Brightest Young Things

We've interviewed A Place To Bury Strangers before here, and True Womanhood before here, so in anticipation to their show with Caverns this Friday (06/05/2009) at the Rock and Roll Hotel, we decided they should just interview each other.  And it's pretty epic.  And NSFW. Enjoy. -cale

True Womanhood took some time off from our recording sessions at Death By Audio in Brooklyn to speak with Oliver Ackermann, the mastermind behind the Death By Audio effects company and singer/guitarist of A Place to Bury Strangers.  Questions and "action cards" were drawn randomly from Oliver's hat.  The first action card took us to the Death By Audio pedal factory located deep inside an old sugar factory on the East River.

*****

Oliver: Alright, here we are in the Pedal Factory.

Thomas:  So what goes on in this room?

Oliver: We just watch a lot of movies and eat popcorn and build effects pedals.  It's lots of mind-numbing hours of experimenting and drawing up useless diagrams and you know, reading books and things on the internet to try to figure out the coolest, latest sounds of destruction.

Thomas: Do you find that what goes on in this room affects what goes on in your music with A Place to Bury Strangers,  do you come up with a lot of riffs here, anything like that?

Oliver: [laughs] ...I mean, I guess, you know, you can't help but have these things somehow play between the two of each other but, then, I mean I have also developed effects which I wanted to use for A Place to Bury Strangers. Yeah, I mean sure I've been experimenting with sounds, and you write some riff and it could have something to do with some riff that I was experimenting with trying out on some pedal, but it's such a jumble of all the different things that are going on that, you know I really think I get a lot more into writing riffs when I'm sitting in recording or playing guitar in the live room, so you know.  But yeah, sure, to some degree, and some pedals have even, you know, the effects have sort of spawned songs.

Thomas:  Any examples?

Oliver: Um, well there is this song, which is sort of an oldie, but "Never Going Down", and that was all kind of based around the Octave Clang, and sort of how it gave this really like fucked up distortion and would just stop abruptly, and it's just this really cool abrasive sound that was super rhythmic, and sort of gave it its edge.

Thomas: Does it feel good to know that a lot of your pedals or most of your pedals, are hand made by you?

Oliver: They're not all hand made by me, but they are all hand made, and it feels really good, you know, there's a lot of people who work here, Matt, and he's pretty much my partner with everything that's been going on, and you know, we hand build everything, as well as other people, we try to give job opportunities to kids, or even since the economy sort of hit low we've kind of been helping out a couple friends who lost their jobs, and you know just try to support the scene as much as we can and get people to sort of learn about effects and how to build stuff and building things. I mean, it can be time consuming and that can be more trouble than it's worth but it's cool when you get someone to kind of start to figure out the inner workings of a pedal. It's satisfying.

Thomas:  Next question from the hat.  This one has to do with bands. Why do they always request tube socks on tour?

Oliver:  We only did that because we saw some other bands had it requested and so we were like "oh sweet, that'd be awesome, to have tube socks!"

Thomas: See, this is what I thought.

Oliver: But, the reasoning is, you know, you can kind of wear the clothes on your body, at least my personal preference, I don't care, I mean I've done whole tours where I've worn the same pair of pants for the whole tour--

Thomas: Are we talking weeks, or months?

Oliver: A month, at the most, you know. But, I feel like I need new socks, I need socks almost every day. You know, a different pair of socks, because you get sweaty from carrying tons of equipment and jumping around and stuff, and that's just for some reason the most uncomfortable, or just maybe the nastiest thing, when you have really sweaty, stinky feet, like I can deal with stinking real bad, besides that, but -- I think it's even something that has adapted in my older age, where I think when I was younger I used to wear shoes without socks all the time and everything, and I just can't do that anymore. I don't know what it is, but, it's like my feet will just get nasty.  You know, it's just not a good thing.

Thomas: Tube socks are one of the perks. 

Oliver: One of the perks. But anything you can get for free from those suckers, may as well ask for it.

Thomas:  OK I just pulled out an Action Card --

Oliver: Uh-oh!

Thomas: -- and it says "Practice Space".

Oliver: Alright, let's boogie 

Thomas:  So, this is the practice space.

