This Amplifier
Goes To Fifty
by Marc Hirsh
originally published in Amplifier,
September-October
2005
If God, or
In any event, we here at Amplifier have decided to play the hands we were dealt and celebrate this milestone (50 issues! Can you stand it?) through the time-honored tactic of self-congratulation. We like to think that the artists we choose to spotlight are more than the flavors of the moment, and with that in mind, we have returned to several former Amplifier cover stars, all of whom have released new major-label albums within the past three months or so. We took a look at the paths their careers have taken since our magazine was wrapped in their faces and checked in with them to see how they navigated the shark-infested music industry when the majors that envelop them often just want to be their chum. While there was no consensus on how best to work the system to ensure longevity (responses ranged from mutual exploitation to resignation at having made a deal with the devil to optimistic enthusiasm to total apathy), there was a common thread: the bands we talked to had no substantial regrets about being on a major label (at least none they would cop to publicly). Another common thread: the ones on Capitol wish they could get half the push given to Coldplay. Who, for the record, were on the cover of Amplifier #23 in 2001. Don’t tell us we didn’t help.
Then: “I think really
our goal is just to play in as many places as possible. We’re not
craving a
mass audience – obviously that would be good, but we just like
playing.” (Rod
Jones, Amplifer #36, May/June 2003)
When we last left
Idlewild, they had just replaced bass player Bob Fairfoull with
Gavin Fox,
who was being broken in on the road as touring guitarist Allan Stewart
was
officially promoted to full-time group member. In the months following,
the
band toured the U.S. with Pearl Jam on the Riot
Act tour and opened for the Rolling Stones in Glasgow (more
recently, they
played a number of dates with R.E.M. on this summer’s U.K. tour).
Stewart and
Fox made their recorded debuts with the group, now officially a
quintet, on the
new Warnings/Promises, which was released overseas in March. The
five-month lag
for the
The disparity between the band’s success in its
home country
and its relative underground nature everywhere else is something that
Woomble
has noticed but doesn’t seem to worry him too much. “In the
Then: “I always feel
that the band could be a lot bigger than what it is right now, but
there’s something
about B.R.M.C. that makes me think we’re always going to be on the
undercurrent, on the low a little bit.” (Nick Jago, Amplifer
#30, May/June 2002)
When we last left Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, drummer and British subject Nick Jago was in the midst of visa problems and the band was figuring out their next move after their 2000 debut B.R.M.C. Since then, the band released one more album on Virgin (2003’s Take Them On, On Your Own) before departing the label for parts unknown, working on their new Howl without the comfort of a record deal. “We did the album before we got involved even talking to record companies,” says guitarist and bassist Peter Hayes. “We did the album, then we handed it to them, and then a lot of people just said, well, ‘When are you go in and redo it? This sounds like the demo.’ And we said, ‘It’s not the demos, it’s the album.’ And then the people would say, ‘Well, is this the B-side album? When are you gonna go in and do the rock one?’ It’s like, ‘No, we want this album treated like an album.’ And a lot of people bowed out and RCA didn’t.” Switching labels wasn’t the only major change the band went through at this time. BRMC itself was in flux, as drummer Nick Jago quit the band, with Hayes and guitarist/bassist Robert Levon Been (who made his contribution to the shifting sands by dropping his stage name, Turner, and reverting to his given name) pressing on by themselves. Everything came full circle when Jago returned to the fold at the end of the recording sessions.
Despite the various changes, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club can thank its continued affiliation with the majors to connections they made at the label they left. “The funny thing is,” says Hayes, “the guy who signed us there, Ashley Newton, he was kind of the reason why we signed to Virgin Records. He got let go real soon after we had signed, and then he went to RCA. So he knows our history, as far as being difficult and not doing things that record companies see as something that we should be doing.” As for the band’s successful navigation through the dangerous waters of the music industry and the toll that it can take on a band, that seems to come from a dogged persistence that Hayes describes with a combination of pride and resignation. “If you got a bunch of shirts, that’s kind of where you make your dough. And the other way to do it is to stay in a band and do all the driving yourself, and do all the equipment yourself. That’s the only way you can make a living at it. So, there’s nothing easy about it. [laughs] And so you hang on, and there’s no in between… But you’re fucking playing music, you know what I mean? So none of that matters. None of that matters, you just carry on.”
Then: “We’re not
apolitical people, but our music so does not fundamentally address
politics.” (Damian
Kulash, Amplifer #33, November/December
2002)
When we last left OK
Go, the
Asked about the band’s relationship with Capitol,
Kulash is
very diplomatic, saying, “I’m not going to go on record saying a lot of
shit
about our label.” Still, he has a fair amount of sympathy for the
position that
major labels currently find themselves in. “What they own is a specific
recording of a specific song, and they sell it to people, and people
have to
figure out if they can get that for free, and they actually figured out
that
they don’t even care about that that much. Music just isn’t what it
used to be
in that way, and labels are in a pretty tough position. Major labels
especially, because they’re enormous tankers in the
Then: "We just
have our way of doing it, really. Part of it, well, we don’t even know
what it
is. It just happens. And then part of it ... we don’t want to give too
much
away. It’d be boring if everyone knew. We’re too close to analyze it,
really." (James Skelly, Amplifer
#35, March/April 2003)
When we last left the
Coral, their self-titled debut had just come out in the
The Coral’s success in the
Then: “You never finish a record, you just run out
of money.
