Leading up to Blitzen Trapper's show at Revelry Room on Wednesday, March 9, lead singer Eric Earley chatted with Chattanooga Times Free Press music reporter Casey Phillips about the hardscrabble life of being a touring band, his philosophy regarding the indie folk quintet's last album and their unlikely connection to the Scenic City.
Q: Last year was the 15th you guys have been together, right? Was that a big milestone for you? Do you put much stock in things like that?
A: I don't know that I ever really thought about it, to be honest. Things have changed so much over the years. We've only been touring since 2007 or something, so to me, it's more like eight years of touring. That's the date I look at. Before that, we played music, but we didn't really tour or have a label. We were just messing around for a lot of years.
Q: That being said, what happened eight years ago that lead Blitzen Trapper to graduate from a side project to a full-time gig?
A: We just randomly got a record deal out of the blue, basically. [Laughs.] An A&R guy from Domino heard the song "Wild Mountain Nation" on MySpace. He liked us and wanted to sign us, but his overlord at the label wouldn't let him, so he passed it on to his A&R buddies, and the Sub Pop guys heard us and signed us.
Q: Whether you choose 2000 or 2007 as a starting point, looking at the band today, are you surprised at where you've come? Are you in a different place or doing things differently than you thought you would be?
A: I don't know. I mean, yeah, if we go back to 2001 or whatever, I wouldn't have imagined I'd be playing music and touring and all that. I guess I wanted to, but you don't really know what that road looks like. Then, in 2007, when we got signed and had press and stuff happening, yeah, I imagined things being a certain way. Now, with music industry changing and there's no money left in the industry, our work has become blue collar. We're basically just glorified truckers at this point because no one buys records anymore. [Laughs.] It's a little bit different than what I would have imagined eight or nine years ago. It's still good, but it's different.
Q: So even if touring isn't nearly as glamorous as some people think, you're OK with it being a little more blue collar, a little less glamorous?
A: Yeah. I mean, I don't know if the glamour stuff is what I think about. More of what I think about is the amount of work you put in and the amount of money you get out of it. That ratio has changed so much at this point that we're basically just scratching out a living by touring. [Laughs.] It's that way for probably 80 percent of bands - maybe 90 percent of bands. [Laughs.]
Q: That's surprising to hear. "Furr" got such attention from the press back in 2008 that you were one of the bigger names in the indie scene. It's interesting that you say you're struggling as much as the newer groups.
A: Yeah. Generally, there's this arc that happens with pretty much every band these days, unless you're a band from the early days like Wilco or My Morning Jacket who had records that came out before streaming started. The arc is that you might have a record that does well, and you get the press and get recognition and that kind of thing, which is great, but after that, because you're no longer a new band, there's not as much press for you. You keep making records, but because the records don't sell, the only money you make is off of touring. That initial record that was like, "This band is new," that record is the one that will make you some scratch. After that, you have to rely on touring because there will never again be that kind of press for you, unless you re-create yourself much like Jason Isbell has done.
Q: If what touring and playing music has become more of a blue-collar affair, what makes it worth it to you?
A: Yeah, I mean, I like to play music. That's pretty much the bottom line. If you love playing music and writing songs, then it's a pretty good deal. We survive and get by, and I get to play music, which is pretty cool. And some years are better than others. It just depends. It's not an industry where anyone can know what's going to happen.
Q: Last year also included some big happenings for you. You released "All Across This Land" and "Live Harvest" and went back to Europe. How many dates did you guys manage to put away with all that recording?
A: Well, the record came out in the fall, so we did two months, roughly, when the record came out. Before that, we did another two months at the tail end of the record before that cycle. That was probably some festivals here and there and some random markets. Last year, we probably only toured five months out of the year, but we also spent a month recording in January.
Q: Even if there's a diminishing return on investment for creating these albums, you guys are certainly putting out a lot of records. Since 2013, you've put out five projects. Why continue making albums if they're not selling? Why go through all the hassle?
