power pop – Page 12 – Say It With Garage Flowers

‘I love jangly guitars!’

February 24, 2015March 25, 2015sayitwithgarageflowersLeave a comment

Detroit power pop supremo Nick Piunti tells me about the writing and recording of his new album Beyond The Static – the follow-up to his critically acclaimed record 13 In My Head.

It’s great to chat to you again, Nick. When we last spoke, back in 2013, you’d just released 13 In My Head – your second solo album. It was one of my favourite records of that year. And now you’re back with the follow-up – Beyond The Static. Did you feel any pressure when you were writing and recording the new album?

Nick Piunti: Thanks, Sean. I think there’s always the hope that the next album will be better than the previous one, but I wouldn’t call it pressure, just the desire to make a good album. And, of course, the hope is that the new album will be as well received as the last one, but, ultimately, we made an album that I like and am proud of.

13 In My Head really raised your profile in the UK, didn’t it? It picked up some great press…

NP: The attention and press that 13 In My Head received in the UK and Europe was amazing. And there are a lot of people to thank for that. Having a song on the Mojo magazine compilation CD Songs in the Key of Paul definitely raised my profile in the UK and beyond.

And for Markus Holler from Sugarbush Records to release the album on vinyl, that was a boost as well. Yourself, Robin Wills, Wayne Lundqvist Ford, the Madrid power pop community, Luis deOry, Power Pop Pedro and Rock and Roll Circus – all were instrumental in spreading the word.

Rest assured, fans of 13 In My Head will definitely love Beyond The Static – it’s more of the same; infectious power pop songs, with big guitars, harmonies and strong melodies, isn’t it? Like its predecessor, it’s very instant. The first three tracks don’t mess around – Things don’t really slow down until track four, Six Bands…

NP: I’ve been recording for so long and have pretty much stayed true to the music that initially inspired me. I think the trick is to not be too obvious with your influences, but to meld them into something of your own. If it’s not catchy it doesn’t usually end up on one of my albums.

I noticed a country influence on Six Bands – is that pedal steel on it? Musically, it reminds me of REM. Can you tell me more about that song? I love the opening lines: ‘’She’s in six bands – none of them good. Tries to sing, only if she could. But she’s drowning in a talent pool – chasing dreams can be so cruel.”

Is it aimed at anyone in particular? Is it a comment on the shallow and ruthless nature of the music industry?

NP: Thanks – yep, pedal steel courtesy of Dave Feeny, who owns a great studio called The Tempermill. He’s produced some of my favourite Detroit artists who also are my friends (Chris Richards, Ryan Allen, Friendly Foes, American Mars) and he plays pedal steel. I felt that he could add a cool vibe to the song, which he obviously did.

The song isn’t about anyone in particular. I was reading a local paper, The Metro Times, and there was an article with a story about a girl who was in four bands. So I exaggerated it a bit. But the song isn’t about her – it’s about the struggle that bands and artists have these days and how many are a bit delusional. When I was in my early twenties I moved to L.A. with my childhood band, so maybe some of the lyrics were autobiographical, but I only had one band and we were pretty good.

Where did the album title – Beyond The Static – come from?

NP: Well, I was struggling to find the right title for the album. The phrase “beyond the static” comes from the song Something’s Wrong. My daughter Megan picked up on that line, so there you go.

I love the song Time Machine – I had a sneak preview of it last year, as a teaser to the new album. If you had a time machine, where would you travel to?

NP: That’s a good question. It would have to be the future, wouldn’t it? If we travelled too far back in time, I think we would find that the good old days weren’t what we thought they would be. Except for maybe seeing The Beatles at The Cavern.

Your song Heart Stops Beating has some vintage synth sounds on it, doesn’t it? It has a bit of a New Wave feel to it. Did you wear a skinny tie while you were recording it?

NP: My skinny tie days are behind me, but, yeah, I think I was going for a Cars feel with the muted guitar – Rickenbacker – and the synth, which is actually doubled with guitars, as well. It also has a Weezer vibe, which makes sense since Ric Ocasek [from The Cars] produced a few of their albums.

Something’s Wrong is a rocker. It has a swagger to it, with heavy guitars and plenty of attitude…

NP: I almost left that one off the album, because I thought it didn’t quite fit with the rest of the songs, but I’m glad my rock side prevailed.

There’s some jangly, chiming guitar pop on the album, too – like Quicksand. Didn’t you record an alternative version of Time Machine, with a different guitar sound? Will that alternative take come out in the future?

NP: I love jangly guitars – there’s a bit of 12-string on the album, but mostly capos and the right kind of six strings – Matchless and Vox amps get the job done. We did record another version of Time Machine with a more jangly feel, and I was going to include it on the album, but I didn’t want one song to be featured more than once.

Can you tell me about the writing and the recording of the new album? How did you approach making Beyond The Static? What did you want to achieve with it?