You go a little bit over and then you’re done.”
(Courtney Taylor-Taylor, Amplifer
#22, January/February 2001)
When we last left the
Dandy Warhols, Thirteen Tales From
Urban Bohemia had bought them a ticket onto Late Night
With Conan O’Brien, where they were well-received enough
to be invited back just in time to have their episode cancelled by the
multi-state blackout that struck the Northeast on August 14, 2003 (they
rescheduled for the following night and hung out in NBC’s
generator-powered –
and thus air-conditioned – news studios until security kicked them
out). The
band shifted to the big screen with Dig!,
which followed the Dandys and friends/apparent rivals the Brian
Jonestown
Massacre over the course of seven years (director Ondi Timoner won the
2004
Sundance Film Festival’s Grand Jury Prize for her efforts). Despite
being the
narrator, singer and guitarist Courtney Taylor-Taylor has mixed
emotions about
the film. When asked if he feels that the movie gave an accurate
impression of
his band, he doesn’t hesitate to say, “Not even remotely.
And it certainly didn’t give an impression about what the
[Brian] Jonestown Massacre is all about.” Still, he liked the movie,
calling it
“a great film,” adding “I wish it wasn’t me and Anton.” More recently,
the song
“We Used To Be Friends” (from 2003’s Welcome
To The Monkey House) has been used as the theme song to the
critically
adored television show Veronica Mars,
which means that low ratings aside, three million devoted fans get
excited to
hear the Dandy Warhols on a weekly basis.
Despite the fact that the band’s highest-charting
album (Monkey House) peaked at #118 and
Taylor-Taylor’s rant about his frustrations with Capitol on display in Dig!, the Dandy Warhols have used their
major-label contract to establish a fair amount of autonomy both
personal (“We
all own a house, although I don’t live in mine yet,” says
Taylor-Taylor. “I’m
still having it worked on, so I live in a smaller apartment now than I
did when
we made Dandys Rule OK?”) and
professional. The clearest manifestation of the latter is the
Odditorium, the
Then: “Our whole lives
we’ve been reacting against fashion music and reacting against the idea
of
people playing music to be popular or because they’re bored. I think
music is
such a holy, important thing; it’s one of the most important forces we
have on
this earth. To treat it lightly and turn it into some bullshit game or
fashion
show gets old.” (Jim James, Amplifer
#38, September/October 2003)
When we last left My
Morning Jacket, they had just released It
Still Moves, their third album and first major-label release, and
had blown
up in the
For My Morning Jacket, moving on from original
home Darla
Records was borne out of necessity. “We had toured on At
Dawn for two and half years, if not more,” says Tommy, “starting
before the record even came out, and well after It Still
Moves. After It
Still Moves was recorded, we were still touring on At
Dawn.” ATO Records seemed like an ideal solution, giving the
band access to RCA’s distribution while allowing them to maintain
control over
their music. “That was the bigger reason that we chose ATO over whoever
else,
just that we had the freedom to still be able to record at the farm,
record
what we wanted to, do the artwork ourselves, choose who engineered the
record
or in this case who produced the record, where it was recorded. You
know, all
this stuff was still our decision to be made, and in the end, we still
have
final say on the whole process, which is the most important thing to
us. It
wasn’t about, ‘Well, how much money can we get off this?’ It was just,
‘Who’s
gonna let us do what we’re doing now but maybe on a little bit of a
larger
scale?’”
Then: “You want to make a record that has a shot at some commercial success, but personally, I tend to be completely wrong when I pick singles, and I tend to be surprised by what people react to, so I think the healthiest attitude is just to make a record you’re proud of and then put it out of your mind. That way, you’re pleasantly surprised if anything good happens with it.” (Adam Schlesinger, Amplifier #13, 1999)
When we last left
Fountains Of Wayne, they were in the thick of
Despite switching record labels twice since their cover story (S-Curve ceased to exist entirely, causing parent company Virgin to inherit them in time for the new B-sides collection Out-Of-State Plates), Fountains Of Wayne is still going strong, with the band enough of a critic’s darling to garner a substantial amount of attention with each new release (Parkway and Managers both topped Entertainment Weekly’s “A Second Opinion” list in their respective years). One of the band’s secrets of survival (shared by sister band Ivy, for which Schlesinger also writes and plays a number of instruments) is licensing. “I think with Ivy it’s been especially important, because that’s been really our main source of income since we started the band, is people using our songs in TV shows and in movies and occasionally in commercials. But for both bands, it’s been a nice thing, and I think these days, it’s kind of an important avenue of exposure, because it’s so hard to get on the radio. You just always are trying to find ways for people to just hear your music… I think at this point especially, with TV shows and movies, we almost never say no to anything. Because I think that at this point, it’s almost just like another radio station, you know? If somebody hears your song playing in the background on some television show, it’s just like hearing it on the radio or something.”