Bishop Allen

It’s amazing the difference a year can make. Turn back the clock to 2006 and Justin Rice was working like a madman. His band, Bishop Allen, had set about on a Sufjan-like task to record twelve EPs, each appropriately titled after the month they were recorded, and succeeded. The result? A label deal with Dead Oceans that has given the band the freedom it had hoped for.

Now the challenge is a different one: to simply enjoy making music and leave some of the DIY stuff behind them. On a recent tour with Page France, Rice sat down with Stereo Subversion to discuss the new album, the new record deal and what Bishop Allen hopes to accomplish with all of it.

SSV: Before we talk about the new album, it’s interesting that after building such a reputation as a DIY band, you finally decided to sign. What was the point that made you give up your independence and sign with Dead Oceans?

Rice: Well, when we were putting out the EPs, it was great. We started the process out of frustration because we weren’t really getting anything done. So by setting deadlines and putting out records ourselves, it definitely kicked us into gear and made it so we really started to produce a lot of new songs. And as part of that, we opted not to focus at all on trying to sell the records. We didn’t try to get distribution, we didn’t try to get them in stores. We didn’t really do any promotion. It’s like we put them out, told people they were there and they could buy them on our website. And I think we were fully prepared to keep doing that.

But as a result of that, record labels started to take more notice. Several of them came to us and some of them even made offers. But most of the offers weren’t really that great. We’re like, for whatever reason, it makes more sense for us to keep doing this on our own at this point. But when Dead Oceans came to us, they approached us in a way that made us really like them. They gave us a really good offer. It seemed like they would work really hard.

The advantage is that 1) we actually get distribution, so our record is in stores and you can actually buy it from somewhere other than off our website, and 2) they handle all of that, handle the promotion and all that sort of stuff. It really relieves the burden for us. The way that we had learned how to put out a record I think is just based on common sense. And the people at Dead Oceans have a similar approach and some more ideas, but they’re just a little more sophisticated because they’ve done it on a bigger scale than we’ve done it.

SSv: Can you be specific? What are some of those ideas?

Rice: Well, here’s an example. We didn’t put out any of the EPs on vinyl, because vinyl is kind of a hard thing to deal with. And it’s expensive. There’s definitely a problem if you buy vinyl and you have to listen to it on a record player. But Dead Oceans is releasing it so that if someone buys vinyl, they get a free download code so they can download mp3s of the songs for free. And, as a result, what ends up happening is that if you buy the vinyl to keep as a collectible and the mp3s are what most people listen to, they can put those on their iPod.

So it’s really cool and on the road we’ve been selling a lot more vinyl than expected. I think that’s a really cool idea, actually. If everybody starts doing that, I think I’m going to start just buying vinyl again. It’s really cool to have an artifact, you know, but it’s so much harder to deal with practically.

SSv: Do you think that’s a good example of the industry or a label combating the issues of “it doesn’t work the way it used to?”

Rice: Yeah, I think in some ways. Because at this point, when people buy music, it’s almost like a decision they have. It’s like they can hear music without buying it or they can choose to pay for it. So I think it’s doing things like that that sort of gives someone an incentive to actually invest in and pay for artifacts, but still be able to hear the music.

Dead Oceans and Secretly Canadian and that whole enterprise are so much smaller than a giant, massive label. And I don’t think there are a lot of large acts. They’re not wasting money and it’s not a hit-driven way of handing out records where they need blockbusters. So everything they do is fairly stripped down and fairly straight forward. In general, I think these indie labels are already more in tune to the new world of music and music distribution. They operate so much more efficiently.

SSv: Is that what drew you to Dead Oceans?

Rice: Yeah and the people. Those guys are just smart and they’re good. You talk to them and you have a trust in them. They seem to know what they’re doing. So it was they way that they operate, but it was also the people themselves.

SSv: Even if the offer was good, was there still a part of you that was hesitant to sign?

