weareaugustines.com
Last Thursday I interviewed Billy McCarthy of We Are Augustines for my radio show, Here’s Some Stuff. The transcript is below, but first, here’s some background:
Billy McCarthy is the singer, guitarist, and songwriter behind We Are Augustines, a band that he and Eric Sanderson started up after the demise of their previous band, Pela. Their record Rise Ye Sunken Ships is being released in the near future, and you can visit their website at weareaugustines.com.
Jim Adair: I listened to the KEXP performance the other morning, and you guys seem to have a very close relationship with KEXP. Why do you think it’s important to have independent radio around?
Billy McCarthy: Well I don’t know what it’s like in Philly or in PA, but in New York generally if you turn on the radio it’s pretty much like, to me, it sounds targeted towards basically teenagers. It’s a lot of R’n'B, a lot of Lil’ Wayne, kind of MTV culture. And the reason I think independent radio is important is because we’re not getting to look at the entire picture I guess when we turn on our radios. And just because of funding and so on these guys are hanging by a thread. You’ve got a couple clusters; I think there’s WFUV in NY, there’s KEXP in Seattle and New York and all you have to do is turn it on to hear the difference. One is commercials and the other is a not for profit doing fundraising and so on, it’s nutritious.
Back at home in Philly we have one station like that, WXPN from the University of Penn, and back about ten years ago there used to be this really great modern rock station, but now it’s all Hip-Hop and Hard Rock. And when you turn on WXPN you can tell they really wanna be doing there jobs and playing you music rather than just promoting things.
Exactly. I mean if you just walk around your average Rite-Aid or if you’re walking around town, I mean I don’t know how you feel but I feel kinda target marketed. From the 18-25 range or whatever, the “buyers-market”seems like they serve them. I noticed on Saturday Night Live a little bit ago, I think Katy Perry was on last week and she was just singing about west coast and her cell phone and so on and I just couldn’t relate to it, so I think the independent radio thing that we’re talking about actually offers something for people who are not interested in hearing cell phones in a song. (laughs)
You went from the band Pela, who split up, and now you and Eric (the former bassist of Pela) are doing Augustines. Where did the name come from? Why Augustines? (NOTE: After this review was posted, Billy and Eric ran into some legal issues and officially changed their name to We Are Augustines)
Well, “Augustine” was a song I wrote when we were recording the record. It was a song I came up with probably about noon, and when I got back to my hotel room I had until morning to write the lyrics. And my brother and I both, strangely, have the same birthday, I won’t say when but it’s in August. So, it was kinda meaningful to me and also the subject manner of the record was meaningful to me enough to, I dunno, feel empowered by using the word August. Also, as it stands, Eric’s happens to be the day after me and my brother’s birthday, so I figured “Augustine” might as well be Augustines.
I actually printed out a copy of the interview I did with you, I guess, last April…
That was an awesome interview I really enjoyed that.
I try my best. One of the last questions I asked was, “If someone who had never heard your music before came up to you and asked ‘What does Pela sound like?’ and in response you couldn’t say anything you could only play them one song, what would that song be?” You answer actually was “Augustine.” Do you still feel that way? If someone asked what the last six or seven years of your music sounds like would you still play them that song?
Wow man that’s a good question. I think there’s probably a bit of a fingerprint on all of the songs. We decided to release “Book of James” at the moment and I’m feeling pretty good about that. it seems like a nice intersection between Eric, myself, and Dave Newfeld and that’s sort of a relationship that we’re really enjoying, all three of us. I’d say that’s kinda a pretty updated look at where we’re at. I’d say that’s kind of current.
From reading the story you guys have on your website (www.weareaugustines.com), Dave played drums on that song, is that correct?
No, Dave had some crazy kid named Tony, the sweetest Canadian guy. He was the sweetest guy ever. He took a bus to come out and play with us and he stayed all weekend and it was fantastic. He was a lovely guy. Dave actually played everything else. I played guitar, Eric played bass; he might’ve played keys, but Dave played auto harp, horns and it was zany man (laughs). It kinda sounded like a Tom Petty song honestly going up there, and it did not end up sounding like one and that’s pretty much Dave. If you read the story (“Brother’s Keeper” by Ryan Berg @ weareaugustines.com.com) it was extremely disturbing.
Was it that way for the rest of the album with Dave and Tony or was that strictly “Book of James”?
