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Minus The Bear: Fantastic Planet
Posted by Rob Ortenzi on 29-Nov-07 @ 12:31 PM|
With a psychedelic new album under their belts, Minus The Bear are totally cool with being your gateway drug. So drop the needle, turn on the black light and put on your cape: It's about to get hot in here. Icy hot. Interview: Scott Heisel Photos: Brion Toploski You wouldn't know it by looking at him, but Jake Snider is a modern-day James Dean. Sort of. We first reach the Minus The Bear frontman piloting his car back to his Seattle residence. He's not evading police cruisers at high speeds, but given Snider's flagrant snubbing of the law (Washington governor Chris Gregoire recently outlawed talking and texting on cell phones while driving), the boys in blue might be on his tail at any given second. After a minute of mulling it over, Snider decides to hang up and drive, asking AP to try him again in a half-hour once he's reached his final destination. A final destination is something Minus The Bear seem to have trouble reaching. Since 2001, the Seattle-based quintet-Snider, guitarist Dave Knudson, bassist Cory Murchy, drummer Erin Tate and new keyboardist Alex Rose-have had a knack for making fluid, dynamic, progressive-rock records that are constantly in motion. Snider's lyrics, while intentionally vague and esoteric, almost always contain references to travel or movement; mixed with the disco rhythms of Tate, the bouncy bass of Murchy and Knudson's endlessly inventive, propulsive guitar leads, Minus The Bear's music always seems to be on the go-and the band themselves aren't far behind. After completing Menos El Oso in early 2005, the group packed up and hit the road for nearly two years straight, opening for bands as stylistically diverse as Straylight Run and Thursday; playing the hipster-centric Coachella and mandatory scene-fest the Bamboozle; embarking on two European and numerous U.S. headlining tours. With the recent release of Planet Of Ice , the band's itinerary is filling up quickly once again. It's hard work eking out a small corner of the limelight for your band to stand in; to do so effectively requires you to be a vagabond. For Snider and Knudson, both married and in their 30s, they've circumvented this by doing one simple thing: They each bought a house. "I'm sitting on my deck, having a Sprite, in a comfy chair," gloats Knudson. "This is the time when it actually pays to live in Seattle." Sure, they might not be there for long (their fall headlining tour kicks off later this month and they most likely won't return until snow is on the ground), but it's this kind of stability in adulthood that has allowed the band to grow in previously uncharted musical directions while still being able to make enough of a living to lead a normal life. Planet Of Ice seems like it has a lot more warmth to it than people would be led to believe based on the album title and artwork. Do you think that's true, or do you think it's a colder record? JAKE SNIDER: I think, in terms of production, it's pretty warm, actually. It sounds like a big analog record, so that sound I can definitely [hear] it. You know, a lot of the tunes just kind of develop their own level of heart. We didn't try to constrain things to ice too much. KNUDSON: We all had this general idea of how we wanted some things to sound, and we wanted them to be kind of colder, and we would keep telling people at practice to write something that sounds "icier." SNIDER: Whenever we liked a part, we would call it "icy," regardless of how bitchingly burning it was. [Laughs.] Jake, you've said that you write from a fictionalized perspective. Do you think it's easier to write about certain events from a fictionalized character? SNIDER: Yeah, definitely. Anything can happen at that point. I mean, no good writer really locks themselves into the truth that much, [so they] start trying to figure out a way to tell a story and make it interesting. Is there a reason you choose not to write non-fiction? SNIDER: Probably because [non-fiction] doesn't seem like it would be that interesting. I can always make it close to reality, but nothing's ever an autobiography. Have politics ever interested you in terms of songwriting? SNIDER: Oh, yeah! More and more these days actually, just because I'm more and more terrified with the way things are going. "Lotus" is actually somewhat political. It's not exactly super-straightforward, but there's definitely a political sort of bent to it. It's hard to sit around in America today and not be completely disgusted with how the administration has destroyed the Constitution and waged this illegal war; It's hard not to speak up and say something about it. We're not a political band; we don't want to really become one. But that doesn't mean we aren't going to end up writing more political material. Like, sometimes I'll use the [stage] as my pulpit and say stuff from stage about it. I've got opinions, and I think that they're pretty valid. I think that a lot of people may not take the time to really consider what's happening to them; it's never really a big problem until you're the one that gets their rights completely stripped. This is Alex Rose's first record with the band on synth, but former keyboardist Matt Bayles produced