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We think of things more emotionally than spiritually, even though there's a lot of overlap between the two. It has to be something that strikes a chord with all four of us. Most of the stuff we write gets thrown away, which is why it takes us four years to make an album.
-Christopher Hrasky |
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Photo from do512.com
EITS have their own aesthetic, and one can't escape the feeling they're entering someone else's world when the notes wrap around you.
Christopher Hrasky |
"Two big bands for us when we formed were Mogwai and the Dirty Three. For years it was constant Mogwai comparisons, and there's no denying they were an influence, but I think it's a lazy way to talk about something," laments Hrasky on the challenges of playing instrumental music that strays outside established genres. "It just seemed the way to go. We just wanted to have a band that wasn't some guy's band where they play his songs. We operate with all four of us having an equal part. We all take it very seriously. No one hangs back and says, 'Play whatever you want.'"
The evocative song titles expand on the meaning and mood of each piece, creating a set of ideas that play off each other. "The same goes for the artwork on our records," Hrasky adds. "We get as nervous about finishing the artwork and song titles properly as we do about the music. It's as important to us as the songs a lot of the time, which is strange in this day and age where less and less people are holding physical copies of albums."
Friday Night Lights is about the small, rural, football-obsessed fictional town of Dillon, Texas. A lot of the storytelling is greatly underscored by EITS' naturally cinematic work.
Explosions In The Sky |
"It's a football movie but it's not exactly upbeat. It's a movie about poor people basically. This thing they build their lives around comes crashing down when they're 18," observes Hrasky. "The other three guys in the band grew up in Midland-Odessa, Texas, which doesn't have anything to do with how we ended up scoring the film. It was just a coincidence. We all knew the book it's based on really well."
"It is a strange thing to have these pieces of music suddenly making us money. We're really happy about it but it's still strange," he says. "There is this weird guilt we feel for some reason. In the last three years, this has become what we do for a living, which is a pretty unlikely thing to happen. We feel really lucky but it's something we've had to come to terms with."
"It's funny because we haven't really been getting more soundtrack offers. It just hasn't happened. I worry that it's such a specific sound that maybe people only associate us with the football movie," Hrasky continues. "I've found the TV show to be stronger than the movie. It's more fleshed out. There's a lot of stuff the book gets into like the economics of the town that the film couldn't get into. Surprisingly, it's a pretty interesting show where there's actually not a lot of football. It's good so it'll probably get cancelled after one season [laughs]. NBC loves it and is pushing but it just can't beat those Dancing With The Stars ratings."
The network has signed the series to a second season but its fate remains far from certain. I suggest they perform at a high school dance on the show while they've still got the chance. "We could be the guys the jocks are beating up," chimes Hrasky.
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