Well, we did a couple songs, and we’ll be releasing them as we go but Dave actually, he does a lot of…well I don’t wanna give away his secrets actually. He does a lot of behind the scenes stuff and what I love about Dave is that he pushes his medium to the limit really. To the point of I’ve had mastering engineers say, “You’re really not supposed to push this that hard,” or “the compression is absolutely peaking, this is not the way it’s done” and I think Dave has a nice big laugh, he pretty much tries to…he always tries to push it.
Now with “Book of James” which is up for free on the website and with the songs that have been circulating on KEXP a little bit, it still sounds like a full band record.
Yeah.
Now for the time being at least it’s just you and Eric playing shows. Is it hard to translate those full band songs; those loud, raucous songs to the two man set?
To be honest with you, I think that I really considered finding other musicians and I put the feelers out there and I was kinda ready to go to the rock ‘n’ roll thing and I just…I had really great relationships with the guys I played with before. I think I found a drummer and he kinda immediately asked me about money, about what we were paying, and he’s not wrong I mean that’s New York. There’s a lot of jazz guys, a lot of session people, it’s kinda like Nashville or anywhere else, but it’s just not the kina thing that I wanted to hear given what I felt we had come through.
And it’s not really about that, I think for the first time I’m living creatively within my means. I don’t really feel the need to hire a graphic designer or a producer I feel that we can produce or we can do our own graphic design and in spirit it’s kinda coming into the fact that I actually get butterflies again when I’m sitting there with an acoustic guitar. And it might not be the show where I’m climbing up speakers and spitting beer and so on, but it’s actually cliffhanging for me because I, for the first time in my life, am watching people talk when I play (laughs). And I don’t take it personally I just think there’s good butterflies and bad butterflies and these are the good ones, and I’m gonna follow it.
From hearing the Pela stuff and the live stuff you can kinda say that you had a, with the full band playing, almost like a Frank Black, yelpy kinda thing with your voice. Do you feel like you have to change the vocal approach you take when it’s just the two of you onstage?
Um, no…I was actually…it’s funny because I’m at this sort of….I’m not conflicted but I feel like some of the people who are coming out to the shows are a little conflicted because I’ve been happy to play Pela songs. I think they’re like “Well that’s a Pela song” and I don’t see it as that. I see it as a song that I wrote and I’ll yelp it or sing it from the gut or the same way. If anything it’s just a little bit closer to maybe how it sounds in my living room, or maybe at Eric’s house. You’re just not getting the big volume swell, that’s kinda where the songs come from. They always have, everything was written on an acoustic guitar so I’ve actually…and before Pela I was busking and doing all kinds of stuff so acoustic is really where it starts and ends for me.
So, almost in its purest form you go from songwriting right to the stage.
Absolutely, and this is what I’m really enjoying about just being a duo at the moment is that if I wanna…You know we just went on a tour and there’s a song the headliner did that I really thought was great and I just learned it really quick and performed it onstage. I can learn a song before the tour and actively perform it. And it can put on the brakes and say to Eric, “Hey let’s do a Damien Jurado tune” or an Eric Bachmann tune or a Steve Earle tune…now (laughs). I don’t have to rehearse for like two months just to play a song, it’s pretty nice. And I have no soundchecks, very minimal and it’s almost like the dregs of bandhood have been lifted.
As was told on the story on your website, a lot has happened to you guys; you specifically, and Pela as a band in the last few years. It’s almost like you kept getting kicked while you were down.
Oh yeah man.
But where did the intense drive come from to keep coming back?
I don’t know man, perhaps its an innate thing. I just really love music, I think it’s really healthy, it makes me feel good when I’m driving, it makes me feel good when I’m walking around a supermarket, it feels good to sing, I’m inspired by it. Eric has the same sensibilities and taste, he’s more than happy to hum or tap on stuff. We just really love it and I think that when the band ended it just seemed like…I mean I won’t lie to you dude, I was considering going to school to be a nurse and I went through all this really weird identity stuff. But the bottom line is, not only do I believe in our own voice but I believe in music.
