Blitzen Trapper

My interview with Blitzen Trapper appeared in the Charleston City Paper. (Apologies again for so much delay in reposting here!)

Eric Earley hints at a past tragedy on Blitzen Trapper's latest 

Dark shadows

by Andrea Warner

Blitzen Trapper's Eric Earley isn't a talkative man. He's a mumbler on the phone, not terribly forthcoming, and uncomfortable, it seems, with getting too much attention, but he laughs a lot. It's a sound that comes up frequently when he's faced with questions that make him look at his life, which has been mostly spent in and around Portland, Ore. It's a strange but charming sort of reaction, given Earley's concession that the band's latest album, 2011's American Goldwing, is "pretty nostalgic."

"I don't really think about the past," he says. "I think there's a reason for whatever songs I was writing at the time. It's not necessarily a matter of confidence, but knowing yourself better as you get older." He pauses, then laughs. "Besides, there's good things and bad things about getting more confidence as you write songs."

Corin Tucker

My feature on the Corin Tucker Band is in this week's WE. 

From left: Sara Lund, Corin Tucker, Seth Lorinczi

 

Corin Tucker’s new band ‘Years’ in the making

Posted By: Andrea Warner

As one of the most recognizable faces of the riot grrrl movement, singer/songwriter/guitarist Corin Tucker knows a lot about breaking the rules. She’s written songs about her period, women’s reproductive rights, feminist politics and sex for her early ’90s alt-punk band Heavens to Betsy and later for the indie rock outfit Sleater-Kinney. But in 2006, Sleater-Kinney went on hiatus, in part because Tucker wanted time to focus on her family. Two children later, Tucker’s slowly edging back into the spotlight with the Corin Tucker Band and a full-length album, 1,000 Years. Gone are the snarling vocals and raw chords; instead the 38-year-old revisited the music of her heroes, crafting a sound that blends elements of rock and folk for her most intimate record yet. Tucker spoke with WE from her Portland home a few days before the band’s show Sunday, May 1 at the Media Club.

WE: Why was last year the right time to come back to music after going on hiatus from Sleater-Kinney?
Corin Tucker: I’m not sure that it was necessarily the right time to come back, but I just really love music so I’m trying to do a little bit of it in my life. It’s certainly not the easiest thing to work out with the schedule that I have. I really love doing it so I’m trying to make it happen. The way the album came together, it’s a really nice arrangement of the schedule and the people and the musicianship, it’s all really great.

Were you doing much writing previous to this album?
No, I pretty much stopped writing for a couple years while I had my daughter. I started writing a couple of the songs for a benefit show Seth [Lorinczi of indie-rock band Golden Bears] asked me to play for the Reading Frenzy benefit. I’d written a couple of songs for that and Seth was like, ‘You should really record an album.’ And I was like, ‘Yeah, I’d really like to do that.’ It just got my itch back for playing music again. I just started writing more songs to make a record and Seth and I started working on it, planning it out. We took our time, and that is really essential for me and the busy schedule I have. I’m not in a hurry. (Laughs)

The album feels very honest and earnest, more personal maybe. Has having a family changed your songwriting perspective?
I think that’s always been my songwriting style. This record is more personal and it’s more reflective. After taking a long break from writing I think that it came back. I think the songwriting style is stripped down and kind of more intimate than more traditional rock band writing.

Did you have an idea for what you wanted the album to sound like?
I definitely wanted it to be this quieter album where I could do different things with my voice, use different instrumentation, using the piano was something I was really excited to do. So we came at it that way, but it ended up having a lot more rock on it that I thought, but I think that’s part of the collaborative process.

“Doubt” really reminded me of early Pretenders.
Cool. Pretenders really was a big influence on this record. The Slits were another we were really inspired by, the Raincoats, Patty Smith. These were the female rock legends we were thinking about while we were putting it together. (Laughs)

A lot of people hold you up as an inspiration for women in music. Did you ever want to be a role model?
When I was young I wanted the notoriety of being in a known rock band because of the power dynamic that comes with being a famous rock person. That’s a really simplistic way of looking at it. (Laughs) But, when you’re 20 years old, you’re like, ‘Let’s be the best band any one’s ever heard of!’ I definitely had that desire, and I think as I’ve gotten older, realizing the much deeper connections you can make with people, it can be a real pain to be recognized by people you don’t know, but you can also use it for good and being a role model for young women. I think in Sleater-Kinney we realized that. Our work with the rock ’n’ roll camp for girls was one way we were able to do good with that role model situation.

