Will Cullen-Hart, Bill Doss, Pete Erchick and John Fernandes
A Dialogue Between Viewpoints
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The Olivia Tremor Control are interpreters, carving sculptures of sound that bring life to the dreams they hear inside their heads.
As the perceived leaders of a country-wide collective of dream weavers, the Athens, Georgia-based quintet create music from different angles than most normal bands. Each of OTC's full-length albums (Dusk At Cubist Castle and Black Foliage) feature 27 songs and a potent mix of pop gems and ambient epics.
Seated on empty kegs in the basement of Chicago's Lounge Ax, the Tremor Control told NATN Co-Director Troy Carpenter about the flow of the Elephant 6 collective, the excitement of global communication and the Olivia hex.
NATN: Are you working on any new material these days?
Will Cullen-Hart: Yeah. We’ve been writing a bunch of new songs. We’ve been working with this Japanese girl, writing songs for her…and we’ve done some stuff for a guy who’s making a movie.
NATN: Some scoring?
Bill Doss: Yeah, a little score-type stuff. I think he’s gonna use one song and some score material. The movie’s called "Dean Quixote". Actually, Guided By Voices are in it -- in the film.
NATN: Which lineup?
BD: The current one -- pure rock.
NATN: When you play songs live, how true to the album versions do they tend to be?
WC: We do really try to make it close, but they end up being different. If a song has four tom-tom drums and tons of vocal effects, we obviously can’t do it exactly like that, but we try to simulate them with drums, bass and guitar. We do the four-part harmonies and we use some pre-recorded sound effects, but we don’t want to do something like playing to a DAT, where we’re not in control.
WC: Although we’ve been trying to get Eric (Harris, who was in the bathroom) to play to a click track.
NATN: How would you compare the experience of making records with that of playing shows?
BD: It’s a whole different process. Playing live is like a moment in time -- you only have that moment. Making records, you can be a perfectionist. You can take a whole week to get a line right. Come home from work, work on the line. It could take a week, or a month.
John Fernandes: But certain shows click. It’s not like sitting around thinking too hard. There’s an energy in the room, a vibe, and it just all comes together.
NATN: But don’t you have times at home, in the studio when you’re like ‘fuck, that was it -- we got it’?
WC: Yeah, certainly. But live, it’s a different feeling. You have the audience there. If the audience thought it was good, and everybody caught what was going on at that one moment, it’s much more rewarding. When we’re at home, there’s just the five of us, we can congratulate each other, but at a show it’s a totally different experience.
NATN: Now on your records, you have lots of people, friends, stop by and add stuff to your records -- do you consider there being a core band of Olivia Tremor Control, and the others are just your friends, or is it more of a ‘Olivia is anyone who happens to be around’ thing?
BD: We think of ourselves as a core band. I mean, certain people are always with us, but we consider the main band us five (Bill, Will, Peter, John and Eric). Like Scott (Spillane), Julian -- Music Tapes Julian (Koster) -- we always want those guys with us if they can come.
JF: But if Neutral Milk Hotel or The Gerbils come calling…If we set up a tour and they set up a tour, it just doesn’t happen.
NATN: Why does it take such a long time to make your records Is most of the time spent in the editing process?
WC: Well for the first record, it’s hard to really say how long it took, because you have all the time in the world. For the second one, I think it took a long time for a mixture of reasons. One is the editing and being a perfectionist, but also equipment kept breaking.
BD: It takes a while to get that sound that we heard in our heads together on tape. And our equipment kept breaking. We had a hex on us for a while.
Pete Erchick: But the hex has been lifted!
WC: Yeah. You can tell everyone the hex is off.
NATN: To what extent do you try to thematically connect your songs and recordings?
BD: I think it occurs naturally. We're not always trying to do that. But, sometimes we give it a push.
JF: Yeah, it happens. Because viewpoints aren’t identical, we try to look at music from lots of different angles. Our music turns into a dialogue between viewpoints -- you have different ways to look at a piece of music, and we try to express our music from multiple viewpoints -- it's like those pictures that you turn it one way and it looks like a young lady and another way it looks like an old man.
NATN: Is there a tangible story running throughout?
BD: Probably.
WC: Do you hear one? It’s hard for us, because we listen to it for two years while it's being created.
BD: And then two more years.
NATN: Well, you know, there's songs about the "California Demise" on both of your records and that EP (The Giant Day).
WC: I think "California Demise" and "Jacqueline, 1906" are connected.
BD: We’re the band though, which makes it really hard to explain. It’s more like impressions of how the things are connected. We have similar viewpoints and concepts that crop up now and again, but I think most bands have that too, on various levels.
NATN: Do you still feel intimately connected to the Elephant 6 Collective? Talk about that concept.
>BD: It’s really a free-floating thing.
JF: Yeah. People are inspiring and these inspirations flow in and out. For instance, Julian is totally absorbed with something and by hanging out with him, his energy will inspire you to do your best.
