Interview by Elliot Aronow
Photography by Marcus Jones
There’s a wonderfully disorienting feeling you get when listening to Secret Machines. When the group dives into a song, the swirling affects ascend and descend around brothers Benjamin and Brandon Curtis’ spacey guitar and keyboard arrangements. You get the sensation of hearing comets penetrate the night sky. And then there’s their atom bomb of a drummer, Josh Garza, who lays down elephantine beats so thick they sound like they could never come out of a kick drum less than 20 feet wide. In short, Secret Machines are a lot to take in all at once.
Two years after they’ve released their first full-length LP, Now Here Is Nowhere, the overwhelming element is perhaps more fitting for the old (or, younger, rather) version of the Secret Machines. While they excelled at being the turned-on psychedelic sound factory that made you wonder how three people could generate so much power just by finding a groove and riding it until it explodes, now, they just wanna write some good tunes.
The group’s latest, Ten Silver Drops, is one of those potential-fulfilling albums the trio always had in them. It’s ambitious and grand, but its sonic splendor is tamed and with that discipline comes the unforgettable melodies and harmonies that tie everything together. In record-geek terminology, it’s less Can and Faust and more After the Gold Rush and Music From Big Pink. Even more succinctly, it’s an album of songs and it’s also safe to say that it will assuredly be one of the best records released this year.
To get the scoop on how the group brought it all back home as they plowed forward into the unknown, we hit up Secret Machine Benjamin Curtis via his cell during a calm December afternoon to talk about where the group have been this past year and where they see things going in the hazy, yet foreseeable future.
Where were your heads at when you were recording Ten Silver Drops?
We started recording it in the spring of 2005. Most of it was written in between tours, mostly in bits and pieces. We would write, then record a bit, then take some songs on the road and then bring them back to the studio and rework-and in some instances, rewrite-them.
Was that different from how Now Here Is Nowhere was written?
Completely. We toured the U.S. before we recorded the first album, but this was a trip because we were actually playing our newest songs in front of people! When we toured before our first album came out, there were lots of empty rooms. This time, there was a sense of immediate reaction from the audience who had come to see us. We’d write a song and then play it and we’d see how people went crazy for a certain part, or they’d leave to get a drink during another part. It was so interesting for us to field-test the material.
That must have been at the beginning of your last U.S. tour, because by the end, you were playing some pretty huge rooms with Kings of Leon. Must have been harder to spot folks in those places.
(Laughs) It’s a great way to write and work through your music. The Secret Machines make an effort to make that connection. We don’t want to be aloof.
What’s the scoop on where you recorded Ten Silver Drops?
We recorded the album at Allaire Studios. It’s an old mansion in upstate New York that was built during the Depression. We recorded Now Here… in the city and this one was done in the country, so it has a different feel, I think.
Is Ten Silver Drops your Music From Big Pink?
(Laughs) We tried. We actually had Garth Hudson [organist for the Band] play on it.
Are you kidding? He’s on your record?
No, really. This is gonna sound so weird, but we had him do this insane accordion solo on one of the songs.
You just made my week. So, in regard to the album, I understand you produced it yourselves?
Yeah, we did it on our own with this guy Brandon Mason engineering. We met him by chance when we were recording some songs for the Road Leads Where Its Led EP. He helped us with a few songs on that and since he was able to take our abuse, we wanted to work with him again.
What was producing your own record like? Did you find it was hard to get some distance from the music?
Last time, it was pretty much the same situation. We had this dude Jeff Blenkinsopp around but as far as arrangements and songwriting, we do what you do, you know? He would say, ‘I’m not sure that’s as powerful as it could be’ and it was good that he did. It was our first album. But this time, we were more secure with what we wanted. To tell you the truth, it was very hard at first to produce everything ourselves. The first week we were totally overwhelmed and we looked at each other and said, ‘Holy shit, we can’t do this.’ But then we snapped back into our groove and made it work. We made an album that was so much better than the last one. On Now Here, we said, ‘That sound doesn’t work how it is now; let’s blow it up.’ But now, after playing bigger shows and thinking more about dynamics, we were able to be really powerful and have depth and dimension.