NP: World domination – ha! The writing process stays the same. Some days you hammer away for a couple of hours and nothing comes of it, while on other occasions the minute I pick up my guitar a lyric, melody or a riff come together at the same time, and those are the songs that make it on the album. I wrote all the songs, but Geoff Michael [producer] spent some time deconstructing a couple of the songs, so he was credited as a co-writer on those.

Donny Brown re-arranged It’s A Trap – he turned the second part of the original chorus into the bridge, so he’s credited on that song as well. And the other co-writer is my 16-year-old daughter Megan. She didn’t actually sit down and write with me, but I stole her line, “I fell for you and I can’t get up” and turned it into a song [Fell For You]. I didn’t want her to be denied the writing credit like Ringo – he came up with the phrases “hard day’s night” and “eight days a week”. That’s what I think I read anyway.

Who was involved with the record this time around? Was it the same guys who worked with you on 13 In My Head?

NP: Once again, Geoff Michael produced the album – at Big Sky Recording in Ann Arbor, Michigan. He also added guitar and keyboards on two songs. Donny Brown – again – played drums on all but one song. He also recorded the drums for a couple of the tracks at his home studio, as well as adding some awesome background vocals and synth lines on Time Machine.

For this album, Andy Reed played bass on every track, which he recorded at his own studio, Reed Recording Company. Andy’s studio is a two and a half hour drive for me, so it’s easier to send the tracks to him. He lays down the perfect basslines and sends them back to Geoff – they’re always great.

Andy and I also tracked some guitars, keyboards and noises on Head in the Clouds, at his studio. Ryan Allen sang on four songs and added guitar on Something’s Wrong.

Chris Richards also sang on a couple songs as well. Steve Mullan played keys on a song and a young drummer named Billy Harrington appears on Anything But Easy.

One thing that I don’t do is to tell any of these amazing guys what to play. I like to see what they bring to my songs. Since they’re such great songwriters in their own right, they instinctively know what can make a good song better.

I didn’t actually rehearse with anyone individually before the recording. I would either send demos or tracks from the studio and they each came up with their own parts. Despite what some may say, I’m really not that much of a control freak. For this album I even decided not to be there for the mixing sessions. Geoff did the mixing, would send the tracks to me, and I would make a few minor suggestions and he would tweak away. So, ultimately, I had the last word, but relied on the talents of many.

Which albums and bands were you listening to when you were writing and recording the new album. Have you heard anything new that you’d recommend?

NP: I’m always looking for something new that inspires me. My friend Ryan Allen has just released a new solo album called Heart String Soul that I love. He sent me the original demos as he was writing them, so I was there for the inception.

Chris Richards, Andy Reed, and Keith Klingensmith recorded their debut album, The Legal Matters, which is a great pop album that found its way on to a lot of Best of 2014 lists. I even played guitar on a couple of songs.

There’s a Brooklyn band called Nude Beach that I really dig. Their new album is called 77 and, yeah, it sounds like it could have been recorded in 1977. The new Spoon album, New Pornographers, The Both, New Mendicants (a handsome chap named Sean Hannam introduced me to them!) and Jason Narducy’s band/solo project Split Single is right up my alley. It’s indie-rock and power pop influenced, as well.

Will you be playing some gigs to promote your new album? Do you think that you’ll get to play in the UK? We’d love to have you over here…

NP: There will be a few shows – for sure. The UK and Europe would be awesome, but it would have to make financial sense. Making music and financially responsibility don’t usually mesh in the independent music world, unfortunately.

Good luck with the new album – it’s a great record. What are your plans for the rest of the year?

NP: I’m halfway done with songs for the next album and maybe I’ll collaborate with a friend or two on something new as well.

I’m fortunate to be able to keep making new music and really lucky to be hitting my stride when most sane people would have given up years ago.

I still have the passion and I have friends that inspire me, so why would I stop? Oh, and most importantly, I have the most incredible wife in the world. That is not to be underestimated.

Beyond The Static will be released on March 14 (Two Brains Recording Co.). There are plans for a vinyl version later this year.

http://www.nickpiunti.com

https://soundcloud.com/nick-piunti

http://nickpiuntimusic.bandcamp.com

“I feel like we’ve been through some dark times and 2015 is going to be a big year”

November 7, 2014November 8, 2014sayitwithgarageflowersLeave a comment

Fans of classic, jangly, guitar pop rejoice – Oxford band The Dreaming Spires are back with a gorgeous, brand new three-track EP, Darkest Before The Dawn, which is a taster for their second album, Searching For The Supertruth, due out next year.