Oliver: This is the practice space, it's one of the many rooms that we built here at Death By Audio, and yeah, this is where we do a lot of practicing and work out things, and hook up amplifiers to see what happens, and this is where we record as well.

Thomas:  Are all the amps in this room yours?  Because I notice at least thirty.

Oliver: No, but most of them are. Most of them are mine, there are a couple which are other people's amps. but I have way too many amps. But, I don't think that's too much of a problem, because, you know, sometimes I'll do things where I'll experiment and play with, like you know, six amps live and stuff

Thomas: I've seen you guys use lots of stereo effects as well, so --

Oliver: Definitely, lots of stereo effects, I mean, I'm all about stereo  sound, and I think, you know, you've got two ears, so it really makes a big difference to hear that  spread of sound. And so I always try to like spread the amps as far apart, and then when we're doing things with like six amps, or at least in this room, you know, try to put them all in different areas, so you can kind of try to control where the sounds are coming from in your sonic field...

Thomas: I know you guys are an exceptionally loud band.  Does it get loud in this room when you are practicing?

Oliver: It does, yeah, I mean we definitely have to watch it a little bit, and I think it's kinda good that we sort of play fast and kind of heavy because we can't handle the sound for too long, you know, or our drummer will always just kind of get tired after a half an hour or forty five minutes so we have to take breaks, which I think are good on your ears. I mean, there's also a ton of padding in this room so things are perceivably quieter in this room than a lot of other places, so it's pretty dead.

Thomas:  OK so the next question from the hat says - Is there anything you'd like me to ask you?

Oliver: [laughs]

Thomas: Tough, hard hitting.

Oliver: Um..."Would I like to hear the EP you guys are recording?"

Thomas: Oh, uh... Would you like to hear what we have been working on? --

Oliver: -- No!

Thomas: Dammit! I knew he'd say that..

Oliver: Yeah, yeah yeah, of course I would. It sounds really really cool! It would be awesome to hear. The time that I saw you guys play at Death By Audio was awesome.

Thomas: Sweet, thanks! Oliver was nice enough to make the walk down the hallway to see our show.

Oliver: Yeah, exactly. it was a long hard walk down the hallway to see it. You guys have been recording your album, sort of, with David Levin?

Thomas: With David, yeah.

Oliver: You guys recorded your own stuff before then?

Thomas: We did before, in my living room, and the results were sort of a mixed bag between boring and OK, so, yeah, we’re working with David, who I know has done sound for you guys.

Oliver: You guys learning a bunch of stuff? 

Thomas: We are learning a ton of stuff. I think it’s a really great experience. Especially coming up here and working at Death By Audio and meeting all these people has been really valuable.

Oliver: Awesome. So are you guys gonna be recording your own stuff, in the future? Do you think it’s the way to go?

Thomas: Um…It’s definitely….It’s definitely the way to go, to a certain point, I guess, like you were saying about what you and Andy were doing, there were a lot of technical things that we just don’t have the experience for, or the, the…learning…to get right.  We will want to someday have access to that, but for now, I mean, there are no real limits to what we can do, so who cares?  OK Next question from the hat.  

Oliver: Uh-oh! Drawing from the hat!

Thomas: Let’s see, maybe it’ll be an action.

Oliver: Hat-ction!

Thomas: We got an action one! This one says ‘The Roof”.

Oliver: Alright! Let’s see if we can get on out there!

Thomas: Alright! We gotta make it through that blast door.

Oliver:  I got the keys.

[interview relocates to roof] 

Oliver: We’re out on the roof!

Thomas: ...At Death By Audio by the East River, facing Manhattan, in between the Williamsburg Bridge and what looks like a whole bunch of condos—

Oliver: And factory buildings! Yup, here we are. Brand new condos, all around us.

Thomas: So, what do you guys do to unwind out on the roof?

Oliver: Um, we play kickball, or you know, run around, play soccer, anything which involves balls and feet, and you know, there’s a trampoline out here, so we go jumping on the trampoline, which is pretty exciting, but we kind of, I don’t think, are really supposed to be out here, we used to be able to be out here, this was one of the main reasons why we moved in, at least one of the big perks, is seeing this, but there used to be this guy who lived next to us, he was like this real crazy guido dude who was throwing these crazy parties, and then, I can’t remember, there was some sort of conflict, and then we had to promise that we weren’t going to go out on the roof again, but since then things have mellowed out with our landlords, and we’re pretty cool, so yeah.  But this is just amazing to have.

