Smith Westerns Interview Summer 2009

One of the reasons Tally Ho! began, apart from the awe-inspiring vanity and delusions of those involved, was to champion the marginalised and the under-exposed. Those artists working individually or collectively, way over in the corner of love. The purpose being, to try to bring them some deserved recognition and perhaps remove the smokescreen a little.

With this in mind, may I present forth the Smith Westerns…a young US group that seem to effortlessly conjure up all that is great and good about pop music past and present. With their cloudy Wall of Sound production values and vocals that you can’t understand, but need to chant along to anyway, they’re just too easy to fall for.

Not being one to shy away from a ‘musicrush’ I fell fast and hard. What followed was a conversation with main man Cullen, firmly routed in the eye of the storm as they ready themselves for the release of their debut long player. The idea was to make this a feature, but I think the answers speak for themselves pretty well and don’t deserve to be messed with or paraphrased by some half trained hack…enjoy.

Here in the UK, we’re still being kept very much in the dark when it comes to Smith Westerns….could you introduce yourselves for the uninitiated?

Cullen: Yeah. For sure. I’m Cullen and I play guitar and do the lead vocal, my brother Cameron plays bass, Max plays lead guitar and sings as well, and Hal plays drums live with us. We are all about 18 years old give or take my brother who is 17. We live in Chicago and started making music when we were 15 and 16. We are also affectionately known as the S Dubz for short.

How did you guys get together? Was it the classic case of, ‘We’re young, we’re bored, we like music, let’s make some’?

C: That definitely had something to do with it. We all went to high school together with the exception of Hal who started playing with us later. I think we were all really disenchanted with the options available to you in high school: like it was either be a douche jock/bro, a loser, or an art kid. We were more of the latter, and we all started buying a lot records and getting into some good music. I think we wanted to try to recreate what we had been listening to and music was like the only thing we had total control over.

Was it easy to get gigs around Chicago when you first started out? In most cities it’s easy to get trapped into becoming a jobbing band in your local scene, certainly here in London many bands have reached local hero status and then been practically ignored when they’ve tried to tour other parts of the country. How do you avoid that?

C: It was fairly easy to get shows in Chicago just because Todd Killings of Hozac Records was and still is very much behind us. The problem is that people in Chicago are fucking idiots.

The bands that get the best bills, like the ones that have the bigger touring bands, are the ones that are friends with the venues and the promoters. Which is why I think no one gives a shit about Chicago music because you never see the good bands (are there any?). Only bands made up of members of promoters friends that fucking suck and who make just the lamest/tired music possible.

Also there is a lot of bullshit cock sucking amongst all these terrible Chicago bands. One guy writes for this pseudo publication of Chicago culture and essentially just writes up his friends’ bands. Bands that fucking suck get all this hype! We don’t get much press here but the people who stumble into us usually like it. We gave up consistently trying to get actual gigs because I don’t like the people we are playing to.

Now we mainly play house shows to all the various college kids who attend Chicago schools like U of C and School of The Art Institute. So, I think to answer your question, we are probably liked more outside of Chicago, and our scene is so fucking lame/retarded we just skirt around it.

You started pretty young, but judging by your MySpace, your sound seems to have moved on quite a bit since the first 7inch…have you found your stride or do you think you’ll keep on evolving with each release?

C: Oh yeah. We recorded that 7inch when we were all 15 and 16. None of us knew how to play our instruments except for Max. We’re kind of embarrassed about it just because it’s the furthest thing from what we play now. I think we have definitely found a niche of where we are making music that kind of incorporates all our current and past influences. I mean as a band we agreed on trying to evolve because we don’t want to be pigeonholed as any one sound. The songs just need to be good and new, which doesn’t require a certain sound: at least not for us.

What inspires you to keep making music?

C: The status quo of the music scene in Chicago and in general. The bands that get the most press either here in Chicago or in the scene at large usually don’t deserve it. The prospect of not having to work if we keep pushing to make music, and the possibility that one day girls will want to fuck us after we play a show. Also the free drugs and beer are ALWAYS great.

