Three Imaginary Girls - interview

Coffee with a Rockstar: The Divorce

imaginary liz — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 18:29:20 +0000

{The Divorce. Photo by Breanne Koselke.}

Some of Three Imaginary Girls' favorite (and some infamous) moments of the first five years of our tiny lil web existence (from 2002-2007) involve The Divorce.

Over the course of an introductory EP, two full-length albums (2003's There Will Be Blood Tonight and 2005's The Gifted Program), and countless live shows, the Divorce embodied the both the sweet and salty of the Seattle music scene of the time. On stage they were fresh and fearless, belting out beautifully destructive pop songs to packed crowds. Then, in 2007, they decided to call it quits (the 'D' word if you will) and dispurse into different bands and projects.

On Saturday, July 30, 2011, they will once again take the Crocodile stage together to Divorce it up and of course we'll be there. What a better time to chat with the four Divorce fellas (Shane Berry-lead vocals, keyboard, guitar and tambourine, Garrett Lunceford-lead guitar, Jimmy Curran-bass, and Kyle Risan-drums) to find out why they are reuniting now and offer some more insight into the band for those that might have missed them the first time around. To do so, I thought it a great opportunity to resurect our original interview series (circa 2002-2006): Coffee with a Rockstar.

TIG / Liz: I can't believe in all of our Divorce fandom TIG never sat down for a Coffee with a Rockstar imaginary interview with you guys. It's surely a sign of our shyness. This chat is a long time coming and there's a lot to catch up on, but first, we have our ice breaker traditional first question:

Imaginary Interview: Vivian Girls

ChrisB — Sun, 03 May 2009 16:12:50 +0000

Vivian Girls are a lo-fi punk band from Brooklyn whose debut, self-titled album was a very solid and impressive album. The band has gotten a lot of attention in the blogosphere for the album and for their fun live shows. When I interviewed the band in their green room before their recent show at Neumo’s, they were running considerably late because they were filming a music video while they were in town.

When talking to Cassie Ramone, Ali Koehler and Kickball Katy, I found them very charming and funny – even with my patience wearing thin while waiting for them to get to the club. We talked about touring, the new album and playing the enormous Coachella festival.

I just read that you finished recording your second album. How is it going to differ from your previous, self-titled album?

Cassie: It’s longer than the last one. It’s more diverse. It sounds really cool because it’s all analog. The last record was recorded all digitally and this one is all on tape, so it sounds really cool.

Ali: And I’m on this one. I wasn’t on the last one.

Do you have a release date for it?

Cassie: In September it should be out.

Ali: September 9! Katy’s birthday!

Katy: It’s actually going to come out on the eighth because that’s a Tuesday.

Besides recording on analog, what else is different from the previous album?

Cassie: We took a week to make it. The last one took three days total. We took a little more time to experiment with sound a little more.

Does it sound different?

Katy: Not entirely or dramatically different, but definitely an evolution.

Cassie: We progressed as musicians since we recorded the first album. We didn’t know much sounds or tones and were kind of winging it but this time we learned a few things along the way and I think it shows on the record.

Katy: We were definitely learning as we went along.

How was it playing Coachella this year?

Cassie: It was fun but really hot and a lot of people were there, so it was kind of scary. It was all so exhausting because it was at 1pm and it was so hot.

Ali: We played on a really good stage with Fucked Up and No Age and X…

Katy: …And Throbbing Gristle, Brian Jonestown Massacre and Murder City Devils.

Was it your biggest show yet?

Everyone: yeah, probably.

Do you prefer playing festivals or smaller clubs?

Katy: Smaller clubs.

Ali: Yeah, but huge festivals are always really good life experiences.

Katy: Yeah, you meet a lot of cool people.

Was there anyone you met that are heroes or people you really wanted to meet?

Cassie: Meeting No Age was cool. We heard a lot of cool things about them, like they’re really nice guys and stuff, and it’s true. They are really nice guys, so that was rad.

