Andy Chase, Dominique Durand and Adam Schlesinger
No Distance Too Far
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Through some reliable connections and a few strokes of good luck, Long Distance was released in Japan last fall and generated a huge response. It also helped Ivy pop back on the radar screens of American labels, including Nettwerk, who released the new album this week and plans to re-release Ivy’s first two albums (1995’s Realistic and 1997’s Apartment Life) in mid-September.
Looking back, even Ivy’s membership (which also includes multi-instrumentalists Andy Chase -- Durand’s husband -- and Adam Schlesinger) struggles to recall all the ups-and-downs. In the meantime, NATN Associate Editor Jonathan Cohen tries to piece it all together.
NATN: O.K. Let’s start a ways back. I’m wondering what exactly happened with Atlantic. Apartment Life was pushed back from its original release date if I’m not mistaken.
Dominique Durand: Well, first of all, with Ivy it seems like we’re putting out albums every three or four years. But in fact, we make records pretty fast. Every two years a record is made, but then it takes two years just to put it out! It seems like that’s been our way, but it’s not really our fault. Apartment Life was done and it was supposed to be released on Atlantic..
Andy Chase: It’s the same story every band has to grapple with, which is trying to fit onto the insane release schedule of a major label. It’s funny because you can talk yourself out of all 12 months. You can’t do it in July because school is out and you’ll miss college. Everybody is releasing records in September, you’ve got the September crunch. October is too close to November, which starts the Christmas stuff. Before you know it, you’re back to June and July again. That’s what we went through. They just picked some date which I think was seven months after we turned in the record.
NATN: When did it actually come out?
DD: I don’t even remember.
AC: You know what? We got dropped on the first day of the first tour for that record. When did you think it was?
NATN: I think July or August of 1997.
AC: I think you’re right. My memory is that we toured fairly soon after it came out and we were dropped fairly soon after that [laughs].
NATN: What actually happens in those situations? Does the tour support dry up right then and there?
DD: Well, what happens is, when you’re on a major label, your album comes out, they send a single to radio, and basically if the song doesn’t stick, they send you on tour because that’s the next step. They gave us the money to tour, and we’re actually a pretty expensive band to send on tour. We continued to tour, which was a seven-week tour with the Space Monkeys. It was awful. But we did the tour. In the middle of that, our management company found us a deal with Sony/550. There was one guy there who really liked our record.
AC: We had a feeling it wasn’t going to go well at Atlantic. I thought we had a smart marketing plan presented for us, which made sense to us as artists. Instead of trying to compete with the formulaic pop songs on commercial alternative radio -- we feel outside of that whole genre somewhat -- market us toward adult contemporary or anything other than alternative radio. We had some songs on the album that were less alternative, like “I’ve Got A Feeling.” The point isn’t which format. People were saying that if you throw Ivy against matchbox twenty, they’re going to lose. But if you take Ivy to another format, it may stand a better chance. But it’s more risky. They decided to go with “The Best Thing,” which is as alternative rock as Ivy gets. Even though it was a decent song, people have to hear that 20 times before it has the same visceral impact as a matchbox twenty song has on the first listen. Like Dominique said, as soon as it didn’t do well at radio, within a month, the wind was taken out of the label’s sails.
DD: And when you’re on a major label, everyone has to be on your side. At Atlantic, we had a lot of friends. But it was not enough.
AC: A band like us needs champions, because if given the exact same treatment as all the other bands, we’re at a disadvantage because of the kind of music that we’re making, in the climate in the United States. So we need extra kid gloves to kind of maneuver us out front. It’s rare when that happens at a label, and we didn’t have that at Atlantic, unfortunately.
NATN: So Sony jumps on board to re-release Apartment Life.
DD: I don’t even know if we can talk about it! Again, the guy who signed us really liked us, but he didn’t play our record to the other people at Sony. When the record came out, people wondered who Ivy was! They decided not to push it. They just re-released it, but we didn’t even go on tour.
