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We know dead people
Energetic concerts and ambitious
albums pay off for And You Will Know
Us By the Trail of Dead, a band
with ties to Hawaii
First, by way of introduction, here's Ron Rollins of the Dayton Daily News' succinct review of "Worlds Apart" by the Austin, Texas-via-Honolulu power players And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead:
"And You Will Know Them By the Seriousness of Their Tone.And You Will Know Them By the Largeness of Their Sound.
And You Will Wonder What They're All About.
And You Will Get A Clue From Their Themes of Apocalypse.
And You Will Want to Judge Them Accordingly.
And You May Well Decide That They're Just a Bit Pretentious.
And You Might Think They're Trying Just Too Hard.
And You May Listen Again and Realize That Their Music Is Really Quite Cool.
And That It Is Excessively Large, and Draws You Mysteriously In.
And You May Be Put Off By the Odd Fit of the Singer's Light Vocals In Such Grand Music.
And Then Again, You May Be OK With It After All.
And You May Say to Yourself, I've Never Heard An Austin Band Like This.
And You May Wonder About Such a Funny Name, But Get Over It. Trust Us. Wham."
SUBTLETY is not in the And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead's vocabulary. I mean, just look at that unwieldy name of theirs!
With this audacious concept album, mainmen Conrad Keely and Jason Reece (who initially met while attending Kalaheo High School) shoot for the moon by deftly mixing up a heady brew of grandiosity -- both mock and sincere. It's a mind-busting swirl of bombastic progressive rock, furious post-punk assaults, horns, strings, the kitchen sink and, oh yeah, a female chorus.
And it all ends with a somber tune in tribute to our embattled native Hawaiian culture.
What with all the national attention the band's gotten for, at first, their anarchic live shows, and their recordings (especially since their major label debut in 2002, "Source Tags & Codes"), we figure it was about time to give them their local due.
The boys' new album has superstar classical violinist Hilary Hahn playing on the song "To Russia My Homeland."
Question: How did you and Jason first meet here in Hawaii?
Answer: Jason and I met at Kalaheo only a few months before I moved away to Olympia, Wash. He graduated from high school first, then moved to Olympia the following year. By that time, I'd dropped out of high school.
Jason was always in bands -- in Hawaii, he was in a band called If Any. I wasn't quite so successful musically. It was years until I was able to put a band together.
Q: And what prompted the move to Austin?
A: For me, it was mainly the weather. I hated the Northwest winter. Also, most of the people we knew in Olympia were a bunch of politically correct p--sies. And my attitude was, "Dude, I'm from Hawaii -- don't talk to me about 'cultural appropriation' ..."
Q: Conrad, you've been described as looking like a younger variant of Don Ho, and I can see the resemblance. What's your ethnic makeup?
A: I am half Thai and half Irish.
Q: Back to the band's music, did you guys go into the studio knowing that "Worlds Apart" would be such an ambitious album?
A: By the time we were ready to start working on it, we had a lot of inspiration to work from. Two years of accumulative music listening and traveling had basically matured us. So the album grew a lot out of these new experiences and inspirations. I was getting into movie soundtracks, like Basil Poledoris' work on "Conan the Barbarian" and Tan Dun's work on "Hero," and I think the idea of creating a cinematic-sounding record was on our minds.
Q: And how did you get superstar classical violinist Hilary Hahn to play on the song "To Russia My Homeland"?
A: I went to see her play in Texas, and after her performance, I was introduced to her. She said her boyfriend listened to our albums, so I asked her if she would like to play on the next one. The piece I had her play was something I'd written for music class at Evergreen State College (in Olympia).
Q: Included with the album's press kit is an academic-minded paper of yours titled "Death of the Enlightened Amateur: A Brief Summary of Key Developments in Western Music." It strikes me that "Worlds Apart" is the aural complement to it, considering the issues raised in the paper.
A: I hadn't thought about that, but now that you mention it ... However, the paper was written after the record, when the label had asked me to write a new bio to go with the press kit. I had been taking this lecture series on Western music from professor Peter Greenberg, so that was the inspiration behind the paper.
Q: Some of my favorite tracks off the album include "Will You Smile Again," that transitions into the title cut, the fearless and driving "Caterwaul," "Let It Dive" (which feels like a celebration of decay to me), the slightly giddy and Pink Floyd-ian "All White," and "The Best." Comments on any of these songs?
A: "Smile Again" is my homage to Brian Wilson, who we heard was releasing his album "Smile," an album countless people, including ourselves, had been anticipating for years now. So that was a big deal for us.
"Caterwaul" is Jason's song about release from limitations. A sort of group effort, lyrically.
"Let It Dive" is actually an old song that I'd recorded a demo of before "Source Tags & Codes." It was written as a farewell when many of our good friends were moving away from Austin to pursue careers in bigger cities. It marked the end of an era among our friends.
Q: And the final track, "Lost City of Refuge," what inspired that? And what did Herb Kane think of the juxtaposition of the imagery from his two paintings, "Hula Holoku" and "Battle of Nu'uanu Pali," as part of the booklet's art direction?
A: That song is specifically about Hawaii, and Hawaiian culture facing the challenges of survival under colonialism. My stepfather Eric Kane (no relation to Herb that I know of) is very active in Hawaiian cultural politics, so it is something that we feel a close affinity to.
Q: Have either you or Jason been back to the islands to visit family and friends during all this time?
A: We went there as a band on our way to Japan three years ago. Although we didn't play a show, we got to visit all of our old favorite places. I cannot believe how long the lines for Hanauma Bay are these days. Jason just went back in October for his brother Cole's wedding -- Jason's folks live in Kaneohe.
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