On The Record: The Philistines Jr. On “If A Band Plays In The Woods…”
Bridgeport, CT: In the title of their new record, The Philistines Jr. superimpose themselves into that classic metaphysical riddle — If A Band Plays In The Woods…— leaving one to ponder, “Does it make a sound?” “Does a band exist if no one hears it?”
The Philistines Jr.'s latest is out now on Tarquin / Yep Roc Records.
Indeed for the last decade, The Philistines Jr. has been only minimally active as it continued to develop in the mind of creator Peter Katis, testing this paradox of perception. Since the band’s ’01 release, Analog Vs. Digital, Katis’ production career has ramped up and up as he’s produced records to much acclaim with Interpol, The National, Tokyo Police Club, Frightened Rabbit and Jónsi among many others.
Work on The Philistines Jr. — Katis’ side-project with his brother Tarquin, Adam Pierce of Mice Parade and a list of collaborator-friends — was relegated to the rare couple of days between non-stop projects.
“The joke is that if you work on a record for three days a year, it takes ten years to make,” says Katis of The Philistines’ latest LP. But don’t mistake the band’s back-seat status for a lack of inspiration. Life’s a tradeoff — some of Katis’ best ideas have no doubt ended up on other band’s records, but he also owes his development as a producer, engineer, arranger and player to those records. The Philistines Jr. is a band that makes music about such facts of life; the facts and the drama of ordinary lives.
If A Band Plays In The Woods tells epic tales of everyday occurrences like engineering records and writing songs, about bus stops and trash in your yard, about kitties and loved ones and loss. Sonically, Katis creates an exciting, unpredictable style of cinematic indie-pop using a unique palette of indie rock instrumentation and synthetic sounds and building in dense arrangements of strings, glockenspiel, analog and digital keyboards, vocal harmonies, feedback, etc.
It’s a world of haunting theremin leads and sci-fi overtures, of Dewanatrons and Swarmatrons — analog synths invented by Philistines collaborators Leon and Brian Dewan — of cello, chimes, toy pianos and distorted guitars.
We’ve been following The Philistines Jr. for awhile now and were excited to speak with Katis about releasing a record several years in the making…
It’s been almost 20 years since you started The Philistines Jr. What’s been the inspiration for this project over the years?
That’s a huge question. Why do people bother making art? Why do people bother being in bands? Are you trying to blow my mind with the first question?
Well, but this band is an on-and-off project for you all these years as you’ve been producing records. So, what do you think keeps you coming back to it? What keeps you doing this band?
Peter and Tarquin Katis... in the zone!
I think this band is really who we are. When you’re young, you struggle to find your own sound and then once you find it, it can be kind of a curse — that’s your sound! Now, no matter what we do, even when we try to be more one thing or more another thing, it always ends up being what the Philistines Jr. is. This is why the album can be recorded in such a disjointed way — so sporadically over 10 years — yet people feel that it still really holds together.
It took me and my brother Tarquin awhile to see The Philistines Jr. as we do now. We used to think the more side projects we had, the better! Bands like The Zambonis, The Happiest Guys in the World, James Kochalka Superstar, The Pork Guys (Tarquin’s fake punk rock band with Moby) ended up diluting our efforts to the point where I think it hurt this band.
And then the final blow was my getting some success as a producer. It was hard to compete with the success I was having as a producer, which actually earned a living for me where the Philistines Jr., like most indie rock bands, was always just a financial drain. So that’s the reason it was shelved. We never wanted to stop doing the band.
How would you say the sound and songwriting has evolved over time? There are some pretty epic instrumental songs on If A Band Plays In The Woods.
Yes and we’ve been doing that since the first record, though I like to think that I’ve just gotten better at recording music, and certainly the performances have improved.
All the other records — even the last one — were completely pre-Pro Tools era. And a lot of that stuff was self-recorded, so if you didn’t have the chops, it wasn’t there. And a lot of the older stuff sounds quite crude in some ways. But at the same time, I think even the very first EP we put out in’91 demonstrated my obsession with the sonics of making music, of combining real sounds with fake sounds.
The second song on that EP, “Reggie Jackson,” is the song that broke big in England. John Peel invited us over there to do a bunch of Peel Sessions, and played that song to death. And “Reggie Jackson” starts with the cheesiest Casiotone drumbeat that then jumps to a real rock drumbeat. It sounds ridiculous, but it was meant to sound ridiculous. I see that now as my first attempt at production.
In your own band, all the creative production decisions are yours! So what is that like, producing these Philistines Jr. songs when you can use the studio however you want? Is it drastically different than what you would do with another band you’re producing?
Late night in the studio. Tarquin Studio, Bridgeport, CT.
Yes and no. I often complain that I’m left with so much of the work in the band, but on the other hand, I do really enjoy that part of the process. When I’m working on The Philistines Jr, I can do all the things I wished bands would do when I’m working with them. Things that some bands do and some don’t. One of those things being that I always have a plan: both a musical plan and a production plan.
And if that plan doesn’t work, I might keep trying new ways to make it work, but at some point I just roll with what is working. And I think that’s the key to good recordings. If you can’t roll with something that was maybe unintended but comes out really good, you’re going to end up disappointed all the time.
So a lot of things on this new Philistines record are quite different from what I intended, but what’s there came out pretty cool and that’s good enough for me.
