Interview: No Age
After releasing one of last year’s best albums Nouns and losing count of how many shows they played in 2008, No Age return to recorded action next month with the brilliant new EP Losing Feeling (out Oct 5 and streaming here). Before the pair come back to Europe for a select few post EP release shows, guitarist Randy Randall spoke to Ragged Words about writing a more diverse next LP, playing Husker Du songs with Bob Mould and attempting, unsuccessufully, to take a holiday.
Randy: It’s doing good. I saw a doctor when I got home and he said it looks like it’s sitting in the right place from when they reset it. It works so it’s good.
During those shows all three bands played together and you tried to make it as seamless a performance as possible which seems to be something you guys always try to do – whether it’s playing after shows or house parties – constantly attempting to redefine the live experience?
I think we try to have a lot of fun with it whenever we can. It was a lot of fun to get to play with those guys and to really try and present something people haven’t seen. I think that’s always a challenge and part of that is always do something new. I’m really happy with how the whole tour went, it was a really collaborative process, all three artists all added something to the mix.
The new EP seems like it’s bring you a step in a slightly different direction - pushing forward the dreamier elements of Nouns with more loops and samples. Was it something you’d wanted to try for a while?
As far as a different direction, the songs for Nouns were written about three years ago so I think it’s just the process of playing together for that time. This is basically where we’re at right now and how we’re writing songs. It was just a natural process of getting to that point. I think we’ve had elements of these kinds of songs before, I think it’s just a case of trying to push it more and trying to spend a little bit more time in this area and see where we can go with that. One thing that’s nice is we’re just taking our time with it. We’re still really busy but we’re also trying to give ourselves more time to write and to experiment a little bit with the process.
Does that mean you’ve been spending more time in the studio and enjoying the recording process a bit more?
Yes and no. We didn’t spend an exorbitant amount of time; it wasn’t like we were holed away in the studio for a long time like mad scientists. It was about the same as before but I think what we are doing now is learning. After Nouns, we definitely learnt a lot of technical stuff and there were a lot of things we wanted to do more of. And now in doing this, we’ve pushed ourselves a little bit more too. It’s always about seeing what’s around the corner and not knowing what we’re going to find. We always want to keep that element to it.
I know you’ve also been writing concurrently for the album. Is the EP a signal of what’s to come?
To some degree but there’s also a lot of stuff that’s not on there. I think it’s going to be a great record and I can’t wait to hear how the songs turn out. It’s not going to be a longer version of the EP. There are different areas… I think the thing about the EP songs, they all fit together. The record is going to a bigger, more diverse collection of songs.
So what stage are you at in the writing/recording process?
We’re still just writing. We’re going to take our time with that so when we go into the studio, we have everything pretty tight. We’re hoping to record by the end of the year. We have a little bit of touring coming up but we’ll have most of the fall to write so hopefully at the end of the year. I don’t know… I don’t want to push it.
You guys do keep extraordinarily busy aside from touring a hell of a lot and recording music. One interesting thing you did a couple of time this summer was perform a live score to the film The Bear. How was that?
It’s a lot of fun; we just performed it for the second time a few days ago. I like the idea of the length of time. When we first thought of doing a 94 music set of music continuously, it seemed a little daunting but it’s got to the point now where it goes by so fast, it’s a lot of fun. It’s nice to do these long things, at least in terms of my songwriting, so you can come back to the pop song. Once you stretch out, it’s nice to get back to get really tight with these quick, tight pop songs. It’s a nice pendulum shift.
Another thing you’ve been working on is a documentary on all ages venues. When you spoke to Pitchfork in May, you said you’d racked up 700 hours of footage. Have you been able to edit any of it down yet?
(Laughs) It keeps growing. I have a very good friend, a creative partner on the film side and she’s working with a couple of editors and they’re plugging away. I just have to sit out this round of the creative process and let them edit and then we can all sit around and make sure it works. If you’re too close to it, you can’t see the forest from the trees – I’m too familiar with all the people and the subjects – so it’s good to have a third party come in and edit it all.
The premise of the documentary is on these venues vital cultural place. As someone who grew up in that culture and now plays a part in it, just how important are all age outlets?
It’s interesting - coming from Los Angeles and coming from America, our bar culture and drinking culture is a little bit different to most of Europe. In England and Ireland, there’s more of a familial atmosphere, the family can all go to the pub. There’s not really anything like that, aside from maybe a pizza restaurant, here in the States and you’d never see a band in that environment. So there is a very strong disconnect regarding drinking age: Over 21 - you go to this place, under 21 – go somewhere else. You don’t see the same mix in the small club kind of setting.
So for me, it’s really important. Some of the most important years for me finding out about music were before I was 21. If I’d waited until I was 21 to see a live band, I wouldn’t be playing music in a live band. By the time I was 21, I would have been over and into girls or whatever else I was doing. Those formative years really fuelled my love for music so the idea that that’s illegal or prohibited or difficult to do is crazy.
The whole age thing is just so arbitrary – we’ve been fortunate enough to tour the world and see where the line is drawn, sometimes it’s 18, sometimes 16, other times 21. And you know, it really doesn’t matter. The world’s not going to fall apart if a 14 year old is drinking a soda standing next to a 28 year old drinking a beer. It happens in football matches, baseball games, basketball games every day of the week. I could rant on all day about this…
Before you come over to Europe, you’re playing ATP New York and not just playing but performing the songs of Husker Du with Bob Mould. Are you nervous/excited about the prospect?
Really excited. Not so much nervous because we’ve had the chance to meet and hang out with Bob. I mean the first time I met Bob, I was pretty nervous but he’s just such a great, regular guy that I don’t feel quite as nervous as I used to. But I am really excited, we’ve run through the songs and they’re sounding good. We’re trying not to butcher the Husker songs and he’s adding another element to the No Age songs – we’re doing both Husker and No Age songs.
Certainly from my point of view, No Age were one of the first bands of this generation to go where bands like Hukser Du and The Replacements went 25 years earlier. Do you think you’re carrying the torch that these guys lit?
I don’t know. I think there are a lot of things that have been very influential about Husker Du for us but I don’t think we’re “the new Husker Du”. We’re not particularly interested in doing that sort of thing, it’s less literal and more that they’re an amazing melodic punk band. They had an energy and a great melodic pop musical side to them which didn’t go hand in hand when it was maybe thought that if you were punk, you couldn’t play an instrument. I mean that was great but what if you could play an instrument? What if you could write a great song? I think that’s where Husker provided the answer. The raw energy of a punk band like The Germs or Black Flag will still always be close to our hearts but watching the songwriting of Husker Du grow album by album was really influential. He wrote ‘Could You Be The One’ when he was 24! I’m 28 and still trying to write a song that’s half as good as that.
And they were just on the road for ten months of every year for ten years. It’s an inspiring story. He actually has a book coming out – I have to give a plug for Bob Mould’s memoir. We ask him so many question that he says, just read the book! We’d keep bugging him and he’d tell us, it’s all in the book.
When you mention touring incessantly and before we let you go, you guys tour so much that I wondered when you last had a holiday!?
Oh man. We actually tried it a little bit. I feel like I’m on a holiday right now, I just moved into my own apartment – I’ve just been crashing on couches since January so to wake up and have the house all to myself, it feels like a vacation.
Losing Feeling is out via Sub Pop on October 5
Live Dates:
October
19 London, Scala
21 Manchester, Deaf Institute
22 Berlin, West Germany
23 Oslo, Betong
24 Dublin, Crawdaddy
In your words