Interview: Beach House get "sort of epic"

Last time we spoke to Beach House, they still had day jobs and were feeling the strain of balancing real-life obligations with the workload of aspiring professional musicians. In the intervening two years, it’s fair to say, a lot has happened to change that situation; the band's second album Devotion went on to be omnipresent in 2008’s end-of-year lists, they toured heavily with Fleet Foxes and Grizzly Bear among others, (including 3 visits to Ireland in the last 2 years), and singer/keyboardist Victoria Legrand appeared with GB on Veckatimest, Conan O’Brien and the Twilight soundtrack.

The band have steadily gained in reputation and listeners, making their third album Teen Dream – their debut on Sub Pop, due out January 26th - one of the most eagerly anticipated of the year. The record leaked - as is the style these days - a full two months before its official release and the blogosphere, true to form, has been dribbling like an excited child ever since.

Understandably so, as the album represents an ambitious departure for the band - whereas Devotion felt like the soundtrack to a late night séance, Teen Dream ups the ante considerably, reaching levels of speed, volume and intensity previously unfamiliar to Beach House listeners. Speaking to Victoria over the phone, we put it to her that Teen Dream is a noticeably more dramatic album than the band’s precious ones: “Yeah definitely, there’s more dynamics and there’s a lot of energy, which was the result of months and months of touring and storing up a lot of desires to create new things. When we got back we were able to have 9 months where we weren’t interrupted by tours or anything like that, to really get it all out of our systems – that’s definitely the primary force behind this record, all this energy.”

It sounds like certain aspects of the band’s repertoire – the focused, driving groove of ”Gila”, the tense fervor of “Master of None” – have been expanded upon and shaped into something quite different from the hushed nocturnal dream-pop Beach House are known for. “Yeah I think it’s our earlier sounds, but amplified. I’m sure people will say that it’s close to a definitive expression, but to us it’s only a beginning, and I don’t think any two records will ever be the same. I don’t think it’s very natural that a record should be the same, I think that if that’s what you’re going for you’re actually stifling yourself. Artists should explore, and when you tour a lot, you’re constantly exploring, there’s new things coming at you all the time, and you’re constantly learning new things. So I don’t think the next record will be like Teen Dream, but Teen Dream wouldn’t have happened if Devotion hadn’t happened. It’s the same instruments, it’s still us, but we just took things to new heights, I think. Like we said earlier, dynamics, movement – bringing things closer to the listener, making things slightly more physical.”

Much of this physicality undoubtedly comes from the band’s experience on the road; as with the last Grizzly Bear album, the impression is of a band consciously incorporating the energy of their live shows into their studio work. Victoria concurs: “yeah, these songs are definitely fun to play live, so I think that means that in some way we achieved something that we intended, which is that these songs feel very physical. The songs don’t stay on this sort of monotone level, like Devotion or the first (self-titled) record. There’s still depth to those songs, but they don’t ever rise up above a certain level and I think that something we were looking for on this record was highs and lows that we weren’t able to get on the other ones. Having more time to record definitely helps with that, and also having the uninterrupted time to write, because you’re able to really cultivate and construct and flesh it out to a very full extent.”

This process of “fleshing out” the songs has led to a noticeably more rhythmically-oriented sound – tracks like lead single“Norway" raise the BPM higher than any Beach House record to date. “Yeah there’s sort of new rhythmic territory for us, slightly, like on “10 Mile Stereo”. Some of the earliest songs that were written on the record are “Used to Be” and “Better Times”; they’re songs that we worked to a level that they all could share in common, like they all could exist on a sort of plane of imagination, spirit, movement, energy, maybe “epicness”…some of these songs are really sort of epic for us, so we’re realising this now as we prepare to go on tour for four months, that we’re gonna have fun performing new songs.”

The band’s increased confidence in blending the minimal drum-machine beats of their earlier work with the live percussion they often use on tour is also apparent: “We’ve had live drums on our records since Devotion, and we’ve been touring with a live drummer; we have two drummers that we tour with and we alternate between the two, back and forth between Europe and the US. They’re both on the record. So we’ve incorporated the drum aspect since Devotion, and I think Teen Dream has gotten a lot more honed in the blend of live drums with the sort of analogue drum machine sounds that we have. That’s something that we definitely use, and I think it has a lot to with how the songs feel, I think they give you a kind of an energy, you know. The beat on “Silver Soul”, that snare is really carnal or something. It’s definitely something that has become a staple of our sound, besides organs and the sounds of the guitar.”

Teen Dream, no question about it, sounds bigger. The band audibly revels in the increased budget and sonic possibilities that being a bigger label brings, and it becomes apparent that the lo-fi minimalism of their previous work was as much a product of necessity as aesthetic principle. The “epicness” Victoria mentions, though, comes more from a change in dynamic approach rather than a kitchen-sink attitude to recording – Alex Scally has claimed elsewhere that this album contains no more overdubs than the others, and Victoria stresses that the band were conscious not to lose sight of the live element of the songs;

“We’re still using our same instruments, just different sounds – I think that those constraints in some way are good because you challenge yourself to make more out of little. We weren’t trying to make a studio record that we wouldn’t be able to recreate, that’s not something that we really believe in: you shouldn’t create a gimmick, or something purely aesthetic, too many of those things result in an empty core. So, we kept the same equation but we just evolved a lot I think, the way that we approach what we write and what we like –I really think a lot of our inspiration comes from getting out, all the touring we’ve done and the amount of inspiration we’ve received from the crazy world that’s constantly in motion.

Being on the road changes you and it changes your lifestyle – being a professional musician and being on the road and writing; you’re either obsessed with music and writing it, or you’re performing it and coming up with videos or other crazy ideas, so it doesn’t really leave much time for, you know, watching videos and cooking dinner. But you know, it’s not really a hard decision right now, this is definitely what we’re supposed to be doing right now, it feels right. I’m not too sad.”

We suppose it’s safe to assume they’ve been able to pack in the day jobs so? “Ha that’s funny, I think I remember that interview…that’s changed in a sense that we can’t have jobs because we’re never home really. I guess we’re financially safe now, I mean I feel like we’re always on the precipice of not having it at all, but that’s a gift - what you make you just put right back into the creative funnel and you make something else."

The band are certainly aware of the increased expectation upon their shoulders, and we don’t need to mention the H-word – Victoria herself acknowledges that the band have taken a big step up, commercially speaking.

“Yeah, I know. We’re not worried about hype or stuff like that, there are always those things before the record comes out, and I don’t think it’s ever out of our control or our means. There’s definitely like a normal level of excitement…I don’t see Beach House as breaking into the mainstream, I don’t think our music is something that will necessarily ever be in like the top 40, you know, but I think it’s music that a music lover or someone who has a very specific relationship with music, and they let it be part of their life – will hopefully enjoy. If someone doesn’t like it they’re just not gonna like it, and we’re not gonna force it on someone. I’m excited, like I said it’s just the beginning. We’re just continuing the work that we’ve been doing for the last five years.”