Three Stars: Bellman Barker

Questions for Bellman Barker:

Could you start out by giving us a brief history of the band (where you guys are from, where you live now, how long the band has been playing, etc.)?

Bellman Barker has been playing together since the New Year — some of us had played together before, some after, but it's a good average. Steve joined last. He had been touring with a metal band for the last 7 years — he can scream for 3 hours straight. But with us he plays keyboards. He's half-Portuguese, half-Russian, but I don't know where he's from. Mike joined before that. He spends 2 weeks out of each month in Bolivia — his father is a Cuban doctor. Mike studied international treaty negotiation at Yale, which is where he met Thomas. Thomas had left Yale to tour Asia with a clarinet troupe, but returned to study conducting.

This all happened 5 years ago. During that time, I was still working as a blackjack dealer in deadwood South Dakota with Full House Inc., in the Gold Dust gaming complex. This complex was sold about a week ago, which was very sad for me because it was working there with the kitsch gun slingers, burlesque dancers and ragtime pianists (who had all moved to Deadwood after the Black Hills Players Club folded) that I nurtured my love of music and performance. Anyhow, I had left to travel east, intending to make it to New York but wound up in D.C. after having met John at DC9, where I later began working as a sound engineer. John was drumming for a different D.C. band that has since gone under. John knew Steve from their work together as international defense contractors. And that's pretty much what happened — oh wait — I forgot about Thomas and the 4th of July.

I was spending the 4th (this is 2 years ago) in my friends above-ground hot tub, just off Florida avenue near that house between 13th and 14th that used to have those wrestling parties and rock shows. Thomas was the only sober person left in the city that night and was eating pupusas. We started talking about pop music, and that was pretty much it.

Wow, seems each of you guys have a pretty colorful background — that paragraph is like a PR agent's dream. Did working as a Blackjack dealer have any other effect on the music that you would go on to make, other than helping to nurture your love of performance?

Lyrically, I suppose, yeah — I like to create characters with strange histories that you only get a peek at, by hearing about how they're leading their lives today. I suppose that's sort of like working a blackjack table or tending a bar or any other job that lets you meet people from such varied backgrounds, with no real system of trimming down the contact pool.

Yeah, I can see how that would be — you might get a hint of where they've come from or where they're going but the only thing that's certain is how they exist in that particular moment. Does taking such a character-based approach to songwriting have any bearing on the way that you guys write together as a band? Do you usually come up with the characters first or do the songs come together before you think about lyrics?

Yeah. And the way people act, certain decisions they make say everything about the way they've lived their lives. Sometimes I need to make decisions faster — I spend an awful lot of time thinking about the options in a very disconnected way. It's nice to go with your gut, to be able to just do that, I prefer it. A lot of our songwriting is like that, working outside of conventional forms and doing what feels right next — or at least, most of our new songs — we're still learning how to write together but it's all moving along quickly. Typically we write most of the music first. But not always — we have a new song called “No Lions Allowed” and in that case, the music came after the words. I'm just trying to say true things now, rather than spelling out the whole history.

That's interesting that you see yourself as "working outside of conventional forms" during the songwriting process — to me there's something immediately accessible about the end product, especially in a live setting. Do you feel like your songs draw on some sort of pop lineage?

Absolutely. Our songs are about the melody, you know — they're starting to make more sense together, I think. We have a lot of songs and the thing they have in common is the same sense of melody. We're all starting to focus more and we’re learning what we can expect from each other. I guess I don't really know if it's different from what a lot of bands are doing or not — I don't listen to very much music. I'm not trying to stretch out right now — we just want to take what we have and make it as good and as pure as it can be, and not have it be anything else. I think that's really the only way to make it sound like us, to have it be the most like us that it can, because then we don't have to care how it compares because it doesn't have to. Then we can do anything that we want.

It definitely seems like you guys are focused on writing strong melodies — all of your songs seem to have pretty meaty hooks. One thing that surprised me though, the first time I saw you live, was how much energy you put behind the songs when you play them. I feel like a lot of the songs on the Anise & Anisette EP sound a bit restrained — and I'm sure you've heard folks describing your work as "twee" — yet you guys seem to have more of a power pop sound live. Is there a conscious effort to kick things up a notch live or does it just work out that way?

