The Awkward Off Vs. Handsome Furs

Before their show, HANDSOME FURS met me for an interview at THE EARL in ATLANTA, GA.

I was immediately stoked because Dan was wearing a shirt from my favorite East Atlanta record store, Reactionary Records. Later in the interview, we were joined by Paul Tilghmon, the store’s owner, who was confused to find himself in the middle of an interview.

We touched on all of the bases: dog farts, smoking with inhalers, and punk squats used for music videos. Alexei and Dan are just as nice as you would imagine, and they aren’t nearly as tired as you would think of interviewers asking them about being a couple and in a band.

After ragging on the FCC and censorship for a spell, we compromised by making up our own swear words and went straight into the interview. “Consarnit! Dagnabit!”

Special thanks to Matt Crisler for taking photographs and for being my concert buddy.

Full Transcript (Audio):

Nichole Bennett: On that note. I am Nichole. I am at the Earl in Atlanta, and I am lucky enough to be surrounded by members of Handsome Furs.

Alexei Perry: We’re only two. I’m Alexei.

NB: Yeah! I was going to ask you to introduce yourselves.

AP: And that’s Dan.

Dan Boeckner: Dan right here.

NB: So, if you had to tell the story of Handsome Furs, would it be a pop up book or a graphic novel?

DB and AP: Graphic novel.

NB: That was very quick.

AP: We read a lot of graphic novels, so it’s easy.

NB: I was going to ask you about your videos. Before the recorder got turned on, we were talking a lot about farting dogs and other such things. Your video for “Face Control” was just released.

AP: That was a really fun one to shoot.

NB: Yeah, I was going to ask if they were as much fun to shoot as they are to watch.

AP: Yeah, we are really fortunate to always work with friends, doing the directing and all the filming and everything. That was done by a guy name Scott Coffey out of Portland. We went there for two days and had to bang it out as quickly as possible.

NB: Wow.

DB: Yeah, we shot that video in under 48 hours for a budget of under $5,000. For indie rock videos, even…a lot of them clock in at twenty grand. We shot it at a punk squat next door to Scott’s house.

AP: And he just befriended them…you know. He was like “You guys do this anyway. Can we throw a party at your house?”

DB: We bought them beer and that made everybody happy. The first night was the interior shooting, and the next day was the outdoor stuff. The first night we were shooting it to look like a party, but it actually turned into a party.

AP: A really great party. It went so late. We were like, this isn’t going to match the shots anymore—the sun’s coming up.

DB: And it became difficult to act as we got really drunk.

NB: Do you guys prefer studio or stage?

DB and AP: Stage.

NB: You guys look like you have a lot of fun. I’ve seen you at both of the South By Southwests that I’ve been.

DB: Generally I like playing the new stuff.

AP: Yeah I think the new stuff is most exciting. You are on your toes trying to figure everything out, and when it all works out it’s really triumphant.

NB: I think for my first Handsome Furs experience….wow I wish this was on video.

DB: We’ll describe it for our radio listeners.

AP: Neil from The Cinnamon band just came in and handed us his inhaler because he needs to have a smoke.

DB: Smoke your face off.

NB: Oh, my first Handsome Furs experience. I was sneaking my way to the front of the tent, and the whole stage is rocking. Alexei’s Corona keeps earthquaking its way to the edge, and she keeps grabbing it just in time.

AP: Yeah we have a lot of fun on stage. Whoa a bug!

NB: I really do need to get into videoing these.

DB: It’s a creature…a cockroach.

NB: Narration—a cockroach creature just flew up into an old wasp’s nest.

AP: This is really good radio.

DB: Solid radio.

NB: Maybe I should get into TV. This is just like Prairie Home Companion with Handsome Furs. And I heard that when you guys do recordings, you do sort of a first-take thing. It sounds very fresh.

AP: That’s kind of our policy. We try to make it sound as live as possible, and we don’t want to do a lot of tinkering. Because we work with a drum machine, there is already that element of programming. While we are trying to do a recording, we try to do it as raw as possible.

NB: On a scale of one to definitely, how tired are you guys of interviewers asking you what’s it’s like to be married and in a band?

AP: I’m only really tired of that when they are lazy enough to use that as their angle. What happens a lot is when that question gets asked, it’s usually followed by “What couple band do you compare yourself to?” I’m like, “fuck off.” Ike and Tina Turner. Not really. I understand. It’s interesting. Honestly any journalist that is interested in us, we want to be as open and friendly as possible. And that fact is inescapable. That’s what we are. We have a very good time on stage. It’s hard not to notice that we are very much in love. It doesn’t tire me. It just tires me if the followups are lame.

NB: Yeah I read some that were totally focused on that.

AP: Yeah, we don’t write love songs. You’ve got the wrong band if you are trying to peg us as a cute couple. We love each other, but that’s about as far as it gets as far a songwriting.

DB: Yeah, absolutely.

NB: That being said, do you read press about yourself? I think that would be kind of nerveracking.

DB: I do sometimes. Yeah, for sure. Anybody who says they don’t read their press is lying.

AP: Yeah, it’s like “Do you not read?” I’m interested in new music so I go to blogs and magazines and such. So of course I’m going to end up reading some of it.

DB: It’s also that you can make the metaphor that it’s like you’re at a house, and there’s a door. There’s an entire room of people who are talking about you. Some of them are saying good things, and some of them are saying mean things. You know that’s happening. You know that’s going on. You have the ability to hear what they are saying without them know you are listening to them. Of course people do that! People make art, and they put it out in the world. They’re fucking vain.

