Adam Pfleider
04/16/10, 02:05 PM
It's dark and orchestral. The Builders and the Butchers have created music in the vein of bands such as The Decemberists and Murder by Death. With the success of last year's Salvation is a Deep Dark Well, the band are gearing up to release their follow-up this year. On their track with RX Bandits' American Tour, Alexander Ellis and Brandon Hafer sat down to talk about the beginnings of the band and where they're headed next. Sometimes, it just takes playing on the streets to get you to assembly halls and arenas.
The first thing that got me interested in The Builders and the Butchers is that you guys are from Alaska. One of my favorite bands from Alaska is Portugal. The Man...
Brandon Hafer: We're good friends with those guys.
They kind of bring a sound that's not indigenous - maybe not the right word - but upon hearing Salvation is a Deep Dark Well, it sounds like a dark bluegrass album. I'm wondering where the inspiration comes from to build an album of such?
Alexander Ellis: The themes are our songwriters natural process, so even if the band had a different musical style, the lyrics would probably be along the same lines, I'd imagine. That's Ryan [Sollee]. We started by just getting together in a living room and playing for fun. At a certain point, people were like, "I have this song idea. Let's just have some beers and play for fun." The themes were very dark. One of our original ideas was to be a funeral procession that is playing music. We played on the streets, because it was prior to booking gigs for ourselves. We played at the house and then took it outside. It would eventually be a band practice on the sidewalk. There were times when we would get trapped in a bus station shelter because it was raining. We'd go to shows that we would either want to see, or ideally want to open for, and we would play on the street in front and see how the audience reacted while we played in front as they got tickets.
What was that reaction? Especially doing this Music Man performance on the streets?
Ellis: We did really well. Good enough to keep us at it and keep the creative juices flowing. Eventually, once we had a thirty minute set, we started opening for local bands, and it was a pretty natural progression. Everything we've done has been a gradual and easy progression. After three years, we've gotten ourselves into some awesome tours. Lollapalooza.
Hafer: Sasquatch.
Do you think that helped? I just interviewed Portugal. The Man, and they said those festivals helped out in exposure.
Hafer: I don't know. We actually played Sasquatch last summer.
Ellis: I don't think the festivals helped us as much as just consistent touring. It seems like we have a lot of word of mouth that gets people out to our shows.
Hafer: We'd never played Chicago before Lollapolooza.
Ellis: We always get good turn outs in Chicago [now], so Lollapalooza was good for us for that.
I would say, from our readers, the biggest tour you guys landed was the Brand New tour this past year. How was that tour for you guys? How did that happen?
Ellis:Jesse [Lacey] from Brand New. He handpicks all the openers. He either had been referred to our band or he himself said he was a fan of the band. It was an interesting tour, because this is our kind of meat and potatoes. Rooms like this. Dirt floor venues. For the Brand New tour, it's like huge auditoriums. We're playing for thousands of people. A little overwhelming. Good overall.
It seemed very fit. You guys, Thrice, the way their sound progressed and then Brand New, very dark in tone.
Ellis: It's weird. None of us in the band listen to the same music. There's always mixed feelings about every tour we go on. Are we going to fit comfortably? Are we going to turn people off? We always manage to adopt some fans. From the Amanda Palmer tour we did, their fans were amazing to us! Of course Brand New. Murder by Death, we managed to fit with them pretty well.
That seems like a band you guys would fit with really well. The songwriting style. To me, Salvation sounded like a dark Grimm fairy tale wrapped in a Decemberists album.
Ellis: [Laughs] Yeah, we always get that comparison.
How do you feel about that? Does that make you feel like you have less of your own sound?
Ellis: In one way, it could be taken as a huge compliment, In another way, it can be taken as an insult if someone doesn't like The Decemberists. I think all of us are fine with that. We're not intentionally trying to cop anyone's style. It could be a coincidental similarity. I don't think any of us mind. We make jokes about it.
Hafer: I doesn't help that Chris Funk produced Salvation. [Laughs]
Well, Salvation did drop early last year, so what's been going on since then? What's going on for this year as far as new material?
Ellis: We just wrapped up recording. We did a real smooth, tight recording of an album in about five, six days at a studio called Tight Foundry in Portland. It's where we recorded our last one. It's a little more straight forward, because we weren't using our producer's advice after listening back, modifying something with a harmonized part. [This one] is pretty bare bones. I'm really happy with it. Some of the rough mixes I've heard just blow my mind.
Hafer: All the basics were recorded live, so it has more of a live feel than the other albums.
Five to six days seems a bit uncommon.
Ellis: Uncommon?
Yeah, maybe a week? A few weeks?
Ellis: That's excessive. That's for people to write in the studio. I don't know. Cost-wise, why would you do that? How long is it going to take to get an album on the street and recoup a month's worth of studio fees? We can't really make a massive investment like that. It would be fun, but it wouldn't be a natural album.
