The Awkward Off Vs. Venice Is Sinking

After their show at THE EARL in ATLANTA, GA band members of VENICE IS SINKING joined me for an interview.

Before finally shutting down the club on that Sunday night, we were able to talk about the many things that interest Venice is Sinking. We set the record straight and credited the horn parts on their latest record to the correct person. We talked about the influence of Athens on their music, and they backed up my theory that every musician from Athens is, was, or will be in the band Dark Meat. In an eerie prelude to that summer’s tragic Georgia Theatre fire, we talked about the album they recorded there and the importance of “musical mistakes.” We also talked about the internet’s double-edge influence on bands, fans, and press and we found out that Lucas (the drummer) loves every cereal in the grocery aisle.

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

Full Transcript (Audio):

Lucas Jensen: My name is Lucas Jensen!

Nichole Bennett: My name is Nichole. I’m in the Earl in Atlanta, GA, and I’m lucky enough to be surrounded by members of Venice is Sinking. Would you guys mind going around and introducing yourselves?

Daniel Lawson: Lucas already went.

Lucas Jensen: My name is Lucas Jensen! I play drums!

James Sewell: I’m James Sewell, and I play keyboards.

DL: And trumpet.

JS: And trumpet.

DL: I’m Daniel Lawson. I play guitar, and I also sing.

NB: If you were to tell the story of your band, would it be a comic book or a pop up book?

DL: We were just talking about pop up books.

LJ: I think we would have to go with pop up book. In person maybe we are goofier, but our music is more ornate or pretty. Some sort of glittery griffin with some fairies kind of pop up book.

DL: I think it captures our whimsical side and our artistic depth.

LJ: I’m just kidding. I don’t want any fairies at all near us. We’ll leave that for the Tori Amos set.

DL: We talked about doing this though…back when we thought we would have money for things.

JS: Before global warming, the economy….World War II.

LJ: Yeah that was back before 9/11.

DL: We were just fetuses.

LJ: That’s true. Before 9/11 we were at some point. Everything changed that day. It’s not good to joke about that still?

DL: I guess not.

NB: It’s almost acceptable.

LJ: We were going to say before that we are not commenting on 9/11. Pop up book it is.

NB: So your latest album has been gaining a lot of press, and I heard that it was a more democratic album than your first one. As in, the whole band was involved in the making of this one—is that true?

DL: Yeah. I think with the first record I had a lot of songs lying around before we were even a band, so we ended up using those. With this one, it was just a lot more collaborative. Like James came in with that bit that is the thematic…

JS: The Azar theme.

DL: …that main melody that is intertwined throughout the record—that’s all James. There’s that one day, Lucas, where you, me, and Karolyn…

LJ: It was two days, and we wrote three songs or something. We wrote “Sun Belt.” “Ryan’s Song” was just this instrumental we had, and we turned it into something one day. We did something else too…we finished “Iron Range.” It was like, wow those were a great two days, and then we took months off and didn’t do anything. I think Daniel had these songs, and it was more of his project…and that’s not saying it shouldn’t be..

DL: I brought stuff early in on this record, and we all fleshed it out.

JS: Yeah that was the fundamental difference. Even if you had the fundamental idea of what a song would be, it wasn’t all done. When I first joined in 2005—because I’m not the first keyboard player—I was told the parts to play basically, and they were within the limits and ranges not only of the old keyboard player but of the old keyboard, which was considerably smaller. It had like one sound you could switch on. So for the new record, it was a more collaborative songwriting effort but also for the individual parts like the keyboard part.

DL: Yeah, and you got to do the horn charts and stuff for “Okay.” That’s all you.

LJ: Which somehow managed to go uncredited on the records, but now we will set the record straight. The song “Okay” off Azar by Venice is Sinking: horn arrangements by James Harold Sewell.

DL: Junior.

LJ: Junior. So there we go. Maybe BMI can put that in there.

NB: I believe on your website you say that this album talk about a location’s ability to influence. You guys are out of Athens, which is well-known for it’s music and it’s billions and millions of musicians. How do you feel that being located in Athens has affected you guys.

DL: It’s certainly helped. There’s somewhat of a cache trying to book shows out of town if you are from Athens.

LJ: People are definitely interested in the scene—everything from B-52’s to Pylon to Widespread Panic. There are a lot of people out of Athens that people don’t even talk about. Matthew Sweat got his start there and The Glands…the whole E-6 thing with Neutral Milk Hotel, Olivia Tremor Control. If you know indie rock, there’s a lot of great indie rock from there. It’s a wonderful music town. There’s so much influence too.

DL: It’s a great place to start out as a band. As a really young band you could play every week if you wanted to. There’s plenty of venues.

LS: And you can have a different audience as well. There are going to be different people at different venues.

DL: For somewhere like Clemson, I’d imagine it’s a little more limited.

NB: Limited.

LJ: Not to discredit Clemson at all.

NB: No, no no. There are definitely places that could be venues, but it’s the audience that is more keen on cover bands and jam bands.

