Posted By Sasha

Prior to their set at the always smokey Situations, I spent some time in a tour van talking to Jordan Billie and Devin Welch of Past Lives about everything from the demise of The Blood Brothers (and the difference between projects) to the absurdity of pop music & Lil’ Wayne.

FBM: Is this you guys’ first show in Portland?

JB/DW: Uh huh.

FBM: Oh, that’s cool.

DW: I’m glad it’s a little, tiny little club.

FBM: It’s probably about the size of Food Hole

DW: Yeah!

FBM: You guys played there as Shoplifting right?

DW: Yeah, uh huh.

FBM: I remember that show. Alright, so… Past Lives the name. Does this come from the fact that you’ve been in like a million other bands before this?

JB: No, I mean that’s not really what I was thinkin’ about when we came up with the name. I think that I just wanted something that was vague enough to allow for a certain amount of growth. Y’ know I think that… in that…yeah, that’s kind of all that I was thinking.

FBM: So… not the Black Sabbath album?

DW/JB [Laughs]

JB: No, not the Black Sabbath live album.

DW: I think we found out about that after.

JB: I was kinda bummed actually.

DW: There’s worse bands who’s album it could be.

FBM: Yeah, I tried to download some past lives and the only thing I could find was some Black Sabbath.

DW: Is it like post-Ozzy-Sabbath?

FBM: I actually have no idea… I don’t know anything about the Black Sabbath.

JB: I think that, yeah. Other than that me and Morgan [Henderson] were just having a conversation about how we thought it was kind of cool that we were all playing together again because we had all played together probably like [pause] eight years ago. So… its just kind of nice that we were able to come together again. It felt really good.

FBM: Well I noticed while looking into it [Past Lives], that’s funny you [Jordan Billy] mention you and Morgan looking into it because well, you [Devin Welch] have Flexions and Mark [Gajdhar] has all of his other stuff, but I couldn’t really figure out anything else that you [Jordan] or Morgan were doing other than this right now.

JB: We’re not doing anything other than this right now. Morgan does uhh. Morgan does, y’know a bunch of other stuff as far as uh… he just played bass clarinet with some friends of his for a performance piece called In Plague Violence, and he did like… what was it 3 performances that he did with them?

DW: Yeah it was like 3 performances playing stuff that was composed, like he was playing off [of] the charts or whatever.

JB: So when I, I guess I mean, when I say he doesn’t do anything… I mean like band wise.

FBM: Yeah, yeah. Well that’s what I meant.

JB: I didn’t mean to…

DW: But I mean he’s also done other stuff like playing on recordings with other bands too right? Like umm didn’t he play on that Parenthetical Girls record?

JB: I think so yeah. I think he played some bass clarinet on that.

FBM: On the new album? [Entanglements…really really good!]

JB: I think so, yeah.

FBM: Oh, cool. Can’t wait to hear that.

DW: But umm yeah. That’s the only, I mean… that sorta stuff. I mean I was… before I started playing with Robin, who I do Flexions with. Before we started this band I sort of was like I’m not gonna… I’m not willing to not do this other thing, but it does keep me super super busy between the two rehearsals that’s like five days a week.

FBM: Of which, Past Lives, or…?

DW: Well, we [Past Lives] rehearse about 3 times a week, and then Robin and I rehearse about 2 times a week. Then you add in shows and stuff and its just sorta like, sometimes it just feels like [I’m] never not doing something.

FBM: So significance wise they’re kinda about the same?

DW: Uhh, well you know different intentions, I think different places that we intend to go with it in terms of like how much touring versus how much recording and stuff so…

FBM: Yeah I noticed all the Flexions shows were in Seattle.

DW: Yeah

JB: This is our first show out of town.

FBM: Oh really?

JB: Yeah, mmhmm.

FBM: Wow. Yeah, I saw you guys had played with Liars and No Age actually. So has that been your biggest show so far? Besides Capitol Hill [Block Party] I guess.

JB: Yeah I guess it was our biggest show as far as venue-wise.

DW: Yeah.

JB: That was a fun show

FBM: I think it was just the two of them when they played here.

JB: Oh really? Sometimes I like two-band bills. I actually kind of prefer it. I prefer it to like a 5 band bill.

FBM: Yeah but if everybody is good…

DW: Yeah, but even if everybody is good though its kind of an…

JB: Overload

DW: You get kinda burned.

FBM: Yeah by the time the last band goes on, I suppose you’re right. Well so what made you guys want to come together again and be Past Lives?

