ENON
VIA EMAIL
WORDS: MARISA BRICKMAN
PHOTO: EMILY WATSON

Enon were in the mix quite a bit when SUP first moved to NYC around 2000. Crazy they are on their fifth album. We've been keeping up with Enon over the years and their always fresh take on tunes continues to keep us guessing what is going to come next.

The new album, Grass, Geysers...Carbon Clouds is full of what we love about this band - guy girl vocals (the girl is Japanese - swoon!), psychy sound effects, keyboards, screechy guitars, frenetic drums - depends on what song you are listening to because they are all different.

This endless mood swing is what makes Enon different and continues to make them exciting in the face of a time where so many bands think that just having some kind of machine and a microphone means you can make music.

We caught up with John Schmersal who plays guitar, keys, synths and sings.

Do you all live in NYC now? If not, who lives where & why?
Matt lives in NY, Toko and I live in Philly. We moved to Philly because we wanted to keep playing music.

What makes you all work together as a band?
I'm not sure. We all love food and traveling. We all are disappointed in nearly 90 percent of the new music we do hear. I suppose that makes us want to make music we DO like.

What kind of stuff to you listen to when:
You want to be uplifted
You want to wallow in sadness
It's a sunny day
A lazy Sunday
You want to zone out
While you're cooking
I don't know, I didn't really explain myself very well. I just feel like I tend not to obsess over music as it comes out anymore. I'm sure there's loads of good stuff coming out but, I have other things to do. If it's good it's going to catch up with me after it has a little air. Music can be super distracting for me and so if I have other things to do, really listening to records will kind of keep me from getting things done. Music is not like food either. You can get sick of certain food but, you choose to exhaust your palate in that way. Music is playing everywhere we go and you won't even have to try to get sick of a song. It just happens. Sadly whether you even wanted to eat it or not.

Where do you listen to the most music?
I have an XM transmitter in my car and I really like that because I'm not the DJ and I end up hearing all kinds of random stuff and I can look to see who it is. It can be a little repetitious still like FM sometimes but, definitely way more rewarding. That's where I listen to music most is in the car. I like to throw on Ornette Coleman, or Coltrane, or Pharoah Sanders, Art Blakey, Sun Ra when I'm at home cooking, jazz records and cooking somehow go together. Or maybe like a Doc Watson record. I don't really find myself putting on sad records these days. Not that I don't get sad but when I feel blue I tend to paint the room red, know what I mean? I'd rather get into like one really good sad song that comes on the radio. That's plenty.

What have been your biggest triumphs since you first formed?
Staying together, it's hard to be in a band, almost impossible.

Five years seems like such a long time ago, but I remember when High Society came out - me and all my girls in Brooklyn loved it and used to dance around in my apartment to In This City before going out. I just got the re-release of Hocus Pocus. Your sound evolves and changes with each record... From poppy dance music to Pavement-sounding indie. What are the major things since then that have influenced your sound?
We are interested in not being static. So change is the influence. What we have done influences what we will do or more likely will not do again. Also, there is an element of practicality. The new record is more
practical for presentation. It's less frills, we wanted an album that we could perform the songs more easily and that we both sang a lot, instead of one or the other of us.

What do you think of the NYC music scene right now? Are there any things happening / bands forming that you find particularly exciting?
MMM, I don't know. I don't personally feels so in touch with what might be the brand newest stuff. I'll pass this one on to Matt.

Anyone you consider your contemporaries?
I'm not sure how you mean... We are friends with lots of bands but, if you mean like are we part of a genre? That's exactly what we are not trying to do. We just want to make interesting albums that have a range of emotions and a sense of humor. I think a sense of humor is strongly lacking in most music I hear. It's too serious usually.

By contemporaries, I just mean people who you kind of came up with on the scene in NYC and Philly. Are there other bands you feel like came from the same place as you, that you jam with or hang out with?
When I first moved to NY many bands were ending or changing. Skeleton Key, Girls Against Boys, Barkmarket, a lot of bands from that era of NYC were fading and before sort of the new guard of stuff that would come in the Y2K. I had a space with Josh Deutsch from Gang Gang Dance, he and I played together a bit and it never really materialized. I really liked playing with him though. I used to play around a bit more with people, what is Then Enon started and our first tour was with the Cranium in one van. Those guys also branched out into Gang Gang Dance. I recorded some Cranium stuff and helped Brian with compiling some of the SSAB Sisters stuff he did with Harmony Korine. I don't really see those folks so much these days but I'm excited that people are into them. They are doing something unique. I think they are a band I can relate to what they are trying to do but, at the same time I can't say we are coming from the same place at all. You know? Also around that time did a tour playing guitar in Les Savy Fav on the Cat and the Cobra record. I've known those guys for years. Brainiac played shows with them when they only had a cassette tape to tour on. Really after that though, I didn't do a lot of playing with other people so much and kept busy with Enon stuff and getting more into recording music.

What do you guys do outside of being in a band? Do you express yourself creatively in other mediums?
LOVE TO COOK.

Amazing. What do you like to cook? Specialties? Biggest triumph in the kitchen?
My approach to cooking is not unlike my musical approach. Sometimes I prepare for something and buy ingredients for it. But my best cooking happens when I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing. Or I have to improvise a few ingredients out of what I happen to have. Every once and a while I'll overdue it... We've got a garden in back and I have been cooking greens a hundred different ways lately. Collards and Kale, Swiss chard. Sometimes a little sweet and just a little spicy. I tend to pick them young and cook them short so they don't lose their potential. I like things that are both sweet and savory in layers that sort of hit your palate at different times. People say my salsas are good. I'm not bragging though.

What makes Enon happy?
Delicious food.

What makes Enon sad?
Being in debt.

Are you touring around this album? What is your following like? Where do you feel like you're best received?
Yes, mid October through the end of the year U.S. and Europe. That stuff is mostly booked. Haha, I don't know what our following is like these days. It's been a few years since we put out a record and properly toured. Seriously so much has changed since last time we made a record, I'm curious to see who's out there. I don't think we have a type of person who likes us specifically, I'm pretty stoked that people of all ages and backgrounds have professed to liking at least a few of our songs. Enon is a big pill to swallow whole so, I can see many people liking bits and pieces of it but I don't expect everybody to like everything we do. It'd be nice though. get superstitious about cities. Many have been great to us but, the minute I name drop them it's going to backfire on us for sure. Sorry.

What are you trying to say / do with your music?
Music should take you for a ride, like a rollercoaster or a movie. I like it when people get involved and develop their own world or explanation for a song. I like it when everything isn't spelled out per se and the listener can make it personal. I like it if in one album a person is feeling scared, manic, angry, just laughs hysterically.... maybe dances some.