luke mcgarry

Pelican are an instrumental quartet who started in Chicago and who released their third album City of Echoes on Hydrahead this summer. Drummer Larry Herweg speaks after dinner in Arizona.

If Nokie Edwards from the Ventures was born twenty years later, do you think he would have been a good metal guitarist?
What? Who? I don’t even know who that is. I don’t have any idea who that person is. That question might be better for Laurent who is like an encyclopedia of music from that era.
Did you ever have a ‘lost vocalist’ who tried singing for you at one practice before you decided to be an instrumental band?
No, Pelican has never had a vocalist. In the early days we tried to brainstorm about who would be good for it—we thought of friends around town who might be able to do it but we were really half-assed, and after being a band for about a year and a half, we still had no vocalist. And a local promoter around town heard that we were of the stoner-rock variety and asked us to play this show, so we played it without a vocalist and just kept going from there.
If you guys could cover any song with a sweeping upfront vocal melody but as Pelican—sans vocals—what song would you cover?
That’s a good question—tricky, too. That’s so hard because every song we’ve ever thought of covering is a big instrumental band. A song that has a sweeping melody… hmm. Actually, we’ve been thinking of covering Black Sabbath songs lately and we’ve been talking about breaking it into three different parts—taking the three best Black Sabbath songs and taking three of the best riffs and melding them together and making like a super song. But as far as you were asking, I don’t we’ve ever discussed that. Bjork has such a distinct voice—it would be really cool to do something of hers because the music so strictly revolves around the vocals. So Bjork then.
Do you guys know any mobsters?
As far as I know, no one in the band knows any mobsters. I’m of a German background. My aunt married an Italian, though—a butcher—so maybe he knows some capos. You didn’t write these questions, did you?
Yes, why? Do you think they’re horrible?
No, I’m just trying to see a connection—they’re sort of all over the map.
Well, I was going to ask you about pizza next.
Pizza’s good. Chicago’s got great pizza. I used to be a delivery guy when I was in community college in this suburb of Chicago—Des Plaines—when I lived with my parents. My best friend Chris used to come on deliveries with me and drink beer in the passenger place and keep me company. Des Plaines is sort of a weird place. People would try to steal the pizza from my car—try to hassle me. The best was I got propositioned by a couple—an older man probably in his forties and his wife, probably in her twenties, and they asked me to come in and put the pizza on the table. And he asked if I thought his wife was pretty, and they told me to come by later after I got off work.
Did you go back?
No, no! Nothing against them, but they were totally repulsive. And it was totally creepy, and when I got back to the pizza place, I told my manager and was like, ‘Next time that number calls, can you flag it so I know not to go back there? It creeps me out.’
Do you guys have a super-fan?
My mom’s a super-fan. I mean, honestly, my parents together because my brother’s in the band as well, and they wear t-shirts and the hoodies and have our framed posters all over the house—around the pool table, down in the basement, everywhere. And my mom tells all her friends whenever there’s a local show, and they are just one-hundred-percent supportive.
Who is the most soulful Chicago soul singer and why?
I don’t know of too many offhand, but there is this guy named Rob Lowe—
Rob Lowe the actor?
No, from the band 90 Day Men. He also does a solo thing called Lichens. I think he has a very soulful voice and I’m very fond of the way he sings.
What do you think of the original Rob Lowe?
I loved it! Some of his stuff early on—Young Blood with Patrick Swayze, that’s seminal early eighties. The Outsiders—all those guys from that time. Tom Cruise, Ralph Macchio. I know he was in some movie called like Bad Influence—he was in Tommy Boy and that’s a pretty good one. So, yeah, Rob Lowe from 90 Day Men is pretty good, and Rob Lowe probably from L.A. is pretty good as well.
As a band, you’ve talked about using your music as a way to express a more positive lifestyle. What other outlets do you use to do this?
I think a good example is that my guitarist is flying to D.C. when we get back home to go to an anti-war protest. And a couple of guys in the band are vegan. I think that’s a way of making a statement about yourself—that empowers you. As we get older and tour more, it’s hard to stay current with world issues, but I think we all do our best to read and stay informed and I think that’s our best way.
Do you ever miss the grind of a nine to five?
I still work for Whole Foods, technically. They kind of keep me on their payroll. Laurent works for the label and Mark gets a paycheck, but we definitely have times when it’s tiring. I’m on tour and I start to think about what its like, just having that nine to five thing—about how easy and stable it seems when I’ve been on the road and I’m tired, but then I’ll catch myself and I’m like, ‘Dude, don’t even do that because we’ve all wanted to do music for so long. It’s just what we’ve always wanted to do, and to make enough money to survive? We’re doing it!’ But sometimes it just seems like all you can do to get by—you just want to go home and sleep in your own bed. And me and Brian have serious relationships and Trevor and Laurent are married, and we miss our relationships so there’s days when you miss being home and being with your partner and whatever, and it’s a mental struggle when your touring. I think when you’re single its easier, and we’re not nineteen anymore—I’m going to be thirty and Laurent is going to be thirty and so sometimes nine to five or whatever can sound appealing, but then we’re like, ‘Nah, let’s enjoy this while we can.’
When you were fourteen, what was your favorite song and why? What do you think of it now?
During my early teenage years, I was just getting into metal, so I’m going to say Metallica. And let’s see—I was probably thirteen in the early nineties, so “One,” maybe, and “Justice For All.” That’s the last album I really liked. That’s when you’re at that age when you’re sort of discovering music. Obviously, the Internet wasn’t there and at thirteen I wasn’t going to shows yet, so I was watching Headbanger’s Ball and 120 Minutes and it was sort of the only place to see punk and metal bands. And I liked punk and when I was fifteen, that’s when I started going to see shows and discovering more underground stuff.
Have you ever heard that pelicans eventually go blind after years of diving into the water to look for fish?
No, I’ve never heard that, but I’m not surprised. I’ve seen them do it and it’s just so fast, and they slam into the water so hard.
Would you like to make any psychological connection there?
Honestly, no. When we named the band Pelican, we weren’t thinking about the bird. And when artists try to make artwork for merch or shirts or whatever, sometimes we tell them not to put the bird on stuff because it looks sort of like a shirt you got at the Cayman Islands.

PELICAN PLAYS FRIDAY, AUG. 10, WITH CLOUDS AND YOUR BLACK STAR AT THE TROUBADOUR, 9081 SANTA MONICA BLVD., WEST HOLLYWOOD. 8 PM / $12-$14 / ALL AGES. WWW.TROUBADOUR.COM.