AC: There were all kinds of weird things. Right before the re-release, a lot of Atlantic versions of Apartment Life found their way back into stores. So all the sudden it became even more difficult, because Sony had to sell that much more Atlantic product before they could even get to the Sony versions. That was a problem. Also what Dominique said, which was that some people at Sony had never even been informed that they were re-releasing Apartment Life. They didn’t know us. It was like, “what? this has already been out! Ivy who?”
DD: Well, then, they were like, “let’s forget about Apartment Life, and do another record,” which we were very excited about it. So we went back to the studio to begin Long Distance..
AC: Well, even before it, you were pregnant when we started tracking. Then we had to stop because she was, after one take, she was turning blue and getting dizzy!
NATN: Where are we chronologically at this point?
AC: [laughs hard] We’re at June of 1999. The record came out again in the fall of 1998. By winter of ‘98 and into ‘99, Sony was saying, “well oops, nothing happened, why don’t you guys go work on a new record.” By June ‘99, we were in the studio, but Dominique was pregnant.
DD: But nobody knew! We didn’t even tell the people at Sony.
AC: We were so scared.
DD: Can you believe that? It’s really horrible, isn’t it? I was so scared of meeting these people on the street in New York. The guy who signed us found out and was totally fine. But anyway, we were recording the album, and in the middle of it.
AC: Wait, you missed the fire, though.
DD: Oh, right. Go ahead.
AC: Our studio where we were recording burned down. We were above a place called Dizzy Izzy’s, at 14th and 9th Avenue. That’s where I’d owned a studio called Stratosphere. I had re-opened with two new partners: James Iha from the Pumpkins, and Adam [Schlesinger] from Ivy. I had owned a studio for 10 years before that, but I bought out my partners and re-opened with Adam and James. Ivy was one of the first clients when we re-opened, and we were in there that summer. To make a long story short, the building was condemned because it was so badly charred. The landlord used this clause in the lease which says in catastrophic fires, you can terminate all the leases. So he kicked us out! Everyone in the building lost their lease. We thought for a while that our master tapes had been destroyed.
NATN: So you know you’re dropped at this point?
DD: No, not yet. So, I had the baby in July. That’s when we found out the studio burned down. This was in the middle of making the record. After all this bad news, we took some of the equipment and brought it to our place, and that’s where we recorded. We did it at home. It was really convenient for me, because I had a little newborn. Towards the end of recording, we found out that we got dropped. They hadn’t even heard the record. This is around January of 2000. They dropped I think 16 bands that week for economic reasons, I think. We thought, okay, well, we got dropped again, that’s not new to us, but we didn’t want them to own the record. We would have worked for one year for nothing. But we were so lucky. Sony was really nice and gave us back the record, and the old records.
AC: We got the money from Sony, made a record we absolutely loved, became free agents, and got our entire back catalog with the freedom to do whatever we want.
NATN: Wait. We have missed the whole interesting period when “This Is The Day” was getting some exposure from its appearance in “There’s Something About Mary” soundtrack.
Adam Schlesinger: You know, I’m not very good with the exact time period, but as I recall, that was sort of in the gap. We were on tour, found out we got dropped, and we still had seven weeks to go realizing we didn’t have label supporting it. The song had already been licensed to that movie at that point, but it wasn’t out yet. We started talking with Sony, signed the deal, and we were trying to come up with some way to take advantage of the song being in the movie. But Sony’s re-release of Apartment Life wasn’t scheduled until the fall, so it just didn’t come together. One idea Sony threw at us was sending a mix of “This Is The Day” to top-40 radio with dialogue from the movie actually edited into the song, a la Bruce Springsteen with “Jerry Maguire.” Our initial reaction was no way, but our managers convinced us that even if anyone heard it on the radio, they wouldn’t assume we had anything to do with it anyway. So we said what the hell, but after all that, Sony decided not to bother. By the time the album was re-released, the movie was out of theaters. We weren’t able to make too much of that.
