For every budding music journalist, I think it’s inevitable for your mind to turn to Almost Famous. There’s an innate desire to experience the rock and roll lifestyle, follow a band around and write about it. Unfortunately, when you – for one reason or another – end up running the publication you work for as a journalist, time isn’t so kind as to let you disappear for an intoxicated week (or three) to make that possible. So, when I am asked to conduct my interview over a meal, I certainly jump at the opportunity. I take what I can get.
And that’s just what happened when I was in New York City for CMJ, which saw my interview with up-and-coming Brooklyn based trio We Are Augustines move into a quaint Thai restaurant near NYU, where, over Pad Thai and assorted curries, we chatted about anything that came to mind for a good hour… I’m sure I rambled on about Australia and had them ramble on about New York. As you’ll see below, there was very little chatter about their music.
I was coming to the end of my sleepless three week journey by this point, so it’s all a bit fuzzy (I guess there’s a little bit of Almost Famous in me after all), but by the time I hit record on my iPhone, we has just started speaking about their debut record Rise Ye Sunken Ships, which came out in Australia in August. I suggested that the songs date back quite a while, and asked if the songs do feel ‘old’ to them:
Eric Sanderson: I think songs have a unique nature to them. They’re connected to memories, so they have a place on a timeline. But at the same time, I think they’re timeless, and if it’s a good song – it doesn’t matter if you wrote it or you grew up listening to it, if it’s a good song then you can connect to it. For us, they go out in phases, sometimes you feel really connected, sometimes you’re just not inspired by it. So I guess in those moments the songs feels old, but then a few months later suddenly the fire will come back and it’s your favourite again.
Billy McCarthy: When you have a new album come out you have the whole technical challenge of learning what you recorded, trying to get it to sound like it does on the record… and then you actually have to get on stage and perform it. I don’t really find it that comfortable, all that technical shit. I feel we’ve finally mastered that… the technical side of things… but it has dawned on my recently that we haven’t played new songs for a while. That’s a little hard. We just did a performance, and I’m choosing songs to perform that aren’t even on the record, which mightn’t be the best idea.
Songs that didn’t make the record, or stuff you’ve put together more recently?
Billy: More recently, and some cover songs. We really love covering mostly obscure songs. Would you say Eric?
Eric: Well yes and no, I mean Billy does a Tom Petty song occasionally, though it’s very different to the way Tom Petty sung it, so I don’t think most people know what the song is until the chorus kicks in and then they’re like “oh I know this song!”
We spoke about Dave Grohl for a while after this, which seems to happen a lot in the interviews I undertake, which resulted in me asking them the following:
Have you ever had to make a major decision that could, for better or for worse, change the course of the band, that you’ve said no to?
Billy: We got an offer today actually, for an unnamed liquor company, to work with them on a Christmas promotion, with a song. There’s money involved when we get offered those sorts of things, but we try to battle against it. This is a very sticky industry, where everyone wants to stick names and titles on top of art. I definitely feel protective of that. We’re just starting to pass on things like that.
Eric: I’m realising, too, that I’ve become militant against product placement unless it’s done well. I don’t completely disvalue or disagree with that sort of stuff, but so many people who make those decisions just assume it’s always OK. Like there was a Downey commercial in front of our music video online and I freaked out!
Billy: Bands like Dr. Dog, Ween and The Flaming Lips. They can do some shit with Target, and say “I’m so high on Angel Dust and I wear Levi jeans!” and totally get away with it… it’s funny! And he’d do it because he actually wears Levi jeans.
We spoke at length about modern advertising, and how difficult it is to avoid it as a band, but that it’s important to be aware of what’s going on to ensure the right decisions are being made. Billy confessed he reads a lot of what people say about him online, and knows that some people love him, and some people… not so much. We agreed that it’s better to be loved and hated than to have everyone sit in the middle. Things progressed onto the state of the music industry…
I recently read an article by JD Samson, in which she spoke at length about how musicians, such as herself, are generally poor and have to pretend to be otherwise… the money mightn’t be what it used to be, but the expectations of perception remain the same. Would you agree?
Billy: I definitely feel a bit of self editing happens. You know, we headlined the Bowery Ballroom (just up the road) last night, and The New York Times did a write up on it, and all I could think to myself was, what they don’t know is that I slept in a wet jacket in a van parked in front of it, after we’d done a twenty one hour day… we couldn’t afford a guitar tech, so we had to invite a buddy, I had forgotten strings. The beer was drank very quickly… there were only 18 beers between us. There was no sex. There was no money. Well, very little.
Rock and roll isn’t a glamorous lifestyle, at least in my opinion it’s pretty much just a grind on the daily – unless you’re one of the big guys. And that’s cool! But anyone who thinks it’s not… you know there’s a funny story about Sharon Stone, she was on the red carpet and someone asked her who she was wearing… and she said something like “oh I just threw this together, I think the shirt is from GAP”. And it was like a scandal! And I think it’s for that very reason. People want to believe that we’re going to VIP parties and living it up in New York, when in truth is we’ve got a some hard boiled Italian landlord, my motorcycle has a shitload of tickets on it, leaking oil everywhere… Eric’s trying to borrow a telecaster for the UK tour…
But at the end of the day, people are really proud of us, and our music makes people happy, people that might have it a lot worse off than us, so we can’t come back from travelling around the world, bemoaning the state of the industry. It’s a slap on the face when there really is a lot of amazing shit going on. So there’s a bit of a responsibility there to…
Eric: …just be humble.
Billy: Yeah, to walk humbly.
Eric: And there still are those “bling” moments, like when you have a show and can tell people like ‘oh, (David) Letterman’s people were at the show”, and their eyes light up. Sometimes people don’t take you seriously until something mainstream like that happens.
Boy and Bear walked by the Thai restaurant shortly after this moment, and we started speaking about Australian music. I asked them the natural question: Are there any plans for touring Australia?
Billy: Obviously our heart is there. We were talking about it over lunch yesterday, over some dumplings, and we‘re working on it. I think all the roads need to meet, there needs to be the demand – it isn’t cheap to get down there! We’ll let the office work that out…
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Indeed, the band was getting ready to head out on a UK tour when we spoke and you can find out all the details about that at their official website: http://www.weareaugustines.com/
Rise Ye Sunken Ships is in stores and on iTunes now. Listen to “Chapel Song” below!
