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| photo courtesy of Tell All Your Friends PR. |
When New Jersey natives Cymbals Eat Guitars self-released their debut album Why There Are Mountains in 2009, they were just another relatively young and unknown indie outfit with a few songs and access to some modest recording equipment. But word of the album traveled quickly, and after encouraging nods from popular music outlets like Pitchfork--who included them in their Best New Music list of 2009--the band found themselves skyrocketing into the annals of popular indie rock while drawing appropriate comparisons to bands like Pavement, Built to Spill, and the Modest Mouse of yore. However despite the impressive output generated by the pack of indie heavyweights that have laid the groundwork for Cymbals Eat Guitars, few of these acts can boast the maturity and complexity in songwriting that front man Joe Ferocious demonstrates at such a young age. Many of the songs contained in Why There Are Mountains were written while he was attending high school in New Jersey. Yes, high school.
The album itself plays like a road map of America--with it's towns and cities, lakes and rivers, interstates and bus depots, valleys, and, of course, mountains. There are highs of screaming guitars and tiumphant chanting, and there are droning and polluted lows eclipsed with shadows of cigarettes and suicide. Why There Are Mountains abducts the listener, guiding them on a journey that scours the shores of the Great Lakes, touches briefly the sands of the Pacific Ocean, and follows Halloween processions of costumed children as they lurch from small and timeless New York towns toward the banks of the Hudson River. Despite consumer A.D.D. and an unfortunate trend drifting towards singles and select downloads, Why There Are Mountains restores faith in the rock record as a collective narrative. The often specific yet abstract snapshots and portraits painted by Joe Ferocious and Cymbals Eat Guitars can be despairing, but they provide glimmering glimpses at the future of indie rock--the hazy sodium streetlamp glowing softly at the end of a dark and littered New Jersey underpass.
Since releasing Why There Are Mountains the band has relocated to Staten Island, New York, and have toured the world supporting acts like The Flaming Lips, the Dodos, and the Antlers. This fall they'll be hitting the road once again to support LSD alumni The Thermals on a tour that includes a local stop at the Logan Square Auditorium on October 3rd. Get your tickets ASAP. This is going to be an amazing night of rock music that you do not want to miss.
In anticipation of the show, we spoke with Cymbals Eat Guitars frontman Joe Ferocious about literary influences, suicide, the Hudson River, and signing to a 'real' label.
Logan Square Dispatch: I'm interested in the songwriting process that went into Why There Are Mountains, particularly the lyrics, as they've got a real literary feel to them. Every writer writes for a reason, so what is the motive behind this collection of songs?
Joseph Ferocious: The songs were written over a four year period. I tend to write very slowly, so each song represents four or five months of my life, from 2005-2009. Because of the nonlinear way I approach writing lyrics, none of the tunes are really about one single subject. "Indiana" is probably the most straightforward in my mind; it's about a long-distance relationship I was involved in. I began writing the song on the bus ride from O'Hare airport to South Bend, where she attended school. "Cold Spring" is a fantasy about making a trip up from my childhood home in New Jersey along the Garden State Parkway to Cold Spring, NY with a great friend of mine who passed away in 2007; in reality I go to Cold Spring yearly with my mother to admire the changing leaves and watch the local kids march down through town to the Hudson in their Halloween costumes. "Some Trees" is a meditation on death, and nothingness after death. When I was in the seventh grade a neighbor and schoolmate of mine committed suicide by hanging herself out of her bedroom window.
It's hard for me to discuss my motives for writing these songs. I don't feel that my experience is any more interesting or rich or worthy of documenting than anyone else's-- at least, before I was given the opportunity to travel the world and play music for people-- but I guess my motive is pretty simpleton and cliche... writing drives me, it is my animating force. If I didn't do it, I don't think I'd want to live.
I find these days that I feel very far-removed from most of the material though, save "Cold Spring". I've lived on Staten Island for four years now and most of these songs are about New Jersey. Also, though I'd like to say that singing the same songs every night reminds you why you wrote them, in actuality it's kind of like repeating a word over and over again until it has no meaning. All of my thoughts and energy are currently invested in our new material, so you'll have to excuse me if I'm not revealing everything about Why There Are Mountains; I think I probably know much less about it than I did when I was finished writing it and about to record it. You should have caught me then!
LSD: On your Myspace page you've written out the lyrics to the album, and the interesting form you chose was that of long flowing paragraphs, no line breaks, and little to no punctuation. Is this what the songs look like when you write them on the page? Paper or monitor?
JF: No, usually there are line breaks when I'm working on a computer. In my notebook everything is jumbled and disorganized because I'm always juxtaposing and rearranging. Oftentimes by doing this I find I'm saying something more profound than what I set out to say, and less obliquely to boot. The paragraph thing... I don't know, I like seeing them that way. To me, that's how the songs progress, point A to point B to point C and usually never back to point A, so why shouldn't the lyrics be written out that way?
LSD: What are you reading these days? Are there any particular authors/writers that have influenced your songwriting?
JF: I am reading a lot of John Cheever, John Updike, Katherine Anne Porter, Robert Creeley, Philip Roth, and Virginia Woolf. When I wrote many of the songs on our first record I was particularly in love with John Ashbery's book 'Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror', Elizabeth Bishop, Robert Lowell, Truman Capote's first novel 'Other Voices, Other Rooms', and Flannery O'Connor's short stories.
LSD: You guys sort of blew up at a relatively young stage in the band's career, and I read that initially there was some hesitation to incorporate all of the instrumental elements of the album on the stage. Has that changed as you've gotten more comfortable on the road?
JF: No, we don't use horns or strings still, if that's what you mean. Other than that, I'd say we've fully incorporated everything we've ever aimed to incorporate into our live thing. To me, our live show is a truer, more immediate, and a more thrilling experience than what our record documents. I guess that's because we exist as a live band, which we didn't when we made the album. The next record will be less of a studio confection. There will be more space, more breathing room, but at the same time more complexity.
LSD: Your tours have taken you across the globe, playing everywhere from clubs to open air festivals and even churches. What sort of venue do you think best accommodates a CEG show?
JF: 300 cap. rock club.
LSD: We also did an interview with Hutch Harris of The Thermals a little while back. How did the tour with them come about?
JF: I really don't know, but I feel very fortunate! When I was at Pitchfork Fest last year I ran into Hutch and did an interview with him for P4k.tv. He was a total sweetheart, and he told me he'd watched our set on the live feed on the way over...that was pretty thrilling for me, as you can imagine. Anyway, a year later I heard they wanted us to open for them! I have been elated since I heard about it in July. Can't wait to get out to Minneapolis and start the tour!
LSD: What are some of the other venues you've played in Chicago?
JF: Schubas, the Metro, Bottom Lounge, and Grant Park for Lollapalooza. INSANE.
LSD: There was some time there when the band remained unsigned to a label despite growing popularity and shoutouts from some pretty major music outlets, and I can imagine that that became overwhelming rather quickly. Are you happy with your decision to partner with the Sister's Den label? Was there interest from anybody else?
JF: Sister's Den is our own label. We sold a few thousand copies that we pressed ourselves, but when the demand for the record became such that we couldn't keep up while touring and whatnot, we partnered with a distribution company. Soon we'll be announcing that we've signed to a real label though... exciting!!!
LSD: I'm looking forward to the next studio effort from CEG, when can we expect something? Do you ever lie awake at night wondering how the fuck you are going to follow Why There Are Mountains?
JF: You can expect something in the Fall of next year. To be completely honest, I think our first album is a blip compared to what we'll do with this next record. I lie awake at night anticipating what comes next.
