INTERVIEW: Velvet Crush (Creation/Sony)

- Tim Mohr

Velvet Crush emerged from Providence, Rhode Island to much critical acclaim in 1991. Consisting of singer and bassist Paul Chastain, drummer Ric Menck, and guitarist Jeffrey Burchardt, Velvet Crush created a bubbling low- fi guitar pop that made the English music press drool. The sound recalled Big Star or a jangly, post-Byrds band in overdrive. Their full-length debut, In the Presence of Greatness, was hailed by Britain's influential NME magazine as one of the top 50 albums of 1991, and the band was courted by Creation records.

In the Presence of Greatness was produced by Matthew Sweet using an 8-track home studio. For their next project, Creation released an e.p. of a BBC session, including a redone, slowed-down, softer version of one of the standout album tracks, "Drive Me Down." Then there was a long silence from the Velvet Crush camp.

In late summer 1994, Velvet Crush re-emerged with the album Teenage Symphonies To God and the lead single "Hold Me Up." Mitch Easter, known for his early work with REM, produced the album in North Carolina. The Athens, GA connection is solidified by mixing from Scott Litt, REM's long-time producer. Teenage Symphonies sounds much more clearly American - with shades of country and southern rock, and a nod to the mid-80s Minneapolis sound of Soul Asylum and the Replacements. Tempos vary much more than on the debut, from the slow, jangly "Time Wraps Around You" and "Weird Summer," to the southern boogie of "Something's Gotta Give" with its honky-tonk piano. REM's early fascination with the Byrds is mirrored by Velvet Crush, with a cover on the album ("Why Not Your Baby" from a Byrds side-project) and another as a b-side on "Hold Me Up."

Since the release of Teenage Symphonies Velvet Crush has been touring, first in the States and now in Europe. The tour winds up in Britain in late February, at which time the band plans to take a break and then go back to the studio. Consumable talked with singer and bassist Paul Chastain in Berlin.

Consumable: With In the Presence of Greatness you were called the "new gods of guitar pop" by the English press. Still, there are very few American bands on Creation: did all the great press help get their attention, or how did this come about?

Paul Chastain: Well, the first record was on Creation as well [in Britain], but it was just licensed to them. We recorded it ourselves and then licensed it to them. So then, after that happened, they decided they wanted to sign us. So we took a long time negotiating our contract - which explains the large gap between our two records. It took like a year and a half to negotiate. It was kind of hairy - but anyway it was good because it's a good label to be on as far as being an artist is concerned. As far as artists' managers it may not be such a good life...[chuckles]

C: Were there many visible changes for you as a band when Sony stepped in and bought half of the shares of Creation?

PC: All it did was facilitate us being able to get money out of them, which is a good thing. And Creation being solvent for more than a week at a time - because they really did run, you know, just kind of week to week and they didn't know if they'd be able to keep going...The Sony thing sort of helped stabilize them financially. Also they're becoming more business-like as a label. They're moving from being an indie to sort-of a major label - at least in the way they're run. It was just a really small label when it began and now they've got so many acts that they need to start running it a little differently - and Sony is kind of helping them do that. They have people that coordinate with them as far as Europe and America, for instance. It actually is good, I think. It helps us.

C: Couldn't that mean, on the other hand, that they concentrate on the financially successful bands, like Ride and Primal Scream, and neglect the smaller bands?

PC: That's sort of what they've done in the past because those are the bands that made the money for the label. But now, being more solvent, it probably enables them to look for other stuff, or stuff that's not taking off right out of the box. It's hard to say - I don't keep up with the English music press and I barely even know any of the bands on Creation. I know the big ones, but I don't know how other bands in our position are treated. Sometimes we have to fight pretty hard to get things going. I mean, we've been able to do what we wanted to do but once the record is out it's a different story. It's hard to get press going. And since we're not English and we're not over there to, like, call them... Because the way they usually run, or used to, is people from bands would be calling people at Creation saying, "Why isn't my thing in NME" and yelling at people. But we can't really do that because we're sitting across the ocean there. We can have our manager call but it's not quite the same. We're kind of out of touch with it in a bad way. They haven't given up on the record yet though. The American label *has* almost given up on the record [begrudging laughter].

C: Is Sony distributing it in the U.S. too?

PC: Yeah, it's on 550/Epic, a small branch of Epic. But it's Sony. It's all Sony. Yep, we're a Sony band [sarcastically]. We have a Sony publishing deal and since Creation became part of Sony we're totally...it's like an in-house thing. Which is kind of good in a way because people know what's going on with you instead of being on two different labels.

C: In the Presence of Greatness was produced by Matthew Sweet - how did you get together?

PC: Ric [Menck], our drummer, knew Matthew from years ago. Matthew used to live in the Midwest and that's where our band is from [Illinois] - although we didn't form there, we just grew up there. But Ric actually met Matthew when he used to live in Athens [Georgia] - when that was happening down there, REM, B-52s and all that.

C: Is that also where you got to know Mitch Easter, who produced the latest record?

