Interview with Woolen Men
Bob: You guys are in the process of recording a new album, hows that coming along?
Raf: It might be done.
Lawton: Yeah... We're just working on sequencing. Its all the stuff that's... not the important stuff, well all our work is important.
R: Yeah I think all the songs are done.
L: Just before I came over here I put all the rough versions together to think about sequencing, it was a lot of fun.
B: You recorded it all yourself, was it on half inch tape?
R: Its a mix, there's some cassette four track stuff and some half inch sixteen track. (To Raf) Is Greg's machine a half inch?
L: I don't know. We recorded in multiple locations to make different sound qualities or different kinds of feelings.
R: Yeah. Our buddy Greg helped with two songs then everything else we did ourselves.
L: It was kind of one of the plans from the beginning to do that.
B: During the recording process do you approach the songs in the same manner as you would live or do you rework them?
R: Its pretty much how we do it live.
L: I think there's been a little bit more of a tendency to do some ornamentation or overdubbing. We double guitars.
R: All that happens later. If I feel like there's something lacking in the recording then we add stuff to get back to how it feels live maybe?
L: I don't think we've ever recorded a track at a time, we've always recorded live. All five of our tapes are effectively live recordings. I feel like as a band we're always focusing on the live show and less about the recordings. I don't know. (To Raf) Do you think thats true? I feel like I always thought about how the songs would sound in a live setting.
R: Yeah I think so too.
L: We just recorded them to try and match that ideal sound that we were hearing when we we're playing live.
R: Yeah. I think its a nice limitation, just to think: this is what three people can do together. You know?
L: We haven't really brought in any extra people to be on any of the recordings ever too. Its something I want to do maybe but I haven't done it yet.
B: Did you record with the stand up drum kit?
R: Some of it.
B: I heard you don't use it live anymore.
L: We've been using the sit down one lately but it might come back, its kind of random right now.
B: How did that come about in the first place? Was it more practical or aesthetic?
R: Its funny, we were going to play a show with Sun Foot. They're real quiet and we thought- oh this will be awkward if they play quiet and then we go on and its like, earsplitting. So we were like- how can we do it quiet? And that was the idea, to use stand up drums... But it worked really well.
L: I think we just really liked it. It was also easy to carry the stuff around and we could play in weird places too. And, yeah, none of us are drummers really, all of us are kind of amateur drummers for the band so the kick didn't matter that much.
B: It seemed conducive to how much instrument switching you guys do.
L: Yeah thats true.
R: I feel like I'm maybe more the drummer now. Before I didn't know enough about the drums... I had a kick drum but I just kind of hit it because thats what you were supposed to do.
L: I remember when we were on tour you were talking about finally being ready to have a kick drum. The more it was away from you the more you got excited about having it.
R: Exactly.
B: Does everyone have a default instrument?
L: At this point I play guitar, Raf plays the drums, and Alex plays the bass. But then Alex wrote a bunch of songs on the guitar and I could learn them but he plays them in a way that's distinctively an Alex way... So the switching is weird but it would be weirder still to have me play my own version of an Alex song.
R: Yeah, sometimes they switch though. I mean, there's a few songs that I've written that I've taught you the guitar.
L: Thats true... It fits a little better with you in some funny way.
R: Yeah.
L: Alex just has a distinctive guitar playing style.
R: He has finesse.
B: When you first began playing together what were your common reference points and have they changed at all?
L: It was like... Flying Nun?
R: Yeah but I think maybe Alex didn't even listen to The Clean until we wouldn't shut up about them.
L: We gave him the anthology but he instantly understood like he'd just been waiting to hear it.
R: Yeah. I feel like me and Lawton had a lot in common like The Clean, Guided By Voices...
L: Yeah, Guided By Voices.
B: When did you guys start playing together?
R: Woolen Men is like three years old I think but me and Lawton had played together in little one off things longer than that.
L: Yeah we kind of just met up and started playing together and I played solo sets at Raf's parents' house back in the high school days.
B: Oh. I knew Raf grew up in Portland but you grew up in Portland also?
