‘SUP Headquarters, Brooklyn, NY
Friday, June 5, 2003
Interview and photos by Marisa Brickman

When I first met The High Strung at a party in Brooklyn, I knew I wanted to interview them. I admittedly hadn’t heard their music and didn’t know much about the band except that they were sort of garage rock and that Jim Diamond produced their latest record (These Are Good Times, TeePee). Jim Diamond has also produced The White Stripes and The Go and so I figured The High Strung couldn’t be too bad. As the night went on, my fascination and my affinity for the boys just grew and grew.
After a photo shoot involving a Polaroid (the prints have since gone missing?), copious amounts of beer and a fire hose, my girlfriends and I convinced them to drive us to another party in the city in their school bus. The High Strung tour in a mini school bus covered in graffiti that they bought from a Hasidic Jewish junkyard for $2,200. Matter of fact, the little number has gotten the band around the country four times in over 18 months! Yes, The High Strung are touring warriors! Touring machines! Touring fanatics!
After leaving their hometown of Detroit (where they met in grade school) five years ago, the band relocated to Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Back then the hood was yet to be invaded by haircuts. The High Strung lived on the Southside and often played ragtag shows which they curated themselves at Ship’s Mast (or Rockstar Bar as it’s now called). About two years ago, The High Strung decided it was time to trade in their worldly possessions and their apartments for the bus and their mission has been to tour, tour, tour ever since. Once you see this band play live, you’ll be smitten.
The High Strung employs two guitars, organ and four part harmonies to create a brand of rock that sounds equal parts British rock ‘n’ roll and late ’70s Detroit garage rock, but more old-timey jangly pop-rock than anything else. With all the hooks, sing-a-long choruses, squealing vocals and super fun riffage, you will be clapping along and wearing a shit-eating grin in no time.
After a night of debauchery, Derek Berk (drums), Josh Malerman (guitar, vocals) and Chad Stocker (bass) joined me in the late afternoon at my apartment for the interview we planned on doing the night before. Hard-partier Mark Owen (guitar, vocals) had a late night and didn’t even show up until we were all talked out.
Since conducting the interview in June, the High Strung has been back to NYC three times. Each time is a charm.
How do you feel about being lumped into the garage rock category?
Derek: I feel like garage rock has a different meaning now than it used to. I take it as meaning lo-fi, but not necessarily Mitch Ryder and The Detroit Wheels. If you look at it simply being another term for lo-fi, than I’m fine.
Josh: It’s kind of like the word alternative, meaning alternative to mainstream.
Derek: I don’t think it means blues-based, straight-forward rock the way it’s being used now. Some bands that are considered garage rock aren’t in the classic sense of the genre.
It’s sort of becoming a catchphrase or a marketing term thrown around in music journalism and record stores to get people psyched on a band. Like the Von Bondies.
Derek: Yeah, they are garage rock in the classic sense of the term. That’s what I’m talking about – they’re straight-up, blues-based, powerful and raw. People say The Strokes are garage rock, people say the Yeah Yeah Yeahs are garage rock, and they’re not. But they are raw. If that’s the new meaning – raw – then, yeah, we are.
How long have you guys been in New York?
Josh: We’ve been on the road for the last two years. Before then, I was here for three years, Derek was here for five, and Chad was here for a year.
I know you guys met in elementary school and pretty much grew up in Detroit. Do you think growing up there had an affect on the kind of music you ended up playing? I mean, it is the home of garage rock!
Derek: Detroit rock has always been full of real, straightforward, working class rock. I think we were definitely influenced by the classic rock stations that we listened to growing up that played Detroit bands.
Chad: You can’t go three feet without hearing a Motown song though. That’s just as important because it’s great fucking music. It’s great pop music, but also has a great aesthetic. It’s not like R&B is today which just doesn’t sound as good.
Josh: At first I was really nervous. Well, I don’t know if nervous is the right word, but everyone was saying we sound garage-y, and then we made a record with Jim Diamond who’s like the godfather of the whole thing. It was like, “Okay, are we a garage band? I don’t really know.” But then in Georgia we played with this garage warrior band The Woggles that’s been around for 20 years and we played first. When they went on I was like, “Okay, we get to finally see one of these bands.” It was crazy to me. It was really unnerving because I didn’t relate to it on any level. I was like, “Whoa, whoa, this is not what we’re doing. We have nothing to do with this at all. This is not what we’re doing.” I really freaked out and then halfway through their set I realized just because people have said we’re garage it doesn’t mean we have any allegiance to it. “We’re not doing this, they’re doing it.” Once I sort of realized that, I was fine and I had a great time the rest of the night. I don’t have any allegiance to the whole garage rock thing at all. I feel like it’s different. I like it and I love listening to bands like that, but as far as songwriting goes I don’t feel like it’s where we’re going at all.