AP: The truth is that there is also a really humbling part to that fame or notoriety or whatever because everything that you do is so immediately given back to you. I’m curious to know that. I wouldn’t fucking play live if I didn’t care what people thought.

DB: The trick is not to read it too much and not to take it too seriously.

AP: And also some bands that read it too much try to construct themselves in a way to be audience-friendly or critic-friendly, and that is something I’m totally against. I cannot choose my audience. I’m thrilled with whoever comes.

DB: You can’t change your art to match what you think people are thinking. And you can’t turn the tarot-internet babble into “We should write our songs in more of a major key” or “We should make our tempos faster.” “We should sing about this instead of singing about that.” You can’t do that. It’s just impossible. Everybody is as loud as everybody else on the internet, so there’s no way of judging.

NB: It’s a weird era that we live in. It’s sort of an A.D.D. internet mentality. And you can be anonymous…totally anonymous. You can be as mean as you want or as super nice as you want. It’s a strange set of extremes. You aren’t going to bother to post on the internet if it’s like “ah, meh.”

DB: I remember years ago when Wolf Parade was just starting out, I read something really awful on the Montreal music scene blog. At the start of that whole Montreal music scene…

AP: You’re basically like, “I know this person!”

DB: Well, the thing is I didn’t know that person, but I found out who he was. We weren’t friends or anything. His name was Dave. I went to a show…

NB: Dave, now your name is released on the internet.

AP: You are outed!

DB: Dave, as far as I know doesn’t make music or play music. He’s just a large internet presence. So, I saw him at a show. He was considerably younger than me. I think we were watching Comets on Fire. I was like “You’re the guy who wrote X on the Internet. Why did you write that? Like, really?” Then, he basically ran away from me. That experience really changed my relationship with reading reviews and such.

NB: How would you describe your sound to a five year old?

DB: Loud.

AP: It’s going to make you dance, baby!

NB: You guys do something that is brave, especially with having an electronic element. Your sound is pretty sparse. Usually with two people bands will try to cover that up. I was wondering if that was conscious or just came about organically.

AP: Yeah, it’s conscious in that it’s just us, and we just use the instrumentation that we have. And I think sonically what you do reflects on how you feel about the world, and how I feel about the world is totally dissatisfied with how empty things are. So I use that as a backdrop.

NB: We are getting a music and a show. Background music provided by Tree. On that note—so many bands are so very symphonic. It’s nice, but it’s refreshing to have something that is sparse and fresh.

DB: You know, in these tough economic times.

AP: You’ve got to keep things cheap.

NB: Noise costs money!

AP: We can’t afford xylophones!

DB: In these tough economic times, only the upper-upper class can afford a harmonium or a cello player or a bunch of violin players. It’s a band of the people, you know. The people’s music.

NB: If you could break one world record, what would it be?

DB: Most sweat on stage.

AP: Really? Mine is so lame, and it has to do with spicy food. That is all because of my father.

DB: I thought your world record would be to read more books than anyone.

AP: Yeah I want to read more books. That’s good too. I said that earlier today. So, yeah.

DB: Alexei secretly wants to own every single book ever published.

NB: What advice would you offer an up-and-coming band?

AP: Just tour. Play as much as you can, and do it with every earnest bone you have in your body.

NB: Which is something that you guys are really known for, and something that you guys really put yourselves into. Is this tour going well?

DB and AP: Yeah.

NB: You just came from Chapel Hill.

DB: Yeah, this leg of the tour is going good.

AP: Yeah that’s really my only thing to tell new bands is to play as many live shows as you possibly can.

DB: Yeah focus on playing live. Don’t focus on getting a great song to put on your Myspace page or getting a manager or signing with a record label. Just go on tour. Play shows in front of people. Record labels are going to be completely obsolete in the next five years, and the only thing people are going to be able to judge a band on is…Hey!

[Paul Tilghmon enters]

AP: We just bought records from him.

DB: Yeah we just went to…

NB: Reactionary Records! Did you guys pick up anything cool?

AP: We got Recommendations from Radio City

DB: And The Jags.  Which Paul wouldn’t sell me because they were his only copies.

Paul Tilghmon: I’ll sell them to you.

DB: Which means another trip to the store. We go Joe Gibbs and Phyllis Dillon. The Gibbs is a compilation and Phyllis Dillon’s One Life to Live. And I got a t-shirt too. You should support your local record store.

NB: Yeah I need a t-shirt before I move.

DB: Schoolkids Records shut down in Chapel Hill.

AP: Yeah we were pretty bummed because we wanted to go there.

DB: Support your local record stores and buy vinyl.

NB: I’m biased, but it’s my favorite. What are some of your favorite places to play?

AP: I’ll just go with some of the more recent ones because there’s a lot. Bucharest was amazing. Belgrade. Zagreb fantastic. Every show in Helsinki is life-changing and amazing. Philly was really great. New York is always beautiful.

DB: Detroit was pretty cool. We played a free show outside for the Comerica City Fest. Anybody could come.

AP: A lot of families…a lot of dancing kids.

DB: Not really our usual crowd but definitely a fun time.

NB: If you can get little kids to dance, then you’ve accomplished something.

DB: Little kids will dance to anything.

AP: They are very selective. No, no, no they are a very discerning crowd!

DB: Little kids will dance to Napalm Death.

