He first began playing music in his younger years, starting with the clarinet in elementary school at the insistence of his parents. However, he quickly switched to the trumpet, which appealed to him namely because it only had three keys. His history with that instrument was less fleeting, spanning six years. But it was his exposure to the drums – which his music teacher let him mess around with in jazz band – that sealed his musical fate.

In the years since, Wolch has picked up other instruments – including piano and ukulele – but maintains that the drums are his first and true love.

“By far, always and forever, I’ll be a percussionist,” he said.

Although he has played the drums for more than a decade now, it wasn’t until a few years ago that Wolch began following the path of a solo artist. This decision was something that was inspired by his attitude toward music at the time.

“I get really bored, tired, of the guitar-driven band,” he shared. “That was something that like, really, got overplayed to me. Especially in the local scene. Like every band you went to watch was always, like, a three-piece. Bass, drums and guitar. And I just think that sound has been done so often…and I didn’t want to participate anymore.”

Instead, he embarked on utilizing his personal background of various musical skill-sets to create something different. And although his teenage years were spent listening to music of the indie rock persuasion, Wolch felt like embarking into the electronic territory was his way to meld what he knew with something new.

“Electronic music is really interesting ’cause you have so much control over every sound,” he said. “It’s like, really, a very limitless form of making music. And so I was really drawn to that.”

Where his live show consists of him singing, playing drums, and sometimes dabbling with other instruments, they also consist of a lot of pre-recorded music. Wolch said he does most of this writing in Logic, but also plays around with Reason and Ableton Live from time to time.

For the most part, people react positively to his music, although some have a difficult time wrapping their heads around the idea of not every aspect of a live performance being live.

“I think having the 70 percent of it be non-organic, digital, is kind of strange for a lot of people,” he said, but insisted, “it’s strange for me too.”

Yet it also is the most effective way to play. According to Wolch, as it pertains to live performances, less is more.

“I had big grand expectations in the beginning…and that totally did not work at all,” he said of his initial inclination to play as many things as possible while on stage. “[So] I tried to focus it a little more, and stick to my roots, which is the drums. I am a drummer. That’s what I care about.”

Issues of instrumentation aside, Wolch admitted that in the beginning of his solo endeavors, he also had to deal with the fact that when he was on stage, he was the center of attention. For some, this is a welcomed attention, but it was a series of trial and error before Wolch was able to figure out what to do with being in the spotlight.

“Mentally it took me a long time to be able to be OK to step on the stage as a solo dude. To, like, be able to stand up in front of people and have every single eyeball in the room, like on you, like, there’s no way to diffuse it,” he said. “So, like, to be able to be comfortable, and to like, have somewhere to go? Now you have everybody’s attention. Where do you take it? What do you do with that? And so, as soon as I kind of like, got into the zone of like, not necessarily controlling a crowd but like steering it, you know, into like, different pulses, that’s when I fully started to get [the hang of it].“

As much as he likes playing, Wolch particularly loves writing music. He is a self-described perfectionist, more so when it comes to the actual sounds contained in the music than lyrics themselves. But of course, as a solo artist, there can be a downside to even that.

“You really have nobody else to bounce things off of, You’re totally, like, stuck in your own head,” he explained.

On the flipside, he said he also enjoys the freedom of working at his own pace and making the creative decisions without having to consult others.

To date, Wolch has released two recordings – one full-length and one EP – under the Goodriddler moniker. The most recent, last year’s “The Strength of Weak Ties,” came out on Sell the Heart Records and featured four tracks that tackled the heartbreakingly wrenching and revealing.

And while there is a motivation to write as means of healing, Wolch said that dealing with such topics eventually takes a toll on him.

“As therapy I’m writing this music that is like, totally, like, about me in a bad part of my life,” he said. “And now, you’ve written that material, you need to go on the stage and share it every night with different crowds.”

Wolch shook his head to emphasize that writing about the difficult moments in life is not what he wants to do right now, although he readily admitted that it’s what seems to inspire a lot of art.

In particular, Wolch said he’s been having a lot of in-depth conversations with fellow musicians about what gets them writing. The answer of the majority?

“It’s sorrow. And like, you find those moments in your life that are the biggest, hardest moments ever, and that’s when you really can connect with people,” he said. “And, you know, I agreed with that. I wrote two records about that already. [But] at the moment, you know what? Fuck that. I think that’s totally bullshit. I think the goal of my record that I’m doing right now is to celebrate the things that I enjoy as a person. And like, the things that I enjoy are food, sex, biking, drinking, friends. And if I have those things, like, I’m like sooooo down. I’m so happy. There are songs that break it down that simply. Like, this is supposed to be fun. This is joy. That’s what’s inspiring me right now: getting through the problems that can happen.”

Additionally, he doesn’t want to be perceived or remembered as the musician playing a heavy and intense set.

“[I] don’t want to, like, bum everybody out. Like, I wanna be the band that made you, like, stomp your feet, you know? That’s kind of where I’m at right now,” he said. “I wanna reach my hands out through the speakers and grab your head and pull it back and forth.”