Plus no current bands really make the music we want to hear. Yeah sure a couple songs, but I can’t say I can listen to a current record and tell you every song is good and original.

You’ve avoided with aplomb, becoming just another reverential psych rock band, some of the songs we’ve heard so far betray influences from Glam to wild Cajun/Country and Post Punk…do you think wearing your influences on your sleeve comes with the territory of being a young band?

C: Yes! I mean I was watching this documentary on E! (lets assume Cullen means the TV channel, E! not that he was on mind bending drugs when he was watching it, although...) about Ozzy Osbourne and he was talking about Sabbath and said something like every band’s first album is the best because they have nothing to lose.

We don’t have a stubborn fan base or a big label deal. So we can only go up. The thing about our new album is that we tried to make every song sound different while sounding cohesive of Smith Westerns. That’s why you hear the influences because I feel like if each song has different influences it starts lending to building a sound that is total Smith Westerns.

I recently came across a rather awesome mimed performance on Chic-a-go-go, a local cable show. To an outsider it looks like a messed up, punk Sesame Street, but judging by the quality and quantity of bands that have performed on there, it must be something of a Chicago institution?

C: I actually hadn’t heard about it until I saw our best bud Nobunny performing on it. But yeah it’s really kitsch and I actually think more people outside of Chicago like it because I always get compliments about it from people not from Chicago.

How did that performance come about?

C: Todd Killings got us the hook-up, and Chic-a-go-go sent us a message and asked us to play. We were down.

Was it as fun as it looks?!

C: It was kind of awkward because first and foremost it’s a kid show. Actually we recorded the song before we got there and got drunk on the train ride to the studio. I didn’t know the lyrics because we had written them about an hour before which is why it looks like I’m mumbling. We also tried to dress and act as stupid as possible. It was weird because we were all drunk being idiots and yelling and trying to dance amongst all these little kids and their parents. They kept giving us dirty looks because we probably reeked of the cheap tequila we were drinking. I thought I was Mick Jagger.



What other contemporary bands, if any, do you feel are following a similar path to Smith Westerns?

C: I don’t know. We play with a lot of the various garage, lo-fi, and neo-bubblegum pop bands. I don’t know any contemporary bands that I am really interested in, and I think the Smith Westerns are trying to be as different as possible. We want to be hit makers.

What plans do you have for 2009 aside from the LP? Any plans to tour the UK/Europe soon?

C: We are going on a Duuuurrrty South Tour to Miami, Atlanta, Orlando, and Memphis in May. Then we are doing an East coast and West coast summer tour. We’re also releasing a seven inch on Rob’s House (records) hopefully in the future soon.
As far as UK/Europe goes, for sure! I think if this LP does well we would definitely come, hopefully it will be easier to book. We would want to play overseas just ‘cause I feel that their perspective to music isn’t as fucking retarded as it is here in the states.

Who would be your ideal touring partners for this expedition?

C: Wow. Um. Someone who sounds nothing like us, isn’t in our scene, and is super known. M.I.A! I’m pretty sure her fan base is a bunch of attractive dumb girls who would totally be down for sucking our dicks and buying all our records. More realistically, I have no idea?

The LP is soon to be released on Hozac Records in the states…will we see a UK release at some point?

C: It’s actually gonna be distributed there. Todd, Hozac Records, runs a tight ship and it should be available there. It also should hopefully be released by the middle of May but more realistically no later than early June. But I mean if it turns out the UK loves it, we will come as fast as possible there and tour the shit out of it.

It’s gonna be amazing, right?

C: YES! Yes! Yes! It’s ten songs. The recordings are what we call “hi-fi lo-fi”. We try to sound as produced as possible on our four-track. Unlike other lo-fi/DIY bands that use the lo-fi distortion to make their songs we use it to supplement ours. The whole idea is to make it sound like big-budget recording, but we have to work with what we have, which is Max’s basement.

And finally, with this month’s Tally Ho we’re giving away a little keepsake filled with the poetry and short stories of our friends and contributors…anything you’d like to contribute???

C: I don’t have anything good. I’m an art school reject.