What were the most positive contributions music made to your identity?
I think there were some really interesting role models in music. I looked up to Sinead O’Connor. She was amazing! Chrissy Hynde, love her, and Kate Bush, I love her music. I bought all her records when I was in high school. Aretha Franklin, America’s most amazing singer. It’s just a neat way to see a woman, you know, have a career in music. Because of the feminist movement of the ’70s, so many women were influenced by that and it really came out in some of the music when I was growing up. Like Aretha Franklin’s R.E.S.P.E.C.T, this Otis Redding song, she really took that and linked it to the women’s lib movement. That kind of subversive stuff is something we really take for granted in America with the amount of freedom women have here.

Everything ’90s is coming back now. Is there another resurgence of the Riot Grrrl movement coming?
Where is it?! When is it happening? I want to get involved again! (Laughs) It’s kind of sad how nostalgic I feel for it. I read Sarah Marcus’ book [Girls To The Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution] on the last tour our band did of Japan. I had just forgotten so much of what had happened. And she did such an excellent job of tying together historically what happened, and also the meaning that it had towards what was happening in the larger culture and the degradation of women’s rights that a lot of politicians have been trying to put forward for a long time. It was so re-inspiring for me and just how involved I was in it. Sometimes I look back and go, ‘Why was I so involved?’ And it’s like, of course I was. It was so enthralling and I still feel — I mean obviously with the Planned Parenthood de-funding bill now, we’re still arguing about these really basic reproductive rights for women. We’re so stuck in this same argument that’s been going on my whole life and it’s so frustrating that we can’t move forward for women’s rights.

Corin Tucker Band plays Sunday, May 1 at the Media Club (695 Cambie), 8pm. Tickets $15 (RC, S, Z and TicketWeb.ca).

STRFKR

My interview with STRFKR is in this week's WE.

Indie electronica-rock band Starfucker

Doing time with STRFKR

Posted By: Andrea Warner

It’s been a month of some serious highs and lows for Portland-based indie-electro dance-rock group Starfucker (STRFKR). They kicked off a North American tour in support of their second full-length release, Reptilians. Then there was the headline-making arrest of guitarist Ryan Biornstad in Austin, Texas, during South By Southwest, forcing the cancellation of two shows. A day later, the tour van broke down en route to their next gig. Now, thanks to fan support and sold-out shows, they’ve extended their tour — which brings them to the Biltmore this Friday — and just announced their first stint of festival gigs, including Calgary’s Sled Island in June. Drummer Keil Corcoran checked in with WE from a tour stop in Boston, offering his uncensored thoughts on the police, STRFKR lead singer Joshua Hodges, and cute kitties.

WE: What’s your background?
Keil Corcoran: Musically I started playing punk rock as a kid and then moved on to playing, like, thrash grind metal stuff when I was late-teens, like Napalm Death and shit like that. I kinda got sick of that. It’s fun to play, but I didn’t really enjoy listening to it, so I started getting into electronic stuff. I did a lot of programming for a few years, you know, writing, like, shitty techno music. Then I started playing drums again. I actually stopped for three years and started again and here we are!

Where does shitty techno music get played?
I’m pretty sure the shitty techno music I was making wasn’t getting played anywhere. It was really awful.

What’s it like to come on board to something that started as a solo project?
It’s good. It pretty much still operates similarly to how it did in the beginning. Just Josh has to show us all the shit instead of just learning it himself. I mean, we write our own parts somewhat, but Josh always has direction for it and is the mastermind behind the project. It’s fun. I respect the hell out of what Josh does, so I was really excited to play with the band. I think he’s a brilliant dude.

How’d you guys meet?
I was playing with another band in Portland and we went on tour with Starfucker through Washington and we just kind of hit it off as homies and he liked the way I played drums because I’m really into playing with a click track, so he needed a drum machine man and I fit the bill.

The music sounds like it has some complicated minds behind it.
Yeah, well, I wouldn’t say the music is complicated, it’s just executing all that shit on the record live is pretty complicated just because there’s so much of it and we have to figure out who plays what and what instrument should be used to play that. There’s just a lot of technical shit that I hate, because I usually end up helping with the technical aspect.

Is it Josh coming up with everything or are you guys contributing to the sound?
Live, definitely we all contribute, but on the record it’s for the most part Josh. Although, for the newest one, we all had a little bit of input, which is awesome.

How has that transition to a more collaborative process worked?
It’s been really good actually. I feel like the new record’s probably the best sounding record that we have. And, on that one, I helped Josh a little bit with structuring the songs, wrote a couple keyboard parts here and there, and Ryan recorded a bunch of stuff and so did Sean, everybody had a hand in it, and we also had a producer work on that one, which is a first. He was amazing and it helped a lot for sure.

You’ve had plenty of back and forth with the band’s name...I like the way STRFKR sounds.
Yeah, we’ve grown into it. I don’t hate it anymore, which I did initially. When I started playing with them, my girlfriend was like, ‘Are they all douchebags or something?’ and I’m like, ‘No, they’re really fucking cool guys.’

