Interview with Anathallo

The first interview for different weblog (and myself, actually) was for Mt. Pleasant, Michigan's Anathallo, touring in support of their latest release Floating World. Centered around the Japanese folk tale Hanasakajijii, the album tells the story of a man and his wife who take in a stray dog that later finds treasure in their backyard. Their greedy neighbor takes the dog, but kills it when it finds nothing but "slugs and bug and slugs and bugs..." is his yard. The dogs ashes then rise up and kill the greedy neighbor. Self described as a "marching band gone wild," this eight-piece band incorporates horns, a collection of drums, xylophones, handclaps, and wonderful vocal-interplay, in English and Japanese, that gives the band a unique sound. I was fortunate enough to sit down with guitarist Danny Bracken, bassist Seth Walker, drummer Jeremiah Johnson, and later joined by guitarist/lead vocalist Matt Joynt after their set in Rochester opening for The Format.

different weblog: So you guys kinda got here a little late. What was the holdup in Toronto?

Anathallo: Um, poor planning and traffic. We left Toronto at noon, and it was supposed to be a three hour drive. It took us seven hours. We got stuck in traffic, there was some kind of festival or holiday going on there.

dw: Yeah, I know what you mean. I'm from Buffalo, and that traffic coming back to the States can be brutal. So how exactly did Anathallo get started?

Danny Bracken: The band was formed in 2001, right after I graduated high school. Brett, Matt, and Seth all went to the same high school, and we were all in different bands. We kinda had this group of friends that it just kind of formed out of. Our drummer left in January, and we knew Jeremiah from another band, and he decided to join.

dw: Your latest disc Floating World, was self-released on your own label Artist Friendship, and for a while was only available on your website. How did you guys get the word out about the new album?

A: Our management company has a distribution deal with Sony/BMG, so they were able to help us press the record, and gave us some money up front, which really helped, and we were still able to keep all the rights to our music.

dw: Are they are other bands on, or planning to be on Artist Friendship?

A: Originally, the label was to kind of function as a co-op with other bands that we're friends with, and we would take other bands CD's on the road with us. We just didn't bring any other bands CD's with us on this tour.

dw: I find the structure of your songs and how they travel from during the course of a few mintues fascinating. How does an Anathallo song come together?

A: It's usually different with every song. Sometimes somone will share a melody that they've been working on and it will build from there. We usually start with a skeleton of a song, and collectively it comes together. It's part of the reason each song has a kind of different sound from the next.

dw: What artists or music influences the style Anathallo has developed?

A: Everybody in the band has different tastes. There is a lot of classic and jazz that some of us listen to. Andrew likes stuff like the Beach Boys and Randy Newman. And some of us listen to the regular indie stuff.

dw: What have you guys been listening to lately?

Seth: Queen's A Night At the Opera.

Jeremiah: Thom Yorke.

Danny: Jeremy Enigk.

[Enter Matt Joynt]

dw: From what I've read you guys started out by booking your own national tours. Now you're on a great tour with the Format, and Friday you guys played Lollapalooza. How's it all going?

A: Awesome. Lollapalooza was amazing, it was like being a little kid again being at something like that. We have the same manager and booking company as the Format, and we had toured together earlier in the spring, so we did it again this summer. It's been alot of fun.

dw: That's awesome. It seems that this tour and the new record are building some buzz for you guys. I read a nice piece about you guys on I guess I'm floating and there are alot of other blogs mentioning you guys. I also angrily read a recent review of Floating World on Pitchfork. How much of this stuff do you guys read and how much do you take to heart?

A: We find it entertaining, and try not to take them too seriously. This band is our job and we are trying to make a liviing out of it, despite what people's personal opinons on blogs and websites say.

Matt: The pitchfork thing was kind of funny, because it was rated just a little higher than the latest Paris Hilton single.

dw: Yeah it's kind of crazy how much power they have, particularly Pitchfork. My friend and I were talking the other day that they can basically make or break a band just on what rating they give their latest album.

Matt: Well, they haven't broken us!

dw: Haha, I sure hope not.

Matt: I feel that those types of reviews and articles are important, because I think dialogue is very important when talking about art. It's important to hear what other people say and how they interpret it. Critics seemed to be more fickle about music, whereas fans have more of an investment in it. They're not listening to determine whether it is good or not like the critics, but as to whether they enjoy it or not.

dw: What do you guys think about all the comparisons to Sufjan Stevens that you guys get?

A: Well, we'd always rather have critics and reviewers break down our music rather than just compare it to another musician. While there are alot of commonalities, the use of horns, time changes, spiritual elements, and we're both from Michigan, it can be problematic. When people make associations with your music to a more familiar artist, it always seems as if they are measuring up your music to theirs, and almost judging it in comparison to an artist they know better, and already has some acclaim among the critics.

dw: Speaking of the spiritual elements in your music, there seems to be references to Biblical passages in your music. Is there a strong sense of faith within the band?

Matt: All of us have faith in some capacity. I grew up with a foundation of evangelical Christianity. Floating World is when people enter a space inbetween faiths and how they all connect together. It deals alot with figuring out how to interpret history and ones relation to the supernatural. These ideas are rooted in Christianity for us, they just tend to rule out the cultural constructions of what faith is.

dw: Matt, the lyrics to Floating World are centered around the story of Hanasakajijii, what inspired you to write about this story and what was your songwriting process?

Matt: The songs each have their own space, as they were written over a period of two years. For the most part, the record moves in the order in which they were written, shifted just slightly.

dw: Which is why the four Hanasakajijii songs are out of order on the album?

Matt: Yes. These songs are move away from the harder, more cathartic songs of our earlier work. The lyrics are really frustrated, as at the time I was dealing with these existensial problems in my life. I was reading Kierkegaard's Second Son to Death at the time. The songs definitely have a more sense of openness. I took a Japanese class in college to fullfill my language requirement, and I went to Japan with Erica and Danny. Later on I was writing a letter to a friend and wanted to include a Japanse folk tale, and I found Hanasakajijii, and I was just blown away by it. It's a children's story, as alot of these folk tales are, but alot of them deal with a way to address space and a dual nature of existence. I also studied some Japanse poetry and was fascinated by Japanese death poems. Haiku poets would write poems about those who had just died, and the goal of these poems would be to sum up the person's existence, while still being as finite as possible.

dw: That's so awesome. So what's in store for Anathallo for the rest of the year?

A: The tour with The Format runs through September. A six week tour is in the works from October to December with Page France.

dw: And I heard you are also collaborating with then?

A: Yes, we did some recording with them in late February and beiginning of March.

dw: Any new material in the works?

A: This fall, maybe. The goal is to write in the winter and record in late spring. We're aiming for a very tentative fall '07 release.

dw: Awesome. [I remeber I saw a cast on Matt's leg when he was on stage]. Hey Matt, what happened to your leg?

Matt: Oh, man. We were in Nashville at this apartment complex, and there was this security gate that I couldn't figure out how to get out of. So I tried to hop it and my flip-flop got stuck on the top and I ended up fracturing my leg. There's a piece of bone floating around in there somewhere.

dw: Ouch.

I highly recommend checking out Matt's floating bone on tour and their new disc, Floating World. Remaining tour dates with The Format and albums are available on their website here.