon a few days after his 36th birthday, sounds positively drained.
"I just need a breather," he says.
Who can blame him? Wainwright is back in the states after dedicating his blood, sweat and tears to "Prima Donna" in Europe over the last two years. The artist's first opera was originally commissioned for the Metropolitan Opera and Lincoln Center Theater in 2007, but the Met withdrew because of Wainwright's insistence to write the opera's libretto in French.
Instead, the Manchester festival took on the project, which follows a day in the life of an aging opera singer in 1970. It debuted -- to mixed reviews -- on July 10.
Read all about Wainwright's thoughts on "Prima Donna," his current tour and upcoming album ("a sorbet of sorts") in my full interview after the jump.
I wanted to wish you a belated Happy Birthday. Did you do anything special for it?
I had a barbecue, got sunburned, and basically told everyone the thrilling story of my thrilling opera experience in England. It was a fiery evening!
Well, I’m afraid you’re going to have to do the same for me. That’s the first question I had. "Prima Donna" debuted two weeks ago in Manchester to mixed reviews. Just tell me from your perspective how you think it went.
I mean I worked just so long on this project, from the libretto and the orchestration and working with the singers and the director. It was really a three year trek, and once we got there, I was fairly invested and nervous about what would happen. It really is quite a huge production. There are massive sets and a massive orchestra. So we did it, and all the world came. All the world’s newspapers and theaters of the world, and I would say about half the press was positive and another quarter was extremely positive, and there was of course the real real bitchy classical music crowd who were not happy at all. So in the end, I survived the critics, which is an accomplishment in itself, especially for a pop musician to go head on with the main classical critics in the world and come out in one piece. So I’m very happy about that.
So where would you say the opera ranks on your list of accomplishments?
Well it’s definitely the biggest thing I’ve done so far. I don’t think it’s by any means my operatic masterpiece. I think that once you open that can of worms, it’s a whole other mountain to climb, and it’s not really until your second or third or even fourth opera that you really catch your stride in many cases. With that being said, the territory has been discovered, and now we just have to ruin it!
Obviously it’s something you’ll do again.
Yeah, I’d like to do it again in a few years. I mean, I have to... first of all, I’m still a pop musician and I still love writing songs and I still have to complete certain contracts with record companies. I’d still love to have a chart hit at some point. And I make most of my money doing shows, and I don’t think that’s going to change any time soon. So yeah, that’s kind of where I’m at for the moment, but I’ll definitely do opera again.
Let me ask you about your appreciation of opera, and how that started. You had mentioned in an interview that Verdi’s “Requiem” sort of kickstarted your love, so can you talk about more of your influences for "Prima Donna"?
When I heard Verdi for the first time I was about 14, in 1987, and I was just at a real brutal crossing of my life. On one hand, I was coming to terms with my sexuality, and the world was suffering from the onslaught of AIDS, and somehow opera at that point presented itself as a type of salvation. A mental salvation from the sort of cruel world we were living in. I kind of went there. It’s very much like when a lot of teenagers my age got into Nirvana and grunge and stuff. Everybody kind of needed something a little darker and burned, so I went for opera and it never stopped.
Okay, so what’s next in terms of recorded material? You’ve discussed recording an album that’s strictly just piano and voice. Is that still something that’s in the works?
That will be my next album. I’ve written most of the songs... in fact, I’ve written all of them. I’ve been finishing them, and I intend to release a piano/voice record as kind of a sorbet of sorts for the listener. They’ve gone from Judy to opera to French to English to whatever, so I just need a little breather. And also, I wanna tour solo for a little while, and then after that I’d like to make a big pop record for old time’s sake.
Let’s talk about the tour, then. You’ll be coming around these parts this week, in Pennsylvania. Can you tell me what we can expect from these kinds of shows?
Yeah, I mean the main thing is that I never do the same show twice. I have friends and family actually who perform, crack these jokes and create these sort of monologues that they do every night and they’re always funny. I deeply admire those people and wish I could be more sort of organized, but unfortunately I’m a little spaced out. So what I have to do is that every night I do it, it all has to be fresh and it all has to be new. Some nights are better than others, but I think the audience should know that when they see me, what they see is what they get. That’s who I am at that point. There’s no sort of artifice between me and the audience. There’s no real difference from when I walk on stage and walk off. It’s Rufus always.
