Attwater recently announced their signing with Nashville-based Twenty Ten Music, an artist-development, music publishing and film/TV music placement company co-founded by Grammy award-winning record producer Charlie Peacock, a man with strong Northern California ties. In the company’s press release, Peacock stated that he found Attwater via Twitter after noticing their hometown was Sacramento. “I got my start there and love the people of Nor Cal. The least I could do was check Attwater out, maybe send them a note of encouragement. Then I heard Erika’s [Attwater, vocals/guitar] amazing voice singing these great songs, and I thought: I’m the luckiest man in the world–I just found a diamond in my old backyard! I’m a big fan of Twitter right about now.” Earlier this year Peacock and Attwater (made up of songwriting team and principal members Erika Attwater and Jonathan Richards) started working on the band’s debut project, tentatively titled Still Me Still You. The record features some great players, including people that have gigged and/or recorded with mega-acts like Taylor Swift, Lady Antebellum, Faith Hill and more. Label and release date are still pending, but this is definitely exciting news for Sacramento music.

Seattle’s Soundgarden is working on its first album in 15 years, and fans of the grunge material that made the band famous may be surprised. Guitarist Kim Thayil told Kerrang!, “We want to make sure the material excites us. The last thing we want to make is another grunge or metal record.” Thayil says the band wants to record and release the album as soon as possible but that Chris Cornell’s solo tour and drummer Matt Cameron’s commitments with Pearl Jam are priority. Soundgarden has announced four dates thus far for their summer reunion tour. Expect more to come soon.
-Brad F.

Toronto’s Molson Canadian Amphitheatre on July 2; Philadelphia’s Festival Pier at Penn’s Landing on July 13; Denver’s Red Rocks Amphitheatre on July 18; and Los Angeles’ Forum on July 22.

More dates will be added soon.

Bon Iver to release a new album in June? Could happen. In an interview with Rolling Stone, Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon discussed writing a new Bon Iver record. “Somewhere along the line, I forgot how to write songs,” he told Rolling Stone. “I couldn’t do it anymore with a guitar. It wasn’t happening. I brought in a lot of people to change my voice–not my singing voice, but my role as the author of this band, this project.” Vernon, of course, wrote and recorded Bon Iver’s epic 2007 debut album holed up in a cabin in a Wisconsin forest. In the article, he described several of the still-untitled album’s 10 songs, saying one of which had “a marching drum beat, a childrens’ choir and wailing guitars,” and that it was “a Civil War-sounding heavy metal song.” The song deals with his childhood and features finger-picked guitars, double bass drums and distorted bass saxophone. The song Vernon is most proud of is the album’s finale, the horn-heavy “Beth/Rest,” saying, “It’s definitely the part where you pick up your joint and re-light it.” No concrete release information has surfaced, other than a 50-second instrumental video clip posted on April 14, 2011 that most suspect is an album teaser. Justin Vernon walks a thin line in his attempt to follow up For Emma, Forever Ago and the Blood Bank EP, but fans like myself can’t wait.
-Brad F.

Dance Gavin Dance moves past another bout of offstage controversy and releases epic new album

Considering everything Dance Gavin Dance has been through (or has put itself through, depending upon how you look at it), Downtown Battle Mountain II is a fitting title for the band’s latest album. Released March 8, 2011 it sees the band pick up where it left off after its arguably most successful effort, 2007’s Downtown Battle Mountain. Five of the band’s original members–guitarist Will Swan and drummer Matt Mingus welcomed back bassist Eric Lodge and powerhouse vocal duo Jon Mess and Jonny Craig in 2010–reunited to enter the studio late last year. Despite their years apart, DGD’s put forth similarly remarkable results as they had in the past, in more ways than one.

“Writing started in the fall of last year around September,” says vocalist Jon Mess from San Antonio, Texas, a day prior to the band’s scheduled performances at the 2011 South by Southwest Music Festival. “Prior to that, Will had already started writing new songs. All of November and December was the recording. Tracked drums, bass and guitar through all of November and some of December, and most of December was vocals. I was there for almost a month recording, so was Jonny.”

It may sound like things came together rather quickly. Mess didn’t rejoin the band until summer 2010. His arrival was quickly followed by a tour and soon after the recording process for Downtown Battle Mountain II began. However, for Mess, it seemed much more laid-back as compared to when the band hit the studio for Downtown Battle Mountain, which was recorded in just two weeks.

“On this one [the sequel], we had two months,” Mess explains. “Last time we were in this shitty hotel, and it was freezing cold. I think I was a little sick then, too. This time we were in this house, and we had all this time. It was a lot more relaxed and there wasn’t as much time pressure–at least for me. Jonny came off a tour with Emarosa, so he came in a little later, but it was way more relaxed than prior experiences.”

Life in DGD post-recording has been anything but laid-back. Controversy sprang up once again surrounding Craig’s substance abuse. This time around, he allegedly defrauded his fans by offering to sell his Mac Book to his Twitter followers. When checks were sent, and no laptops were received, the band was once again forced to play damage control. Craig was sent into a seven-day detox program, which he just recently emerged from. Mess spoke with Submerge about DGD’s seemingly perpetual state of turmoil and Downtown Battle Mountain II, which, despite the all the backstage hullabaloo, is perhaps the brightest post-hardcore gem the band has produced to date.