Goodriddler will play a show at Mama Buzz in Oakland, Calif., tomorrow night with Early & Often. The show starts at 6:30 p.m. and is all ages. It is the second date of his third West Coast tour, which will extend California and Washington.

(Originally published on Examiner.com)

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Earlier this month, the band released “Tunnel Blanket,” on Suicide Squeeze. The album’s eight tracks, which span the course of an hour, combine to create something less forthright in predictability than preceding releases. However, the overall sound is much more elaborate and complex, with a larger focus on layering ambient and drone noises.

“I think this album is heavier than anything the band has done before. I think it’s an album that…we’re all the most proud of,” bassist Donovan Jones said.

He explained that 2006’s “Young Mountain” was a somewhat embarrassing demo debut, and 2008’s self-titled was far too straightforward, compared to the music the group is making now.

“There were a lot more ambient pieces in there, and just different ways to develop songs, but you could still hear the guitar in the forefront,” he said of the first studio album. “It still sounded like, you know, guitar music. But with the new album, we tried to make every chord and every note really dense and have texture…you can’t tell what’s a guitar, what’s vocals, or, you know, what’s harmonium.”

Instead, the band focused on creating a more multifaceted, intricate musical landscape.

“Sometimes it can be hard if we have a lot of ideas that we all want to have happen in a song, but you know, once there’s a theme that we build around, it usually comes together pretty quickly,” Jones said. “On some of the songs on the new album, we wrote them and then we re-wrote them and then we re-mixed them, and then we re-wrote the re-mix, so it was a lot of like overlapping lines.”

Overall though, those multiple ideas building on one another is what seemed to naturally drive the album in the direction it went.

“I feel like we took a classical approach to it,” Jones explained. “We didn’t really care about having to have a guitar riff to write around. We were just writing around, like, drone loops. Just sitting there listening to pulses for like, 10 minutes, until the music kind of came out.”

And while this specified attention to sound may be seen as a next step in the progression of a band’s sound, the reason behind this distinct change in the method of songwriting isn’t entirely arbitrary. In the time This Will Destroy You wrote the songs for “Tunnel Blanket,” all the members experienced the death of friends, family members and pets. To dismiss these difficult experiences would be to dismiss much of the inspiration behind the album.

“It was just like a big shitpile of things falling on us, so we wrote a dark record,” Jones said. “It’s kinda angry, and it’s supposed to sound, you know, uncomfortable at times.”

As for the actual writing and recording processes, the members definitely felt the emotional heaviness of the songs and the events that inspired them, sometimes more strongly than at other times.

Jones said that in particular, listening to the mixes of songs was rough for him.

“Once it’s there and it exists, then you have to listen to it,” he said. “And, I mean, there would be times when I would just be like, checking mixes, and I’d just be bawling while listening to, like, certain songs.”

Yet since a year has passed from when the album was being recorded, Jones also admitted that playing the songs on the road has given the band time for them to get used to the music and find new ways of reacting to and interacting with it.

“It’s still depressing and uplifting to me at the same time,” he said. “ [But] any really deep emotion that I’ve felt in the past listening to this music is just kind of, like a, it’s more of memory now than a reality.”

Indeed, playing songs live over and over again lessened the gravity of emotions packed into “Tunnel Blanket,” but the live experience itself is still a force to be reckoned with.

“The live songs are much heavier than they sound on the record because we play really fucking loud,” Jones said.

In fact, during a live set, the band relies upon samples from the album – such as the string instruments and sub-bass – to fill in the gaps where there are no musicians, which only adds to the texture of the sound. However, Jones said that future shows might see the band venturing into more experimental and improvisational territory.

“[Right now], it’s a big ol’ soundscape soap opera,” he said with a laugh.

This Will Destroy You plays The Independent in San Francisco tomorrow night with Pure X and SLEEP OVER. The 21+ show begins at 8 p.m., with tickets selling for $12.

(Originally published on Examiner.com)

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awake in overlapping time zones,
a quotidian existence of

talking to yourself, a dialogue
of german neuland inline, over
dinner for one and
chain-smoking perique.

a second-story space
feeling the restlessness of
[lack]

you admit you miss
this:

a pastime of two with

subtle intimacies
where
you are penetrating me.

but
we are
not
fucking.

<<

Out on the streets of North Beach, he begins to talk about the various aspects of being in the U.S. – this is only the second North American tour for the band.

“The negative is the coffee,” he said. “I mean, that’s why I walked to the Italian district today…’cause [coffee] makes my day about 80 percent better.”

For all intents and purposes, Blumberg and company hail from the UK. However, his cell phone boasts an arbitrary area code from somewhere in Washington State, something he attributes to being given a random mobile with free minutes on it while at SXSW last month.