NATN: Do you know all the people in all the bands?
WC: Not neccesarily. Some of them are friends of friends. Like Robert Schneider and the Apples -- he knows some other people and they come into the fold. He didn’t know some of the people that we do, people like Elf Power, but we’re all good friends now.
NATN: Our web site is doing a project on the most compelling albums of the '90s. What albums have compelled you most in the ‘90s? what music have you been listening to lately?
WC: Stereolab.
BD: Some Mynci stuff.
PE: Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci.
BD: Royal Trux -- Accelerator.
JF: Yeah. That’s one album that’s perfect to listen to before and after a show 'cause it’s so full of energy and it excites you.
WC: Oval. It’s some great electronic music that expresses some really cool stuff. And Loveless (My Bloody Valentine). That was ’91, I think. Does that make the cut? It's compelling for what it is, for the layers. So many people have grabbed on to something from that record and been inspired by it. It’s just a hands-down classic with its use of samplers and mixing.
JF: Sometimes you hear a connection between what you are doing and what others are doing. But sometimes it's not something that you could say "If you like them, you’ll like this." You just hear it and it moves you in some way. Like Jim O’Rourke: completely different from what we’re doing, but great.
BD: Smithsonian Folkaways.
JF: Yeah, and the Secret Museum Of Mankind. It’s lots of 78s from the ‘30s. It’s about the time when musicians change what their doing -- stuff based on traditions -- and start being inspired and basing music on hearing other things from different places from around the world. Like Africa getting inspiration from Kentucky bluegrass.
WC: They have a picture of these African guys huddled over a big victrola, listening to 78s. (he demonstrates)
PE: And then, like two years later, they’re putting out their own version of “Clementine.” They have it in the collection.
BD: And they put their own influence and tradition into it.
JF: Yeah, it’s great. Like, I love bluegrass and free jazz. And five years ago, I think most people would say "Oh, you just like it for the novelty or the kitsch." But once you get into it -- once you get really into music -- there’s not these walls that separate genres. There’s a real emotional and musical connection between all types of music. If you like music, it’s just not that far apart.
NATN: Do you think the Internet is doing a similar thing, connecting people?
PE: Yeah, just by the nature of what it is -- how people’s minds connect. It’s great to have access to stuff halfway around the world. Like a tribe in Africa listening to ‘78s.
NATN: Our site has gotten some visitors from Australia, The Netherlands, Sweden, Singapore, and other countries. So I can write about our conversation and post it, and people can read it on the other side of the world.
WC: It’s exciting in the sense that people who have developed obscure tastes are now connecing with others and trading ideas. You know, in your town -- or even in your state -- you can distribute a zine and get it out to some people. But here, you're basically putting out a worldwide zine and you don’t even have to publish it!
JF: It’s cool in a way, but it also scares you in a way. These people are all hooked up and there’s a possibility they could be all digital. Like, you can be talking to some guy from Singapore, on his world community, but then not feel the need to go talk to the old man next door and find out that he’s really an awesome bluegrass fiddler!
NATN: We've been accepting people's top ten lists of '90s albums on the site, and so we’ve been getting submissions from people around the world. And, you know, they list some albums you love and then maybe a couple local records you’ve never heard of. So then, you’ve got something to check out.
BD: So, what are some of the main picks people have been putting in?
NATN: Well, lots of the main stuff. Nirvana, Beck, Radiohead. Neutral Milk Hotel has actually been getting a shitload of picks. In The Aeroplane Over The Sea.
WC: Yeah, I think I’ve heard of that.
NATN: You know I've been meaning to ask -- I read something about Jeff Mangum not feeling the need to record again?
BD: He just likes to say that.
WC: Oh yeah, I think he’s never going to record again. (sarcastically)
JF: Actually, I've walked through his house and heard him playing something I’ve never heard before, so he’s definitely got some new shit.
WC: He’ll bust something out. He just wants to leave it up in the air.
NATN: He’s doing some amazing shit.
JF: Sometimes when you hear him, it just touches you emotionally. It makes the hairs stand up on the back of your neck, you know? It hits you so hard, that it's sometimes hard to listen to it all the time. It’s good to have something that’s not like that, so you don’t get worn out. When you have a bunch of people having such strong emotional responses to something you’re doing, you’ve got to step away sometimes.
NATN: Great. Anything else to say? Anything on your mind?
BD: Smithsonian Folkaways.
TROY CARPENTER | Troy Carpenter founded NATN from a Chicago apartment during the ambitious winter of 1998 with co-conspirators Ben French and Jonathan Cohen. After a five-year stint in New York, he and wife Lourdes have recently relocated to Indianapolis, where he spends days listening to music and nights in the kitchen at Elements restaurant. Musical heroes: Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Super Furry Animals. What else makes life worth living: Sushi, Phucty, runs in the park, and the Atlanta Braves.