Times New Viking

If art and rock were two circles forming a venn diagram, the zone where they intersect might contain that curious rag-bag of bands who, for one reason or another, are stuck with the art-rock label. It’s home to both the sublime (Talking Heads, The Velvet Underground) and the ridiculous (Fischerspooner anyone?). The relationship between art and rock comes to mind ahead of, and throughout, a conversation with Times New Viking.

After meeting in Colombus Art School 2005, this three piece have knocked out three ridiculously good albums in quick succession, ‘Dig Yourself’, ‘Present the Paisley Reich’ and this years much-praised ‘Rip It Off.’ What is common across all three albums is how the band defiantly buries short, punchy pop songs, sung by drummer Adam Elliot and keyboardist Beth Murphy, in such a maelstrom of feedback, tape-hiss, and distortion that listening to them can sometimes feel like assault and battery. It’s divisive stuff. For some, it’s an indulgent, pretentious mess. But for those converted by it, Times New Viking create some of the most tangible and thrilling music around at the moment, a hissing wonderland where noise is king and melody its subject.

Analogue meets them ahead of a recent show in Andrew’s Lane Theatre. The band are accompanied by their almost horizontally laid-back and beardy friend Matt, who guitarist Jared Philips (jokingly?) remarks “is pretty much always on acid.” Since they were abandoned by their bus driver “for a fucking Bruce Springsteen concert” somewhere in Britain, Matt has been driving and helping them out on the road. He also fronts a band, not unlike Times New Viking, called Psychedelic Horseshit, which is possibly the best band name since ‘Congratulations on Your Decision to Become a Pilot’ (look it up).

As the interview gets underway Jared is making his first tentative dent into a bottle of Jameson. It will be polished by the end of tonight’s gig, when the band will leave the stage with so much feedback hissing and squealing around their dropped instruments that the venue sounds like a pig pen invaded by rattlesnakes. His physical appearance (notably, eyes that move around independently of his head, not unlike an action man doll) and his mannerisms lend him a sort of outward edginess that is often softened by a warm humour when he banters with his band mates. Diving in at the deep-end, Analogue rolls out the obvious lo-fi question first. Why wilfully thrash and distort such robust pop melodies? Jared replies, “partly it’s a way of recording, constantly trying to mix things so they are constantly louder, and continuing to do that until it’s as loud as possible.” It would seem from this response that noise, and lots of it, is of paramount importance in the Times New Viking universe, and because they are blessed with such a strong pop sensibility they can perhaps do things with noise that other generic noise groups can’t. But how much control is exerted over their often wild and ad hoc sounding distortion? For example does something get this messed up in a very deliberate and planned way? “Some of it’s choice. Some of it’s happy accidents” is Jared’s slightly disengaged answer.

At this point the puppyish and smiling Adam lopes in. “He can answer all the fucking questions” he jokes, nodding to Jared. “I’m just gonna drink some alcohol.” He soon joins in, though. Both of them have trouble with the term lo-fi. It’s a label that doesn’t sit well with them, perhaps after so many lazy comparisons to other bands. At different points in the interview they mention Sebadoh and Guided by Voices (whose earlobe-molesting Vampire on Titus, is in fairness, an apt comparison). Jared remarks, “lo-fi, what does that even mean? That has so many different connotations. I mean for the bands where we come from, lo-fi equals a type of sound. With us it’s more like DIY where you record it yourself. We might have been different if we had older people teach us how to use GarageBand [music making software] or if we went to music school or something.” For Adam, making music is a fun, hands-on affair and he bridles at the thought of GarageBand. “That’s like fucking math. How can that be fun? Twisting nobs and not playing instruments. Fuck that man.” Jared jokes, “yeah, then instead of calling [the album] ‘Rip it Off’, we’d have to call it ‘Sample It Up’ or something.”

