“I really like Arcade Fire, so it’s fine if people compare us to them, but the album doesn’t sound anything like Arcade Fire to me. I think the whole thing started because of this journalist in Omaha who saw us once live and said, boy these guys are just like Arcade Fire. He has since retracted on that statement.”
“I really like Arcade Fire, so it’s fine if people compare us to them, but the album doesn’t sound anything like Arcade Fire to me. I think the whole thing started because of this journalist in Omaha who saw us once live and said, boy these guys are just like Arcade Fire. He has since retracted on that statement.”
Incendiary interview Eagle*Seagull at the Paradiso, Amsterdam
I met Eagle*Seagull at the Paradiso. It was a hot Sunday afternoon, so we found a nice cool spot in the smelly (beer and stale cigs) basement lounge. I began to chat with singer Eli Murdock, – his name sounds cool right? Like something out of a 70’s sitcom – and Carrie Butler. They look and act slightly lost with out the other 4 members of their band, which includes Carrie’s new husband. They kept telling me how strange it was for them, this tour with just two of them, mostly because the missing members were the more vibrant colourful sorts. I found them both to be good people with wicked and slightly cynical senses of humour similar to mine. As a band, Eagle*Seagull seems to be being sold as America response to the Arcade Fire and yet their music bares slight resemblance to it, they’re in fact completely different, more of a mix of Joe Jackson, with The Cure with Broken Social Scene’s collective music mentality. The self-titled album is lush with textures, beautiful simplistic song writing and orchestration.
You can check it out at http//www.eagleseagull.com
IN: You guys were at Dour Festival in Belgium yesterday, how was it? Were you able to check it out at all or did you just go and play?
E: It was cool but it’s been busy. I can’t sleep on planes much, and she can’t either, no sleep, we got in at like two in the afternoon, went straight to Dour, played and then for some reason we ended up partying till like 4 in the morning and then got at like 9 to come here.
C: I thought I was dying.
IN: Eagle*Seagull, you don’t say the “*”, it is not like Eagle “Astrix” Seagull? Where did the name come from? Are you guys like obsessed with birds and flying?
E: We do like birds!
C: I hate birds.
E: I love birds! It (the band name) is completely meaningless in every way, which is what I like about it. An aesthetic thing.
IN: They’re birds of prey, one the land and one of the seas.
E: They are actually competitors.
C: Mortal enemies!
E: You can find all this footage of Eagle and Seagull fights online.
C: Isn’t it some psychological thing too?
E: Yeah! The Eagle Seagull syndrome is when you never set goals for yourself because you are afraid of failure.
C: Because you are such a perfectionist or something…
E: The way we got the band name was that we were fiddling around on the first track on the album and there’s this swooping sound that we thought sounded like a really “evil seagull”, so we called it that and then we were at the bar and I don’t know, we’d had too many drinks and someone thought we said “Eagle Seagull” and we thought it was really funny. It’s just funny to say too… Gull gulls… “Eagle Seagull”.
IN: Here in Amsterdam, in the Vondel Park there are these parrots living wild. There are two rumors, one is that they were introduced to help control the bug population and the other rumor is that they were escapees from a pet shop.
E: They can survive the winters?
IN: Yeah, the Dutch climate is really just a colder temperate but tropical climate.
E: Wow, that is weird.
IN: I say go birds! Just for eating mosquitoes! They are really my least favorite of the insect species! Well… maybe… (Makes a crawling gesture on the table). You guys are from Lincoln Nebraska, home of the National Museum of…
E and C: ROLLERSKATING!
E: That’s true. Roller Derby is really big again right now. There is a Lincoln team that is super popular.
C: They are called The No Coast Derby Girls.
IN: In Nebraska, especially in the last 5 years, because of Bright Eyes, Saddle Creek and everyone else. How has that affected the music scene?
C: There always was a thriving music scene.
E: There always has been, Nebraska is all Omaha and Lincoln and between the two cities there is one million people, maybe a little more. The scenes are so close together, it’s almost the same thing. Tons of bands and tons of venues, it is really easy to get a show and its fun! And it’s not just a certain… you know the Saddle Creek bands are really popular and those people are all friends with each other, but there is a huge hardcore scene too, pretty much whatever.
IN: Quick story, last year we went to see The Faint at Dour, they took forever to set up, then threw a fit and stormed off stage after three. There were some issues with the power however.
E: Yeah, that’s funny because the last time I saw them it was in Omaha even before they were big, like in high school and they did the exact same thing. I mean they use too many electronics and computers, so if something goes wrong, their whole set up is completely fucked, they can’t do anything, you know?
C: I saw them in Ohio in this house and then same thing happened too.
E: And they didn’t start playing till like 45 minutes later because of all the smoke on stage from the blown up equipment.
IN: Maybe it’s just evolved into part of their act. (Pyrotechnic equipment)
E: They are really nice guys though. They are super cool. I don’t really know them, but I worked in this pizza place in Lincoln near to where everybody records and I met all these people because I made pizza for them. They were super nice, they always said hello and they always tipped. So when I see them again, they’ll be like, hey, so you’re that guy from the pizza place!
IN: Are you still making pizzas? Do you ever cook for the band?
E: I quit my day job in October and haven’t gone back. Doing this full time now.
IN: This is your debut album, lots of people have been calling you guys the American Arcade Fire. I’ve listened to the CD, so is that because of your live performances?
C: Primarily.
E: I really like Arcade Fire, so it’s fine if people compare us to them, but the album doesn’t sound anything like Arcade Fire to me. I think the whole thing started because of this journalist in Omaha who saw us once live and said, boy these guys are just like Arcade Fire. He has since retracted on that statement. It doesn’t really matter. It’s a fine comparison because it seems like we are latching on to something super trendy. We’re not.
IN: Lots of reporters and record people feel that they have to give a point of reference. I listened to the album, I didn’t think you sounds anything like Arcade Fire, well yeah, I suppose, in its moody atmospheric nature with highlights of joyousness, then yeah, in that respects, it does ever so slightly.
C: That was a better comparison then a lot of other people.
E: Yeah.
IN: What’s the single? Photograph? I am fond of The Last Song and there’re really nice piano moments throughout the whole album.
E: Photograph and then next Your Beauty Is A Knife That Cuts My Throat. It is a weird album, we didn’t even have a band name before these songs were recorded and a lot of these songs were already 3 or 4 years old. That’s especially why Arcade Fire comparisons are funny, these songs are old, and we weren’t listening to Arcade Fire then. The next album that we are recording in November is so completely different. We’ve had much more time to learn the songs as a band. Rather then me having to teach everyone the songs, we’ve been playing them already together and recorded them together.
part two of this interview is here…