Wainwright is on a solo tour, which brings him to Zoellner Arts Center in Bethlehem, Pa. Aug. 7 as part of Musikfest's Performing Arts Series.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Dr. Dog Enjoying the Ride
STARK vs. DR. DOG
An interview with Zach Miller of Dr. DogBy Andrew Daniels
It isn’t appropriate - or the slighest bit accurate - to call Dr. Dog Philadelphia’s best kept secret anymore. Not after the last couple of years they’ve had. The classic pop quintet has seen itself skyrocket from the Philly underground to the national conscious at a staggering rate, beginning with the release of Easy Beat in 2005 to last year’s breakthrough, Fate. The band’s accomplishments? Spreads in magazines like Rolling Stone, playing major festivals like Coachella and becoming the go-to band in late night television, to name just a few.
As soon as the guys finish their set at Musikfest in Bethlehem, Pa. on Aug. 3, they’ll travel to New York to record their sixth studio album with producer Rob Schnapf for new label Anti- Records. As organist Zach Miller reveals, things are looking brighter than ever for Dr. Dog.
What are you doing right now? Just taking some time off before heading back out to tour?
Well actually, we’re gonna be recording next. That’s our next big endeavor. We’re going up to Dreamland Studios up in the Catskill Mountains all of August. I think we’re actually heading up there the day after the Musikfest show.
Let’s get to recording in a second, but I kind of wanted to you to start off by talking about the band’s year so far. We’re a little more than halfway through 2009, and it seems that now more than ever, things are at a whirlwind for the band. I wanted to congratulate you on “My Friend” being in the trailer for Funny People. That’s huge.
Thanks, yep, I’ve been seeing a lot of stuff on television about that, and it also looks like a really good movie. I’m psyched about that. I’m not sure how they picked it, but I know that Jonah Hill is a big fan of ours. Obviously he’s in that movie, but I don’t know if he had anything to do with it. They kind of came to us and said, “hey, want to be in the trailer?” And we said sure. [Laughs.] I think there was some money involved, but I don’t really remember how much. It’s kind of weird how subtle the use of the song is. You have to listen for it to hear it. Not to complain or anything, but I’d be surprised if somebody heard that and said, “wow, I have to check that song out.”
For much more with Zach, including details about the new album, the deal with Anti- and which band's break up was "one of the great tragedies of all time," continue reading after the jump.
What else has been going on this year?
Well, we started off in Australia, which was really exciting. Having a summer new year was pretty interesting. We were on tour two days until Christmas until the 11th in Australia with the Black Keys. We played this festival outside of Melbourne called Pyramid Rock on New Year’s Eve. We were actually on stage with the Black Keys for the big countdown. There are only two guys in that band, so they wanted to make it look more like a party. That was kind of an exciting way to ring in the New Year. After that, we did a tour in April, we did the Jimmy Fallon show, which nobody had really done yet. That was the first week of his show, and it was really cool. We followed that up with some pretty good festivals, including Coachella, where I saw Paul McCartney and Ariel Pink, and they were both really awesome. Since then, we’ve just kind of been jetting around. Oh, we actually did a festival in Spain called the Azkena in May. We saw the Zombies, Alice Cooper, Dan from the Black Keys. That was a cool festival because it was only two stages, and nobody was playing while anybody else was playing. Everyone would be down at one end watching a band and then when they were done would turn around and walk down to the other side.
Has all the success that you guys have built up in the last three or four years on a national scale - late night television, spreads in major magazines, playing big festivals - ever overwhelmed or surprised you?
Well, I don’t really feel like our lives have changed that much because of it. We’re not living like rock stars, let’s put it that way. We just work really hard, so it kind of just feels normal to us now. But then when I take a step back and think about what we’ve done, it’s actually pretty incredible. Like, I watch Dave Letterman at night and think, “we were on this show.” So yeah, it’s funny to step outside yourself and look at the whole thing. I don’t know if I feel surprised. I always knew the music was great, from the first time I saw Dr. Dog play before I was in the band to the day I joined. We just put a lot of hard work into it, and a lot of people do know Dr. Dog and will hopefully know us in the future.
I was talking to Sean from Hoots and Hellmouth a few days ago, and he was talking about how the rise of Dr. Dog has significantly contributed to a sort of boom in the Philly scene. There’s now a spotlight on some of the bands and things going on in the city because of your band’s success. Do you agree with that? Are you honored?
