Interviu cu The Static Age
6 ianuarie 2011 | postat de altinnuendo
No.3: Tell us a few things about The Static Age biography, for all those Romanian music listeners out there who never heard of you.
The Static Age: The Static Age is a post-punk band from the United States. We started up in the woods of Vermont, a small northeastern state in the US, when we were in school. In 2005, we fully released our first proper album (after a collection of demos and some singles), and we've spent a lot of the last 5+ years touring the US and other places with lots of awesome bands and meeting lots of amazing people (when I'm not studying for a master's degree). For a couple of years, our van was really our only home. We've also recorded a few other albums along the way, including the new one we'll be releasing on Flix Records out of Germany and Highwires in the United States in April, 2011.
No.3: What’s the band’s genre and main influences?
The Static Age: I guess the easiest way to describe The Static Age is post-punk, but really because that term is so open to interpretation. We've never really fit into a genre, I think. We've been as at home touring with AFI and The Explosion as we were playing a show with Interpol. Each album has evolved in its own way, and taken on its own set of influences and ideas -- even within albums, individual songs pull from different places. But I think that's been how I would've wanted it -- I'd hate to write the same song over and over, and I'd hate to create the same types of sounds over and over. Similarly, our main influences are all over the place. Lately, I've been listening to the Magnetic Fields, Kate Bush, LCD Soundsystem, Propagandhi, Leonard Cohen, Isis, Billy Bragg, Peter Gabriel, Defiance Ohio, the Weakerthans, Hans Zimmer,Wire and a few Chiptunes artists.
If anyone wants to give us a listen, they can go here: thestaticage.com / myspace.com/thestaticage. We'll be posting our new songs on those sites in late January or early February, but our previous stuff is there now.
No.3: How did you end up naming your band after a Misfits’ album? Are you big fans?
The Static Age: We're fans, but the name wasn't really intended as a direct reference. It came up as we were thumbing through our albums looking for ideas for a band name. We were trying to come up with something quickly, as we needed to make flyers for our first show. The Static Age stuck out immediately -- it fit how we felt about the social structures we were growing up into, and it also fit a lot of themes I was writing about at the time. Sometimes people expect something different from how we sound because of the name, but I think we've always enjoyed surprising them.
No.3: What do you sing about? What would be some lyrical themes that can be found in your compositions?
The Static Age: Well, each album has been particularly reflective of a current time in the band's life and my own life, so the themes have shifted across a few records now. We've been influenced a lot by the political and social movements in America over the past many years -- the Bush presidency, the ongoing wars, the turmoil and aftermath of 9/11…all of that feeds into the records we've created. Beyond that, I've also written about American culture, which is probably most obvious on "Blank Screens" -- it was a reaction to the Bush re-election and continued derailment of the country, in my view, but it was also a voicing of frustration and disappointment at the distraction culture and learned disinterest that allowed it to happen.
All of those themes probably come out of my other life in journalism. I've always been a writer, and more recently have been attending school for journalism out in Chicago. I also read avidly, mostly the type of stuff that rides right around the line between fiction and non-fiction, or drifts solidly into commentary -- from Bukowski to Postman to Sacco to Vonnegut to Hitchens -- and watch a lot of documentaries. It all becomes fodder, in turn, for what I write.
Of course there's a personal streak in many of the songs across all of the albums, as well. In particular, our record from 2009, "i/o", was a largely non-political collection of songs, most of which I'd built in the isolation of my own studio space.
No.3: How would you describe your target audience?
The Static Age: I don't really think in terms of target audience -- I guess the shortest, simplest answer is "anyone who listens."
No.3: How hard is it to make yourself heard in a big country like USA?
The Static Age: Well, I think it's just a matter of being willing to work at it. It's all a process of creating something -- from writing songs to booking tours to screenprinting shirts, and so on. The first set of steps that got us outside of our hometown included buying a 10-year-old minivan that only held four people and some luggage, booking a 35-day tour around the United States by cold-calling promoters everywhere, renting a trailer, and just starting to drive. I think we probably drove around 10,000 miles that summer. There were days that were awesome, and days that were a complete disaster (like when I beached the van on a huge median in the middle of the highway at 4am in California). But even when it wasn't easy, it was still a blast.
Also, the continued rise of the internet over the past many years, especially as a tool for discovering and getting music, means that there are more ways than ever to get out there (which does also have a downside: because there's now so much to weed through, it can also be harder to get heard).
No.3: How is the alternative/punk music scene in the US, seen from inside?
The Static Age: I think it depends on how you slice it. There is a lot of brilliant music coming out all over the place, and a lot of thin, sick music too. The scene has been somewhat polluted by some of the typical, less-great aspects of humanity -- consumerism, narcissism and jealously, to name a few -- but for the bad parts, there's a lot of good too. And it's a really exciting time now that so many more people are figuring out how to create complete records on their own and get them out there -- that's fueled a lot of new brilliance.
No.3: How did you get to sing in our country?
The Static Age: It was largely thanks to Felix at Flix Records and a few of his friends. Felix originally got in touch with us about bringing us over for a European run in late 2009. We went for a couple of weeks then, but the shows were all in Western Europe (Germany, Netherlands, the UK and France). When we were discussing possibly coming back in 2011, we really wanted to head east. I've always wanted to visit Eastern Europe and Romania was a key country we wanted to play -- I'm really looking forward to checking it out!
No.3: What expectations do you have from these four concerts in Romania?
The Static Age: We hope to have a blast.
No.3: What do you know about Romanian music? Have you ever listened to a Romanian band?
The Static Age: I have to admit that I don't know much off the top of my head, other than a few bits and pieces. That said, one of the reasons I'm really excited to come play shows in Romania, and over in Eastern Europe in general, is so that I can check out the scene there firsthand -- I'm really looking forward to discovering some Romanian bands.
No.3: The Static Age has been around for 8 years now. What are your future plans?
The Static Age: Well, the biggest plan at the moment is to continue the studio I've been steadily building for the past couple of years. I love writing and recording, but I hate the weight of hourly rates when tracking in other studios, so I've spent much of my time recently learning about engineering and just experimenting. It started back with a few tracks on our album "Blank Screens", continued with "i/o", and goes further with our upcoming album. And beyond the European tour in the spring, we also intend to do another US tour sometime next summer/fall 2011.
At this point, I'm also working on two new albums that will be released under other names in 2011. And I've been working on a label project of my own in the US that will fully launch later this year. So, there's plenty on the horizon at this point.