I caught your recent Fuel TV performance. How did that go for you?
I was sick when we did it, so I wasn’t too happy with it. It was in Los Angeles. It was right before our first show. That was interesting. We had a studio audience there cheering and stuff. It was fun, I guess. I tried to have fun even though I was sick.

Was that a different experience for you guys?
Yeah. I’d never done that before. That was awkward. We had to do the songs multiple times and they came in with different angles. Afterwards they were shooting a comedy special with a bunch of people from VH1’s Best Week Ever–those different panelist shows where they have different comedians talking about stuff. A bunch of those people were there doing some little skits, and they asked DGD to be the backing band and play a little jazz riff. I don’t know where people can see that. It might be on Fuel. We’ll probably announce that when we find out.

You just came up with something off the cuff?
Yeah, they wanted us to play some kind of jazz, walking bass line–little flow thing that the comedians could do their little skit over. The guys came up with something pretty quick, and it ended up sounding pretty cool.

On the new album, did you and Jonny collaborate on lyrics or did you mostly write separately?
We talked about some themes, but it was mostly separate. A very small percentage of the lyrics go together. It was more of a scattered thing. That’s been our style since the beginning.

What sort of themes did you discuss? What were you personally trying to express on this record?
I like to write about all sorts of different things–snippets, fragments of ideas or dreams I have, various little stories. I kind of break them apart and put them together in different songs. One line might relate to another song later, so it’s not a cohesive body of material per song, more fragments of things that range from talking about food to being mad about something. Broad topics–nothing real specific. I don’t want to pigeonhole into having any limitations on what I want to write about it.

You and Jonny have radically different vocal styles, is that also the case lyrically, and is it difficult to get them to mesh from song to song? Is that something you work on closely together?
I think as long as the delivery is good, and you’re hitting the right notes and it’s flowing well, then the lyrical content doesn’t have to mesh in that sort of sense. First we go for the musicality–something that’s melodic or rhythmic or exciting in terms of phrasing and rhyming rather than we need to have these lyrics go together or we need a concept. That comes second.

There definitely seems to be a lot of hip-hop influence in your delivery this time around. You have this growling sort of rap cadence going on in a lot of the songs. Is that something you’ve been working on a lot on this record?
Yeah that’s definitely intended. I like all my parts to rhyme, and when I write them, I think of them as sort of a rap, like if you could rap that part, it would still fit. I’m not into so much the long, drawn-out, heavy screams over the entire thing. I’m more interested in trying to make it not necessarily as complicated as possible, but as unique and interesting that I can think of. It does come across it sounding like a rap because it pretty much is. It’s just a screamed voice rapping.

The record has gotten some good responses so far. Are you happy with the reviews or do you not bother reading those?
Yeah, I read the reviews. The one thing with some reviews is that people who write reviews are English majors, or they’re into writing and they’re not musicians themselves, so they sometimes clutter up the review with colorful verbiage or whatnot instead of actually giving content or criticizing or talking about different parts of the album. For the most part, it’s been good reviews, and I’ve liked what the people have said. Every review has something that I’ll read and I won’t understand how they perceive that about the album, but to each his own. I did watch this Youtube video of someone who hated the album, and his reasoning behind it, it was so funny because it was the antithesis of what Dance Gavin Dance is. The reasons he disliked everything was because, well, you really just don’t like what our band is about, not the album itself.

Jonny just got out of detox. How is everything going with that?
It’s going really well, actually, and I’m saying this as someone who’s not necessarily positive about the situation. He’s being really honest and real about it for once. It’s actually a little surprising to me. We’ll see how it keeps going. So far so good.

South by Southwest is basically a big party. Is that something you’re worried about as far as Jonny is concerned?
He’s doing Narcotics Anonymous. He’ll drink. He’s not getting wasted or anything, but if people are expecting him to not drink, I don’t think that’s what he’s doing currently. I’m assuming after this tour he could go into an actual 30-day program, which would be nice, instead of just a seven-day detox, because that’s not going to do it, obviously. Yeah, Austin’s going to be a huge party, but we’ve got our manager, label guy, all the people who are looking out for him are going to be there. I’m not saying we’re going to babysit him like a little kid, but at the same time we kind of are.

I read the interview you did with Alternative Press, and you later apologized to your old singer Kurt Travis and Jonny on Twitter for some of the comments you made. Given what you said that you’re not always the most positive about the situation, was it difficult for you to rejoin the band and get back into that frame of mind?
First off, that interview was a phone interview, and he relayed what I said in a sort of manner that wasn’t necessarily what I was saying. He asked me why Kurt got kicked out, and there was no real reason. I listed a bunch of reasons and he [the interviewer] picked the one about cigarettes… I said that Will and Matt said that, and then Will and Matt were like, “That’s not necessarily what we said. You spoke for us.” And I was like, “Sorry, I wasn’t trying to speak for you.” Me and Kurt are good friends, so I felt like saying, “Hey man, it came across incorrectly.” It made it look like I was divulging a story that wasn’t my business.

In regards to coming back, I was skeptical. Since I left the band, I reconnected with Jonny. We were skeptical of how the album would go down. We were just thinking, hopefully we’ll get the album recorded and see what happens from there. It wasn’t really a high-risk situation for me, because I could just do the record and if something went wrong, I could just go back to what I was doing before. There wasn’t really a lot to lose.