Perhaps the lazy indie comparisons frustrate the band because they did not form in the traditional manner of a bunch of kids who wear their sonic influences on their sleeves and rock out in a garage night after night. It’s clear that while they superficially happen to sound like it, they are simply not that influenced by the early 90s indie sound. Adam mentions that the nascent 80s lo-fi scene (primarily in New Zealand) was more relavent to them. The current indie scene is then brought up when Analogue mentions Bradford Cox’s recent pop at how insipid he finds current indie music and his apparent abhorrance of Vampire Weekend and Yeasayer. What do they think? The news brings on a veritable orgy of whoops and high fives, followed by shouts of “fuck yeah” and “that’s our Bradford.” “That’s fuckin’ rad” proclaims Matt from Psychedelic Horseshit, “Bradford’s like us. He knows where we’re coming from. He’s a country boy.” Yikes. Never mind Obama and McCain. It would appear from recent Analogue interviews that the battle lines are being drawn for a bloody civil war of attrition in American indie; the sophisticated Brooklyn preps versus the raggedy small town noise terrorists. “Yeah, that’s sort of what we are about,” says Jared. “That’s a part of what we are doing. I’m not going to say we make records just to make reactions against you know, bands like the Shins or whatever…” He’s interrupted by Adam. “You know what we should call this tour?” he laughs, “we should call it the ‘Fuck Yeasayer’ tour.” It would appear that Times New Viking do not see themselves as part of the current indie establishment.

Indeed, as the interview progresses, it’s apparent that in spite them now being a touring rock-group on a major indie label (they were recently signed to Matador), much of their influences and ideas have their seeds in art. The rock band thing may have grown from an extended expression of a previously shared aesthetic. As Jared points out early in the interview, “I mean, we started out in art school trying not to be a rock band, and then we realised we could write and play songs.”

Do they see themselves as an Art Rock band? Jared agrees to an extent, saying, “I think that’s where a lot of the ideas came from. I mean all the things in art we’ve done, we see that in all the music we liked.” How so? “you know, the reproduction of something else. You know I think the whole idea of print-making and stuff like that, reproduction, it all feeds in.” Here, it’s hard not to think of their press shot, which is a sort of deteriorated photocopy of a band photo, coloured over with flourescent marker. This too, ties in with what they are saying. They have an awareness that modern rock can only really be about copying what’s been done before and somehow customising it in your own small way. In case there was any remaining doubt that these guys are conceptualists, Adam expounds further, casually dropping the names of a few 20th century art-movements into the mix “I think most of the art that we like, the bauhaus stuff and Dada, its about taking a concept and making it a part of your life.”

Towards the end of the the interview, a kettle in the green room suddenly starts to hiss and whistle. The dictaphone recording things is unfortunately postioned beside it. This brings on a spate of jokes about how the interview playback will be apt for a band so noted for their banjaxed tape hiss. Jared then asks Adam to “turn it off man. Hey, that’s what this album should be called. ‘Turn It Off’.” This is as good a point as any to ask why the record is called Rip it Off? “It just sounds fucking cool. Don’t you think it sounds cool?” is Jared’s flippant response. He’s right, though. It does sound cool, like a punkish call to arms or an incitement to do something edgy or illegal. But surely there was more to naming it than that? In light of what they said about art, were they trying to second guess hacks who might accuse them of ripping other acts or a certain sound off? “Yeah perhaps,” Jared replies. “It was also meant to be a multi-faceted title. Nowadays, if there’s anything you want, you can rip it off the internet.” He elaborates further. “For the new generation or whatever, I think the idea of plagiarism has lost its negative connotation. Like if you look through the 40s, 50s and up through the 80s, everything’s already been done. So you might hear a song, and you might wanna play a song like that. Well, then you learn the chords and you rip it off. But what you add to it is your own time and place.”

By now, the title that was just “fucking cool” mere seconds ago is aquiring more layers of subtext than Animal Farm. Finally, Jared somehat wearily refers back to the whole early 90s comparison. “Plus, everyone is like ‘oh they sound like the early 90s’, so yeah, that too.” Rip it Off. Who could have thought those three little words carried such a weight of meaning? It’s doubtful Oasis pondered as long and hard before coming up with Definitely Maybe. But that’s Times New Viking for you. They may be taking a gloriously trashy and messy drive through the rock landscape, but there is a very purposeful collective intellect behind the wheel.