Performing is just such a high, it will always be so much bigger. We recorded Anise & Anisette in my dining room last fall with pretty limited equipment — one microphone and an old computer. The band wasn't even fully together yet. We didn't really know what we were doing, but what came together is an artifact of that time and place — we didn't really know what to expect from it — but the shows keep getting bigger, and I think we're playing the songs well now too. We're getting our ducks in line to record again soon — I don't know what it's going to sound like, but I’m excited.

Are you planning on doing a full-length next or another EP? Will you probably put it out yourselves like you did with the EP?

A full-length. But I don't know how it'll be released. There's a fair amount of time between now and then. I'm hardly thinking about it, to be honest — we’re just trying to write the best songs we can.

You mentioned earlier that you don't listen to very much music nowadays. Yet there's obviously a strong classic pop undercurrent in your songs. Are there any artists in particular that you would name as influences?

Tom and I have listened to quite a bit of pop, obviously, a lot of Motown — there's this great DVD called Standing in the Shadows of Motown that took years and years to make, some of the Funk Brothers were alive when they started filming it and died before it finished and that's a favorite — it's amazing how quickly so many of those songs came together. Tom can go on about Elliott Smith's arrangements. I was really into Brahms and Rachmaninov growing up, and Saint Saëns, and Joplin — I heard that all the time. My brother is a Ragtime pianist, so every Christmas I get to hear every Rag ten times. I listen to new music when I can — my stereo was stolen out of my truck a couple years ago so I don't have a great vehicle to hear new music anymore. Get it?

Got it. Any bands in D.C. that you feel have had a particular influence on you? Anyone you want to give shout-outs to?

D.C. has so many amazing bands right now. I used to live with Jamie from Greenland and I really respect and love what they do. Also Len Bias — they couldn't sound more different than us, but I love that group.

It seems like the local music scene in D.C. is either "dead" or a tight-knit — if not nationally visible — community, depending on who you ask. What's your take?

I don't think it's dead at all. Georgie James recently signed to Saddle Creek and Hardly Art picked up Le Loup (***) — people are paying attention. It's hard to be a good band, it just is. We have a small pond in D.C., no big deal. I've found that if you're willing to put in the effort to get exposure and to play bigger and better venues, you’ll be surprised by how many people are ready to help, to open those doors for you, to give you guidance, to share knowledge, etc.

I've heard that you're a sound guy at a few clubs in the area. Has this had any effect on where or how you guys play shows?

Oh god, I see so many touring bands play for no one. It's a really good way to go broke and have everyone hate each other. Yay! But I've met some amazing bands and some amazing people — I get to meet a lot of regionally touring bands, so it's easy to make friends. Maybe they're just afraid that I'll fuck up their show (laughs). A lot of bands know — they'll ask me if I'm in a band. I say yeah, and we get to talking and we'll get in touch later, maybe set up a show together, maybe just tell each other how great we both are, like bands do. Mostly I've learned not to piss off the sound guy. That's a good lesson. It's a great time running sound for your friends — then it's not work anymore.

Addendum: For daytime labor, consider Big Green Moving with Slim, Jumbo, Tomahawk Wred, and Lucky Pierre. This is when team h**** and jerk squ** look through your fridge. At the clubhouse. [I have no idea what this last part means -Ed]

It looks like you're about to head out on a brief tour of Maryland, New York and Pennsylvania. Have you guys done much touring in the past? Any plans to tour nationally?

It'll be our first tour. We've played out of town a few times but it just wasn't prudent before — we played without a CD to leave behind, we had nothing to sell and have people remember us by.

Nationally will be the same sort of story — without the PR leg work, it's just not worth it. So there's a lot of work to be done. Before venturing beyond the East we want to record again and we have the songs in order that we're finishing up. I love the writing, the other instruments, there are just infinite places to take this melody that we've created. But we're going to do it all differently, not just a mic in the dining room — and the songs are coming together differently, they're coming!

It's difficult to tour — currently I'm the only person in BB who works freelance, so we have to balance vacation time and with Mike being in Bolivia and Steve and John paying off cars by selling weapons to people (just kidding). But it's the goal, to make music good enough to make people believe in it, and us and to want to support it all — that's the only real way to do it. That's the goal.

Okay, one last question: Do you use some sort of wax in your mustache? I was wondering how you get that particular handlebar look.

I think the mustache speaks for itself.

First photo by Shervin Lainez, courtesy of Bellman Barker. Second photo by Meg Linehan, from the band's MySpace page.