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the Faint
by Whitney Weiss
The Faint's songs of death and destruction that
you can dance to bowled Movement's staff over so much that we put them
on our cover in January 2002 and declared them the first "must hear"
band of the 21st century. Now that Saddle Creek's turning into the
next Sub Pop, The Faint are getting that recognition they so deserve.
Amidst the upcoming release of a remix album and a hectic day of
preparations for their tour, vocalist Todd Baechle took time out to
speak with us again and let us know what's going on with one of the
most talented up-and-coming bands in America.
Are you guys on tour yet?
No. We’re just preparing to go on tour. I don’t know, scrambling to
put everything together. We’re going out to Europe for a couple of
weeks before this United States tour, then we’re going back to Europe
right after it so we’re going to be gone for like two and a half
months. So we’re trying to get everything in order to do that, so it’s
one of the more stressful times. Which I’m sure, relatively, isn’t as
stressful as anybody with a really important job.
So things are pretty hectic right now.
Kind of.
Okay. So are you touring specifically to support the remix album,
or were you going to tour anyway?
Um, well we have basically two reasons to go on tour this time. One of
them is the release of our remix album, and one of them is because
we’re really looking forward to trying out all of these movies we’ve
been making to go with our live show.
Oh wow. Did you create the movies, or enlist artist friends to do
them?
We pretty much do them all here, but it’s been a steep learning curve
to try and figure out how to do it. So these are our first movies, or
videos, or whatever you’d call ‘em. And we’re working hard to get them
all done in time to go. Right now, as we speak actually. We’re kind of
redoing what the live show will be like, so that’s pretty exciting for
us. We’ve been wanting to do that for a while now. So we’re using this
remix record as a good reason to go out.
What will your new live show be like?
Well we’re in the process of changing all of the lighting that we’ve
had in the past. I guess sort of upgrading it in one way or another.
And hopefully we’ll have two large video screens with playing the
videos that we’ve been making, and they should be synced up with the
music. But we’ve run across many obstacles in getting this to happen
and we don’t actually have it figured out completely and we’re leaving
in a week. So that’s one of the only thing that I really meant by it
being a more stressful time than usual.
I’m sure it will all come together at the last minute.
Yeah. That’s the way it usually works. But without some sort of
deadline we’d never really do anything, so that’s good.
So how did the Astralwerks/Saddle Creek collaboration come about on
this remix record?
Well, we met Errol from Astralwerks and some of the other guys last
year sometime when we were talking to people about distribution deals
to distribute our Saddle Creek CDs, and we decided not to do anything
like that. We decided that we weren’t ready to do something like that
at this point but we met some nice people. Errol from Astralwerks and
some of the other people, we really felt like they got what we were
trying to do and they have the connections and we’re into the artists
on their label. They were able to put us in contact with people who
could do good remixes. It’s not anything against Saddle Creek for
sure, it’s just that Saddle Creek is a more folk and indie record
label so they didn’t have those same connections. So it was nice of
them to want to work with us. There was not much of a deal just, ‘Hey
will you put out a remix album, and help us find remixes?’ So that’s
pretty much how it came about.
That’s great. And I’ve heard the record and I really like it. Remix
albums are either really good or really bad and yours turned out
really good.
Well thanks.
Did you actually get to ask people to do the remixes? How did that
come about?
Yeah. We put together long lists of people we would love to hear
versions of what they would do to our music. Which was really amazing,
even to be able to dream up the names, but to really get some of them
back was cool. Some of them were suggestions of Errol, who has more
experience in electronic music than we do, so he had some good
suggestions too. So we just ended up asking some people and choosing
some remixes from that.
And back to Saddle Creek, your band probably has the most eclectic
sound on the label out of everybody else. How does it feel to be one
of the more different bands on Saddle Creek?
Um, I don’t know. I mean, I think it makes sense with just our
personalities and just kind of our musical tastes. I think it’s
slightly different but out of the whole the same as everyone else’s
around. I don’t know, that’s kind of a tough question. I don’t think
of it as really that different, I just think of each of our bands as
having their own sound, their own character. And ours makes sense to
me because of the band members who make it up, all of our
personalities are reflected in the music I think.
And you’ve just done the remix album, are you working on any new
material for The Faint?
Yeah, we have, it’s been a fun couple of months because we finally
gotten time to write some new songs. Which we hadn’t done for quite a
while, and we’re going to be playing two new songs on this tour. We’re
really slow at making songs so that was really our goal was to get two
songs done, and I think we’ve done it. We recorded one of them for the
new Saddle Creek compilation. And I’m really happy to be a part of
that. I think there’s one song from each of the groups’ past songs,
and then there’s a new song from all of the groups, everybody went in
and recorded a new song. I think it turned out good. I don’t know, I’m
happy with our song.
That’s awesome. I actually talked to Matt from Sorry About Dresden,
and he was really excited about that.
Yeah. I thought it was really great to do a compilation now, I think
the timing was amazing. It just happened to be a good time to do the
50th release on Saddle Creek. And it was nice to see everybody have
such an interest in what all the bands new songs would sound like. We
were all stopping in to the little office area whenever anybody
finished a song to listen to it. It was nice to feel that sense of
community that I knew was already there, but sense so many bands are
constantly touring sometimes it’s easy to overlook. So many people are
gone all the time.
Right. And actually about a year ago Movement interviewed your
synth player Jacob, and Saddle-Creek hadn’t quite blown up how it has
now. So how does it feel to be part of such a flourishing label, you
know, it seems like you have a really great sense of community.
