After causing a driver change for The Antlers, IRR staffer Monti Smith gets the dirt from Darby of The Antlers as they head to play at Notre Dame and finds out about their DIY ethos and Road Rules.
IRR – Are you all from New York?
Darby – Mike and Peter are from Upstate New York and I’m from Alabama.
IRR – Alabama? How’s the music scene in Alabama?
Darby – There’s not a lot of music scene outside of Country or Blues. Not a lot of Indie rock in Alabama. But it’s nice and quiet down there. I would say Alabama and NY are pretty much polar opposites. NY definitely moves at a different pace. I mean in NY you have opportunity and Alabama you have space.
IRR – How long have the three of you been playing music together?
Darby – It’s been about 2.5 years I would say. It all kind of fell together. It wasn’t a formal process at all. Peter was playing solo back then. I was playing solo back then. My friend was playing bass with Peter and playing drums in my band.
Mike was in a few bands and we all kind of came together under Antlers and it seemed to work out pretty well. It started gaining momentum and attention and so it sort of is the one that thrived and grew from all that.
IRR – Sounds like a very organic formation.
Darby – Yeah it was totally organic. You don’t start bands to do a world tour. You don’t deal with any of the labels or publicists when you start out so it’s all grass roots. You just start out booking your own shows and playing local gigs.
IRR – From what we know the album was more or less recorded by yourselves in a small apartment in NY?
Darby – Well, yeah, basically every apartment in NY is pretty small. Recording at home is what all of us have always done and always really liked doing. We like to record on our own. We have always viewed recording or the studio as another instrument or part of song-writing process. We sort of evolved from a couple of mics and whatnot to a lot more mics.
But I think that we will always record our own stuff. Why go into someone else’s commercial studio when you can do your own? With technique and experience there really is no difference between doing it yourself at home or in a big commercial studio.
It’s just a matter of who’s at the controls. Any equipment they may have, we have or can borrow or rent. So there’s no real advantage to a commercial studio. At home you have a lot more time and control and can save thousands of dollars.
IRR – And back to the road, so you’re starting a Tour with The Editors soon.
Darby – Yeah, it’s actually a pretty short tour. About 2 weeks. We start in San Francisco and are doing a national tour. Even though I think it will include only about 10 shows.
IRR – Wow, that’s a lot of ground to cover in 2 weeks.
Darby – Yeah, we are going to be doing a lot of the cities with 1 day in between shows to get to each city. We’ll be driving the whole thing. Its time to start downloading our books on tape and remixes and who knows what?
IRR – How does that work? Does everyone have their own Ipods or does Driver choose the music?
Darby – No, We’re pretty democratic when it comes to that. We all like similar kinds of music. There is going to be plenty of time to listen to whatever you want. Every once in a while something will get vetoed by the driver but that’s usually if you’re tired, and you just don’t want to listen to classical music and try to stay awake.
IRR – What do you think would be some of the top albums that you are currently listening to?
Darby – Hmmm, I would say, we just listened to the new Four Tet record and it’s pretty cool. These New Puritans record is pretty good also. And we really like the newest Spoon album. Pretty much anything reggae or dub we are going to listen to also.
IRR – Great, well drive safe and hope to see you soon at the LA show, and apologize if we went overtime.
Darby – No problem. We’ll send you a bill.
Visit The Antlers
Upcoming Tour Dates
1/29/10 – Legends of Notre Dame – Notre Dame, IN
1/30/10 – Music – Akron, OH
2/05/10 – Brooklyn Academy of Music Opera – Brooklyn, NY*
2/08/10 – Teh Warfield – San Francisco, CA#
2/09/10 – House of Blues – San Diego, CA#
2/11/10 – Wiltern Theatre – Los Angeles, CA#
2/13/10 – Ogden Theatre – Denver, CO#
2/15/10 – Vic Theatre – Chicago, IL#
2/16/10 – Phoenix Concert Theatre – Toronto, ON#
2/18/10 – House of Blues Boston – Boston, MA#
2/19/10 – Terminal 5 – New York, NY#
2/20/10 – Trocadero – Philadelphia, PA#
2/21/10 – 9:30 CLub – Washington, DC#
* w/ Ra Ra Riot
# w/ Editors
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