Music Interview: Our Brother The Native
DOWNLOAD: Our Brother The Native - Manes
Our Brother The Native are Joshua Bertram and Chaz Knapp, from Michigan and Moreno Valley, California, respectively. Together they fuse a cabaret of musical instruments and voices, with a wide textural range of sounds including folk, noise, post-rock, gamelan and bluegrass, to produce their own dysfunctional and uniquely-American sound, which has been compared to the experimental output of fomer label-mates Múm, as well as Cocorosie and The Animal Collective. From 2005 to 2008 the band released 2 albums and an EP: Make Amends For We Are Merely Vessels, Tooth And Claw, and Parting Marrows; which brings us to their latest and most accomplished record: Sacred Psalms. A dark and moving opus, it sees OBTN cement their penchant for producing original, creative and spine-tingling music. I spoke to Chaz and Joshua about various aspects of their musical life with OBTN.
Earz Mag: What have you guys been up to recently?
Joshua Bertram: “I have been working on booking a U.S summer tour with our friends Religious Girls. So basically I just have been doing a lot of practicing for that, getting the songs really tight. We have a new drummer, Kerry Latham, so just been getting him up to speed with all the old songs and working on some new ones as well. Besides band business the rest of my time is spent on projects for the art school.”
Chaz Knapp: “I have been up to working and planning my move. I am leaving California and am Moving to Colorado. I just finished a forty five minute orchestral piece and have been in the process of recording two string quartet albums. I am also starting a small art movement, 351, with my friend Alistair in which I will release art books, photography books, cds and vinyls.”
EM: Sacred Psalms is definitely another progression for OBTN. Do you think you’re getting closer to you where you’d like to be musically?
JB: “Most definitely, for me this felt like a bar mitzvah, it was something that was really starting to feel like my own voice, my own ideas. To me when I listen to the album I honestly feel like this is the most accurate depiction of who I am as a person, I know my best friend Joe has told me repeatedly that this album is us finally stepping out into the world on our own two feet and making our own distinct sound. I mean I still hear all my inspirations on the album, but I feel I nailed the blending of ideas and transformed them into a new beast that’s all its own. I am still working on toning down the layers/textures, I feel some of the songs could of benefited from being less of an immersive affair and more straight forward, but that is something I have always struggled with, when is it enough. But I don’
t think I will ever be satisfied musically, there is always something new to play and work with, music is infinite and I look forward to exploring its possibilities up until the time I am done on this Earth.”
CK: “Music is like a potato sack. It can hold many potatoes. You have the option to take the potatoes and so the bag is not as heavy. You can even take all of the potatoes out and hop around with your feet in them. That is how music is to me. Your feet in a potato sack - it feels good in the summer, not so good in the winter, but you gotta try out all your options to see what is cool or not cool.”
EM: What type of instruments did you use in the album, which were your favourite ones to play with?
JB: “I was really obsessed with my air organ and harmonium, they are pretty much on every song on the album. I also love playing the saxophone; that has been a real pleasure learning how to play on my own.”
CK: “Played drums and guitar and sang. It was really neat. Super suave, simply seductive.”
EM: It (Sacred Psalms) is a pretty bleak album, even despairing at times. Where does the dark quality come from?
JB: “This is something Chaz and I both have deeply in common, we both love dark music, I would much rather listen to a sad song than an upbeat one anyday, they just hit me harder I guess. But in our music we don’t really set out for this bleak portrayal, it just comes naturally, its what makes us happy and what comes easy for us. And I mean the idea of life is pretty bleak, it’s somewhat meaningless, we just live for a little while and make somethings and start relationships and then we die. There isn’
t a whole lot to it, we just try and find things that get us up in the morning and keep us going. Music for me is the only way to deal with this life, to deal with the hardships, the unfairness.”
CK: “I honestly think the album is very uplifting. I originally wanted to call the album ‘silly psalms’
but that fell through. Every word we use has a secret meaning. Of all the times we speak of death and pain and despair we are actually singing of unicorns and freshly coated animal crackers. Josh said it best though. Things do become quite crazy and depressing how meaningless everything seems.”
EM: OBTN is lyrically quite literate. Are you inspired by certain literary or historical moments?
JB: “Chaz is the one who is very well read, I tend not to read too much. I just like to write about things that happen in my life directly and the relationships I make.”
CK: “I read a lot, lately all physics and religious works. Also Dante is my favorite now.”
EM: You have a tour kicking off in June across the US. What’s it like taking your music on the road?
JB: “It is so much fun, but it is quite a lot of work. I have a huge amount of equipment to lug around. But it all is super important to the overall sound and conveying of our ideas. We are booking this tour ourselves, so I hope everything turns out alright, it is going to be an adventure regardless.”
CK: “Taking the music on the road is neat. Difficult. But it is still a lot of fun playing and experimenting on the road.”
EM: How many people are involved with the live show these days?
JB: “Right now it has been me and our new drummer Kerry. Chaz lives in California so we only get to play together for the really big gigs and tours. This isn’
t ideal, but we both have things in our lives like school that need to be taken care of, but Chaz and I plan on living near each other when school is over so we can play together on a regular basis.”
CK: “Basically we always need a three piece. Some sort of drummer.”
EM: I read somewhere that Chaz also runs a DIY label. Is that still the case? What type of artists have you put out?
CK: “I did run Delude Records. I did a few releases of people from the U.S. Things got too busy for me so I had to stop. I am actually, as I mentioned earlier, starting a new sort of label called 351. It is based around my philosophies and weird religious ideas mixed with physics and old Ptolemaic astronomy. My main view is to help promote my friends’
art and to get them motivated to work on their talents. The music that I am looking to release is classical music (which is my main style), underground hip hop and experimental bands. I have found that the music scenes in many cities have turned to trash so I want to make sure those bands still doing their own things will get recognized.”
EM: What’s next for OBTN. Have you recorded any new material recently?
JK: “We have two unreleased songs that will come out around the time of the album. Other than that we just are going to be working on our live set and writing new material. The next album most likely will be written first and then taken to the studio. I kind of want a break from recording. I want the next one to be produced by someone else in a different manner. I think that will prove to more exciting.”
CK: “The next album is going to be a soul album. Still the OBTN sound but think Sacred Psalms with more gamelan mixed with Marvin Gaye.”
Sacred Psalms is out now on FatCat Records. Thanks to Joshua, Chaz and Jonny @ FatCat.
Links:
obtn.biz
myspace.com/ourbrotherthenative
Posted in Interviews & Music by Martin Skivington on May 5, 2009.
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Glenn says:
05.05.09
I’ve been following OBTN since Parting Marrows and didn’t know they had a new one out. If ‘Manes’ is to go then Joshua’s comments about Sacred Psalms must be right. Off to buy it from iTunes right now.
Also thank you for the in-depth interview, I’ve always found information about OBTN to be pretty thin on the ground!
Mick's Mix says:
09.03.09
Co-signing the above. We need moar!