You can check out Smith Westerns at http://www.myspace.com/smithwesterns

Christmas Island Interview Summer 2009

Ok, I admit it, I have no life. I trawl MySpace and music news sites, desperately trying to discover some unblogged band, untapped musical genre or obscure record label that only releases its stuff on slices of toast.

I’ve delved so far up my own arse lately that even Pitchfork isn’t doing it for me and I’ve started checking out drone-rock and psychedelic ambient bands that only really specialist blogs share for download. I’m not even sure I like any of it; I’m just desperately searching for the greatest psychedelic sound ever made.
Thankfully, before all this, there was Christmas Island; a band really worth getting excited about.

Their sound comes close (but not too close) to the much fêted Dunedin (NZ) bands of the early 80’s such as The Clean, and embraces the DIY aesthetics prevailing this summer. They’re just one of a school of American groups whose sounds are slowly coasting over the Atlantic, more a reluctant windblown lilo-mounted stumble onto our shores, than an ambition fuelled Yank-rock invasion.

They’re timeless, but not because in 40 years time people will be writing dog shit philosophy about their lyrics or dissecting the contents of their bin-bags. Just because there will always be a summer (ice age permitting) and there will always be a need for awesome blissful escape in jingle jangle guitars that burn holes in mail order amps. The kind of sound that makes you want to drink margaritas on your balcony then jump in the canal in nowt but your kecks.

I tried my luck getting in touch with the much touted troupe to try and satisfy my obsessive urges before they got out of hand (see above). To my gleeful surprise front man Brian Carver graciously agreed…

First things first, can you introduce the band for the uninitiated...

Brian Carver: Lucy Wehrly plays drums. I play guitar and sing. Lucy and I write all the songs and play on the recordings. Craig Oliver plays guitar and keyboard when we play live.

How did the band come together?

BC: I guess pretty organically, whatever that means. Lucy was playing drums in the Cowabunga Dudes with our friends Bova and Kevin. I really liked how minimal and spontaneous (read: drunk) their sound was so when that band broke up I suggested starting a band with Lucy. It didn't hurt either that Lucy and I were already romantically involved. Initially, it was just going to be a recording project but Lucy really wanted to play out live. After playing a few shows as a two-piece, we realized we needed to flesh out our sound more, so I tapped my best friend Craig to play guitar and keyboards. We're a pretty tight-knit crew.

How long were you playing together before labels started getting interested?

BC: I guess it was just a few months after recording "Doin' Swell" that Harry from Almost Ready offered to put it out on Vol. 5 of his "World's Lousy with Ideas" 7" series. Everything else kind of went from there.

You came to the attention of taste makers and bloggers such as Gorilla vs Bear almost immediately with the Morning Sunshine release. Tell us how that cover came about.

BC: I'm a big fan of the Fall and I went through a period where I tracked down the originals of every cover they did (there's a lot). That's how came across the Idle Race, an old 60's psych-pop band fronted by Jeff Lynne. "Morning Sunshine" is one of my favorite songs by them and we needed another song for our side of the split 7" with Le Jonathan Reilly so we recorded a cover version.

Do you feel any added pressure because of all the attention/anticipation surrounding the upcoming LP?

BC: We're definitely anticipating its release, too, but we're not really feeling too much pressure. It's finished and we're really happy with how it came out and that's what matters. It sounds great. Mike McHugh at the Distillery is the man!
It's a huge thing for me, though, because I never thought I would do anything with music, let alone record an album.

How important do you think Bloggers and the online community are right now for breaking new bands?

BC: I guess it’s important but I don't like the whole "hype machine" aspect. You're seeing bands blow up based on praise that one blog regurgitated from another blog and so forth. It's created this weird backwards model for doing things: start out successful and then figure out how to be a band. Even then, it's an artificial, insular type of success; just because a band gets a glowing review on Pitchfork or Stereogum doesn't mean the world-at-large gives a shit.

