New York – Brooklyn’s Landlady has been perplexing genre purists since their debut Keeping To Yourself. Their mustached main man Adam Schatz spoke to BestNewBands.com about the group’s recent release Upright Behavior, their current tour and life as one of the lads of Landlady.
Zoe: When and how did Landlady form?
Adam: In 2010 in Brooklyn I was writing a bunch of new songs and didn’t know much beyond that I wanted to be able to sound very big and very small, and that I wanted two drummers. So I asked the two best drummers I knew and we build the band from there. There’s no magic beginning, it started as any band starts. I’m just incredibly lucky with the people I know.
ZM: Why did you want two drummers?
AS: It opens up even more possibilities for dynamics and rhythmic force. You can really make an audience feel new intensities with two amazing drummers locking in in front of them.
ZM: How would you characterize your sound?
AS: Surprising. I approach it as rock and roll, always. I love melody and harmony that keeps you engaged and feeling on the edge and at home at the same time.
ZM: When you say you wanted to approach it as “rock and roll”- how would you define rock and roll?
AS: Rock and roll is electric musical defiance. It’s an adventure.
ZM: How does your new album Upright Behavior differ from your previous releases?
AS: Our first record was recorded in my basement, so it was a bit more ramshackle in the assembly. The higher quality recording of this one allows for a much bigger range of sound and depth of emotional response in the listener, I think. I also think we’re a more flexible band now than with the first album, and it’s exciting to get the levels of communication and commitment we got on record.
ZM: Describe the recording process of the album.
AS: The 5 of us went into the IsoKon studios in Woodstock for 3 days to lay down basic tracks, playing the songs live. We took the recordings back to Brooklyn and continued to work in our homes doing vocals, keyboard, and initial mixing stuff. That process lasted from May to October of 2013, and we mixed the whole thing in 8 days in November. As far as albums go it was a relatively quick process, though for me it couldn’t come out soon enough.
ZM: What was the inspiration behind Upright Behavior?
AS: I’m going to answer this like you’re referring to the song, not the whole album. The whole album is a whole album and the songs range over 4 years of writing so the inspirations come from all sorts of places.
The song Upright Behavior is about friendship. About personal connections that make almost anything bearable. It’s a really simple subject matter that we paired with a fairly involved composition and arrangement, which I like. There’s humor in it but it also carries the necessary weight. That weight gave me the confidence to name the album Upright Behavior as well.
ZM: What was the inspiration behind Under the Yard?
AS: That’s a fictional song, from the perspective of someone singing about the unknown and being buried in his garden when he dies.
ZM: Was there anything different about recording this new record?
AS: Today is different than yesterday and tomorrow will be different again. I truly believe that we’re getting better at what we do, musically and as people, every day, if you’re doing it on purpose, which we are. So, each album is going to be a statement on where we’re at. We do it on purpose, and it’s all reflected in the choices we make, time, place, recording approach, there are infinite details that will make each album different from each other. This is a grand response, because I think the questions deserves it. The silliest, most honest answer I have is: everything is different.
ZM: The band is now on tour supporting the release. What is the best and worst part of touring?
AS: Being able to drive around the country with your friends playing rock and roll is a dream, and even if it was for $0 it would still feel like a dream.
The best part is playing for a new audience every night. We’re being surprised by people coming out who know the words to songs, and feeling rewarded by new fans taking home our album each night. That makes us incredibly happy.
The worst part is when you’re stuck in one place you don’t want to be. Maybe the venue’s not in a great part of town, but like in any work environment, your actions tend to be dictated by logistics. Sometimes they get the best of you. But it’s still in the bigger clamshell of playing music with your friends, and so for that reason, the worst is still not so bad.
ZM: When and where was your favorite show? What made it so memorable?
AS: That we’ve played or that I’ve seen?
We played a show recently at a festival in Buffalo, NY and our stage was outside, beneath the stars, in front of these gigantic grain silos. Everything was right that night, in the way that you don’t expect anything to happen and then it all does.
ZM: What was your or the band’s worst onstage moment?
AS: The moment we step offstage.\
Lately there’s been a common thread of mishaps that happen onstage that make the show even better. We’re pretty flub free, only because everyone in the band is so damn good. But recently we played a show in Kingston, NY, and during a pause during the song Washington State Is Important the guitar amp started transmitting the radio. So we kept the pause going on for a lot longer as the radio DJ announced a Duran Duran song, then we entered super strong and was funny and great.
Another example of the unpredicted happening on stage, when Mikey our guitar played picked me up on his shoulders during Above My Ground and my head knocked into one of the acoustic panels above the stage, knocking it loose from the hook and it fell. Visually it was great, we brought the house down.
ZM: Are there any tricks to translating the album into a live setting?
AS: There’s a lot of openness in our songs that allow for a bit of difference every time we play it. It’s a really good recipe for fresh energy each night, so even though we don’t have the power of overdubs, the five of us can create a lot sound and make a lot of choices live that serve the songs well, even though they’ll sound different than the record. If anything live we are stronger than ever because an audience can see it, they can see how we act as a unit, and they can see the two headed drum monster that powers our machine.
Zoe Marquedant
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