NB: And I will end on if you could be any animal, what would you be?

AP: Dan would be an otter!

DB: I would be an otter. You would be a jaguar, I guess.

AP: We’ve discussed this a lot.

NB: It sounds like a recent discussion. I should just get these two to interview each other. Thank you very much!

The Awkward Off Vs. The Helio Sequence

Members of THE HELIO SEQUENCE chatted with me on the back porch of THE EARL in ATLANTA, GA before their show.

Even when my questions were about trading cars for dinosaurs, Benjamin and Brandon took me seriously. That’s no surprise, considering how carefully they consider their music–from songwriting to production. From their past jobs as instrument repo men to coming back from a lost voice, these guys have been nothing but sincere. Read on to learn about everything from their tips for success as an independent artist to their plans for making revenue from dinosaurs.

Thanks to the sweethearts at Sub Pop who were kind enough to blog about this interview.

Special thanks to Matt Crisler for taking photographs of the interview and for being my concert buddy.

Full Transcript: (Audio)

Nichole Bennett: Alright, I’m Nichole, and I am lucky enough to be here at the EARL in Atlanta with members of The Helio Sequence. Would you guys mind introducing yourselves?
Brandon Summers: I’m Brandon.
Benjamin Weikel: And I’m Benjamin.
NB: So, there’s a lot of information online about the story of you guys, and most people who are literate and have an internet connection can look that up. If they were to reenact your story, would they use marionette puppets or sock puppets?
BS: Finger puppets probably.
BW: I was thinking we might as well go all the way with marionettes. Or Jim Henson, you know?
NB: We’re going with muppets?
BW: Yeah, totally muppets, dark crystal, that would be cool.
BS: Lo-fi or big budget.
BW: I think we would get more realistic drumming action with like the Animal thing.
BS: Animal, yeah. Animal could play you.
NB: That’s a good one. So, we settled on muppets? And you guys used to work at a record store together?
BS: We did. It was actually a music store. It was more like a band instrument rental store with some guitars. So we were renting instruments to kids who were beginning band.
NB: Any stories from that? Any funny…or scary stories?
BS: Oh jeez, too many to remember. We used to practice there, which is sort of a story in and of itself.
BW: We actually recorded our first records there. I was a band instrument repo guy for a while.
NB: I didn’t know that existed!
BW: I became responsible for all of the accounts. And there had been people who basically had never paid for years, and I’d have to track them down.
BS: It got to be where you knew these people. It was like “Oh, that woman would come in and say she paid it off and would actually drop twenty five dollars on us.”
BW: Some people would be alright, but some people would be really weird. They’d bring their kid to the front door and be like “This is what happens!” Yelling at the kid because he can’t fifteen dollars a month for a clarinet.
NB: The drama of a music store!
BS: Like “He could have been the next Jon Bon Jovi, but you took that chance away from him”
BW: I have a pretty bitter taste from all that repo business. It’s not my kind of thing.
NB: Yeah, I played saxophone, so that was kind of expensive. But that’s another story.
BS: But you paid for it?
NB: Yeah…upfront. That was not very fun. So, again anybody who is literate and has an internet connection can learn about how you lost your voice and how you gained it back.
BS: Right.
NB: But I was curious about something most others had skimmed over and that is the Bob Dylan connection. You got to read a lot during that time, and his was the first book. And there are some of my favorite Bob Dylan covers on this album. And I read that you gained your voice back by playing a lot of Bob Dylan. Is that true, or am I just making this up?
BS: Yeah, in a way. That’s kind of a gloss over. You know how records come to you at a time when you really need them? I don’t know if that makes any sense. You just happen to hear a record at a certain point in your life, and it means a lot to you. For some reason when I lost my voice…it’s not like I didn’t know who Bob Dylan was before I lost my voice, but I happened to be at the record store, and I happened to come across a copy of The Times, They Are a Changin’ And I was like, I’ve never really listened to this record. I just bought it on a whim, and it really meant a lot to me, particularly the song “Boots of Spanish Leather.” That was the first song that I decided to learn. And then from there, I thought it was interesting to actually put the chords under my fingers and actually learn a song, so I should do more of that.
NB: I really like that. I think that one of the big things music does for people. It’s kind of a soundtrack, in a way. Yeah, I was actually going to ask you what your soundtrack album was from that time, and you just answered that for me.
BS: And other things come along. What else were we listening to during that time?
BW: I don’t know. That was such a long time ago.
BS: I remember listening to a lot of Dark Side of the Moon during that time. You can infer a lot from that, I’m sure.
NB: Oh yeah, I get that in the album.
BS: So we decided to put some extended guitar solos in, and then we cut them all out.
NB: Speaking of the latest record, there’s kind of an almost a paradox between a more polished sound, but you still have that “off the cuff” sound. I heard that “The Captive Mind,” you just recorded.
BS: Yeah, a lot of the vocal stuff was just first take. We would be working on something in the studio, and I would be able to take it home and work on the vocals.
BW: The demos.
BS: Yeah, the demo stuff, really rough. And bring it back and record the real version of it. And when I went to lay down the real track, something was missing from it. Something about the energy or the feeling of it or the meaning. And it was kind of “Well, what if we just redo some of the instruments around it. Lay down the drums again and the guitar and the bass, all kinds of stuff, and just use those vocal takes.” A lot of it ended up like that. A lot of it was first take stuff. It’s almost better that way.
NB: Yeah, you get a combination, almost a paradox between…it’s definitely very polished, like you tweaked it, but at the same time it’s very organic.
BS: That’s probably a lot of the mixing process. We spend a lot of time working it out. We record our own records and mix them.
