...And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead - Interview - March 2009
By: Andrew Misuraca
Today, I find myself talking with Jason Reece, first drummer and second (or is it third?) guitarist with Austin, Texas based band and somewhat idols ...And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead (say that five times fast). It's not that I'm nervous per se; I've done interviews before, but I can't shake the monkey of foreboding off my back. The phone rings, introductions are made, the toes have been dipped so let's go swimming...
(Rockfeedback) So what happened with Interscope? The word I often hear in reference is "emancipation" and you don't seem too upset...
(Jason Reece) Well for us, we couldn't do anything with our last three records. [Interscope] basically have money to push a certain amount of artists, of course. It's like a trickle down system and they're gonna give it to 50 Cent before they give it to Trail of Dead, you know what I mean? (laughs) But its not about the money, its more about the attitude, you know, why are we with a label that doesn't get us or care about us?
(RFB) So you've set up this new label for your new album, Century of Self, Richter Scale...
(JR) Yeah, it's an imprint label distributed by Universal, funnily enough, which owns Interscope but the difference is that we have people working with us that care and actually like our music. And the good thing is that once we do our record and get this off the ground we have the opportunity to put out other bands, we get the opportunity to put out music we like and that we care about.
It's at this point, listening back to the tape, that I realise my first mistake. It would appear the monkey has stuck his mischievous fingers in my ears and caused me to mishear Jason's answer...
(RFB) So you weren't allowed to do any side projects when you were on Interscope?
(JR) Uh... well, I mean, I don't wanna use it as a platform for my own ego (laughs, perhaps slightly confused) I mean, I definitely would rather put out something, you know- my side projects are gonna stand out on their own, if they're gonna take off they're gonna take off of their own accord, not from me giving myself handouts...
And so it goes for a couple of minutes as we talk about his side projects Black Earth ("totally hard rock and stoner rock, you know"), Midnight Masses (roughly a seven piece that will tour with TOD in the states) and old EP track 'Intelligence' which was co-written with old side project A Roman Scandal. When we started this I thought he just didn't like interviews. It's now clear to me it's the interviewer. He probably thinks I'm one of those self-important "music journalists" that tosses questions into the air and pulls out whatever answers make it into their broken word net. Moving on...
(RFB) So how's the tour going to work? It's gotta be all self-funded, where does that kind of money come from to do months and months of shows without any backing?
(JR) (laughs) Well, obviously it helps when people come to your shows, that's part of it, I dunno, we've managed to do ok on our own without label support, we've always been self sufficient. In the past we've tried not to take any money from the label as far as touring, so I think it's just when you go out and you keep working you can sustain. I think it's a lot worse for a band in this day and age to not tour, you have to tour...
(RFB) I have friends that don't buy records and go see the bands because they figure the band will get more money that way-
(JR) It's so true, really you're helping the band by being there and supporting by buying the record there and it's more crucial now then ever. It helps the smaller bands that people buy their music at the gig and not off the internet. It's the way things are done nowadays but if you truly want to help an artist now, that's' the best way to do it. It's an interesting time right now, well see who wants to play music in the next five, ten years-
(RFB) Who wants to play music and who wants to make money-
(JR) Yeah. We've been at it for quite a while now and I don't think were doing it for the money (laughs). Were doing it because it's a part of our lives. That's pretty much how it rolls.
(RFB) I guess one of the things you won't be able to do without label support is play Letterman and flip him off (referring to the 'Relative Ways' letterman appearance in which old bassist Neil Busch plunged his bass into the amp and all chaos ensued)...
(JR) (slightly confused) Uh... we used to destroy a lot of equipment, is that what your referring to?
I've done it again. I've lost him. I've lost myself too. The monkey shrieks with excitement.
(RF) Uh... I didn't think of that but yeah, that too... I was referring to the Letterman show when you went to shake his hand then flipped him off (laughing) that was pretty amazing, and the smile on your face...!
(JR) I didn't flip him off, I gave him the 'hail Satan' sign!
Doh.
It would seem I'm way off the mark this time. This will teach me to trust YouTube user comments. It did look like he was flipping the bird though...
(RFB) Oh, it looked like you were giving him the finger from the camera angle, I thought it was pretty genius...
(JR) Haha, the camera angle? I think I was giving him the Hook 'em Horns, you know. In Texas the heavy metal devil sign is actually for our college football team, it means Long Horns. I dunno if you've ever seen the picture of George W. giving out the heavy metal sign, I think he's giving the Hook 'em Horns but yeah, I was giving him, you know, the fucking heavy metal rock lock...
(RFB) You've kinda upset me that you weren't flipping him off, you ruined this image that I had, hehe...
Silence.
