(by George Pacheco)
(photography by Chris CB)
You read the piece in the September issue as part of our Ladies Of Loudness special feature, now witness the unabridged Q&A session with Made Out Of Babies vocalist Julie Christmas and guitarist Brendan Tobin!
So how does New York treat you guys? Is it difficult to impress people who’ve seen everything?
BRENDAN TOBIN (guitar): I feel like its harder in New York, especially for a New York band, because people are so jaded there that if they’re going to go out and see anything or support anything, it has to be something they can’t get at home. They’re in the city that has everything, so that’s rare.
JULIE CHRISTMAS (vocals): I don’t know if it’s a matter of people being jaded, but you can’t walk down the street in New York without seeing fifty new things. There’s always like fifteen different shows happening a night, that people who are into heavy music would like to go check out. There’s just a lot of fierce competition happening.
Particularly with heavier music suddenly becoming “hip”, what do you make of the increased attention being paid to some of this stuff? People from all walks of life are being exposed to the underground via some pretty big name coverage.
JC: If we’re fifteen years behind the last original band, then we’re right on target to be co-opted and sold for whatever can be had at the local Urban Outfitters. It just seems the way of all culture: anything that’s underground eventually gets taken and sold to the mass market. It gets taken, polished, and put on the shelf.
What struck me most was the emotional pull of this record. It goes in so many different ways, but it always comes back to this cohesion, to this core. It sounds like everyone in the band is totally fucking going for it. It balances the abstract and the heavy. Do you look back at all during songwriting, or is it always about pushing things forward?
JC: For me, you learn moving forward by doing different things, so it’s almost hard to listen to those albums now. It’s not that I don’t like them, or that I don’t think there’s a lot of raw, valuable stuff on there. I just think that it takes a little for people to get used to each other; we’ve sort of grown into a working relationship with each other, and enough so that with this last album we tried to make the process of creating music in a drastically different way, and really tried to think about what we wanted to go. This last one definitely had the most time and effort put into it, by far. I look back on the last ones, and I like them, but it’s sort of how albums are compared to years in high school: it’s like looking back on your freshman year when you’re a junior. It’s not necessarily bad; it’s just not where you are now. What we’re expressing in this album is something we’ve grown into and worked for pretty hard.
BT: I feel like the first couple records all the songs were about expressing a certain kind of impulse, where the whole band was kind of shooting for the same things at once, but on this record we sort of dug into all the different things we’re into at once.
How difficult is it to lay down what’s in your head, especially with all the layering? How difficult is it to get it all down in the studio?
BT: We had a lot more freedom this time, because we have our own studio this time around, so we kind of had this kind of freedom to be able to add stuff. I actually think the most difficult thing for us was figuring out when to STOP. I think that’s the pitfall of working in a studio, and having unlimited time and access with it. Plus, the guy we worked with recording it, Andrew Schneider, really was so into it, and put in so much of his time, that he didn’t limit us, either.
JC: How you were describing the album; that’s how I liken responding to all the layering, because in the music there’s so much stuff happening in each song, but it DOES always come back to the same thing, just like you were explaining what you heard as a listener. There were some parts edited length-wise when I came in with the vocals, but primarily the songs were written by the time I started to listen and create the layers and the song sounds vocally. I sort of respond to the music as a singer in the same way you do as a listener. I guess that’s the job of a singer in a band; to sort of be the audience of the music.
The end result is still noisy and loud, however. Was important to have a tighter song structure within this, however? This record actually has a lot of hooks, I thought. Did these just happen naturally?
JC: I think it seemed to all happen extremely naturally. We had as many fights as ever about the music, but we definitely gelled on a big portion of it. A lot of it was that kind of stuff, too; where specifically the song should go, and how to use each instrument to maximize the emotional response.
Julie, much has been made of your vocal acrobatics and live performance. How much of it is emotional catharsis and how much of it is performance art? Is it emotional release all the time, for you?
JC: 100 percent of the time. (laughs) I would say it is emotional release 100 percent of the time. I think a little bit about how it is to be on stage the same way its Brendan’s job to tune his guitar properly or Matthew’s job to do…whatever he does back there with the drums! (laughs) However, when the music starts and I’m on stage…that is IT. There aren’t really any other thoughts at all. It’s very instinct-driven, and I completely forget where I am most of the time. So I’d say its emotional catharsis 100 percent of the time, which sometimes makes going on stage very difficult, because I know it’s going to be something that’s HARD to do.
So, do you guys have any rituals that you do before taking that stage, then?
BT: Mine is basically to go to the bathroom a bunch of times, try not to talk to people, and drink two red bulls.
JC: Usually before I go on I always warm up, so I sort of end up doing laps around the club, which has turned out to be NOT a smart thing to do in a couple of places, so I carry a small weapon with me at some times when I go out now! I also usually spend some time singing directly to a wall, which has occasionally received some odd looks, then of course I drink a bunch of shit, and then I go.
Was there any specific intention to go out and do something different from Coward?
BT: Absolutely, for me.
JC: For all of us, I think we wanted to experiment and see what we could do with this album. We knew we had the foundation there, and we just decided that the only constraint was that we WEREN’T going to allow any rules. There are things mixed in there that are “painfully pretty”, I’ve heard Brendan say the other day. Just like there are things that appear in there BECAUSE that we decided that we were just going to do what we wanted to do.
BT: It was more based on whether it just sounded RIGHT, rather than avoiding something just because it might sound too “poppy” or “pretty”.
Julie, how did your experiences with Battle Of Mice [a collaboration with ex-Red Sparowes guitarist/ex-boyfriend Josh Graham] affect you lyrically and emotionally with how you returned to approach Made Out Of Babies?
JC: I got a lot from doing the Battle Of Mice album, but the one thing I decided to keep from all the experiences I had was trying things with a slower tempo at different points, and everyone was really receptive to that idea. It allowed me to experiment a lot with the vocals in a lot of different ways which I wasn’t able to on Coward and Trophy.
BT: I think if you listen to the music now, it’s still very DENSE; there’s lots going on all the time, but there’s a lot more space, as well. It’s roomier.
Lyrically, I hear lots of things…anger, feeling bitter and then some, yet a strange calmness, as well. Is there any tying lyrical theme?
JC: No. I think I treat every song almost as a chapter in a story book, with each taken from the perspective of a different character. It frees me up to occupy a lot of different things, rather than having to express my own views on things, which I don’t think anybody cares really about.
BT: You know, its funny how you mention you hear anger, because one of the discussions Julie and I had before she did vocals on even one of the songs was about how she wasn’t sure how to approach it, cause she wasn’t this ANGRY all the time.
JC: It’s true. It takes a lot of energy, and I got it. I fuckin’ have it, but it takes a lot to be so furious that you are SHAKING, and that’s what it took. For example, on the last song, “How To Get Bigger”-oh MAN! There are some points where I was singing at the end of some of the verses where I nearly fuckin blacked out! I was shaking so hard with anger, and screaming….Really, when you feel you have a responsibility to people who listen to your music, and to yourself and your band members to really “wear the part”…you DO it, but it takes a big toll. Also, I don’t want to be one of those people who does something like that to the exclusion of other things of other things that are amazing to express, like hopefulness, passion, or love, or anything like that. I feel all those
You guys also seem to focus song order a lot more than most bands.
JC: Yeah, we definitely go over that a LOT. You should see some of those conversations! Everybody has a different order, then we fight; somebody gives up, a few things get thrown. It’s like an idiot fest when we have to do the song order, because everybody has songs which they think should be first, third, and last, and only a few times has it worked out where there’s a consensus…but everybody agreed that “Cooker” should be first!
BT: What made ME want to put that song first on the record was this whole thing where I wanted to write a record whether anyone-whether they’ve heard us or not, but ESPECIALLY if they’ve heard us before—as soon as they start it, they just tilt their head like a dog, and go, “huh?” I think a song like “Cooker”, with that pitch-shifted vocal effect, does the trick.
JC: As soon as I heard that song, I knew exactly how to do it right away. In fact, what you hear on the album is pretty much what I did the first time. Brendan and I were playing around with that vocal effect just for that one part even before the rest of the vocals were written, and I think we both just knew that it had to be something totally twisted like that.
So how would you describe your relationship with you audience, then?
JC: My relationship with audience—whether they know it or not—for ME, is extremely personal. Like close, almost in a dirty, nasty kind of way. I don’t mean sexual, either. It’s sort of like I want to be with them when I’m on stage in some way, and express all these things that I think other people feel besides myself. All of the bad things, like hopelessness, despair, but also some kind of perseverance stubbornness. I feel like I want everyone to know. I look at the audience; I know who they are, and I try to make sure THEY know I’m watching THEM. I remember people from every show; people come up and give me things, and it means a great deal. I feel privileged to be in front of people like that, and I think the rest of the band does to, so I pay attention to it. So playing live shows, even though it takes a great deal, is a very powerful thing.