Hafer: The whole vibe with being in a studio for five or six days, it would be fun, but at the end of it, it was hard to stay focus those last few days. I can't imagine being in there for a month.
Do you feel laying everything down as is puts less critique upon yourself? Like, "This is how it is. Let's just do it."
Hafer: It's not easy. I feel like a lot of the parts are necessarily sold on what we are doing. I feel like a lot of the band has been just improv. Let's go in. Let's do it. It's kind of a feel.
Ellis: Everybody writes their own parts as well. There's no directing feel or theme to any song. Opinions do clash a little bit, but on a good constructive level. Do some playback...Everyone ends up meeting in the middle to be ultimately proud of it.
Hafer: Before this album, we just released a live album in January.
Is there any particular place you guys prefer to practice in?
Ellis: It's interesting that you bring that up. For the entire existence of the band, it has been that we practice in the living room of houses that I live in. Just before recording our new album, we got a practice space for about a month. We got to go over material in a neutral zone. I think that helped us a lot to allow us to do the recording session in five days. Maybe the album would be less inspired if we hadn't had that practice space. I'll vouch for it at this point. It's nice to have somewhere away from where you live. Like a painter having a studio outside the home.
What did you think helped or hurt that moving of spaces?
Ellis: I can't think of any cons. I think it ultimately was best to get out of that living space, because over time, it started to be a strain. Nothing significant, but our roommates had . Ultimately, it was usual to get our own space. It's like moving out of your house the first time.
Are there any particular themes that run through this one? Is there anything being more talked about on this album?
Ellis: This one perpetuates the darker themes. That's something we enjoy. I feel like Ryan's songwriting style is skeptical and pessimistic. That's not really how he is in real life, but that comes out in his music because that's the flipside of him. He takes on the storyteller persona kind of. Some of the early themes are water. The really dingy Americana wastelands and stuff like that. Those are continued. There's kind of a gospel song about this character that comes from a mountain that was sort of born and controls the skies. There's this mystical existence, but with this tumbleweed movement. I think we continue with the same themes, but also expanding on it. With every aspect of the group, we've expanded our techniques.
Hafer: I would say the new album is certainly more complex.
Ellis: We have a song that we would certainly call our "prog" song. It has many parts in a way. Latin is a feel we have taken across our albums. It's really fun to play that stuff. If you look back at a reference of a lot of that stuff, one of my favorite books is [I]For Whom the Bell Tolls which takes place during the Spanish Civil War. I really don't know how we stumbled on to doing that, because none of our family life incorporates Latin. Somehow it comes out. We write songs organically, where everyone comes up with things organically. A lot more piano on this album.
The first thing that got me interested in The Builders and the Butchers is that you guys are from Alaska. One of my favorite bands from Alaska is Portugal. The Man...
Brandon Hafer: We're good friends with those guys.
They kind of bring a sound that's not indigenous - maybe not the right word - but upon hearing Salvation is a Deep Dark Well, it sounds like a dark bluegrass album. I'm wondering where the inspiration comes from to build an album of such?
Alexander Ellis: The themes are our songwriters natural process, so even if the band had a different musical style, the lyrics would probably be along the same lines, I'd imagine. That's Ryan [Sollee]. We started by just getting together in a living room and playing for fun. At a certain point, people were like, "I have this song idea. Let's just have some beers and play for fun." The themes were very dark. One of our original ideas was to be a funeral procession that is playing music. We played on the streets, because it was prior to booking gigs for ourselves. We played at the house and then took it outside. It would eventually be a band practice on the sidewalk. There were times when we would get trapped in a bus station shelter because it was raining. We'd go to shows that we would either want to see, or ideally want to open for, and we would play on the street in front and see how the audience reacted while we played in front as they got tickets.
What was that reaction? Especially doing this Music Man performance on the streets?
Ellis: We did really well. Good enough to keep us at it and keep the creative juices flowing. Eventually, once we had a thirty minute set, we started opening for local bands, and it was a pretty natural progression. Everything we've done has been a gradual and easy progression. After three years, we've gotten ourselves into some awesome tours. Lollapalooza.
Hafer: Sasquatch.
Do you think that helped? I just interviewed Portugal. The Man, and they said those festivals helped out in exposure.
Hafer: I don't know. We actually played Sasquatch last summer.
Ellis: I don't think the festivals helped us as much as just consistent touring. It seems like we have a lot of word of mouth that gets people out to our shows.
Hafer: We'd never played Chicago before Lollapolooza.
Ellis: We always get good turn outs in Chicago [now], so Lollapalooza was good for us for that.
I would say, from our readers, the biggest tour you guys landed was the Brand New tour this past year. How was that tour for you guys? How did that happen?
