by Josh Seech
Making it “big” doesn’t mean what it did.
Today’s artists are forced to be more self-sufficient than ever. Many artists are paying for their own career, and working a 9-5 to help support themselves and their music. While on tour, an artist generally has to pay for their own transportation, food, shelter, etc. Maintaining a job, financial responsibilities and a music career becomes difficult, but this self-dependency also gives artists more freedom to do what they believe is best. A perfect example of a modern artist is found with Georgia natives O’Brother.
O’Brother has been a very busy band this year, supporting multiple bands on tour and releasing their first full length “Garden Window” on Triple Crown Records. When their publicist sent me a super-secret link to stream their record, I couldn’t help but to notice that the album didn’t sound or feel like a debut. I spent the evening listening to it and was literally lost in it more than once. I had to have listened to the record more than 4 times that night, front to back. I am really excited for the album to drop and hope you guys give it a listen. I had the chance to talk with Tanner Merritt, who sings and plays guitar for O’Brother. He was one most down to Earth and cool dudes I have ever interviewed.
Be sure to check out Tanner, O’Brother and Thrice as they share the stage at the Wonder Ballroom on Nov. 4th.
Congrats on the new album, I think it is awesome, tell our readers a little bit about what went into making it and working with Andy Hull and Robert McDowell (from Manchester Orchestra)
It was a really new experience and instead of going at it with a producer who had done a ton of stuff and produced a ton of albums… We decided to work with a couple of friends, who hadn’t made as many.
Makes sense…
Yeah, I mean first of all, they’re our friends and had a studio… and they also knew what we were going for and understood the process. It came out well, and I’m glad we came out with a record that wasn’t polished… it helped keep the natural and organic feel that we were looking for.
I love the record, and I think that you can definitely hear that when you listen to it… it doesn’t feel like it was made just to put an album out. It has a very natural flow and feel to it. Another thing I loved was your bio… the influences thing was amazing, what made you guys take that approach?
That was actually David Donaldson who wrote that. He used to manage us; he is very close to us. The bio came from many, many conversations and he would come out on tour and hang with us a lot. It came from a lot of things, like when you are creating some new… art… Influences are something that you take stuff from not just mimic. Mostly the biggest influence was us being away from home, especially on the recording process.
You guys have been touring with Thrice, how’s that been going so far?
It’s wonderful, it’s amazing… every band on the tour is super nice, we all get along. I wish it was this easy on every tour!
You guys have had a busy year! You recently got off tour with Manchester Orchestra, how was that experience in comparison to this tour?
Well it was a little shorter we did half of their full US tour and the other half was with another band. It’s kind of the same dynamic, except there are more bands on this tour… but otherwise it’s pretty similar.
What were you guys doing jobwise before you guys started touring full time?
We still have to work to supplement our music careers. We have had different odd jobs that let us come and go…. Between restaurants, Johnny works at urban outfitters, and Anton works at an after-school program.
I think that a lot of people think that you get signed and drop a record that you instantly get a nice tour-bus and a mansion, they don’t realize that there is still a lot of work and money that you have to put into it.
I think it’s funny that most of society, views band dudes as a bunch of slackers and degenerates… when we are working twice as hard as most to make it happen.
It’s almost like working two jobs, but one doesn’t pay. So tell me, what are your essential items for a long tour?
We are all addicted to the hot sauce Sriracha, to add flavor to some of the bland food we might be eating. Lots of clean socks and underwear… It’s very important.
And very under-rated! (bad joke)
Yeah, you always need clean socks man.
Have you guys ever been to the Northwest before?
Yes we have! We had a tour between Thrice and Manchester, and we did a stop with Deer hunter recently. We’ve actually have played there twice, the first with Manchester Orchestra a few years back and the second with Deer Hunter.
What are some of your most memorable tour spots or experiences?
I love the weather and landscape in the Northwest! Being able to see the ocean and mountains at the same time is awesome. We just started taking trips … like the tour with Deer Hunter, we left a few days early and went to Yosemite Park, the most beautiful places I have ever seen, then we went to the Grand Canyon. I really love Portland, Seattle, Chicago and San Francisco.
What can we expect when we see you guys live?
Well we have been playing a lot of new material… people seem to not be too offended *laughs* We are really stoked about playing some of the new stuff, but we’ll play some older stuff as well. It’s a 30 minute set and when most of your songs are 5 minutes or longer, it makes it to where we can only play like 5-6 songs.
How do you pick songs for your sets?
Bands often switch stuff around and play different songs for different shows… we pick a strong opening and strong ending and try to make it have a nice flow to it. There is not a lot of talking in-between songs… especially from me! I think it’s a cool feeling after 20 shows you are so used to playing you get into the set more and becomes second nature.
What can we expect in the future?
The tour ends on 11.11.11 and the albums drops digitally on 11.15.11 with the vinyl at the end of November. We haven’t announced anything official, since the musical industry shuts down during December and January… so we’ll spend time at home and then to hit hard next year!
What words of advice would you give to yourself from 2 years ago?
That’s a pretty awesome question!
Thanks, I have never asked anyone that before!
I think I would’ve told myself that it this is going to be incredible… going into it I had no idea how much work and what kind of sacrifice there was going to be, but it has definitely been worth it. I would say to anyone in a band: be willing to work hard and be diligent. You have got to work hard to be truly good at it and never really care what they may say.
And now it is time for your grand finale` sir, what do you want to say before this ends?
We truly appreciate everyone that has listened to us and continue to support us. It’s those people who are the number one thing that keeps us going and we really, truly, appreciate everyone. Thank you so much.
To stay up to date on O’Brother, you can follow them on Twitter @obrothermusic and their website http://www.beneathyourgardenwindow.com/
HUGE thanks to Tanner for taking the time to talk to us and if you are going to be at the show, let us know so when can be out there together.
Out here as always,
Joshua Seech