I’ve always loved it when you got super psyched and smoked out, but the first thing I noticed about the new album was that there seemed to be more concern for songs. Almost like taking the sonic qualities of the first record and just setting them to stronger melodies-stuff you could listen to on the train and just go, ‘That’s a good tune!’
I think that comes from the fact that our songs are really simple. The thing with the Secret Machines is that it takes us a year to get a couple of chords together. But this time around, I sat with Brandon and we took the time to create harmonic and melodic movements. We examined the complexity of the music we were writing and then we’d do the opposite-see how simple we could make everything. Then we’d work with Josh on locking everything into a groove. The hardest part was when we’d be alone and ask ourselves if it was all just bullshit. We were second guessing ourselves about if making that kind of effort was worthwhile-but I am convinced it is.
How do you guys go about writing songs? Do you each write your own parts and then present them to the other guys in the band or do you all collaborate and “jam” and work from scratch?
It doesn’t really, uh, go that way.
I’m sorry to oversimplify.
(Laughs) There’s a song on the record called “I Want To Know If It’s Still Possible” that is really intricate and that was all Brandon. He wrote it and designed it all on his own. The norm comes from us just being close and being brothers-two people who understand where the other is coming from. That’s what creates the complexity I think. Ninety percent of the time, I’ll be working on something in the same key and it will fit with what Brandon has been working on. It’s strange, man.
You guys don’t really have any scene that you are attached to. Even though you started getting more attention after moving to New York, no one ever put you in with the New York scene, or any other one for that matter. It’s not easy to say ‘bands like the Secret Machines and the so and sos play this sort of music. Is it more difficult to get people to give it a chance since there’s not an obvious reference point?
There are a million benefits and they certainly outweigh the drawbacks, but I’ll talk about the drawbacks since they are more interesting. It is hard to get that focus because you don’t know what self to put it on. We are fans of a lot of music that is more experimental and we experience that too. A lot of the times, a Secret Machines audience is not always open to some of the more challenging things that we as a band are into.
What was it like to go out with Kings of Leon, who have much more of a straight rock and roll sound?
That’s the other side of it. Playing to young teenage girls.
Hopefully you can piggyback the fact that you are a popular band into turning people on to some more left of center music.
Totally. It works so well. KOL are really big music fans and their audiences were really responsive. It wasn’t what they were expecting, but whether or not they’re going to listen to-
Can?
(Laughs) Whether or not they will make it to the end of “Mother Sky” is up in the air. But we’d like to think there’s more of a chance now.
To switch gears, do you feel that having more resources at your disposal has affected your music and your shows? I remember when you guys just had those floodlights for your a/v setup and now you have these ‘Monsters of Rock’ lighting rigs.
We used to have total meltdowns on stage. Everything would break. Plus, we used to operate the lights with foot switches. Between the lights and our pedals, it was like tap dancing while playing music and singing. We’d freak at each other and go, ‘You missed the fucking cue!’ and then say to each other, ‘Yeah I missed a light cue, but I’m playing fucking music here!’ We just decided to bite the bullet and not be the lighting guys.
What’s it like to have all these new toys to play with?
Things have been getting much more simple for us, actually. Now we can just play onstage and actually listen to what we’re doing. Before, we would play a part 10 times until people went crazy. Now, we can create textures and crescendos that are more interesting musically-and also much more direct.
How do you approach recording versus performing? Are they two separate beasts that need to be dealt with as such?
It’s not exactly the same, because when you record an album, you need to extract all of your power so that the music sounds strong even when it’s coming out of little speakers. Live, you have the benefit of volume. We didn’t go too crazy in the studio with overdubs and things like that this time. We did Ten Silver Drops on 16 tracks and on tape. Our idea was to just put down what we did and then add more if need be. If nothing was needed, we were fine with that and left it alone.