NB: I think it’s neat when a band takes things from start to finish.
BS: I can’t imagine doing it any other way. It amazes me when a band is like, “Yeah, when we recorded the record we went in for about a week, and then we handed it off to a bunch of people and they finished it for us.” I don’t understand it.
NB: I imagine you would get handed back something totally different than you had actually put out. But you guys have control over that side of things.
BF: Maybe we’re just control freaks.
NB: This record is also more lyrically focused. And I say that, but at the same time, if you took the lyrics out, the songs would be able to stand by themselves. And it’s a little less cluttery. I hate the word cluttery because I do like the older stuff too because it is that way.
BW: Yeah, but when you compare them, that sums it up in a way. We approached the record thinking that way. Bob Dylan is a great example of somebody that makes songs that to us that are really really meaningful. And it’s not so much about the music as the lyrics or the story. And so we thought, we love music with orchestration and all of the crazy sounds, but let’s try to see if we can make more of a lyrical connection. So when we were doing all the orchestration, instead of just throwing it all together and being like “Here’s everything!”.
BS: And having to work the vocals in after that.
BW: It would be like “That’s kind of just getting in the way of it.” It’s really all about the vibe. It had a feeling from the beginning. Whenever we did something that felt like it was changing it too much or it was losing that feeling, we just cut it out. So then it ended up being…compared to the average band there are still more parts and more orchestrated, but for us, it was a little more sparse.
NB: Yeah, I think you can get that. I discovered you guys after you opened for Minus the Bear, and I immediately picked up Love and Distance there. And I never buy albums from opening bands.
Matt Crisler [taking photographs of interview]: Band snob!
NB: That is not what I meant at all. I meant I never buy an album from a band that I don’t even know, like right there, and I did. And I listened to it. And then the new one came out, and I was blown away by how different it was, but it was still you guys. But you guys put it much better than I could. Obviously, I’m very terrible with words.
BW: It’s a good thing you’re a writer.
NB: Yeah, it’s a good thing. I actually really wanted to ask you guys. You did something on this latest album that is sometimes scary for smaller bands, scary for indie bands. I think this was a lot more universal than most bands would go.
BW: Yeah, it’s totally out of fashion.
NB: It’s not very fashionable to appeal to a lot of people.
BW: I don’t know if it’s a question of appealing to a lot of people. I think it’s more a question of meaning.
BS: Well, I think it’s a question of just saying what you want to say. Like, when I’m writing lyrics, I’m thinking something to myself, and I’m just writing. I’m not thinking of something being universal or trying to get to a large amount of people. But I know what you’re saying, I think that a lot of lyrics, especially in the indie world come off as impressionistic. Like, a little image here, a little image here. Don’t do something that is too specific because then you’re going to have to take responsibility for having said that.
BW: Some people do it so well that they are creating a mood, and the only way to keep it that was is by not saying something, by having it be almost sort of more background. Almost commercial. And I don’t mean commercial in the sense of sellable, but commercial as literally in a sense of in the background. Like background when you’re driving, background when you’re hanging out in a bar. Nothing that is really going to get that close to you. Something that is going to be off. You can push it away, and it’s there and it sounds great, feels great, you know. But the moment somebody starts saying something that are personal, that means something, and I don’t think that’s the fad of music right now.
NB: It’s almost dangerous.
BS: Yeah I guess it could be. But more and more, the older I get, the music I am listening to, I’m actually listening to what people say. I’m listening to what is going on behind the sound of something or just “I like how that part sounds” or “That’s a catchy part.” That’s one level of music, and I don’t think you should discount that, especially if you’re making pop music, in essence. But if you’re able to make a song on that level, and then think to yourself “Well, what are they saying. What is that guy saying?” And it may be that I’m not getting anything from that. It doesn’t make any sense, or it’s all mixed up. That, to me, it actually brings the value of the song down.
BW: There are a lot of records, and I’m definitely not naming any names, but there are a lot of records on the surface that I’m really immediately excited about. But the more I listen to the music, I’m like “What is he saying?” It’s kind of killing it for me. The lyrics are either really horrible, or you can’t hear them. Everyone’s hiding behind the lo-fi.
BS: What you are saying is that if you’re saying something, you have to take responsibility for it. And you’re saying there’s something dangerous about it. And I’ve thought about it—that you somehow risk not being cool anymore by not agreeing with somebody. So it’s interesting that more and more, you get less of that .
NB: It’s very fashionable, I think, especially in a lot of hyped bands…We were just talking about the internet mentality earlier with Venice [is Sinking]. To not make sense, to be esoteric, and “Oh you guys, you just don’t get me.”
BW: It’s all very impressionistic.
NB: Impressionistic is a perfect way to put that. So if you were to describe your sound to a five-year-old, what would you say?
BS: I wouldn’t describe it, I would just put the CD on.
NB: I don’t talk to five-year-olds.
BS: No, I talk to five year olds very often. I have a nine month old. I’ll just put on music for her.
NB: So, no need for description…just put it on.
BW: I have a three year old nephew, and he came out to our show in Los Angeles, his first rock and roll show. The first time he’s seen me playing. My sister, his mom, she plays him the songs, and he knows that this is uncle Benjamin’s band. And we were playing the set. We stopped playing after the second song, and everything kind of died down for a second, and I just heard this “That’s Uncle Benjamin!”