I don't think we're exempt from that because things happened quickly for us, too, but it was on a much smaller scale and luckily, all that stuff kind of died down. The realities of being in a band set in. It's an insane amount of work. It might not seem like we're up to much when we only post a new song every couple of months (if not longer) but we're constantly practicing, writing songs, playing shows, recording, etc. Everything takes longer than anticipated, especially considering we all have day jobs and personal lives.

Would you agree that music journalism, at least in printed form, is becoming increasingly redundant for fans of and practitioners of, non mainstream music?

BC: I actually went to school for journalism and I work in print and I can safely say that print is redundant, period. It's a dying medium. Everything is moving towards the internet. I’m going to need a new job soon.

You seem to be gigging pretty hard in the lead up to the record release, what’s been your favourite show so far?

BC: I think any shows we’ve played with the Fresh & Onlys, Meth Teeth, the Intelligence and Personal & the Pizzas have been great. Whether we played a good set or not is irrelevant; it’s just fun playing and partying with friends who make really awesome music. The In the Red (Records) showcase we played at SXSW was probably our tightest set and was a great night through and through. Somehow, though, the sloppiest and drunkest sets we play are the ones that everyone raves about.

Do you find you can write whilst on the road? Was the record written in this way or were the songs all there before you played live?

BC: We haven't really been on the road enough to have had time to write songs. Typically, Lucy and I take a month off from playing out to work on new material and then we show the songs to Craig. The bulk of "Blackout Summer" was written over the course of three months in our practice space.

Any plans to visit the UK?

BC: We definitely want to! Probably after the LP comes out. It's more a matter of figuring out finances, work stuff, etc.

Which of you guys are involved with Spirit Photography? We love the Sacred Bones 7inch (Time is Racing), did SP pre-date Christmas Island?

BC: Craig and I do Spirit Photography. We started doing that project probably about a year before Christmas Island.

Is it important for you to explore other genres with your music, albeit in a different guise, to prevent boredom? Or is it just a case of playing with a different set of musicians...?

BC: I think it's more about playing with different musicians and having different roles in the songwriting. Sure, Christmas Island is more "pop" and Spirit Photography is moodier and more experimental, but I don't feel we're limited to any particular genre with either project. If Christmas Island wanted to write a longer, jammier song that sounded like Neu! that'd be fine. Spirit Photography is actually working on some shorter, poppier songs.

Any future releases planned for Spirit Photography?

BC: Yes! Right now we're working on a tape/CD called "Circle in the Fire." It's pieced together from various sessions we recorded in '07 and '08 with our friend Frank on drums. Neon Aztec is putting it out. After that we're contributing to a 4-way split 7" that will come out on Craig's label, Volar Records. We're also talking about doing another 7" and/or 12" at some point, too.

Lately a lot of bands and record labels have begun to mention The Clean and Flying Nun Records as a big influence on them and their attitudes to the whole process of releasing music. What is it about that particular scene that, for you, is so appealing?

BC: First and foremost, it's the music. New Zealand's isolation from the rest of the world kind of allowed pop music there to mutate in strange, new ways. Even within the Flying Nun scene there was a lot of diversity: the Axemen, the Bats, the Chills, the Verlaines - none of those bands sound too terribly similar. It's almost like the Galapagos Islands of music.

For me, the whole DIY outlook on music came more from growing up in the punk scene and the idea of working with what you have in terms of talent and musical equipment. A few years back, when I heard the Messthetics compilations, it REALLY clicked for me. I think it's possible to be a better songwriter than musician and the songwriting in a lot of those songs really shines through. The rough production values and sour notes only add to their charm.



Speaking of labels, how is it working with In The Red Records?

BC: Larry's the best! I can't think of a better label to be on. It's great to be on a label that has such a rich musical history and that's run by someone super-reputable who knows what they're doing.

They don’t seem to put a foot wrong, which I’d imagine inspires some confidence in you as band on their roster?

BC: Absolutely. It blows my mind that we're on the same label that put out a Sparks record. Larry has a keen ear and he only puts out stuff he likes so it's really flattering that he thinks enough of us to want to put out our record. Plus, it's great to be on a label with Blank Dogs, the Intelligence and Wounded Lion.