Ellis:Jesse [Lacey] from Brand New. He handpicks all the openers. He either had been referred to our band or he himself said he was a fan of the band. It was an interesting tour, because this is our kind of meat and potatoes. Rooms like this. Dirt floor venues. For the Brand New tour, it's like huge auditoriums. We're playing for thousands of people. A little overwhelming. Good overall.
It seemed very fit. You guys, Thrice, the way their sound progressed and then Brand New, very dark in tone.
Ellis: It's weird. None of us in the band listen to the same music. There's always mixed feelings about every tour we go on. Are we going to fit comfortably? Are we going to turn people off? We always manage to adopt some fans. From the Amanda Palmer tour we did, their fans were amazing to us! Of course Brand New. Murder by Death, we managed to fit with them pretty well.
That seems like a band you guys would fit with really well. The songwriting style. To me, Salvation sounded like a dark Grimm fairy tale wrapped in a Decemberists album.
Ellis: [Laughs] Yeah, we always get that comparison.
How do you feel about that? Does that make you feel like you have less of your own sound?
Ellis: In one way, it could be taken as a huge compliment, In another way, it can be taken as an insult if someone doesn't like The Decemberists. I think all of us are fine with that. We're not intentionally trying to cop anyone's style. It could be a coincidental similarity. I don't think any of us mind. We make jokes about it.
Hafer: I doesn't help that Chris Funk produced Salvation. [Laughs]
Well, Salvation did drop early last year, so what's been going on since then? What's going on for this year as far as new material?
Ellis: We just wrapped up recording. We did a real smooth, tight recording of an album in about five, six days at a studio called Tight Foundry in Portland. It's where we recorded our last one. It's a little more straight forward, because we weren't using our producer's advice after listening back, modifying something with a harmonized part. [This one] is pretty bare bones. I'm really happy with it. Some of the rough mixes I've heard just blow my mind.
Hafer: All the basics were recorded live, so it has more of a live feel than the other albums.
Five to six days seems a bit uncommon.
Ellis: Uncommon?
Yeah, maybe a week? A few weeks?
Ellis: That's excessive. That's for people to write in the studio. I don't know. Cost-wise, why would you do that? How long is it going to take to get an album on the street and recoup a month's worth of studio fees? We can't really make a massive investment like that. It would be fun, but it wouldn't be a natural album.
Hafer: The whole vibe with being in a studio for five or six days, it would be fun, but at the end of it, it was hard to stay focus those last few days. I can't imagine being in there for a month.
Do you feel laying everything down as is puts less critique upon yourself? Like, "This is how it is. Let's just do it."
Hafer: It's not easy. I feel like a lot of the parts are necessarily sold on what we are doing. I feel like a lot of the band has been just improv. Let's go in. Let's do it. It's kind of a feel.
Ellis: Everybody writes their own parts as well. There's no directing feel or theme to any song. Opinions do clash a little bit, but on a good constructive level. Do some playback...Everyone ends up meeting in the middle to be ultimately proud of it.
Hafer: Before this album, we just released a live album in January.
Is there any particular place you guys prefer to practice in?
Ellis: It's interesting that you bring that up. For the entire existence of the band, it has been that we practice in the living room of houses that I live in. Just before recording our new album, we got a practice space for about a month. We got to go over material in a neutral zone. I think that helped us a lot to allow us to do the recording session in five days. Maybe the album would be less inspired if we hadn't had that practice space. I'll vouch for it at this point. It's nice to have somewhere away from where you live. Like a painter having a studio outside the home.
What did you think helped or hurt that moving of spaces?
Ellis: I can't think of any cons. I think it ultimately was best to get out of that living space, because over time, it started to be a strain. Nothing significant, but our roommates had . Ultimately, it was usual to get our own space. It's like moving out of your house the first time.
Are there any particular themes that run through this one? Is there anything being more talked about on this album?
Ellis: This one perpetuates the darker themes. That's something we enjoy. I feel like Ryan's songwriting style is skeptical and pessimistic. That's not really how he is in real life, but that comes out in his music because that's the flipside of him. He takes on the storyteller persona kind of. Some of the early themes are water. The really dingy Americana wastelands and stuff like that. Those are continued. There's kind of a gospel song about this character that comes from a mountain that was sort of born and controls the skies. There's this mystical existence, but with this tumbleweed movement. I think we continue with the same themes, but also expanding on it. With every aspect of the group, we've expanded our techniques.
Hafer: I would say the new album is certainly more complex.
Ellis: We have a song that we would certainly call our "prog" song. It has many parts in a way. Latin is a feel we have taken across our albums. It's really fun to play that stuff. If you look back at a reference of a lot of that stuff, one of my favorite books is [I]For Whom the Bell Tolls which takes place during the Spanish Civil War. I really don't know how we stumbled on to doing that, because none of our family life incorporates Latin. Somehow it comes out. We write songs organically, where everyone comes up with things organically. A lot more piano on this album.