ON PERFORMING IN EUROPE VS. THE STATES:
“[In America] you show up to a club and they give you two drink tickets, some Tostitos, a pat on the back and a hundred bucks and you’re supposed to survive off of that.” as appropriately and as fully-realized as possible. Regarding the two person thing - we didn’t even really intend for there to be only two people in this band. I mean, at the beginning we would flyer for bass players all around the city. But I don’t know, it just seemed like the songs sounded better on their own between the two of us. And I think if we were to add another member it would change the dynamic and the feel of the music.
comparisons?
I understand.
It was definitely very organic. It’s kind of funny to think, but maybe as you get older you get more receptive of your youth, and the things that you have pushed out of your experience naturally come out of you, you know? We took a break for a reason. The few years that we were off, I put out a solo record and in between all of that [Adam] and I separately went through some pretty dark times. And I think this record, in its loud and kind of aggressive nature, represents a catharsis to a certain extent. Trying to express these things that we went through that we couldn’t have any control over.
Especially with this new material, which I think is a bit of a departure from our previous stuff. Even though it’s just two people, I don’t feel like it’s lacking anything.
No, definitely not.
If that were the case, if we felt the song lacked something, I don’t think we’re married to one sort of equation at all. It’s more about the song dictating what it needs.
Do you get a lot of annoying White Stripes 26 OCTOBER 2012 PERFORMER MAGAZINE
[laughter] Yeah, yeah, it’s a lot of White Stripes and Black Keys and stuff like that. I mean, I would much prefer Hella or Lighting Bolt comparisons, but there’s no comparison.
At least to my ears, the new record is a little less bluesy and a little grungier and grittier in places. Was that a stylistic effort on your part, or was it more organic?
Now, the new record probably features, I don’t know if I would call them the biggest riffs, but definitely the heaviest stuff you’ve done. Especially in parts of “Ride Away” and “My Love Won’t Wait.” With that in mind, how do you guys approach the studio as a two-piece? And is that different from how you approach the stage?
Not particularly. I think one has to approach recording as a whole other experience. I mean, I think on our previous records - and Adam brought this up the other day, which I hadn’t really thought of - we tried to be as pure of possible about things, you know? I mean, to try to record, or represent the experience or at least the feel that one would get if you came to one of our shows. You would see a sort of parallel in the feel and experience. With this record, we definitely approached it in that same way. That sort of purist way, but we’ve learned a little bit, too. Especially over the time [we spent apart], we learned a lot by recording our own records. I think that we were able to actually capture this feeling a little bit, even more realistically than we have before. But on top of that, still take advantage of the studio, where you’re like a painter. Everything that you see in the painting when it’s on the wall is not what you see in all the layers that the painter used in the months and months that he or she spent in the studio. So what I’m trying to say is that we took