No need for me to waffle on again about how
great the album is, without further ado here is part 2 of my interview with Ben
Wigler of New Beard...
DDMB - Can you tell us a little about
the new album?
BW - The album really started life as a way
for me to get over leaving my long-time band Arizona. Arizona was started with
another high school-era friend Alex Hornbake, and Nick Campbell who now goes by
the artist name Wages. A lot of people thought that Arizona was one of the best
and most overlooked bands of the mid 2000’s, and I have to say I agree - we
were making magic, magic music, but no one really ever heard of us. Eventually,
we got desperate to do something people would take notice of, and were in the
process of making a pretty bland sounding record when I eventually quit. We
started out life as a NYC band, but moved to Asheville, North Carolina, which
is an amazing city, but not the kind of place where our creativity flourished.
It was like we got creative blue balls - or impotence or something. I was
barely able to write music for a while.
After quitting AZ, I moved back up to NYC
to live with my girlfriend full time, and take one last stab at trying to make
an album I thought was more in line with what I thought AZ fans would have
wanted. The first song I wrote for the album was "Arizona Angels" - a
beautiful but very, very sad and mournful song, that I actually wrote in the AZ
tour van on the way to our last gig, which was at the 40W in Athens, Ga.
It was a big traumatic thing, leaving a
band that I literally had a tattoo of. It was my first real band, you know?
That's a big thing - I never wanted to be in another band, I only wanted to be
in that band.
But it was all for the good - shortly after
moving back up to NYC, I found my creativity coming back, and bit by bit I was
writing the best music of my life. The album evolved from being this big
crybaby "you're gonna miss me, you fuckers!" type of a thing into a
true challenge to make my dream album come true. The material still reflects a
bit of those early feelings, but once Tony and Joe became deeply committed to
New Beard, the whole feel became about something I never had: fearlessness,
fun, total warmth and epic ambition that wasn't connected to career dreams, but
rather a love of making really great, challenging but accessible music.
Nowadays, I can't really even remember
Arizona, but not in a bad way. I'm still very close with all of those guys and
I wouldn't be surprised if we made something new sometime soon. I'm just so ALL
in with New Beard, and experiencing a joy that I've never known in my entire
life. When New Beard plays a show, there's no bullshit, it's pure fun, pure
beauty and leave-it-all-on-the-stage energy. So there's a lot of that kind of
energy on the full album, and Gustav Ejstes coming on board really helped make
the album have a cohesive feel that is fully its own thing. Tony and Tuba Joe
are really the heroes of that album; their performances are so unique.
The one last thing I'd like to say about
the album is that it's homage to the wonder of living in a big modern city. In
our case, it's New York, but it also has influences from Tokyo & Stockholm.
We wanted to capture the chaotic beauty of a big city, the sense of magic that
you can meet anyone at anytime. The feeling of destiny courses through the
veins of big cities, and I wanted to tap into that for New Beard City. I think
we did!
DDMB - Why should people listen to your
music (and where should a new listener start)?
BW - For my tastes, a lot of Indie Rock
music is too genre specific. When New Beard started, a lot of my music biz
friends would try to tell me "just pick one of your songs and make the
others all sound like that" or "you're never going to be able to sell
your music if you don't pick one style" and blah blah blah. Are you ONLY
an angry guy? Or a happy guy? Or a sad girl for your entire life? Does each
person have to pick one emotion and only that emotion, and embody that emotion
forever? I like Radiohead just fine, a lot of Radiohead's songs are Perfect
10's, but all their music is "oh we're so unique" - I kind of feel
it's all one emotion. And that gets even worse when you get to modern indie
rock bands. I don't want to name names, but there are some bands I've watch
grow from shitty bands that could've opened for Arizona into giant acts, mostly
because they picked "sad bastard music" and stuck with it. Good for
them. I much prefer to represent all the different emotions and feelings a
person can have. If you've ever seen El Topo or The Holy Mountain by
Jodorowsky, those are movies that are all over the map in terms of their genre
and aesthetic shifts, but Jodorowsky's voice remains very true throughout each
movie. That's sort of what I hope to channel when making a record.
Not to sound like a totally self obsessed
person, I think my singing voice is a very unique thing that does provide
consistency throughout all of my recordings. It's the avatar of the human
journey - you might be sad one day, ecstatic the next, confused on another day,
and then totally enlightened but you're always you. That's what I try to do
with my vocal performance in this band - tie the room together, as The Dude
Jeffrey Lebowski would say about his rug.
One thing is for sure- We will keep you on
your toes, give you music for every mood you might experience, but also a
consistent level of quality, with a consistent voice, so you'll always be able
to rely on New Beard. We're going to keep making new music until we die, and
we're getting better with each day. I really look forward to making our next
record, because hopefully people will know who we are and we won't just be
shooting in the dark, and we'll be building off our past accomplishments,
instead of starting in a place where I'm feeling like I have to make up for
some of my past failures. But New Beard City is an epic record, with more
beauty and life than most bands can ever conjure. I fully stand behind NBC and
I'm very excited to be putting it out there.
That said, we made an EP called Moment of Peace
after we finished the LP, but we released the EP first. Mostly to get things started from a business
perspective, but I think it gets across the live sound of the band more
accurately - it's mostly recorded live, and that little EP has a ton of energy
and enthusiasm. It still covers a lot of emotional ground, but it's very glued
together, very not-laboured over.
As I continue as a musician, and I think
everyone else in the band agrees, I want our music to sound more and more
natural.
DDMB - If your band was a shape what
shape would it be?
BW - I guess it would be the shape of a
pentagram inspired goatee?
TW (drums) - The shape of a 1994 Kevin
Bacon from "The Air Up There" movie wearing oversized tighty whities
which people might mistake for diapers.
DDMB - I guess you're planning to tour
the US extensively for the release; do you plan a trip to Europe?
BW - Of course we're trying to get out
there in the US, but TubaJoe has the fortune to tour Europe extensively with
his other band Gato Loco. It's our dream to find a European booking agent who
would take a little risk on our band - I really think European audiences
appreciate live music more, and are less stuck in their ways than US audiences.
From what I understand, European audiences are hungry for new music and really
like to have a good time at live shows. New Beard puts on a hell of a live
show, and I hope we get a chance to take it overseas. I will probably try to at
least hitch a ride with TubaJoe some time and sneak away for scaled-down
versions of NB just so we can start laying down some roots over there.
DDMB - Finally, what's the most
interesting fact about the band that no-one outside the band knew before
reading this?
BW - We were almost called
"Potentially Rad" lol.
TW - Yazan actually *is* Frank Zappa!
DDMB - Thanks for sparing us some of
your time.
BW - Thank you for letting me ramble on and
on and on about myself and this band, which I care so much about! Truly a
pleasure and maybe a little too self indulgent, haha. I've been on twitter all
day, so thanks for the opportunity to talk in more than 140 characters!! :)
That’s the interviews over then; next up
will be the album preview, and I’m going to try a track by track breakdown for
the first time so let’s hope it works!
Just a reminder, you can keep up to date
with New Beard journey by clicking any of these:
