White Rabbits: TAS In Session
Brooklyn's White Rabbits owe an undeniable debt to Spoon; Britt Daniel produced the group's 2009 album It's Frightening and for its latest effort, Milk Famous, White Rabbits recruited Spoon producer Mike McCarthy.
Yet Milk Famous, the band's third release, veers off into uniquely White Rabbits territory as the sextet spoons with its own formula of bold, percussive assaults, buoyant guitar riffs and synth-swept storms on tracks like "Heavy Metal" and "Temporary." Notably, frontman Stephen Patterson has even cited Beyoncé as one the the inspirations for the bristling dance rock that rattles through most of Milk Famous' 11 tracks.
On Sunday, White Rabbits played L.A.'s Hudson Block Party and they've got Lollapalooza and a few other festivals set for this summer. Prior to their European tour this spring, the band — Patterson, guitarist Gregory Roberts, guitarist Alex Even, bassist Rustine Bragaw and drummers Matt Clark and Jamie Levinson — visited the Bronx wonderland of The Alternate Side's Studio A.
Listen to the White Rabbits in session on TAS on 91.5 WNYE this Friday, May 25 at 11 a.m. EDT (and streaming on the TAS website), but below, check out interview highlights and exclusive videos of the White Rabbits' riveting set:
Alisa: The last time you guys came to [Studio A] was back in 2009 when you were promoting your last album, It’s Frightening. That was a great record. It felt like you were touring a lot in these last three years.
Stephen Patterson: Yeah, we never tour a bit. We’ve been spending the last few years touring. We took a year off to write and record our latest record.
Alisa: Because you toured so heavily behind It’s Frightening, does that mean you’re a little bit sick of those songs?
Stephen: No, we still play the ones that we like.
Alisa: And the ones you don’t?
Stephen: We don’t play them anymore.
Alisa: Might I ask the ones you don’t favor?
Stephen: How about the ones I do favor? In the set we’ve playing “Percussion Gun” and “Rudy Fails.” “Lionesse” is always a fun one to play live.
Alisa: What does the title, Milk Famous, mean?
Stephen: I don’t know. What do you think it means?
Alisa: I don’t know. Milk has a generic flavor.
Stephen: Much like White Rabbits.
Alisa: There’s gotta be a story.
Stephen: We were attracted to it because it was so perfectly weird. But it sounded kind of nice. Both [milk and famous] alone aren’t that great, but when you put them together, it’s magical. We all have our own interpretations, I suppose.
[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puZ13-W-dl4]
Alisa: There’s a weird, nervous energy going on throughout this record. What you make of that?
Stephen: I’m worried about you, that’s my reaction (laughs). I guess that sort of nervousness is something that’s been in our music, or so I’ve been told, since the very beginning.
Alisa: I feel you guys are getting darker and darker, though.
Stephen: Really? We’re so happy!
Alisa: Someone in the band [just said] “cool” and someone [said], “it’s a pink record.”
Stephen: Yeah, it’s not dark, it’s pink.
Alisa: It’s definitely not light-hearted.
Stephen: There are songs that are a bit darker. A song like “Everyone Can’t Be Confused” or “I’m Not Me,” “The Day You Won the War” or “I Had It Coming” — half the record right there — those are feel pretty sunny. But maybe I just don’t see the sun enough.
Alisa: So what about the lyric writing? Does that come easier for you than the music arrangement?
Stephen: Lyrics came a lot easier this time around than on our previous records, I’d say. It’s always kind of been a part of the process that, for myself, I never felt I had any sort of understanding. I feel like I understand a lot more of what I’m doing whenever the music is involved. When we approach lyrics, a lot of the time it’s improvised. It’s very hard for me to sit down and say, “I am inspired by this and I’m going to write a song about it.” It’s a lot easier if we’re just jamming.
Alisa: Stream-of-consciousness.
Stephen: Yeah. [On this album] I don’t know why it was easier. I guess the more you do it, the easier it gets.
Alisa: Of the songs you’ve written, lyrically which one are you most proud of?
Stephen: I’m really proud of the last song on the record called “I Had It Coming.” I’m really proud of the first song, “Heavy Metal.” But we’re going to play “Temporary” next. “Temporary” was a song that was written very quickly, [both] the chords and lyrics. But we knew we didn’t want the arrangement to be a straight-up rock band thing. So that took about six months, to get to something that we were really excited about. It was recorded in about eight different locations: Portland, L.A., Austin, my bedroom in Brooklyn and the rehearsal space in Brooklyn. This is a good example [of a song] in which the arrangement took a lot longer than the lyrics.
[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzIlRFYSPGU]
Alisa: I saw the video to ["Temporary"]. It’s pretty cool, but I really like the video for “Heavy Metal.” Outstandingly creepy. Talk to me about your thoughts on music videos. Do you put much importance on them?
Stephen: I like them. They’re great whenever there are certain things that can’t be conveyed simply through the music; a feeling you’re trying to get out there, but the music doesn’t always accomplish that. As a musician, that’s an exciting part of the process. I think the video for “Heavy Metal” totally does that. That video was exciting for us because we weren’t involved with it.
The director is the same director who did the video for “Percussion Gun” — Andrew Droz Palermo — and he also did the video for “Temporary.” We’ve always worked closely with him at the beginning of the process, but with the video for “Heavy Metal” we told him to do whatever he was thinking would be cool. That was really exciting when he finally sent it to us. It was very unexpected, but worked so perfectly well.
Alisa: Do you take inspiration from film or random imagery?
Stephen: Yes. It’s kind of a fun practice to write music to a film with the sound down.
Alisa: Did you do that for any of the songs [on Milk Famous]?
Stephen: None that succeeded. We were really inspired by Barney Bubbles, a visual artist who did a lot for the Stiff Records label. He did a lot of work for Elvis Costello and Devo. A lot of the inspiration for the visuals on this record were inspired by him.
[video:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3PLwc0Yids]