How did you guys get hooked up with Jim? He has a lot of great bands under his belt by this point, most recently notable is the White Stripes.
Josh: When we were a lot younger and a lot worse, we played on a radio show in Michigan and it was one of his first gigs where he was running the board. We met him there, and then years later when we were in New York and Derek showed me a Go record and it had Jim Diamond’s name on it, we were like, “Is that the same Jim Diamond? It must be that same guy we met in Detroit, blah, blah, blah.” Then we called him up and whatever and were like, “Hey maybe one day we’ll make a record together. We just wanted to tell you that one of your records made it all the way to New York.” That’s kind of all we were really saying. Then it was nothing. Then we started seeing his name all over the place. Then in the coming months, we were like, “This guy is everywhere.” We listened to a lot of his records and thought he was really great. We were like, “He’s great now.” He’s like my hero. He really is. I think he’s a genius producer. Then I called him like a maniac, like a maniac. We were on the road at that time for three months straight and I swear I called him every two days asking him about it. We even made a demo of the record for him so he could have an idea what we were talking about. It was great.
I guess that’s how you decide what producer you want to work with is by listening to a bunch of their records. What did he lend to These Are Good Times?
Josh: I think it sounds almost the same, but its just sooo much stronger.
Derek: It’s this giantism that he added.
Josh: It’s true. The songs came across okay on the demo and if you’re into it, you’re into it, but the demo is over here, and the record that Jim worked on is right there where it’s supposed to be.
Most good producers are also pretty handy sound engineers, right?
Chad: That’s what I get from what they’re saying is that he has great engineering skills. As far as producing skills, he’s also a really nice person and he only wants to make records that sound good. So if one of us is singing off and the melody line is off or isn’t as smooth as it should be, he was an objective person and he would say, “What are you trying to sing?” That was one of his things, “What are you trying to do?”
All: (Laughing)
Chad: Then he would work with Mark and Josh. He’d pick up his guitar and he’d be like, “This is the note that you’re not hitting right.” We’d go back in there and then two takes later it’s done. He makes records really quickly I guess. He was surprised that we were taking 11 days to record.
Derek: People usually come in for two days. He has other people that come back and mix it or whatever, but we wanted to do it all at once.
Chad: I think that made a difference though. Our record sounds different than other records he’s produced and maybe that has something to do with it.
It takes a lot of skill and an intuitive ear to be able to pinpoint the missing element that you don’t really know you’re lacking, to get the sound you’re striving for.
Josh: Yeah, and we’d be like, “Hey, can we do the organ sound from ‘The Wanderer’?” He’d stroll into the other room, twiddle some knobs and it’d be perfect. Anything you ask.
Josh: It’d be perfect and just the way you wanted it, exactly the way you imagined it. That never happens. You never hear back what you hear in your head. With him, you totally would.
Derek: It was the first time we ever worked with anyone else. Everything before this record that we’ve done we did ourselves in our basement. We’d spend six hours trying to get a specific drum sound and it would still sound like a Toys ‘R’ Us kit. I like our record more now than I did then.
Josh: I was so stuck on this guy for a while and knew I wanted to make a record with him. Now I hear a band I like and I look to see who worked on it, which is kind of cool.
Derek: I never really paid attention to producers before. A lot of people buy their records based on that. They look at the credits and are like, “Hmmm, this guy produced this record. This could be good.” They do that more than look at the record label.
It seems like record labels used to have more of a cohesive sound than they do now and you could know what you’re getting into by buying music from a certain label. It can be like that still, but definitely not like it used to be. Like in the early ’90s Merge meant indie rock, Ninja Tune meant experimental electronica or whatever -
Chad: Or like Sub Pop. I got some promo CD, like Scud Mountain Boys or something. I don’t know what the hell it was or what it sounded like, but all I remember is it wasn’t grunge.
Josh: Yeah, David Cross?
Derek: I want our label to put out a comedy album so bad. That’s such a good idea.
Josh: That’s our favorite thing to listen to on the road.
Sort of like books on tape, but better.
Derek: Yeah, you’re driving in the car and you’re in there with four or five booty ass motherfuckers who would maybe not be talking to each other. Then you’re all sitting down and you look around and we’re all laughing with big smiles across our faces.
You guys were really on tour for two years?
Josh: Pretty much, it’s been 16 months at this point.
Derek: For the upcoming tour we had a booking agent, but everything else we’ve done ourselves and kept on top of it.
Josh: We booked ourselves for like 15 months. It’s crazy.
Did you do it through your own connections at clubs?
Josh: Oh man, we were forming our own. We were cold calling. It’s like we were selling fuckin’ vacuum cleaners.
Chad: Before we left to go on tour, it was a fucking madhouse. Everything was really coming down to the final wire.