You mentioned the interviewer misconstrued what you said. Do you think that happens a lot regarding this band?
I think to an extent, yeah, and I think there are things that I said that I might not exactly feel, but I just said them at the time. I think that happens to everyone. It’s half and half. Some things get misconstrued, but that happens. Sometimes we feel optimistic about the situation, sometimes we feel pessimistic. If we were interviewed one day, there might be different responses. I’m not saying we’re bipolar or anything, just normal changes of emotions that people have.

Dance Gavin Dance’s Downtown Battle Mountain II is available now through Rise Records. The band is also currently on a U.S. tour with I Wrestled a Bear Once, In Fear and Faith and others. The tour will bring DGD and company to Ace of Spades in Sacramento on April 8, 2011.

Rocky Votolato prepares for another tour and looks toward writing a new album

It may not be “brain surgery,” but writing is certainly difficult work. Ask any working writer staring at a blank page for countless hours, and they’ll most likely tell you the same. In fact, it may certainly feel like brain surgery, because sometimes forming those words into sentences requires exhausting effort. Singer/songwriter Rocky Votolato has become rather familiar with the ardors of writing over the past decade. First working in bands such as Waxwing and now with his solo career, Votolato has shed blood on the page, crafting bullshit-free lyrics rife with personal meaning.

But Votolato doesn’t come off as overly emotional when you speak with him on the phone, nor does he seem to take himself too seriously. He’s pleasant, a regular working family man–married with two children, one of whom is about to graduate high school and head on to college, which he admitted was a little nerve-racking.

“She’s considering going to an art school–a college for art,” said the Seattle-based musician. “We’ve been looking into scholarships for that, so hopefully it will work out for her.”

Filling out financial aid paperwork is just another thing to add to Votolato’s full plate. In February 2010, he released his most recent full-length album, True Devotion, his first in almost three years. The time between 2007’s The Brag and Cuss and his most recent effort saw Votolato’s lifelong battle with anxiety and depression intensify. However, he was able to work through it. With a renewed sense of vigor, he released his latest album and has spent much of his time since on the road promoting it, playing hundreds of shows. With the distractions and tumult of life on the road, and a busy family life at home, it’s remarkable he’s able to find time to work on his craft at all–considering he, like many writers, prefers solitude while working.

“Writing is a solitary thing,” Votolato said. “If you can’t be alone, then you should never be a writer, because that’s what it’s all about. You have to be comfortable with yourself and your own mind.”

Though he does some writing while touring, Votolato said he prefers to do the bulk of his work at home where there are “creative resources” and he feels he can “fully devote time and attention to the craft of songwriting.” In order to achieve the level of solitude he requires to do his job, Votolato said that he relies on a strong sense of discipline, which is aided by the fact that he has a family.

“You have to be dedicated and disciplined,” he explained. “I get up at 8 every day, and I think the family gives you more structure than most musicians. But anyone who produces work regularly and does good work is usually working all the time and spending a lot of time doing it.”

In a recent conversation with Submerge, Votolato talked about preparing for his upcoming tour, which kicks off Feb. 18, 2011 in Portland. He also waxed eloquent about his writing process, of which he said he was “changing as an artist and figuring out more of what I want from the process of writing and what it takes to get something good out of it.” As it turned out, the plans for his upcoming tour were also in a state of flux.

You’re heading out on the road soon. What are you doing to prepare for this tour? Are you going out with a full band or will you be going out by yourself?
Well, right now that’s still undetermined, which is strange because it’s just a few weeks away, really. But I’m rehearsing and trying out people right now for a band I’m putting together. I haven’t found the right people. I’ve found the right guitar player, who is also going to sing backups, but he’s not available for this tour. He’s going to fly out to Chicago and meet me there, but he won’t be there for the Sacramento show. I’m looking for a drummer. So I could potentially have a drummer for the whole tour if I find the right guy, but I’m probably going to either do the shows for most of the tour as a duo with me and a drummer, or solo if I can’t find the right guy. Then the last eight shows of the tour, I’m going to have my guitar player come out and we’ll finish out the leg.

Is this normally how it comes together, or do you have it more prepared in advance?
I usually have it more prepared, but the thing is, I’ve been touring a lot, so it’s been difficult to figure out rehearsal times. It’s just been my schedule. I did close to 200 shows last year, so I was on tour all year, and I was just playing solo–not really with a band, and I’ve been doing it that way for the last couple of years. It’s kind of a new endeavor to try to find the right guys. Obviously, I’ve played with people in the past off and on, but this time, I’m looking for a more solid band to have go-to guys for hiring for shows and festivals. My vision is I’d like to have a band at some point–or at least have the option if I’d like to do a tour. I would like to do this tour with a band, but I just haven’t found the right guys yet.

You mention that you’re looking for the right guys; is there specific criteria you’re looking for?
It’s kind of like dating. When you meet the right person, you just know it. Music is like, once you start playing with someone, then you know how it feels on the musical side, but then there’s also the personality side, which you just have to be a really good fit. I’m just being really picky. I can go do shows by myself, and that’s fine with me. I’d rather have the right guys instead of dudes who are just filling in. I don’t want to play with just anybody.

