Get your own Free Home PageAlthough most of the UK press has been slow to acknowledge it, North Carolina's Archers of Loaf have been prolific of late. Caertainly they're one of the most under-rated of American bands, and their recent releases - third 'proper' album 'All The Nation's Airports' and the live mini-album 'Vitus Tinnitus' - both showed that they were capable of producing material to equal if not better, their early classics 'Web In Front' and 'Audiowhore'. Despte this non stop Loaf activity, mainman Eric Bachmann also had time to assemble two albums for his side project Barry Black, in which he becomes a multi-instrumentalist, gets help from friends like Ben Folds, and manages to pay homage to Tom Waits. Meanwhile, in the weirdly melodic world of the Archers of Loaf, they played one UK gig (in London, where else!) in support of 'Vitus Tinnitus', and I caught up with drummer Mark Price to ask him a few questions. First of all - why bring out a live mini-album at this stage?
"It was something we had wanted to do for quite a while anyway. We felt it was so hard to produce on record the atmosphere you have at a live show. I don't know if that's a different reason from most people, but we wanted something out there so people could hear what the show sounded like and realise that when we record we try to make it as close to what it is like live, in that there aren't tons and tons of overdubs put on the record which we couldn't reproduce live. Not that gimmicky stuff and effects are bad, it's just that we record the records live. Basically we wanted to do it just for us, if no-one buys the damn thing that's OK! - I've got a copy and I can play it to my kids when I have some!"
Time wise it has come out quite quickly after the 'All The Nation's Airports', the last studio album, and there are even a couple of studio tracks remixed from that release. Why did this happen?
"We had always been against the idea of remixes from we started, we just didn't like the idea of someone going into it without us being involved. Brian Paulson, who produced the original tracks, changed our attitude to a degree, and he's had guys remix his stuff all the time. It's not as much that they're saying it was done wrong, but a lot of times they can pull out different things in a song that maybe we can't. We thought, well, it's not going to go on the record, there's no harm in hearing what someone else can do with it, and if Brian isn't insulted by it then why should we be."
People tend to see you as a noisy pop band with weird bits added. Have you ever been pressured to move towards the mainstream?
"I don't think anyone has tried to do that really. The reason the band continues is that we like what we play. If we want to have any kind of stamina as far as a rock n roll career, or whatever, is concerned, then we need to make ourselves happy first. It sounds selfish but it's the only way to look at it when it's what your life is. I think we've always been a pop band - we write pop songs, and maybe there are a lot of songs that aren't considered 'mainstream'. Hopefully, we still write songs that people tap their feet to, or hum in the car, whatever. We're going to keep doing things that we want and hopefully will enjoy it. If they don't, and we can still afford to keep doing it, we will!"
The first line-up of Archers of Loaf was hatched at the University of North Carolina, and more or less grew out of that college scene. Do you think your music has changed a lot since then?
"I would like to think so. I'm a lot happier with the stuff we're doing now, but I don't know if that's because it's different from the other stuff or if I feel it really is better. I think it would have been a lot less exciting for us if all the records had sounded the same. I'm glad that we're able to keep doing different stuff, but it stills sounds like us, if you know whaty I mean."
I always interpreted your lyric on 'The Greatest of All Time' - "the underground is over-crowded" - as a comment on the Chapel Hill bands, and the way that it was all marketed as a scene.
"That's interesting, but what it actually stems from is one time we were in London and we had to take the underground to Heathrow carrying guitars and gear, and everyone is glaring at us because we're taking up space and bumping into people - maybe the interpretations are more interesting but I think it's funny - it doesn't really mean anything!"
So are there any good bands around that part of the world now?
"There's a band called Coal from Chapel Hill that's really very good. There was another band called Capsize 7 that have recently broken up, I liked them a lot. Most of the stuff we listen to when we're travelling like we are now, is generally stuff that sounds nothing like us - it's nice to give your ears a break and listen to mellow stuff with softer sounds. I'm a huge Magnetic Fields fan (glad to hear it!-ed) but that has nothing to do with us really."
When you first emerged people compared you to fellow Americans like Pavement and Superchunk. Now you seem to be getting frequent comparisons to Brit-punk like Wire, Gang of Four, XTC, etc. What do you think of that?
"I think those recent comparisons are a little more accurate in that I think you could compare Pavement to those bands also. We get asked about that fairly often and Eric made a good point - it's not that we sound like Pavement, it's more a case of them listening to the same influences as us. We're about the same age, so we've grown up and listened to a lot of the same stuff - Wire, the Replacements, - and I think you would find that we have a lot of overlap in our records and CD collections."
Finally, your name seems to have been punned a lot in various promo things. Is this a problem?
"Well I suppose we could be difficult to promote. We're not camera darlings so that doesn't work - we can't have pictures with us pouting at the camera. I've only seen two bits of press from Britain and they were both pretty comical. One was entitled 'Baguette A Life'! As bread puns go that's pretty sharp, definitely one to file away. As for the name of the band - well just think about some of your favourite bands and tell me how many of them have sensible names! The name has stuck and we don't think it's particularly silly - it just takes a bit of getting used to!"
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