Thomas: Alright, so we are back inside.

Oliver: Yeah we are! 

Thomas: -- after our little sojourn to the roof, and we noticed a book on your kitchen counter, what’s it called?

Oliver: It’s called “The Big Penis Book”!

Thomas: The Big Penis Book. What’s the story behind the Penis Book?

Oliver: I’m not sure, but as I recall, you guys brought the book over here.

Thomas: I wish we could claim that—

Oliver: No! Everyone’s denied it. So, we’re kind of unsure. Someone said that Emily [of the band Grooms] got it for a gift, which I hope is the truth. It’s pretty amazing, there’s a guy who tied his penis into a knot.

Thomas: Yeah, we’re going to try and get a picture of that for the BYT readers if we can.

Oliver: Yeah, tell em that if they can prove that theyre 18, then they can click on that link.

Thomas: Yeah, I think that we’ve just made your interview NSFW, but we can put that after the jump, maybe. I don’t know anything about the internet. So. Alright, here’s another question pulled from the hat.

Oliver: Alright, what’s the hat say?

Thomas: The hat would like to know about the Wii game featuring an A Place to Bury Strangers song.

Oliver: Yeah, there’s some Ultimate Ferrari Racing, or something like that, I was trying to drive a Ferrari today, and I couldn’t barely do it.

Thomas: Did you get to the level with your song?

Oliver: I did not hear it.

Thomas: So you still haven’t had the gratification of hearing it?

Oliver: -- No, but I mean, I guess I’m not that good at driving a Ferrari yet, it’s one of those real technical racing games, which seems really cool, but I only got the game today so I haven’t yet delved into the excitement, but one of our songs is on that, it’s the song To Fix the Gash in Your Head, and I guess the lyrics were a little too dark or depressing, or something, for them to put in the game, so—

Thomas: Which line in particular?

Oliver: Maybe, um, I dunno, “I want to beat you up”, or something like that, I’m not positive, but it coulda had something to do with it. Or ‘kick your face in’, or something like that, and so I think that the guy who did the mix for the videogame maybe like, morphed out those lyrics, so you couldn’t really hear them, because, you know, there could be some young kids racing Ferraris. You wouldn’t want those young kids to have bad thoughts of hurting anybody.

Thomas: Yeah, cos they’re all pumped up from playing the game, and then they’ll crash, and they’ll go kick someone’s face in.

Oliver: Exactly.

Thomas: And they won’t feel sorry.

Oliver: Yeah, they won’t feel sorry.

Noam interjects "That was the part that they really had a problem with."

[laughter all round]

Thomas: The violence wasn’t bad, but the lack of remorse...

Thomas: Another question from the hat - how do you keep music fresh? How do you keep being in the band fresh?  If you’re on tour for a month, or however long, and you’re playing the same songs over and over again at every show, is there something that you do to make things interesting?

Oliver: I mean, I try to switch the stuff up, like the songs that we play, as much as we can, that doesn’t always happen, just, you know, some of the other guys in the band don’t always like to do that as much but you know, a lot of our songs kind of leave open the element of, where there are a lot of like open parts of our songs where nobody knows exactly what’s going to happen, and so, we kinda figure things out then at those moments, you know, as well as, you know, sometimes if we’re traveling around, unless we’re cramped in a very small van, you know, sometimes we’ll be playing guitar and stuff like that, we have practice amps we can play, or you know, I’ll be like creating music on a laptop, or something like that. Or even sometimes we’ll play music if we’ve gotten to clubs really early, or if we’re playing, some radio station, you know sometimes that can give you a good moment. We’ve actually written a lot of songs, or a few songs, at radio stations, which is kind of weird, to have that spot where you write a song. Good inspiration at a radio station.. I think when you’ve been on the road for a few weeks, and you haven’t almost had that opportunity to all play together, you get really excited to have that opportunity to do something completely fresh and new, and when it’s a radio station there’s almost no pressure, there’s barely any people around usually so you can kind of sort of relax and play your stuff. But it always takes a little while to set up. I mean, as much as I can, I try to play music, it’s also really cool to be on tour with different bands, because then you get to see different stuff that they’re doing, and that can be really cool and inspirational, like really good bands.