NATN: So the studio burnt down. What happened next?
DD: For a long time we discussed what we should do. We weren’t even trying to go to another major label, even if someone gave us an amazing offer. We had some friends in Japan. We always felt that Ivy should have a career in Japan, because we never had a proper release in Japan. The Japanese are much more open-minded to the kind of pop music we make. We had one connection at EastWest..
AC: Which, coincidentally is an Atlantic subsidiary. I just love the irony in that.
DD: She loved our record and told us she was going to put it out. We licensed the record to them. It came out in October of 2000.
AC: Strangely, in a vacuum, because we hadn’t licensed it anywhere else, so there was no support from the rest of the world.
DD: But the timing was perfect, because Andy had produced an album by the band Tahiti 80, which was extremely successful in Japan. We went to Japan and opened for them on tour. We were playing in front of 2,000 people, and our record did really well.
AC: Without any help from the rest of the world. It kind of vindicated us from all the years we were literally making press clippings of interviews and reports about the Cardigans, and having press clippings stapled next to them where we’d do interviews and people would compare us to the Cardigans.
AS: It was a very satisfying experience for us because for years we’d been trying to get our various labels to pay special attention to Japan. We always had an instinct that it would be a good market for Ivy. To see it actually have some success there made us feel good.
DD: I remember one day when we were at Atlantic’s international office and I mentioned this, the guy said, “well, okay, but you better dye your hair blonde!” I always remember that. It was so strange. Anyway, we got back to New York very excited about what was happening in Japan. Someone at Nettwerk got our CD, but I don’t know how.
AC: You know what, here’s again the irony. It keeps going back to Atlantic, strangely enough. Our friends from Atlantic -- Adam Abramson and Bobbi Gale -- both said they thought Nettwerk would be a good fit for us. They got a tape to Nettwerk.
DD: Nettwerk came back and said they really liked the record, which was fantastic. They’re an indie label and they seem to understand our kind of music. They’re not into supporting just one single.
AC: They’re actually shying away from going to radio too soon, because it’s human nature to have the momentum sucked out of you when you have a little defeat here and there. All the ideas they’ve come up with so far are the kinds of things we’ve always thought about and had to solicit from other labels. Now we’re being solicited with these ideas.
AS: I think we had to learn from our experiences and do things a little differently this time around. If we had gone into a similar label situation as the two we’d previously been in, we would have been fools. In talking to Nettwerk, their idea of how to handle a record like this was immediately very different. We don’t get the sense that it’s going to be only about sending the first single to radio. They have a small roster and they’re willing to stick with records for a very long time, and look in a lot of places for the kinds of breaks you might need to make it a success.
NATN: It’s weird. Apartment Life seemed primed for success.
AS: I think obviously we thought so too, and two major labels though so as well. I don’t think any of us were necessarily crazy to think that. But the reality of making that happen is sometimes very difficult, and especially at a time when the radio formats that might have played us a few years before had gotten heavier and heavier. It wasn’t an easy fit. The thing we’re really excited about now is that Nettwerk has had success with stuff that’s relatively similar to Ivy. We’re not being shoehorned into a marketing plan that was designed for a rap-rock band. They are thinking about it based on what it actually sounds like.
NATN: The new album seems to take the sound of Apartment Life to the next level.
DD: When we were making Realistic, we had no idea what we were doing. It was our first time recording. On Apartment Life, we had more of a clear idea to use more instruments. But we thought we’d just record the songs we have. For Long Distance, we knew what sound we wanted to create in terms of atmosphere and mood. We wanted to do much more of a mellow record, more moody and dark. It’s a little more mature, I guess. Also for me as a singer, I think I’m much more comfortable singing moodier songs than upbeat songs. It just seems more natural for me.
AS: Ivy started out in the recording studio. We made our first record before we’d ever played a show. It’s always been Andy and myself trading instruments in the studio and bringing in other people when necessary. Right from the beginning, we had to find outside musicians in order to play live.