A: With the live records, we don't even do anything. We just play a show, it gets recorded, and someone else mixes it. [Laughs.] Actual studio records we make every two years, basically.
Just because people don't buy them doesn't mean they don't listen to them. Most people are listening to them. Spotify's numbers are very interesting. This year, they tell artists how many hours of their music people listened to. Our number was one that was so obscene that I couldn't even wrap my mind around it. Something like 100 million hours of Blitzen Trapper music was listened to in one year. And we see probably .01 percent of the money from that.
That's fine; it's just kind of the way it works. Even though people aren't buying it, they're still listening to it. And that's just Spotify. It doesn't take into account the other types of streaming services that are available, in Europe especially.
Q: So it's worth it to you, so long as your music is reaching people, even if you aren't getting paid well in the process?
A: I mean, I can't change it, so [Laughs.] I mean, look, there are so many industries in America that have gone this way. Virtually all of them. They either get shipped overseas or they get automated. It's pretty much like any other industry in America. It's being destroyed from the inside out.
You can't get mad about it. It's just the way America works: People want things for free. That's why people shop at Walmart. They don't think about the fact that shopping at Walmart is propping up this whole multinational, corporate thing that's shipping jobs and manufacturing overseas. They just want stuff for free, or for cheap.
It's the same with music. People want it for free. Every industry is going that way. For me, because music is a live thing, there's an aspect of it that's based in reality, and that's the live performance, so for me, that's become preeminent; that's the important thing. If you're a band, that's what you should be focused on: Can we do these songs live, and can we make the show that people really want to come back to?
Q: Did that philosophy affect how you guys worked on "All Across This Land?" It sounds more focused or centered on the classic-rock sound, which seems a little easier to re-create live or translate to a live show than something more experimental or full of studio layering.
A: Yeah, pretty much. It was basically like me saying, "These records are just advertisements for the live show. So we need to make these recordings line up with the live show. Otherwise, there's no point." With "VII," I didn't do that. "VII" was very much a studio trick record with lots of weird stuff going on. That was cool, but we could only really perform a few of those songs in the way that you hear it on the record. With this new one, every one, when we perform it has the same impact as when you hear it on the record, if not greater.
Q: How is that affecting its reception live? Are people responding to the live show better since its so much closer to the recording?
A: I think what it is is that the songs on this new record are live, so they fit in really well with the main, most popular thrust of all of our records. We've made a lot of records now, and there's a core group of songs from each record that really have impact live and that people really like and that people listen to, whether it's on Spotify or whatever. With this new record, pretty much every song fits in with that group of songs from those records. It makes for a show where it can all be consistent and make sense, regardless of what record we're on. They all go together.
Q: Are you enjoying yourselves more onstage, as a result?
A: Oh yeah. And it's fun having a lot of records, too, because we can craft really good sets with all kinds of different songs that people want to hear.
Q: Despite putting out two albums last year, you guys are already working on your next project. Your publicist says you're going to record a live album for Third Man Records in Nashville about a week after your Chattanooga show. What's the hurry to put out so much stuff?
A: I don't know that we're necessarily in a hurry. That live record is this gimmicky thing that Jack White does with Third Records. He invites bands in to do a show, and it gets recorded straight to vinyl, basically, which is cool. We'll do a lot of the new record, but we'll also do a few of the older songs, too. You get 18 minutes per side, so it's a very deliberate recording of a live performance for a small audience, basically. That's cool because hopefully that will get us new fans because Jack White's zillions of followers, some of them keep track of all the records that Third Man puts out. It's kind of a publicity thing in a different direction.
Q: So you guys could be his next Wanda Jackson success story?
A: [Laughs.] I don't know about that.
Q: You've described "All Across This Land" as a return to form for the band, a more "classic" sound. What do you mean by that?
A: I think that term kind pf changes meaning, even for me. A lot of times, when hear "classic," you think of classic rock, which in a lot of ways means '70s rock. The meaning of that word, to me, is more about the longevity of songs and their ability to live beyond the decade they were made in. There are classics from the '80s and '90s. It has more to do with creating songs that will beyond the year they were put out, basically, if that's possible.
