Beirut: "Should Zach start a hardcore band because he’s from Santa Fe?"

Everyone got quite excited when discussing a critique that Beirut’s front-man (Zach Condon) is only appropriating the music of whatever country he finds interesting like a tourist snapping photos. Also current favorite albums were discussed and Scott Walker and The Dirty Projectors both popped up twice. Anyway, enough of my rambling, read on…

I was just curious. What are your ages? This band is known for being a young band since Zach is 21.
Paul Collins: I’m 27.
Jason Poranski: I’m 29.
Nick Petree: I’m 26.

Who out of you three were in the original band first?
Poranski: Paul and Nick played shows with Zach in New Mexico before Zach came to New York looking for a band. These guys came too then and then we added more in New York.
Collins: We played one in Sante Fe and then one for SXSW.

For The Flying Club Cup it definitely sounds more like a group effort. What roles did you all play in the making of the album after Zach laid down the skeletal form(s) for each song?
Collins: Recording was done in two parts. There was one part in New Mexico where they did a lot of stuff. These two guys were a part of that core group with Perrin Cloutier (cello/accordion) and Griffin Rodriguez (Beirut’s producer). Basically, I didn’t do that much on the album. I play a bouzouki on a couple tracks and I found a sample for “Nantes,” the first track. Other than that, these guys were much more involved in the original recording of Cup.
Poranski: Yeah, Paul has an analogy for the way that Zach works, which basically starts with him writing a bunch of songs on his own. Paul’s analogy is that we’re all different colors on the palette. Basically we ask ourselves what he needs for that song and what we can pull off in a kind of last minute way. You do it as quickly as possible but Zach is pretty flexible with his original songs. Everyone had different parts on this new record which is different from the first one.

Tell me a little about the times Zach would go to other people if he didn’t know how to play a particular instrument that he wanted on the album.
Poranski: Yeah there’s some stuff Zach doesn’t know.
Petree: A good example would be when Kendrick Strauch elaborating on the piano tracks Zach had for the album.

How are the larger venues working out for you?
Collins: I personally thrive on the intimate settings. Our sound benefits from those types of places. We played at a bar right before this tour with no monitors or anything and we were in the crowd playing. Brass sounds really great in a place like that because it’s very organic that way. Sometimes it is hard to get that on a large stage.
Poranski: That being said, we were really too worried about these theatre shows than we needed to be because they have been going pretty well for the most part. Of course you have some monitor problems. Some of the shows are seated and you kind of think that’s going to be weird but then people are standing up out of their seats and dancing.

How about festivals?
Collins: We’e haveen’t played any festivals in America besides SXSW back in the day. We got really lucky at Glastonbury or actually some of those other Eurupean festivals because they put us on the world stage as opposed to the main stage or hip hop stage. Instead of having the typical hipsters backstage you have gypsies and people from Western Sahara. Tinarwen played after us. Where did they form again?
Poranski: Tinarwin formed in one of Moamma al-Qadhafi’s Tuareg rebel camps. They are nasty, so good. They were backstage hanging out.
Collins: It’s so exciting to be around bands like that.
Jason, you were talking in another interview about how to translate the strings on the record to the stage. How has that worked out so far?
Poranski: What I was saying was that we wanted to translate the string section but there are so many on the record that you can’t have that at a live show. You take the dynamics of it because you can’t make the record on stage. You wouldn’t want to anyway. Maybe some bands are able to duplicate the record into a live show but that’s impossible for this band. We wanted to get past that difficulty and still make the songs work.
Petree: For example these two guys took the string arrangement that Owen Pallett did for “A Sunday Smile” and reworked it for two ukuleles.

I don’t necessarily take this view but some people have critiqued the band or specifically Zach for sort of fetishsizing the places he’s been to in the same way tourists do when they take pictures. What do you all think about that? Is Zach trying to be authentic with his music?
In almost perfect unison (all three): NO! It’s not meant to be authentic.
Poranski: It sets you up with some guidelines to be able to write your own songs. I think any artist in any field uses influences. If you are a painter you use an object to translate onto the canvas. If you are a singer you have influences that help you write your own songs. I think Zach does that. He writes his own stuff. It’s not like a folk musician trying to replicate something that has been done before. It’s a kid that likes certain songs and now he is trying to write his own material.

I think the main reason people attack him is because he wears his influences on his sleeve so proudly and people love to point out the fact that he’s not from there and thus can’t make that kind of music.
Collins: I know but should Zach start a hardcore band because he’s from Santa Fe and that’s what all the kids in Santa Fe do? That critique is invalid.
Poranski: Paul, you get a kick out of that.
Collins: Oh yeah, I love that!

What were the ways you have experimented with the new album on stage like you said you did with “A Sunday Smile?”
Petree: Some songs we haven’t been able to even do live. We tried tweaking them or arranging them for a live setting. We haven’t been able to play “Guyamas Sonora,” “St. Apollonia” and the heavily based piano one (“Un Dernier Verre (Pour La Route)”). I don’t even know how to pronounce that one. I was just going to talk about the songs I knew how to pronounce.
Poranski: We have code names for most of the songs. We don’t even look at the real names of the songs. This song’s Frog Boot.

