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Q&A: Derek Archambault On Independent Music, ‘Parlour Tricks’ And Touring

By Chris Reinbold, Staff Writer

Alcoa began as the side project of Derek Archambault, and although this project has been around longer than his primary band, Defeater, it has always managed to get placed on the back burner.

Now, with the release of Alcoa’s newest album Parlour Tricks, Archambault has decided to take the project on its longest stretch of dates outside of local shows in the Northeast. I had the opportunity to speak with Archambault about his observations of the independent music scene, Alcoa’s new record and the ensuing tour.

Starting off, how did you get involved in the independent music scene in the Northeast? Were you a promoter, did you start playing in bands, or were you just a show-goer?

Derek Archambault: Well, I’ve been going to punk shows since, like, ’94 or ’95. [I] just kinda fell into it with some of the friends I had growing up and some of their older brothers and sisters were involved in punk and hardcore. It just trickled down to me, going to shows and playing in a couple bands. We’d get thrown on mismatched shows around that time.

I was in a band, somewhere between Britpop and Bob Dylan worship. It doesn’t make any sense, but it was my first band that I’d ever played in. I started off playing drums and ended up playing guitar for a little while. We were just little, dumb kids so we didn’t know what the hell we were doing. We’d just get thrown on local shows with a bunch of punk bands and that started to appeal to me more and more. My dad showed me The Clash when I was like five years old.

Awesome.

It made a very large impression on me. I grew up loving punk and ska; I fell into it. Eventually, it just kinda took over. The more I fell in love with it, the more I wanted to be in those bands. It just went from there. With my group of friends, it was decided that we were all going to start bands and it kept blossoming.

From that Britpop band did you move more into hardcore?

I mean, it was all kinda the same to me at that point in my life. I didn’t really know the difference. Essentially, I knew what people referred to as hardcore and whatever else. It was a weird time for me to start classifying it. In my head, it was all under the “punk” umbrella. There were bands that my friends would tape for me and I knew it was much more aggressive, but it was all punk rock.

Once I figured out what the “formula” was for a hardcore band, I fell more in love with that side of it. It was the '90s; we were all just trading tapes and taping records for each other. It was the same with the emo bands. The joke was that people would go around shows handing out tissues to the emo kids. To anybody that wasn’t super closed-minded, it was totally acceptable to listen to The Promise Ring and The Get-Up Kids. For us, the turning point was like this weird middle ground where they looked like emo kids, but were playing hardcore music. That sorta cross-contamination was happening more and more within our local scene.

I spoke to Ray Harkins [of West Coast hardcore outfit, Taken] for an interview a few months ago and he was talking about the scene. When he first started, from what I gathered, the scene in the '90s and very early 2000s was more… together, and more open-minded, so to speak, than it is today. Do you share those thoughts and what are your thoughts on the state of the independent music scene? Is it stronger or more fractured?

It’s tough to say because I feel like now, everybody knows everybody else’s business. Everybody’s on the internet. There is a broader sense of community, it’s easier to set up shows, it’s easier to get in touch with people. It’s easier to do everything behind the scenes, but, as far as an actual community, it does feel a little bit fractured, to use your phrasing.

I don’t know. I feel like people really pull together and there really is a community when there are people in need or when people want to unite for change, for better or worse. In the day-to-day, with punk rock and hardcore, everybody’s much more keen to talk shit. That’s always been around, but it’s more open now in the “public forums.”

But, as I said, there is a really strong community when people want to pull together. In a couple months, there’s Nate Fest [benefitting Nate from Ensign in his battle against stomach cancer] in Jersey. It’s a very good example of how the hardcore community is actually still very real and very prominent on a local level, with all of those bands, even some who aren’t from Jersey, like Grade; it’s unreal. People pull together for the right reasons.

Absolutely. I go to college in an Ohio town called Athens. Just recently, one of the major venues in the city burnt down. This place had punk, hardcore and emo shows; they even had jam bands and stuff. Everyone involved with making music helped, in some way, with the relief, from helping out workers that lost their jobs to those that lost their belongings and homes in the apartments on that street. Outside of circumstances like that, it seems like all of the genres fracture a bit, like one band is chilled-out shoegaze stuff and then there might be a metallic hardcore band, and they never play shows together.

It’s weird how people get so stuffy about genres. I mean, I do it myself, though. I get bummed when people compare my bands to something I feel like we have nothing to do with. Maybe I’m just a grumpy, old elitist prick. I don’t know; I feel like without cross-contamination, nobody’s going to really get anywhere. Nobody will be able to get out and do regional touring.

Totally. That is actually a problem I’ve encountered with my bands. Sometimes we don’t have any place to fall into.

The whole thing sorta sucks. The only way to get around it is either you play ball and say, “I guess we’re not going to play these shows,” until someone wants to help book with a little bit of everything on the bill … Or say “Fuck it” and go play shows four hours away and spend a shit ton of money on gas.

Anyway, that’s really horrible, with the venue. But, it’s really awesome that people came together in that way.

Moving on, which musical project came first, Defeater or Alcoa? Did one come as a result of the other?

Oh, no. They’re totally separate. Alcoa started when I was on tour with one of my old bands, back in 2003. I just started writing songs on my acoustic that I had brought with me. It was born out of boredom and the desire to write some different stuff. I kept putting it on the back burner and kept putting it aside and not really focusing on it for years at a time. I’ll pick it up, every once and a while, and play some local shows. I’d kinda take it seriously for a minute, but then I would join another band and not bother with it.