JB: Well I mean me and Morgan and Mark were playing together in The Blood Brothers and we broke up probably like… a year ago. And, after we broke up, the three of us had talked about still wanting to play together. And, the only other person that we thought of, that we’d like to play with was Devin. So umm, I think we may have still been on tour and I think that I e-mailed you [Devin]…

DW: Mmhmm

JB: And just kind of ran the idea by him and he was open to it, and we started talking about it more and then we started practicing together probably [pause] last august or so.

DW: End of August.

JB: Yeah, end of August.

FBM: So that’s funny that the three of you [Jordan, Mark, Morgan] went and did something and the other two [Johnny Whitney, Cody Votolato] went and did something else.

JB: Yeah…

FBM: Was there any drama there?

JB: Ye[ah] I mean you know… umm. Yeah, yeah but… I mean, we broke up. So…

[All laugh]

JB: So, there’s gonna be the appropriate amount of drama that goes along with something like that. We’d been together for ya know, ten years of all of our lives and you know. It was a huge chapter of all of our lives coming to a close so there were, you know like, the emotions and sort of things that you would expect to go along with something like that. And so… umm. You know I think that… I think that where we’re at as a band, and where they’re at; I think everyone is uhh, happier now than we were a year ago. So I guess that’s, ya know, the most important thing. I think that you know I think that we can be proud of the fact that we were a band for ten years. I mean I think that it takes a lot of work to be in a band for that long with people. And, we got along fantastically for the vast majority of that time. But… I think that it was… just time to call it a day.

FBM: Well I didn’t think there were any hard feelings just because, I mean Cody was in Head Wound City with you.

JB: Uh huh, yeah, right.

FBM: So, it was hard to imagine that you guys just hated each other.

JB: You know, I mean… I still talk to Cody occasionally umm. He’s pretty busy and we’re pretty busy doing this, and they both live down here [Portland] now so I don’t really see them that much so, ya know. I wish him the best and… I know that he does the same for me and the rest of us.

FBM: So how did you guys agree on how Past Lives was going to sound?

DW: Well I think that initially when, ya know, after Jordan wrote me and asked if I wanted to play with them I think that like maybe Jordan and I had a little bit more recent social interaction so we were sort of like talking on the phone like you know, “Oh these are things that are like inspiring to us” or like… maybe a little bit like how we were going to approach it. I don’t think we really knew how it was going to sound until we started practicing; because you can spend hours and hours talking about how you think that it might be but you can’t really you know… I think it took us a good chunk of time to kind of find our footing and find a, ya know figure out exactly how we could compose songs together that we were stoked on. But, once we did start doing that it seemed pretty natural, and we still play songs that, ya know, were some of the first songs we wrote so I guess we didn’t have to like burn through a bunch of ideas before we were like having stuff that we were stoked on. I think that [pause]. It seems like everyone in the group is pretty open to exploring different directions and not necessarily just sticking with, or honing one particular sound. Maybe that will happen naturally at some point, but for right now it feels a little bit more wide-open as far as like, what goes. [We] just sort of like, come up with stuff and if everybody’s feeling like it’s fun to play then we’ll just go with it.

FBM: I’ve noticed, well… I don’t recall what the second song is on your myspace player is called, but I notice there’s some scratching from Mark. How do you guys separate song writing for different projects?

JB: You know I think you probably are hearing keyboard sounds. I think the song that you’re thinking of is Reverse The Curse, and Morgan does this kind of high keyboard…

DW: [makes scratching sound]

JB: Yeah, this kind of high squalls.

FBM: It’s real brief.

JB: Yeah, yeah. But, as far as songwriting goes I think its pretty wide open. I think that generally speaking all of the songs are derived from riffs that Morgan or Devin come up with and then we just all play them together. Lots of times Morgan and Devin get together separately and write to a drum machine. Then, we’ll come together all four of us and work out those ideas that they’ve been working on.

DW: I’m trying to think, I mean in terms of how its separate from our other projects. I mean, it seems to me like Mark’s writing process when he’s doing stuff for Champagne Champagne is pretty much like, he’s writing as he’s recording it. I can’t speak for him totally on this because I’m not there when he does it but it’s like his recording process [is] like, composing these backing tracks and then he works with Pearl and Pearl writes stuff to go with it, like vocals and stuff. And then, as far as the other stuff that I do, the stuff that Robin and I write is like really based around rhythms first. Its like, a lot of initial composition process is coming up with rhythm patterns that we’re stoked on and then writing music that fits the rhythm pattern. So, it’s kind of different from the way that Morgan and I are writing for Past Lives because when we’re playing together usually we’ll just put on something to keep the tempo. It’s never like a rhythm that we’re committing to for the song, and then [we] come up with interplay between other, our two guitar parts and like, his keyboard parts that seems like exciting. Then Mark and Jordan come into it and then it totally changes at that point. But that’s how, kind of like the skeletons of the songs come from; that sort of like guitar interplay or whatever.