The appearance in Texas was the band’s first at the festival, and served to break up the time period between the two U.S. tours – the first of which took place during January and February. Afterward, in March and early April, Blumberg’s solo project of sorts, a bass, piano and vocal-laden outfit known simply as Oupa, also played a handful of shows on both sides of the Atlantic.

Although Yuck has only been together since 2009, critics of the band often like to bring up the fact that Blumberg and guitarist Max Bloom were in a band together, prior to forming Yuck. However Blumberg dismisses that as being somewhat irrelevant to the music he is making now.

“Creatively that was a long, long time ago,” he said, adding that he and Bloom weren’t responsible for writing the songs. “For me, it’s like a world away.”

Yuck’s self-titled debut album, which came out in February, has been receiving rave reviews for its combination of fuzzy guitar pop and warm, distorted vocals. The apparent point toward a lo-fi shoegaze influence is also there, a sound which the band never set out to capture intentionally, and, in fact, remains rather true to its initial sound.

“When we started the band we were recording constantly,” Blumberg said.

Yuck documented every new idea and song, and because “some rubbish digital 8-track” was what the band had at its disposal, that’s what was used to record. Two of those original recordings, done with an electric drum kit, made it to the record, while others were simply redone with live drums. But all of them were authentic.

Where a follow-up album is concerned, Blumberg shared that it’s unlikely the band will use the same approach as it did with the first album, and may or may not bring in an outside producer.

“If there’s someone we really wanna work with, then we’ll try and work with them,” he said. “Otherwise we’ll just do it ourselves. Maybe not the same. I mean it was a weird way of recording. I wouldn’t really recommend it. It was quite impractical.”

Of course, new methods of recording may produce a new, unintentional shift in sound for the band, but that’s yet to be determined.

As for what aspect of being in a band – writing, recording, performing – is Blumberg’s favorite, he was relatively non-committal, rationalizing that all of those aspects make it worthwhile for him, and that the band members’ “whole lives are based around that.”

“It’s really exciting when you finish a song,” he said. “Recording it is really exciting, and then the short window when you play it live the first few times, that’s pretty much the most exciting part of being in a band.”

Included in that is the idea that there are pros and cons to being in those different spaces that allow the band to write, record and perform. Additionally, Blumberg made reference to being in a band as creating a sort of dichotomy between his life at home and his life on the road.

“It’s difficult ‘cause your perspective is weird,” he said, of being in the two different places. “On tour we’re going out every night basically…whereas at home I live on my own and I’m really productive and I don’t really go out too much.”

Instead, he prefers to write, or listen to records. Yet at the same time, touring affords Blumberg time to pursue other interests. For example, when the band is driving and spending eight hours in a van, Blumberg is able to do a lot of reading, something he said will take the back burner at home when he has other ideas or projects swirling in his mind.

This also feeds into the part of his personality that functions as an obsessive consumer, in which he strives to devour every bit of information about a certain artist or author or hobby.

“There’s so many things I would love to do,” he explained, citing fishing as one example. “But you just really have to make an effort to focus on the things that you really love because otherwise you’ll feel just completely overwhelmed.”

And for Blumberg and his four fellow bandmates, that thing is music.

Yuck plays tonight at the Fillmore in San Francisco, opening for Tame Impala at 8 p.m.

(Originally published on Examiner.com)

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Weinbach, now 28, first began playing the guitar at 18. Although she spent her younger years learning piano from her mother and admitted to having been a singer since she took her first shower, Weinbach never seriously pursued music prior to picking up the guitar.

After taking a pop guitar class at a community college, her professor encouraged her to take up classical guitar, which she spent the next seven years learning.

However, her decision to continue the study in university was met with discouraging remarks. In particular, she was informed straight away that her technique was entirely wrong.

Rather than admit defeat, this merely caused her to shift focus.

“I didn’t care enough to carry on with classical music,” she shared, and thus went on to pursue other musical avenues.

In fact, it was her decision to leave classical music behind and take a jazz improvisation class that equipped Weinbach with the confidence to pursue writing her own music. And now, years later, that path has led up to the release of “The Bread and the Bait,” a collection of 11 finely crafted songs, each one relying equally upon fervent orchestrations as much as thoughtful lyrics to tell a story.

Although the album was released on Antenna Farm Records on Tuesday, the recording process first began two years ago, with David Reep of Third Culture Records at the production helm.

“It took about a year to make and a year to be released,” Weinbach said. “[And he] definitely made the whole thing happen.”

The process itself was definitely a huge learning experience for Weinbach, who was admittedly very green going into it.

“It was my first time really being in a professional studio, and so in that way it was actually pretty intimidating,” she said. “It was a mixture of really great groundbreaking moments and also kind of heart wrenching ones.”

Yet in the time between recording and releasing her debut album, Weinbach refused to remain complacent in her musicianship, which is how she became interested in busking on the street.

After prior unsuccessful attempts at playing, sans amplification, band member Anton Patzner suggested one day that they give it another go. Weinbach was reluctant, but agreed, and was surprised when they made $30 in just one hour.

