DCist Interview: Longwave
Longwave's Steve Schiltz from Flickr user Marcus Metropolis
I’ve been following you guys for some time, I think the first time I ever heard you was in a Virgin Megastore in Columbus, OH. I picked up The Strangest Things and I remember really liking the album and listening to it alongside Interpol, The French Kicks, and The Strokes. I was wondering why you thought more people weren’t following your music along with those acts that were coming out of New York at the time?
Steve Schiltz: Yeah, thanks, I don’t know. It’s not really a question I know how to answer and if I did I would have made it happen differently.
There were some issues when you were on RCA Records and you were subsequently dropped.
SS: It wasn’t a big deal…it wasn’t a surprise. If we had sold hundreds of thousands of records, we’d still be making records for RCA. Everybody is in the business to make money so it wasn’t a surprise, but it definitely took us some time to regroup and figure things out.
And so you took some time off from Longwave to work on side projects?
SS: I just…I needed a job again so I got ask to play guitar for a few people and it seemed like a better job than a lot of other jobs, so I said yes. But the whole time I was on tour with other people, I’d be thinking about our songs and whether or not we were going to make another Longwave record. Whenever we were all home we’d get together and play.
So you had some good rehearsals and you decided to give it another shot?
SS: Yeah. I think what happened was that we had written a song called “Life Is Wrong” that we all liked pretty early after the last Longwave record, and one by one I had written a few other songs that I thought would be good to play with Longwave. Once we had a few of them, you want people to hear them, and the way you get people to hear them is you make a record.
And how did you come across Original Signal Recordings?
SS: The label is new but the people there all have a lot of experience so once we looked into it… they were really excited about the record and it seemed like a good situation.
And what has the critical response been to this latest record?
SS: Yeah, it’s been pretty good. So far so good.
Let’s talk about the sound you guys achieved on this record. The core sound seems to be what I remember from The Strangest Things, droning guitars, growling bass, booming drums but it seems more mature and maybe, "bigger" for lack of a better word.
SS: I play a different guitar set up now. I play with less effects on and most of the spacey shit is just Shannon [Ferguson]. And finally Peter, they guy who mixed the record, deserves a lot of the credit. He likes to make things sound big.
“Sirens of the Deep Sea” was probably the first track that caught my attention when the album came out in November and I thought there’s something…Depeche Mode…
SS: Yeah, there’s that line, it’s “Enjoy the Silence.”
You have played in DC before?
SS: Yeah, our first-ever out-of-town show was at Velvet Lounge and that dude Chris who used to own it, was a real character, and had that tire iron thing he walked around with. He was kind of like a better, more in-shape version of Meatloaf. The reason I say that is because he’d wear a cape sometimes and walk around cracking his back with this tire iron. And we thought, god, DC is weird.
Did you guys plan to be here the weekend before inauguration or is that just how the tour worked out?
SS: I think that’s just how the tour worked out but I’m pretty excited about it. I don’t know, I kind of wanted to stay an extra two days but I think it might just be a mad house.
Longwave plays DC9 this Sunday, January, 18. With openers The Jackfields from Fairfax, VA and The Shackeltons from Chambersburg, PA. Doors are at 8 p.m.