How did the band approach Zach’s semi-mantra to play the music like you were drunk?
Petree: Many of the instruments that these guys play are kind of new to them so you can help but play it a little sloppy. When Perrin picked up the accordion he had been playing it for only five weeks before we started playing it live. This guy (Collins) has been playing the upright bass for maybe four or five weeks. Jason is a really great guitarist but he had to pick up other instruments like the piano. It starts there.
Poranski: There’s some of that for sure but I think playing up the drunkenness, as far as his instructions to people, he didn’t want it to be sloppy. I don’t think we are that sloppy. He instructs the horns to not play jazzy and there’s definitely times when Zach just goes nuts with his trumpet to make it sound really sloppy. It’s really his deal than us.
Collins: Well sometimes we get really drunk so there’s that part of it (all laugh).
Petree: It’s very exciting music to play so like what Paul was saying earlier it is the type of music you want to play at a bar and wing it a little more than fully polish it.
Collins: Also the songs, especially on the new record are such anthems. There will be times when everyone in our band wants to be a part of everything happening on stage so you start singing and you’re not quite thinking about just playing the song right.

How did you get in touch with Owen Pallett?
Collins: Kristin our violinist was kind of like a fan girl of Final Fantasy and she went to a show and afterwards she approached him and he said, “Oh you guys are in Beirut, me and my boyfriend love you.” I really think that might have been where they touched off originally.
Petree: The trade-off was that we would help Owen’s EP for the Alphabet Series in exchange for him helping on Flying Club Cup. We got free studio time in Aracade Fire’s church studio.

I was wondering about the La Blogotheque joint venture. How did that series of videos come about?
Poranski: Zach spent some time in Paris and they emailed him. He really wanted to make it happen and it kind of didn’t work out but after that we became friends and we finished them all. We did two videos in Paris and afterwards we came to New York and spent something three days on it. We all really like that project. It’s really a beautiful and new way to look at a band. It’s better in my eyes than some other kind of music video.

How were the locations chosen? Was that the band or La Blogotheque?
Petree: It was just Zach and them.

In the video for “In the Mausoleum” whose idea was it to play on the watermelons?
Petree: That was the director’s idea. The watermelons sounded pretty good. I don’t know whose watermelon it was.

What are your musical backgrounds?
Collins: I am from Pendleton, Oregon which is this little town in Eastern Oregon that totally kicks ass.
Poranski: He means your background in music.
Collins: No no, I’m telling him the whole story. I was born in Walla Walla… ha ha Anyway, I was in punk bands. That was my deal. Then I met Nick and we were in some punk band. Basically learned guitar and stuff like that.
Poranski: I started off going to school for painting and dropped out. I kept painting though. I’ve played music since I was about 13 and slowly music overtook the painting thing and I’ve never had any musical training. I just listened to music and figured it out.
Petree: I’m one of the only people in the band that didn’t have to pick up a new instrument. I’ve studied and played drums since I about 13. I’m also the only other person in the band that has played the instrument they’ve studied their whole life besides Kristin and Zach.
Is “Cliquot” about the black plague?
Petree: No. Well the lyrics were written by Owenn Pallatt. I think it’s just a love song because the chorus is “what melody will bring my lover from his bed?”
Collins: Maybe it is about the black plague we just kind of sing them.
Poranski: Since that is Owen’s whole deal maybe he should explain it rather than us.

As far as the opening bands how did those join you on tour?
Petree: Brandon is Zach’s friend from Albuquerque and Colleen is on Leaf Label which is the same label as A Hawk and A Hacksaw who we know.
Poranski: Colleen has had a really good response so far on tour. At first people were talking during her set but then Paul got on the mic and shut them up.

Is Zach working on anything or has the focus shifted to playing Cup material?
Poranski: I think mostly the focus has been him trying to figure out what songs we can put on the new record and then the La Blogotheque was a big project for awhile.

As a closing question what are some things you are usually listening?
Collins: Scott Walker. He is amazing. I love Scott Walker. His new album And Who Shall Go To The Ball? And What Shall Go To The Ball? That Tinarwin group we were talking to you about earlier and Dirty Projectors. The Dirty Projectors are the greatest band around right now. Everybody needs to listen to them. They are so radical. Rick Ross’ “Hustlin’”. That’s a great jam too.
Poranski: Paul just nabbed some of my answers. I definitely listen to Scott Walker. He’s definitely been someone I have listened to for a long time. The Dirty Projectors are also great.
Petree: I’ve been listening to this William DeVaughn track called “Be Thankful For What You Got.” It sounds like Curtis Mayfield and I am so pumped on it right now. I just play it over and over. Another one that Paul turned me on to is Studio 1 Lovers. It’s this soul jazz compilation stuff. Other than that I am listening to everything else like John Coltrane or The Beatles. I was a pretty big metal fan when I was a kid. I don’t listen to metal so much anymore but every once in awhile I’ll go back and put on a Metallica record and I freaking love it. I actually just saw Slayer and that was kick ass.