Josh: We didn’t have a vehicle right down to the last possible minute. We only had to cancel one show though. It was the only one we’ve ever cancelled and it was our first one. We were very mad about it.
Derek: We’re still upset about it.
Chad: Sorry to the Bug Jar. We’ll make it up to you.
How did you find the bus? Where did you guys find that thing?
Derek: It became my full-time job for over a month to try to find a car.
Josh: Derek’s our ambassador to reality.
Chad: Mark has a blatant disregard for reality.
Derek: Josh is an abstract -
Josh: General.
Derek: A fan of the abstract. Oh yeah, so I was looking on eBay and I had the Equipment Trader. I went to all of the places where the Hassies [short for Hasidic Jews] have all the old school busses and I was looking at those. I was examining the differences between diesel and regular. I really went full-on. I was outbid by $50 for an ambulance on eBay that had full working everything. I was looking through Heavy Equipment Trader and I called this guy.
That’s like Auto Trader? Like those free newsprint magazines you get in quickie marts?
Chad: I want to get some reviews in those magazines.
Derek: Yeah, we should call our publicist and tell her we want a review in Popular Mechanic and Super Chevy Magazine.
Derek, I guess you’re the one that does most of the repairs then?
Josh: Yeah, when anything happens, Mark and I are like [whistling and looking away], “Ummm, we’re a little busy over here.”
Derek: Yeah, Chad and I are becoming auto specialists. So anyway, there was this guy who was like, “Hey, I think I’ve got something for you. It’s in New Jersey.” I was like, “What kind of New Jersey? Like right around the corner New Jersey, or really far away New Jersey?” He was like, “No, it’ll be great, it’s right around the corner.” So we went off to this place called Jordan Transportation Company. They had all these busses. There’s some weird rule in New Jersey. I think some kid got run over or something by a bus that was more than 12 years old -
Josh: But not by our bus -
Derek: I don’t know! No, no, probably not our bus. The busses have to be pulled out of service after 12 years no matter what kind of condition they’re in. Because they cart around little kids they have to get inspected every year and have a complete maintenance record. They’re really well taken care of. It was $2200.
Josh: And it’s gotten us around the country four times.
Are you serious?
Josh: Yeah, four full times.
Why don’t more bands buy school busses?
Derek: I don’t know. I guess they just don’t do their research.
Josh: Ohmigod – so this guy we know was helping us look around a bit and he took us to see this Winnebego and we were like, “So can this make it across the country?” And he was like, “Yeah, it made it all the way to the Poconos.” He thought the Poconos were in California. He was so excited. He was like, “We found the vehicle!” He was flipping out about it. It was pretty hilarious.
Derek: Yeah, we’ve driven it four times around the country, 65,000 miles. The only thing we had to fix was the alternator until this last leg of this last tour. Then all sorts of shit started happening. It was one problem after another.
But I assume you took care of it?
Derek: We had two weeks off in Detroit before we came to New York. I have a friend who’s a mechanic. Well, he’s not a mechanic. He’s more like a wanderer of the earth. He does odd jobs for people, grows vegetables and lives on people’s couches.
And he’s also a mechanic?
Derek: He knows a lot about all kinds of real things.
How to survive?
Derek: Yeah.
Chad: He’s got this really long beard.
Derek: Yeah, you know, he’s got a big beard and long hair.
Chad: He wears a sweater and sometimes there’s a little squirrel on his shoulder or running around near him.
Josh: He’s like 45 or 47 or something.
Derek: We’ve known him for a really long time. So we go to his cousin’s house. He has tools over there and he really enjoys teaching. It’s not like we drop off the car and he just fixes shit. We go over there and take everything apart and sit and think about what’s wrong and how we’re going to fix it. We go over a list of everything that’s wrong and then we figure it all out. We put all kinds of new shit in the car and now it’s tip-top.
So who’s the girl on the cover of the record?
Josh: It’s my ex-girlfriend. It’s actually the only girl that ever broke my heart.
That’s kind of ironic considering the name of the record is These Are Good Times.
Josh: Yeah, I guess it was sort of walking dangerous ground calling it that. That’s guaranteed for a bunch of shit to go wrong.
Derek: I think it was already going wrong.
Josh: Mark named it that.
Chad: Some politically correct college kid came up to us once and he said [in a nerdy voice], “So, you guys are calling it These Are Good Times in spite of all of the stuff that’s happening?” That was in Tempe, AZ a couple of months ago with the war and stuff in full force. It made me think and I was like, “Wow, that’s kind of a good point.” But you know, even if your life is really horrible if you like music then let it be something that makes you feel good for the 30 minutes that you’re listening to it. If you’re that intense about thinking how shitty the world is then why bother?
I’m sure you thought of the name way before there was a war going on.
Josh: But even then, Mark knew what he was doing.