We just felt obliged to show everyone these great bands in Philly. For a while there, literally all my favorite bands were bands my friends were in. I did step back and asked myself objectively, “are these bands really just this good or do I just like them because I like the people that are in them?” But no, these bands are amazing. Even if I didn’t know these guys, I’d still think so. When we first got signed to Park The Van, they put outEasy Beat
Park The Van is based in New Orleans, right? But a lot of the bands are in Philly.
Yeah, well not too long after we signed with them, Chris got flooded out in Katrina. So for 4 or 5 months, he was essentially just kind of wandering around, literally homeless. He had Dr. Dog and The Teeth on his label, and the only thing he had going on was in Philly. At first he got placed in a hotel up here until he found housing, and eventually he found a place in Schwenksville. Last year, he moved back to New Orleans once everything calmed down a bit.
You had mentioned The Teeth, who were pretty beloved around here before they broke up a year or so ago. Two of those guys actually lived in Bethlehem, which I never really appreciated until I realized how great that band was. Do you know what they’re up to now?
One of the great tragedies of all time. Those guys were so, so good and I think they’d just been a band so long and played so many shows. Things were really starting to happen for them, like playing Bonnaroo and all these great opening slots on big tours. For a multitude of reasons, they broke up. I know Peter and Brian had started this band called The Purples. They had some songs up online, but that was a while ago, I’m not sure what they’ve done recently. Someone was talking about bringing them out on the road as their band, I can’t remember who. I hope it doesn’t end with The Teeth. I hope they’ll continue producing music again.
Today is the one year anniversary of the release ofFate. I saw you guys in Rittenhouse Square either during the release week or the week after, and your live set was almost if not all of that record. Clearly you were pretty psyched on the record at the time. Are you still pushing that record as hard on these upcoming dates, or are you gonna focus on new stuff on the fall tour?
We haven’t really played any new songs, except for one that’s actually kind of old. We still play all theFate tracks except for “Uncovering the Old,” which is one we’ve never really quite mastered live. Everything else we still play every show. Those songs feel more like where we are as a band right now, and I think we play them a lot better than some of the songs we’ve been playing for years and years. So there’s a lot of incentive for us to play those songs.
Let’s get to the new record, then. You’re trekking to the Catskills for this one?
Yep, I think it’s the day after we play up there in Bethlehem. We’re going to Dreamland with Rob Schnapf.
Get out, really? That’s big. How’d you hook up with him?
We were talking about working with a producer in some capacity for this record, and he was one of the names that came up between our manager and a number of people we work with whose opinions we trust. They gave us a list of names and he had reached out to us before as a known fan of the band. He goes to see us every time we’re in L.A. We’d never met him before but during that tour in April, we just went around and met with what must’ve been 8-10 different producers and engineers and he was one of the guys we felt most comfortable with. He felt like one of the guys, super laid back and he knew our songs and was obviously familiar with us. Just seemed like a great guy for the job, and we’re all super psyched about it. I’m really looking forward to it.
This is the first time you guys have used a producer on a record.
Yeah, we wanted to focus on musicality a lot more, because our role right now is we pretty much do everything. We share the studio with Bill Moriarty, who helps us out a lot with mixing and just setting everything up and making sure it’s all working together. But tracking is something we mostly do on our own, and it just gets a little hectic sometimes when you have to go back and forth from your instrument to the board to figure out why it’s not sounding good. You have to have the technical knowledge and then try to put yourself back into the song musically. So I think we all realized that we wanted to focus more on the musicality, and do some more live tracking which we don’t usually do. Ninety percent of our records are just overdubbed. We wanted to have a little more fidelity, too. I think we’ve really come along way fromEasy Beat to Fate...there’s a pretty notable gap between those two. Obviously Rob will be running the show from a technical side of things, but it should be more of a collaborative process. We’ve been really used to tracking ourselves, and it’ll be interesting to see how everything plays out.
Is there a particular direction that the songs are going in?
Well, the initial concept is more of directness, I would say. It’s more song-serving arrangements, and maybe not as much orchestration asFate. There are definitely fewer layers. The more direct approach is what we’ve been talking about lately. But anything could happen. It’s going to be a new experience for us, so there’s a lot of ideas going around.
What kind of timetable are you looking at? An early 2010 release?
