Dead Flowers Interviews Ivy
Ivy is a three-piece indie pop group from New York. The three permanent members are singer Dominique Durand, bassist Adam Schlesinger (also of Fountains of Wayne), and guitarist and studio whiz Andy Chase (also of Brookville). Active since the mid 90s, they've maintained a strong cult following with a string of brilliant releases like Apartment Life, Long Distance, and their most recent, 2005's fantastic In the Clear. Andy Chase was kind enough to answer a few questions for Dead Flowers:Dead Flowers: While it seems that audiences are finally catching up to your sound, do you think there was a time where you were perceived as 'too European' by Americans and 'too American' by Europeans?
Andy Chase: I think in our early days back in the mid 90's that was a common complaint of radio - that they personally loved our sound but it was a hard sell to the listening audience. We've always fallen into that chasm - the void that all bands live in who are too foreign sounding for their own country and too American sounding for those foreign countries. What are you gonna do? We have a NYC based band with a French singer and two guys who grew up on British music. Sort of the nature of the beast.
DF: A guy who I played in a band with in college had a summer internship with Atlantic. I remember he had to promote all these awful bands, but then you had Ivy sticking out like a sore thumb. Can you talk about your time on the label and whether you felt out of place?
AC: We signed to SEED records which was an indie label that operated autonomously even though it was owned by Atlantic. When SEED was closed down we became a TAG (The Atlantic Group) band for a brief moment. That was Atlantic's attempt to keep it's indie cred by creating a niche label. TAG was quickly terminated and all the bands were dropped except for Ivy and Madder Rose, so at that point Atlantic "inherited" us. We had no strong relationship with anyone there at that point and were still really indie kids at heart so... Ron Shapiro the head of Atlantic called us up to his office when we were working on the artwork and tried to convince us to put a sexy shot of Dominique on the cover, saying we'd sell millions if we did but if we didn't listen to him and went with our current cover (the one we ended up going with) we'd never make it. That was a nice dose of encouragement! As it turns out we didn't listen to him...and he was right.
We were working on Apartment life at that point so when the album was finished Atlantic released it. Atlantic convinced us to commit to 8 weeks with this terrible British band who had a minor hit on the radio at that point. Not wanting to disappoint our new label we agreed. We packed up the van and drove across the country to start the tour and on the third day of the tour Atlantic dropped us. We spent the next 7.6 weeks on that tour cursing their name and running into Atlantic Ivy fans who had come to the show to say how psyched they were to be working on the record, with no idea of what had happened. That's our Atlantic experience.Listen/Download:
"The Best Thing" from Apartment Life
DF: I asked Swervedriver a similar question, because they also went through the label shake-ups of the late 90s (with more tragic consequences), but how much different do you think your experience would have been had things like Myspace, Facebook, and blogs been around back then?AC: I think we would have been huuuuuuuuge! No, I think we certainly would have been more widely known, since when we started we were all over college radio and the press, so that would have been wonderfully viral on the Internet had the Net been what it is today.
DF: What sort of opportunities open up for you as a songwriter with a singer like Dominique?
AC: I get to write with my head in someone else's shoes, which is fun. Very liberating. It's a great exercise for writing songs that are somewhat personal but not too so that they become so earnest and literal.
DF: You have a side project called Brookville. Do you write songs with a certain band in mind, or is it pretty much random which band gets which song?
AC: Brookville songs and lyrics are very, very much about my own personal experiences. Those songs are quite autobiographical. So I know instantly when a song I'm writing is for one band or the other. Ivy is not at all as personal, other than sometimes I might delve into a mood or feeling - for Ivy what I write about is always something I know will resonate with Dominique.
DF: In Ivy's upbeat songs, the influence of The Smiths is very pronounced. The slower songs, especially on "In the Clear", are more atmospheric and seem to be coming from a bit different place musically. What artists influence those slower songs?
AC: Prefab Sprout, Everything But The Girl, Nico...
DF: How important is playing live for the band?
AC: For me VERY. For Dominique SOMEWHAT. For Adam NOT VERY.
"Thinking About You", from In the Clear, Live:
DF: You've always had a lot of collaborators on your records. How do you maintain a certain musical consistency with so many people being involved?AC: Most of what you hear is me, Adam and Dominique. If you add up our musical contributions it's always at least 75% of what you hear, maybe more. All our friends simply add some bells & whistles.
DF: You have a strong musical connection with James Iha. I recently heard an interview with Butch Vig and he was talking about with the early Smashing Pumplins records, people didn't realize how important Iha was in influencing the band's sound and feel. Any thoughts?AC: He has such an amazing musical aesthetic and a very unique way of playing the guitar. I think this all flew under the radar for most Pumpkins fans. Knowing him as I do outside of the Pumpkins I'm always marveling at his great sensibility and appreciation for good music - or at least the music I think is good. I'm much more of a fan of HIS stuff that I ever was of the Pumpkins.
Listen/Download:
"Tess Don't Tell" w/ James Iha, from In the Clear
DF: When can we expect the next record? What can we expect musically?AC: We're working on a new Ivy album right now. Probably will be out in late 2009. Musically? We're still figuring it out! But it will be the best record we ever made!
Thanks to Andy for sitting down with Dead Flowers.
[Ivy Website]
[Ivy Myspace]
[Ivy Wiki]
[Brookville Myspace]
[Fountains of Wayne Myspace]
Labels: interviews, Ivy, specials
posted by Mike at 4:30 AM
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