Rice: Yeah, there definitely was a lot of that. We were changing they way we were doing things. There’s something nice about just being 100 percent in control. But as part of talking to them and putting the record deal together, we got to maintain a lot of the things that I would worry about losing control over or losing ownership of. We got to keep a lot of that stuff. They were really, really fair.

They really seem to care and seem to be very artist-friendly. That definitely helped a lot. I mean, it is weird to be totally out there on your own and then all of the sudden to be a part of something bigger. You do have to believe that the people you are entering into a partnership with, that they’re going to do the right things most of the time. They did a good job and were pretty specific about what they were planning to do.

SSv: You said they took the burden off. How has that affected you already?

Rice: In the most specific way, I used to have to go to the post office once a week and stand in line and deal with all these orders. We were always having to negotiate with manufacturers and make sure the proofs were sent to us at the right times and look them over. It’s always the details of actually creating something people buy. We would always have to do accounting and keep track of stuff for our stores. It’s basically like running a retail business at the same time.

When we delivered the record six months ago, from that moment forward, they coordinated with all the manufacturers. The CDs just showed up. They were done and they looked great. They hired a publicist and a college radio promoter and made sure that everything was happening at the right time. They set the release date. They made sure that everything moved in synch, and we didn’t have to worry about that. I didn’t have to make ten calls a day making sure that things were happening, which is they way it used to be.

SSv: Has that affected the band – this new freedom? Do you feel like it’s changing the dynamics?

Last year, we definitely got to work on music for most of the year, but now there’s actually more time to work on music. I think we actually have more time to get ready for this tour, so I think the live show is better than it’s ever been, which is a great feeling. But it was always tough on these last tours because we were scrambling and trying to keep all these other things going at the same time. Not having to worry so much about all of the logistical details, we can spend more time playing.

SSv: From Dead Oceans’ perspective, what do you think they’re getting? When they’re looking around for bands to work with and they see Bishop Allen as the band they want to target, what are they seeing?

Rice: I think they see that we’re a band that has our shit together. We work hard to try to make sure that we get better. We try to put our records that improve over time. We do all the things that are really necessary to get a record out there in the world. They’re dealing with people who do this out of some obstinate and obsession dedication to music, and out of a love for it. Because of those things, they realize that we’re a hard-working band that will, which is who you want to be involved with when you’re trying to sell records.

SSv: What was the kick start behind the idea of an EP per month?

There was actually a piano that we found abandoned on the street in Brooklyn. There was a school and I guess it was getting rid of its music program, so they just left this piano out on the street in the trash. We hauled it back to our practice space and started writing new songs on it. Neither Christian [Rudder] nor I – we both write the songs together – neither one of us ever really played the piano. I played when I was a kid, but we sat down and I played the piano, he played the guitar.

We ended up with all these songs that we’d come to in a different way than what we’d been working on before. And so we were like, “Let’s put out an EP.” And over the course of a conversation that lasted maybe 20 minutes, the idea basically got more and more inflated until we’d come up with this hair-brained scheme to put out an EP every month for a year. And once we got that, it just sounded so good to both of us, that we both agreed to do it right there on the spot. And once we’d both agreed, neither one of us could back down. We’d buried ourselves into it.

SSv: Once you commit to that and you’ve already released a couple, do you feel like you have no choice but to continue?

Rice: Yeah, there was definitely a moment that March where it was like, “I guess we could stop now and it wouldn’t be the end of the world.” But it was really pretty lame. April was the toughest month, because we’d already done 12 new songs over the past few months, which was more than we were used to but we still had a lot to go. Once we got past April and May and got into June, there was a momentum there. We had the confidence we could finish the thing.

SSv: So did the songwriting become easier along the way?

No, songwriting never gets easier, I don’t think. Meeting the deadlines became easier, once we did it. We knew that we would make it. We knew that we wouldn’t give up and we knew we wouldn’t run out of songs. But it still takes the same amount of sweat to just sit down and pen the songs from conception. It’s totally hard to write a song.