You say you want to get together a regular band. Are you looking for guys you can go into the studio with for another record?
Yeah, that’s been the real struggle right now. Last week I tried out three different drummers and this week I’m going to practice with a bunch of dudes from Seattle. I’ve got a band potentially put together for the album, but some of the guys aren’t touring guys. They’re just really pro players here in Seattle, but they’re a little older and have families. It’s a hard mix to figure out exactly who is going to play on the album, but I’m already thinking forward about making another record, so I really want to get that worked out before I go back on tour.

Do you have more songs ready for a new album?
I’ve probably got half a record’s worth of stuff now, but we’ll see where it ends up. I like to keep it tentative at this point, because it’s so hard to know when it’ll be ready, but I’m definitely working toward it. I’m working on the songs now, and I still have another month to go before the tour, which I’m spending writing.

Before you said what you were looking for in the process of writing was changing. At this point, what do you think that is?
There’s this metaphor that this writing teacher talks about, and it’s basically like baking a cake is a good way to think of it. If you put ingredients in, the ingredients are the details of your life, like the eggs and the flour and whatever else you’re putting in there, and the heat is how you feel about those things in your life, and when you put those things together and put them in the oven then it makes the cake. That metaphor is a good way to describe how I’m trying to think about my writing process. The details of my life go into the soup and then it comes out on the other side where it’s not vague… I really see [my songs] as poems, and I want them to be good poems on their own first. At that point, I’m sure when I’m singing them that the lyrics will be good. That’s one thing that’s changed in the process. I’m really serious about wanting the writing itself to be good or better than anything I’ve done before.

For you it’s a twofold process. You write the words and the music. Does one drive you crazy more than the other?
They both equally drive me totally insane [laughs]. The writing does the writing. It does itself when it works. You just have to keep trying. Some days, I can write a piece of music and it just comes out, and, “Oh that took 10 minutes. That’s awesome.” The next day I’m playing guitar for four hours, and I still don’t have anything I like. It’s the same with the lyrics, or writing poems. I think the thing is to keep trying and keep the flow going and try to keep the internal critic from speaking up too much. [The voice that] says, “Oh, what is so and so going to say about that? Oh that sucks,” because I think we all have that going on too. I think that everyone who is trying to be a working artist is dealing with that. So it’s all about getting creative and finding ways to break through that. It’s a struggle, man. I’d be lying to you if I told you it’s easy for me. Just because I’ve been doing it for a living and have been doing it for 10 years, I don’t think it ever becomes easy. It’s a serious political act to be honest. So few people are.

Do you ever get squeamish about the details you reveal about your own life in songs?
No, only if I haven’t done a good enough job, I feel, as a writer. You can present anything in a way that’s creative and artistic if you do it with enough skill and craft and the right inspiration. Obviously, I feel like I’ve had some successes and some failures artistically, but they’re all successes in a certain sense because it’s a learning process… We’ll see where it ends up. I’m enjoying it. I’d rather be doing this than anything else. I know that.

See Rocky Votolato when he plays Harlow’s along with Laura Gibson on Feb. 21. Showtime is 7:30 p.m. and tickets cost $12.

One of Sacramento’s most talented songstresses, Ricky Berger, is working on her second album in San Antonio, Texas, alongside one hell-of-a producer in Gordon Raphael (The Strokes, Regina Spektor). “The scene here has been exploding as of late in all genres of music,” Berger told Submerge of San Antonio. “I’m going to be recording 11 new, original songs. I have a thing about the number 11.” After a week-and-a-half or so of tracking, she’ll head out on a three-month U.S. tour with best friend and equally talented Adrian Bourgeois. Berger said that for the last six months or so she’s been “holed up in my bedroom with my laptop, working out the musical arrangements.” Of her new record, she said this: “With my sophomore album, I aim to make a dynamic and tender, romantically fantastic sonic reflection of my personal life.” She does have a title picked out for the new record, but wasn’t ready to divulge it just yet. “Shh, it’s a secret!” she said.

Cake’s Showroom of Compassion feels for you
Words by Adam Saake | Photo by Robert Knight

Longevity in the music industry has long been an admirable quality when we discuss a band and their merits. Not every musician can be Bob Dylan and few bands can be The Rolling Stones, who just won’t seem to go away. Flashes in the pan are the vast majority and that’s if you’re lucky. At least you have some good stories of what it was like, and maybe, if you had a catchy single, an immortal slot on the alternative radio rotation. The rock star talent that Sacramento has produced (yes, I’m listing them again)–Deftones, Tesla, Jackie Greene and even Far who managed a comeback–have all had pretty steady careers throughout the years. They all continue to put out records, tour on a regular basis and find support in a market that perpetually seems on the verge of collapse. Nobody buys music anymore, right? Cake’s John McCrea has his fingers crossed that that’s not the case.

McCrea joined Submerge via telephone from his home in Oakland, where he lives while the band isn’t recording in Sacramento.