Thomas: How did you like playing with Paul McCartney at Coachella?

Oliver: Paul McCartney, that was inspirational, man. I found out after seeing Paul McCartney, that he used to be in this other band called The Bagels, or something like that.

Thomas: The Bagels?

Oliver: Beagles?

Thomas: Can I find that on Emusic?

Oliver: I’m sure you could get it on iTunes…The Beatles!

Thomas: The Beatles?

Oliver: I’m sure you could buy all their music on iTunes.  Well, I thought it was a good message for the kids, because it was all things like “I want to hold your hand, and I won’t feel sorry”.

Thomas: Alright. Next hat question.

Oliver: What’s the hat say?

Thomas:  This says “gratuitous music question”. But, actually it’s not gratuitous at all, because I think a lot of people are really interested, myself included, about your new—

Oliver: -- List every band I’ve ever heard? A to Z?

Thomas: List every band you’ve ever heard, from A to Z! And within each letter, I want it chronological.

Oliver: Aa, Abba, Adult, um, never mind.

Thomas: You guys are working on a new album?

Oliver: Yup.

Thomas: When’s it coming out, does it have a name, anything…? Go!

Oliver: I think it’s gonna come out in the Fall, and I don’t know if, I think it’s pretty much done, and so, yeah. I’m pretty excited about it. I think it sounds really good, you know, as I worked with this guy Andy Smith on kind of doing the post-production and I’ve never really done that before with anybody else, and I think he kind of did wonders to make everything sound really professional, or something like that? And I think – but in a good way. And so, I think he was able to do things that I would almost never be able to possibly do. And, I think that that definitely gives this album a whole different edge as far as anything else that we’ve ever recorded or else that I would have done, and I think that that is pretty cool. I’m pretty psyched about it, I’m pretty excited about those kinds of things. He did a lot of things that were really mathematical, you know, with the music, and very technical, and super precise and I think that that is like, there’s elements of those things which you know, I can like kind of understand these concepts but when you’re talking about like listening for these differences in like, mega milliseconds, and like, you know, different phase issues and stuff, I can tell when something sounds like it shifts from the left to the right, and stuff, but I don’t know what exactly some of those elements making some of those things fit together exactly do. And, I mean, I understand all of those concepts to some degree, but someone who’s really done this stuff, and you know, he was definitely a real professional, so it was really cool to work with him. And I mean, as well I learned a lot of things, working with him, which I think helped me out for the future for stuff that I’ll be recording and working on.

Thomas:  Do you feel like he “got” whatever you guys were trying to convey? I know your music has a lot of noise elements, and a lot of chaotic sounds, all crashing together, just from your first album your band seemed very very DIY, was there any sort of clash between that and Andy the studio wiz?

Oliver:  He was definitely way into what we were doing, I think that maybe just the hardest part is you know, actually, you know, talking about this totally ambiguous thing, which is you know, the sound of things and the way things should sound, and so you’re sort of crafting something, and creating something that it’s not even worth describing in insane technical terms. So you know, translating one thing to another person, like you know, I would go there and just hands-on just mix with him and work on these things, because you know, a lot of it is really precise aesthetic choices, you know, for everything. So there was a little bit of where it was almost even kind of rushed, where I could have spent forever on it, but you could always really do that. You know, and really I think we could have even honed in on something that maybe would have been even more precisely what we were going for, but I think it sounds awesome. You know, I think it sounds cool, and I don’t think it’s a bad thing, I mean you have to kinda like stop everything at some time, I mean even with our first album, that I didn’t even really want to come out, I didn’t really think it was done, but I’m glad that it did.

Thomas: And it’s on Mute?

Oliver: It’s on Mute. Did you guys hear it?

Thomas: David may or may not have played it for us—

[laughing]

Thomas:  Let me ask. Why did you guys decide to sign with Mute Records?

