Interview: Woods

We' were lucky enough to corner some of our favourite acts for a chat last year. We had The xx telling us about the gradually building hype around them... well, before things exploded; Grizzly Bear discussing their most collaborative album to date; Yo La Tengo telling us their secret is that there is no secret.

So before we get fully into 2010 mode, there were a few more interview we wanted to share with you of acts that, for one reason or another, we only pinned down late in '09. One such band was Woods - whose lovable lo-fi collection Songs Of Shame, the band's fourth album in not as many years ensured they enjoyed somewhat of a breakthrough here. During their first stint this side of the pond, we talked to Lucas Crane and Jarvis Taveniere, one half of the Brooklyn band.

Songs Of Shame is one of my favourite records of the year. Been described as your most cohesive to date. That a fair description?

Lucas Crane - I don't think so. Cohesive is one of those terms applied when you notice something. I think each of the albums have been their own weird journey or a snapshot of what was going on in everyone life or Jeremy's (Earl) life. Cohesive, I understand it and there is cohesion in the album but it's hard to throw terms around some times.

I wondered how it was recorded, it's lovingly lo-fi, almost cuddly in a way...

Jarvis Taveniere - What do you mean, hopefully warmth?

Yeah there's a definite warmth to it. I know you guys record in your own house - the famed-in-small-circles Rear House and I wondered how that feeds into the process?

Jarvis - The house feeds into things just because three of us live there and it means it's really casual, and spontaneous and quick. It's our home.

Lucas - Everyone's been living there for a long time so it's necessarily part of it. It sounds a little more official than it because it has a name - sounds like a recording studio but sometimes people name their houses in Brooklyn. They all live there so the house has been very much lived in so it bring a kind of intimacy. 

You record most of your stuff there in analog. Is that fundamental to the band or do you see Woods one day going in to record in a studio?

Jarvis - No, I can't. I mean we tried it before but it just didn't capture that think that happens when we're at our house. The whole analog thing is just what we know - we had some cassette four tracks around but we have some digital stuff too. We just prefer it.

Lucas - It's more about spontaneity anyway, just getting it down when it's happening.

Jarvis - If we had a studio at our access, like all hours, maybe. But as in preparing songs and going in and busting them out real quick, that's not really us.

Having had three LP's in quick succession things presumably were gently growing locally but things have pushed on quite rapidly this year. Were you surprised at all how rapid it was?

Lucas - It's nice that people... I kind of feel like we've been doing this for a while so if people are paying attention now, I feel great. Surprise doesn't really feature. I don't know but I'm glad people are digging it.

Jarvis - Maybe looking back at the year, I'll say 'aw I've been away from home that much?' We've been a bit busier.

Reading an interview in the New York edition of Time Out - one of the few I could find - and they described you as being one of the few bands around today who appreciate their anonymity. Does the greater profile therefore sit comfortably with you?

Lucas - Anonymity in this day and age is hilarious because there is so many ways to put yourself out there so I'd like to think being mysterious is a necessary part of the artistic process. You're making an album, you're not really thinking if the name of the album is going to be confusing to people. We get a lot of questions about Woods Family, Woods Family Creeps and Woods and it's just like one album's named something different. It's an aesthetic travesty to name some slightly different in the MySpace era. So if we manage to be a little bit more mysterious, that's great I suppose. It sounds like fun but we're not being deliberately so. We're not putting @ symbols in the search terms for the website or anything. We just do what you do.

Two of the band were playing in Meneguar before Woods came to be, where did on band end and the other begin?

Jarvis - It overlapped for a while. Simple as that. Towards the end of that band, there was a lot of common ground and then most of the energy Jeremy had went to Woods. I mean, most of it always went to Woods.

Jeremy also runs the Woodist label which has taken off over the past 12-18 months along with Woods. The fact that you're touring a lot too, how does he manage to balance both.

Lucas - He has an iPhone (laughs). That's how. You have to suspend what you're doing so his time is definitely divided between the two.

Jeremy - He gets home and he just works hard for a while on label stuff before we have to do a practice or whatever. It's just like every day, all day.

Some of the bands that are on or have passed through the label - Vivian Girls, Crystal Stilts - are also based in Brooklyn. Does it ever feel like people are trying to push you together to make some sort of a scene?

Jeremy - Yeah but that's what people do. You pick up record after record you create a narrative of that. One does, I mean not you! It's an important questions that's another one of those gossamer webs - the answer barely exists.

Lucas - It's just a bunch of friends. Yeah, it's definitely a community of people. What people choose to label it is a matter for journalists.

Jeremy - Anthropologically speaking, the making of a scene is like writing a story. The other side of that is people doing things together, running into each other at BBQ's or coffee shops. That's the organic side of it. I'm super anthropologically interested in scene-making and writing this grand story, the 'that guy said that about that guy, and the other guy said this'. But it factors only socially into how the music is made.