Opening song Hype Bands Parts I & II is a seven minute tour-de-force – a big blast of country-soul with horns, chugging rock & roll guitars and an irresistible, sunshine melody. Its wry, amusing lyric is about on-the-road antics in the USA and pokes fun at hipster indie bands who are more concerned about wearing the right clothes than writing great songs…

Second tune, House On Elsinore, is luscious. A hypnotic, hazy heat wave of a song, it’s set in LA’s dark underbelly and is soundtracked by chiming, psychedelic, Byrds-like guitars, while the title track is a positive, spiritual hymn that was written as a message of hope to a friend of the band, Danny, who went through some tough times, but, thankfully, came out the other side. It’s moving and very uplifting.

I spoke to Robin Bennett – who, with his brother Joe – forms the nucleus of The Dreaming Spires, about Americana, hanging out in LA and how their new album has been influenced by shoegazing…

Let’s talk about your brand new EP, Darkest Before The Dawn, which is a great record. Musically, it feels like a step on from your debut album Brothers in Brooklyn. It has a richer, more expansive, widescreen sound. Musically, you’ve taken the jangle-pop feel of The Byrds, Big Star and Teenage Fanclub, but also thrown in some Americana influences and themes…

Robin Bennett: Thanks. I’m excited to get some new material out after what feels like an age. We’ve always felt part of that lineage of bands, not so much by intention, but in how things seem to end up sounding.

I often think we’ve gone on a radical departure, only to be told it still sounds like The Byrds. Maybe a different Byrds album… We’ve always been bracketed in with Americana acts in England too, which has never made much sense to me, unless you’re going to include The Kinks and The Beatles, etc. I read Ray Davies’ book Americana this year, which helped put it all in perspective for me.

I definitely share those ‘60s bands’ excitement at the exotic nature of many aspects of American culture, which is shaped by Beat books, cowboy films, rock & roll music, neon signage, cup holders, and all the other ephemera. Bands from The Byrds to Tom Petty to Big Star refracted the British beat music back again – so I see it as back and forth across the Atlantic. It’s tough on us British acts playing in that style, because it’s assumed we are trying to be American. To be British, you have to sound like Duran Duran, it seems. As a child of the ‘80s mostly, I never heard any music I liked until I discovered ‘50s rock & roll and soul via The Beatles. These songs [on our new EP] are mostly triggered by events that happened during visits to the US. In this case, mostly California – between 2003-2008.

So, what was the starting point for the new EP – musically and thematically?

RB: The song Darkest Before The Dawn was written by me and a friend, Cat Martino, in Brooklyn. We were trying to write a letter to our friend Danny in the form of a song. I’d had the tune and the chorus line for a while, since our first ever band practice before the first album, but when it was expressed as a direct message it seemed to come together. We wanted it to have a positive message while acknowledging how bad things had got. Although we were talking to Danny about his life, the theme of darkness and redemption feels applicable to all of us. We worked hard to create the contrast between light and shade in the title song, while House on Elsinore has a paranoid air from the many drones and so on…

The songs are on the new EP are all thematically linked – based on real life experiences you had with your friend Danny. He sounds like quite a character! You’ve certainly got some good tales from your antics with him – he has been referenced in several of your songs.

RB: Danny certainly is a character. In fact, it’s him I’m talking about in Singing Sin City from our first album, “smoking cigarettes like a cowboy movie character”. On our first visit to the West Coast with [previous band] Goldrush and Mark Gardener [ex-Ride], he was officially our tour manager and collected us from LAX airport. The whole experience made a big impression on me and we formed a close friendship. At the time he had his own band, The And/Ors, and was working as a screen printer for the artist Shepard Fairey. You could say the music we were listening to on cassettes in his tour van – mostly Teenage Fanclub and The Byrds – set me off on the direction that ended up with The Dreaming Spires. Given that he also introduced me to Big Star and reintroduced me to Tom Petty, you could credit Danny with our whole sound.

Aside from the bands and tours, we unexpectedly struck up a songwriting partnership. In only a few sessions in LA and also on his visits to Oxford, we contrived to write over 50 songs together at a rate of two or three a day. Until then I’d been writing mostly alone and struggling with it. He taught me how to put method in the madness and to create almost on demand, which was an amazing change for me.

We wrote songs for Goldrush for the album The Heart is the Place, and a kind of solo album called Dusty Sound System, which was written in a week and recorded in a day, as well as numerous unreleased songs. Strength of Strings and Just Can’t Keep This Feeling In eventually made it onto the Brothers in Brooklyn LP [The Dreaming Spires’ first album].

How does Danny feel about having songs written about him? He sounds like he went through a bad patch, but, thankfully, is now in a much happier place…

RB: He did indeed hit a bad patch and it was no longer possible for us to write together. It was also a turbulent and busy time in my own life, so I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to write again on my own – and for a year or so, there wasn’t much coming out. It was seeing him at such a low point, when we visited California for a friend’s wedding, that got me writing again – with him as the subject, instead of the writing partner. I don’t know why, but the ideas just kept coming, spilling out into numerous lyrics that I wrote at great speed. Some were finished in time for the first LP, some took longer and some form part of this new EP and the new album. I kept thinking, ‘now I should write about something else’, but I kept having more ideas from the same topic and often the lyrics would go off on tangents from a similar starting point.