I’ve read that part of the inspiration for this album was the passing of Josh’s grandmother.
There’s a song pretty much about that, but more specifically I think it’s pretty much about death or whatever. Oh, wait, there’s a kitty out here and I’m trying to let it inside the house. I don’t even know if it’s the people’s we’re staying with but it looks really cute. All right, it’s walking away now. Never mind. Okay, so yeah, Josh is just kind of obsessed with death and dying, he’s kind of like a hypochondriac, he always thinks he has cancer and shit like that. (Sighs) So, yeah, all the songs are pretty much him obsessing over death and dying. Yeah, he’s a weirdo. (Laughs)

What happened at South By with Ryan’s arrest?
He has a court date now. Yeah, we really only managed to get him out of jail because Josh’s friend was dating a lawyer that lives in Austin and he knew the judge in charge of the case, so we got Ryan out about 10 hours after he got arrested, but we still missed two shows. It was really bizarre. Ryan was just standing in the street and a cop pulled up and told him to get out of the street and so he did and he put a piece of equipment down on the sidewalk and the cop’s like, ‘Okay, I’m giving you a ticket.’ And Ryan pulls his ID out and as soon as he does, another cop comes up and is like, ‘You’re fucking getting arrested!’ And he just puts him in cuffs and like, without reading him his rights, throws him in the fucking cop car. Like, all within the space of 30 seconds or so, maybe a minute.

That’s insane.
Yeah, it was the worst, weird, fucking fascist display I’ve ever seen in my life.

What happens now? He has to go back to Austin for the court date?
Yeah, we’re thinking that — well, the lawyer guy was saying there’s a pretty good possibility that he can get it thrown out... And then the next day, our fucking van broke down. And we got towed to our show. It’s been an interesting tour so far. Actually, after that it’s been good. Ryan fixed the van himself, like went and bought a new computer and had it programmed and put it in the van himself, and the van’s been working perfect ever since.

Does this make you feel more politically charged?
I’ve always hated the fucking police. Fuck those assholes. (Laughs) I think they’re all a bunch of fucking macho dickheads and they suck. Every kid I’ve ever grown up with who turned into a cop was initially a fucking a dick.

Starfucker plays Friday, Apr. 22 at the Biltmore (395 Kingsway) 8pm. $13 from Zulu Records, Red Cat Records, Highlife and TicketWeb.ca.

Fruit Bats

My Fruit Bats piece appears in this week's WE. Mind the short length!

After a hiatus during which he joined the Shins, Eric Johnson (centre) returns with the latest incarnation of Fruit Bats.

MUSIC: After a long break, Fruit Bats fly again

Posted By: Andrea Warner

08/13/2009 12:00 AM

Originally just a shy guy hanging out with his four-track in his Chicago home, Eric Johnson freely describes himself as having been “unambitious” before forming his folk-pop group, Fruit Bats. Now, a decade later, he can’t quite believe his accidental good fortune: He’s a full-time member of Portland-based chart-toppers the Shins, and he’s recently resurrected Fruit Bats after a four-year hiatus.

The band’s lengthy journey has been fraught with stops and starts, and Johnson, the de facto leader, has been the sole constant member of the often in-flux group. But, with the release of their fourth album, aptly titled The Ruminant Band, Johnson’s ready to shed his solo style and return to the original concept for Fruit Bats.

“Initially, the concept was that it was going to be a sort of sprawling collective of a bunch of people that were in different bands,” Johnson says. “I even envisioned not being the primary writer. But ultimately, I was the person who put it all together, so when it all came down to it, it was going to be my thing no matter what. But I had more time between the last [album] and this one, and I actually put a band together. In a lot of ways it’s kind of a rebirth, and in a lot of ways I was considering turning it into a new band. It’s kind of a new thing and an old thing, all at the same time.”

The Ruminant Band provides a campfire sing-along’s worth of ’70s-style golden rock, spiked with an alt-country twang. The title track also provided a chance for Johnson to pay tribute to both his newly assembled group and his adopted hometown of Portland.

“We had the brief thought of changing the name from Fruit Bats, and [the Ruminant Band] was one we kicked around,” Johnson says. “Some of the images started to worm their way into the writing, too. It’s basically a song about being in a band, which is the most self-referential thing I’ve ever done. It’s also a little bit a song about Portland, even though I never mention Portland in there. It’s just about me riding my bike along the Willamette River, and there’s tons of homeless encampments, and I would see these interesting hobo-type guys and you would wonder who they were. That’s kind of what that song is, and even the record, in a lot of ways, is a concept record about that: people’s pasts, and where they are now, and playing music.”

The Decemberists

My interview with The Decemberists (one of my all-time fave bands) appears online this week.