Yeah, that’s the plan. We just signed to Anti- Records. We knew thatFate was going to be the last record with Park The Van. They’re a really small label, and I think they’ve done a good job and we’ve been very fortunate to have all the opportunities we’ve had, and we’ve really come a long way on an extremely small label. I mean, they have three people on staff. I think a new label will raise our profile a lot and get the songs out to more people, obviously.
I don’t know how familiar you are with the Lehigh Valley or Musikfest.
My cousins live up there in Allentown, but I know nothing about Musikfest.
It’s an annual 10-day festival spread across several stages in downtown Bethlehem that draws almost a million people a year. You guys are playing on Amerikaplatz, which might be the biggest free stage at the festival, so there will be virtually every kind of music fan in the audience. How do you approach playing shows like these with such diverse crowds?
[Laughs] You’re making me nervous.
Maybe I shouldn’t hype it up like that, but it’s definitely something special.
We don’t normally try and tailor our set to who we think is out there. We just go up there and do what we do, plain and simple, and try to have a good time. If people respond to it, that’s great, but if not, there’s not much else we can do. I do feel like we have pretty wide appeal. We get people who are in their 60s, and then like, toddlers are into it as well. So it’s always nice to hear from somebody who maybe you wouldn’t expect to be a fan come up and say that they liked the show. It feels good to have that cross-cultural appeal.
This might be kind of hard to answer, but is there one song from the Dr. Dog repertoire that best represents the band? Obviously your sound has significantly evolved over the last decade. If I had someone who wanted to check out the Musikfest show and was curious to what you guys sound like, what’s that one song I could go tell them to illegally download?
That’s a really tough one. It would have to be something fromFate. I think maybe “My Friend” would be a good example. It’s got both Toby and Scott singing lead on it, it’s got the harmonies, and it’s got the ambition that we always try to put into the songs. Know what I mean?
Totally. It’s got the two really distinct parts to it, and the ending kind of encapsulates the whole record. That’s a good pick.
Nice, I got the right answer!
Last question. Every review I’ve ever read of the last couple records have gone something like, “Dr. Dog sounds like The Beatles, The Band and The Beach Boys.” It’s all true, and I’m sure that’s flattering to be linked with those giants, but to be honest, those comparisons get boring to read over and over. Who are some lesser known influences that have creeped into your music over the years? Maybe even for the upcoming record?
A very obscure one would be R. Stevie Moore, who’s sort of been a pretty prominent influence in the tastes that we’ve developed. Tom Waits is obviously really awesome. He doesn’t come up a lot as far as a direct reference point. Well, some of Toby’s songs kind of get Tom Waitsy on them. But in terms of guitar sounds, Marc Ribot’s been a huge influence on Scott for years. Recently we’ve been talking about the whole directness angle, which has led us to referencing the Rolling Stones albums a lot, and old soul music, and just in how seemingly simple yet colorful the songs were. If you listen to a Rolling Stones song, it’s guitar, bass and drums, and then one little color instrument. Like the marimba on “Under My Thumb.” That’s definitely going to be an influence on the new one.
You were mentioning some of the bands in Philly as your favorite bands. Have you felt their influence?
Like with The Teeth, they haven’t neccessarily influenced the music but definitely the live show. Just with touring them so much, we had the unenviable task of following them on most shows, and I mean, they were just an incredible live band. I feel like that energy in the room when they were playing was really palpable. You can definitely see the influence when we put more energy into the live show, because they just raised the bar.
Thanks to Zach for talking forever! Catch the band live on its fall tour. Dates are up on Myspace.
What are you doing right now? Just taking some time off before heading back out to tour?
Well actually, we’re gonna be recording next. That’s our next big endeavor. We’re going up to Dreamland Studios up in the Catskill Mountains all of August. I think we’re actually heading up there the day after the Musikfest show.
Thanks, yep, I’ve been seeing a lot of stuff on television about that, and it also looks like a really good movie. I’m psyched about that. I’m not sure how they picked it, but I know that Jonah Hill is a big fan of ours. Obviously he’s in that movie, but I don’t know if he had anything to do with it. They kind of came to us and said, “hey, want to be in the trailer?” And we said sure. [Laughs.] I think there was some money involved, but I don’t really remember how much. It’s kind of weird how subtle the use of the song is. You have to listen for it to hear it. Not to complain or anything, but I’d be surprised if somebody heard that and said, “wow, I have to check that song out.”
