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by AMY MOORE
WHO:
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
WHERE:
Freebird Live, Jacksonville Beach
WHEN:
Friday, April 20th, at 8:00 p.m.
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Clap Your Hands Say Yeah burst onto the indie music scene back in 2005, causing a ruckus for actually being genuinely independent. What’s notable about this band is that, although their songs garnered rave reviews from critics and fans alike, most reviews and articles about CYHSY from that time show a single-minded focus on the fact that the band self-released their album without the help of a record label, indie or otherwise. Perhaps this was because most music writers are themselves musicians, which made the most interesting part of the story the possibility that any aspiring indie star could experience success without needing a pesky record label. But what about the music, man? We sat down last Saturday with Tyler Sargent and Robbie Guertin, CYHSY’s bassist and guitarist to talk about their new album Some Loud Thunder, its production, its artwork, and the response it has produced so far.
EU: It looks as if you've been on the road for the better part of the last 3 months-do you enjoy touring? How do you keep it interesting when you're doing it every night?
TS: Right now, we're driving from Montreal to Toronto. We like playing shows, but sometimes the traveling gets a bit tiring. We try to figure out how to play the new songs off the album a different way live. Even some of the older songs, we'll kind of redo them a little bit. We play about half new and half old songs, because there's a great response to the old songs-some of the newer songs, for whatever reason, you don't quite get that same kind of response.
EU: Do you think that's because people don't know the songs as well yet?
TS: I don't know…it might be because people haven't heard the new album yet. But also, it's not the same kind of music [As Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, their eponymous debut album]. A lot of the older songs are more immediate and catchy-some of the newer songs take a little longer to grow on you, and they're not quite as dance-y.
EU: Was that a conscious decision, not to write as many dance songs, or was that just the way things ended up once you went into the studio?
TS: It kind of just came out that way. We knew we weren't going to make the same album again. You never really know what it's going to sound like-we made use of the weird instruments Dave had lying around.
EU: Dave Fridmann, who produced Some Loud Thunder?
TS: Yeah, the Flaming Lips [Dave Fridmann is legendary for producing The Flaming Lips' Clouds Taste Metallic, The Soft Bulletin, and Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots] had a lot of instruments lying around the studio, which influenced the sound of the album.
EU: So this is kind of a literal example of how a band is influenced by their predecessors-actually using recognizable instruments and sounds that have layers of use that come of being reused by different bands…
TS: Yeah, exactly.
EU: So, the first song, what's the deal? Some reviewers suggest that this song demonstrates that you guys have deliberately attempted to sabotage the listener's experience with your music. It's distorted to the point of making one wonder whether her speakers are maxed out.
TS: We thought it sounded like some older, lo-fi recordings, sort of like Guided by Voices. We did get a lot of e-mails that said like "what was that?" But, a lot of times, you listen to a Guided by Voices album and it's like that all the way through. You have to wonder whether they've ever heard that stuff.
EU: What about choosing to use this distorted song to start out the album?
TS: It kind of stands out as an introduction-it probably wouldn't have worked halfway through the album, but that sound does appear later in the album, kind of trashy. So it's like a foreshadowing of what's to come.
EU: So was the decision to go muddy and distorted a decision made before or after recording?
TS: That's why we decided to go with Dave Fridmann; we loved the sound of Clouds Taste Metallic.
EU: Ok, for you Tyler-Dave Fridmann was himself a bassist for the band Mercury Rev. Did you find him more responsive to you as a bassist; do you think his perspective changed the sound of your bass in the recording?
TS: A little bit, there were a couple of times when I could have used some help and he had some ideas. There were a few little passages where he said, "why don't you play it this way" and I did.
EU: Your bass line in 'Mama, Won't You Keep Them Castles in the Air and Burning' is very full and takes on the role of carrying the melody. Do you also play guitar?
TS: Actually I might have used a guitar for that. Which one is that one? (starts humming song) Yeah, I did two bass lines there and one of them is a guitar that was run through a pedal to make it sound kind of deeper.
EU: So, tell me about your album art-Robbie [Guertin, CYHSY's guitarist], you made the cover art?
RG: Yeah, I tried different things. Actually, I wasn't even that psyched about the cover, but Alec [Ounsworth, CYHSY's singer] really liked it.
EU: It almost looks as if you started out with ink blots and then went in and turned them into figures with arms and legs…do you think this idea of going in after the fact and adding meaning to random blotches could be related at all to the process of making an album?
RG: Yeah, that's what I did-especially on the inside cover. The album is a kind of random collection of songs made at different times and weren't really meant to be together. But when you make an album, you have to try to tie it all together.
EU: So, at least in the indie dance bars of my town, the song, 'The Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth' became a sort of automatic dance jam-like that ubiquitous Of Montreal song that became the Outback Steakhouse commercial-how do you guys feel about where your songs end up when they leave your hands-are you ok with them picking up lives of their own?
RG: We knew at the time, writing that song, that it was something that could be played on a jukebox, you know, could be danced to. That one definitely has its place and it's put into the set list accordingly. It's one of those older songs that gets the strongest response when we play it live.
EU: What has been the general response to the new album?
RG: It seems like an album that musicians really like-a lot of our friends are musicians and they've given us a good response. It takes some time to listen to it. There's kind of more going on. I hate to use the term "layering," but there's a lot more weird instrumentation than the first one. I guess musicians kind of like it for that. On the other extreme, someone e-mailed us saying, "What have you done?" This guy e-mailed us claiming responsibility for selling 100 of our first album-and was very disappointed in the new album.
EU: How much attention do you pay to reviews?
RG: We don't pay a lot of attention to them. When our first album came out, there was a slow release, so it was interesting to see what people said about it. But when this one was released, we just weren't paying as much attention. Some of the novelty wore off and we kind of accepted our place in the music world, so it's not as much of a curiosity.
EU: What do you think about all hype surrounding the fact that you guys have released both of your albums on your own? It seems as if most articles about CYHSY dedicate about ¾ of their discussion to the way you have avoided working with a record label. Is it relevant?
TS: It seems kind of a separate story. We'd still be making the same music if we were on a label. If we wanted to be on a label, I don't think we'd be on one that demanded some kind of creative input. As a story, it's nice to be doing something like that, but also I think a lot of people forget that a lot of bands have been doing this for a while-and it's become a huge story, but somewhat disproportionately in the history of independent music. It's nice to highlight it-some people have said that they're inspired by what we're doing, business-wise, and they'd like to do it too.
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah play Freebird Live in Jacksonville Beach this Friday, April 20th, at 8:00 p.m.
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