High Voltage

After the underground success of their debut, Alpinisms, School of Seven Bells went from strength to strength, touring with Bat for Lashes and playing with My Bloody Valentine at the All Tomorrow's Parties festival. Now they are back, and with a new album - Disconnect from Desire. HV caught up with their guitarist (and sometime drummer) Ben Curtis, to talk about... well, pretty much everything.

HV: Ben, thanks for talking to us. So what's going on at the moment, now the record is finished?
Ben: Well right now we're just playing everyday, trying to get it together and see how to approach them as a band. It's a weird transition going from the private world of the record to being this public thing.

He mentioned that they were planning to tour for about a year, so I asked whether he found the songs changed on the road or not. SVIIB don't follow a conventional band format so I wondered, is there less room for improvising?

It seems things always change with us. Maybe less with this record though. About half of it we've played on tour already... it's hard trying to find that live electric energy. Things always change a lot live, but I think we're already halfway there.

The new record, Disconnect from Desire, is a lot more 'focused'- where Alpinisms was layered, ebbing and flowing, drifting in its sheets of noise, this record is less marked by shoegazing guitar parts and more by synth parts and sparse, distant guitar lines that are at times more progressive than post-rock. There's even moments where the arrangements drift towards electro-pop, and perhaps this is the avenue by which the band will break the mainstream.

How would you describe the new album, compared to Alpinisms?
I think its intention was the same, musically speaking, but this time we were able to approach it with a hundred times more confidence. There was experimentation... there always is with our music, but the goal on the horizon was a lot clearer. Going into Disconnect was different- the dynamic between the three of us was such that it was always going to sound like School of Seven Bells… but in the end, it all sounded more direct, like we had one object. One idea that we were all really excited about. The concise approach to it, that's what I'm really proud of.

What was the writing process like?
Uhm, there's no rules. For this record though, it was more traditional. Chords and changes written in advance. The songs were abstracted from the sounds before we played them rather than being constructed from them. It was written on tour in Europe in about two to two-and-a-half weeks, so it was very influenced by that. It's hard to talk about because I guess every song happens in a different way.

Since Ben's background was as a drummer (notably in late '90s psych-rock outfit Tripping Daisy), I was interested as to whether this affected his approach to SVIIB's percussion. Also, were there any live drums on the new album? To my ear, the opener, 'Windstorm' took a break from convention by their inclusion- was this the case?

Half and half. It was initially, but I didn't like the feel, so they were chopped up and rearranged. Closer to 'no' than 'yes'. I think musically what I've done doesn't affect me now, but being a drummer affects everything. I can't program freely- I think as a human- two arms, two legs- like a kit. So that affects me, for better or worse.

As Ben is well known for his experimental use of the electric guitar, I thought that it was probably time for a bit of geekery, so I asked him what his favourite bit of kit was.

Uhm, good question... I guess two different Hagstrom guitars. I tried a lot of different things. They work right with my pedals to get exactly the sound I'm used to. I also love the Whammy pedal. I use it to detune by a step and then play a different note so that the Whammy corrects to the note I want. It's a really cool, synthetic guitar sound.

I mention that both Claudia Deheza and Phil Karnats (now of Secret Machines, but also of Tripping Daisy) played the same style of Hagstrom at Manchester dates a week apart last year. Had they been sharing gear on tour?

Ha, I didn't know that. Quitting a band is like breaking up with a girlfriend, sometimes you lose some stuff. When I left the band [Secret Machines] some of my gear was appropriated as 'band gear'- Phil's a good friend of mine, and there's no bad blood- I guess he just liked it!

Continuing in the same vein, I had to ask-

It's been driving me mad since I got my hands on Alpinisms, but how do you get the guitar sound on 'Wired for Light'?
It's played, but also re-sampled. A clean version of the sound played over the actual one. The pattern is programmed rhythmically to the bass drum.

Well, now that he knew my favourite SVIIB track, I thought it was only fair that I asked Ben about his:
It's a different one every day. At the moment, live, it's 'Dial'. It's one of the more subtle songs we've done. I'm proud of the changes and it's my favourite song to play.

What about influences? Do you have a favourite band or a main influence?
Everything from Wire to Echo and the Bunnymen to Neu! to... god, I don't know. Gong, Hawkwind, My Bloody Valentine. There's a shitload of twentieth century composition I love too.

School of Seven Bells, like Curtis's previous0BkH1YlAuPrlNqUVYwEwslMLoA6NeI$;w York-based; however, his early bands, Tripping Daisy and UFOFU were from Dallas, Texas. Had the move had any impact on him as a musician?
Yeah, for sure. There's a spontaneity to this city that you can't find anywhere else. You get out of your car and people are in your face and you're forced to interact. You can't lead a solitary existence. It affects the art you make, somehow. It's the noise too. It has to affect you somehow.

I agreed. There's something about the city, even if New York is on a different scale to Manchester...
Ha, there's definitely something about Manchester as well... loads of my favourite bands are from there.

It's becoming quite a staple of my interviews, but then, I know I'm not the only one thinking it- so did Ben have an opinion on downloading?
Well, I think there's no easy answer. Obviously there are people it's helped. On a certain level, having to have money and backing can stop music from being heard, but free downloading can stop music from ever being made. You can hear every record ever made really easily now, but there's a sentimental side to me that is sad that a band like Echo couldn't go to a studio with an orchestra and make Ocean Rain now- there isn't the money. On the other hand Hudson Mohawke is awesome and that's bedroom made. Because of my taste in music there's things I'm going to miss. I hear the argument “forget records and make your money playing live” a lot, but that's failing too. Less people are buying records and going to shows but more people are listening to music.

It was nearly time to wrap up- Ben had places to be, but he was interested to hear my last two questions:

Can you remember the best gig you've ever played?
There's a few, but the one that springs to mind was when we played All Tomorrow's Parties last December. We were on right after My Bloody Valentine and it was just amazing... it turned out to be the best gig we've ever played and the best attitude. It was an honour. Backstage, people were telling us that we should have switched slots, that we were going to be destroyed, to look like amateurs, y'know, but we got up there and definitely held our own, and doing a different thing. It was fucking great to see them on the side of the stage. I thought it'd make me anxious, because Kevin [Shields] is a hero of mine, but in fact it was a huge ego boost.

Finally, I had to ask, what did he love about music?
Uhm, I think that what I love about music is that I think every person feels alone behind their eyes and in their head, whether stuff in there is normal, or off the deep end, or far out. Music is off in space and yet it makes these feelings concrete and you can share these feelings and think “I feel that too”. It's more direct than any other art form. Like your ears are a direct line to the centre of your brain.

Disconnect from Desire is out in the UK now. School of Seven Bells will be playing a handful of shows here to promote it, starting in Bristol on the 18th and then Manchester's Ruby Lounge on 19th July.
 

TAGS: School of Seven Bells, Full Time Hobby

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