Well, I’m only just now realizing that it’s a popular label. I mean,
it’s just happened in my eyes so slowly because… I mean it’s hard to
judge what other people in other cities know about your record label.
I don’t know, I guess I don’t know a whole lot about how popular it
is, or how known it is. But, I’ve only just month kind of realized
that if I say Saddle Creek, people probably would have heard of it. So
that’s pretty cool, I mean I don’t think The Faint feels pigeonholed
or anything for being a part of that. It’s one of the few things that
we’re okay with being a part of. Like we’d like to just be our band
and part of Saddle Creek. As opposed to what I don’t know. As opposed
to being a Goth band, or an industrial band, or a pop top 40 group, or
a reggae group, or I don’t know, whatever.
The Faint does reggae, that would be exciting.
::laughs:: Well I don’t know, I mean none of those I didn’t think fit
perfectly with what we do. Maybe I should say a dance artist, or
something, it sounds stupid.
A lot of people do hear dance influences, or hear industrial in
your music. What are your influences? Specifically what do you bring
to the band?
Um, god it’s always something different because I just go through
phases where I’m really into one thing or another and most of the time
it doesn’t have a lot to do with what we sound like. I mean, right now
I’m having another Beethoven phase. I think I’m also more into dance
music than I have been in the past, and I’m also more into rap music
than I have been in the past, so I don’t know.
I don’t think there’s any one type of music that’s dominant as far as
band members right now. It usually deposes into some kind of
death-metal and some really fast electronic, kinda glitchy stuff, and
Jacob does blues and seventies and … I don’t know.. Joel’s into reggae
and dub right now, and Clark’s into rap. I don’t know. We’re always
into different things but it always changes, we see our band as an
outlet for anything that we could take influence from but we’re not
going to try to all of a sudden sound like something totally
different. At least not right this second. We just want to continue
moving in a direction that we’re comfortable with and using those
influences or inspirations and finding new ways to do it I guess.
It seems like you have been doing that. What do the new songs sound
like, the two that you’re going to be debuting on this tour?
Well, I think… let’s see. One of them is called ‘Take Me to the
Hospital’ and that’s the one from the Saddle Creek compilation.
That’s a great title.
It’s like a… it’s kind of got a… I have no… that one is really hard to
say. I don’t think it really sounds like anything but I suppose
somebody who is not so close to it would be able to say it sounds like
something. But what I thought while we were making it was kind of like
a too short drum beat, and kind of a Violent Femmes song. But it’s
more electronic, it’s a really electronic song, with kind of a wall of
sound guitar. So that doesn’t add up to be anything in your mind I’m
sure.
No, it sounds interesting. It sounds eclectic in a really good way.
And the other new song, I guess it’s the danciest song we’ve ever
done. Kinda, I don’t know, it’s sort of like a nursery rhyme. And kind
of riff dance music, like a keyboard riff. I don’t know…:::laughs:::
Is the newer stuff, do you think the most dance-y stuff you’ve
released so far, or is it kind of all over?
The ‘Take Me to the Hospital’ is kind of a mid-tempo song which we
don’t do a lot of those, so it’s different for that reason. It’s
almost slow, but kind of a groove thing. So I think that the only two
new songs that we’ve finished are fairly different from each other.
That’s awesome. And what’s the old song you chose for the Saddle
Creek compilation?
I don’t know if I chose it but the one that’s on there is ‘Worked Up
So Sexual’. So going way back.
Oh cool. That is indeed.
Well, not way back. I’m glad they didn’t go back, way back. Because
before that I get kind of embarrassed.
Why do you get embarrassed?
We just hadn’t really figured out what we were trying to do. My
singing really bums me out on the early record.
So do you steer clear of earlier, earlier material when you’re
playing live?
Yeah, yeah. We don’t do anything from before Blank Wave Arcade. But I
think we play a good amount of Blank Wave Arcade, it’s kind of plenty
of old songs in my book.
That’s awesome. And when are you expecting, or do you have any idea
of when you will release a new Faint album? Is this far, far in the
future, or kind of in the not-so-distant future?
We’re going to be working on it as much as we can. You don’t want to
rush it. I think after we get back from this two and a half months
[touring] thing. We’re going to start writing the rest of it in three
months from now. It’s definitely not coming out in 2003.
Okay. And is a two and a half month long tour the longest you’ve
done this far? Or is this pretty regular?
Yeah, yeah. I think we’ve done two months before in the states, well,
we’ve done that twice. But this is probably even longer than two and a
half months. So yeah, this is probably the longest.
Are you looking forward to it or?
Yeah, I’m really looking forward to it. We’ve been back in town longer
than we usually are, and it’s going to be nice to go back out.
Especially because, well hopefully having the new type of light show,
video, and live show. We’ve been wanting to do this for years and
haven’t had the resources to get it done, or the time or whatever. So,
I had been sort of getting anxious to do something different when we
play live so it’s going to be really refreshing to get to play now.
Well that’s great and it sounds like a great live show. I’ll be
looking forward to seeing it.
We’re looking forward to the release of our remix album, and hopefully
we’ll get some club play for once. All of our songs are so short now.
And we like to go dancing, it would be nice to hear one of our songs
in a club someday. I think that we’ve got mixes that might work for
that now, so I’m kind of excited about that.
Your music is very danceable even if it is short, and in it’s
non-mixed version.
Yeah, well thank you.
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