Offer is in the back row, second from the right.
!!!’s Nic Offer
Maturity Without the Boredom
Aug 23, 2010
!!! (Chk-Chk-Chk)
It’s hard to think that !!! (Chk-Chk-Chk) have been together for 14 years. That’s quite the feat in and of itself. In case anyone was wondering, the current lineup includes frontman/singer Nic Offer, guitarist Mario Andreoni, horn player/keyboardist Daniel Gorman, saxophonist/percussionist Allan Wilson, drummer Paul Quattrone (Modey Lemon), and !!!‘s first female member, vocalist Shannon Funchess (Light Asylum).
In anticipation of their danceable (of course) fourth LP, Strange Weather, Isn’t it?, streeting this week (August 24), we talked to Nic Offer, singer and leader of the NYC/Sacramento/Portland/Pittsburgh band. Out of respect for the veteran musician, we didn’t ask any questions about the unexpected death of former drummer Jerry Fuchs, who fell down an elevator shaft in November 2009. Topics ranged from the apparent darkness of the new material, !!!‘s beginnings in Sacramento, coming to grips with the circularity of pop music, and the playfully heated debate about analog/digital equipment between Offer, the rest of the band, and Strange Weather co-producer/former DFA house engineer, Eric Broucek (Hercules and Love Affair).
Kyle Lemmon: Your fall tour starts in earnest in September. What have you been up to this summer?
Nic Offer: We’ve just been spending the summer doing this and that festival, here and there. We just got back from Japan last weekend.
How was Japan?
We’ve been there a couple times, but this time was pretty good. We were doing a DJ set at [Fuji Rock Festival]. It’s a pretty big festival in the mountains.
Like some fans, I started listening to you guys around the release of Myth Takes. I was curious about your beginnings in Sacramento. What were those tiny loft shows like?
When we were there it was a typical, underground/D.I.Y. scene. We played a lot at a place called The Loft. It could only hold around 75 people and it was always packed. It was a good vibe around Sac because it was kind of out and away from the Bay Area. Everyone was able to do their own thing. I think we kind of liked being away from things. It always felt like San Francisco bands were more apt to follow trends, where being isolated in Sacramento we kind of made our own trends.
I sort of hesitate to use the term “mature,” but the new album definitely feels like you guys have your shit together and get down to business in a funky, techno-y way. It’s definitely an instantly enjoyable record. Enough rambling from me, though: How do you see Strange Weather?
Yeah, I would take “mature” as a compliment. It’s our fourth album. I hope it still feels fresh. It sounds like people doing things they couldn’t have done on a debut album or even a sophomore release. We should be heading into mature territory. We’ve been a band for over 14 years. You have to make a record from where you are and your reflection of that. I’m getting up there. [Laughs]
What’s the range of ages now?
I think we range from about 30 to 40.
I know the breaks in between albums aren’t solely recording, but I like that !!! has taken their time in between releases to build up buzz the natural way. Is this a philosophy or just the way it works out?
It’s both. It’s just the way things go and we’ve worked it into our philosophy. It’s really kind of a simple matter of us honing the songs live before going to the studio. We don’t have live all in the same town, so to put a song together it has to be on the road.
Where are you all located, now?
Mario Andreon is in Portland, Allan Wilson lives in Sacramento, Paul Quattrone’s in Pittsburgh, and the rest of us are in New York.
You’ve mentioned in previous interviews about how the lyrics are darker this time. Have you been fielding a lot of questions about how it’s sonically a poppy record, but dark in lyrical tone?
It seems like most of the questions about the lyrics have been from the American press people since they got the link to the lyric sheet. Usually people just overlook the dark lyrics, since the music is so popular-sounding. A track like “The Most Certain Sure” is pretty dark, but if you didn’t really pay attention to it, it seems like a good thing. It was supposed to be slightly deceptive. It’s a good thing to be by yourself, which that song is about.
That also makes sense for your role in the band as the crowd control person and “hype man,” I’m sure you require your alone time, but get a real buzz off the audience.
Yes, that’s true. I don’t see it as a bad thing, especially while touring.
When you write the lyrics do you have to have a skeletal beat and melody?
It happens every which way. Sometimes I have stuff kicking around in notebooks that I put alongside music. Sometimes the lyrics come from singing live and the adrenaline helps with the creative process. Sometimes I write little bits of lyrics based on the feel the song is going for at the time. That’s how “AM/FM” came out. I was trying different things live and certain phrases started to catch on. I just wrote the meaning around that.
To go along with the poppy sound, the vocals are very high in the mix this time. Was that a conscious decision going into the studio with Eric Broucek?
Yeah, we knew the first Hercules and Love Affair record was really immediate and effective on first listen. I think we wanted a directness like that. We knew we were always a bit murky and out there, so Eric gave us a nice balance.
How did that working relationship come about? Did you come to him?
Yeah, Shannon sang on the Hercules record and she liked how he worked. They kind of worked it out and then met up. It clicked right away.
The new album has that Berlin minimal techno sound, even though it was also recorded in New York City and Sacramento. It’s nice that the synths don’t sound as cold as that particular strain of techno. There’s almost a tropical nature to them in relationship to the bass. Did you end up using more analog than digital? I heard there was a slight disagreement between you, Eric [Broucek], and the rest of the band.
It worked out pretty well because he knows how to work analog synths. I think we used about 70% analog and 30% digital. Eric really knows what he’s doing. There was one point where he really didn’t want to use this digital drum machine that we were using and we were kind of going back and forth about that. We were kind of arguing, so it was kind of intense. To placate us he put it through this phaser and we instantly liked it. It had the vintage feeling he likes, but the juice that we liked. That was on “The Most Certain Sure.”
That song had some strings and “Wannagain Wannagain” you brought in some horn players. Were those musical friends you brought into the studio?
Some of that was [saxophonist/percussionist] Allan Wilson, but the guys that used to be in Hercules but now are in Midnight Magic [Morgan Wiley, Tiffany Roth, Andrew Raposo, Carter Yasutake] have a studio right next to Eric. We were always grabbing people from over there to play on the record.
I could see most of these songs extending during live sessions, but on the recorded takes are short and to the point. The record is 40:43 minutes total. Do you find yourselves cutting the musical fat a lot?
There were a couple more songs that we cut off that ended up as one of the iTunes and Japanese bonus tracks. I kind of like a shorter record, especially these days. I think a lot of people got carried away with the 70-minute CD age. They lost focus and I think records are back to around 40 minutes now. Some of the songs were longer too. Really worked at keeping it precise. For our shows we will keep most of the songs the way they are. Some will expand though.
The artwork reflects that simple, yet effective style. Who did the cover? Is that an ice sculpture?
It’s tough to say, because it was Gorman’s idea and we hired an ice sculptor from New York’s Okamoto Studio. He helped us with it. Our photographer friend [Jason Frank Rothenberg] took the picture.
On “Steady As the Sidewalk Cracks” I like your little observations about the circularity of pop music. What were you trying to convey there?
I didn’t like having that discussion with my friends where they’re like, “umm, music’s over and boring. It’s not was good as it used to be. Yadda Yadda Yadda.” As soon as I hear people say that, I think that they’re done. I hope that I’m never at that point. It’s always been that way. People will bring up examples like Justin Bieber or whatever. Just look at Shaun Cassidy and in the ‘80s there was New Kids on the Block. There’s always some garbage there. The Ronettes were great American pop music, but I’m sure all the blues and R&B purists of the time thought, “What is this reverb-drenched, sugar-coated crap?” Now it’s considered great art. I’m sure the stuff that is considered garbage now will be considered great art later.
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