|
 |
| |
I think our fans are more patient with us than Strangefolk fans were. Strangefolk fans wanted to come and get beat in the head every single song. I think that we're a little more daring in playing slower songs and making the audience work a little.
-Reid Genauer on AOD |
|
|
|
|
Photo by Jaclyn Ranere
After four or five years of touring with AOD, you had the 2005 live disc [The Honest Hour] and the 2003 solo disc [Assembly of Dust]. Now you're releasing the first full studio album, Recollection. What went into this album and what does it mean to you and the band?
Assembly of Dust |
Song selection was a big piece of it - kind of haggling about what songs we thought would best serve us. Then it was a fairly long-winded process of just laying down the tracks, doing all the overdubs and mixes. Actually, there were a few tracks that didn't make it on the album. It wasn't that they didn't come out good, it was that we were trying to kind of create an album and not just a random group of songs. There were two or three that felt just like thematically they were a little out of the loop. It seems like it's this little piece of plastic and it seems like it ought to be a fairly painless process, and in some cases it is a fairly painless process. But, between the recording and the developing artwork for it and working with the label to come up with the release date and the whole marketing plan and all that stuff, it was like a year of intense thought and energy. It's definitely like giving birth. You know you have this little gem that's about to be birthed upon the world. This is a funny comparison but it's true, it's sort of like pursuing a girl in a bar, where it's like the hunt is sometimes more exciting than the actual conclusion. So the hunt is fun.
The only track that made it from the previous album is "The Honest Hour." How did you choose that one?
If you'll allow me to pat myself on the back - or Nate and I - we just feel like that's a gem of a song and it's one that really captures what we're going for. The live album was a live album. We wanted a chance to recreate it in a studio setting and just make it shine in a pristine way. The fact that we released a live album first really is kind of bizarre because usually what people do is release a series of studio albums and then recap those songs live. In some ways, we felt cheated because we introduced a lot of new songs that never had been recorded on an album. We would've liked to have done others actually, but this was the one that we felt like if we were gonna play anything, this one deserves a chance to be polished.
How does Recollection compare to your earlier music?
Nate Wilson - AOD by T. Voggesser |
Truth be told I think the album's mellower than our live performances. The tempos are a little more moderate, the song selections maybe a little more moderate. That was intentional because that's the place for it. How many people put on an album and dance around the house? You put it on and you listen to it, usually in the car. We felt like if there's a chance to speak with a gentler voice, this is the appropriate place to do it. In the live setting, the tempos creep up because everybody's excited and adrenaline's happening. I think we all listened back to records that we'd made where the tempos were too quick and we consciously tried to pull ourselves back a little bit and take a more measured approach to recording. [This] might be kinda weird for diehard fans who have heard these songs dozens of times. I imagine there's an element of surprise. There's some different instrumentation, a few different arrangements, but overall, it's definitely a little more reserved.
Despite the fact that you started the band and you write most of the music, how does the rest of the band influence the music that you guys create?
First and foremost, Nate and I write a lot of the songs together. There's two songs on the [new] album that he wrote himself and I sing. I think the songs that really define us are the ones that Nate and I write together and sort of become the AOD sound. So, that's number one. It is definitely a collaborative process. It's not like either one of us is sitting there and saying, "Play this, play that." We present the song, and usually the song suggests a feel. Sometimes, we'll give a reference that's sort of like a Dire Straits tune, or sort of like a Steely Dan feel, or kind of going for a Paul Simon thing. The cool thing is that John, Andy, and Adam are such great musicians coming from a similar place philosophically about music and aesthetically. Nine out of ten times we [present the tune] and five minutes later we're playing it as a band.
It'll get tweaked and refined over time. Sometimes songs don't find their groove until you've played them live a lot. It's weird. I don't know why it is but you can practice a song a zillion times and it still doesn't really gel until you present it [live] because people play with a different intensity and different inspiration. The song doesn't really come alive until it's got an audience. It must be weird for a band to record an album of material that's never been played live and then start playing the songs, which seems sort of backwards. I've never done this but I'd like to sometime. It's like a comedian wouldn't just put a bunch of jokes on an album. You wanna go test and refine it, see where the audience laughs and where they don't. To me, it seems like it would be like releasing art or music in a vacuum if you didn't try it out on people first.
|