So you welcome, even embrace, the accidents…
Yes and there are loads of accidents. I’ve also learned over the years that in any type of art, it’s the accidents that are often the most interesting things. That’s not a new idea, but it’s just so, so true. In fact a lot of time when I look at the end result, I think my goodness, my original idea was so trite compared to what this ended up being.
A lot of my plans with the music is to do something much more austere, much more stripped down, but I just find it difficult sometimes to accomplish that, and so I do just keep piling things on. And not all of the songs are meant to be these giant layered productions — sometimes they are, but sometimes they’re not — but I just need to keep working until I arrive at something that I think makes sense.
Seems like your continual work on the Philistines Jr. records would keep you in a very creative mode in the studio. How do you think your work as an artist affects your work as a producer?
Well, I think having been in a band and trying to make records for so many years puts me in a position to empathize with people struggling in the studio because the fact is… it’s really hard. If you’re just sitting in the studio and watching, it doesn’t seem that hard — you may think come on, just get it right.
But the thing is, it’s not easy, it’s always harder than it looks! So that affects my role as a producer, being able to understand how tough it can be, creatively and technically, to nail something, especially when you’re singing. Singing can be so brutal and embarrassing.
And I try to drive that point home really hard with the bands I work with — never be embarrassed in front of me. I’d rather you make a million horrible mistakes and arrive at something good, than play it safe. Play it safe live, don’t play it safe in the studio.
On the other hand, I’ve had so many production ideas for my own music for so many years that I didn’t get to use because I didn’t have time to work on it. I used these ideas on other bands’ records. So my work as a producer is not always a positive for The Philistines records!
But The Philistines Jr. ideas, thematically, are so strong, which I imagine sets you in a unique headspace when you’re working on this stuff. How would you describe the ideas you’re exploring with the band as far as consistent themes and inspiration?
Almost since the beginning, our band seems to be obsessed with itself. We talk about a lot of minutia, about our daily lives. When I was young, I heard the expression write what you know, and I thought that made sense to me.
And so, we really did that. We wrote songs about trying to be a band, about trying to write songs, because that felt real. The title track off of our ’01 album Analog Vs. Digital is about trying to finish writing the song we’re singing. Someone in the press once referred to it as a “meta song.” And on this record, “The Cable Guy,” is about recording other bands. Someone joked that we’re like hip-hop guys the way we talk about ourselves! (laughs)
What was the production process like on this record? You only got a few days here and there to work on it, so were these songs done quickly in those few days, or did you keep coming back and layering more sounds, overdubs, etc.?
No, I do them really fast! I’ve had so little free time, I’ve just worked myself to death at my job, so when I would get the tiny little window of time off, the last thing in the world I wanted to do was go back up in the studio!! So I must have really wanted this, otherwise it would not have happened.
I think not doing it for a bunch of years made me really eager get back to it. And once it started to materialize, and there was an end in sight, I was motivated to try and finish. I still really love doing it. It’s different than making other people’s records. In ways it’s harder and in ways it’s a lot more fun.
But the records are made really fast. A lot of the songs are semi-improvised in the studio and a lot of the performances on the record are actual improvisations. Sometimes I need to fix a note or two or three, or there are lots of takes, but sometimes these are literally first takes of these crazy weird ideas. And it’s really fun. I try to put my money where my mouth is too — I tell bands to loosen up and go crazy, and so I try to do the same.
What about the other band members — how do they participate?
Instrumentally, Tarquin only plays on this record a little, but he plays a significant creative role in the band. He’ll come in to do his background vocals but end up doing wacky things (i.e. singing the wrong thing) and then I realize his wacky things are better than what was there, and this may lead to us rethinking it. I think the record would sound different if it was just my solo record — if Tarquin’s not part of it, I don’t think of it as a Philistines Jr. song.
And Adam Pierce has been our drummer since 1992 though he’s played a more and more diminished role in the studio. I can put together interesting drum parts and percussion, but I’m no drummer in comparison to him. So he plays a bit on this record as well.
So will you guys play some shows? Tour?
Yes, though we’re all a little too busy to do a full-blown tour, circling the country several times. We’re in the midst of trying to put together a really interesting live set and I really hope we do! But the record is the record. Hopefully the live show will be something different. I don’t see it as a test to see if we can pull the record off live.
But we’ll see who’s available and what we can pull together. I’m hoping Rob Schwimmer will be able to participate at least on occasion because there’s really no one else like him in the world if you want his piano and theremin parts.
And tell us about the covers album some of the artists you’ve produced are contributing to… If A Lot Of Bands Play In The Woods
Yes! It’s really cool — I’m asking a bunch of the bands I’ve worked with to do a cover or a remix of a Philistines song for this record we’re going to put out later this year. So far, Frightened Rabbit and We Were Promised Jetpacks have done a song each [streaming on Pitchfork]. And we’ll see about the rest, but it’s looking like The National, Jonsi, Mates of State, Tokyo Police Club, Guster, Mercury Rev, Tapes ‘n Tapes, The Mommyheads (one of the first bands I ever produced), Oneida and possibly a few others are going to contribute! Stay tuned…
The Philistines Jr.’s If A Band Plays In The Woods… is out today on Tarquin Records / Yep Rock. Click to order / download. And for more on Peter Katis and The Philistines Jr, visit http://www.tarquinrecords.com.
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