Katy: And I met Alia Shawkat from “Arrested Development.”

Ali: I wanted to meet Morrissey but that didn’t happen.

Was there any show that you know of that led to the attention you had gotten since?

Cassie: I remember this one show at SXSW in 2008, when we played there. We played a day show behind a grocery store and only about twenty people were there and one of the guys who was working there said “you guys were great! Next year you’re going to be playing the big stages at SXSW” and we were like “shut up, that’s ridiculous.” And then…

Everyone: (laughs)

Cassie: …And then a year later we were playing the big stages at SXSW.

What kind of music did you grow up with?

Cassie: I got started on the soft rock radio station when I was eight years old and then my friends made fun of me and I started listening to Z100 and then I really got into Sublime and Hole and Nirvana. That was in middle school and then in high school I li was into indie rock and emo and then I got into punk, which brings us today – but now it’s come full circle because I’m into soft rock again.

Ali: I think we all listened to alternative music and old music.

Katy: all sorts of stuff. My parents always liked music and had it on all the time in the house.

What was your favorite show you’ve played? Either recently or overall.

Cassie: My favorite show ever was when we played this crazy house party in Austin. It was at SXSW and people were crowd surfing and shit was off the chain. It was awesome.

Ali: Once we played in a crepe place in Santa Cruz and the food was really good and then the show was really good. People were going nuts and singing along, so it was really cool.

Cassie: I think the best shows are when people just go nuts. I always get psyched. When people are just standing there [we’re wondering] “I hope they like it”.

How much longer is this tour going to last?

Katy: About a month and a half?

Cassie: Yeah, until mid-June. We’ve been on this tour for a month but we had a break for a week where we recorded our album. We’ve been on the road since early March.

I also wanted to ask you about your favorite after-work happy hour spots, but last time that happened you got in trouble for it.

Cassie: Oh yeah, right. Hahaha…

Katy: Wait, what did we get in trouble for?

Ali: That Uncensored interview.

Katy: Oh yeah, that’s right.

Ali: We were just being goofy and goofing around.

Cassie: People thought that we were talking down to them but really, we were just trying to be funny.

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We caught up with all three Vivian Girls to talk about their new, forthcoming record, touring and playing both house parties and Coachella.

Imaginary Interview: Fountains of Wayne

ChrisB — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 19:25:06 +0000

For as long as I’ve been a “serious” music fan, one of my favorite bands was Fountains of Wayne, the powerpop band from New Jersey whose songs are often about socially awkward characters trying to find their place in the real world – although best known for their single “Stacy’s Mom”. When I found out that the band was set to embark on a short, acoustic tour at the beginning of 2009 (including a stop on January 15 at the Triple Door here in Seattle), I jumped at the opportunity to interview songwriter/bassist Adam Schlesinger, where we discussed his band, its future and the songwriting process.

With two songwriters in Fountains of Wayne, you and Chris Collingwood, how do you write songs together?

Well, we don’t really collaborate in songwriting anymore. Even though we still share the songwriting credits, most of the songs are either my songs entirely or his songs entirely and we work on them in the studio. Someone else might have a suggestion or two about a line but we don’t really collaborate anymore. We did when we started the band but now we live in different states.

You work on a lot of different projects, including music for television and film. How do you decide what is going to be a FOW song or what is going to be for something else?

When I write songs, I usually have a particular singer in mind. There have been a few cases where I’ve written something for someone else and we ended up using it but that is very rare. Usually I have to write with a particular singer in mind to even get an idea going.

I really enjoy FOW songs because the characters are easy to relate to, at least in my own life. Are they autobiographical in any way?

I write songs about made-up characters but there might be details I include from my own life. Chris writes some songs like “Valley Winter Song” which is his and about his home. The diary-like songs are mostly his.

There are a lot of timely, pop culture references in your songs. For example, “Someone to Love” references characters that watch “King of Queens” and listen to Coldplay. Do you worry about when those references fade from the cultural memory?

