The Luxury's drunken interview with The Noise
by Lexi Kahn Visit The Noise (the article will be viewable online during the last 10 days of the month) Visit Low Budget Superhero, Lexi's own news and music site For sheer instrumentation and production brawn, this debut is way more polished than one might expect from an indie release. This is where Jason Dunn's musical ambitions were fleshed out by drummer Steve Foster, guitarist Daanen Krouth, bassist Justin Day and keyboardist Brooks Milgate. Using a smorgasbord of guitars, keyboards and studio software, The Luxury has created a whole, cohesive "album" of exceptional layered vocals, hook-laden melodic meanderings and swirling spirals of studio wizardry of an ilk usually left to the prog rockers and Berklee kids. This band has, in a word, prowess. Why We Can't Have Nice Things is destined to be a keeper, and I sat down with most of The Luxury at The Model in Allston to talk about it. Noise:You guys all live in Allston? Steve: I can see into Jason's room from my kitchen. Jason: That shade is now closed all the time. Noise: Daanen and Justin, you guys came into The Luxury when the music was already gelled. How did you know you'd be a good fit? Justin: I saw Jason's list of requirements on the Noise Board. I did not pass all of the requirements. I was too old. Jason: I reserve the right to be the oldest and ugliest in my band. Justin: Until then I had never actually listened to any of the music. When I saw that he needed a bass player I listened to a couple of songs and thought the whole package was fantastic. Great songwriting, great melodies, interesting changes, it pretty much had everything that I could have wanted. Daanen: Well I have never seen this Noise Board. I'm really in the dark on that. Long story short, I had played in the Ultrasonic Rock Opera where I met Justin's girlfriend. Jason: My name's Jason. Daanen: I mean Jason, sorry. Jason: It's all right. Daanen: She mentioned that he was looking for a guitar player. I thought, good songwriting, great melodic structure to the tunes. Anybody who is into any kind of genre of music, whether it's classic or heavy or what, hears The Luxury CD and has good things to say about it. Jason: And Brooks is the best keyboardist I have ever seen apart from when I saw Yes live. He's pretty damn close to Rick Wakeman. Justin: The kid is amazing. Steve: Brooks does not need us at all. Noise: The CD is much more polished than I expected. Do you worry that it might have too much mass appeal to retain any indie cred? Justin: Oh, we're totally un-credible. Jason: Here's the thing. I have never been remotely cool in my life. I've never been a guy that gets invited to parties. Noise: Dude, I met you at a party. Justin: ***I*** met you at a party. Noise: Who here hasn't met Jason at a party? Jason: Just because I'm an alcoholic doesn't mean I'm popular. Steve: Although it helps. Jason: The thing is, every time I tried to do a specific thing with music it backfired. At one point I was trying to write prog rock. Trying to write an "indie album" for me would probably have terrible results. I have to go with an idea and if it sounds good I don't care what kind of "good" it is. Just that it's actually good. Noise: Why We Can't Have Nice Things definitely isn't contrived. It's dynamic.Tell me about the recording. Jason: Except for the drums, everything was recorded, mixed and produced in my room. Justin: Many times over and over again. Noise: That's impressive. It sounds pro. Jason: That's awesome, because I worked on it for so long. I'd love to work with an outside producer next time, just to get another pair of ears on it? When you hear Daanen's guitar part, it's Daanen with an unamplified guitar sitting in a chair next to my computer. There are no amps on this record. Noise: I had no idea you had the production chops to pull off something like this. Jason: I have a degree in audio production; Steve has a degree in songwriting and engineering. Justin: And there's cats running around all over the place. Jason: If you listen to "Let Go," at the very end after it trails off you hear my cat meow. I thought about cutting it out but it was too fucking cool. My cat is like my best friend. Cats are the best when you're unemployed. They're like, "this is the best, man, will you be hanging out with me all the time?" Noise: Nice. Daanen, was that your first living room session? Daanen: No, it wasn't. I've done similar things in the past. That was a challenging creative thing, taking what was there and embellishing. I was really fond of the old Luxury guitar player, Hugh? He's on the record, he has four of the solos. Steve: When these guys joined, their parts really brought this stuff together for me, really