Heard of Hockey? The band, not the sport. I’m sure their shows have the potential to get raucous and maybe even a bit bloody if you dance too hard, but a bunch of bodies dancing and jumping would make any ice melt – or just break – for sure. After hearing their retro electronic dance sounds, I wanted to get in touch about this potentially super fun show. Hockey’s main man Ben Wyeth was kind enough to humor my questions on their new album coming out, how relocating around several vastly different cities and having a few lineup changes has affected Hockey’s sound, and if anyone cried while recording their latest (and most broodiest) tune, “Defeat on the Double Bass Line.” Also, I was very pleased that Ben got my Dazed and Confused reference, instead of just thinking I was trying to be a bag of dicks. Anyway, read his insights below, and if you’re in Brooklyn, come on out to the show Thursday night. Let’s dance.
Kelly Knapp: You’re coming out with a brand new album this spring – Wyeth IS. What’s the significance of the title? How did those songs come together?
Ben Wyeth: We drove our music gear from Portland to upstate New York in the fall of 2010 to start recording the album. At the time we had about 12 songs already written and expected to be back in Portland with the new album by Jan 2011. This didn’t happen. All of those songs died one by one, and we entered into what became a 22-month long recording session. By the end of the process we almost changed the band name. But ultimately I decided to change my name from Ben Grubin to Ben Wyeth. Wyeth is my middle name and I’ve always felt connected to that name artistically. The time recording was a transformative process for us, so we decided to point to that transformation with the album title.
KK: Any happy accidents or unique techniques happen during the recording process? What can we expect from your new sounds (besides lots of jamz and soul)?
BW: Most of the songs were accidents. The product of indirect intensions. And Vocoded drum machines (yes!) Slowing a song down to half its original tempo worked for a few songs. The singing is more relaxed and melodic too. A different sound in general than our last record by quit a bit.
KK: Do you have to be in a certain mind frame when you sit down to write a tune? How do the lyrics and the sounds usually come together for you?
BW: It was all through experimenting and messing around within the recording process. We made it all on our own studio so we had time to explore with sounds and many different versions of songs. Our favorite songs from the last record were written in the studio.
KK: You’ve been based in California, Oregon, and now New York, changing out some members along the way. How has lineup changes and relocation to new cities affected your sound overall?
BW: The changes gave us the space and freedom to grow and get to some new places as a band. I’m from New York so it felt good to be back home, like re-connecting to my musical roots after 9 years out west.
KK: Who were you influenced by growing up?
BW: With this record it was like some off my earliest time spent listening to hip hop revisiting me. When I was tiny I’d listen to Eric b and Rakim, Run DMC, and yeah MC Hammer… But For some reason early hip hop records started sounding really good and inspiring to us while making this new record so we got into all those specific sounds and drum machines. It wasn’t till after we went to this record store, A1 records, in Manhattan and got a bunch of old school hip hop records that we got into a direction that felt right.
KK: What inspired this new “brooder” of a tune, “Defeat on the Double Bass Line”?
BW: That was inspired by the trips I’d take to the city to break the isolation. Down there I was living another life. There were late nights and romantic difficulties I guess you’d say. After one of these trips the lyrics to “Defeat on the Double Bass LIne” came out like 70% formed in one stream of conscious writing take on the mic.
KK: Are there any hidden samples of tears falling on bass strings placed in the song? Because it’d be a lot cooler if there was.
BW: “It’d be a lot cooler if…” I’m hearing in the drawl of Matthew McConaughey’s character from dazed and confused. I do love that movie. That’s ok right? … yeah that song was written in a sad moment but no tears were sampled. We learned to keep the heaviest emotions and desperation out of the studio, because it didn’t get good results.
KK: What are you most proud of so far, and what will make 2013 the raddest year ever for Hockey?
BW: This album was a process that in some ways had a life of it’s own and I’m proud that we could hold on and see it to the end. It was hard because we weren’t used to applying that level of scrutiny and criticism to our own music. And I think it’s a dangerous thing when an artist increases their normal working level of self reflection and criticism, because it can kill the excitement and naivete that are helpful for initial creative sparks. But yeah, somehow we were able to make it through to a final product. Now it’s time to find out if these songs from our secluded studio can work on the stage. If so I will be very pleased (indeed!).
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