The Decemberists: not entirely influenced by modern times.

The Decemberists give the drummer some
By Andrea Warner

Hyper-literate indie-rock isn’t the easiest way to make a name for oneself in the music business — unless you’re the Decemberists. The Portland, Oregon-based outfit has five albums to its credit, having built a loyal and ever-growing fanbase on a bedrock of epic lyrical concepts, cleverness, and achingly morose-bittersweet-funny lyrics, all stitched together by the nasal-voiced and wacked-out imagination of the band’s perennial man-child, singer-songwriter Colin Meloy.

Also featuring Chris Funk (lead guitar), Jenny Conlee (keyboards), Nate Query (bass), and John Moen (drums), the Decemberists have been together almost 10 years, coming of age alongside indie-pop, folk, and rock peers like Death Cab for Cutie and Rilo Kiley. And while all three bands share a penchant for wordplay, it’s only the Decemberists who have made successful albums off such far-flung ideas, including Picaresque (Spanish satire about roguish scoundrels), The Crane Wife (Japanese folklore), and their latest album, The Hazards of Love, a vast rock opera that borrows heavily from English mythology and features baby-killing philanderers and other soothing images.

WE spoke with Moen over the phone in anticipation of the Decemberists’ two-night stand at the Vogue on July 21 and 22.

You’re playing two shows here. How will the nights differ from each other?
Moen: You know, I’m not entirely sure. I just talked to someone who led me to believe we’re maybe doing an all-request night or something like that, but I don’t know if that’s true.

Just a rumour?
It could well. I know we’ve talked about it in the past, not doing the same show both nights in certain places where we’re doing two shows. But I’m not sure that’s actually happening. Typically, I have no valuable information for you. How do you like them apples?

You show up, you do your job, they tell you what to play, and you go home.
It’s embarrassingly more true than you would like to know. I think I try to put as much into those performances as I can, but I really don’t always know what the next thing is.

How did everything come together with The Hazards of Love?
Mostly it’s Colin’s baby. We’ll kind of conceptualize together, [like] “Wouldn’t it be fun if we played a country record in a barn?” We’ll talk about atmosphere — we’re all fans of music and music history to a degree. We all romanticize the making of music a little bit with each other. It’ll kind of whet [Colin’s] appetite a little bit, one way or another; this one was mostly him listening to too much British folk music. That inspired him to put some of those elements together in what seems like a story format, and see how it all kind of laid out. It was leaving a lot up to chance, really. He identified elements from old folk songs that were recurring themes. The character Margaret, and shape shifting beasts...

A little murder...
Right. All these things... He kind of made a list of these things and started writing around that idea with a lot of dropped-D chords — as far as the key went — and just kind of kept building around that, and wrote the songs in the order they appeared. I think we shifted the order of two things in the recording, but mostly he came to us with a good map and demos of all of these songs, and we sort of put it together.

Some critics have knocked Hazards for being a rock opera, too grandiose. Do you care at all what people have to say when it comes to that?
I didn’t know anyone was knocking us until you told me that.

I’ve just crushed you?
Yeah. I’ll probably be sitting in the basement in a corner, rocking back and forth, weeping. I don’t know. I’m sensitive about people’s opinions; I’m less sensitive as the drummer in the band, because so many of the choices aren’t my choices. I fill my role and I try to do as much as I can to be a part of it, but as a drummer, sometimes you’re just playing the drums. But it’s part of the gig — I just stay away from it all, honestly. And the thing is, it doesn’t seem to matter. Enough people are buying the record to keep things interesting. It’s certainly not Beyoncé or something of that calibre, but it’s doing well enough; people are coming to the shows and having a really good time.

You’ve worked with a pretty wide array of musicians. What’s been a couple of the highlights of your different collaborations with different people?
Gosh. I got to play live with Elliott Smith on Saturday Night Live — that was really exciting. It was also followed quickly by me being kind of fired from his touring band, so that kind of soured the experience a little bit. But music’s like that; it’s fine. There’s lots of opportunities. As exciting as that moment was, I’ve had as much fun playing here with a buddy of mine named Pete Crebbs, who’s had bands for years: Hazel, back in the ’80s, [and] Golden Delicious in the early ’90s. His bands lately have been more on the local level, but we used to go play cover songs, and I had so much fun doing that. I muscled my way into Stephen Malkmus’s Jicks.

What’s next for the Decemberists?
Funny you should ask. We just had a meeting the other day about getting the next thing going, but it’s top secret. [Laughs] No, it’s not. I don’t really know how much I can divulge, but we’re definitely really fired up right now. I think feeling the love of music, there’s another record we’re going to try to record maybe [next] spring, so it won’t be a real long wait for another thing, for sure, should you be somebody anticipating the release of an album from the Decemberists.