added new elements. "Rockets" for example, Daanen added this country lick and that just makes the song so cool. Noise: What makes a song good? Steve: When it stays with you. When it just gets you. If you can write a solid melody over a solid chord progression, you've got the basis of a good song. You can do fancy production, you can do loops and licks, but if you have a catchy progression and a good, strong melody with a good hook, that's a solid song. Noise: People seem to be giving "Seven Stories" a lot of attention. Jason: It's the single. It was on WFNX for about a week straight, it was the mp3 of the week. Noise: Tell me the story of "Seven Stories." The music is bouncey but the subject matter is dark. And a line from this song is the title of the album? Jason: It's a chronicle of a broken relationship. It actually started with completely different lyrics. This is the second version of "Seven Stories." The first is on an album I made for an ex-girlfriend. I wanted to get her back, but if she wasn't coming back then I wanted to say all of these things. Noise: Kind of like a torch song and closure all at once. Jason: Exactly. It was a heavy experience making it. When I decided to put the song to use in the band I wasn't feeling the same way about her, and the lyrics were hokey. Now it's a little darker, a little more cynical. Seven stories is high enough that if you jump from there, you're done. Noise: Tell me about "Docile." Jason: "Docile" is a response to a political blogger. This guy, he was obviously exaggerating for effect. But there really are people who are playing right into what this administration wants. The song is from the Bush administration to their own supporters. They're becoming the thoughtless supporter that just goes "Yup, that's the right thing to do." Easy to push around, easy to ignore. Noise: So what do you guys think of this left-wing chronicler of shattered relationships? Steve: I think it's good material. It's this dichotomy that gets you in a funny way because the music is so positive, the lyrics are so negative. . . Jason: And they cancel each other out and the record no longer exists. Noise: Wow. You just got all Sci Fi Channel. Jason: I'm getting all Meta on you, give me a shot of whiskey. Daanen: I've told Jason many times within the first two weeks after he gave me the CD, I couldn't stress enough how striking the melancholy is; but by the same token, that feeling and emotion mixed in with the melody, it's just portrayed perfectly. Noise: Before we started this discussion I said that many of the artsy bands I like have epic mythologies built around their music, and how refreshing it is to talk to you guys, a non-theatrical rock band with no grand themes. But now that we've had this talk, really these eleven tracks all do serve to explain the title, Why We Can't Have Nice Things. Though I wouldn't call it a concept record. . . Justin: There are identifying themes. Jason: If it were a concept record, the concept would be "this is what it's like to be Jason Dunn." Steve: That'll be the next record. Jason: We do have about six or seven songs in process toward the next record. Noise: Well first you've got to release this one! The line-ups for the CD release weekend look amazing. Jason: It's going to be AWESOME. For two nights in a row, it'll be THE best shows in town, period. We really want people to go both nights because all the bands are so good. We're shooting to have three, maybe four new songs done by then. Noise: You're on a very disciplined schedule. Jason: Rock musicians by nature are lazy and disorganized. You have to set dates and stick to them. If you don't set dates for when you want to release the record, when you tour, it just won't happen. Noise: It's hard. I know some musicians who are so driven, they wake up every day and do some task for the sake of the band. Justin: Some of them don't even wake up every day. Noise: And wonder why no one is coming over to hand them a lot of money. Jason: Isn't it weird how that doesn't happen? Noise: What's next for this band? Jason: Right now we're not huge. We're not kissed by angels. We're fighting the same fight as everyone else. It would be really, really, really cool to set up a show and consistently guarantee that we'll bring in a ton of people. The CD release will be awesome. I don't think this is going to be one of those records where you end up with 700 left over out of a thousand; I think we'll sell them. And I think that as soon as this release party is over, we're going to start demo'ing and releasing the next record. Noise: Well it's an excellent record. Maybe you'll sell enough to get some nice things. Jason: Really, there's nothing standing in our way. www.theluxuryband.com |