Q: That's a pretty tall order. Isn't pretty much everyone trying to write songs that people will still be singing 50 years from now?
A: I'm not sure everyone is trying to do that. A lot of times, people are trying to create something that will be a hit right then, a sensation. It's difficult to say, really. When you're writing songs, there are all kinds of different ways to approach it, whether you're approaching it from a lyrical standpoint and wanting the words of the songs to have meaning or from more of a sonic standpoint or both.
Many of the classic songs we think about are Bob Dylan songs or Bruce Springsteen songs or whoever, and the lyrics are a big part of their longevity. But a band like Zeppelin, the lyrics aren't part of their longevity. It's part of it, but most of it is just the sonic awesomeness of it.
Q: You guys are about to create your third live album in as many years. Do you feel like making live albums makes you a better band?
A: I don't know. That's a good question. The last two, I didn't really know we were recording it. The "Harvest" one got recorded, and I wasn't aware of it. That record happened after the fact. We weren't planning on doing that. The same thing happened with "Live in Portland." There were three shows that were recorded in two days, and I wasn't really aware of it. After the fact, the guys were like, "You know, we have three hours of live recordings. We should do something with it." [Laughs.] I wasn't aware, so I didn't even think about it. With the Third Man thing, I am aware, so maybe I'll think differently about it.
Q: In your bio, you're quoted as saying that Blitzen Trapper onstage is a different beast than Blitzen Trapper in studio. That's true for a lot of bands, but you seem pretty adamant that the difference is pretty stark. What's behind the transformation from the group people hear on the records to the "hard-rock band" that people see onstage?
A: I mean, I think it's a difference between driving a really fast car and working on it in your garage. There's the safety of the studio where you're getting deep into the music and getting deep into the details. When you're playing live, you know the music, you know what's happening, so you're just flooring it. It's that kind of different.
Q: How does that "hard rock" sensibility manifest onstage?
A: Well, I think that the songs come alive more when we play live. We'll do things differently and add parts to them - stuff like that. A studio recording is kind of a collapsed version of a song, in my opinion. When you do it live, it accordions out and becomes this thing that's real, that's happening in real time. We're all making decisions onstage, and stuff is changing. Or we're deep in the tour and it's so tight that it sounds even better than the record. It's just the reality of music.
Q: Those moments must be rewarding when you're playing even better, in the moment, than you were in the studio.
A: Yeah, it is. I think performing live is pretty rewarding, especially for a band like us. We've been around for a while and have played together for a long time, so when we're in the pocket, it feels really good because we know each other and know what each other is doing.
Q: Have you guys ever played Chattanooga before, or will this be your debut show here?
A: Yeah, we've never played there.
Q: What do you know about us? Do you have any expectations about the city?
A: I don't. I used to live there, and Marty [Marquis] lived there for about four years. We lived above it on Lookout Mountain. I spent quite a bit of time in Chattanooga. This was back in the mid-'90s, maybe 1995. Marty was there from 1995 to 1999 or 2000. We were both going to Covenant College. He graduated. I went for a year and then split. He stayed and graduated and met his wife up there.
Q: So weirdly, this is kind of a homecoming for you, if not for the band.
A: I think more for Marty it is. Not necessarily for me. I had a lot of friends and stuff and probably still have some friends who are there, but I didn't keep in contact with people there like he did.
Q: What songs are making their way into your shows these days? Are you guys still leaning pretty heavily on "All Across This Land," or is material from earlier in the catalog making its way into your sets, too?
A: We'll probably play half of "All Across This Land" in the set, and the rest will be from all the other records. The sets always change because there are so many songs, People want these songs, and you can't always play all of them. [Laughs.] It's a great problem to have. It's funny because I'll totally forget about a song for the whole tour, and then someone in the audience will say, "Why don't you play that song?" and it'll be like, "Oh crap. I forgot about it." [Laughs.]
Contact Casey Phillips at cphillips@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6205. Follow him on Twitter at @PhillipsCTFP.