“But I still wasn’t ready to quit my day job,” admitted the former substitute teacher.

Shortly after, Weinbach and Patzner encountered musician Steve Taylor at a party, and he told them he makes his living playing on the street. However, he said using an amp would make all the difference. Patzner then told Weinbach he would buy her an amp if she promised to use it, a promise she all too readily agreed to.

In the three months that followed, Weinbach approached busking methodically, first scoping out potential locations, then making maps and charts and documenting where she played, during what hours and how much she made.

Of course, this process wasn’t without its difficulties, but before too long, the process of trial and error began paying off.

Two years later, and now Weinbach typically only plays on the weekends. She can be found playing in Berkeley, Calif., either on 4th street or outside the Farmer’s Market, the latter of which she likened to playing a small festival, where people will come to hang out and listen.

“Those [weekend gigs] are great and they pretty much pay my bills,” Weinbach shared.

While she appreciates the spontaneity and unpredictability of playing on the street, Weinbach also shared that she loves performing in legitimate venues, citing that the selling point for each kind of performance is different.

“There is something about being on the street and playing to people who don’t expect it, and it being magical in that way, and once in awhile there will be that really quiet moment on the street where everybody seems to be tuned in,” she said. “But at the shows it is more of a controlled atmosphere.”

The intimacy of a venue performance is deliberate, with Weinbach preferring the audience to be seated, in hopes of connecting with people, instead of playing to a room of people who are distracted, or talking, or milling around.

And adding to that kind of environment, Weinbach prefers to take more of what she terms a Buddhist approach to playing live.

“The best way to go about it is to just think about perfecting the sound, and not think about yourself, but like, devote yourself to the sound of the music,” she said.

Foxtails Brigade plays its CD release show at the Swedish American Music Hall tomorrow at 8 p.m. Rachel Fannan, formerly of Sleepy Sun, supports. In addition the to musical acts, a comedy show and fashion show will take place. Tickets are $15/$10 and the event is all ages.

(Originally published on Examiner.com)

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And now, one year and one day after its debut album, “Weathervanes,” was released, the New York-based quintet is back on the road for one last go at it, before work on a follow-up album begins.

Although the band officially began its tour in Washington on Saturday, the group set out five days prior in its van.

“We’re taking this as an opportunity to, you know, just have this kind of crazy marathon across the country,” lead singer Judah Dadone shared.

Once in Washington, the members met up with co-headliners, Foals, who had flown in from the UK. As for what co-headlining means exactly, Dadone explained that it’s a term that essentially puts the two bands sharing the bill on the same level.

“Really it doesn’t mean that much, except like, we get to play the same amount of time,” he said. “Whoever’s headlining, it’s their show. So it’s kind of an homage to both of your shows.”

He did admit that they also had a friendly competition about it.

“There was some Roshambo-ing across the Atlantic Ocean [before we met],” he said laughing.

While the North American tour hits major cities all over, Dadone said the band is perhaps most excited about playing a set at Coachella this year.

“We did get a first taste of American festivals last summer,” he said referencing having played Sasquatch, Lollapalooza and Outside Lands. “We really really figured what that’s all about. And that is a great way to break up a tour, and so now we’ve kind of developed a taste for it and we want more.”

He cited the best part of it as being able to see other bands, relax for a few days, and ultimately, “[mix] business and pleasure.”

This tour will serve as yet another notch on the band’s touring belt, and Dadone said in order to keep things fresh for audiences who have seen the band multiple times, they like to make certain their songs change a bit between every time they play the same city.

“We just can’t play them over and over the exact same way, so we try to find ways for ourselves to keep them evolving,” he explained. “[Our songs] are always kind of living and breathing and changing.”

This is evident in the very core of the philosophy of Freelance Whales, which got its start playing in subways and on the corner of 1st Avenue and Houston Street in New York.

Dadone said the band’s aim in those initial sporadic performances was twofold: to expose people to new music, but also to work on both playing around with arrangements of and tightening the songs.

“There’s still real value in doing that,” he said of future excursions to street corners. “It’s totally an option. I think right now we don’t do it because we feel redundant.”

He elaborated, saying that the band wants to write additional songs and have more time off the road to feel like it’s qualified to do more busking.

And where the songwriting is concerned, although the band doesn’t need to be in a particular place to write new music, the members definitely like to have a lot of instruments and other gear at their disposal to enable the process. This also allows them to make rough mixes or track ideas as they arise, as opposed to writing them down and saving them for another time.

“We’ve been so focused on just, like, doing what we’re doing out on the road, that like, working on new material has never seemed, like, really approachable,” Dadone said.

Bearing that in mind, on this tour the band decided to put forth more of a conscious effort than in the past to work on songs, simply because – with a sophomore release looming on the horizon – the ideas are a lot fresher right now.

“We’re kind of theorizing what a second record could really be about and what the views can be and what specific ideas can be,” Dadone said. “Now some of those ideas are starting to kind of become less blurry and more in focus.”