Your press release says that you and the band had much more to do with the recording and engineering of the new record. What was the best thing that came out of that experience, besides a great new record?
I think it took forever doing it that way. We’ve always produced our own albums ourselves, which takes a long time. But also, we’ve increasingly been turning the knobs ourselves. I think we might be getting better at producing, which is hopefully the case. The best thing to come out of it is a sense of ownership and a sense of responsibility for what we’ve done. We don’t feel like anyone’s handed us anything. We never have. Even when we went to studios we were very hands-on. I guess early on we didn’t find people who really understood what we wanted to do, because what we wanted to do was very antithetical to what was going on at the time in the mid-‘90s when there was a lot of grunge. The production values were
very bombastic.

It seems like not a lot of people would want to take a chance with that because if they felt it wasn’t going to be successful then they wouldn’t touch it.
Certainly that was the case with record companies but also with producers. We didn’t know of a producer that was doing anything similar to what we wanted to do. In other words, no one was crazy enough to make stuff sound dinky. You know, during a period when everything was sounding very grandiose. We really thought that in a country like the United States, how rebellious is it to sound “big?” How subversive is creating the aural equivalent of deforestation? In a lot of ways it seemed like business as usual. So we thought, in the United States, to turn the volume down would probably be more scary and more subversive than turning it up. Not to say that all music that’s loud is bad; it’s just that we were tired of it at that point. It seemed like people were getting louder and louder. We freaked people out by turning the volume down. People used to yell at us to turn it up.

I see that you, Vincent [DiFiore] and Xan [McCurdy] all played keyboard or synthesizer on Showroom of Compassion. Was it very intentional to incorporate more of that sound into the songs?
Um…well I did allow something on this album that I hadn’t allowed ever before, which was acoustic piano. I always avoided it, because I thought it sounded too classy for us. There’s something really classy about acoustic piano, and I thought that’s not what we’re really about. But with this album, I found this old junker up in Portland [Ore.] and shipped it down here. I think it sounds crappy enough to be on our album, and it doesn’t sound like the good life or anything. As far as the other keyboards, the Nord and other stuff, we used quite a bit of keyboard on Pressure Chief–actually more, maybe, than this album. But certainly we used more keyboard on this album than we did on, say, our first album or our second album.

Over the past two-and-a-half years of writing the record, really taking your time, have you discovered that you like a slower pace of writing?
It wasn’t the writing that took a long time, it was the recording process that took a long time. We reconfigured our studio and put solar panels on the roof. We also did the same thing with reinventing our business from the ground up. We had to set up channels of distribution. We had to ask ourselves, what’s going to work now? Certainly we realized that the major-label music business structure wasn’t right for us. For one thing, it’s too expensive. If a really good percentage of people have decided that recorded music should be free, it’s no longer sustainable to have a bunch of record company suits eating out every night on our dime. We wanted to get ourselves away from that. I think we had to re-evaluate and take some time off to think and decide how we wanted to do it and whether there were still enough people to support us. The sales for recorded music have declined precipitously in the last 10 years. We wanted to economize and make sure that we could still pay our bills. By having our own record label, it helped quite a bit. Five or 10 years from now, who knows? There might be a whole different system. It would be nice if there was a different system–a way for musicians to have health insurance.

You’re an outspoken guy when it comes to issues that are important to you, yet your lyrics don’t seem too over the top. Is there a method to your madness when you sit down to write lyrics?
I don’t really sit down to write lyrics. I’m sort of writing lyrics all the time. I’ve had this notebook in my back pocket since I was a kid. I just sort of take notes about things that I find interesting or disturbing or upsetting. Then eventually I sit down and put all these little pieces of paper into songs and that’s my process. I wouldn’t say there’s that much singular intentionality to it. I think it’s a lot of different agendas I have. I do try not to be overly obvious with the songwriting. I describe the way things feel or smell or look rather than telling people exactly what I think. I think also there’s something to be said for a song being somewhat multi-purpose. For instance the song “Sick of You” I think can be looked at more specifically to be about a relationship between two people and it can also, I think, in a broader way be about general societal mood nowadays.

Photo by Teppei

You guys have been known to play secret shows here and there. I know there’s been a few at the Blue Lamp, Old Ironsides and I remember some at the old Capitol Garage too. Is that something that you do for the Sacramento fans? Is it to warm up a new live set before you hit bigger venues? Both?
Yeah, it serves both purposes. It’s hard to figure out what you want to do live without actually playing live. It’s also a thank you to Sacramento for supporting us all these years. And it’s also for our listeners who have signed our mailing list, because without a record company we really depend on the direct connection to our listeners. If it’s the only way for people to find out about those shows by signing the mailing list, then I think it’s a good incentive. It’s a good way for us to stay in touch with people and a good reason for people to want us to stay in touch with them.

When did the whole idea of giving away trees at your shows, the Cake Forest, begin and what prompted that?
I planted a tree in Sacramento in front of one of my apartments where I lived a long time ago. I put it in the median between the sidewalk and the street. It was about as tall as my chest, I imagine. Things happened in my life, I moved away and the band started doing well, and I started being away from home all the time. I forgot about the tree.

Years passed and I went back to it and, oh my god, it was way up there. It’s a profound physical reiteration of the passage of time. That’s really what trees are all about. And I just thought; wow this was a great experience that I had. Being able to plant a tree and come back years later to see what was going on with it. I thought, everybody should have that experience. Everybody should try to plant at least one tree in their whole life. As the tree gets bigger and stronger, you get older and die. I thought, wow we could make a deal with people that if we give them the tree they have to send photographs of themselves standing next to the trees and keep us posted on how the tree’s doing. Even if it dies, people are supposed to send us a photograph and we put it up on our site.