BS: And mind you, this is in a three or four thousand person venue.
NB: Do you guys read press about yourselves?
BW: No.
BS: No, not anymore. I used to.
BW: It just bums me out.
NB: Yeah, it would be something that would just tear me apart.
BW: Yeah, it’s really depressing…
NB: I’m already self-critical enough. I don’t need any help.
BW: It would be dumb to say there is no point to music journalism, and I’m definitely not making a judgment of music writing. It’s more of just that I have an understanding that a journalist is a writer, and they have to do something interesting. If you write a bunch of reviews, that don’t say anything, then your job is boring. It’s a realization that somebody writing about music—you can’t take it personally because there’s always agendas just beyond the music. I don’t want to read it.
BS: And at the same time, you can’t truly get away from it. Someone’s actually going to come up to you and say “I read your review in Rolling Stone or blahblahblah.” And then you don’t have to read it.
NB: Since music journalism is so much more accessible with blogs and the internet, do you feel that it is affecting you guys in anyway, even though you aren’t reading it?
BS: I’m sure it helps just general awareness. And the way that people find out about music is all over the map these days. I’ve had people come up to me on this tour and tell me that they found out about us because we have one song on the Google phone. They came to us and asked us if they could include our song, for free, so it comes with the phone when people buy it. I’ve had people come up to me and say that they didn’t know who we were, and I heard you guys on my new phone. I love you guys. I went out and bought your records, and I’m a fan now. You can find music in so many ways. It’s just crazy.
NB: That’s another thing. When bands talk about commercials, they say that people heard their song on a commercial.
BS: I want to find someone who became a fan because of a ringtone.
BW: I think we did! There was a myspace comment once that they had downloaded “Don’t Look Away” ringtone.
BS: They probably meant to download The Chili Peppers.
BW: And then he went and looked at our myspace page.
NB: You guys have been around for quite a while. What advice would you give to a band that is just starting out.
BS: Keep going. I don’t know.
BW: Stop if you’re not good. We usually don’t take support bands on the road with us. So we get tons of local openers. Sometimes people are really excited, and they ask us “How do you hook up with Sub Pop” or “What do you do?” And I think some people want to try to skip steps. They just want to jump up ahead. And all that I can say is some people win the lottery, and some people don’t. Start thinking one step at a time. Book your small show, and get some friends there. Do one thing at a time. Don’t think about this big thing far off in the future. Enjoy making music
BS: And keep sight of that as you keep going because there are going to be people coming along saying “We want to sign you and throw all this money at you.” That kind of stuff happens. We had that happen to us especially early in our career.
BW: We said no.
BS: And we said no. For us, anyways, it was the right thing to do. Some bands can sign some gigantic contract and have a bunch of people throw money at them and get paid. But, I think you really run the risk of falling on your face.
NB: Definitely. Which fictional character is most like you guys?
BS: One character? Or is it a duo?
BW: The three muskateers.
NB: It can be one. You don’t have to pick a duo. You can pick separate ones.
BS: Probably Animal for Benjamin.
BW: Why? Why would that me be? I’m thinking the geeky guy in Real Genius.
BS: I’m trying to think of a fictional character.
NB: It can be cartoon.
BS: Yosemite Sam?
BW: What? How are you like Yosemite Sam?
BS: I don’t know. He’s fictional.
James Sewall [of Venice is Sinking]: Droopy’s good.
BS: I’m down with that.
NB: Okay, if you guys could break any world record, what would you break?
BW: Richest dude in the world.
NB: Richest dude in the world!
BS: Longest touring band in the world. We’ll be 90.
NB: Never stop touring. Do you guys prefer studio or stage?
BW: Both, in their own ways.
BS: Yeah, they are totally different worlds.
NB: As a duo, with a keyboardist/drummer, I’m sure it totally different both ways. And we talked earlier about how you go back in and tweak things.
BS: Yeah, it’s a totally different. A lot of bands come back from touring and record an album, but for us, I feel like the studio process is a lot slower, much more methodic kind of a process.
NB: And at the same time, your live sound is very similar to your studio so. So, whatever magic you guys are working…
BS: That’s what it is.
NB: And if you could turn in your tour van for a dinosaur, which one would you choose?
BS: What’s the fastest dinosaur?
NB: I’ve never seen a dinosaur race.
BS: Because that’s all you need out of a tour van—get to that next city.
BW: You’re thinking you want the dinosaur to be a vehicle?
BS: Well, if we didn’t have a tour van, we’d need something to get from show to show.
BW: I mean, I don’t think a dinosaur is going to work.
BS: We have to trade it in for a dinosaur, though.
BW: If we had a dinosaur, we could open a zoo…
BS: And then from the revenue of that, okay.
BW: We could totally buy a new van. I’m thinking we should go for a big one, like T. Rex.
BS: Okay.
BW: Well, maybe a brontosaurus, though. It doesn’t eat meat. It would be more indie. It would be more cool. A vegan dinosaur. And less likely to eat anyone.
NB: We would like to request a vegan dinosaur, please.
BS: Okay, I’m down with that.
BW: We would have to buy some land.
BS: We could get a loan from the bank.
NB: With the brontosaurus as collateral.
BW: But where would we put the dinosaur while we are waiting for the loan?
BS: This is really tricky.
NB: This question is a lot more complicated that I had originally thought it would be.
BW: Or transportation too. We’d probably have to hire a construction company for it.
Matt Crisler: You could walk it.
NB: Dinosaur rollerskates.
BW: I wonder if you could lease a brontosaurus. Like if we had a huge, a really heavy truck, that we could chain it to.
BS: Or a van…oh damn, we gave it up for the dinosaur.
NB: On that note, we’ll end on if you were any animal, what would you be?
BS: A panda.
BW: I don’t know. A brontosaurus.
NB: Thank you very much for being with me.

