Another DAM! Interview: A Place to Bury Strangers
Brooklyn's A Place to Bury Strangers jumped from loudest band no one had ever heard of to the buzz on every music blog's lips in the space of a couple of months. Credit may be largely due to a Pitchfork review of a record in such limited release that most folks probably couldn't even get their hands on it at the time the review was posted. Their label quickly made more copies available, got the record on iTunes, and with that and what was certainly quite a bit of illegal downloading friendly file-sharing, everyone had a frame of reference to agree that APTBS was just as ear-drum shatteringly beautiful as was rumored.
There's one line constantly quoted in article after article and blog after blog: "loudest band in Brooklyn/New York." Tonight at the DAM!Fest show at the Rock and Roll Hotel, the band will make their bid to be the loudest band in D.C., for this one night at least. If the recording is any indication, when those songs are turned up to 11 and blasted out into the room, the crowd is going to not just hear the music, but feel it hit them like a cement wall, over and over, making their innards tingle, rumble, and shake.
Guitarist and singer Oliver Ackermann is no stranger to noisemaking. Before his profile shot through the roof, he was well known in certain circles as a maker of fine custom guitar pedals. If you want a sound a factory pedal just couldn't make, Oliver is your man. All that tinkering and rewiring has resulted in a sound for his own band that is all My Bloody Valentine wash, Jesus & Mary Chain buzz, with a thick layer of sonic brutality slathered liberally over top. Attendees of tonight's show should prepare to have their hair blown back and their skulls rattled, because A Place to Bury Strangers is prepared to bring the noise. We had a chance to ask Oliver a few questions in advance of the show:
Not too long ago, hardly anyone had heard of you, and you were only pressing 500 copies of your debut record. You get the Pitchfork review and suddenly everyone is talking and writing about you, you have to press more copies, you get a new label for the next record... what has the relatively sudden spotlight been like?
It has been really nice. I have been doing the same sort of thing musically since around 1994 with my old band Skywave. It is nice to have things turn out and get more purpose to what you are doing.
You were based in Fredericksburg with Skywave... did you play/come to see shows much in D.C. when you lived down here? Any favorite memories of D.C. shows?
I would come see shows from time to time in DC. Not as much as I would have liked, I was always a big supporter of smaller bands. Poseur Bill with Geo dancing on the tables or the Apes climbing on stacks the mind-blowing walls of sound from Alcian Blue, the Emerald Down, Aerial Love Feed.
What D.C. bands, if any, were you into back then? Any that factor significantly into what you're doing now?
I liked bands like Black Tambourine, Wintermute/Alcian Blue, Aerialist,and Minor Threat and Bad Brains when I was little. Sure, all music you like is inspirational to music that you make. Nothing directly but as a whole you build on what you learn.
Excited to be coming back to the area for a show? Has APTBS played much outside of New York yet?
Definitely, I love coming to D.C. It seems like there is a really cool scene going on now for our type of music. It seemed like years ago there was still a very strong hardcore scene and it was harder to break in. We have toured around the east coast a few times and been to Canada but haven't had the money to do it too much since my van was stolen twice in 2005. The first time I got it back there was a whole car chopped up in the back.
How/why did you get into customizing your own pedals? At what point did you realize that other people might be interested in the pedals you were making?
I got in to making my own pedals because I wanted to make sounds that weren't currently available with the effects that I was working with. I only realized that people might be interested when they kept on buying them and tracking me down to make effects for people. I think people like to use effects that don't sound so standard. It really helps you create and make something unique and different that you wouldn't be able to otherwise.
Despite the copious amounts of sounds you guys generate, it does sound carefully designed and precisely rendered... is that actually the case? If so, how do you approach playing the songs live differently?
It is, but it is all based on sounds that you cannot predict. It is all about action and reaction, there is only so much that you can plan when working with things like feedback and distorting waveforms, reverberation etc. We always have to work with what sounds are being produced at the moment and work with that. It is just the nature of what we are working with. In a live setting there is no way you can plan exactly how our instruments are going to sound because we use such outlandish effects and base a lot of the sounds we are making on feedback. We have to be constantly listening and adapting our songs to what is going on. This may sound extremely random but we begin to learn what to do when certain things happen and are able to keep everything fresh and exciting.
From the videos I've seen, it looks like you really put your instruments through some serious abuse... ever have any moments where you damaged anything too badly to play it anymore?
Sure many many times. So much as to where there are other ways to make noise and sounds work into songs even if certain instruments/amplifiers don't work. It is almost guaranteed that things will go wrong, it is embracing that that can make any situation a positive one. In the worst case scenario, I can play any song on any one string and we can all play through the bass amp.
I understand there's a new record in the works? What can you tell us about that?
There is and we are working on it. This one will be more planned out as an album and not as much a collection of songs like the self titled one.
What should D.C. audiences be prepared for when they come to see you on Thursday?
They should be prepared for some loud as fuck guitars and crazy lights.
A Place to Bury Strangers play the DAM! Festival tonight at the Rock & Roll Hotel. You can get in with your festival pass, or pay $12 at the door. Doors at 7:30, show starts at 8 p.m.