For much more with Zach, including details about the new album, the deal with Anti- and which band's break up was "one of the great tragedies of all time," continue reading after the jump.
What else has been going on this year?
Well, we started off in Australia, which was really exciting. Having a summer new year was pretty interesting. We were on tour two days until Christmas until the 11th in Australia with the Black Keys. We played this festival outside of Melbourne called Pyramid Rock on New Year’s Eve. We were actually on stage with the Black Keys for the big countdown. There are only two guys in that band, so they wanted to make it look more like a party. That was kind of an exciting way to ring in the New Year. After that, we did a tour in April, we did the Jimmy Fallon show, which nobody had really done yet. That was the first week of his show, and it was really cool. We followed that up with some pretty good festivals, including Coachella, where I saw Paul McCartney and Ariel Pink, and they were both really awesome. Since then, we’ve just kind of been jetting around. Oh, we actually did a festival in Spain called the Azkena in May. We saw the Zombies, Alice Cooper, Dan from the Black Keys. That was a cool festival because it was only two stages, and nobody was playing while anybody else was playing. Everyone would be down at one end watching a band and then when they were done would turn around and walk down to the other side.
Well, I don’t really feel like our lives have changed that much because of it. We’re not living like rock stars, let’s put it that way. We just work really hard, so it kind of just feels normal to us now. But then when I take a step back and think about what we’ve done, it’s actually pretty incredible. Like, I watch Dave Letterman at night and think, “we were on this show.” So yeah, it’s funny to step outside yourself and look at the whole thing. I don’t know if I feel surprised. I always knew the music was great, from the first time I saw Dr. Dog play before I was in the band to the day I joined. We just put a lot of hard work into it, and a lot of people do know Dr. Dog and will hopefully know us in the future.
We just felt obliged to show everyone these great bands in Philly. For a while there, literally all my favorite bands were bands my friends were in. I did step back and asked myself objectively, “are these bands really just this good or do I just like them because I like the people that are in them?” But no, these bands are amazing. Even if I didn’t know these guys, I’d still think so. When we first got signed to Park The Van, they put out
Yeah, well not too long after we signed with them, Chris got flooded out in Katrina. So for 4 or 5 months, he was essentially just kind of wandering around, literally homeless. He had Dr. Dog and The Teeth on his label, and the only thing he had going on was in Philly. At first he got placed in a hotel up here until he found housing, and eventually he found a place in Schwenksville. Last year, he moved back to New Orleans once everything calmed down a bit.
One of the great tragedies of all time. Those guys were so, so good and I think they’d just been a band so long and played so many shows. Things were really starting to happen for them, like playing Bonnaroo and all these great opening slots on big tours. For a multitude of reasons, they broke up. I know Peter and Brian had started this band called The Purples. They had some songs up online, but that was a while ago, I’m not sure what they’ve done recently. Someone was talking about bringing them out on the road as their band, I can’t remember who. I hope it doesn’t end with The Teeth. I hope they’ll continue producing music again.
Today is the one year anniversary of the release of
We haven’t really played any new songs, except for one that’s actually kind of old. We still play all the
Yep, I think it’s the day after we play up there in Bethlehem. We’re going to Dreamland with Rob Schnapf.
We were talking about working with a producer in some capacity for this record, and he was one of the names that came up between our manager and a number of people we work with whose opinions we trust. They gave us a list of names and he had reached out to us before as a known fan of the band. He goes to see us every time we’re in L.A. We’d never met him before but during that tour in April, we just went around and met with what must’ve been 8-10 different producers and engineers and he was one of the guys we felt most comfortable with. He felt like one of the guys, super laid back and he knew our songs and was obviously familiar with us. Just seemed like a great guy for the job, and we’re all super psyched about it. I’m really looking forward to it.
Yeah, we wanted to focus on musicality a lot more, because our role right now is we pretty much do everything. We share the studio with Bill Moriarty, who helps us out a lot with mixing and just setting everything up and making sure it’s all working together. But tracking is something we mostly do on our own, and it just gets a little hectic sometimes when you have to go back and forth from your instrument to the board to figure out why it’s not sounding good. You have to have the technical knowledge and then try to put yourself back into the song musically. So I think we all realized that we wanted to focus more on the musicality, and do some more live tracking which we don’t usually do. Ninety percent of our records are just overdubbed. We wanted to have a little more fidelity, too. I think we’ve really come along way from
Is there a particular direction that the songs are going in?
