H-Town Rock Interviews: The Antlers

We here at H-Town Rock are fans of the idea of the concept record, but too many such records become bloated with ambition without ever really delivering on the promise of the actual concept. But every once in awhile, we come across a record like Hospice, the new record from New York-based band The Antlers. The album is a collection of songs serves as a novelistic requiem to a lost loved one that is equal parts deeply sensual longing and achingly pining resolution. Having already received a host of accolades for this project (including being named the best album of 2009 so far by NPR), The Antlers are poised to play a slew of shows at SXSW, but not before making a stop in Houston.

First of all, let me say that we're truly in love with your new record Hospice. It's such an excellent, spacey rock record with heaps of shoegaze influences. Tell us about the inspiration behind this record.

Peter Silberman: Thanks! I think the sound of the record was sort of the result of piling a million small sounds upon one another, until they started to melt into one big, textured, blanket-y thing. But the risk with that is creating something with no direction, something that ultimately feels aimless. With that sound in mind, the goal was to make something that would feel complete.

How does the band go about writing each track? Do you approach things first from the lyrical or musical direction?

A lot of the writing for Hospice began with this one vocal melody that I ended up working into a few songs. I had pages and pages of lyrics set to the melody for "Bear" and "Epilogue", and about half of them made it as songs on Hospice. I do a lot of writing through recording, though, so a good deal of the record came about from working with sounds while recording them, and trying to turn them into songs from washes of sound. But as far as each track's concerned, it's been awhile since I've written songs independent of an album. These were all written with the intent of appearing on the same album, or within the same story.

Since Hospice tells a rather complete, coherent story, will the band perform the record as a whole or will it be broken up and mixed with other songs in your catalog?

We actually did perform the record as a whole at home in Brooklyn for our record release show, but otherwise we tend to change the order some, leaving out some songs, throwing in a cover or an older song, but the set's still pretty focused on material from Hospice. But...it's a long record. We don't usually play as long as it would take to play through the entire thing.

What are your hopes for the album? If anything, what do you want people to "get" from listening to these achingly painful, yet beautiful songs?

My hope with Hospice is that people find a way to relate to it. If nothing else, I'd love for someone to listen to the record and feel a connection with it. I think the most important thing music can do is create a connection or a relationship. Life can be really alienating and isolating, but music's a good cure for that.

So, you've released a great record and you're touring it around the nation, but what else might the band have planned for 2009?

Well, there's more touring on the horizon, that's for sure. There's a lot of ground in the country we've yet to cover, like Chicago and the Northwest, and hopefully we'll make it out there in the near future. Today, we all talked a bit about recording an EP some time after we get home. I can't say when that will happen, but keep an eye out. Darby's been working on his project Diplomat, and that should be a really interesting record.

The Antlers will be playing at Boondocks on Tuesday, March 17th, 2009, supported by Spain Colored Orange and Reuben's Accomplice.

The picture of The Antlers comes from the band's website and was taken by Darby Cicci.