I read something by Jay-Z, talking about writing lyrics by going back to the same point in your past for inspiration, so perhaps that’s what was happening. We spent a year recording these new songs, but I knew if Danny wasn’t happy with them, then I wouldn’t be able to release them, so I sent them to him before anyone else. His reaction was what I hoped it would be – he understood the intention of the songs, of course. I also didn’t feel right putting these songs out until I knew he was in good shape again, which he very much is now.

I like the wry, witty lyrics on your song Hype Bands Parts I & II. Are the words aimed at any bands in particular? I also like the rocky guitar sound on the track and the big brass arrangement. It has a soulful feel…

RB: I think we’ve ended up with a contrast between the brittle sound of the intro, which is a warm parody of any number of ‘hype bands’, and the looser feel of the second half, where music helps you to let go – which is what ‘soul’ music usually does. Because we’ve been playing in bands since the late ‘90s, we’ve come across many bands that have shot to fame before disappearing, but, in a way, it’s more of a comment on how the music industry has treated bands in the last 15 years. There’s a wave of hype to get them going, before a rapid tail-off into obscurity. Of course, if you’re a writer or an artist, this bears no relation to your development. The attributes to being a good ‘hype band’ are different to being a good writer, as your window of opportunity is so short. You have to chime with the trend of the moment.

When we did have a major label push for our old band, Goldrush, we coincided with the appearance of The Strokes, who must be the ultimate hype band. We didn’t stand a chance! Shortly afterwards we left Virgin Records, who replaced us with The Thrills – who, I should add, were a good band with some excellent songs. They did a similar thing, but in a much more presentable way. We crossed paths with them a few times during our LA visits, including an incident where we found out that a friend of Danny’s was acting as their stylist. When he asked Conor, the singer, about it, he denied everything. We really did play them at pool, too. We won!

Will any of the songs from the new EP end up on your next album – Searching For The Supertruth – which is out next year?

RB: We recorded 13 tracks in all – three of which form this EP and the other 10 make up the album. We tried to make it work as a double album, but, ultimately, it worked better separating these three songs as an EP – it’s too much to process at once. All 13 tracks will be on the vinyl release across two discs.

Is the EP representative of the new album?

RB: I think the EP is a good pointer towards the album. We’ve finished the album. It’s been mastered by Tony Poole, a great musician and producer who played in the cult ‘70s band Starry Eyed & Laughing. We worked with our long time associate Rowland Prytherch to create as much detail in the sound as we can, so that further listening is rewarded. Something we’ve picked up more on since the first LP is trying to create an atmospheric undercurrent to the tracks, often using lap steel washes and string pads through numerous FX pedals. You could call it our shoegaze influence. I think it sounds positive and transcendent, overall.

So, what we can expect from the new album. Can you give us a few teasers?

RB: We’ve been playing some songs live already. The autobiographical song Dusty in Memphis is already a crowd favourite, complete with a sing-along. We’ve also played the title song, with a backwards guitar part by Tony Poole, and the ballad We Used to Have Parties, which has a backing vocal from Sarah Cracknell of Saint Etienne.

Is it a concept album and part of a trilogy? Where did the title – Searching For The Supertruth – come from?

RB: It definitely feels like a concept album, without being overbearing. It is the final part of the trilogy, where the narrative resolves, at least for now. The title came from a scientist friend called Rich Blundell. It’s to do with cosmic evolution and the universe becoming conscious of itself.

What music are you currently into and what are your favourite new albums of 2014?

RB: This year I have enjoyed new stuff from The War on Drugs, Sturgill Simpson, and Arcade Fire, as well some great music by friends including Common Prayer, Sugar Magnolia and Paul McClure. I’m enjoying The Flaming Lips and friends’ take on Sgt Pepper more than I expected too! I’ve also been listening to lots of soul compilations, dreaming of being in Booker T & The MG’s, plenty of Jackson Browne and new and old Tom Petty albums. Getting a car with a tape-only stereo has meant I’ve listened to cassette versions of Tunnel of Love [Bruce Springsteen] and Emmylou Harris’ Luxury Liner more times than I care to mention.

So, how you do feel as we head into 2015?

RB: I feel like we’ve been through some dark times and 2015 is going to be a big year

Darkest Before The Dawn – the new EP from The Dreaming Spires – is released on November 24. It’s on ClubHouse Records.

http://www.thedreamingspires.co.uk

http://www.clubhouserecords.co.uk

http://www.clubhouserecords.co.uk/artists/the-dreaming-spires

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