Well, the initial concept is more of directness, I would say. It’s more song-serving arrangements, and maybe not as much orchestration as
Yeah, that’s the plan. We just signed to Anti- Records. We knew that
My cousins live up there in Allentown, but I know nothing about Musikfest.
[Laughs] You’re making me nervous.
Maybe I shouldn’t hype it up like that, but it’s definitely something special.
We don’t normally try and tailor our set to who we think is out there. We just go up there and do what we do, plain and simple, and try to have a good time. If people respond to it, that’s great, but if not, there’s not much else we can do. I do feel like we have pretty wide appeal. We get people who are in their 60s, and then like, toddlers are into it as well. So it’s always nice to hear from somebody who maybe you wouldn’t expect to be a fan come up and say that they liked the show. It feels good to have that cross-cultural appeal.
This might be kind of hard to answer, but is there one song from the Dr. Dog repertoire that best represents the band? Obviously your sound has significantly evolved over the last decade. If I had someone who wanted to check out the Musikfest show and was curious to what you guys sound like, what’s that one song I could go tell them to illegally download?
That’s a really tough one. It would have to be something from
Totally. It’s got the two really distinct parts to it, and the ending kind of encapsulates the whole record. That’s a good pick.
Nice, I got the right answer!
Last question. Every review I’ve ever read of the last couple records have gone something like, “Dr. Dog sounds like The Beatles, The Band and The Beach Boys.” It’s all true, and I’m sure that’s flattering to be linked with those giants, but to be honest, those comparisons get boring to read over and over. Who are some lesser known influences that have creeped into your music over the years? Maybe even for the upcoming record?
A very obscure one would be R. Stevie Moore, who’s sort of been a pretty prominent influence in the tastes that we’ve developed. Tom Waits is obviously really awesome. He doesn’t come up a lot as far as a direct reference point. Well, some of Toby’s songs kind of get Tom Waitsy on them. But in terms of guitar sounds, Marc Ribot’s been a huge influence on Scott for years. Recently we’ve been talking about the whole directness angle, which has led us to referencing the Rolling Stones albums a lot, and old soul music, and just in how seemingly simple yet colorful the songs were. If you listen to a Rolling Stones song, it’s guitar, bass and drums, and then one little color instrument. Like the marimba on “Under My Thumb.” That’s definitely going to be an influence on the new one.
You were mentioning some of the bands in Philly as your favorite bands. Have you felt their influence?
Like with The Teeth, they haven’t neccessarily influenced the music but definitely the live show. Just with touring them so much, we had the unenviable task of following them on most shows, and I mean, they were just an incredible live band. I feel like that energy in the room when they were playing was really palpable. You can definitely see the influence when we put more energy into the live show, because they just raised the bar.
Thanks to Zach for talking forever! Catch the band live on its fall tour. Dates are up on Myspace.
Coming Attractions!
We are making a big end of the week push and wanted to alert you to some of our upcoming Taster's Choice Moments of Inquisition... a.k.a., we will be posting a new interview every day until the week's end.
Today: We speak with Dr. Dog organist Zach Miller about the band's recent signing to Anti- and hiring producer Rob Schnapf to helm its new album. We recently posted exclusive news about the Anti- deal HERE.
Thursday: We speak with The Very Best frontman Esau Mwamawaya about the upcoming release, Warm Heart of Africa, his recent NYC performance at Le Poisson Rouge, and more. See NYC show review HERE.
Friday: We speak with acclaimed singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright about his new opera, Prima Donna, and his work on a new record.
Stay tuned folks!
Monday, May 11, 2009
Deer Tick and Brian Williams Get Awkward
[mp3] Deer Tick: "Easy"
In his new online series BriTunes -- an awful and certainly corporate-inspired title -- Williams profiles upcoming indie rock bands. He's got a knack for "identifying good music and good groups, discovering them early and following them through their journey." Inexplicably, Stark faves Deer Tick are the first band in the inaugural segment, and duh, the whole piece is cringeworthy. Williams asks John McCauley and gang what is essentially the same question (what's it like to be an emerging band?) several different ways, and then comes off like a dad when describing the epic "use of the crash" (hand motions included) at the end of the song "Dirty Dishes." The whole thing is bizarre. Not quite Weezy/Miss Katie bizarre, but close.