AC: Apartment Life was a real concerted effort to do certain things we hadn’t felt experienced enough to do during Realistic. Looking back, we felt the making of Realistic was kind of confining. We were very much rooted in the indie rock world, and it had to predominantly be guitars, and the production sensibility couldn’t be too sophisticated. With Apartment Life, we wanted to branch out and make the record we would have made with Realistic if we hadn’t felt so confined. Before this record, when we looked at Apartment Life, there are highs and lows dynamically. There are moments where you can almost be lulled to sleep, but then an upbeat song would come in and ruin the vibe, so to speak. We really wanted to make a record that was more conceptual, more consistent from beginning to end. Maybe even songs that segued into one another. Even if it was an uptempo song, it still would feel of the same mettle if the next song was a ballad. We wanted to create a mood for 45 minutes that didn’t just feel disjointed. At that point, we knew what songs to pick from, because we immediately rejected songs that might be good pop songs but didn’t fit that criteria.
AS: Looking back on the songs we’ve recorded to date, the songs the three of us felt held up the best were the ones that had a certain atmosphere to them, and a certain mood. We felt like that was the strong point of the band. It’s not to say we don’t want to write a simple pop song every once in a while -- “Lucy Doesn’t Love You” is a little more reminiscent of older Ivy stuff.
NATN: Is the North American version different than the Japanese version?
AC: The version coming out on Nettwerk will have 13 songs. The one in Japan had 14. It’s virtually the same. The 14th song in Japan was just kind of an instrumental. The song that was added after we finished Long Distance is the 13th song on the Nettwerk version. It’s a cover of “Digging Your Scene” by the Blow Monkeys. That was our response to sitting back and getting a little paranoid about making a record that may have gone too far into the mood, without enough uplifting moments. We tried to temper that by throwing in one light, fun pop song. We couldn’t find a place to put it, so we just tacked it on at the end.
NATN: Has it been since the last ill-fated tour since Ivy toured widespread?
AC: Well, the ill-fated tour where we got dropped, that was the first day of a seven-week tour. So we became scrupulous watching our pennies. We cut corners. We drove at 55 instead of 85, and we had enough money at the end of the tour to go out on another tour solely funded by that. This was between Atlantic and Sony. We went out with Komeda.
NATN: What is Ivy’s setlist like these days?
DD: Actually, our set we’ve rehearsed has “Too Sensitive” from the EP, “The Best Thing” and “Get Out Of The City” from Apartment Life, and “Get Enough” from the first album.
NATN: How about “Don’t Believe A Word?”
AC: That’s one of the most requested songs!
DD: What album is that on? Is it on Apartment Life? [laughs]
AC: It’s on Realistic.
AS: We did play “Don’t Believe A Word” during the Apartment Life tour sometimes. We almost always play “Get Enough,” which is one of the first songs we ever did. As a fan, I always hate to see a band who ignores all their old stuff. Even if there’s only two people in the audience that will know it, you have to do some new stuff.
NATN: Do you think any of the songs from new album will be hard to translate live?
AS: I think they can all work, but some of them need to be reinterpreted a bit. There are some where we don’t even bother to try replicating the studio trickery, and others that work as is. But the good thing about a song that’s well written is that it can work with different arrangements. We’re really into changing things around live if need be.
NATN: Do you guys switch instruments?
AS: In the past we’ve usually stayed in our place, with me as the bass player and Andy as the guitar player. On these recent shows, I’ve actually been playing keyboards. We’ve been talking about doing more switching around.
NATN: When will your tour in support of this album begin?
DD: We don’t know. Nothing is booked yet. I’m not crazy, unless it’s a great band that we like, about going and warming up. We’ve done it so many times and it just doesn’t pay off for us.
