TLOBF Interview // Free Energy

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Free Energy’s album, Stuck On Nothing, has been getting plaudits the world over. Produced by DFA’s main man James Murphy, their raw and retro rock seems to awaken something primordial inside… Tyler Boehm took the opportunity to fire off some questions to Paul Sprangers.

Free Energy feels very different from Hockey Night, it feels a lot more conceptual. Were you guys like, “Let’s start a band with a real 70′s sound” or was it more just you started playing and this is the sound you came to?
Whoa! that’s interesting because i think hockey night was a lot more conceptual, in that we were thinking much more about the construction of the songs, the solos, the lyrics. everything was much more self-conscious. whereas with free energy we are much freer and less concerned about whether our ideas or songs are cool or sufficiently blurring the classic-rockness-beaneath.
The 70′s sound is something we’ve always been digging towards. We’ve been feeling our way to where we are. Hockey Night definitely had a 70′s sound but we dressed it up and blurred it and danced around it. Whereas now we’re zeroing in and going for it.

What were you guys listening to during the time you were writing & recording Stuck on Nothing?
The cars. AC/DC. Bob seger. Michael rother. Hot Chip.

Stuck on Nothing feels perfectly produced. There’s a cohesive sound to the whole album and a lot of really great little touches throughout. Can you talk about working with James Murphy and what your process was like?
Thank you! Working with James was very positive for us. he helped us to feel comfortable exploring ourselves, what we wanted, and what we were doing. Which, it turns out, is partly exploring places that to us feel uncomfortable and strange – like light rock, cheesy dance music, big stupid arena rock, etc. We were able to make choices and commit to them feeling completely supported. There was just always support comning from james and from jon (galkin) who runs the label and signed us to dfa. they encouraged us to make what we wanted to make.

The process was very stop/start. It was alternatively very intense and very, very chill. We would work for 3 weeks then take 2 or 3 weeks off while james would go dj and do cool stuff. it was good because it gave us distance from what we were doing and we could come back to the record with fresh ears. it just worked out really well.

There’s sort of a rich tradition of punky/indie bands from Minnesota playing really awesome hard rock, from The Replacements and early Soul Asylum to The Hold Steady and (3/5 of) you guys. Is there something about Minnesota that feeds that tradition?
Minnesota is hard, man. it’s isolated. it’s hard to be a band from mn and tour because you’re so far away from other big cities. so a lot of bands just stay and kind of calcify in the cities. there’s a ceiling in minnesota. i mean, hold steady didn’t take off until they got out of that state. people in minnesota are the best though. they’re so supportive. almost to a fault. it’s cool. but they can also be really hard on bands.
minnesota also is full of stoic scandanavians, so maybe that feeds the tradition of hard rock bands you mention. kind of stone-faced rock.

Is it something you were aware of when putting Free Energy together?
Absolutely not. except that we certainly don’t feel a part of that tradition. people and bands are afraid to make really bombastic love rock. except prince, i guess. but he’s pretty international.

A lot of people have been talking about your band’s relationship to indie rock (and I guess it’s kind of a bigger conversation happening now with indie music’s every growing presence in the mainstream). How important is the indie label/identity to the band?
That label is not very important to the band, i don’t think. we hope we are making pop music, i guess. because we grew up on american and british indie rock. like actual indie rock–bands that were on independent labels. i think indie now days doesn’t mean independent. it’s just a label. that sounds kind of like a grandpa rant, huh?

You guys have sort of a big arena rock sound but there’s also a real intimacy to the songs, particularly in Paul Spranger’s vocals. Do you feel more comfortable playing in small clubs or bigger venues and what would be your dream venue to play?
We plan on playing arenas. we love playing in small clubs. wherever people can feel us and we can make a connection is good. i mean, there’s no shortage of small clubs with lousy sound and bad sightlines where you can’t connect. while some theaters have the best sound and you feel closer to people than ever.

Our dream venue would be on a giant tube floating down a creek.