Get To Know A Houston Band: The Literary Greats

Taylor: Our band's weird, 'cause the first full record that we did, we did over a long period of time. Brandon and I met as audio engineers. You start talking shop with people, "oh, do you play?" 'Yeah, it's funny that you ask that, here's my demo.' I heard his tunes and thought, man, my brother plays, we could fill this stuff out. And then before we could track a record [Brandon's] job took him somewhere else, and then [he] got sick, and then right when we were ready to get going again Chris Ginsbach moved to Mexico.
Brandon: To teach English.
Taylor: So it took forever from when we initially started to actually put out the first record. With a lot of those hurdles, bands would have just broken up, but because we're audio engineers we could always work on it ourselves and communicate over the internet. And when the first record did well, we already had a formula that didn't depend upon us all being in the same city.

HTR: So the second record went smoother?
Taylor: I think so.
Brandon: For one thing, we tracked all together. That's probably a big difference. We did every song together in the studio, and knocked it out in two weeks.
Taylor: I think one of the reasons the first one did well is because it took such a long period of time, there were some songs that we tracked like "oh, this song is awesome!" Then after such a long period of time went by, we listened to them and went, "eh..."
Brandon: It's not so awesome anymore.
Taylor: They didn't make the cut, you know? We had enough time to weed through all the ones that needed more work.
Brandon: On the latest one... I sent a demo out to everybody to hear, and since we tracked all together everybody kinda put their ideas together at once. There was definitely a more collaborative effort on this one.
Taylor: It was cool having an actual producer on this one.

HTR: Chris Grainger, right? How'd you guys hook up with him?
Brandon: Tinderbox Music is our promoter that did our radio campaign for the first record, and I just started a relationship with John Delange, the owner. We were talking every week on the phone. He was doing some TV stuff for us, some licensing stuff. I sent him a Christmas beer basket, in fact I sent the whole office one. I think it was like forty bucks, it wasn't even that expensive. He calls me up, 'Hey, when are you doing your next record? I got this guy in Nashville.'
Taylor: A little bit of networking... [laughs]

HTR: That's one of those smart things that people just don't do.
Brandon: And a polite thing!
Taylor: You coulda drank with that forty dollars, but it probably wouldn't have gotten you a producer. It was cool to have [Chris Grainger] involved; he kinda babysat us. It got recorded really quickly, and we didn't have to worry about stepping on anyone's toes because he was kinda the referee... We went into it going, "we'll defer to Chris if we get to any kind of complications or differences in opinions." Not that we have a lot of conflict, but it just went quick.
Brandon: I think he also brought some ideas to the table, too. There were some things that we would have probably never thought of that he had an ear for, [things] that would round out the song, that made it flow.

HTR: Is there any particular flourish or fragment on the album that's one of your favorite moments?
Brandon: There's a lot of those, yeah.
Taylor: My two favorite songs right now are Show Me The Coast and Ruby Sapphire. Show Me The Coast because I love the lyrics of it. It's such a pretty song, but then the lyrics are really dark. I like dynamics in music... if something's really pretty - maybe your chord progression's really pretty or the melody's really pretty - I like to have the lyrics go the opposite direction. I love the lyrics - that's one of the reasons I wanted to be in the band, I love [Brandon's] writing. And Ruby, I love the music.
Brandon: That's one where the music came first... I think the one that I'm listening to right now is Dreadnought, because all of the background noise that we did was done on an ARP, an old vintage synth.
Taylor: It makes such a broad range of sounds...

HTR: There's a lot more in the background of these songs, is what I've noticed. All the background vocals, these little key parts, every now and then this little guitar riff that slips in, or the bass does something... I think it really makes the album more complete. It's kinda this theme throughout the album.
Brandon: I caught [your review] today, it was really well written.
Taylor: [laughs] It was a good review and you're, "it was very well written, thank you." [laughs]
Brandon: Well, I thought it was articulate. I geek out on that kind of stuff, 'cause I'm really not an articulate person.

HTR: Really? Because your lyrics would suggest otherwise.
Brandon: Yeah, but I have to spend a LOT of time working on that.

HTR: There's ten songs on the album. Was there anything that got cut that you went in [to record], was there something you replaced? Did you go in with all ten?
Taylor: I think one song was a possibilty that got cut, and we ended up using a tune that got cut from the last record.
Brandon: What song got cut?
Taylor: Well, we were throwing around the idea of doing Houston Texas Mexico. Which I kinda wanted that one.
Brandon: Yeah, it just didn't match the rest of them. We deferred to Grainger. Ocean Waves is the one that ended up replacing it. And that was tracked with the first record.
Taylor: We actually tracked that one, but Grainger mixed it.
Brandon: We redid some stuff, but the drums, bass, and [Taylor's] guitar are from two years ago.

HTR: You guys posted that the album debuted [at #153] in the CMJ top 200, that's pretty cool.
Brandon: These charts come out every Tuesday, and we actually went up to #142 this week. We hope to keep moving up.

