June 2006 (PDF) - Antigravity Magazine

take to the skyby miles brittonAlot’s changed for Deadboy & TheElephantmen since ANTIGRAVITY last talkedwith them a little over a year ago. Back then,frontman Dax Riggs and drummer Tess Brunet were NewOrleans’ best kept secret, unsigned and still a few months shyof recording their then unnamed debut. But once the hauntinggarage rock of We Are Night Sky hit the nation in February,there’s been no holding them back. Four-star reviews in RollingStone and Maxim, a tour opening up for Fat Possum labelmatethe Fiery Furnaces, a lengthy spot on NPR’s Weekend Edition,and gigs at everything from Sasquatch Fest to the upcomingLollapalooza. You would think that all that success would havegone to their head, but the local-band-done-good will still takethe time for us (or maybe we’re that big, hmmm). AG caughtup with Tess on the road, in a hotel somewhere in Vancouver.ANTIGRAVITY: So how’s the tour been going?Tess Brunet: Good, good. Tiring, but good. Musically, it’s beengoing really well. We’ve been playing with a lot of differentbands, and their audiences have been really receptive. Andthere’s been a pretty good crossover of fans from Dax’s oldbands [Acid Bath, Agents Of Oblivion], even though we soundquite different. So there’s sort of this permanent, built-in fanbase for whatever he does. But there’s a lot of people who likewhat he’s doing now that have no idea of his previous stuff, andmay not have necessarily even liked it.AG: You were on the road with Fiery Furnaces fora while. What was that like?TB: [Laughs] They’re kind of like librarians. You know, just kindof quiet. It took a long time to get to that point where wecould actually joke around. The last couple of shows of themonth tour, I felt like we were just getting to the point wherewe all could kind of open up. But it’s always such a weird thingfor bands that don’t know each other to be thrown together.I mean, you don’t know them, and all of a sudden you’rehaving to work together everyday for the next month. Andsometimes its works the opposite way, where you open upto people right away and then towards the end it gets weird.Someone in one band ends up getting pissed off at someonein the other band…AG: Really? It’s so funny, as an audience member,you never even think about all that Behind TheMusic-type stuff. You just assume all the bandsget along as one big happy family.TB: Matt and Eleanor were really nice, though. And JasonLowenstein from Sebadoh was on tour with them playing bass,and he’s super cool to be around. He just had one of thoseenergies and spirits that brought this calmness to everythingthat made life a lot easier for me on the road. Not to soundall hippie-dippy or anything.AG: You all have really blown up since the lasttime I interviewed you. I just recently heard thatspot they did about you on NPR…TB: Yeah, I got a lot of e-mails about that. And it was really kindof neat because it was all from people who had never heardus before, but, you know, listen to NPR every morning. Theywere really excited to learn about us.AG: And I read on your website that you’re goingto be on the Henry Rollins TV show?TB: Yeah, that’s airing in June, but we actually shot that abouta month ago.AG: I didn’t even know Rollins had a TV show. Sowas it like a talk show, like Rollins interviewing you?TB: Sort of, but he actually wasn’t there. He was on a spokenword tour in Amsterdam or somewhere. But I think they’regoing to edit it to look like he’s there. [Laughs]AG: So what’s next for you? Any thoughts yet ona new album?TB: We actually just started talking about that yesterday. Wehave this block of a month and 10 days off coming up afterBonnaroo, so that’s when were planning on concentratingon the new songs, working all that stuff out so we can startrecording the next album. We probably have enough materialfor two albums. Now it’s just a matter of picking the songs wereally want to focus on.AG: Any change in the sound?TB: No, it’s similar to We Are Night Sky. The way the songsare written, and the process and where the songs come from,that’s all the same. But we might add some different soundsto it. Though only change we’ve had recently is that we have abass player now for tour, Alex. He’s been with us for a coupleweeks.AG: That’s a fairly big change. Do you think hecould become a permanent member?TB: I’m not really sure. We’ve always discussed the possibilityof another member, but we’re just going to see how it goes onthis tour for whether or not we’ll have him on the next one.But I think probably so. It seems to be going pretty well.AG: And last question. Lollapalooza—are youpsyched? That’s something we’ve been dreamingabout playing since we were kids.TB: Ummm, to tell you the truth, I’m actually more excitedabout Bonnaroo for some reason. I don’t know why. Probablybecause I just recently heard about Bonnaroo, and it’s notsomething that has been around for that long. I’ve been toLollapalooza a couple of times when I was younger, and it’snot really a mixture of ages. It’s like the Warped Tour, just abunch of young, young kids. It’s not like Jazz Fest or something,where there’s everybody from babies to old people withwalking sticks. There’s something about that that’s really nice.Honestly, I’d play Jazz Fest over Lollapalooza any day.16_antigravity: your new orleans music and culture alternative