That said, as soon as the Freelance Whales return home from tour, the game plan is to hole up and work on songs for a couple months. Also high on the list is the desire to spend time with friends and family in New York.

“I think what makes it the hardest is probably…just the personal sort of tension of, like, having and loving people at home and…sort of having so many things pulling you to different parts of the country and different parts of the world but also pulling you back home,” he shared. “[But] I think, like, ultimately like, that’s like a really lovely sort of tension.”

Dadone’s positive spin is that, in spite of the difficulty of being in demand as musicians and as people, it’s probably more of a good thing than a bad one.

“You want to feel like you’re suffering from too many passions and not too few,” he said.

Freelance Whales co-headlines a sold out show at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco tonight with Foals. Opening for the bands will be The Naked & Famous. The show begins at 8 p.m.

(Originally published on Examiner.com)

<<

So you’re setting out on the road to tour with Freelance Whales. What exactly does “co-headline” mean? Will you be switching up the headliner on a nightly basis? Do you share the stage, taking turns after every song? Is it like a live battle on stage where you have a “song off”? Will it be a live mash-up experience? And what (or where) are you most excited about with this upcoming tour?

Co-headline means, I think, that we’re not allowed to argue about who’s the more important band. They’ll know soon enough, though. It’ll be obvious, just by the way we swagger around our cavernous individual backstage rooms, freshly squeezed OJs in hand. We are releasing a split 7″ together, so I suppose the next step could well be a live collaboration. Freelance foals…? Freelance fails, more like.

What can fans expect from your live show? How much do you rely upon things like programmed beats, loops, pedals, et cetera? And how do you feel about programs like Ableton Live, which are geared toward being integrated into and used during live performances?

We’re pretty militant about keeping it live, for better or worse. We’re proud of our mistakes and our tuneless warbling (I’m not just talking about the vocals). It’s also really important for us to be able to improvise and jam aimlessly between songs. We’ve seen so many bands (many that we love) rely on backing tracks in various ways, using it as a security blanket, and it limits and to some extent debases the potential of live music. It seems to be a kind of default setting now for a lot of bigger touring bands, keen to sound as polished as possible on festival PAs. Good for them, I guess.

Obviously a program like Ableton live is an exciting creative tool, and it’d be foolish of us to dismiss it entirely. Truth be told, we’ve never really looked into incorporating it. There [are] five of us on stage, you know, and the main problem that we seek to address is that we play too much and make too much noise. The last thing we need is another instrument.

Anyway, we use some drum triggers, and I think in the future we’ll be using some samplers and sequencers, possibly through laptops. But Jack’s never going to be to a click and we’re never going to have any kind of backing track.

When will you stop and set aside time to work on your next album? Have you even thought about a musical direction for that? “Antidotes” was a very catchy, danceable math rock-esque debut, and “Total Life Forever” is admittedly much more atmospheric in sound and less “surface level”… so where will this third album fall in the sound spectrum? Which I guess really begs the question about intention when you set about to write a new album: is there an agreed upon sound or direction? Or, much like songs evolve between the recording studio and the live performance, do you just start writing with no predetermined idea and what comes out is what comes out?

We spent some time in Sydney in January demoing, and in the last few weeks off in Oxford we’ve been writing as well. We’ve got a new studio all to [ourselves] that we’re fixing up and the aim is to write over the summer and autumn with a view to finishing something next year. In theory, the musical direction will make itself clear after a while. We’re keen to keep the process intuitive, with, as you say, [no] predetermined ideas. The most important decision we need to make is which producer we’re going to work with, as that will stamp a clear identity on the record.

In that same vein, how have you seen yourselves transforms as musicians? Of course, it doesn’t always happen in ways that you notice, but when you look at yourselves as the band you were when you first started playing together compared to the place you’re at right now, what is most noticeable, or startling, or surprising?

Probably that Yannis sings rather than shouts, and that we’ve more or less reneged on every principle that we formed the band with: i.e. no chords, no reverb, meticulous and obsessional structuring, et cetera. It’s only for the best. And I think it’s fair to say that everyone is pleasantly surprised at how Jimmy has come out of his shell and is becoming a song-writing powerhouse.

How do you feel music should be experienced (ideally anyway)? More specifically, your own music: Is it more of a thorough art, where albums should be listened to in whole, from beginning to end, perhaps viewed on some sort of conceptual level? Or considering the immediate accessibility of music today and the idea of downloading an individual song or putting it on a playlist as opposed to being concerned with complete albums… do you think that it’s more important to view things on a more micro level?

Music should be experienced any which way a person wants to experience it. I’m not fussed by the decline of the album – it only appeared in the 1960s, anyway, and there’s been a whole lot of terrible ones since then… I’d hope that our music can be enjoyed both in the album-format that we spent blood and tears creating, but also shuffled up as individual songs. If people want to listen to our music on youTube on their iPads while travelling to work on a Segway that’s fine by me. Good luck to them in love and life.