When Jay and I started Defeater in 2008, it was just the priority. We started with a lot of momentum because they had the record slated to be put out on Topshelf. Right when we put it out, Bridge Nine was really interested. We were touring a lot and I just put it on the back burner, again. After Empty Days [Defeater’s 2011 Bridge Nine release], I kinda decided that if there was a time to start to take Alcoa a little more seriously, it was then, because of the reactions to the acoustic songs on that record. I was just going to put out a couple splits with my friends and then Bridge Nine suggested a full-length, so I did it. Now, we’re on number two. [Laughs] It feels good and it’s a lot of fun.

Alcoa’s music is pretty different from Defeater’s, of course. Who are your primary influences, as far as Alcoa goes?

My three big ones are still The Clash, Bruce Springsteen and Todd Rundgren. They’re the three songwriters and bands that I have really looked up to pretty much my whole life. I was really fortunate that my dad and mom were huge music fans. They’re huge Springsteen and Rundgren fans; they’ve seen them both a million times. That’s always the way. It’s like, you listen to what your parents listened to until you find out there’s other music and then you’re like, “Oh, wow. My parents are lame.” But, I’ve always adored Springsteen or Rundgren. They definitely have a huge influence, even with Defeater. Springsteen knows how to tell a story better than a lot of other songwriters. With Bone and Marrow, I was 100% trying to rip off The ByrdsSweetheart of the Rodeo.

It’s a fault of my own, Gram Parsons is just a huge influence. He’s an idol of mine. With a lot of how I try to play the country-inflicted stuff, it just sorta takes over. I actually named the second part of Empty Days after a Parsons record. Sweetheart of the Rodeo was one of the first records I heard, I don’t even know when I heard it, probably 2000; that just blew my mind. I just tried to write something in a very similar vein.

The kid that helped me record it, one of my very good friends, Aaron [guitarist and drummer on Bone and Marrow], was also a huge Gram Parsons fan. We tried to, without the tape, do everything as it would have been done in that time frame, down to the miking. The drums have two mics on them. We were just trying to recreate this thing that can’t be touched. Anyway, that’s a whole different story. [Laughs] There’s really too many influences to name. On the new one, I think I let a lot of my Afghan Whigs, Archers of Loaf and Oasis influence take over. Oasis has been like my second-favorite band since I was a little kid, besides The Clash. I think I definitely let that really indulgent rock 'n' roll shit bleed into this record. Anyway, long-winded explanation, Oasis, I guess. [Laughs]

Stepping back to the miking, in regards to Parlour Tricks, who produced it and where did you record? Were the instruments played live or did you go in and dub them? If there was any extra instrumentation, did you have auxiliary musicians or friends come in or did band members do everything?

Everything was done by band members on this one, which isn’t really what we did on Bone and Marrow. We kinda had a rotating cast of friends playing on that record. We’re a six piece, now. We were eight, at one point. We did everything much more traditionally, we didn’t mic the drums with just two mics. Mike, who plays the drums in our band, did all the engineering. He owns the The Office Studios, so we took a different approach even with the writing process. I showed them the songs and we played them through a couple of times before we locked down “This is how the song is.”

We would add a couple parts here and there or whatever, rather than on Bone and Marrow where it was like, “These are the finished songs.” We took more time to build the songs, as opposed to me having final say. Their influence helped give the songs a little more life and breathing room because I can be a real stickler with how I write.

We did things traditionally; we laid down drums and built off of that. Having it all done with just the band members kept it more solid and together than just flying by the seat of our pants. I did some of that with changing song structures and changing instrumentation on some of the solo stuff on a whim.

We’re really lucky where we have really talented people in the band now, and [I'm] not saying we didn’t before. We have Mike actually playing in the band, rather than just recording it. He’s an insanely good drummer and he also plays organ on the record; he plays some bass too, and some guitar. We took turns playing different instruments on the record and it was kinda fun. It felt natural because I wasn’t trying to recreate something from the '60s.

Similarly, was there any goal that you were reaching for?

Not really. I just wanted to write a better record. I don’t mean to sound like a jerk, but I really didn’t give a shit. I wanted to make a record that was great, in my eyes. The only goal was to have more fun in the writing and recording process. We definitely did that, so we’re pretty satisfied. [Laughs]

More in the vein of live performances or shows, the upcoming tour with Choir Vandals, from what I understand, is the first longer run of shows you are doing outside of Warped Tour. This is the first with a full band, if I’m correct?

We’re actually only doing a few full band dates. The whole band couldn’t get the time off. Mike was already booked in the studio by the time I booked the tour. Our bass player owns a barber shop, so he can’t just bail whenever he wants. Blake, our guitarist, works at a record label and he couldn’t get the time off on such short notice, either. It’s mostly solo. It’s the first 10 day run. Alyssa and I did a tour that was nine days, about a year ago. We never pushed it that much, and I had never really taken the time to do any real touring on it, besides the three weeks on Warped Tour.

You mentioned that your wife is also in Alcoa. I was in a hardcore band last spring, and I’m engaged. We had a stretch of six days, and I remember calling her from, like a stairwell of a crappy motel. What is it like having your significant other on the road with you, as opposed to how in Defeater you have to call home?

Playing live with Alyssa is great. I feel like she adds so much dynamic to the band. We’re all such good friends, and we have a good time. She really is my best friend. I love having her around. Touring with Defeater and not having her around, it isn’t awful. I’m just used to it. I don’t know how to say this…

It’s just like another day on the job.

Yeah. I hate being away from her, but at the same time it’s just what I have to do. So, when we get to go out and play shows with Alcoa, it’s a treat to make music with my wife and perform. It’s just an added bonus that Alyssa and me get to do a band together. As far as the Defeater side, and having to stay in touch over the phone, it sucks. It’s just what you gotta do though, no two ways about it. It’s a weird thing to ask someone to put up with, but if you can find someone you love that can understand that you do it for no other reason than for the love of it, that’s pretty special.

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