And I almost feel like music, increasingly these days, isn’t getting the nod that it really has in the past or that it should because people can download it for free and trade it. I mean, I worked really hard on the last record, I worked really hard on the album art and I met so many people that didn’t even know about it. And I had worked on this art from traveling and so on, and I kept a scrapbook and that’s what it was and so many people aren’t really having that experience where you’re ripping off the wrapper and smelling the record so…I returned to music because it always centered me and I think Eric feels the same way and I think it’s good for people. I grew up in a small town that didn’t have shows, and we had the most Mom n Pop record stores ever and I had the same crap everyone else did. I had, ya know, bullshit Guns ‘n’ Roses and AC/DC, I was lucky if I got some good records but I really feel like music is good for kids and it was good for me so I stick with it because I believe in it.
And also, on the subject matter side, I didn’t expect everything that happened to happen, you know? And so it seemed like the protagonist to a lot of the songs and the subject matter, he left. So I felt, for me, if I could get the record out, it would somehow be a gesture, like the most beautiful, supreme gesture to a human being that I will always hold in my heart. I mean, I dunno, it’s pretty amazing what human beings can do with their hands and their heart. I just felt like it was pretty magical and I wanted to just get through it because I felt like other people would perhaps connect with it. Or, there was also a punk rock side for me as well. Because of the music business and because of whatever, these external forces were kind of against us. And it just seemed like, “You know what? This is about my friends, and my family, and my camp,” and this message is a little bigger than boo hoo a band broke up. It was important for me to just get through it because I feel like it’s a beautiful thing and you can’t give up on stuff like that.
Rise Ye Sunken Ships is the name of the new record. You mentioned earlier about when you released “Book of James” how you have some other songs that will be trickling out…are you gonna release it as, “Boom! Here’s the record” or will you slowly be trickling songs out?
To be honest with you Jim, I’m gonna keep those cards to my chest. I’m really enjoying the future, I think the future is now and things can be done in a few different ways, and I’ve definitely been on a label before, I’ve been on a couple of them and I think release schedules can be really creative and exciting and I won’t be working with a record label for this release so I’m gonna just let it be a surprise.
Well with that being said, since you’re keeping some stuff to yourself, can you tell us anything about a future tour or future shows you have planned?
I’m getting back to the grind here, and I’m going up tomorrow (Friday) to work on a video over the weekend up in Connecticut, and I think once that’s out of the way we’ll be focusing on our tour. If we can get a tour in before Christmas I’m gonna be really happy, but I know we’re gonna be really busy kicking off the new year.
Are you gonna be looking to headline some shows?
I’ll tell you man, can I be completely honest with you? The truth is man, I think for the first time in my life…I think you would have to really play a lot of rock ‘n’ roll shows…but Eric and I really feel like the challenge is awesome opening a night. We’ve headlined a lot and frankly I would hang out and just kinda hide backstage because I didn’t want people to get me out of my head space, or I didn’t wanna be distracted, or I didn’t wanna have too many drinks, I’d kinda hole up. And other people did their own thing, but now I’m finding myself saying, here’s a challenge, I’d love for these folks to listen, and I’m gonna give it my best.
I like the challenge of it, and also, after the show, you get to hang out and watch music. I get to watch the next band and then the headliner and I kinda have a whole evening of getting to know my community for the first time. And I think Eric’s having a great time with it as well. I think headlining will happen, and there’s been a really nice response but honestly man, I’m just not pushing. Whatever happens, happens. All I can do is put the music out there, and I’ve already seen through experience that it doesn’t really matter how hard you push, music is gonna find people or it’s not.
You used the word community there, and you and Eric spoke about that a bit on KEXP as well. Is that something that really aided you guys in coming back?
Oh, Jim, you know what man…Eric would tell you as well…without our community, we wouldn’t be here. We wouldn’t have the record. People chipped in advice, support, they chipped in financially, they chipped in whatever the skill set was or their craft.m Everything from photos, to tours, to legal, to everything. It just seemed like for whatever reason, the last project I was in, people had enough of a connection to it to feel like it wasn’t right that we should just disappear and that if they had any say in it that they would like to reach out. I think that was fantastic for us, and it just made such a case…I mean there was a lot of downtime and a lot of moments where we just felt like, you know, maybe we should do something else in life.
The adversity is really a unique adversity. Musicians, I think maybe actors, writers, dancers…you get rejected, and it’s a special kind of rejection. It’s a different kind of rejection than, you know, a real estate agent or the guy that works at Rite-Aid. It’s a legitimate, like…I’m literally not calling you back, for no good understandable reason (laughs). So I think that what happened is that this kinda, small…at first it was a cluster, then it turned into a team, then it felt like kind of a small army of people that were just like “No.” And the greatest thing was, given the nature of what happened in my family, people weren’t pushing, but they were definitely there if we needed them. They helped big time.