So, the album is done, what can we expect?

BC: It's pretty varied and I think it stands head and shoulders above anything else we've recorded, in terms of songwriting and production values. We try out a bunch of different things but it still sounds really cohesive. Overall, I think it’s a great pop record.

Nodzzz Interview March 2009

Here's a rerun of an interview we did with Nodzzz mainman Anthony Atlas back in March 2009.

Fortunately for us, but somewhat unfortunately for him, Anthony had recently lost his job so he was able to satisfy our curiosity for Nodzzz in a truly thorough manner.

- watch out for more archive interviews cropping up from the likes of Christmas Island and Phenomenal Handclap Band..


Tally Ho: Before we delve too deep, I just watched the ad for the record with ‘Is She There’ playing on your blog and the acoustic video of ‘In the City (Contact High)’ from your MySpace…they’re really cool, were they made by one of the guys in the band?

Anthony Atlas: Yeah, they were made by me. I was recently unemployed. I have a lot of time right now to make stuff like that.

The ‘I Don’t Wanna (Smoke Marijuana)’ single got great press, how long was it after that came out that the good people at What’s Your Rupture approached you about recording the ‘Nodzzz’ LP?

AA: It was a couple of months afterwards. Kevin from What’s Your Rupture had heard it through some friends of ours in Seattle. They played it for him.

How long had you been playing together at that point? Anthony, you mentioned college, is that where you met the other members of the band?

AA: We’ve been a band since autumn 2006. I did meet Sean Paul at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington, but I met Pete, the first drummer, much earlier, when we were about 10, in middle school. That was in New Jersey. The first time I met Eric Butterworth, our drummer now, was at a show my teenage hardcore band played at in Long Beach, California. We stayed at his house and jammed in his living room. The seeds of Nodzzz were planted in many parts of the country, almost a decade ago.

What did you study?

AA: I studied various fine art, and writing. First photography, and then more drawing and writing. It was not a coherent academic path, but I went to a school without majors and grades, so maybe that was to be expected.

You’ve played a lot of shows with bands such as Wavves, Blank Dogs, Vivian Girls, has the success they’ve enjoyed and the European response to their shows inspired you to get a European tour together?

AA: Yes. We’re inspired to go to Europe, but I don’t think those groups success over there will make it much easier for us. We have a very last minute, poorly organized vibe, which has, in history, made it difficult to properly invade foreign countries.

Do you feel a kinship with these bands?

AA: For me, the kinship is incidental, but positive and welcome. Like most exciting times in music cultures, one sees that a variety of people were creating similar things without knowing anyone else was in on it too. Everyone shares the same motivating factors and only though producing and performing the music do they finally meet and merge with other groups and musicians. Then there is the emergence you referred to.

From a fan’s point of view, and not to get too sentimental, it makes it that little bit more exciting, can you relate to that?

AA: Yes. It’s hard to decipher precise reasons why one does what one does, but doing weird rock and roll bands is made more fun through friends and community. A music scene is a far, far cry from anything utopian, but there are moments that seem positively alternative to other avenues of socializing.

How does San Francisco compare right now to the celebrated scene in LA and I guess, Brooklyn too?

AA: San Francisco is entirely less populated than those two other places, so we’ve more of a small-town dynamic here. Los Angeles and New York are cities where bands struggle to find places to practice for cheap, and have to contend in a saturated scene too. On some subway lines in New York, you’d be surprised if you weren’t standing near someone with a guitar case on their way to practice. San Francisco is still not the easiest place to do a band, but it’s more a dozen eggs, rather than the chicken coup in Los Angeles, and Brooklyn.

Are there any SF bands you can recommend or that you think are being criminally overlooked?

AA: They’re not overlooked here in San Francisco, but probably are in the UK: Brilliant Colors, Grass Widow, and the Hospitals. These are all fantastic bands, and they have an inspiring presence here. I just listened to a new song by Grass Widow a dozen times in a row.

The record really makes me want to see you guys live. Did the songs evolve from playing live, or was it a case of, ‘we have these songs, we gotta figure out how to get them across in front of an audience’?

