DO MAKE SAY THINK
THE ARTSCENTER, CARRBORO, NC
WORDS & PHOTOS: AW HENDERSON
SEPTEMBER 18, 2007

Do Make Say Think put on one hell of a show, but you can't really even give them credit for it, individually. When you pile eight talented musicians on stage together, the results are bound to be entertaining, even if they don't seem to have any idea what they're doing (reference point: Dark Meat). Fortunately, DMST very clearly do have an idea of what their job is, and they fulfill their duty to rock your face off admirably. But not without a touch of class, because if there's one thing that sets DMST apart from their post-rockin' friends, it's that they don't just try to kill you outright with waves of sound, a la Mogwai or Explosions in the Sky. First they befriend you with chipper melodies wrapped in bombastic arrangements, then they lead you into the woods with warm harmonies of horn and violin, and then they turn on you suddenly and flay you with twin drummers and blaring saxophone. It's an artful sort of primitivism that's a lot harder to pull off than it looks.

Here's the cool thing about all those instruments on stage: you can actually hear them. I have been to uncountable concerts where the violinist or trumpet player sort of sat off to one side and did their thing while the sound manager ran roughshod over their contribution. But with DMST, you hear the violin. Even in the midst of the loudest songs grand climax, you can still hear each stitch and swoop of the strings, as well as all of the toots and coughs of the horn section. Not that the guitars and drums don't take up as much space as is their due. It's just that somehow they hit the perfect balance, and nothing oversteps it bounds, while at the same time sounding gleefully unrestrained.

The Toronto collective obviously has fun doing what they're doing, even when they're under pressure. Skipping a sound check, due to van troubles (see interview below), the band nevertheless sounded as if The ArtsCenter was their home studio. De facto frontman Justin Small provided most of the energy during the night, switching from guitar to keyboards and back, while coming dangerously close to certain taboo rock posturing. But for the most part, the band members just played, with no theatrics or odious decorations. Shifting back and forth between jazzy, hard rock and orchestral pop arrangements like marbles being sloshed around in a box, they hit every high note of their career. As a fan of Winter Hymn Country Hymn Secret Hymn, the cream of the night for me was "Frederica" and the wonderful album closer "Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!"

Do Make Say Think also provided their audience with several false endings, much like a fireworks display on the Fourth of July. You keep thinking that surely, this must be the last bit, but then there's always something one notch more intense, until finally you know that they can't kick it up any more. That was how DMST ended this show, and it caused several of my friends to lean over in their chairs and, shellshocked, mutter faint "wow!"s. Even sitting down, as I was for half of the show, DMST gave me a hell of a ride.

'SUP: Hi, Justin, how are you?
Hey, how's it goin'?

Nice to meet you, on the phone.
[Laughs] Yeah, we finally got it together.

I hear that there were problems with the van.
Oh, oh yeah; do you want the long story or the short story?

However much time you have.. I'd love to hear what's going on.
Well, uh. It's been a bit of a disaster, I'm afraid. But, we're okay, we've got a new van, but uh, okay, point form: the jig is that the alternator blew.

Oh God.
And.. it just didn't start outside of the Middle East, which is in Boston, and basically, you know Amit, our band manager, also plays trumpet with us, and he's been joining us in a couple of shows in New York and Philly and stuff; uh, I mean, we've got a fucking van, a broken van. Anyhow, he found the one guy with the balls big enough to wake up on a Sunday morning at seven a.m. at a full diesel..

A mechanic guy?
Yeah, this guy Tony, from Reliable Diesel.

Lucky..
Yeah, he was a total character too, real Sopranos-type.

Really? Did he sort of surprise you in any way or was he just a straightforward guy?
He was a really nice guy. Real character, good heart, real nice. Had the accent, you know it looked like he can be a bad mother fucker..you don't want to mess with Tony. But he's a real sweetheart and he did the job but it took a real long time and I mean on that day..it was my birthday on that day, and we happened to witness a man having a seizure on the street fall onto oncoming traffic and got his head smashed open..
We ran outside of Tony's shop and Amit happened to be a paramedic before he took on the job of taking care of bands, so that was kind of crazy. Then we ended up getting the van fixed, and it started which was beautiful, and then we just started rushing to Philly because our show was at seven, and our promoter was going to cancel our show because we weren't going to make it in time, because we were at this venue that was all ages, but he convinced us that he was going to go ahead with the show but at a different venue that was not all ages.

Oh, so a lot of people couldn't go. Were a lot of fans unable to come?
Yeah, I'm afraid so, and we fucking took a bath on it man, we fucking just..you know, we lost a lot of money on that show. A lot of money. And then it was just, they were super-bummed, and then they showed up, and my lady was sitting at the club, she came and flew down..

Awww.
But everybody in the band knew it.

It was your birthday right?
Yeah, it was my birthday. And then, uh..I guess we were just kind of like, we were trying to hike it to Asheville [N.C.], and we were just trying to hike it up the mountains, and the engine light came on. The van was coughing and sputtering, and we couldn't get above like 40 mph, and we woke up really early the next day and took it to a Ford dealership, and they ran a diagnostic on it and they were like "this van is unfit for the road." And the woman there, her name was Debra, she was the nicest woman in the world; she actually called up our rental company in Toronto and bitched them out.

