D.I.Y., REWARDED The Antlers
May 13, 2011
The dears of the indie world further burst apart from the pack with latest release.
BY SELENA FRAGASSI
In a short two-year span, the Antlers have gone from sealing envelopes to sealing their fate as one of the fastest rising stars in the indie music catalog... and if you ask drummer Michael Lerner how it happened - as we did during a recent phone interview - he'd tell you, "I have no idea."
Before the release of 2009's Hospice, the Brooklyn-based trio, which is rounded out by creator and frontman Pete Silberman and keyboardist Darby Cicci, was like any hard-at-work unsigned band who found themselves spending as much time at the post office as they did in the recording studio.
"We had these T-shirts and handmade CD packages that I had to individually take to the post office and mail out to people," Lerner recalls of the early incarnation of Hospice, which was self-released in March of 2009 before the band eventually signed to Frenchkiss Records and released a re-mastered version later that August that brought literal and unexpected overnight success. "The do-it-yourself lifestyle does reach a stopping point if you're lucky enough to have people responding to your music like we found. I couldn't play in the band and be the office manager."
Mystery as it may be, during that time word somehow got out of the band's intimately emotional and deeply persuasive brand of instrumental dream rock, and the ripple effect took shape before the three members could even test the waters. Initial pressings of the album were sold out in record shops across the country and Silberman, Lerner, and Cicci found themselves the fodder of numerous blogs as well as headlining acts at international festivals.
So, after touring for two straight years and finding an ever-growing community of fans, did the band feel the pressure of the mythical sophomore album? You betcha.
"We're in front of more people's ears now than we were before, and they have more expectations," cautions Lerner. "People wonder if it will be worth their money to buy the new record. I didn't personally know how good the music was going to be and was a little worried it was not going to meet the high standards that were set for us. But at the end of the day, we chose not to dwell on those things. We're psyched with the way the album came out and are so grateful people have tuned in."
Those tuning in to the band's Frenchkiss follow-up, Burst Apart (released this week; read the BLURT review here), will likely find themselves quite happy with the results. Literally. Whereas Hospice was often dubbed mournful - allegedly the story of an abusive relationship adapted as the connection between a hospice worker and terminally ill patient - Burst Apart could best be described as harmonious confetti. While the Antlers play around and celebrate expanded sound structures, adding in more electronic elements on "Parentheses" and Cicci's jazzy horn compositions on "Tiptoe" and "Hounds"(arguably the album's standout track), the album as a whole comes off more uplifting and aesthetically well-rounded.
"There's not one adjective I would say encompasses the whole record," says Lerner, who cringes at the notion of being categorized as a sad band. "People often tell us they cry to certain songs, which is really cool, but we want to explore other emotions, too. I think Peter's vocal quality has this very evocative, emotional characteristic that people respond to. There are some songs on Burst Apart that have that mournful quality, but overall I think the more joyous songs represent this album. At first listen, we may seem a bit all over the map but the album as a whole is really about the many emotions going on from day to day."
In fact, Silberman has said Burst Apart is really about the journey of moving forward. "I take that quite literally," agrees Lerner. "You could relate that to our position from the last record and about us moving forward as a band, but I think the idea is that for so long we were constantly in motion being on tour. It's odd for me to not be moving around and on the road to a new place."
The Antlers have found themselves playing shows pretty much nightly for the majority of the past two years, Lerner noting that the most memorable show was opening for the National at Radio City Music Hall last June. And it was on the road that the three band members found common ground as people and as a band, especially since it was only shortly before Hospice that Silberman met Lerner at - where else - a show and decided to expand his solo project by adding more players to the band.
"Being on the road you're automatically drawn together since you don't get that much alone time," rationalizes Lerner who also notes that when the band is not on tour, the three bond over such activities as basketball games, movies, and bowling. "Sure, there's little bumps along the road but in general we've come out of it at this point stronger as a unit and a band. We're not just offering individual sounds now but rather we've coalesced into something."
The closeness became a gift to the band as they found a new collaborative method of tackling Burst Apart, as Lerner explains: "For Hospice, Peter had mapped out specifically how he wanted the album to be, and we collaborated by adding instrumentals to it. Burst Apart was strictly from scratch with everyone bringing in ideas."
Once the band got home from their extended tour, they signed a five-year lease on a recording studio in their Brooklyn neighborhood of Bushwick and got to work, keeping to their creed of producing and engineering the record themselves - except this time it was in a more formal environment rather than Silberman's bedroom.
"A producer is great if you can find someone you get along with and agree with the way they want to take the direction of the album; but if not, it can be a real awkward and strange thing to have someone outside the band in the studio with you. We trusted ourselves for the style on this one," says Lerner. For anyone listening to Burst Apart, the game plan clearly worked in their favor - and with a five-year lease, fans can look forward to more. "We're all really happy with the way the process worked in recording Burst Apart, so we have similar plans for the future. It's nice to have a studio where everything you need and want is at your fingertips, and you're not renting a space by the hour. Plus, five years goes by really fast."
The Antlers also plan to open up their studio to engineer and produce the work of other like-minded bands. Some sharp listeners may have already caught on to the tweets the band recently broadcast suggesting a collaboration with Neon Indian's Alan Palomo. For his part, Lerner remained cautiously mum on the topic, only saying, "It should be out soon."
Being based in Bushwick, Lerner notes the opportunities are ripe for such collaborations, so only time will tell which bands the Antlers find themselves aligning with: "There's a high concentration of people playing in Brooklyn or the city every night so we're pretty spoiled with who we get to see play," he says. "This is a place you can always be inspired by lots of great music. And you know, there's always going to be a lot of great bands coming out of New York simply because it's a shared member scene. It's weird looking at this scene from the outside and analyzing why all this great music has been coming from here, but to me it's always been happening."
The Antlers are currently on tour in the UK. Their North American tour starts May 17 in D.C. Dates can be found here.
[Photo Credit: Shervin Lainez]
blog comments powered by Disqus
More Photos