it. Was it awkward to have the old guy recording the new guy? KNUDSON: No. It was never really awkward. You know, everyone kind of knew their place and what they were doing. It was kind of weird-not weird in a bad way-just in the sense that Alex was pretty much at practice with us most of the days we were writing, whereas Matt would, a lot of the times, not be at practice much because he would be producing other bands' records. SNIDER: I think what Alex brought to the table was fantastic from the beginning. He's got an incredible sense of melody. Keyboard is not his first instrument-he's kind of a singer/songwriter dude-but that just lends to his vocal aspect of some of the melodies on the keyboard. KNUDSON: Yeah, he's been in bands before. He does a project called Model Photographer. SNIDER: He's definitely got his own flavor, and he brings the electronic portion of the band a little more into focus, too. During the recording, Planet Of Ice was affectionately dubbed Planet Of Injuries by the band, due to Erin nearly slicing off his finger last December and Alex breaking his collarbone in February. How big is that black cloud hanging over you right now? SNIDER: [Laughs.] We've had enough. We've gone through enough stupid little tragedies this past year that we can safely get through this one without any more, for sure. KNUDSON: Bad things always happen in three-so we were just waiting for that third accident to happen, like someone losing an arm. But that never happened, so I'm going to knock on wood right now, so that that third strike doesn't pop up anytime soon. [Laughs.] One could argue that the record leaking could be the third strike. KNUDSON: That's inevitable, though. There's no way you're going to stop that. Yeah, but this is the second time in a row that this has happened three months early for you. Is that at all daunting or frustrating? KNUDSON: I mean, it's frustrating in the sense that we work hard with our labels in the U.S. and abroad and our booking agents and publicists and all that stuff-like every other band does-to get the momentum going. So to have it come out so early, and to have that impact lessened, it's kind of a bummer. SNIDER: You know, I don't really have a problem with it at all. I think that's just part of the business now, you know? The music ends up in a digital format once we make the finished mix-that's just a bunch of ones and zeros; it's really easy for anybody to make a copy of. The way people get exposed to new music these days is through their friends and trading songs and all that, so I think it's free promotion. I don't know that it has a negative impact on a record like Planet Of Ice . It would maybe have a negative impact on a Beyoncé record. Is it surprising to you that your band has begun to resonate with a much younger audience? SNIDER: When I was [younger], I wanted to listen to really interesting, complex, challenging music as well. [Our fanbase] seems to be pretty diverse, and definitely growing on both extremes, in terms of younger kids coming and then more and more people in their 30s checking it out. KNUDSON: Someone told us that we were kind of, not transitional, but just... Say you're into My Chemical Romance or Taking Back Sunday and you hear a Minus The Bear record. We're kind of a band you can listen to and you will find other bands... A gateway drug. KNUDSON: Yeah, exactly. We're a gateway-drug band. [Laughs.] Especially after doing that Thursday tour, because there were so many kids at that tour [who] I don't think had heard of us, and then they come to the show and they're like, "Wow! These guys are really doing something that's different and cool, but it's familiar enough that we can get behind it and it still makes sense." Say six months from now the record is doing really well, and you get a call from Kevin Lyman asking if you would play Warped Tour. Do you think you would? SNIDER: We're not interested in the Warped Tour. Different people we've worked with have asked if we're open to [that], and it's always been a pretty straight-up "no." From what we've heard from bands that have participated in it, it sounds like a horrifically grueling ordeal. Wilco licensed their entire new CD to Volkswagen for a series of car commercials-is that something you would ever consider? SNIDER: Well it depends on the company; it depends on how the deal looks. But it seems like there's worse companies to get upset about licensing a song to, like the U.S. Army or something like that. We would definitely consider it through a moral lens. We're not going to license a song to General Electric. You've talked before about playing some of the remixes from Interpretaciones Del Oso live. Will that happen, or has the idea fallen by the wayside? SNIDER: We're full of ideas. We have ideas coming out of our asses. [Laughs.] But we won't necessarily implement all of them. That one was just like, "Yeah, we could totally learn a couple of these [remixes]." And then, "Cool! That's a great idea." But we're not going to actually sit down and go through the work of learning it. We're far too lazy. What are some other great ideas that haven't seen the light of day? SNIDER: Oh, let's see. Making Alex wear a cape at every show. That was a good one. |
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