The Awkward Off Vs. Blitzen Trapper

The fellows of BLITZEN TRAPPER met me before their show at the 40 WATT CLUB in ATHENS, GA.

What was an interview soon dissolved into random chatter about the cosmos, the internet, and what to put on French Fries. We became pretty ambitious and decided to start writing criticism of music criticism, and Eric Earley taught us how to escape from carnies. Be sure to catch the audio version for Brian’s half-and-half creamer freakout as well as Monty Python fun facts.

We eventually gave up pretending like this was an interview and decided we would just settle things with a fierce pinball tournament.

Here is a transcript of interview portions of the conversation. You can listen to the audio for the full craziness without our tangents edited out.

Transcript: (Audio):

Nichole Bennett: You’ll get the interview, and it’ll just be “tweet, tweet.” I promise I’m interviewing Blitzen Trapper.

Marty Marquis and Brian Koch: Let’s walk away from the waterfall.

NB: So nice of you guys to show me this park.

MM: Yeah, this is our private Blitzen Trapper park.

NB: Oh man, that white tiger was pretty cool.

MM: So what’s up Nichole?

NB: Not too much. Do you guys want to go around and introduce yourselves to the mp3 recorder?

Eric Earley: I’m Eric.

MM: So, was that everybody? I’m Marty over here, and I’ve got a cable knit sweater on.

BK: I’m Pussywizzle the tiger!

MM: You are going to be able to air like two seconds of this. Can you say pussywizzle on the radio?

NB: You can say…no. My first question is a friend of mine wanted me to ask where the name came from. I heard it was a Winnebago brand. Or that’s the rumor.

EE: That is one of many stories.

NB: It sounds so made up.

EE: The one I’ve been using lately is that it is a children’s cartoon from the early 70’s in Scandanavia.

MM: Yeah, it means “lightening ladder.”

NB: …in German. What are some other stories for it? I read the Winnebago one, and I was like, really?

EE: Yeah, with Winnebagos you have different types. You have the Blitzen Trapper model.

MM: Ticonderoga.

EE: Sunset Chasers.

MM: Yeah those are cool. We almost named the band Sunset Chaser.

EE: But we opted for Blitzen Trapper. You seem suspicious.

NB: No, never. So I guess other than the white tiger, what would be your band’s mascot? Or it can be the white tiger.

EE: Apparently, he’s the mascot. [Pointing at Brian]

MM: Pretty much, look at that beard.

BK: [continues roaring…as he has been since the beginning of the interview]

MM: Every album has a totem creature. Where we come from mascots are called totems. The current totem is the bear.

EE: The bear on the back.

MM: Before that it was the raptor. Before that was the giant cat.

BK: The beaver.

MM: The leopard. And before that was a zebra.

BK: My vote for next year is the humpty-back camel.

MM: I prefer the long windy man myself.

NB: Is this the deciding process for the totem creature?

EE: Yeah.

MM: It arises out of our collective. I think I know what the next creatures gonna be.

EE: You do?

MM: I think so.

EE: Do tell.

MM: I don’t want to reveal at this point. I usually just keep my counsels to myself, and when Eric comes up with what it’s actually going to be, I say “I knew it all along!”

EE: You might already know it.

MM: I had your iPod, so I think I know.

EE: Oh shit. That’s not it.

BK: A faint within a faint.

NB: So how is this tour going?

EE: In what way?

NB: In whatever way you want to describe it.

EE: Well, nobody’s lost a limb.

BK: I would like to respond to that with a tone to describe my experience.

NB: Yes! Where did you guys just come from?

MM: We were in D.C. Two nights ago was D.C. Then we stopped in Charlottesville, VA yesterday and did a little radio thing. We stayed the night in Charlotte.

EE: Ate at a Waffle House.

Erik Menteer: I cover mine in mayonnaise and they make rather inappropriate comments.

MM: He’s half British though.

NB: They put mayonnaise on everything.

BK: That’s no different than having your French Fries in mayonnaise. It’s only a skip away from tartar sauce, which people on the east coast of America are already flirting with.

NB: That should be my new question. I should ask people what they put on their French fries.

EM: I also like McDonalds barbeque sauce.

EE: On my hashbrowns, I definitely put salsa on them.

BK: I only put ketchup on it because I don’t want to taste the shitty fast food fries that I am eating. So I guess I prefer high fructose corn syrup to the taste of bad potatoes. Otherwise I never eat fries.

NB: If you guys were in a haunted house, what would you yell?

BK: Why did you ask that?

NB: I don’t know. Why not?

BK: I’ve just been thinking about ghosts a lot lately.

EE: Why would you yell at all?

MM: If it was real, I would be like…what is your problem?

NB: What if you were working in a carnival, what would you scream at little kids?

EE: Like I’m a carnie? What do I say to little kids? I say, pull my finger.

MM: That’s frightening.

EE: It is because they don’t know what’s gonna happen.

BK: I would say, you have no respect for your elders!