What do you think about the authenticity of the music experience? When a song is originally written and then later the band goes on to record it or even play it live, do you feel that it cheapens or distorts the original meaning? Or do you feel instead that each subsequent listen, take, variation is organic and multi-level and part of the process of what it means to perform a song – with the music reinventing itself every time?

It’d be pretty crazy to hold the former opinion, wouldn’t it? In our experience, the recorded version of a song is way down the line from its original incarnation – which only really existed in [our] heads the first few times we jammed it out. It’s the feeling of unlimited potential during the initial creative burst that needs to be captured in the studio, and I have no real idea how to do that. I guess that’s what makes a great producer. We had some good reinventions on “Total Life Forever” – songs that had morphed way beyond what they were in our little basement in Oxford but that had found a new energy.

As musicians, what do you value more: the written recorded songs in a tangible format that can exist in a person’s home, or the experience of playing them live to a room or stadium full of people? And taking yourselves out of the role of performers and just acting as consumers of music, does that change what you’re more interested in?

It’s so easy to say “both,” but I’m gonna go with it. But which do we enjoy more? Playing live is easier and more viscerally enjoyable. There’s [instant] feedback from hundreds if not thousands of people, and there’s never any reason to dwell on shortcomings. But the studio is more challenging and much more of an artistic obsession. We get so stressed in the studio, and we all have crazy ups and downs. There [are] days where you convince yourself that you’re gonna give it all up and go study law instead. Weeks, in fact. We’re moody bastards, basically, but it seems to go hand-in-hand with the creative drive. After we finished “Total Life Forever” we all seriously thought that we’d blown it and that it was all over. Most of us couldn’t even bring ourselves to listen to the record for months afterwards. But, well… that’s faded. And the artistic success of that record has buoyed us all up over the last year, and will probably continue to do so while we write the next one.

What are the most challenging or difficult things about what you do? On the flipside, what are the most rewarding or worthwhile aspects?

Er. Being away from home for months on end is an obvious challenge. Most of us are in long-term relationships and I think it’s fair to say our respective partners are thoroughly over this lifestyle. But I’m in no hurry to stop touring. Travelling around North America is as exciting as it was the first time. Admittedly, I can’t say the same thing about Northern Europe, but… hey, they do good cheese. Generally speaking, we have varying opinions on how rewarding touring is, but I’d say its difficult aspects are made considerably worse by relentless self-abuse.

The most rewarding aspect? Certainly not the elusive $$$s. I’d say that the band provides a kind of emotional safety net for us. We definitely wouldn’t know what else to do with our lives. And of course we get to see the world. I’d only been on a plane once before we started touring, and now I think of them like very fast buses. So that’s good.

Foals co-headlines a sold out show at the Great American Music Hall in San Francisco tomorrow night with Freelance Whales. Opening for the bands will be The Naked & Famous. The show begins at 8 p.m.

(Originally published on Examiner.com)

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Now, with the pending release of the fifth YACHT album, “Shangri-La,” members Jona Bechtolt and Claire Evans feel they’ve finally arrived somewhere. Exactly where that somewhere is, is perhaps more abstract than tangible, but regardless the two feel as though wherever or whatever it is, it’s profound.

“It’s like the most current version of what we are,” Evans said, pointing to the new album as evidence of YACHT’s evolution.

The two insisted that how they got from Point A to Point B was mostly a combination of trial and error, with each successive moment taking them one step closer to realizing something new about themselves and ultimately changing their point of view.

“There was a deliberate choice to make something new,” Bechtolt said of their approach to “Shangri-La.” “[But] it was organic in a way that…it’s the same governing theory.”

This mindset applies not only to the songwriting process, but the actual growth of the songs themselves. In part, this is why YACHT prefers to tour before an album is released, testing out the songs on the audience.

“That’s something we’ve always done,” Bechtolt said. “We don’t feel that when a song is recorded that it’s…over.”

Instead, he said that when playing them to live audiences, these songs take on lives of their own. And although sometimes it results in the band becoming dissatisfied with the recorded versions of songs, part of the YACHT philosophy focuses on the necessity of that process in order to keep things interesting and remain inspired.

“That’s what art is all about,” Evans said. “You make something and you get a certain amount of satisfaction of creation.”

YACHT is speaking to the idea that things are always being yet always becoming. As artists, musicians and people, Bechtolt and Evans work to push up against conventional notions of what language and existence truly mean.

Yet more than anything, the two value the experience of traveling to different places and seeing firsthand how people are affected by the music. In fact, that personal connection is what justifies their work and makes it worthwhile.

And while all the hard work combined with an oft-unglamorous life on the road can make for an exhausting combination, both Bechtolt and Evans take care to keep things in perspective.

“There are a lot of things that are dismal about being an artist or being a traveling musician…there [are] many things that are difficult about our lives, but there’s nothing truly hard,” Evans said. “We’re both just so grateful…we don’t take it for granted at all.”

