Animal Collective - Interview - January 2009
By: Hayley Leaver
Something super fun happened toward the end of last year. Rockfeedback went to Sao Paulo. There's a sentence we don't get to write every day - and more's the pity. We had a wonderful time documenting the Planeta Terra festival for the final episode of series three of our Channel 4 television show - special thanks should go to Marcos, our wonderfully accommodating host. Best bit was, we managed to meet a few of our heroes, including Animal Collective. That exchange went a little something like this:
[LEFT TO RIGHT: PANDA BEAR / GEOLOGIST / DEAKIN / AVEY TARE]
Rockfeedback: You came off stage not feeling a hundred percent about your show - how does it feel being out of control of the elements at times, in that respect?
Avey Tare: "It happens sometimes, in rooms like that - warehouse rooms, really echoey, you know, it's difficult to hear the rhythms and stuff like that when we use our own monitors. They kind of reset all our levels before we went on stage so we didn't have any of our levels right; it was like going into it blind, but we tried to make it work the best we can."
RFB: I guess with the kind of thing that you do as well, precision and technicality is so entwined, you're probably so aware of it, you know... Are you ever able to switch off from that kind of stuff and do you ever get into the process where you're not so aware on stage, do you think?
AT: "Totally, yeah, when it goes really well."
Geologist: "When it sounds good!"
AT: "We just totally try to get lost in it, that's what we strive for. It can be hard when it doesn't go perfect but you never know - sometimes, especially with festivals 'cause everything has to move so fast, you know. We find we're getting better at it, we're adapting more and we get better spots at festivals so we get more time to sound check, and that helps."
RFB: Well if it's any consolation at all, I haven't seen you guys in a couple of years so to see the transition to what you've become... for me, it's getting better all the time. When you consider the live experience, what do you want it to be, not just for yourselves but also for the people watching?
Panda Bear: "Any kind of positive experience - whatever that might be for somebody."
RFB: There's definitely a sense of euphoria with the whole thing, is that the sort of thing you want to go for?
PB: "I would be happy if people felt that. I mean, I don't think we demand that people feel, like, euphoric about the show but..."
RFB: What do you think is the best way to describe the juxtaposition between writing and recording, and then performing as well? What's the main difference between those processes?
AT: "Well like you were saying, there's a lot more unpredictable elements when you play live, and you can't stop what you're doing, rewind and say 'let's retake that', or something. It has to be for us like, one kind of steady thought, or we just go and hope to keep going, 'cause we don't want to stop so much when we play; we like to build on the energy. In the studio everything's so much more precise and kind of like - we take a lot more time to work on stuff in the studio, it's a lot slower going. Usually live we just try to build on energy and share energy with the crowd, you know, and let what happens happen."
RFB: And what do you feel is more rewarding overall: that instant gratification of a live response or recording and mulling it over and, you know, living with something?
G: "Well they're both different, they offer different kinds of satisfaction - it's like kinds of food or something. If I had to pick one I think I'd pick recording - it's just kind of more... the creativity is kind of constant and over a longer period of time."
PB: "It's definitely a lot safer - the recording environment."
RFB: With recording is it ever difficult to sort of press stop - when to stop the ideas really, when to stop recording itself?
AT: "It is hard, we've had to show a little bit more restraint in the past few years in trying to figure out what goes where, and what's meant to be where. It used to be that we'd kind of have the tendency to load a lot of stuff on there and just keep wanting to add, and add, and add. Especially with our new record, working on it this year we tried to really... be as minimal as we could but also add in the really key flourishes and moments that made it a little bit more than it is live."
RFB: I think when bands start, you're really keen to put down all the ideas you have at onec, aren't you? And then over time, you develop that confidence to start reining it in.
PB: "The way that process went is when we were tracking the stuff we put a whole lot of stuff on there and in the mixing process we were kind of constantly taking stuff away, to kind of strip it down a little bit. Not like dramatically or anything, but..."
RFB: It's like editing in that sort of sense, isn't it? With that in mind, when you think about the new record, listening back to it and things... ah, I don't know if you're too immersed in it to even listen to it for a while: you've probably put it on a shelf and thought 'f**k that!'
G: "I don't even have a copy right now."
RFB: With regards the process of making it, how do you feel it's different now, Animal Collective now, to what you have been before?
AT: "I feel like every stage is a little bit different for us. I think we just allow ourselves to move on to some place and mostly we just move on in our lives so I think that helps the transition a lot. Um, I dunno - we're a three piece right now which is kind of a lot different to how it's been for the last two records: Strawberry Jam and Feels."
RFB: And how does that feel: mixing it up like that each time?
AT: "I mean it was a challenge at first, and we missed playing with Josh [Deakin] you know, but I feel like we make negative things positive - I think it challenged us to push ourselves into a new way of playing old songs, and a new way of creating new songs. I think it's been really positive for us just in terms of making the record and writing."
RFB: And also the fact that you guys, apart from doing stuff collectively and the very fact that you've done stuff individually but still put them in the performance like some of the Panda Bear stuff, I think that's really just a great move. Is there ever any contention in that process or is it quite a...?
AT: (Looking at G) "Noo..."
G: "It's Dave [AT]'s idea."
AT: "Yeah that's always my idea. I feel like, to me in that sense it's like the Grateful Dead where they would play like Jerry Garcia Band songs or Bob Weir songs, and it was like the lines were always blurred as to what the Grateful Dead was - it's like, let's just play 'cause the songs are good. And we have so many songs it seems like we wanna change it around or make our sets different for people, and interesting. Noah [PB] doesn't get a chance to tour on his own, that's cool too, and... there a lot of reasons (laughs)."
RFB: It's really cool! Just a final point: as a band creatively, what is it you feel you're trying to achieve as Animal Collective?
G: "It's hard to say. I like to think we're just making records that if we had heard them when we were kids they would've blown our minds, or just been super excited to listen to in the kind of way that we listened to music back then."
PB: I feel like we're just trying to make music that we're excited about - that's sort of like the bottom line."
Animal Collective were talking to Toby L.
Artists in this article: Animal Collective