When we interviewed The Blackberry Belles last July, singer/guitarist Tony Blankenship joked, “Courtesans are rad…The guy that sings for him—I steal like 90 percent of my stuff from that guy.” We smiled—there are definitely less amusing ways to promote one’s other band.
There are a few features that are easily distinguishable in both contexts, most notably Blankenship’s gritty yet soulful vocals. Additionally, there’s still some discernible Afghan Whigs homage, but the bass riffs draw more strongly from new wave acts like New Order and make for punchy straightforward rock songs that sound like they could have come out in any of the past three or four decades.
We talked to Tony Blankenship and Dave Copeland of the Courtesans about their origins, their advice for up-and-coming bands and their love for New Order and Prince.
Find them online: On Myspace and Facebook
Get their music: On Soundcloud
See them next: Tonight at the Black Cat with the Nunchucks and Cane and the Sticks.
Tony, how do you approach The Courtesans differently from Blackberry Belles? How do you approach it similarly?
Tony: Lyrically, the Belles material tends to be a little darker. There is a lot of internal conflict between the sinner and the saint. My contribution to the Courtesans still follow my general formula of I’m either singing a song to someone or that someone is singing it to me, but the material affords me the opportunity to do more upbeat, inspirational pop songs. I’m still looking for us to write an anthem.
Which of your two bands has been around longer?
Tony: The Courtesans. We’ve been around for a number of years. Dave and I have been playing since 2004 I believe. I auditioned for his band. Neither one of us started out singing for the band. We had singers come and go through the years and we must have auditioned most of the tri-state area, eventually, I got persuaded to share singing duties in another band I was in called the breakups. Dave came to our first show and wondered why we weren’t singing for the Courtesans.
How did you three meet each other?
Tony: I answered an ad on Craiglist to audition for Dave’s band. I was auditioning for a lot of bands at the time and got a lot of rejections. I actually got accepted by a band and almost flaked out on Dave, but he called me before I had the chance. he was such a nice guy that I not only honored my audition, but also, quit the other band and joined his.
Dave: I was looking to put together a band, and auditioning guitarists. Tony was one of the few that actually learned the songs, enhanced them, and had a great sound. Also, he was the nicest guy and seemed like the most fun to play with.
Tony: I met our drummer, GP Shook, thorough my stint in the Breakups. he was their drummer, before I started playing guitar for them. He left to study abroad and would do fill in gigs after he returned to the States. He was actually in Secret Pop with our last drummer, Greg Gendron, who departed from the Courtesans when he took a job overseas.
Having been active for as long as you have, do you have any insights on being a musician in D.C. that you’d like to share with newer bands?
Tony: Make friends, play nice, show up on time, share gear at shows, watch each others’ sets, and encourage your friends to do the same.
Dave: Tony just said it better than I could.
What has changed about playing in the area since 2004?
Tony: Not too much. Bands come and go. A number of my favorite’s have broken up, moved away, or have simply vanished.
Dave: The venues have changed, come and gone. I think the quality of the venues available now is better than it was in ’04. But it’s still a hard sell to get people to come out to see local music; I don’t know if D.C. is any more “on the map” than it was before.
How does songwriting work with the three of you?
Tony: Generally, either Dave or myself come to the band with a mostly completed song and we all work together to flesh out the arrangement.
How has your songwriting evolved since the start of the band?
Tony: I’d like to believe it’s gotten better. I feel like the longer we’re together, the more trusting we are of each other in terms of a songs direction. I feel like I’m bringing material to the band these days that I wouldn’t have dared to in the past for fear of having it shot down. I think the secret is we love playing music together. We also like to write with the other members of the band in mind and everything is subject to change. More often than not, songs sound different in my head compared to what they sound like when presented as a band. Especially with the vocals. It’s not uncommon for me to finally learn how to sing the song after we’ve played it for months.
Dave: Mine’s gotten worse, because I’ve spent the last year writing a computer programming book and pretty much left Tony with all the songwriting duties.
Dave and Tony, do you usually sing the songs that you write? Is that how it works?
Tony: Yeah, we usually sing our own songs. I’ve toyed with asking Dave to sing some of the songs I find I have trouble with.
Dave: I think it would be weird to sing another person’s songs, but I guess it happens all the time. I think we could sing more backups on each other’s songs, but not every song seems to call for it
I’m hearing some definite New Order influence in the guitar playing. Is that intentional? Are there bands that you know are sonic influences on The Courtesans?
Dave: Ha! Musically, I shameless rip off Peter Hook any chance I get, and Tony lets me get away with, even encouraging me to play “bass interludes” in his songs. New Order is one of my favorite bands and I like putting Hooky-style bass parts in our loud & dirty rock songs. Lary from Galaxy Hut asked me which pedal was “the New Order pedal”. Previously, it was a Clone Theory Chorus AND a 1980’s era DOD phaser. I’ve been through three of those phasers and finally got sick of buying them from ebay (new ones don’t have the right sound :), so now it’s the Clone Theory + some light distortion.
Tony: People go bananas for the New Order bass at shows. The Afghan Whigs and Wilco are a huge influence on my playing as is Prince. You couldn’t tell by listening to us, but I am constantly chasing the sound on the solo of “I Could Never Take the Place of your Man” from Sign ‘o’ the Times. When I ask other people what they hear I get a wide variety of responses. I’ve gotten a little Vampire Weekend, some Sonic Youth and the Replacements. People are going to hear whatever they want and that is fine with me. It’s funny, I came to the band with a song that, in my head, sounded like a bit of Prince meets U2 with a piece of Foo Fighters added with some Can. Dave’s working title for the song is The Cars because he thinks it sounds like the Cars playing Gary Numan’s “Cars.” Brilliant!