MM: You have to feel bad about people working at carnivals though. For years now they have this thing built up about them being skuzzy and low life. Maybe they are really fucking nice people.

EE: It’s because it’s true. I’ve been chased by carnies.

NB: What did you do to be chased by carnies?

EE: They didn’t catch me.  You were there. Down by the funhouse, after hours.

MM: Yeah I was there. Me and Jay didn’t go in because we hate clowns.

EE: It was me and that red-headed chick.

BK: Can I just say for a moment that I was there!

EE: We waited for it to close, and Bryan was there.

MM: He was the red-headed chick.

EE: We went in, and then the carnies were like, “Hey! Get away from there!” They didn’t catch us though because carnies, by their very nature, are slow.

BK: Can I just say for a second that I was there!

NB: I’ve never been chased by carnies. I’m going to put that one on the life list. If you could replace your arms with anything, what would you replace them with?

EE: I would want this one to be a time-machine slash drill that I could drill into the earth with. This one would not be as technical. It would be a lot more organic.

EM: Like a plant so you could just photosynthesize?

EE: No, like one of my favorite T.V. personalities would be there instead of my left arm.

MM: I’d replace one with the cosmos.

EE: You should give her marijuana to smoke, and she’ll totally be there with you.

MM: I tried, and she refused.

NB: So back to the tour. You guys are going to be at South By Southwest, right?

EM: Yeah, briefly.

EE: It’s going to be a sucker-punch.

NB: How long is this tour lasting?

EM: About a month.

BK: I think the effects will be felt for at least a week or two after.

NB: Do you guys prefer touring or doing stuff in the studio?

MM: They are both fun in their different ways. Touring is a lot more exhausting, obviously. So it’s nice to rest.

EM: It’s a nice exhaustion though. I like being busy and always working.

NB: How would you describe how your band sounds to a three-year-old?

BK: Wet.

MM: Wet. Love. Fun.

BK: Candy.

EM: Sunshine. Licorice.

EE: Would a three year old know these words?

BK: Are you kidding? There are three-year-olds out there like predators on the net.

MM: Animal. Fuzzy. Fun. Love. Play-doh.

EE: Blitzen Trapper is kind of like one of those Tempur-pedic memory foam pillows. You squeeze it, and it stays in that shape. You can put it in the cold, and it freezes. You can use it as a weapon. But enough about three year olds.

NB: Do you guys read reviews about yourself?

EE: I don’t. He does.

MM: I used to.

EM: We read one the other day that was just kind of funny and ridiculous.

MM: I read them because I have a stony heart, and I write reviews of the reviews.

EE: Fuck Marty, that’s perfect. We should start our own blog that is reviews of reviews.

MM: Yeah I wanted to get all of the musicians in Portland together to write criticism of music criticism.

EE: If you are a band in Portland, and there are a lot, you get written about.

NB: And they don’t get criticized.

EE: And they need to be.

MM: Because they suck ass.

BK: They are in the same position as a sound man at a show in that they have a huge impact on how they are seen and viewed by people but they are in the background and in the shadows. They aren’t brought into consciousness. The band is the one that gets the attention one or or the other. If the sound man fucks up, they are listening to you. It’s the same with criticism. Every person with a computer can have a blog.

EM: Plus, in the end it doesn’t even really matter what they say. They are still talking about it. They are putting some sort of importance on it.

[conversation dissolves into the crazies]

The Awkward Off Vs. No Age

Drenched from the rain, I showed up at the 40 WATT in ATHENS, GA to meet NO AGE before their show.

It was my first live interview, so I was nervous to be around a couple of musicians that I admire. Luckily Dean and Randy are some of the nicest guys in music. We had an excellent discussion about everything from personal politics to how to screenprint a skateboard. This interview also contains the best use of the word “shambolic.”

Full Transcript: (Audio)

Nichole Bennett: This is Nichole. I’m the music director for WSBF, and I’m here with No Age. Dean and Randy of No Age. So you guys just came in from Asheville?

Randy Randall: Yes

NB: Did you play the Orange Peel?

Dean Spunt: No

NB: The Grey Eagle.

Dean Spunt: It was awesome.

NB: Was that your first time in Asheville?

DS: We played one time before. We opened up for Liars, and we played the Orange Peel. One of our favorite restaurants is in Asheville. It’s called Rossetta’s Kitchen. It’s a vegetarian restaurant.

NB: Speaking of vegetarian restaurants, have you tried The Grit?

DS: We are going to go there after this.

NB: You guys are vegan—is that really hard on tour?

DS: Not really. We’re both vegan, so it’s one of the main agendas. We play, and then we gotta find food. We’re both pretty crafty.

RR: I eat more often on the road because there’s a schedule.

NB: Like a never-ending field trip. Everbody stay with your buddy!

RR: Yes. We are the field trip buddies.

NB: One of the questions that some of the people from the station wanted me to ask was about your appearance on CBS.

DS: BOOM. Rando.

NB: Yes, I wanted to talk about the shirt and the censorship.

RR: It was really nice that a show like Late Night with Craig Ferguson. Being before one of the most important political decisions in our country, that it would be apropos to voice my support for Barack Obama. So, I chose to wear a t-shirt. We go through rehearsals and everything. It’s a tiny little stage. You don’t meet anybody. We have five minutes to go one, and one of the people there are like “We’re so excited you are here. The only thing is you can’t wear your t-shirt.” It’s free time. Everyone who is a candidate for president has to be given equal time. That sounds fine—let’s make a John McCain t-shirt. And they were like, no it’s everybody who is running. And I thought this was even better.

