Before their show at the 9:30 Club the other day, Peter Bauer, bassist/keyboardist for local heroes the Walkmen, who have a pretty amazing new album out, took some time to talk to us about waltzes, the Chinatown bus, and energy policy. Always awesome to find that an awesome band has at least one awesome and amazingly down to earth dude.

Enjoy.

Hey Peter! how’s it going
Good, how are you?

I’m well, thanks for taking the time to do this — I know you guys are only here for a brief time and probably trying to see friends and fam — how long are you back in town?
Just here for tonight, gotta catch a train at 5am. Just got in from Providence.

Rhode Island, nice. Where are you guys living now?
Philadelphia and New York, most guys in New York.?

Yeah, I read that you guys were hopping back and forth from NYC to Philly for the majority of the recording of You & Me. When did that start?
We started, maybe 3 years ago or something and just sort of adapted to the process of bussing back and forth every day.

Chinatown bus??
Hah hah, yeah, most of the time. They make a good deal out of it I suppose.

Not a bad deal at all if you go roundtrip. It sounds like the album was sort of, like, piecemealed together then, song by song, or track by track, or how did that work?
Well, we just have so many different parts. Paul (guitar) comes up with so many parts. I mean tapes and tapes and tapes of parts, tracks and tracks and tracks, as you can imagine over a 3 year period. Pretty much everything that comes together immediately or very easily or quickly for us, when we all get together, is what we try and work on as a band. Everything on the record is stuff that came together very fast and easily for us.

That’s funny, because the record sounds so, well first, beautiful, but also so considered and deliberately patient.
The recording actually took a long time, typically 2 days on/2 days off, but it was a new process for us. I mean, we did a couple of things a few times, in a couple of different places. We didn’t have a record label or a base recording spot for the majority of the process, so it was sort of like, floating around trying to get money from our ex-record label and there was just all sorts of hogwash involved, etc. When we finally endedup with Gigantic, our current label, who?ve been really great, and finally got into this great studio.

In New York?
Yeah in NY and we got in the studio with this great engineer

Who was that?
His name is Chris Zane. I didn?t really know many of the bands who he had worked with but, you know, he’s done like, Les Saavy Fav?

Who’re great and everybody seems to love….
Right, but I’m not as familiar with their stuff. So we got in the studio and thought, Ehh we’ll see how this guy goes after a week or so….

I guess a lot has to do with being comfortable?
Yeah, exactly! This was literally the first time probably ever where we just, like plugged in the microphones and just, like, sounded exactly like we hoped something would sound. And it just went very quickly from there, incredibly smoothly.

I think that comes across well on the album. It sounds very natural, hardly forced, like I said, very patient in its pacing. Was there an effort to gear the sound in a particular direction? I mean there are obviously tones reminiscent of your past, but “You & Me” sounds a lot moodier, more ambience.
Hah hah, yeah. We?ve probably fought that stuff for a while now, maybe more than we?ve needed to. So, it’s sort of like the natural way we play and the way we really seem to always play when we get together. And I think we’ve always thought that maybe we needed to do something more, live, or something.

Rocking out?
Yeah, I dunno, we’ve always just sort of been attracted to that sound, and really, none of us really listen to really loud, rock music. So it?s always been kind of strange to be this sort of, loud rock live band. We’ve kinda felt that oh, well, we maybe need to be as loud as possible the whole time. But you can?t just do that, and write songs that come out that way. It just sort of happens when you’re feeling an energy within the band or what not.

Well, it seems like people are really enjoying this album. You?ve gotten a bunch of great reviews.
Well, thank God. People must like waltzes, because there are a ton of waltzes on that album. We were really happy when it turns out people enjoyed waltzes as much as we do.

Haha yeah, people love to dance. So what sort of stuff turned you on to that style, or do you stay in touch with contemporary music much? What have you been listening to lately?
I mean, not a lot of different stuff. We?ve probably always talked about, as a band, early Bob Marley as a recording style that we’ve always aimed our recorded sound to emulate. Not necessarily reggae music but, you know that, recording quality. Trying to get the tones and reverb that they used to get out those sessions. That was definitely something we tried to get out of the sessions. But, I dunno, listening to? Probably something like “Classic Rock Hits, vol. 11″ or something or the other?