YACHT kicks off its month-long North American tour at Bimbo’s 365 in San Francisco on Wednesday evening, backed by its live band, The Straight Gaze. Band member and solo artist Bobby Birdman supports. Tickets are $18/$20 and the show begins at 8 p.m.

(Originally published on Examiner.com)

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The barkeep, concentration broken, looked up from the spot he was cleaning. A man of few words, he nodded and made his way over, reaching up behind the bar for a clear glass bottle filled with liquid the colour of Russet potato skins.

It was the middle of the afternoon on a Tuesday, and I was already four shots of bourbon deep. Maybe five. I’d lost track in the forty-five minutes I’d been sitting there.

Behind me, I heard someone speak up. I didn’t even glance behind me to know who it was.

“You look like shit.”

It was James.

“I’ve been expecting you,” I said dryly.

“Whaddaya got there?” he asked as he sat on the wooden stool next to mine.

“Wild Turkey? Maker’s?”

“Bulleit.”

“Wowee,” he exclaimed. “You’ve graduated.”

“That’s one way of looking at it.” I paused, taking a deep breath. “So you heard?”

“About the breakup? Yes. Are you…”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

James rolled his eyes.

“What do you want then?”

“I want. To die.”

“Stop being so dramatic,” he shot back.

“Easy for you to say. Not to sound like a cliché, but your little sister just ripped my heart out and stomped on it with her patent leather spiked heels. You know, the ones that make her look like a vintage hooker.”

“Watch it,” James warned under his breath. Raising an eyebrow, he looked over at me. “But, it’s not like you didn’t expect it though, right?”

Now it was my turn to look at him with surprise.

“What do you mean?” I started to ask.

“Nevermind,” he said.

I wanted to ask more but instead turned my attention to the glass in front of me. Getting answers wouldn’t change anything, and we both knew that.

“Let’s get out of here,” he suggested. “I’ll take you home.”

“No way. I can’t go there. I can’t be alone.”

“Then, I don’t know, fuck, let’s go for a drive. Anywhere you want.”

“I want to stay right here, thankyouverymuch,” I replied, shooting the whole glass.

“You can’t stay here all night and drink.”

“Says who?”

James reached into his back pocket and retrieved his wallet, pulling out a twenty and a ten and placing them on the bar. Tapping twice. The bartender looked up and nodded once again, walking over to collect the bills.

“Afternoon,” James said, pretending to tip a hat. He put his arm around me, grabbing my right shoulder, and steered me through the door.

Outside on the sidewalk, the brightness of the 3 p.m. sun took me by surprise. Reaching for my sunglasses, which were hung on the v-neck of my shirt, I fumbled with the arms, all the while squinting, until I managed to put them on. Glare out of my eyes, I looked up and realized James was already halfway down the block. I began following him, tripping on a raised portion of cement before regaining my stride.

By the time I made it to his baby blue sedan, he was already in the driver’s seat, engine running.

“Hop in,” he said.

I opened the door and sat down on the cloth bucket seat. Closing the door, I reached for my seatbelt. James turned left down the main drag in town.

“I’ve got something that will cheer you up,” he said.

As he spoke, his left hand struggled to, at once, hold onto a smoldering cigarette and maintain control of the wheel. Meanwhile, his right hand was stretched behind him, rifling through the mess of papers, clothes and discarded soda bottles in the backseat.

I was just about to object with a hyperbolic claim that nothing could put me out of my misery except for maybe an eight ball when he let out a triumphant cry.

I rolled my eyes as he extended his hand toward me. Still, my curiosity got the best of me, and I glanced at the rectangular plastic case sitting on his upward palm.

“A tape?” I asked incredulously. “What is this, 1995? Are we going to listen to the Forrest Gump soundtrack?”

“No, you dumbass,” he shot back. “It’s Beck. But you’re close. Mellow Gold, 1994.”

“Dude, who listens to Beck anymore? He’s a whacked-out Scientologist, like Travolta. Or worse, Cruise.” I sighed deeply. “Sooooo irrelevant.”

He didn’t respond, so I took the case from him and examined the crack across the front, then opened it, the hinge making a slight squeaking sound. Removing the cassette from inside, I popped it into the tape deck.

James passed the cigarette over to me. I inhaled deeply, just as the familiar sound of a sitar riff began playing through the speakers. Choking on smoke, I let out a laugh as I tossed a sideways glance across the car.

That fucker was right. In fact, he was spot on.

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“Actually, we met on the Internet,” lead singer and guitarist Benedikt Schmitz said. “It took a few tries to get the right band constellation.”

An ambitiously outgoing individual, Schmitz (who used to be a polar bear) is the perfect frontman material. His command of English is remarkable and his overly genial front is far from apologetic.

After moving to Cologne two years ago from a town he claimed no one is likely to know, Schmitz – who didn’t want to attempt the long-distance band relationship – quit his former band and set about to find a new one. After posting on the website for a music store for bandmates, he began receiving replies.