NB: Make a list!

RR: We were going to be creative, but due to weird legal…

DS: They just didn’t want you to wear the shirt.

RR: There’s a lot of loopholes around it. I couldn’t really understand what their reasoning behind it was, but they were going to stick to it. We had to make a decision. I was ready to walk away and go home. I didn’t live too far from the place where we were filming. I was done. I didn’t care. It just felt like too big of a compromise.

DS: But, my grandfather was there.

RR: Yeah, Dean’s grandfather was there.

DS: He’s like 81. We should do it.

RR: So I thought we should take advantage of it. We can still do it. So we did it. I flipped the shirt inside-out and wrote “free health care,” which is an issue that I thought was more important even than a political figure. So I thought I would pick an issue and support that.

NB: Yeah, at that point I thought it was funny that equal time didn’t apply to issues.

RR: The reason I even like Barack Obama is that he stands for some of the issues I believe in.

DS: After that, Randy posted on our blog and the media go a hold of it.

[Interrupted by Soft Circle sound check]

NB: Now we are recording! Just a summary of what we just said.

RR: I believe that politics are personal, and its what you believe in. Us as a band…we don’t have a voice or any more of a right to speak than anyone else. No matter who you are, you can do what you believe in.

NB: We were talking about the skateboards earlier. Are you guys getting more into the visual side of things? For our listeners that don’t know, there are some No Age-designed skateboards, and they look pretty rad.

DS: We’ve been doing some stuff with a skateboard company. We curated some t-shirt designs for them, and we are going to make some more clothing designs for them. We never really made a skateboard before that, but it was a cool collaborative effort with AAM. We’ve always wanted to make skateboards

RR: Even before No Age was around, one of the things we wanted to do was create a skateboard company that was just for bands. It costs a little bit of money. More money than we had at the time.

DS: The main thing was that we wanted to screen it. My mom owns a silkscreen shop, so we wanted to screen them ourselves. Skateboard companies don’t easily give out information on how to do that. They are really secretive, and there are only a few companies. It’s weird. The screens have to be bent.

NB: Tell me about how this tour is going.

RR: This tour’s been awesome. We started out in England with Los Campesinos! and Times New Viking, who are really awesome. We then went on to play a few European show with a band from Belgium called White Circle Crime Club. We then started up in New York with Titus Andronicus and Soft Circle.

DS: Then after Titus, we meet up with a band from New York, friends of ours, called Silk Flowers.

NB: This is your first time in Athens, Georgia. What are your first impressions?

DS: It’s awesome. We just ate at…

RR: The Grit!

DS: We have a friend that has lived here for a while in a band called Dark Meat named Jim. He’s always wanted us to come here.

NB: If you could be any animal what would you be?

DS: A kitten. I just got a kitten, so I want to be that little kitten.  A different kitten. I would be it’s buddy. I think years ago when I didn’t have a cat I would be a different animal. Something like a giraffe. What would you be?

RR: I would be…

DS: a potato

RR: That’s not an animal. I was thinking of something along the lines of a mussel or a barnacle. I could just hang.

DS: You could be algae.

RR: No, not quite evolved enough.

NB: And you would get eaten a lot. Maybe a barnacle on a whale. You could get around.

DS: The whale…is America.

DS: I just want to say that No Age is the best band ever and you should buy all of our records. Not! But really, I think that if you are in a band, you should think you are the best ever or there is no point.

NB: What brought you guys in this direction? Your sound is a bit punk-y but experimental.

DS: I think it was just growing up being weird kids, listening to music, skateboarding a lot. Seeing things a little differently.

RR: Are you asking why we sound the way we do?

NB: Was it a choice or did it just naturally evolve?

DS: I think the only choice was that we wanted to make music that was the best music ever, for us. We like pop music, so we like hooks. Or not…sometimes just some noise. Music that we liked.

NB: Yeah No Age spans that barrier between poppy and noise.

RR: It just reflects our taste in music. I would be just as happy to go to noise show one night and a pop, sort of punk, show the other night. I get something out of both things. In one area you can push the boundaries of composition and sound and mind-blowing. And something else can be the perfect pop record.

DS: Yeah, crafting a song.

RR: Like a great hook, and this static sort of euphoria rushes over you, and you are like “I can’t believe they did that.” When a song explodes into complete chaos and is cathartic and it’s a release. You are like, ah, this is shambolic. It’s just as exciting as when a hook comes back around. It’s exciting when it works. It’s what I like in listening to music, so those are my priorities in making music…a crescendo of noise and pop aesthetics spilling over everywhere. That’s what I love to hear. I love listening to music loud. You take The Ramones or Paul McCartney and you turn it up and it all starts to distort. That’s exciting. That’s really fun. Or you hear it from the next room. You’re only catching every other note and the bass is all washing everything out together, and you hear a few ghosting kind of melodies. And then you pull it open and it’s a Brittany Spears song, but from three houses down it sounded like this wave of bass. Sometimes it’s the quality of the sounds you hear that makes the moment. It’s the time and the place.

DS: And I think it is the person too. I think there are lot of people that play pop music who are just crappy people. Or just going to make money. Usually people we like are people that seem to have a different attitude towards it and are writing music for different reasons. Not for money and not for fame.

RR: It’s always clear why this person is here. They are here to have a good time and share an experience with the audience, or they are just there to make a dollar.

DS: And goodnight.