Thrushes from Baltimore are a band to be noticed. They’ve been playing with f.e. indie-mp3 faves The Pains of Being Pure at Heart and Ceremony, and released their debut album in 2007 to much critical acclaim. Indie-mp3 cornered their guitarist, Casey, and found out about the band’s forthcoming album, a haunted studio and electro vs. shoegaze. Take a listen to “Flying” while you read on.
Hi Casey, tell me a little about the band, who are you and where are you from?
Thrushes began in 2006 in Baltimore. Anna sings and plays clean guitar, I play noisy guitar, Rachel plays bass guitar, Matt plays drums and bells. We all knew each other from an all ages club called The Small Intestine in Baltimore that was run by a friend, Ben Valis, who was still in high school. This was around 1998 or so. Rachel never played any instruments, but was always at shows. Matt, Anna, and I played in various bands around that time, but none of us had been in a band in a long time. I finally convinced Rachel to try bass and then shortly after we ran into Anna and Matt at a baseball game and the rest is history. Anna, Rachel, and Matt are from Baltimore. I myself am from New Jersey, the land of Springsteen, and came to Baltimore for college in 1995.
Your debut album, Sun Come Undone, was released in 2007. Tell us some interesting facts about it.
It Was recorded in 2 1/2 days in a haunted Baltimore mansion studio.
Matt made the artwork.
You’re starting work on your second album next month, you think it will be different from the first one and then in what way? How have Thrushes evolved?
We’ll begin recording after Rachel and I come back from our honeymoon. The new album will be called ‘Night Falls.’ We think all of the new songs are a hell of a lot better than the last record. Songwritting has gotten a lot better and we’re definately better at playing our instruments. Matt left for a while, but now he’s back and we love playing music together!
What with the walls of guitars and feedback, do you consider yourself a shoegaze band in the “traditional” way? Whatever way that may be.
I really only associate “shoegaze” with “Loveless” so I think “noisepop” is a much better description of what we do. I think at our core we have more a mid 90’s feel than late 80’s uk. We all grew up going to all ages punk and indie shows in the mid 90’s so that stays with you i think.
The “Heartbeats” remix is radically different from the orginal, is this a musical direction you’d like to explore more? And how did that remix come about?
“Heartbeats” got such a great response and we had a lot of interest from people wanting to remix it that we decided to let the fans have fun and the remix cd came out of that. None of us could figure out how to make electronic music to save our lives so we’re sticking with drums and guitars!
What would you say are the bands or artists who have directly inspired the way you approach music? And what current band would you most of all want to play with?
The music we end up playing in the van is usually like ’60’s girl groups, jesus and mary chain, velvet underground, old rem, smiths…. Thrushes really look up to bands like Sonic Youth and Yo la Tengo that are able to live their lives and put out extraordinary music every few years. For us creativity and quality is much more important than living the lifestyle. We’ve already played with the Raveonettes so I think Sonic Youth would be the ultimate thrill for us.
What’s the music scene like in Baltimore and what other bands should we be looking out for from that vicinity?
Baltimore has such a vibrant music and arts scene right now. Some fantastic friends & bands are making incredible music like Celebration, Baby Aspirin, Wilderness, Wye Oak, Ponytail, Beach House. What’s really great is that there isn’t and has never really been a “Baltimore” sound. That’s a very free environment to work in and somewhat atypical of such a small city. It’s fairly inexpensive to live here and the community for the most part supports the arts. DC, Philly, and New York are only an hour or two away.
As a guitarist, what preferences do you personally have regarding effect pedals?
My ideal sound is like surf guitar gone crazy so I’m always looking for unique sounding effects. Some of my favorite builders right now are Death by Audio, Dr. Scientist, Devi Ever, LAL.
When can we expect you to tour Europe?
Hopefully this record does really well and we can come visit next summer!
Thanks Casey, congratulations on getting married and best of luck with the album. Let’s hope Sonic Youth read indie-mp3!
Thrushes – Flying
Thrushes – Aidan Quinn
Thrushes – Heartbeats
Thrushes – Heartbeats (DtheNextLevelMix)
Thrushes – The Hardest Part