“One of the first people who I got my attention of was Paul (Möltgen),” he said.

Möltgen, who is as tall as he is striking, appears to serve as the realistic and sometimes stubborn voice of the band. Case in point: when he doesn’t like the direction a song is going, he will quit playing.

“We met up in the city and we played some songs and [Möltgen] pretended to like them,” Schmitz said. “And so I thought, ‘yeah, he’s a cool guy.’”

The two of them ended up cycling through two drummers before ending up with Sascha Moecker, a native of Düsseldorf and the jokester of the band. Although he confided he never learned how to play the drums properly, Moecker is an expert at channeling his energy into his instrument, with a dynamic personality that is evident even behind the kit.

Once he joined, the only thing seemingly missing was a keyboard player, which came to the three in the form of the soft-spoken Alessandro Famà. While he is admittedly the shy, somewhat mysterious member of the band, the music seems to make him more of an extrovert.

After playing together for only three months, the Paper Queens recorded their first EP, “The Pros and Cons of Being in Love,” which was released in July of 2009.

The five-song release, which was for sale at shows, came with a price tag of one euro, because the band felt that making its music available to a wider audience for a low cost was a higher priority than profiting off of it.

“The most important thing for us is that people listen to the music…and enjoy the music,” Schmitz said.

In fact, playing live is, across the board, the favorite part for all the members.

“It’s a really good feeling people to be on stage and see the people enjoying your music,” Schmitz explained. “If you just record an album or an EP, you don’t see the reaction of people.”

In spite of being a German band, Schmitz pens his lyrics in English, citing the German audiences as particularly quick to criticize musicians who sing in their native tongue, unless the lyrics are perfect and do something new or interesting.

“They understand every word, and it has to have a sense, what we are singing,” Moecker explained.

Having the distance of translation takes away that extra burden for Schmitz.

“I think if you sing in German, the people compare you more to other bands and then they judge you more than they do when you sing in English,” he said. “If we can sing in English, it doesn’t have to make sense.”

Just last month, the Paper Queens came out with a second EP, “Atlantic,” released on Feb. 25. Schmitz hinted at the fact that “Atlantic” is a more accurate representation of the band’s sound than its first release was.

“For the new EP, we were thinking about what we did. We didn’t do that with the first EP,” he shared.

Instead of rushing to put it out, the Paper Queens dedicated more time and attention into the actual songwriting process. Naturally, having played together for a longer amount of time, the members have figured out their individual idiosyncrasies and determined how to make them work together.

“Normally somebody gets an idea, maybe on the bass or on the guitar, and then the one presents it and…we just work on it,” Möltgen said.

While the members don’t necessarily share the same musical vision or likes, this is more of an asset than a drawback, because it keeps them honest with one another.

Even as the primary songwriter, Schmitz admitted that there have been a few times he’s had song ideas shot down by the band members. Yet he’s quick to point out that it doesn’t hurt his feelings; instead, he tends to appreciate those critical moments.

“Sometimes I write a song and it’s really really important for me, like the lyrics and everything about it,” he said. “And I never have the case that one of these songs, I play them to the others, and they were like ‘No, that’s really bullshit.’”

Still, there is the chance that they can be misinterpreted.

“Everybody gets different feelings from the songs,” Schmitz said. “Since I am the one that writes the lyrics, I draw more attention to the lyrics and everybody draws more attention to the thing that he is playing.”

He referenced the song “Measurements,” off the new EP, as an example.

“I think it’s the most honest and sad song I ever wrote,” he said.

Yet when he brought it to the band, Möltgen’s take on it was that it was more “fun and dance-y” than the other three (and-a-half) on the EP, because he was paying more attention to the sound than the meaning.

However, as lyricist, meaning is something that is at the forefront of Schmitz’s songwriting process, where the other members aren’t as preoccupied with the lyrical content.

“I just get things on my mind and I get the feeling that I really have to write about that, and sometimes I just write and then it’s less important,” he said, referencing the oft cathartic nature of songwriting.

Other times he feels compelled to write songs for no reason other than he keeps thinking about them.

“Sometimes I get an idea and it doesn’t get out of my mind and I really have to write it down,” he said, adding that, “I always get the best inspiration in the shower. I don’t even sing in the shower.”

When they’re not playing music together, each of the members has either work or school (or both) keeping them busy. Both Famà and Moecker study; the former (also the youngest of the four) is finishing high school while the latter is studying electrical engineering. Möltgen has an apprenticeship and Schmitz is doing a graphic design internship, as well as working as a barkeep at Cologne’s Live Music Hall.

“We’re always broke,” Schmitz said, referring having to work instead of being able to dedicate themselves full-time to music.

Moecker agreed.

“The worst part is that we [don’t] get paid for it,” he said.

Still, that doesn’t stop them from doing what they love. And with a membership that is earnest, songs that are heartfelt and members who don’t take themselves too seriously, the Paper Queens hopefully have a long road ahead of them.

(Originally published on Examiner.com)

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