(JR) Hey, could you hold on a second?
I've done it now. I've pissed him off by telling him he's no longer cool for having not flipped off Letterman when I thought he did. The phone line goes dead for about 30 seconds and I tap on my desk until he comes back. I pretend I don't feel like I'm waiting nervously for a girl to come to the phone...
Just as I'm starting to panic, thinking he's bailing due to my unprofessionalism and shit questions, he bows out rather gracefully...
(JR) Hey, so i'm sorry man, there's another interview coming in, I don't know what's going on, it's been crazy today. You can call me back if you want in a couple of hours...
Okay, that's just enough time to sort myself out and prepare for a semi decent second half. It is a game of 2 halves after all...
The Second Half
Back in the game, my kick off...
(RFB) I hear people talking about how this album is a return to a Source Tags... era sound...
(JR) I think this new record is just us historically, everything we've done as a band but making it sound cohesive. I don't know if we were trying to go back and revisit the older records, we were just more or less putting a bit more noise to it, some more guitar...
(RFB) I've read you've not been happy with the last 2 albums, which personally I like them both, so how do you see the record in terms of progression if its not going back?
(JR) It's more about what makes us, you know, the influences and the fact that we've been around for a while and we understand that we have a history... because with So Divided it seemed like a bunch of songs that were more experiments in genre which didn't tie together whereas this album, like Source Tags..., has a theme. Not a big theme but the songs connect somehow in a manner that feels like your taking a journey or reading a book. You're ingesting the album as a whole, not just songs and I think that for us has always been important because we always take a lot of time putting the music in a specific order. Its like a mood piece, it's there to be listened to at once, like when you take a long drive and listen to an album from start to finish, and it seems like it would fit something like that.
(RFB) I hear you've recently moved to Brooklyn and have been working with Yeasayer and others. Would you say it has influenced you in any way? When I listen to Madonna, knowing you were based in Texas made sense. It sounded hot and dusty, how I imagine Texas to be but I can't imagine TOD as a New York...
(JR) Well, Conrad lives in Brookyln, I still live in Texas...
It was going so well...
(JR) I think there's a thing about working on a record in New York city, what came about, and there's a lot of New York people that collaborated with us. There's a few different artists on the record, this band called dragons of Zynth-
(RFB) The guys that worked with David Sitek?
(JR) Yeah, and then there's Chris Cody who also worked with TVOTR and Yeah Yeah Yeahs and this girl Brenda Ratney, who's on, haha, you're gonna laugh, Justin Timberlake's label and that was a kind of accident. She was in the studio next door and there's a hallway and a little area where everyone goes to smoke cigarettes and drink coffee and whatever, a little chill out area, and she was always hanging out so we asked "do you think you would like to sing on our record?" And she has this really beautiful voice... so she did a bit and it's kinda funny, these coincidences and collaborations that happen randomly... but we also wanted to have a choir-esque part to a couple of songs so we just had all of Brooklyn come over (laughs).
(RFB) It's not a bad little scene, Brooklyn, you've got some good guys there so you could've done a lot worse...
(JR) Right. Right now, Wiliamsburg, 10 years ago, it was totally empty except Puerto Rican and Polish families living there and because it was cheap all these college kids ended up there so it grew and spawned into this area with a lot of younger people and bands and creativity going on there.
(RFB) Yeah, I was there a couple of months back and you can really feel it walking around, it has a great energy...
(JR) I stayed in Brooklyn in 96, it was my first time there and it was so different. You had a random few people and a couple of bars, maybe one or two that people would go to and it was rough: the kids that had to live there, I mean, my friends from Texas moved up there because it was cheap and then they had to constantly watch their back because they could get mugged, you know, but now its almost really safe, well, you know safer...
He's gone again... "hello?"
Nothing... "hello...?"
(JR) Hello, you still there? For some reason I'm getting a ton of interviews today I don't know why (laughs)
Slight relief but I have started to feel slightly schoolgirl again. Before I let him go I ask for some final words...
(JR) Well, all I can say for the album is that we really worked hard and we believe it's an album that should be relevant and hopefully people will understand where were coming from. We worked hard on it believing almost that we were trying to give something more substantial than whatever's out there right now. It seems that I listen to music and a lot of people are not really saying much so hopefully we can provide a dialogue.
We blitz through a final series of nothingness that ends with him telling me they're on tour with Middle Class Rut in the States and he's gone, only this time with a little less patience. Maybe he didn't need to know I'm not in the country when they're playing. Maybe I should've have left it at 'London' when he asked where I'm from. There's no extra time and no heavy goodbyes but it could've been a lot worse.
Still, I almost hope he flipped me off on the other end of the phone.