FBM: How about lyrically? Is that all your [Jordan’s] responsibility?

JB: Yeah. It’s just… me in my room.

[All laugh]

FBM: Well, is there any big ‘theme’ for the album?

JB: No, I mean we just… What we have that’s about to come out is a 5 song EP. And, no there’s not any sort of overriding theme that links those 5 songs. I think that since it’s the first time in a very, well… kind of the first time ever except for in Head Wound City, which was only a week of my time, that I’ve sung by myself. I just tried to make the lyrics a little more personal than the stuff that we worked on in The Blood Brothers because you know, when you’re working with someone else you’re sharing a vision. You’re contributing to someone else’s vision. I thought that this was a good opportunity to sing about stuff that was very personal to me.

FBM: So then you’re the only one that does the lyric writing.

JB: Yeah.

FBM: Some songs sound kind of aggressive, but otherwise you aren’t really screaming very often.

JB: Yeah. I think that that was kind of the only initial goal we set out, at least for myself personally, that we set out to accomplish from the beginning was that. We specifically talked about not wanting it to be as aggressive as the stuff that we were doing in the past. I didn’t want to do any screaming, or at least little to no screaming. I kinda yelp a little bit here and there, but I don’t think any of us were really interested in doing anything really aggressive again.

DW: I think even on the musical standpoint to there’s been a little talk and sort of a desire to write stuff that’s a little energetic and loud and stuff but that’s not necessarily super abrasive, or super aggressive.

JB: Because I don’t think any of us listen to stuff that’s super aggressive. I mean, at least I don’t.

DW: Yeah.

FBM: What do you guys listen to?

DW: Umm… I’m trying to think. Like, lately I’ve been listening to stuff like… There’s this compilation that I listen to a lot that’s called Tropicalia. It’s like Brazilian artists from the late 60’s. And [I’ve] been listening to Chris & Cozy a lot, two of the people that were in Throbbing Gristle and they went on to do this kind of plasticky kind of electro stuff. And [I also listen to] some reggae. I also like to listen to more rock stuff like Dead Moon. When I’m at work particularly I like to listen to the rolling stones a lot.

FBM: What do you think of Pierced Arrows? (Dead Moon’s new band).

DW: I haven’t heard pierced arrows yet actually.

FBM: It’s kind of wild.

DW: I’ve heard good things about them but I wanted to see them live before I hear their recordings, and I haven’t had [the] opportunity to see them yet because they’ve played in Seattle a few times but there’s always something that comes up. I dunno, what about you [Jordan]?

JB: Umm… Lil’ Wayne, Tha Drought 3.

FBM: Not The Carter 3?

JB: No, not The Carter. A friend of mine put Drought 3 on my I-pod a couple months ago and I just got around to listening to it. It’s a lot to get through, so I’ve just been kinda listening to that. I find him to be really bizarre. Just, really really bizarre.

DW: That single from his most recent record is just really, really confusing.

JB: That, yeah. That really confuses me too that that is…

FBM: Which one is the single?

JB: Lollipop. That that is like the most popular song in the country and that that is the most popular album in the country is just really bizarre to me.

FBM: Double platinum.

JB: Yeah. Yeah. It’s just all about weird vocodors and sounds. Yeah, a co-worker of mine came into work the other day and she was talking about how offensive she thought it was and I don’t find anything to be particularly offensive about it.

DW: I mean, it’s obviously sexual innuendo…

JB: Yeah, but nothing more than any other pop music that’s been on the radio for like…

DW: Since like the 1950’s.

JB: Yeah, so there’s been that and I listen to the Rolling Stones a lot too. I listen to the Rolling Stones almost daily.

FBM: Which album of theirs?

JB: I listen to Exile [on Main St.] a lot. And, I listen to Sticky fingers. I’ve been on like a later kick. I mean not late as in the 80’s, that just makes me think of like my dad or something. But, yeah so Rolling Stones…

FBM: Have you seen the Martin Scorsese thing?

JB: I haven’t. I’ve been interested in seeing it, [but] I was kind of bummed because I was reading about it and like it was just purely a live, like concert footage. I would have rather had some sort of 6 disk Beatles anthology type thing. But, I’m not gonna tell Martin Scorsese how to make his movies.