For giving you a crappy car?
She was just a beautiful person, man, and I couldn't believe it. The kindness of strangers, man. It was absolutely paramount. And so we ended up having to rent two vehicles to make our show last night, and afterwards, we went to Toronto, grabbed another van and drove all the way back to Asheville from Toronto, and got back in Asheville this morning.

From Toronto?
From Toronto, yeah. So we got the new van, loaded everything into it, and hiked our asses here in time to do sound check. So that's the van story: none of us have slept since the tour started. We've only got an hour drive tomorrow, and Athens looks like a lovely city, so actually we might stay the afternoon and sleep in, buy some books or records, I dunno, and just hang out. Drink some good coffee, instead of coffee that's at a Ford dealership.

So how long have you been on this tour? Not more than a week or two?
Today was our eighth day. I'm not a stranger to touring, man, but we're a week into the tour and it already feels like it's been a month and a half. We have two months to go. [Laughs].

Has that affected the way the shows have gone? Do you get the energy when it comes to showtime?
I feel like I'm on acid, man, you know what I mean? I feel actually great today, I feel comfortable, and pretty happy about the situation today, and we got here at the club - we're playing the 40 Watt here in Athens - and they've just been absolutely five-star so far, so we're excited about tonight. I don't think there''s going to be a whole lot of folks here..we're not too well-known in these parts. This is new territory for us.

The Southeast?
Yeah, like we've never been to Athens before. We're never in Charlotte, before. We were in Asheville, but Blonde Redhead was playing the same night, so we had a bit of competition. With that, compounded with the van, we've just kind of..you know. But we're a good crew, and so everybody's just being really happy tonight. Cause I think last night tensions were super-high. [Laughs It was just getting a bit hairy. It's kind of low for morale when you have to rent vehicles in one town to make it to the next show. [Laughs]

That seems a little extreme. Do many bands have to go through that?
I think every band has a story like that; if they don't, then they're soft motherfuckers, man. They ain't learned the ropes yet. They will..it's karma, in way. It's give-and-take. We're a pretty respectable band, and we absolutely hate missing shows, and like I said I was just crushed when we found out that we couldn't play the all-ages thing in Philly. That really broke my heart, I was really into that. But you know, you just kind of forge on and have a good time, and try to play your show, right?

Do you think you'll make a specific effort to go back to Philly and make up for not being able to do the all-ages show?
Yeah, oh yeah. I don't want to say anything that would go to print and be definite, but we have something on the works for sure to make it up, and we'll probably tack on an extra day to the entire tour to go back to Philly. We're just waiting to see what the availability is. We just want to make sure the mechanics are in place before we announce it on our Web site or myspace page or whatever; we're not trying to have a teaser and then not delivering because of whatever issue that would come up and prevent us from doing that.

At least you're still on the road, and you're where you need to be tonight, which is nice.
Oh yeah, and in time for soundcheck too! It'll be great. We've been basically showing up to shows, loading in, getting on stage and playing, because of the fuckin' van. It's been driving me crazy..I had it up to my chin with that load of horseshit. I'm sorry I'm swearing, when I get to talking about it I start swearing it up.

[Laughs]That's fine.
So we're happy to be doing sound check.

I saw you guys in Carrboro..
Oh, this tour? On this tour?

Yeah, just like, three days ago.
Oh, nice! At that uh, ArtsCenter. That was a great place.

Have you ever played a place like that, where more of the audience is seated?
Not often, but it happens. And when it does we're kind of, uh..we're into it. Sometimes it's sort of half-and-half, with some of the crowd standing in front of us. We find it odd when, like, the entire audience is seated; it seems more - this is just my opinion, and there's obviously 11 of us - but I find it to be a bit too.. precious. I like when people are up front with us, cause that brings out the rock. We played New York City, we played this Wordless Music Festival at this really nice sort of cathedral atmosphere, just a stunning place, and everybody was seated. Maybe it was more of a lecture hall, but it had some sort of sacred significance to it, and in my opinion it was just a bit too precious, like..we actually had, at the end of the show, to be like 'Alright, get up, get close to us.' And there was a couple of brave kids did it, during the whole song, just standing in front of us, and then eventually everyone was like 'Oh, I guess I can stand, too,' and came down and rocked with us and the energy level of the room went up 50%. The songs of course sounded better. When people are sort of sitting down staring at you, you feel like if you do something wrong or if you're a bit unsure of something, it tends to get caught, or you feel like it does, and you're not really giving it up. It's like, playing to an empty room, and you really, really want to do the whole David Lee Roth thing, where you play in front of five people like you'd play in front of 50,000, you know what I mean? I tend to live by that, just as a motto with performing, but you can't deny a little disappointment when you're playing in front of 30 people and they're standing at the back of the club talking. [Laughs]

I can see how that would bum you out.
You always wish for a crazy rock'n'roll night where there's a ton of people just going ape-shit, but 9 times out of 10, some people will stand up real close to ya and give you the support you need to deliver an awesome performance, and you don't feel like you're being cheated in any regard. Like it's important for you to do the whole 'play in front of 50,000 people' attitude. Not that we're doing any scissor kicks or anything like that. I mean, visually the band is, uh..you know. It's exciting to look at by sheer volume of people on stage, but..beyond that, there's no theatrics or scissor kicks or any of that crap.

You gotta rock out a little bit. I was there, I watched you.
Ah, yeah..I was rocking out. I can't..I can't..I mean, I'm a slave to the beat. I can't handle it.