L: We're both Portlanders, we went to high school together although we didn't know each other that well. I got introduced to Alex through The Golden Hours which was the band Raf and Alex were in.
B: This question relates to your influences a little bit. What's your attitude towards originality? How important is it? I ask because you're a band that's clearly influenced by older music but you're still very unique. Do you ever talk about the importance of originality or where it might fit in?
L: I think we should both answer that question... Unless you (Raf) don't have an answer.
R: Well, one of the things that's been really nice about the band is that we didn't necessarily have a whole lot of common influences starting the band. It was almost like, we all had songs that we were kicking around and we wanted a band to play them. So, it was nice that we didn't go into it necessarily with a strict idea of what it was going to sound like. I feel like we've gone in a whole lot of different directions in the last three years and we just like to try stuff out. So its kinda nice that there wasn't this idea that- Oh, we're going to start a band that sounds like...whatever. Sometimes I'll have a song and I'll kind of like it but in my mind it's clearly derivative of something. But if I bring it to the band and the other guys aren't thinking about that, they'll bring kind of a different feel to the song and then it ends up being a different thing. Even if originally I was listening to something very specific.
L: I think a lot of times with bands, they try to sound like something and they fail and then in the failing is what's interesting. In the music there's weird echos of what they listen to but they get it wrong and the getting it wrong is the interesting part... I'm not too concerned about, like, authenticity or originality because I think its just... if you have creative people working together and they're more or less on the same level or page then what's going to come out is unique, I mean, hopefully. It's not cool to sound exactly like something. Those are some of my least favorite bands, bands who are slavishly imitative even down to, like, clothes. They just took an identity wholesale from a previous thing... It's not cool.
B: You guys will be touring to the east coast this fall, will this be our first national tour?
R: It will be the first time on the east coast... gosh, we haven't even really thought about it.
L: It's not very planned.
R: I wasn't thinking it's going to be a real national tour, it's just going to be on the east coast.
L: This is all not really planned.
R: I don't think we're going to do the middle of the country.
B: You're just going to skip over, or fly?
R: Yeah we're thinking about flying out and borrowing equipment.
L: But it would be the first time Woolen Men would be on the east coast, which is exciting because I know a lot of people there and they've never seen my band.
B: Do you like to tour or record more? Where do you feel more in your element as a band and as individuals?
R: I'm more of a recording guy...
L: I really love recording but I'm not as accomplished at it as Raf because he's done more. But there is something to be said about getting back from tour because you get back and you're a really good band. You've just played all these shows- crappy shows, good shows, shows where nobody came, shows where lots of people came. Like, whatever it is, when you did it for that whole time you get back and you know all the songs inside and out and you feel really comfortable. I don't know... (To Raf) Your mom said we seemed really energized.
R: Uh-huh.
B: Do you guys have any non-musical obsessions and do they inform your creative process at all?
L: I'm pretty movie obsessed, I watch a lot of them. I don't know if it informs the music, maybe titles and sometimes lyrics.
R: I had this idea; a friend was making a little magazine with writings about movies, it didn't end up happening, but I wanted the Woolen Men to do something as a band about Jonathan Demme, the director. Because, I don't know, I feel that he's some weird like...
L: Raf thinks that Jonathan Demme is a kindred soul to the Woolen Men.
(laughter)
R: I think so.
L: Like Something Wild .
R: Yeah.
L: Like, the kind of crappy movies that he made that are really great... but not that awesome.
(confused laughter)
I mean, the Feelies play in Something Wild...
R: There's Talking Heads and The Feelies and his whole musical realm I think is appropriate. I dunno, I think of his willingness to experiment and try different genres and not... and to do them all in a really open minded or exploratory way. The way he takes on different styles. I thought that was kind of interesting. Something Wild was not a successful movie really when it came out.
L: It was kind of obscure.
R: I mean, there were some people who loved it but it was not like a big hit. And maybe I sort of relate to that.
(more laughter)
His willingness to follow some creative impulse led to a movie that I think is great but maybe is not. It doesn't fit into an easy category.
L: Yeah... I also play a lot of video games. Really into video games.
Bob Desaulniers
4/10/12