[All Laugh]

JB: I thought that that would be really cool to have like an entire anthology because I think that they’re one of those bands that certainly would be interesting throughout but, have you seen it?

FBM: No, I haven’t. But, I also heard that it was less documentary than I would’ve expected.

JB: Yeah, just like a bunch of cameras filming them live.

DW: The thing I heard that is kind of interesting is like the mixing of it; the sound production of it. It’s like, instead of trying to give you the whole picture of what everything sounds like the whole time sometimes it will focus in on one person and then isolate the sound of their instrument. Not completely but it will be like, they’re filming the guitar and you just hear the guitar; or like the drums and its like… you’re just right next to the drum kit or whatever. Stuff like that, so I thought that sounds pretty interesting because music that is elaborately interwoven like that can be one of the things about the band that is consistently interesting. Like, the interplay between the two guitar parts and being able to hear the one thing isolated, and to hear like ‘ok this is what the one person is playing’ as like part of this bigger picture; [that] could be pretty cool, from a music geek standpoint.

JB: I bet it’s totally cool, I would just love to dig really deep into some sort of anthology. I really liked the Beatles anthology. I watched that over and over again.

FBM: So what about newer stuff?

DW: Well for example the other night, that Abe Vigoda show. I thought that was really cool.

FBM: That record is so cool.

JB: I haven’t heard their record yet, but I’ve seen them a number of times over the past years and the progression from the last time I saw them to where they’re at now… I was just super impressed.

FBM: Well, that’s going from screamy to a little less aggressive too!

DW: Yeah, definitely. I’m trying to think what other bands I’ve seen recently that are really awesome… umm. I dunno, whenever people ask questions like this I tend to go into a fog and then…

JB: I totally blank out. Just blank.

DW: And then like 6 hours from now I’ll be like ‘Oh yeah!’.

JB: Think of a thousand things to say.

FBM: Any big plans for Past Lives?

JB: We do this West Coast tour in a few weeks.

FBM: And that’s just like, you guys playing shows with random bands?

JB: It’s, yeah. You know, just kind of friends here and there.

DW: We were supposed to play this fest in LA and the fest sort of fell apart. We’re supposed to still be playing something related to that.

FBM: Which one is that?

DW: Fuck Yeah Fest.

FBM: Oh, that fell through?

JB: In a way. They had like booked… Yeah, it really just kind of changed. They’re still doing something at the echo, in the echoplex but I think its on a much smaller scale. It’ll still be fun, I mean there’s still like No Age and Mika Miko and Abe Vigoda. Some great bands are playing, but yeah I think they originally had something a lot larger in scale planned. Like in a outdoor park or something like that. We kinda routed our whole tour around that.

DW: So were got a little freaked out like, ‘Oh my god. Are we still playing this show that we planned our whole tour around?’ But, I think it’s gonna work out.

FBM: And the 5 song EP? What [label] is that coming out on?

JB: Suicide Squeeze. That’ll be out soon, on our website at least it’ll be out like next week. We’re doing it, like people can just download it off of our website. The physical stuff will come out in the fall, like early November.

Posted By David Hutchinson

I wish I could make one of those web things describing the way in which all of Seattle’s best bands connect. If you ‘Continue Reading’, please be prepared for your head to explode, not just because what i am going to describe is very confusing, but also because the music contained within this post has been known to do that. This, of course, is all in celebration (Read: Promotion) of the fact that Past Lives is playing Situations on August 2nd. Nathan’s Myspace bulletin said “(ex-Blood Brothers/Shoplifting)” but I didn’t feel like that did Past Lives justice.

In the late 1990’s a band called The Vogue was started by a couple of guys by the name of Adam Miller, Hannah Billie, Johnny Whitney, Casey Wescott and Devin Welch. They were awesome, but it wasn’t until a few years later (after Casey left the band) that they became the amazing Soiled Doves in 2001. Soiled Doves’ Soiled Life was highly regarded as something ‘fresh’ and ‘unique’. To this day, Soiled Life is one of my favorite records of all time, but after that band disbanded in the same year, many more projects were spawned.

