The Art of Longevity

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In this day & age of abundance, you can easily forget what’s precious - like your favourite bands. If you are anything like me the question “what’s your favourite band” now has an official top 40. As in I have a rolling 40 favourite bands. Making a welcome return to the top 40 is Nada Surf, the ‘New York’ (now firmly remote) indie band that first hit my favourites list way back in 2005.

I always remember how I discovered a band, in the case of Nada Surf it was on a Mojo or Uncut free “covermount” CD (do they still do those?). The track “Do It Again” from The Weight Is A Gift Album (2005) has one of my all-time favourite basslines. Indeed, in our Art of Longevity chat, Matthew Caws and myself ended-up riffing on a playlist of pop songs in which the first thing you hear is the bass line. If playlists were still a thing, that would be a good one. It was a pleasant digression from the important matter of surviving the music industry.

Nada Surf is one of those bands that’s easy to forget about when music is so abundant and that would be a big mistake. Stumbling upon a new Nada Surf record every 4-5 years is a highly recommended balm for modern day life. I can’t think of many bands (or in the case of Matthew Caws, songwriters) who provide the soundtrack to fumbling through life in the way we sometimes do, especially if you recognise the traits of attention deficit, as Matthew does - the origin and subject of the band’s superb new song ‘In Front of Me Now’, which I have adopted as a theme tune for the time being. In my head, if you will, this song is a number #1 hit single.

Over the years, Matthew’s subject matter for Nada Surf’s songs covers life’s day to day tribulations, the mangled thought processes that cycle through our brains and how to see light from the dark patterns that surround us. We are essentially keeping Matthew company as his life has played out.

“Most of the time a song is just impressionistically how I’m feeling”. 

Nada Surf is one of those bands that made their way through a 30-year career and nine studio albums without disturbing the charts. Yet the band has never made a bad record and indeed Matthew, modest to a fault, is somewhat coerced into being proud of never making a dud album.

“It has felt great in terms of longevity for a very long time. Unbelievably when we were making The Proximity Effect (the sophomore album in 1998) most of the bands that we toured with had broken up and we were sticking together. That felt unusual”.

Whether new album Moon Mirror will change the trajectory for Nada Surf remains to be seen of course, although it’s unlikely. That’s just the modern music landscape in the streaming era. Perhaps what matters more, is that not only is the new album very much not a dud, but one of the best indie sets you are likely to hear in 2024. And that’s saying something, since guitars and indie bands are back in fashion, albeit the modern kind i.e. a new crop of cult bands. Let’s hope some of this new crop of indie guitar bands can stay the course the way Nada Surf has done. Turns out surfing on nothing can be a lasting pastime. 

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In Mark Oliver Everett’s autobiography “Things The Grandchildren Should Know”, the author, otherwise known as E, the frontman and band leader of Eels, wrote of Bob Dylan’s self-proclaimed destiny as a musician:

“I wish I had something like that, but I didn’t. At all. All I had was an aching sense of desperation. I didn’t have any idea what the hell I was doing and was only doing it out of not knowing what else to do”.

Despite this, or perhaps because of it, E simply continued to keep on keeping on with music, leaving his home in Virginia to seek his ‘lack of destiny’ in Los Angeles. Low and behold, he wound up being signed to a major label - not once but twice - and at the second bite of the cherry, found significant and lasting success.

No wonder then, E suggests we rename this particular episode as “The Unconscious Art of Longevity”.

Some 23 years after signing his first solo record deal, E has found his way to a 15th Eels studio L.P., the aptly named Eels Time! Recorded in Los Feliz, Los Angeles and Dublin, Ireland, the album was made by the current line-up of E himself, Little Joe (Drums), Koool G Murder (bass) and The Chet (guitar), featuring Irish folk musician Sean Coleman and new collaborator Tyson Ritter (on five songs). Ritter is the lead vocalist, bassist, pianist, and songwriter of the rock band The All-American Rejects but is better known these days as an actor. In a twist typical of the Eels story however, Ritter - who on this occasion was connected to E by his manager - turned out to live close by. But The All-American Rejects shared the same label as Eels (Dreamworks) back in the early 90s. Almost two decades on, Ritter was finally reeled into Eels orbit.

It’s a microcosmic example of Eels' career story - a series of unplanned events driven by E’s whims - whatever he felt like doing at the time - a series of creative zigzag turns that often turned out for the best through luck or dare I suggest…a more similar destiny to Bobby Dylan’s than he once believed.

“I’ve been doing it so long now that everyone pretty much leaves me alone. I don’t tell the label I’ve made a record until after it's mastered and finished. I pay for the whole thing myself to have the freedom of nobody putting their two cents in”.