LJ: No problem with jam bands and cover bands, though. They definitely serve their purpose, and there are even quite a few popular ones. It’s not our scene necessarily, but we certainly don’t begrudge that. [In Athens] there are so many musicians living together that everyone has their own thing, their own side projects along with collaborations.

NB: Dark Meat.

LJ: Yeah Dark Meat. Everybody’s in that band. Our old bassist actually was in it for a while.

NB: Raise your hand if you are in Dark Meat.

LJ: Our old bassist Steve [Miller] threw out sandwiches for them for a while. That was kind of his job. Obviously it influences us, but more than that—getting back to the locations thing—ther’s a song on our last album CSX about moving out of our old practice space. It has a very southern feel to it. People don’t actually hone in on this in our music, but it’s actually pretty southern. The third record is going to be even more so. We like plenty of British bands, but I feel like there is an Americana thing even if it isn’t twangy or country. A part of that is that in Athens you are surrounded by kudzu, train tracks, and porches. Moths and mosquitos.

Benjamin Weikel [from The Helio Sequence]: Big fucking bugs.

LJ: Yeah you guys don’t have bugs like that in Portland.

BW: Yeah there was one time before a show…I was out back, and I always stretch before I play. There was a black widow hanging from a water spout. I was like, wow, black widow. That’s a big spider. Then I went a little further down, and this wood spider comes out. It was as big as my hand. I was terrified.

LJ: Did you see the cockroaches? This probably doesn’t happen in Oregon, but in some of the old houses here, they are just there. The exterminator can come, but they are just part of your existence.

DL: My cat eats them.

NB: Speaking of the new album, I heard that you guys are doing a Cowboy Junkies Trinity thing. Is that true?

LJ: Yeah that record was recorded a year ago, actually. Which is kind of depressing that we haven’t put it out yet, but we had to put this one out in order.

DL: It always takes so much longer.

LJ: Yeah, we are going to put this one out on vinyl.

DL: It was recorded in Georgia Theatre. They shut it down for one week, and we recorded it with Dave Barbie using just two stereo microphones.

LJ: Unidirection, I think. I mean, we don’t know that much about this, but you can hear where everyone is placed on the stage, if that makes any sense. It’s like flattening 3-D a little bit. You can hear that placement. We used only two mics. We recorded directly to tape.

DL: It’s totally live, but it’s not a live record like you would think of.

LJ: There’s no clapping.

DL: Yeah no one was in there, it was just a big empty room, us rolling take after take.

LJ: Like The Trinity Sessions, we tried to pick the best one. We played a lot louder than The Trinity Sessions though. They used one mic, and we used two. We went direct to quarter-inch tape, so the mixing that was done was done live, pretty much just setting the levels. That brings about some interesting things. Some are good. Some are bad. If the vocals are a little quiet on one song, they are a little quiet. That’s it. On another song if it goes a little loud, it might peak out and get distorted.

DL: Yeah, it’s totally unusual, and you are constantly adjusting the volume, maybe. I mean, if you are just sitting down and listening to the record maybe. If you are in your car, you are constantly fiddling with the knob. Which is cool because you don’t normally hear records like that. Everything is so compressed now.

JS: Normalized.

LJ: Like the whole Metallica controversy with the new record. It was so loud and even, the mastering job. Our record is definitely old fashioned that way. We’re not luddites or anything. We love technology and hip-hop and all of these other things that use modern technology, but this record is just really pure in that regard. It’s cool to have musical mistakes on there. With a lot of modern music, it’s buffed to perfection. With indie rock too—don’t let indie rockers tell you they don’t autotune. They are autotuning everything. Everything is just spit-shine clean.

DL: That’s kind of what we did on Azar, so it was nice to have a record that was the complete opposite. Someone told us there was an opening.

LJ: Yeah, we were finished with Azar in eight months. In two months, we had to write songs and put it all together. So, there is an immediacy to the songs.

JS: Some of us, not any of us here, hate some of those songs and don’t want to play them. She’ll remain nameless, but she doesn’t want to play them.

LJ: But that’s Will’s favorite song on the record.

JS: One of my favorites too.

LJ: We put them together quickly, and that’s kind of scary to me. We had some meltdowns. We got drunk a lot…a lot of Scotch. It was a fun experience.

JS: It was pieced together a lot hastier than Azar. When we got in the studio, and Scott Solter asked us what color our album was, we didn’t know. And it turned out that was a valid question. With the Georgia Theatre stuff, we came up a lot different.

LJ: It’s a lot twangier. Well, not twangier but acoustic-ier. It’s the opposite.

NB: I would be interested to hear that.

LJ: So the next record, the fourth record: apocalyptic dance party record. This won’t happen, and this will be somewhere. And I’ll look like a total idiot.

NB: Headline of Pitchfork tomorrow!

LJ: Yeah I wish they would care that much about us.

NB: Remind me to tell you about Spoonfork.

LJ: I just want to embrace more rhythmic ideas. It’s pretty, but maybe it’s a little edgier. I want your guitars to sound like Boris on top for me to sound like Miami Bass. And then you’ve got piano…I don’t know. It might be awful, but you’ve only got one life, one go-around. You’ve got to take chances.