HTR: I saw in the interview that y'all did with Jeremy Hart of Space City Rock that you guys had stuff picked up for Real World?
Brandon: Yeah, so we were on Real World: Brooklyn. I said we, well our music was on RW: Brooklyn.
Taylor: [laughs] Yeah, I told people, "we're gonna be on the Real World!" and people would be like, "you're gonna be on Real World?!"
Brandon: We're like, "Whoa, whoa, it's not that exciting."
Taylor: Yeah, you're not gonna see my mug getting a sex change, going "I'm gonna fight everyone!"
Brandon: We were on three episodes.
Taylor: There's a lot of different shows that we got licensed for - I don't watch a lot of that stuff so I don't know if it ever got used.
Brandon: We got licensed for The Hills, Keeping Up With The Kardashians... all these semi-reality shows... The funny thing is that if they played us on some of these shows we wouldn't know until our PRO sent us the check.
Taylor: Which is like 9 months later...

HTR: So there might be stuff that y'all got used in that you don't know about.
Brandon: No earthly idea. MTV's courteous, that's why we knew about that one. We knew it before it came on, so we actually got to watch it. But we won't get the check until December because of the way the payment works.

HTR: Do you guys have any tips for bands that are trying to get stuff licensed?
Brandon: There's a lot of ways to do that. There's some websites where anybody can go and sign up, and sign an agreement or contract... but what I found is it's really the relationships.
HTR: Sending the beer basket...
Brandon: Yeah, and the right people pushing your stuff, that helps.

HTR: So how did you guys get hooked up with Tinderbox?
Brandon: They hit us up over MySpace, I believe. Our [current] radio promoter sent us a message, "hey I think you guys might do well in college radio." And I was like who is this guy and what are you selling? But he's a really cool guy, and he sounded like he really knew what he was doing, and he actually delivered.

HTR: Do you have a band or musician in town that you think people should really pay attention to?
Brandon: Probably the most obvious one is Sara [Van Buskirk].
Taylor: You've gotta listen her record coming out...
HTR: I'm looking forward to that.
Taylor: A lot of us played in other bands in town and stuff, years back, and have done it for a while. Recently I think a lot of us have been working, so that we can promote our band, and we kinda lost touch - which is one thing I regret about not going out to as many shows. I'm trying to get back into that, because I think there's a younger generation in Houston - not necessarily age, but bands that are coming out now - that has something new and fresh to offer... There's some good stuff out there.

HTR: Do you have a favorite memory from the Houston music scene?
Brandon: I'm a huge David Garza fan, so every time he plays at the Continental, I'm there... He'll do a show, and then he'll go out on the back porch, and everybody who's at the show will go out to the back porch. He'll play his acoustic guitar and everyone will get around in a little 'campfire' circle. That's one of my favorite memories.
Taylor: We played some stuff today on the radio - Ian [Wells] just let us pick through stuff and play. I came across this one band - I didn't remember what they sounded like. I remember it was kind of sludgy and it was from back in the day; they were a Houston band called Man Or God. I just remember sneaking out in early high school, going to see them at Fitzgerald's... I remember seeing Weezer play the Westheimer Block Festival, like blue album. I can't believe my parents let me out to roam the streets of Montrose at that age.

HTR: Is there one thing you want people to know about The Literary Greats?
Taylor: Well, for Houston, I just want people to know that we really appreciate the people that come out because they like the music. I never try to pressure anyone to come out to our shows because I don't like to be pressured - I always just tell people, "if you like the music, then come out." And when people do come out, it's awesome. So I'd just like to tell people thank you for doing that.
Brandon: I would say what you see is what you get with us... I think we take our music seriously, but we don't take ourselves seriously. Heck, I spent three months in the hospital - what you get in the music as well is the good times and the bad times, you're gonna get everything. It's pretty honest, I think. If people like that, they should look into us.

HTR: You guys play your record release on Saturday at The Continental Club. What time's the show, and who else is playing?
Brandon: Doors open at 8 pm. Elkhart is a band from Dallas - another set of friends we have - that are coming down.
Taylor: They're a good fit for us.
Brandon: They'll play at 9 or 9:30, and then us.
Taylor: And Sara [Van Buskirk] will finish out the night.

HTR: How much is the show?
Brandon: It's five bucks. We'll have the CD's at the show. I like to tell people the CD's are five bucks, but if you don't have five bucks just take one, and promise to tell your friends about us.
HTR: You can't really beat that.
Taylor: Yeah, I usually chime in behind him [whispers], "Buy me a beer!" Buy me alcohol, because it's only five bucks. Especially if you took one for free, you can get me a Lone Star. Sometimes it works.

HTR: Alright, well thanks for sitting down with us.
Taylor: Thanks for having us, man.
Brandon: Yeah, we appreciate it.