So in some ways yes, E’s career has been “The Unconscious Art of Longevity”. But look deeper and all the signs are there - the self-belief, single-mindedness and willingness to follow his own instincts and obsessions - these factors have underpinned Eels’ journey and kept the wheels connected to the rails. And each and every one of those 15 albums has a lot to offer

“It’s all a miracle to me that I still get to make music as my job. I’m lucky, but you have to get yourself in the best position to receive it when luck strikes”. 

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Marika Hackman's Big Sigh is everything a 4th album should be. Really good songs, good scheduling, sophisticated arrangements (brass and strings accompany many tracks). The album has variety - from the mysterious instrumental interludes of The Ground and The Lonely House (opening sides A and B of my/your bottle green vinyl copy) to stand out singles (Slime, No Caffeine) to epic album tracks (Hanging, The Yellow Mile). It has an impressive musicality and most of all, it has real depth. A truly great album is one you can climb into. Every listen reveals something new. Keep listening and your favourite songs will shuffle around changing places like a game of musical chairs. That’s Big Sigh.

A record such as this, in 2024, can reach a fleeting and lofty height of number 67 on the UK chart. So what’s wrong with the system here?

“Everything gets put on the little guy. Why has it become about artists and fans rather than labels driving the commerce? There should be a mutual respect between artist and fan, do they really want to see me on a selfie cam sending out a faceless message?”

But for an artist like Hackman, such frustration fights it out with gratitude on a daily basis. After all, she can make (expensive) records, get paid advances and take a full band on tour. Many ‘middle class’ artists operating in the same commercial layer as Marika cannot quite make it there.

What qualifies as the next level in this weird reality video game we call a career in music?

“It’s hard to break that ceiling to that next level - where it can run by itself - you need people to invest in you over the longer term, not just for one tour.  As artists we need to value ourselves more. We need to stop showing the industry that we are worthless. There can’t be an industry without us”. 

We need this to change. Because we deserve another four Marika Hackman albums, at least. Critically revered from her debut, the consensus (I read every review I can set eyes on) is that Hackman’s 4th studio album Big Sigh is her best work to date.

“Whenever I sit down to do a new record, it’s always about being better than the last one. To hear people say that my music has progressed to a new phase is like fuel to my fire. It’s lonely making records on your own, you can easily lose perspective”. 

As for the masterpiece, that is still to come. What happens after that is down to us. 

“I feel like I’ve got songs that are more classic that are yet to come. I used to dream about making a record that would transcend a generation, but now I just want to make a record that sounds like a classic record to me”. 

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Fran Healy and his band Travis have this longevity thing down. Firstly, you must have a love and addiction to music, as something magical. Secondly, that magic is for you to create - making music to nobody’s expectations but your own. But thirdly, you get lucky. As Fran says in episode 3, Season 9:

“The chances of a shit kicker from Glasgow going on to win the best band in the world is a billion to one. How can you be proud to be lucky?”

Well okay, but as all bands that ever got a break know, you have to be in it to win it. And for 35 years now, Fran has been in it - always mining for that song gold.

“Most songwriting is digging, until you find that nugget, and you extract it from the rock. You keep digging because you know you will find something”.

New song Gaslight is one such nugget - a fabulous pop-rock stomp, with a brass arrangement and burst of dirty guitar to boot. It feels confident. And, Travis has a new album - L.A. Times - written by Fran Healy from his studio on the edge of Skid Row, Los Angeles, where he has lived for 10 years. He describes L.A. Times as Travis’ “most personal album since The Man Who”. That album went 9X Platinum in the UK alone and shot the band into superstardom, and while no such expectations exist for L.A. Times, that’s just as it should be. The band that rose to fame during the peak CD era in the 90s is releasing their 10th album into a world where vinyl sells more than CDs, but streaming still rules. Does Travis have a place in this space?

It’s just not something that will concern Healy or his bandmates that much.

“The problem is when you think you are the shit, you are the diamond. But I’m still a lowly miner, and always will be. Joy and success you can define any way you want, but it’s about you, the person, not outside things”.

The writer of a song called Gaslight will never be gaslighted it seems. 

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After 25 years in the music business, both as a major label priority artist and as a jobbing musician, Ed Harcourt still has big ambitions. 

“My greatest achievement would be to write a song I would never get bored of singing”.

Cards on the table, Ed Harcourt’s two instrumental albums made between 2018 and 2020 (Beyond the End and Monochrome to Colour) got me through the pandemic. Well, they certainly helped. But Ed didn’t sing on either, so it comes as something of a relief to have Ed Harcourt back in the world of songs. Not only that, but his best batch of songs for a while - held together on a cracker of a new album El Magnifico. It is quite possibly the best album he has ever made. The question is, will enough people get to hear it?

Harcourt was first signed to Heavenly Records, which was subsumed into the EMI empire of old, where he was a priority UK artist for a while - thrust into the eye of the needle. But the chart positions never came, the pressure mounted, and, inevitably, Harcourt moved on into the second phase of his career as an independent artist. These days, his view of ‘the industry’ is understandably jaded.

