“We race satellites and I run and play/ And we dance ’cause we’re lost/…And we count the days,” Allen Epley sings in the title track of the Life and Times’ latest album, Tragic Boogie. And indeed, their days are numbered; two and three, specifically. Today, the band releases their newest single on iTunes — “Day II” and its b-side, “Day III.” Release shows for the 7″ happen tonight at The Empty Bottle in Chicago, and tomorrow night here in Champaign at Cowboy Monkey. Allen, who sings and plays guitar in the band, was kind enough to talk with me about how these songs came about, and how the new year finds the band growing.
“This whole ‘Day’ ethic comes from us all being in different places. All the band is spread out across the world…It’s kind of a pain in the ass,” Epley says. He resides in Chicago, bassist Eric Abert had been living in New York City, and drummer Chris Metcalf remains in Kansas City. “It forces us to practice in bulk sessions. We’ll get together at Great Western and rehearse three days straight and just cook and, you know, drink and have a good time. But also rehearse for like thirty hours.
“So what we did was starting out we had these 5 days we were rocking together. It wasn’t like Allen coming in and saying, ‘Here’s what I got. Let’s make a song of it boys.’ I intentionally came into rehearsal sessions with nothing written, so that when we got there it would create a truly organic band experience — with varying results, but generally pretty great results. “We would record the entire thing — on my Line 6 I’d either loop a key line or a guitar line or something and just kind of find a beat to it, and all kinda of not talk and just play. Find out where the groove was, where it was speaking to us. As the beat goes on it gives you information about what you should play; it speaks to you. We did kind of a free-form jam, honestly. It would die as jams tend to do, and the loop would keep going [Laughs]. And we’d kind of look at each other and start in again and something else would get created out of it. As the song goes along, the beat speaks to you. “Then we hooked up on another session and wrote Day 1 and Day 2, then 3 and 4, and so that’s how it all started. We didn’t have song titles, it was just this “Day.” One whole song a Day. We won’t do anything else but one song and try and kick it out together. We had nothing; and then we finished it in one day, even the recording of it. It was a really interesting way to write.”
The day after their show at the Cowboy Monkey, the band will head back to Great Western in Tolono to record their first full-length as a quartet. Late last year they welcomed their newest member, Rob Smith of Traindodge and the now-defunct Riddle of Steel. “He’s one of those guys that fits in very easily, it’s been no problem at all. I’ve been playing shows with him for 10 or 12 years now. Honestly, I probably wouldn’t have anybody if it wasn’t him. We wouldn’t just add somebody. If we were going to add somebody, it had to be somebody we’d want to ride in the van with for hours on end, and who makes me laugh. And he does. He’s a super, super sweet dude.”
The band is limiting the release of the singles to vinyl and digital. “I think people still want a physical copy of things in their hands,” he says. “And those that don’t don’t have to have it.” Though clearly fans of vinyl (the band has released both LPs, an EP, and a 10″ split on wax) Epley also defends the compact disc — “I truly believe that CDs still have a place — at least for awhile, for the time being — in our libraries, because they’re portable, they sound better than mp3s, they’re more easily accessible than the turntable. I’m really surprised that labels haven’t pushed that side of it. Higher quality. If you really want something good, you audiophiles should have a CD so you can have a more faithful reproduction of what came out of those engineers’ and the musicians’ heads, you know? Otherwise it changes, and people don’t realize how much it changes. And listening to music on the little earbuds sucks. It’s uncomfortable, but also doesn’t sound as good; and third, you’re killing your ears. Not to say that you won’t kill your ears with big, squshy headphones, too…but it’d just sound alot better. [Laughs]”
But the digital cheerleading doesn’t last long. “I want tapes to come back,” he muses. “I have thousands of discs, and millions of cassette tapes still in boxes that I’ll reference sometimes. Old mixtapes. Rare old jambox sessions of certain bands along the way that sound amazingly good. We might re-release Tragic Boogie on cassette when we do the new record. It sounds like a joke, but I think tape sounds awesome. The amount of punch and low end that comes from tape? Yeah there, a little bit of hiss, but it sounds so fat and awesome. If you got some old Iron Maiden cassettes, pop ‘em in…you’ll hear it.”
The Life and Times headline at Cowboy Monkey tomorrow night, with support from DiBiase (ed — Centaur have dropped). Listen to the end of the interview for an awesome anecdote and a lucky stumble into some final insight into the band’s journey since its inception.
The Life and Times perform tomorrow (January 22nd) at Cowboy Monkey. The show begins at 9:30 p.m. and carries a $7 cover at the door.
Photo via manasmachine on Flickr (Creative Commons/Sharealike)