Oliver: I mean, I just think that they are just a really great record label, and I've been a fan of theirs for kind of a long time, and, you know, really just felt that it’d be an awesome label to go with, I mean it was just, you know we had, I don’t even remember exactly the labels but there were different labels that had approached us and some were really cool and whatnot, and this just kind of came about in the best way, and just the best team of people to work with, they seemed really cool and they have really good artists, and, you know, it just seems like the way things are going with this band, it’s just better for me to pass off as many things that I possibly can’t control to other people, and especially the things which are the most unexciting to do, and so, who better to do that than a bunch of other really good people, you know and it seems like they’re a legitimate label where they’re working to do really awesome things, and I think they have really good taste, and I think that kinda makes a difference with, you know, when you’re sort of working with people, if they kind of like are likeminded people, and I think they’re those kind of people, so it seemed really cool.

Thomas:  How’d they find out about you, was it through your recordings or through press, or did they come see you guys play live?

Oliver: I’m not totally sure exactly initially, but I mean, they definitely came to see us, and you know, were at a couple shows and I hung out with those guys, and they were all like really cool, and you know I think it took a little while, and then we were over doing a tour in Europe, and I met a bunch of people from the Mute UK, and you know those guys were like really really nice and whatnot, and I guess maybe they were all sort of talking and kind of made it happen. So , I mean all of those processes are like really, really slow, and so but yeah, I’m glad that they did have interest and everything, because it seems to be doing really good. And they’re just an awesome label, where they just kind of will almost let you do whatever you want, like I think it’s almost like a really big DIY label, to some degree, to just sort of be there for the artists, and that’s awesome.

Thomas:  What other bands are on Mute?

Oliver: There’s like the Liars, and like Depeche Mode, and M83, and… who else is on there? Nick Cave…

Thomas: That’s definitely good company to keep.

Oliver: Yeah, definitely. So yeah, I’m psyched!

Thomas:  So I just pulled out another action card—

Oliver: Uh-oh!

Thomas: --and this one says “Show Space”.

Oliver: Alright! As long as there’s nothing going on in there.

Thomas: It doesn’t sound like it, right now, but we can just peek in, I guess.

Oliver: So this is the show space, and this is pretty much all built by Matt and Jason and Edan, and other people have helped out here and there, but this is pretty much their venture, where it’s tied in with Death By Audio, Matt’s the guy who I build the effects pedals with, and you know, it’s a place where we try to help bands out by throwing shows, try to help the community out by having something really cool going on, so it’s like, it’s one of those spots where the bands get all the door, you know, and it’s kind of a self sustaining venue, to be a cool spot to be, you know?  This is definitely frickin awesome to have, and anything I can do to help out Matt or anyone, I always try to help out, and just the fact that they’re having bands come here and play shows and where you can just go from working on building pedals or writing music to go see some amazing music, is just so awesome.

Thomas: Has A Place to Bury Strangers ever played here?

Oliver: Yeah, a bunch of times, or a few times at least.

Thomas: Cool, any other noteworthy bands that you’ve seen here that really blew you away? I know No Age played here.

Oliver: No Age, Dan Deacon, and there’s a bunch of cool bands, I’m trying to think. I’v seen some DC and Southern bands like Ceremony and Screen Vinyl Image and you know, a bunch of good bands have played here. Tons of cool bands, pretty much all the time. They pretty much book good shows consistently.

Thomas: Yeah, it seems like that would be really inspiring to be at the center of something like this, you know?

Oliver: Definitely, it’s part of the thing where it’s like, moving to New York. I don’t know if in Virginia I would have really met other people who really wanted to like, go for it and do crazy stuff like this, you know? So, I think that that’s awesome, that people are down for doing that stuff and have that much motivation and inspiration and can work, like that’s just frickin amazing.  You got some more questions, buddy?

Thomas: Ok final question, actually it was the first one we came up with.  How do you like your home fries at Waffle House?

Oliver: Scattered, smothered, covered, chunked, chopped and diced!

Thomas: There you go!  Thank you so much!

*****

catch both bands live this Saturday @ RNR Hotel. K?

http://www.myspace.com/aplacetoburystrangers
http://www.myspace.com/truewomanhood
http://www.myspace.com/caverns