Have you gotten a lot flack for using Cake’s website as a place to educate and discuss the global and local issues that are important to you and the band?
Oh yeah. It’s almost not even worth it to say anything on our website anymore. People just freak out! I feel like some people must be paid operatives from the Heritage Foundation or something. Just freaking out. I think they want to shut us down. I don’t find websites of bands very interesting. I think it’s kind of unhealthy just to focus only on the people and the band. I think it’s better to talk about subjects. Our music is about subjects, and I feel like we shouldn’t be barred from discussing subjects on our website.

Cake’s Showroom of Compassion will be in stores Jan. 11, 2011. If you do still buy albums, this will be a good one for you to get. If you’d like to sign up for Cake’s e-mail newsletter, go to www.cakemusic.com/news and click the link on the top left of the page.

Wavves gets back on track with new album

Wavves’ frontman Nathan Williams may very well be the poster child for what it means to be famous in the blog generation. In 2009, Williams came out of nowhere to become the blogosphere’s newest wunderkind. His second album in two years, Wavvves, powered by the ecstatically apathetic single “So Bored,” propelled Williams into bona fide Internet fame. In the year that followed, Williams stoked those flames, whether he wanted to or not, with erratic behavior an inter-band feud with The Black Lips and most infamously, a meltdown at the Primavera Sound Festival in Spain (which we were kindly asked not to talk about–but really, if you haven’t heard enough about it already, you’re probably not that cool). What started as some fuzzed-out psych pop home recordings had blown up big–like Tay Zonday big. Now after clumsily negotiating in record time every trap set to befall the person lucky (or unlucky, as the case may be) enough to be tagged with the “next big thing” moniker, Williams, with another Wavves album already in tow, is ready to put the focus back on his music.

Submerge caught up with Williams first in his car, then at home, where he was making guacamole. There were some stops and starts throughout the interview. First, after rescheduling, understandably, so Williams wouldn’t have to talk and drive, we called back only to have our phone call answered by “Will,” who turned out to be Wavves’ new full-time drummer Billy Hayes.

“They don’t want to talk to me,” he says, trying to get Williams to take the phone. “They don’t want to talk to the drummer.”

Eventually, Williams granted our interview request, passing off to Wavves’ new full-time bassist Stephen Pope once, and answering call waiting to push back another interview.

At least this time around, Williams is busy answering questions about his music and not his antics. Released on Aug. 3, King of the Beach takes Williams out of the bedroom and into the studio. The album was recorded in Oxford, Miss., at Sweet Tea Recording under the guidance of producer Dennis Herring. A Grammy-winning producer for his work on Jars of Clay’s If I Left the Zoo, Herring has also worked with Counting Crows, Mutemath and Modest Mouse. Certainly, this would be a step up for Williams, who had recorded the past two Wavves albums himself on his laptop. Williams says he was happy to graduate into a proper studio and relinquish a small amount of control over his recordings.

“It was a little bit weird at first, but I’m not a producer,” he says. “I did it out of means when I was doing my earlier stuff, but I sat there throughout the mixing process every single day that Dennis did, so I didn’t have to hand too much over.”

Williams says that relocating out to Oxford–a far cry from Los Angeles–was also helpful in allowing him to focus on recording.

“There wasn’t much to do,” he says. “The city center just had a couple of stores, so most of the time we were just concentrating on making the record.

“When bars close at 10, and you don’t get out of the studio until 12…it’s a little hard to party.”

The additions of Pope and Hayes also had a significant impact on the album. More than just players on a couple songs, Wavves’ two new members also contributed their own songs. Williams met up with Pope and Hayes shortly after that fateful performance at Primavera Sound, which left Williams without a live drummer. Pope and Hayes joined Williams as his touring band at the end of 2009 and had played together previously as Jay Reatard’s backing band. Reatard passed away in January due to cocaine-related causes.

In a recent story, SPIN reported that Fat Possum, Wavves’ record label, lobbied for Pope and Hayes to be replaced on the album, but Williams stepped in and insisted they stay on board.

“I don’t know if that was Dennis or the label,” says Pope. “One of the people who we can’t speak of wanted another person who we can’t speak of who is very famous and costs a lot of money to come in and play drums. And then that NW [Nathan Williams] character said no, that would have been a really bad idea.”

Pope says that this modicum of tumult didn’t get him down.

“There wasn’t really anything I could do, and we got really high enough every day that I really didn’t think of it that much,” he explains. “Whatever was going to happen was going to happen.”

Pope and Hayes stayed on and made solid contributions. Pope says Hayes brought two songs he’d written–“Baby Say Goodbye” and “Convertible Balloon”–while Pope brought along “Linus Spacehead,” one of the album’s more infectious tracks. This was a different experience from their work with Reatard, who pretty much handled everything.

“Jay did everything himself, except for a few songs on the newest album,” he says. “Billy played some drums. Other than that, Jay did everything himself. We changed up the live show and were able to play what we wanted then.”

Pope says of the songs he and Hayes contributed, “They weren’t really intended for anything. They were easy to Wavves-ify and make it sound like the rest of the album.”