Yeah, to follow up on the sound of the album, I mean, Hamilton’s vocals just sound simply incredible at different points on the record.?
I think the biggest difference here was that Hamilton just wrote some amazing vocal melodies for the tunes. I mean has written like 5-6 different, and great parts for the tunes. Where in the past he hasn’t necessarily

So does Ham write most of the lyrics as well for the band??
Yeah, actually. I mean, Walter (bassist) has also started to co-write a bunch of the lyrics as well. It?s tough to sort to just write lyrics by yourself, and to self-edit. It really is great to have someone to bounce your stuff of, and say, hey, is this any good, or is this shit

Self-editing can surely be a bitch. Does this group creativity go for the whole music writing process as well?
Yeah, I think that the lyrical process worked out really well. But as far as music, essentially Paul generates a ton of parts. Then Ham? will write the singing melodies and a lot of other things we sort of flesh out one on one with Paul and then bring it all together as a band. It definitely doesn’t really all come together til we sit down as a band and have at it. It?s a really long process. I mean we used to a lot more like jamming, but I think it’s worked better this way with the distance between us and what not. A lot of times I think we felt like we were aiming for more of a “big band” record. I think it still comes across like that, I mean we had a bunch of big stupid ideas that didn’t work out, but were generally pretty pleased with the results of this new process.

I can imagine, it sounds great. Well, tell me about the tour, how’s it going?
It’s going well for the most part.

Yeah, you guys rollin? in that huge monster out there???
Hah hah. No, actually we’ve been driving around in a van, or train for the most part. I hate when people show up and think we’ve arrived in those monster tour bus or what not, because it’s so ridiculous. I think that one out there is Tricky’s.

Well, touring’s gotta be tough on your families. How’s that working out, I know a couple of you guys have kids and are married??
It’s actually been going alright. I brought my family on our recent tour out to the West Coast, which turned out to be great. Saw a ton of beautiful spots. Fun, really fun. Really cushy touring.

The West Coast is definitely one of the better things to happen to this country.
Haha. Yeah the attitude is definitely different. It’s great out there.

You gonna have a chance to hit up any of your old haunts while you’re in DC?
No, no, unfortunately. I mean, we went to Lauripl Plaza for lunch. I manage to stop there every time I’m in town.

Can’t beat margs and chips, I guess
Yeah, and guac.

Anybody you’ve been touring with that has caught your attention?
Yeah, actually we played with this band, Black Mountain, who were really good. I mean the tour has been great, we’ve got to play with a lot of friends and folks we just get a long with easily. Man Man is always a highlight - great guys. Some friends of ours, Johnny and the Moon, I’ve really been diggin’ their stuff. Really great music. The last tour has been really fun, big festivals, great bands.

Geez, well it sounds like you guys are doing well. I know you?ve been doing this for awhile and are probably gonna ride out this album for a bit, but any immediate plans for the future?
Well, hopefully people will like this one, and we can ride it out for a bit.

I thought it was awesome, what you guys did with the pre-release and the $5.00 donation deal for the album. What inspired that??
Well, thanks. Umm, a friend of mine’s kid has had a recurring battle with cancer, so we talked about doing a donation purchase for the album, and Ham’s like, “get it all to him”. So the money went to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York, and our friend has been oing better so…

….Well worth it. Doing well, doing good
Hopefully.

Well hey, I’ve gotta ask a DC question, obviously, considering the locale. Who’s energy policy are you endorsing??
Uhhh, Obama?s. I mean, I?m not sure it’s gonna be enough but hey, it;s gonna, hopefully be better than what we’ve got.

Let’s hope so. Rock it tonight dude. Thanks for the convo.

all photos: Lexie Moreland
for more on The Walkmen: click here.

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