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The Antlers started as a solo project for singer-songwriter Peter Silberman, but before the recording of Hospice began, Silberman found two bandmates: drummer Michael Lerner and multi-instrumentalist Darby Cicci. Since the release of Hospice, the band has found itself playing venues all around the world.
On Tuesday, The Antlers played in New York’s Bowery Ballroom. Before that performance, thanks to the miracle of e-mail, Cicci found the time to talk to us about the band’s breakthrough year, the new album, the future, and even threw out a Shawshank Redemption reference. Pay attention, constant readers!
To say 2009 has been a successful year for the band is a bit of an understatement. What’s it like having the chance to play in famous venues, especially the upcoming, sold-out Bowery Ballroom show?
It’s been pretty surreal and totally amazing. My only goal for this year was to play Mercury Lounge once. So far this year we’ve played there twice, Bowery Ballroom three times, Webster Hall once, and Music Hall of Williamsburg four times. February we’re playing BAM and then Terminal 5 right after. My head’s still spinning – all the places I only dreamed of playing now somehow feel like home to me. I certainly won’t forget this year for the rest of my life.
What has been the most defining moment of the tour thus far? What will you remember above all else?
On this last tour we were playing a really big show in Madrid and during the first song, our stage power transformer blew halfway through the first song and all of our equipment stopped working. We had to stop the show for about 20 minutes to figure out what the problem was. No matter how stressful the situation was, Michael and Peter never lost focus, and went right back on stage and played the rest of the show flawlessly. The most defining moments when you’re in a band I think is when you realize just how much you can trust the people you’re playing with night after night. It’s easy for anyone to stay focused when things are going well. When everything collapses is when you see what people are really made of.
Peter (Silberman) began recording under The Antlers name as a solo act. Was he hoping to find band mates down the line, or did it just kind of happen?
Putting a band together is one of the most difficult things. Finding musicians that are interested in becoming permanent members is nearly impossible. Peter was definitely asking around if people were interested in playing some of his songs from “In the Attic of the Universe”. We were both playing solo at the time, which can be really boring. Rehearsals are playing songs in your bedroom alone, and there’s just a limit to how much sound one person can make. When you play with other people, everything just starts to grow in a really organic way.
What artists did you attach to at an early age? What influence did they have on your songwriting?
Same stuff everyone did really. All The Beatles, classic rock, Beach Boys, soul, early rock and roll, and Hendrix sitting in our parents’ vinyl collection. It doesn’t really have any effect on what any of us have done in the last couple years. Discovering Elliott Smith at just the right time in your musical development can make all the difference. Everything you listen to can teach you an encyclopedia of sound, style and structure, and after that songwriting just has to come from your response to the world around you.
When you began writing new songs leading up to the recording of Hospice, were you looking to write a concept album, or did the hospice theme arise over time?
Peter created the concept for Hospice first, before any of the lyrics or songs were written, and everything musically was built around that idea. The music was built up over time and the lyrics were the last to be finished and recorded. The concept was always there and the story kind of emerged over time.
I’m sorry to hear that. I think Hospice is elusive enough that everyone can kind of make their own decisions about what it’s about. It’s open to interpretation, and hopefully if we’ve done our job, it means something different to everyone. So I think everyone has had similar experiences in a way, dealing with relationships and death, and trying to figure out your place in the world. The response has been overwhelming and a lot of people have really connected with the record. What I hope that really means is that the record may have helped them learn something about themselves. We’ve learned a lot too.
At times the record is so quiet we hear every consonant click, while other times the vocals are overpowered by guitars. How much deliberation went into determining how often to go soft or go loud?
It was kind of just done on instinct in a way, but deliberate, too, to a degree. Sorry that’s kind of a contradiction I guess. There are times when the narrator feels stronger or weaker than his surroundings, and I think he gains a great deal of confidence by the end of the story. We kind of just focused on what each moment meant in the context of the whole.
Why did you go with “Prologue” as the album opener instead of “Sylvia, an Introduction”? Was the latter ever an option, as the liner notes suggest?
I think “Kettering” is kind of the introduction in a way for the story of Hospice. Peter recorded “Sylvia, an Introduction” before we worked on the record. I think of it as more of a preface to Hospice than an introduction. “Prologue” is kind of like that period of being of time as your falling asleep when images start to take shape, before your dream actually begins.
How old is Sylvia in the hospice? The songs “Bear” and “Thirteen” imply one age, but are they just referencing something that happened to her in the past?
“Thirteen” is when the trouble really started.
In “Epilogue”, the narrator is reeling from Sylvia’s death. If the album is only part of the story, where do you hope the narrator is now? What do you think happened to him?
I think the album is the whole story. Where is he now? Maybe Zihuatanejo?
What’s next for The Antlers? Have you begun writing new material?
Yes we’ve been writing, programming, recording, and doing a lot of long division. We are taking off the month of January to sit and record in our studio. We have more microphones than last time so I think there are even more possibilities.
Do you think a new album would be based on another concept, or are you leaning in another direction?
It’s based on an entirely new world we’re building from the ground up. It will take some time. It might not be a concept record, but it won’t be a collection of songs. None of them will make sense without the others. Or maybe it will just be one long song? We’re all feeling very energized and creative right now, so we’re allowing ourselves to get a little lost and we’ll try to find our way back.
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