Deer Tick will release Born On Flag Day via Partisan on June 23, which is not Flag Day.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
A Quick Inquisition with Ari Gold of The Honey Brothers
STARK vs. ARI GOLD of THE HONEY BROTHERS
We caught The Honey Brothers last Saturday night at Music Hall of Williamsburg. Yes, most of the people there just seemed to want to make out with Vinny Chase, err, I mean Adrian Grenier. So I'm sure it came as a great relief to them that although Grenier is just the drummer, his drumset had good viewing placement, plus he strummed a guitar and sang for a few numbers.
But honestly, even though it may just be the success of Grenier that's propelled these boys to semi-stardom, Honey Brothers are much better than other vanity projects like Dogstar (Keanu Reeves.) They've even been compared to the Silver Jews, the Beach Boys and Ween by Village Voice.
And I really do appreciate ukelele player and vocalist Ari Gold's (real name? I'm not sure) whimsy. He was nice enough tell us about the band meeting at Ukelele Fantasy Camp, Bohemia and a utopia of love...
Catch Lauren Mooney's interview with Ari Gold after the jump.
What was Ukelele Fantasy Camp like? Is that where you guys met?
Ukulele fantasy camp is a state of mind, like Bohemia. As soon as you hold a curvy little uke in your hands you are At Camp™. Dory was the first among us to play the uke, and I was the first to become obsessed by it, when Dory lent me his. Truth is I was just tired of being stuck behind a drum set and I wanted an instrument that would fit into a backpack, since I like to travel. But the band starting singing around the uke and walking the streets with it, so At Camp was in the streets of New York. You can't be a bad ass at Ukelele Fantasy Camp and it's not possible to be cool, so the normal social struggles of camp do not apply. There are no cool kids at our camp, and that's a relief. Can you imagine a bully with a ukulele?
You were quoted on your MySpace bio as saying, "I think our music is trying to find the utopia of love in a world that might be going to shit." What is your current take on the world? And how exactly do you think your music helps find utopia of love?
Well, having just played two shows amidst the beauty of Washington DC as Obama was being inaugurated, we are feeling a little more hopeful about the world. But there is a lot of struggle and trouble in life, and if you can make music with your friends and try to enjoy every moment, then you are in a utopia of love. If we all end up as roving tribes of people eating nuts and berries in a few years, we hope that we'll still be able to maintain a good mood by playing music.
Dream people to play live with?
Metallica, David Bowie, Toots and the Maytals, David Byrne, Igor Stravinsky.
What's next for the Honey Brothers?
We have a bunch of new songs in our "new wave folk" vein and plan to record an album this summer. Meanwhile, we might make a movie, a solo record, or act in a TV show if we have to to get by.
What was Ukelele Fantasy Camp like? Is that where you guys met?
Ukulele fantasy camp is a state of mind, like Bohemia. As soon as you hold a curvy little uke in your hands you are At Camp™. Dory was the first among us to play the uke, and I was the first to become obsessed by it, when Dory lent me his. Truth is I was just tired of being stuck behind a drum set and I wanted an instrument that would fit into a backpack, since I like to travel. But the band starting singing around the uke and walking the streets with it, so At Camp was in the streets of New York. You can't be a bad ass at Ukelele Fantasy Camp and it's not possible to be cool, so the normal social struggles of camp do not apply. There are no cool kids at our camp, and that's a relief. Can you imagine a bully with a ukulele?
You were quoted on your MySpace bio as saying, "I think our music is trying to find the utopia of love in a world that might be going to shit." What is your current take on the world? And how exactly do you think your music helps find utopia of love?
Well, having just played two shows amidst the beauty of Washington DC as Obama was being inaugurated, we are feeling a little more hopeful about the world. But there is a lot of struggle and trouble in life, and if you can make music with your friends and try to enjoy every moment, then you are in a utopia of love. If we all end up as roving tribes of people eating nuts and berries in a few years, we hope that we'll still be able to maintain a good mood by playing music.
Dream people to play live with?
Metallica, David Bowie, Toots and the Maytals, David Byrne, Igor Stravinsky.
What's next for the Honey Brothers?
We have a bunch of new songs in our "new wave folk" vein and plan to record an album this summer. Meanwhile, we might make a movie, a solo record, or act in a TV show if we have to to get by.
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