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IN CAPTURING OUR ENTHUSIASM.
COURTESY OF WOODS
WE TAKE COMFORT
J ARVI S T AVENI ERE, WOODS
talist Jarvis Taveniere by phone f rom the road in Texas. SEVEN DAYS: Do you guys enjoy the grind of touring? JARVIS TAVENIERE: I enjoy it. It’s f un to play every day and get tight. It’s also a weird headspace. I feel like you have to become a character, just go crazy in the van to become a maniac version of yourself. It can make for some fun shows. SD: So this is your eighth LP… JT: I don’t know. SD: I think it is. JT: Sure, let’s go with that. SD: Deal. How has your approach to making records changed over that span? JT: Well, the fi rst four were made basically without a band. They were just recording projects. We were hiding f rom the world in our bedrooms and living rooms and making things that we thought were cool. We really weren’t thinking of the outside world and who would hear it. We didn’t think about technical stu˛ people might think about when making a record, what the press would think or any of that. But now we’re a full-time band, so it’s a di˛ erent beast.
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SD: So you’re more conscious now of what the outside world might think? JT: Maybe a little. One thing that has always been the key and has stayed the same is that we only record when we’re excited to do it and we f eel comf ortable, as opposed to going into a studio we don’t know very well. We take comf ort in capturing our enthusiasm. It’s a natural progression. SD: But this was the fi rst time the band has recorded in a proper studio. JT: It was cool. And it’s a studio I had worked in previously with Quilt, who we’re on tour with now. We had a bunch of material we had been working on and just kind of slipped in when the Quilt sessions were done. And it was comfortable because I knew the engineer already. So it was just an extension of what we usually have done. The biggest di˛ erence was me being able to not think like an engineer and just be in the band.
Into the Light An interview with Woods’ Jarvis Taveniere B Y DA N BOL L ES
S
ince f orming in 2005, Brooklyn’s Woods have evolved f rom a recording duo noted f or lo-fi , experimental f olk into a commanding live act whose multifaceted suites have grown increasingly psychedelic. On their latest album, With Light and With Love , Woods marry their a° nity f or spacey drug music with their humble bedroompop roots. The result is a record that’s
both sonically expansive and emotionally intimate. The album leans as heavily on the clamor of unconventional percussion, singing saw and an old saloon piano as it does on classically sticky melodies and powerful pop hooks. In advance of the band’s show at the Higher Ground Showcase Lounge this Sunday, May 11, Seven Days caught up with Woods cof ounder and multi-instrumen-
SD: And you tracked the band live this time, which was different from other records, right? JT: That was a big di˛ erence. We had been
on tour for, like, two years after the last record. So we were becoming a good band and we were interested in capturing the way we interact and play o˛ each other. SD: Would you say that was the key to the album, then, translating the live band to record? JT: I would. We had been such a studio band f or so long and were fi nally confi dent as a live band. So we wanted to make a record that captured that but wasn’t a huge departure style-wise. In my mind, it’s almost a “best of,” a record that touches on all the things we play around with, whether that’s 10-minute, one-chord jams, or f olk stu˛ , whatever. We wanted to see it through, instead of half -fi nished ideas, which is kind of what the fi rst records were, intentionally. SD: I read a recent Noisey interview you did in which you talked about Woods sometimes getting lumped into the jam scene. I had no idea that was an issue for you. I don’t think I would ever mistake Woods for a jam band. JT: It’s not jam-band people who do that. It’s more the indie-rock people, who see some sort of musical references to hippie music. It’s something that’s sort of true. But it’s f unny when you hear people say we’re some kind of hippie thing. I don’t think it’s hippies saying, “You guys are one of us.” I wish. That might make things interesting. SD: Well, there are certainly few fan bases as rabid as jam-band fans. Could be a good career move for Woods. JT: It’s true. We tried to break into the jam-band scene half -jokingly once. Who do we know? Who can we call to get the opening slot for some jam band? It’s funny. This doesn’t always happen, but there are certain parts of the set where we jam. And there are structures when we stretch songs out and we’ll know to change together. And then people applaud af ter that, like when you go to a jazz show after someone solos. It happened last night in Houston and I was, like, “Fuck, we gotta get in the jam-band scene. Where are our people?” I like playing pop songs, but when you tap into something, a jam or whatever, and do it well, and the crowd is with you, it can be pretty amazing.
INFO Woods with Quilt, Sunday, May 11, 8:30 p.m. at the Higher Ground Showcase Lounge in South Burlington. $10/12. AA.
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