Manchester Orchestra Interview
Interview with Chris Freeman of Manchester Orchestra
Words by Brendan Monteiro
Manchester Orchestra is still a relatively unheard of band even though they are signed to the mighty Sony Records. This stands testament to the talent this band has, a brand like Sony wouldn’t go tarnish their name with a mediocre band. And Manchester Orchestra are definitely NOT mediocre! They ooze originality, creativity and a peculiar way of making every song they create absolutely brilliant. This is a band that is on the verge of something big, with forums littered with love for this band it wont be a surprise to see them get as big as their label mates The Kings Of Leon. On their recent tour of the UK we managed to catch up with Chris and find out a little bit more about the band that isn’t really an Orchestra!
So to start off how has your day been?
We got stopped today by a security detail on the way here, they all had guns and got us out the van and they strip searched us. It was like terrorist watch or something so that was my wake up today.
Is it true that the band started out by playing elementary schools?
Yeah! Elementary schools and middle schools, we don’t really like to talk about it much. Not in a weird way but it’s kind of embarrassing, but it definitely paid for a lot of stuff. J’s dad worked for a magazine company that um, you know those competitions where you sign up subscriptions to magazines and you get a prize. Well we were the prize, you would get a “Rock” show. So we would go to these middle schools and set up quick and play a twenty minute set and do a dance off with the kids, but they paid us like 250 dollars for a show. So we would drive for an hour, do the show and get paid and that pretty much paid for our record.
Do you think playing in front of an audience that wasn’t versed in your music made it harder?
The whole time we played we were just thinking what would we do if some band came to play when we were in middle school? They didn’t give it shit, all they were thinking is “Im out of class, I can do whatever I want” and they would just sit in the gymnasium. We did do one however, I wasn’t in the band yet but I was selling merch at the show, so there was this on in Pennsylvania and it was a high school. The kids were so receptive, they had never heard of us before but they were really into the music and there was dead silent during the songs and it felt like a real set, it was really cool. But for the most part it was just ridiculous.
And did that make the band evolve differently at all?
We were playing regular shows at the same time. I think the amount of shows we were doing at that time helped evolve the band a lot because the only way you get better playing together is by playing together. So being able to play a show where the atmosphere didn’t really matter and nobody was really listening, that really helped because we could just focus on each other and get the songs right before we went in to the studio.
The first Manchester Orchestra album ‘Nobody Sings Anymore’ was never released, instead some of the songs were used on a later released E.P. Were those songs altered at all?
Yes, ‘Nobody Sings Anymore’ was way before this line up that we have now, it was before the elementary shows, that was a long time a go. We took two songs from that album and wrote another two songs and released it as an E.P (I Brainstorm). To my knowledge the songs were not altered at all.
You released that E.P on your own label called Favorite Gentlemen Recording, how has having your own label helped you and the bands associated to it?
It’s pretty cool the way it’s layered, there’s two layers to it. The first layer is a sort of community and it’s just putting the logo on records which gets people associating us with them and them with us which in turn helps promote eachother. And then the other level is to actually give other bands money and sign them. So we will give them some money to tour and we have helped a lot of bands get out there. It’s also created a buffer between us and the label and we have a certain pull in the industry now because we have other bands on our label now and it’s getting a little bigger. It’s gotten to a stage where major labels actually look at us as an actual entity rather that just one band. We have five bands now. Ha Ha
The first full length to be released was ‘Im like a virgin losing a child’, what is the connection between some of it’s song titles and Woody Allen films?
Andy is a huge Woody Allen fan, we all watch Woody Allen films. But Andy was affected big time by Woody Allen films, his parents introduced him to that stuff when he was at a young age and he has said on numerous times that Woody Allen movies will inspire more songs than most other bands albums will.
On closer inspection to ‘Sleeper 1972’ I couldn’t really see the connection as the song seems to be dealing with a death and the grief a family deals with, and yet the movie is this weird cryogenic science fiction that ends in a nose being squashed by a steam roller, could you point out the connection?
That movie is just ridiculous! But I think the themes are very similar in that what it would be like if one thing in your life had to change. Andy’s father is a big constant in his life and he had a dream once that his dad died. I think that they tie in together in that way and even though the movie is a comedy and has a lot of funny stuff in it, it is very much a dark comedy and I think the themes definitely collate with death. I think Woody Allen’s obsession with death is a big influence on Andy.
There was a delay if I’m not mistaken between the American release of ‘Im Like A Virgin…” and the UK release, how come?
We put out the record originally by ourselves on Favorite Gentlemen which is why we started Favorite Gentlemen, to get our records out. Then later signed to Sony which was about a year later and once we signed to Sony we released the record over here.
A song of the band was featured on the T.V series ‘One Tree Hill’, shows like that have a certain reputation in finding unique bands that the commercial viewers possibly wouldn’t know about. Would it be true in a sense then that they found the band a new audience and increased your popularity?
That definitely helped us find a new audience, I think people who watch shows like ‘The O.C’, ‘Gossip Girl’ and ‘One Tree Hill’ wouldn’t find us, they are not those type of people looking for new indie bands. But the people who are working the shows are definitely are those type of people and it introduces you to a different audience. We did ‘Gossip Girls’ as well and it introduced us to that genre of people, the more mainstream people who are more into hip hop or pop rock. So yeah it definitely helped us and opened us up to new people.
From “I’m Like A Virgin…” to ‘Mean Everything’ there seems to be a substantial change, as if more influences were drawn into the later record, why do you feel they differ?
I think the difference between the first and the second record is that with the first we had all the songs written before hand and we had been playing them live for about two years so we kind of had them down. Most of the touring was done in the south east and we definitely had a much smaller spectrum of where we were going and we toured and toured and toured. With this record there was definitely some influence from the fact that we had gone out and grown up a lot in the last four years of playing together. We have gotten louder and louder which comes from listening to heavier music, that definitely influenced it.
‘Mean Everything’ definitely has a bit of angst in it’s sound and the singing, is that something you plan on building on for the next album?
I think we will progressively just get louder until a point were we can’t get louder anymore and then just get super quiet. We like being loud and the live show I think really affected how we wanted the record to sound because before we were turning up the levels a little bit more and a little bit more each time until finally we were playing shows and we were at 10 the whole time. So I think we will get louder and crazier and then get tired of playing crazy live shows and then just get really quiet.
That would be funny, being sick of playing shows.
Yeah, and I would be like “I’m sick of fucking sweating, let’s just play acoustic shows”.
Specify that you only play in auditoriums with air conditioners.
Yes, we will play acoustic arena shows in the winter…on an ice rink!
Last question for the day, the latest album is accompanied by a video for each song. Who’s idea was that?
That was an idea that came from Brad our manager. Clay Lipsky and Jason Bognacki of DestroyRockMusic did a video for us from ‘Like A Virgin’ and they originally didn’t want to do it, we gave them the idea and they didn’t think they could do it. Then they heard the record and they got it and they pretty much ran with it. They took some footage during some photo shoots and just filmed us walking around and then they would send us what they had and we would approve or dis-approve. It was someone else’s vision for what our music sounded like which I think was really cool idea and that is why we embraced it.
I really like the way they have given it that vintage feel with the way the recorded it and the same girl in every video!
I think that she was one of the guys girlfriends and the first time we saw anything we were like “aah who’s that?” and somebody mentioned it was one of their girlfriends and I was like “damn”.
September 4th, 2009
I love these guys, Adicted to anythin they do, awesome interview guys I actually learnt some new stuff about them.