Yeah, it’s true those songs are very of the moment sometimes but I remember listening to Beatles or Kinks songs as a kid and not knowing what those songs meant but to me, they’re grounded in a particular time or place.

FOW’s biggest hit is probably “Stacy’s Mom”, was there anything that stood out when you were making it that made you think it could be a hit?

At that point we felt like we had written a bunch of songs that we thought were good. We had just gotten lucky with that one. In fact, when we made that record, Welcome Interstate Managers, we didn’t even have a record deal. We just made the record on our own and when we were done we put together three or four songs and sent them to record companies. “Stacy’s Mom” was one of them. The people who heard it didn’t think it was a hit song. We got lucky and one guy that heard it thought it could be a hit and he was the one who gave us a deal and spent some money to give us a shot.

But you never know with that stuff. I don’t think we set out to write a hit; we always set out to write catchy songs and we just cross our fingers and hope the stars align and one of them does better than the rest. It was just one of those songs people started hearing and requesting it on radio stations and you began hearing it more and more. It’s a different world now. I don’t know if that would happen in 2009.

Do you feel any pressure to make another hit like that?

Right now we’re just making a conscious effort to make stuff we like and feel comfortable playing. We’re lucky in that over the twelve years we’ve been able to develop a small, but loyal, fan base. We’re just trying to count on them and we’re not trying to have a top 40 hit every time. It would be nice but for us, it is more important that we make records we like.

Are there any songs that are your favorites or that you are particularly proud of?

There are a lot that I really like and there are some that are fun to play each night. There are some songs that we’ve pretty played since we started the band that I still enjoying playing. “Radiation Vibe” is obviously one of them. That’s a song Chris wrote but it is the song that pretty much started the band. I just thought it was amazing and still love playing it every night.

For me, the most satisfying part of writing a song is if you have an off-beat idea and you struggle with it for a while and ultimately it comes together. There are some songs for me like “All Kinds of Time”, from Welcome Interstate Managers, that we don’t play it live much but I’m really proud of it because I think it’s a really strange idea for a song and somehow it ends up being kind of moving in the end. You never know when that’s going to happen. It’s a terrible idea on paper – it’s about a football player and there’s no particular reason why this song should have come out. It didn’t have any emotional resonance but when all the music came together, it gave the song much more weight than I expected.

That’s another thing with songwriting. I often start off with a lyrical idea first then take musical ideas with it; but it really is interesting how words and music interact. A song may look a certain way on paper but when you hear it on top of a certain melody, it has a whole new meaning than what you might expect. I think that is what happened with that song.

As you said earlier, you and Chris both live in different states, how do you write now?

We just get together for like a week or so in the studio and work with what got and try some stuff out. Even if a tune doesn’t knock us out on an acoustic guitar, we’ll still play around with it.

I remember when Chris brought in “Red Dragon Tattoo” and he was down on it and kind of embarrassed about it but we all really liked it and wanted to give it a shot. After jamming on it for a bit we came up with a different approach then what he might have had in his head and then he got excited about it too and it ended up becoming a staple song for us.

How do the other members of the band, drummer Brian Young and guitarist Jody Porter, fit in to the songwriting process?

Well, up to this point, we’ve been the sole songwriters but I don’t want to minimize their contributions. As we’ve grown as a band, I think Chris and I have gotten more comfortable leaving more to chance in the studio. There are a lot of times where one of those guys will offer a part that really alters the song. It might be a guitar part from Jody or a drum part from Brian, but their contributions are essential. It’s really nice having four guys that really get along because our instincts are all similar in terms of what works best for us and the band. They have definitely brought in a lot of crucial ideas.

What is going on with the next Fountains of Wayne record?

We started a new record and have been in the studio for a few months here and there but we probably have a way to go. We’re playing some shows at the beginning of the year to try out some of the new songs. That and it’ll be nice to get out of New York during the winter.

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Be sure not to miss the prolific powerpop band when they play at the Triple Door on January 15 with Jon Auer of The Posies.