SSv: Do you feel like you had to find new wells for inspiration for all those songs in a row?

Rice: Yeah. It became a matter of searching the world for things or ideas that were interesting to write about. Also, it was about constantly trying new instruments…trying to come up with a song on a ukulele or with a string part. Trying to incorporate new instruments or to think on new instruments was a really good way to find new inspiration.

SSv: That’s such a project. I’ve read two different figures: one that you’ve made 58 songs that year, and one that said 48.

Well, here’s the thing. Every EP was four new songs, except for August which was a live disc. It basically had two new songs on it, and the rest were the songs from the other EPs. So the grand total is 11 times 2, which is 44, plus 2, which is 46. But the total number that we released was 58, because some of them were on that live disc.

SSv: So if you have all these new songs when you sign with Dead Oceans, was it really hard to pare that down to just nine?

Rice: It was a fairly natural process. We recorded all of the songs for the new record. And for a lot of them, we substantially reworked them. And so the process was I think we first started with the songs that were our favorites. There was actually a good amount of consensus about that. Then we picked songs that we thought, if we spent the time in the studio, we could give them a new kind of life and make them interesting. That’s how we put a lot of the songs together, and then it was just a matter of trying to fill in the blanks. Also, when we started recording the album, there were four or five songs that we brought in and started working on and we put those away based on the process of how it was actually going – how things actually ended up sounding.

SSv: Let me switch gears for a second, if I could. Recently you were Paste Magazine’s band of the week. When it comes down to accolades, what is that like for you guys in the band?

Rice: Yeah, it’s great. On one hand, I’d like to say that we don’t read our own press. I think it’s wise not to read your own press and not hear too much about what the critical response is, because it can be really hurtful. I think at least for me – and maybe this is true in general for people – that accolades are great but don’t register as much as the nasty comments. And so it’s always good not to read your press, not to let it affect you.

But I know the truth is that I do, and I’m sure everybody does. It’s like, you start out making something in your room, and somewhere implicit in the whole process of writing songs is that someone out there will be enjoying it later. But at the same time, the actual process, which we’ve been so deep in with the EPs and the records for so long, the actual process of recording songs is fairly lonely. So when you read that someone is enjoying your music and they say something nice, then you realize that you’re in the connection. And that thing sitting in your room is playing on someone’s stereo. Feeling that that bridge exists is pretty helpful.

SSv: Is that surreal in a way, to think of it in those terms? That artistic process of creating something out of nothing, and all of the sudden it’s just out there?

Rice: Yeah, sometimes the record doesn’t feel real and it’s hard for me to believe that it’s something that is out there in the world. When you hear about people hearing it, it’s a little strange, a little uncanny. You know that something you made is out there. It exists. It has a life. I can’t even control it anymore.

SSv: Do you find that your art is that personal, so when you release it, it’s a part of you in that way? Or do you feel a good, safe distance?

Rice: Oh, no! I don’t think I feel a safe distance at all! I think that every song, I tend to be emotionally invested in. And I think that’s important for the kind of music that we make, which is about less of virtuosity and more about sincerity and connection. At the same time, I imagine it’s what it’s like to have a kid or something. I really feel strongly about the songs, and I feel attached to them. But I realize that once they’re done, they’re not mine anymore. There’s a moment where you kind of give up, and you say, “This is the world’s now.” You sort of trust that you did everything right, that when you put the song out in the world everything will be fine. It doesn’t worry me, I guess.

SSv: What is your hope for this album? Or even, what is your hope for your music now that you’re on a label?

Rice: I hope that this record, a lot more people get to hear the songs. Basically as many people as would feel a connection with the music. I hope every given person in the world would feel connected to this music, would enjoy it. I would love it if they could hear the record. That’s sort of abstract. I think in reality, my hope is that I just want to keep going. I just want to keep the process alive. I want to be able to tour after this record, and go into the studio and record another one. And I think that’s gonna happen. The hope is always to keep going.

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