Armed with better tools and new players, King of the Beach still sounds very much like a Wavves record, except without much of the fuzz. Titles such as “Super Soaker,” “Baseball Cards” and “Mickey Mouse” put a carefree façade on songs that can be downright misanthropic. But it’s not all angst-riddled bile–King of the Beach has its sun-shiny moments, such as its title track. As tongue-in-cheek as it may be, it’s still pretty darn cheerful. Its defiant chorus, “You’re never going to stop me/You’re never going to stop/King of the Beach,” is goofy-smile shout-along ready.

“It’s kind of like a posi-core song, isn’t it? It’s really positive,” Williams muses. “I think ‘Take on the World’ has the same vibe. I don’t know. I wrote them both around the same time, and I guess that was just the shit I was on right then–trying to be positive for these young kids! Tell them what’s up!”

Sarcastic or not, Williams has plenty to be positive about. He is, after all, young and “playing music…and making a living doing it.” Whatever petulance he’s displayed early on in his career may fade with time. In any case, Williams reports that he’s already been in the studio with Pope and Hayes and says he may start working on another album later this year. Also, he’s recorded music with Hella’s Zach Hill, which has yet to be released.

“There’s like a six-month wait after this album is out before I can release anything else, and then I’m out of contract,” Williams says of his recordings with Hill. “Hopefully end of the year or something like that.”

With plenty more music on the way, Williams can finally put the meltdowns and fistfights behind him. Plus, the good thing about the blog generation is that it’s got a short memory.

Gift of Gab at Home in the Unknown

It is hard to believe it’s been nearly 20 years since rapper Gift of Gab and DJ/producer Chief Xcel formed Blackalicious within the walls of Kennedy High School and later went on to form Soulsides Records after meeting DJ Shadow at Davis’ KDVS. That was 1992. Times have changed, but one ideal remains true: testing Gift of Gab on the mic will put MCs in trouble.

Soon the prolific wordsmith will be over the hill, and 2012 will be Blackalicious’s 20th year in hip-hop. “Hip-hop has grown up. Most of the dopest rappers on the planet, in my opinion, are over 30. If you never stop loving what you do and doing it with a passion, you can’t outgrow it. Unless you get caught into that box.”

Next week the self-proclaimed El Gifto Magnifico will release his second solo record away from Chief Xcel, entitled Escape 2 Mars. Furthermore, Gab says he has already finished his next album.

“I feel like I haven’t done half of the music I’m going to do yet,” he said. “It’s all about busting myths. Twenty years ago, you’d probably think you can’t rap at the age of 30. This is something you do when you’re a teenager.”

An important transition in Gab’s career is staying out of the dreaded box, but he seems content with his situation. He has been on both sides of the fence and has truly discovered which side has the greener grass. Although MCA folded beneath Blackalicious’ only major label record, he remains grounded in independent music. Gab started his own distribution company three years ago called Giftstribution releasing two mixtapes and a Mighty Underdogs EP. “Sometimes a big machine like that is needed to get to those outlets that may be more political based than culturally or artistically based,” he said.

Free to create, Gab is releasing Escape 2 Mars this week through Giftstribution. The title and Mayan calendar apocalypse artwork might be cause for alarm that Gift of Gab is buying into the end of the world theories. The imagery is not meant to be a direct translation, though, and he’s not suggesting he’s got reservations booked on the first alien spacecraft out of here come 2012. “I’m not promoting 2012 in any way,” he began, but then backtracked, “Well, I am subtly, but to say I believe in it would be going too far. It’s just interesting information.”

Intriguing information is the motivation behind the songwriting for Gift of Gab’s record. Gab weighs in as an environmentalist with songs like the title track and “Electric Waterfalls.” The escape to Mars for Gab is less of a prophecy and more of a result should we not take care of what’s left. “I’ve seen a couple movies and read some information, so it was something that was in my mind at the time I wrote some particular songs,” Gab explains.

Production is primarily handled by DNAE Beats with fellow Bay Area producer and Headnodic behind the boards for a few beats as well. DNAE Beats is heavily influenced by electronic music, giving his laser synth beats a futuristic bounce. Gift of Gab hooking up with DNAE Beats for his electronic style is all part of Gab’s predilection for forward thinking. As we speak on the phone, he relates on several occasions that with each record he has the responsibility to “lyrically explore new styles.” With such province comes a necessity to challenge his sonic surroundings in order to escape convention.

Prior to going into the studio to work on Escape 2 Mars, Gift of Gab, performing as Blackalicious, did several shows with San Francisco dance DJs Bassnectar. For Gab, these shows were an eye opening experience that took him back to his younger days as a shorty on the hip-hop scene. “In a lot of ways this is the new hip-hop, because it’s so underground,” he said regarding his experience with Bass Nectar. “It’s still kind of pure and hasn’t been commercialized. The energy of the crowd is that of a hip-hop crowd… on a little more ecstasy though.”

As we chatted on the phone, Gab asked for my honest opinion of his album, assuring me he would be cheating himself to not hear me out. It was a rare moment, as we discussed the lack of introspective songs on the record, an element I have always respected, and his necessity to challenge preconception. “I’m aware that people listen to me for those songs on personal growth and look to me for that,” he said. “But if I set down [to write] and thought, ‘I have to write songs like these because this is what people expect me to do,’ I can’t be free.”