DL: It’s evolved from just my straight reggaeton.

LJ: No offense to reggaeton people, but god it’s so repetitive. Also we don’t know what we are doing. It’s all the same beat. We tried to listen to Pandora and come up with different beats, but it’s all the same beat!

NB: Before the show, we were all talking about the internet’s role in music. There’s a danger in a few ways. A band can get over-hyped, but at the same time it’s something for bands that never would have gotten any notice at all. So I was wondering what you guys thought about how the internet plays a role for Venice is Sinking? Has it helped you guys, hurt you guys?

JS: All of this stuff is available for download on the internet illegally.

LJ: If you search “Venice is Sinking Azar” on Google probably the fifth thing down is a rapidshare. It’s a pretty good bit rate too. It’s not even an up-convert.

DL: I think it’s kind of awesome because people have our music.

JS: Yeah it’s not necessarily a negative thing.

LJ: There’s really nothing we can do about it.

DL: It’s just been very different from our last record which came out in 2006. That stuff wasn’t quite as common.

LJ: Now it’s just everywhere. There’s good things too. You can hear it on Last.fm. We have it up on iLike. iLike’s cheesy or whatever. Lala—you can listen to the whole album without paying for it. You can check it out if you want to buy it. Blogs have been really good to us with interviews and things. Stereogum premiered our video, which was great. Pitchfork, fingers crossed, will hopefully review this one. They gave the last one a 7.0. That’s a pretty great rating. I think there’s a lot of opportunity. There’s a lot of press. There’s so much other noise too. I think that’s the dark side. We’ve had more opportunities to connect with fans than before through Myspace, Facebook, all these other things. At the same time, so does everybody else. I think there is a widening of the scope of what indie-dom is and the number of bands there are, but I don’t see a lot of heightening. In fact, you can look at sales figures, and you can see that from a sales perspective sales are tanking everywhere. But, certainly, there is a better communication between the fan and the band. And the fan and press, the band and press. It’s a wash. You might get in a couple of ‘zines before the blogs, but you wouldn’t get in Spin or Rolling Stone. You’re still not going to, but you have all of these other places you can get in. Maybe ultimately it’s a gain. I wish we were more successful, but I’m sure a lot of people do. You take advantage of these opportunities. Keeping track of it is a real pain—keeping track of all of the different webthings, Myspace events, Facebook events. You do a Facebook event, and 73 people confirm. You look out at the show, and 10 of them are there. What does that mean? There’s so much noise, and a lot of it doesn’t mean anything. At first I used our Twitter as totally promotional, but I just merged it with mine. So, I talk about my cat and stuff. It doesn’t matter. It’s just content out there.

NB: The internet has also helped you guys bring out some of your music videos, as we talked about earlier, with “Ryan’s Song” on Stereogum. You guys actually won an award for one off of the last album.

LJ: “Pulaski Heights.” We are lucky to know people who do video very inexpensively and are talented. All of the credit goes to them for that. We’re not actors.

JS: And living in an artist’s town has a lot to do with that.

LJ: There is a great visual arts community as well.

NB: And then before we had the Powerpoint.

LJ: Oh, I made that one myself. Nobody’s ever watched that. I laughed my way through it, but some people thought I was being sort of serious. Some people are like “that’s really terrible.” I know. We should give that one another promotional push. I’m gonna twitter-tweet that.

NB: They are kicking us out of the Earl because of Sunday midnight rules, so we will end on everyone’s favorite cereal.

LJ: I like a lot.

DL: I don’t know that I have one, but I was just in Sweden visiting our old keyboard player, and it was kind of astounding—their grocery stores—because everything in them was completely healthy. Like, the grocery store on the corner from my house—you couldn’t buy wheat bread there. It’s all just Sunbeam white. You go to a grocery store in Sweden, and it is all heavy and dark. There’s a whole aisle in this urban grocery store that is all muesli varieties. So, I guess I’m going to go with that.

JS: I’ve been big on Raisin Bran lately.

LJ: Classic.

JS: It’s got some sweetness to it. I’m moving up from the kids’ cereal.

LJ: I have a lot. I really like Cocoa Pebbles. I grew up not eating sweet cereal, so when I have them it’s really good. I like the healthier stuff. I gotta say Life cereal is pretty much the jam. Cinnamon Life is really good. Oh’s are good, but they cut my mouth open. I know that sounds really weird. Golden Grams are real good. Cinnamon Toast Crunch is good. I don’t think Apple Jacks is that good. It seems good at the time, and then half way through the box…

JS: Same with Fruit Loops.

LJ: The semi-healthy cereals are really good. Smart Start—I’m not gonna lie. I like Grape Nuts.

DL: Didn’t you put Grape Nuts in your percussion shaker thing?

LJ: Yeah I put Grape Nuts in my shaker, and my shaker blew open.

NB: I’m glad this is relating back to music.

LJ: It blew up. All the little beadies fell out, and I needed a replacement so I put Grape Nuts in it. It just sounds dead. It’s not a good shaker anymore.

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.