AC: We’re getting pickier and more demanding [laughs]. To open for someone, it would have to be for bands that are probably unattainable anyway, like U2 or Radiohead. Other than that, we want to just go and headline. DD: It’s much better to play in front of a small audience that is clearly there for you, than playing for a lot of people who just want to see the other band. It’s so depressing. We’ve done it so many times, and that’s it [laughs].
NATN: Both Adam and Andy have really branched out with production work in the past few years.
AC: That’s a real passion for me, producing and engineering. I like wearing both hats. I intend to do it every second I have outside of Ivy, as does Adam. The fire didn’t deter us at all. We ended up finding another space and we signed a 10-year lease. It’s still called Stratosphere. It has been an eight-month project. I’ve had to go Japan a lot the last year to produce, and I’m looking forward to having a place where those artists can come to. I’ve worked with an artist named Chara. She’s pretty huge.
DD: She’s like the Bjork of Japan. She’s really quirky.
AC: She is. I didn’t realize how famous she was. I just assumed that since I hadn’t heard of her, nobody had. I was asked to write a couple songs for her and to produce a bunch, including some she wrote. I had no idea who she was. There was no way to do any kind of investigative work, because she sings in Japanese and isn’t released here. I just finished producing a singer called Chocolate, who is managed by the same people who manage Cornelius and Kahimi Karie. My dream has always been to create a studio environment the way I think of Paul Q. Kolderie and Sean Slade at Fort Apache [in Boston]. Our dream is for people to think of us as producers and associate that sound with our specific studio.
NATN: Will you be working with Tahiti 80 again?
AC: They just asked me to do their next record this fall, which was a real honor. I’m just trying to figure out how to juggle that and touring with Ivy. Their label status is not really clear. They’re on Minty Fresh and have a great relationship with them. I don’t know enough about their contract and if Minty Fresh has the rights to the next record. There was some talk about Minty Fresh trying to work together with a major label to release it here. I think everyone felt Tahiti 80 has immense potential, but it requires a lot of foundational setup and legwork at the grassroots level, for a long time. I think at a certain point it becomes obvious that they may need help.
NATN: Dominique and Andy, what can you tell me about the project you two have been working on yourselves?
DD: Again, this has been going on forever. It’s Andy and myself and two other friends of ours. One of the guys was writing music and one day asked if I wanted to sing on it. Andy was producing it and doing some of the writing. We just put out an EP on our own.
AC: It was taking so long, we were like, “oh my god, we only have five songs. Do we want to wait another year and do five more?” And we were like, “no, let’s just put it out and see if people like it.” It’s called Paco.
DD: We’ve been selling it through the Ivy Web site, and it’s so funny, because somebody got a tape to John Dahl, who did “The Last Seduction” and “Red Rock West,” and they’re using one of the songs in his next movie.
NATN: Adam S., what’s going on with Fountains Of Wayne? Has the band recorded anything since Utopia Parkway?
AS: We’ve done a few odds and ends. We did a song for the “Scary Movie” soundtrack, and a cover of “Better Things” for a Kinks tribute album. We’ve done a few demos and semi-album track-type stuff, but I imagine that at some point we’ll block out a few weeks and do a new record. We tend to record pretty quickly so for us, it’s really about waiting until we feel like we have the songs.
NATN: You produced the forthcoming Verve Pipe album. What can you tell us about it?
AS: Their second album was a rough experience for everyone involved, from what I hear. I think they got led down a path that they didn’t necessarily want to get led down. I think this new record is fantastic. I honestly do. It’s really poppy and it’s really sort of organic sounding, with a lot of cool grooves and immediate songs. I think people are going to be really surprised by it. They’re really a pop band at heart, and one of the reasons I enjoyed working with them is that we have really similar tastes. We finished recording it in February and it was mixed in March. Now they’re just getting ready to set it up.
JONATHAN COHEN | Jonathan Cohen co-created Nude As The News with his Indiana University mates Troy Carpenter and Ben French. When not traversing the globe for business and pleasure, he holds down the fort as a senior editor for Billboard in New York. Stop him and he just may ask, "what for lunch?"