Just Awesomeness

By Jeannette Madden
Music Editor

Recently, an album came across my desk and it was so good that I had to talk to the band myself. It’s “No Witch” from Seattle Americana rock band The Cave Singers, who will be performing in Fargo Friday night, June 17 at the Aquarium. Their smokey low key sound had me marking their show on my calendar and put me in mind of O’Death, who also recently performed in Fargo, and in my estimation put on the best live show I have seen.

I had the chance to talk to Marty Lund, drummer for The Cave Singers, as they were wrapping up their tour opening up for super hot band Fleet Foxes, about how the band got together, how they’ve progressed during the three albums they’ve released and even a little bit about the current state of the Seattle music scene.

High Plains Reader: How did the band get together?

Marty Lund:  About five years ago it started out as a recording project. Derek [Fudesco -guitar] and Pete [Quirk -vocals] were roommates and Derek was heavily involved in another band [Pretty Girls Make Graves] but Pete wasn’t at the time. They were always working on music and then they started helping each other with their recordings and then it started to turn into something. I was friends with both of them and they wanted to expand it into more of a band type of thing so that’s how I got involved.

HPR:  And you just released your third album, “No Witch.” And that’s on a new label, correct?

ML:    Yeah., Jagjaguwar, where our other two were on Mantador.

HPR:  Was there any difference working with a new company? How about the difference between your three albums?

ML:    We love working with the new company. And I think each album is pretty different. The first one is more like we were discovering our sound, sort of. It has a sort of freshness to it but it also sounds like maybe the ideas aren’t maybe…without sounding like its bad because it’s awesome.

The second one was kind of an expansion on that, where we fine tuned things. Ideas and themes we were working on from the first one. The third one is the first one where we kind of deliberately were going for something specific, where we were like “Hey, let’s do it again and let’s make it sound a little more like this.” We had been playing live a whole bunch and even the more delicate songs from the second album, or the first, would have this bigger sound. There was more energy to them and we wanted to capture that. That’s the biggest difference with the third one I think.

HPR:  What’s your writing process?

ML:    Pretty much just getting together and working on ideas. There’s a period where we freeform and someone’s playing either a beat or a riff and we just go with it. Lately, we’ve gotten really good about recording all of that stuff. We’re down there, jamming, working out ideas and then we’ll record it and go through later and say “Did you listen to this thing? Oh wow!” It might just be one little piece of something we’re doing but it’s like “Oh, this right here is cool.” And we might make that into a song and get down to the business of actually structuring and arranging it.

HPR:  How do you define your music or what do you call the style of your music?

ML:    I don’t know. It’s sounding more and more rock. Basically it’s rootsy but these are just words that I hear thrown around but I wouldn’t disagree. It’s got an Americana vibe. I don’t know, that’s a tough question. All I can say is I don’t disagree.

HPR:  Where do you like to play?

ML:    I don’t know. One of the funnest things is playing places that you’re unfamiliar with and that can happen in America or Europe. Obviously Europe’s all pretty unfamiliar but I love Nashville. We just played in Nashville and I had such a good time there and it’s not a city that I had spent much time in. But then you’ll discover Antwerp in Belgium for some reason started becoming really good for us so we look forward to going there.

HPR:  What does the audience have to look forward to when you play live?

ML:    (Laughs). Just awesomeness. That’s my answer.

HPR:  You got together in Seattle? What’s the music scene there, now?

ML:    It’s all over the place, actually. It’s really thriving with a lot of different genres and a lot of hip hop that’s pretty cool, that’s coming out.

HPR:  Did you know the Fleet Foxes before you went on tour with them?

ML:    Yes, actually before they blew up and became the biggest thing we used to play shows with them. So it was awesome, it’s worked out good for us because the shows we’ve been doing with them are amazing.

HPR:  How did you come up with the name Cave Singers?

ML:    Pete came up with it and then I don’t really know…it’s good though. It’s got a nice ring to it.

HPR:  How was it working with producer Randall Dunn and on that note, what is it you look for in a producer? Some bands like a producer who almost becomes part of the band but some prefer a producer that pushes them to their limits.

ML:    Yeah, we prefer a more even relationship and we definitely got that with him. He had a lot of ideas which actually are on the record, which is really cool. But it was very democratic. It wasn’t like he would be like “No, we’re gonna do this.” We would try everything and when we’d be voting he’d be included to some degree. We would all decide what was going to work. You bring him the songs and then he’s got fresh ears, which is valuable.

See and hear The Cave Singers here: “Swim Club” http://bit.ly/gvMugC 
“Black Leaf” http://bit.ly/jA7fjv’

IF YOU GO:
Where: The Aquarium
When:  Friday, June 17 10:00 p.m.
Cost:  $7.00 – more info and to purchase tickets click here: http://tktwb.tw/jFX36w
Links:  http://thecavesingers.com/

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