Download: Skeletons “The Things”

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(from Money on Tomlab)

Skeletons is a Brooklyn-based band of four guys who play long songs, listen to music from all over the world, make lots of videos, and like to be conceptual. They just released their fifth album Money on Tomlab, and I spoke with singer/guitarist Matt Mehlan about being in a band, living in New York, and combining elements. The Skeletons play the Smell on Friday, November 14th, along with the Vienna Noise Choir and Nite Jewel. This interview by Kim Humphreys.

What are the top three reasons you titled your record Money?
Matt Mehlan (lyrics/songwriter): We knew from some inside sources that we were about to face the biggest economic crisis since the great depression—that’s number one. Number two—we have to work very hard to just even live as normal humans. And number three—it’s eye-catching because everybody knows what it is.
Why did you record your record live?
Well, not all of it is completely live. This record in particular took a really long time to get around to being able to record because we didn’t have a space or the time or money to do it. So we toured a lot and the songs just came about in a much more organic way. We had long rehearsals of playing parts over and over again until something came out, and we wanted that sound to be on the record, which is the four of us in a room playing it, and that’s the basis for every track. Except for one where there are no instruments on it.
Is it a jammy record?
It’s not a jammy record. We don’t really… well, people have their own definition of jammy. You even have to say that word with imaginary quotations—but there are definitely parts where improvisation is really important. But there’s nothing about the record that wasn’t thought of beforehand, at least conceptually. We work really hard on records—there’s no laziness involved. So I would say it’s not a jammy record but there are long songs.
Which do you prefer more—recorded music or live music?
I don’t know. They are very different things for me. I really enjoy listening to records, and I really like the format of a record and the sort of options you have making one or listening to one because you can use it as a background or a lubricant. Live music is probably always more exciting in a way, but can also be a bigger disappointment because it’s so fleeting, that if it’s not perfect, it isn’t always the greatest experience of your life. But I think that one of the most important things is for people to hear live music and see live music and enjoy live music with other people. It’s a very social thing.
What are your live shows like?
They’re louder than the records, probably, unless you have a really good sound system. They’re more visceral, rawer; all the shows are very different. We’ve always wanted it to be a different experience than a normal rock show—in certain ways—if that’s even possible.
What are the ways you make it different?
Just by focusing on energy, and not necessarily on the song specifically or the posturing of it. We try to bring a certain type of energy that’s beyond the music, which is what music tries to do, I think.
Which artist have you been most hooked on lately?
Probably the most recent has been Van Morrison. While not all of his songs speak to me, there are these incredible ones that I can inexplicably listen to over and over and over again. Usually they’re very long songs, like ‘Summertime in England’ from Common One, or ‘You Don’t Pull No Punches, You Don’t Push the River’ from Veedon Fleece. Where in the past I may have shied away from such heavy emoting, and sax solos of the ‘Saturday Night Live’ variety! His music holds you in such a simple, honest way.
I noticed on your blog The Garden of All Things that there is a link to this site Awesome Tapes from Africa—awesometapesfromafrica.blogspot.com.
That’s always been one of the sweetest music blogs for us. John, who’s our drummer spent some time in Morocco a couple of years ago and got a whole bunch of awesome tapes and DVDs while he was there. Apparently in a lot of those countries, the way to listen to music more often than not is video albums. Have you ever seen those before? It’s really cool, in places like Vietnam and certain Asian countries, it’s really popular for you to get a karaoke-style DVD of a new album. In Morocco they have all these DVDs, and it’s just like the band performing on a TV stage. John sent his favorite tape to the guy who does Awesome Tapes from Africa and he posted it on his blog.
I saw that you had a Jamaican mix on your site, too—did you go to Jamaica to get those records also?
No. Tony, who’s the guitarist in the band, is the resident musicologist in our band, he has a huge collection of 45’s and various records from Jamaica.
What are the good record stores in New York?
There’s a place called Jammyland, and a place called Deadly Dragon. Tony used to work for one or the other of them. He got a job taking all the 45s home and transferring them to his computer and posting samples of the songs online. So he built up a pretty huge collection.
Sounds like a dream job. What’s it like being a musician in New York?
It’s really good and really bad. It’s an expensive place to be. It’s really hard to make enough money to make music, which is kind of the catch-22 of it. I think there are a lot of things wrong with it—but I think there’s a really great community of people here, which is always the most important thing to me. The people that I know that make music and go to shows and are part of an actual community. I also like being in New York because it sort of forces you to work hard—I think it’s easy to get addicted to working hard.
How do you stay sane on a long tour?
There’s not really a simpler life. Actually, there probably is, but to me, it feels more like the way I would feel if I was just OK going to my job and coming home and going to bed, and waking up, and going to my job, and coming home, going to bed… If that was enough for me. When I’m on tour that’s sort of the way I feel in a certain way. I miss my girlfriend, and my friends, and having a home base very much, but things are really simple when you’re on tour. You just drive—have one goal every day. You’re not multitasking all the time on computers.
You guys should make a karaoke tour video.
Release a karaoke DVD with the album?
Each song could have a different city in the background. I noticed that the banner picture on your blog is a collage of all these famous buildings. What’s that picture from?
It was a picture that Tony took with his phone of a cover of some magazine like a financial magazine. But it’s really similar to the cover of Lucas [Skeletons' fourth record on Ghostly International from 2007]—which is an image of the ten tallest buildings in the world in one city—and we found this image and it was exactly the same idea but it was done better—by a professional.
What’s the cover picture of Money? Did you guys draw it?
It’s by a friend of ours named Justin Braun. He did it for the record, and he did the artwork for Lucas for us. He’s almost a member of the band. I really enjoy working with him. We sort of sit down and have really intense conversations about the records and then he does his own thing and doesn’t show me anything for a long time—and it’s ended up being some of the sweetest album art, in my opinion. It folds out into four panels. We sort of approach it from an art standpoint, where it should be a whole. I don’t really like the idea of just grabbing some image that’s already made for it’s own being and just attaching it to something new. I like the idea of things being totally together.
Like you’re making a recipe?
Exactly, yeah.
I feel the same way too.

SKELETONS WITH DAVID SCOTT STONE, NITE JEWEL AND THE VIENNA NOISE CHOIR ON FRI., NOV. 14, AT THE SMELL, 247 S. MAIN ST., LOS ANGELES. 9 PM / $5 / ALL AGES. THESMELL.ORG. SKELETONS’ MONEY IS OUT NOW ON TOMLAB. VISIT SKELETONS AT SKELETONS.TV, MYSPACE.COM/SKELETONSANDTHEGIRLFACEDBOYS OR SKELETONSTELEVISION.BLOGSPOT.COM.