I think what happened is we danced with the industry thing, and it was an absolute shitshow. I mean, I’m telling any young musician, you know what, don’t sign anything, these people are ridiculous, they’ll leave in the strangest moments where you think that someone should step up for you they’ll literally vanish. They’ll go on to the next hot thing, because that’s how they’re gonna keep their career alive, and you know, I don’t blame them. That’s the life that they chose and I just don’t want anything to do with them. I’d much rather hang out and be a community person versus a music business person. It’s a big waste of time.
That’s the second time you’ve mentioned Rite-Aid, do you have some kind of grudge against them?
(Laughs) The reason why I mention Rite-Aid is because it’s open 24 hours, and every time I’m in there I don’t know why but it’s kind of a sanctuary. I don’t mind wandering through the aisles listening to John Mayer, or whatever the crap is they play in there (laughs). I love like….there’s so many options. If you have fifty bucks in your wallet and you’re wandering around Rite-Aid, you’re a king. Except the electric toothbrush, that’s the high end item (laughs).
You guys mentioned before that the record was recorded twice, from a songwriting perspective, these songs have been around for a little while. With anyone who writes anything, if it’s been around for a while you tend to look at it a different way, wanting to change it or edit it, did you make changes between the first recording and the second recording and do you find yourself wanting to make changes even now?
I think I’ve accepted what it is now. I think we all…basically when you get a shot to make a record it’s usually tens of thousands of dollars, and you can do it a couple different ways. You can part it out over a year…I think the Brassland EP we did, we spent probably 7 or 8 months on it. And we kinda just worked on it when we had the time and resources, and I think that when we did Anytown we did it over a year and a half, maybe even two years, but we took our time on it. So after we got signed, the label was like, listen this is what our budget is, we need you to get in and get out in four weeks. And for no other reason than I just don’t think that was our process. Some good stuff…”Augustine” the song came out of it, but there was a lot of misses and it’s not because the band didn’t try and it’s not because the co-producer didn’t try I think that’s just not our process.
Like, Lucinda Williams records once every, I don’t, seven years or something and some people are different, and I’ve got friends who will go bang out a record in six weeks. And that’s good for them. So what happened was, the first version we did, I felt that things were going so well in our career, with shows and fans and stuff, that we just couldn’t come up short. And when we listened to it, there just wasn’t any “wow” factor. And the first place that needs to happen is probably with the musicians because you’ve gotta go night after night and sing it. So I think what happened is that we just felt we could do better and it was really no hard feelings with anybody it just wasn’t our process.
Specifically sound-wise, how would you say Rise is different than Anytown was?
It definitely sounds…you kinda got me there. I think there’s kind of a nastier sound for lack of a better word. I think there’s an eloquence. So some kind of nasty eloquence (laughs). I think obviously when people are going down the ladder they’re improving and when they’re coming down the hill they’re kind of receding, and I think our creativity was definitely going forward. I started feeling like, perhaps I was trying to introduce our music with that batch of songs and that the Rise writing process was more about, “I don’t really care, this one’s for me and I need to address stuff.” So I think there was very much a focus.
We had some experience under our belt and we came in and we were like, “we want the drums to be cavernous and thumpy, and I think the guitars should be drier and I want the vocals to be in the mid-range” and it just has to have an impact. I mean, it wasn’t just me who was going through stuff, we were all going through stuff. People were getting married, selling out-shows, record label acting like complete assholes, you know. Shit everybody goes through. I think there was an urgency, I’d say it sounds more urgent.
An injured hand and broken foot didn’t stop you, a band break-up didn’t stop you…is there anything that can?
(Laughs) Um…that’s a good question. I don’t know, I mean that’s the community thing again. I’d say that maybe if I had a kid? Maybe I would stop, but I think if I had a kid, that kid would probably want his dad to play guitar. And back to the community thing, the more people you know and the more people that are in it for the long haul…kids are really kinda cool, so I can’t even say that. So, injuries and…No. Nothing can stop me.
Go to weareaugustines.com for videos, a free song download, and to keep up with the band.
HAVE A GREAT HOLIDAY AND THANK YOU FOR TUNING IN!
