TLOBF Interview :: Cymbals Eat Guitars

-

Just over seven months ago, Cymbals Eat Guitars were playing their first European show at the ICA in London. The audience was so small that it was possible to count the faceless head-nodders lining the walls and receding in the darkness at the back of the room. And yet that dreaded awkward void between the stage and the crowd became irrelevant. The guitars reminded us that melancholy is not a prerequisite for warmth and ethereality, the tinkling organ sounds constantly drifting from ambience to catchy hooks before singer Joe D’Agostino’s effortless lines of poetry had a chance to come to an end. The rhythm section (provided by the forceful Matt Miller on drums and Neil Berenholz on bass, whose place is now filled by Matt Whipple) drifted in and out of consciousness, at times the focus point of the music, at others propelling the melodies into the ether- always the fuel for that all-too-familiar feeling of needing to punch the air. Cymbals Eat Guitars played fluid, joyous, heartbreaking music which effectively disintegrated all space, until only the individual audience member and the band existed.

We catch up with the band halfway through a brief trip to Europe, playing their last series of headlining shows this side of the Atlantic before they wrap up touring for their debut album, Why There Are Mountains, and start serious work on their second in September. Having released the first album themselves in America by securing a distribution deal and sourcing out other jobs to individuals, they admit that they have had nothing but good experiences with European label Memphis. “We’re not really anti-establishment or anything,” says D’Agostino, confirming that they will be turning to a label for their next release. They are enthusiastic about the new material, to say the least, their words intertwining so much at points that it’s difficult to decipher anything but their unfuckwithable confidence in the new songs. The band are still in the honeymoon period of their career and nothing is more obvious than the knowledge there are very few places they would rather be tonight than in the cramped green room at Bristol’s Start the Bus.

Having been plagued by comparisons since they first started, Joe D’Agostino seems reluctant for me to take any of his words without a pinch of salt, although it’s obvious from his enthusiasm during the conversation that it’s simply a case of trying to avoid the inevitable guilt of forgetting to mention someone. At several points, he breaks into a shout (“Eminem’s ‘Stan’ is one of the best… oh my God!” / “‘Down Rodeo’ on ‘Evil Empire’, heeyeaaahhh!”) or straight up bursts into song, from The Dismemberment Plan’s ‘You Are Invited’ (“She looked at me with a glazed smiiile DUNUHNUHNUHNUHNUHNUHNUH!”) to Sonic Youth’s ”Cross the Breeze’ (“I WANNA KNOW!!! hehem” Are you ok? “I’m gonna make it. I have an upper respiratory infection, I think.”) When he recalls the moment “music became the centre of life”, there isn’t the faintest hint of unease in his eyes. When asked what the alternative to his current lifestyle would be, he offers no suggestions. “I was a Comp. lit. major. Comparative Literature.” He whispers, “…it’s bullshit. I don’t know. I’d have all of this pent up creative energy. Loving music and not being able to do anything except go and see other bands and RAGE about bands that I don’t like.” “Rage and post venom on blogs,” suggests Whipple, “It’s just the commenters we mean, we’re not biting the hand that feeds. They’re like, ‘How much did you pay your publicist to get this blog post?’ Well, this specific blog post? It doesn’t work like that, but we do pay our publicist!” “We’ve been pretty fortunate, for the most part. The backlash usually comes if the second record is shit,” says D’Agostino. “Or really good!” says Whipple, “Backlash is when you can buy an apartment.”

“The main difference is the new songs are written for a four piece band, rather than an orchestra from hell like the first one,” says Miller. “Yeah,” says Whipple, “There’s a really cool part on the new song where it’s like this big shoegaze guitar bend and I thought it was Joe in rehearsal, and it was Brian, like a wwwuuuuUUUUUUuuuh!” “It was Brian!” exclaims D’Agostino. “Like I said before, he’s like a rhythm guitarist. Whipple plays guitar too so at the end of that song, he switches off from bass to guitar and we play this interlocking thing. Lyrically, there are very grave sentiments and fears expressed. I wasn’t quite there when we were writing the other record. I look back at the lyrics that I’m singing every night, for the songs that we have on our first record… it’s like, infantile, compared to what this is. But yeah, we’re just trying to assume different roles. Not in like, a Kid A way… I’m never going to play the drums, ever. Brian might! But I just didn’t want us to become the band where it’s like, ‘Oh, they’re the guys with the long outros.’” Whipple chimes in with his best Barney Gumble impression, “Buh… their songs don’t end like they start.”

Hamilton suggests his love of ambient music might have resulted from the way in which he listened to his parents’ records when he was younger. He’s reluctant to name the “cheesy synth shit from the ’60s and ’70s”, but puts forward Aretha Franklin, Pink Floyd and Nirvana as important milestones in his musical growth. “Our record player was fucked up so it played everything slower than it actually was. I was listening to the records literally like, 10 or 15 rpm slower than they actually are. I thought that was normal. For years. I was just listening to these really slow records.” Although less enthusiastic about his parents’ influence at the time, Whipple admits his Mum has always been five years ahead of him. “When I was twelve, she’s like, ‘You oughtta listen to this band Wilco, they’re really cool.’ I was like, ‘Pffft. Whatever, Mom. I like Pearl Jam and Rage Against the Machine. What is this? This doesn’t rock.’”

Recalling the band’s brief stint supporting The Flaming Lips last November, Miller remembers an encounter with John Cusack,”I was like, ‘John Cusack’s not here, he’s in that fucking terrible movie 2012!’ A second later, he walked by the doorway. Did he hear? Probably not. He’s in the zone. Wayne’s ahead of him. It’s like, ‘Wayne, I get to meet you again. Or for the first time.’” The room erupts momentarily, “It’s a terrible movie!” “He’s gotta know, it’s a cash-in!” “He thought about that all the way to the bank!” I admit never having seen it, to which D’Agostino replies in the most serious tone he uses all evening, “No. No one did.”