The Vogue – As Brass And Satin (Full album download)

Soiled Doves – Various Tracks

One that many forget was a lo-fi-noise-dance band (hey, I reminded you!) The Chromatics, who in 2002 was comprised of Hannah Billie, Devin Welch, Michelle Nolan and Adam Miller. The two LP’s this Chromatics released were unlike anything else I’m aware of to this day, and remain some of my favorite pieces of vinyl. My obsession for both Soiled Doves and Chromatics at this time spawned an obsession for the next Johnny Whitney project The Blood Brothers. The Blood Brothers claim to have been around since 1997, but my guess is they are counting The Vogue and Soiled Doves in there too. At the same time The Blood Brothers came to fame, Hannah Billie, Devin Welch and Michelle Nolan began a project called Shoplifting. Shoplifting never was as successful as The Blood Brothers, but they were every bit as good.

Chromatics (old) – Various Tracks
The Blood Brothers – Celia And The Silhouette Saloon
The Blood Brothers – Birth Skin/Death Leather
The Blood Brothers – Mutiny On The Arc Of The Blood Brothers
Shoplifting – Male Gynecology

What happened to Casey Wescott you ask? Well, around the same time as Shoplifting was coming about, so was a band called Fleet Foxes who Casey Wescott is to this day a part of. I believe (but hate) that Shoplifting has broken up, but as you can imagine, that didn’t stop Hannah Billie, Devin Welch and Michelle Nolan from making music. Hannah Billie is now a part of Portland’s own The Gossip (who has members of the band Die Monitr Batss, who once had a split with Chromatics) and Michelle has gone on to form Telepathic Liberation Army. Devin Welch is now a part of Past Lives, who also has 3 members of The Blood Brothers: Jordan Billie (Hannah Billie’s twin brother), Morgan Henderson and Mark Gajadhar.

Fleet Foxes – White Winter Hymnal
The Gossip – Various Tracks
Die Monitr Batss – Various Tracks
Telepathic Liberation Army – Amish Touch+Unlimited
Past Lives – Various Tracks

By watching their live show, one could see that The Blood Brothers were getting a little bored, so naturally all of the members started side projects. Jordan Billie, and Cody Votolato started Head Wound City with The Locust members Gabe Serbian and Justin Pearson. Head Wound City was also a side project for Nick Zinner of The Yeah Yeah Yeah’s. At the same time the two members of The Blood Brothers started Head Wound City, Johnny Whitney and Mark Gajadhar started Neon Blonde. While Head Wound City was an abrasive noise outlet for its respective members, Neon Blonde served as a dancey outlet for Whitney and Gajadhar. Neon Blonde undoubtedly foreshadowed Mark Gajadhar’s current DJ project, DJ Gajamagic, and from that DJ Gajamagic has now formed a hip-hop/Dance project called Champagne Champagne. Johnny Whitney rejoined forces with Cody Votolato for the current Jaguar Love project, who also features Jay Clark from Pretty Girls Make Graves.

Head Wound City – All Tracks
Neon Blonde – Headlines
DJ Gajamagic – Various Tracks
Champagne Champagne
Jaguar Love – Various Tracks

Oh man, I forgot to tell you. Jordan Billie is currently dating Zoe Verkuylen, who used to be in The Red Light Sting (Who once had a split with Hot Hot Heat, who used to be an experimental dance-punk band!) until The Red Light Sting broke up. Now Zoe is currently taking on a new project: Baby Control, that is when she isn’t being Simian Mobile Disco’s tour manager. For an added headache, Baby Control is on Ache Records, which was started by Andy Dixon, also in The Red Light Sting, who now makes music under the Secret Mommy moniker.
The Red Light Sting – Various Tracks
Baby control – Various Tracks
Secret Mommy – Various Tracks

Remember me talking about Past Lives? Well, on top of featuring Jordan Billie, Mark Henderson and Mark Gajadhar the band is also what Devin Welch might call his current project. Adam Miller of course still associates with the current Chromatics. It’s truly gone full circle for most members of The Vogue, but if anything can be gleaned from all of these years of music, it is that Seattle/Portland are awesome, and that time has only allowed these people to discover what it is they truly love to do, and how. If it weren’t for everybody meeting everybody, we wouldn’t have all of these awesome bands to listen to and discuss.

Past Lives plays Situations on August 2nd at Dunes, and I’m sure you are dying to hear that afterward they are playing in California with The Crocodiles, who are members of The Plot To Blow Up The Eiffel Tower, who shared a label with The Blood Brothers and Head Wound city on Three One G, which is run by Justin Pearson of The Locust/Swing Kids/Some Girls/Holy Molar/The Crimson Curse/Head Wound City. Should I mention that one of Holy Molar is also a part of Portland’s own Get Hustle… and was once a part of the Chromatics?

BLAH BLAH BLAH GO TO THIS SHOW!

Posted By David Hutchinson