AA: We had an entire album’s worth of music before we played any shows. The songs evolved more in a private setting, (i.e. alone in my bedroom), before they were completed by the three of us in practice. I don’t think of us as an essentially live experience, though I do want the songs to exist in an arena outside the record. We’ll tour, play parties, and feign stage moves with the best of them, but I have a feeling if we’re remembered for anything, it will NOT be for our live antics. Though I’ve heard me and Sean have a knack for stage banter.

As a band you seem more willing to expose yourselves than a lot of your contemporaries. No swathes of feedback or reverb, a more personal take on lyrics; they’re not lost in the mix, mumbled or yelped over feedback. Was the decision taken to make a clear, pop sounding record as a reaction against the overwhelming trend for shoe gaze inspired drone?

AA: I think we had our sound and songs for that record pretty much finished before it seemed like there was any dominant trend to be reactionary against. But polarizing towards one sound has not and will not be our intention. We work too atomically for that.

When can we next expect to hear from Nodzzz? What’s in the pipeline?

AA: Well we’ll soon have the True to Life b/w Good Times Crowd single out on What’s Your Rupture, followed by an album. I really want to play England, but I’m sceptical people will actually come to see us! Tell your friends about Nodzzz, and your friends’ friends too!

MW

Women Live

As the murky dream affections of Black Rice, Women’s most anticipated song, pulse through the crowd who are barely containing their excitement, the band seems unaffected. Nonchalant but not in that hipper than thou shoe-gaze manner, Women are simply well aware that they don’t need to prance and preen to gain anyone’s attention.

To back track a little, tonight’s support act is San Diego’s The Soft Pack. Whilst bands currently treading similar waters, such as The Black Lips, were out touring and fighting their way across America, these boys probably stayed in college, listened to The Knack, and practised a little too much. After an initially engaging few songs their set petered out into what added up to no more than power pop posing. If they’d studied their favourite bands actual records as well as their LP covers and their moves, then maybe they’d have a better shot at nailing the tightly wound sound of teenage frustration. A friend swears he saw them watching Women wistfully from the balcony, open mouthed, and with a look skyward, thanking the lord that they didn’t drop out no doubt.

Headliners Women tend to get thrown in with the loose bag of change that is the current crop of ‘Lo-Fi’ groups; it’s understandable but not very relevant. Most seem to depend on the tape hiss and budget values of their records to elicit excitement from bloggers and fans alike, and you get the feeling they know themselves that without the din, no one would actually care. Whereas Women’s debut is awash with experimentation and (even though its running time is shorter than the average Trail of Dead song) bulging with ideas, some of them half-realised, but all of them great.



Their set tonight is a mixture of unreleased material and that record, played faithfully but with just enough improvisation to make sure everyone, including the band, is totally into it. They coast through favourites such as the aforementioned Black Rice and they conjure the spirit and duelling guitars of At The Drive In’s Omar Rodriguez and Jim Ward on the treble-heavy guitar work out Shaking Hands. It is inspiring stuff, but I’m stuck with a niggling reminder that they’re playing these songs almost every night over the first half of 2009 and it only goes away when they smash into a series of new numbers.

Unannounced, untitled but clearly in keeping with the aesthetic they developed on record, the new songs will only further the Velvet Underground comparisons running through their recent press. They move from sugary pop, so sweet it’s sinister, to raging experimental suites with jarring medleys and conflicting vocal chants reminiscent of VU’s incredible ‘The Murder Mystery’. The sound builds constantly until at its peak front man Pat Flegel breaks the static to spazz out, beating feedback out of his amp and leaving it bleeding drone as the rest of the band leave their instruments behind and flee the stage.

They’ve testified themselves that the sound they got on record was the result of a painstaking process and numerous takes, but rather than a vain search for something that would have critics salivating, it’s typical of the sonic ambitions they betray tonight. 

Their album is one of the best and certainly the most promising records released last year, but even on the strength of tonight alone, I can’t recommend them enough. They know exactly how they want their music to be heard and here’s hoping they won’t ever compromise.