In preparing for the interview, I had my reservations about Escape 2 Mars. It took me a while to appreciate “Cliffhanger” off NIA, but the frigid synths on his latest solo left me in the dead of space seeking the soulful side of Gab. The dual producers do lend opportunity to hear him in familiar territory. Listening to the leaked single “Dreamin’,” which features Del the Funky Homosapien and Brother Ali lessened my criticism, but I questioned the two formats clashing. Gab did not share my concern, chalking it up as an expression of working the angles. “In my mind it’s a full body of work with different elements and angles to it,” he said. “With every record I’m trying to go into ground that hasn’t been charted, or if it has been charted, I’m trying to chop it up in a new way.”

See Gift of Gab on The Deadliest Catch Tour with Chali 2na, Mr. Lif and Lyrics Born on Nov. 23, 8 p.m. at Harlow’s.

Autumn Sky Charms Fans With Her Upcoming Album

Whether crooning about a budding romance or a broken heart, Autumn Sky’s sparkling melodies resonate long after the final notes die down. Like an intimate conversation, Sky’s confessional narratives are blended with twinkling instrumentals. Her music leaves you with a warm feeling—like reading a book on a rainy day. Most of her songs sparkle with hopefulness and celebration, but there is also the occasional haunting gray lullaby.

Surprisingly, this precocious singer/songwriter is just 20 years old. “I do things early. I don’t really wait around for everyone else,” Sky explains. “I’m not going to be one of those people who sits back and regrets wasting my life on drinking and partying in college.” But, she is looking forward to turning 21 in October—most of the venues she plays are 21-and-over, which means she has to leave the building the second she finishes her set.

Music was something Sky fell into naturally. She already had the name—her first name is actually Autumn, and Sky is her middle name—and she was born into a musical family. “My family is very big and my mom is very musical and she always had us learning instruments or singing,” Sky says. “We were just constantly surrounded by it.”

Being part of a musical family meant early exposure to various instruments, such as the piano at age 6 and the violin at age 12. She had a guitar as a teenager, but admits that it just sat around in her room because she wasn’t motivated enough to learn how to play. “I wanted to go do cool things, and learn the guitar was not one of them. Until it got cool to play guitar, it just sat in my room and looked pretty, like a prop.” Then came the deciding factor: boys. “I went to summer camp and all the cute boys played guitar,” she laughs. “There was a talent show and I was like, I’d better learn a song or something.”

Being home-schooled and graduating at age 17 left Sky with lots of time to spend on herself and figuring out what she wanted to do. “I ended up getting into the scene pretty early on because I had extra time and there wasn’t anything else to do. I had my driver’s license and I had a guitar,” she says.

Like other budding musicians in the Sacramento area, Sky started out playing at local coffee shops and open mic nights and worked her way up to paying gigs. She used to play as many as five nights a week, until someone told her, “slow down, you’re going to kill yourself. You’re not even 20 yet.” Now, she’s discovered that by playing less shows per month in the Sacramento area, she gets a better turnout and a better crowd with much more energy. It also allows her more time for touring and playing in other cities.

Attend one of Sky’s shows and expect a diverse mix of instruments and sounds. Many call her eclectic, to which she modestly responds, “I think I just don’t make up my mind.”

Her shows generally include two to three instruments—usually the guitar, the ukulele and the autoharp. Also in her musical repertoire are piano, organ, tambourine, drums, flute, recorder, accordion and classical violin.

Her sets differ from night to night. “Depending on what the mood is in the set, I’ll be like, ‘well we could use something light and airy.’ So we’ll throw in a ukulele song.” This gives her a lot of control and flexibility, and also ensures that she doesn’t get tired of her sets.

Even though Sky uses a wide array of instruments and writes songs in many different styles, she still strives to create a signature sound. While she is constantly experimenting with the songs she writes at home, these may not make it into her sets. Like some of her favorite musicians—think Regina Spektor and M. Ward—her “sound” has a simple and folk-like appeal. “I really appreciate just plain old stripped-down acoustic songs,” she says. “I really love careful finger-picking and light, jingly sounds accompanying.”

An avid reader, Sky places a lot of emphasis on her lyrics, which are often narratives. “The music I tend to write always tends to be slightly upbeat and happier, hopeful or celebratory. Or at the very least, with a message of goodwill at the end of a very sad song.” Above all, she writes about love in its many forms.

Sky’s EP, Diminutive Petite, was released this past November. The title refers to a line from the Madeline theme song: “She may be teeny-tiny, diminutive petite, but that has never stopped her from being pretty neat.” Her full-length album comes out on April 24, 2009 and is called All Which Isn’t Singing. The title is from the ee cummings poem, “all which isn’t singing is mere talking.”

Someday, she thinks it would be nice to be backed by a band, but for now she is content working as a solo act. “Until you get signed it’s really not practical to go out and hire all these musicians. Unless I’m making enough money to give it back to the musicians, it’s not really worth their while.”

School is still on the back burner, and includes plans to study child development and music therapy. Her little brothers are autistic, and she wants to specialize in autism. But at the moment, music is her main focus. In her optimistic way, she says simply, “I’ve been really blessed lately.”