PC: Kind of. I think Ric did meet Mitch around the same time...Ric just went down there because it was supposed to be happening there in the early 80s. He just wanted to go down and see what was going on. And he had been corresponding with Matthew. So then Matthew moved to New Jersey after he got signed to Zoo. And that's where we recorded In the Presence: we just went to his house. It wasn't planned to be a record, we just went to do some demo tapes. We just drove down there on the weekends [from Providence] and bashed out some songs and had fun. Then eventually we had ten or 12 songs and we said, "oh...well, let's send it sround," and we sent it around to Creation and they said yes.

C: Did you like having a bigger production budget this time around? Do you like the sound better on Teenage Symphonies than on In the Presence ?

PC: I like both things for what they were. The first one had *no* budget - we just bought tape and there was one microphone on the drums and Matthew had a little studio. It was nice to have money to actually go somewhere you wanted to do it and have money to pay people to come and play on your record. That was nice.

C: Speaking of having people play on your record, you have Stephen Duffy on Teenage Symphonies. Is this the same Stephen Duffy who was in the earliest Duran Duran and went on to form the Lilac Time (Phonogram, Creation) and do a solo project with Nigel Kennedy?

PC: Right. He's a friend of one of our friend's at Creation. We met him and he's become a pal of ours. He was on a sort-of American sojourn during the time we recorded and we said "come on down to North Carolina and sing some things..." We were getting pretty tired at the time, bogged down. We were almost done, but we were like, "uuuuuugh." It was overwhelming, too many songs...

C: So that's when you collaborated on "Faster Days," is it?

PC: Yeah. That song we had parts of - we had it musically, the arrangement was done. We did the basics, recorded that, and then left it aside. We took a break and I went home and worked on the melody. But I didn't have all the words - I just had the chorus part. So I said, "hey, Stephen..." And he finished the words and it came out pretty cool. He just finished a record that we played on. Also with Mitch Easter, but at a different studio. It's really good.

C: For a while the press was making a big thing about Alex Chilton as an influence, with the English press harping on the American sound of British bands like Teenage Fanclub and Eugenius. Do you find yourself lumped in with a percieved post-Big Star scene, particularly Teenage Fanclub?

PC: We've always had this problem of being lumped in with whoever we're friends with. We known Teenage Fanclub for a few years; we originally met them when they were on tour in the States. They were touring in some old stationwagon that broke down and they ended up staying over at a friend of ours' house. They're great guys and we also have very similar musical tastes. And with Matthew Sweet in America we get the same thing. We play with him: Ric plays drums on his records, and we toured with him on the Girlfriend Tour as his band. The Girlfriend record was bigger - kind of a big record - so now he's one of our "influences." The same thing in Britain - we're always like a baby Teenage Fanclub. But we've been playing longer than them - I'm slightly older than most of them. It's kind of frustrating. But I love their music, and I love Matthew's music. It's not bad to be lumped in with them because I like what they do. It's bad because some people think you formed because you heard this or that band or something. It's possible to have similar taste and coexist. I don't think we sound like them but I think we come from similar areas.

But we have a problem, though, because Sony doesn't know what to do with us. We don't sound like [most commercially successful bands, particularly the long list of post-Seattle bands]. Sony likes us, they just don't know what to shoot it for. So they're apt to give up quickly because they don't know. They're like, "we'll try this." Then it doesn't work and they're like, "oh well, make another record." And we're like: "No! We're going to stay on the road."

C: When you do get ready to record again, will you stick with Mitch Easter? Are you happy with the way Teenage Symphonies came out?

PC: Yeah, I think we're going to work with Mitch again, but do it a bit differently. He's a great guy to work with - very intuitive musically and a great musician. We know him now - he actually toured with us in Japan. He knows us better than he wants to by now [laughs]. We'd like to make a couple of records with him because we find we work well with him. It's hard to find that. *Not* that it was a *huge* commercial success [laughs]. We were pleased with what happened and we want to do it a different way next time but use the same people. It's comfortable.

After the interview the band runs through their soundcheck just a few minutes before the opening band comes on. The atmosphere is very relaxed. In concert Velvet Crush are joined by a second guitar player and run through a solid set, throwing in some of their slower songs alongside the rocky numbers. Paul Chastain's voice is slightly gravelly but not deep in pitch, reminiscent of Soul Asylum or Died Pretty. The most striking aspect of the show is how much the band now seems to continue the legacy of straight-ahead rock: southern-tinged Driving N Crying, country-hued REM, or the Replacements on Tim and Pleased To Meet Me. The slower, meditative songs have the longing drawl of REM's "Rockville" or "Fall On Me," while louder tunes rock- out. Velvet Crush is definitely an oddity on Creation, as the only other band that comes close to this sort of thing is Primal Scream on it's Stones- inflected ballads. Even Teenage Fanclub never really sound like they come from the whisky-soaked part of the world that produced the Jayhawks and the Replacements. If you like the sound of wide-open places and aching, forlorn melodies, catch Velvet Crush in Britain or pick up Teenage Symphonies To God.