“I went a bit mad. I had been institutionalised. I felt done. It still feels like a rollercoaster, but I can’t do anything else”.

His solo albums as an independent artist have impressed critics and fans - especially Furnaces (2016) - but commercial success has been elusive, and Furnaces left him burnt out and in need of a change (hence the ‘neo classical phase’ that followed).

Harcourt remains an active collaborator, however, producing albums for Kathryn Williams and Sophie Ellis Bexter, whom with Ed co-wrote on her last three albums. He is now working with emerging artist Roxanne De Bastion. In many ways, it is surprising he is not more in demand as a producer, although by his own admission, he will never be motivated to do anything within a million miles of what you might call a trend. Meanwhile, he tours with cult Ohio indie band The Afghan Whigs and is waiting for some film score projects to drop. But, for an ambitious artist, is that success?

“Success is working. Just making music all the time. I am proud but dismissive. Something will come, but I just don’t know what, yet…”

Harcourt now makes music with the battle scars of an artist who has been through the mangle. He rode the hype cycle - signing a five album deal to a major, experiencing the fallout from that, and steadily rebuilding to a place where he can always make music for himself.  

In particular on El Magnifico, there is a bouncy, upbeat ‘single’ in Strange Beauty, while Deathless is a throwback to the classic days of album songs - a centrepiece if you will. Broken Keys is reminiscent of Elvis Costello during his 70s heyday, while Into The Loving Arms Of Your Enemy may well be Harcourt’s best song so far. 

In fact, it might be the song Ed Harcourt never gets bored of singing. 

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Try playing a Crowded House record (any of them) then let Spotify play on…you will get just the best selection of really great songs. Go on, try it and you’ll see for yourself. This discovery may well make drivetime radio programming a heck of a lot easier, or possibly redundant altogether.

You may of course be a Crowded House fan and like, know this already. You may be a casual admirer, or even a sceptic. In which case, take the time to enjoy this shared revelation. But let me tell you that this is simple proof of Neil Finn’s songwriting skills. Certainly it’s more to do with that than mathematics.

I’m saying this as a recently converted fan. One of the deep pleasures (and deep privilege) of doing this podcast is that I can discover what I’ve missed, correct my own perceptions of some artists, and get up to fan-speed.

This band has made stone cold classic albums. Woodface, Together Alone, the debut album probably too. But each one of their seven studio L.Ps now including a brand new album Gravity Stairs offers a masterclass in high quality song and sound craft. Together Alone is a high point for sure but I particularly enjoyed the 2010 Intriguer album. Thing is, Crowded House records take time to love. They grow on you, something Neil Finn is well aware of:

"In general our records that may have been regarded as classic, have taken their time. Every album has been a slow boiler, requiring a lot of belief in it".

However, Gravity Stairs feels much more immediate than the band’s more subtle 2021 release Dreamers Are Waiting. Crowded House have cracked the code to a healthy longevity. Classic songs, great stagecraft, a relaxed attitude to ‘success’ and a continuous desire to create something new that’s actually good. Whether the new songs last as long as the old doesn’t matter too much when it’s the same writer, the same band that has made its mark indelibly. 

One thing is for sure, those songs will probably outlive the algorithms.

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When Real Estate's fifth album The Main Thing was released to fairly mixed results, was it time for a reset? In a sense, yes. For band leader Martin Courtney, it was time to get back to songs. After all, without songs, bands are just jamming, right? He set the bar high too, inspired mostly by the 1992 R.E.M. classic Automatic For The People.

Besides, you cannot call in a producer like Daniel Tashian without being able to play him songs of exceptionally high standard. For a start, Tashian produced Kacey Musgrave’s modern classic Gold Hour, as well as writing a bunch of understated classics with his own band The Silver Seas. 

Consider then, that the batch of songs landing on the new Real Estate album Daniel were so good that Tashian (who co-writes with many of the artists he produces) only tinkered with them. And in doing so, hopefully gave each one a liberal sprinkling of his magic song fairy dust. 

“In terms of his input into the songs it was minimal. Daniel was more like a cheerleader in the studio. He’s so fun - he’ll be jumping around and hype you up - so it’s much less daunting in the studio having him around. Graig Alvin mixed the record, and he’s also won Grammy’s too. We had high-powered people in the room”. 

Despite all this, Martin sounds surprised at the possibility of creating a classic album, although Daniel has the potential to be just that. What that means, in this day & age, is another thing entirely. Yet the band has been in classic album territory before, in 2014, with Atlas - songs from which brightened up daytime radio, found their way onto the biggest indie streaming playlists - and even landed that record on the Billboard top 40 and UK album charts. 

A decade on, with the music landscape much altered, the expectations for Daniel are less certain. In Courtney's own words “I know there is a good chance that it will come and go, like everything else these days”. But be assured that if you do become familiar with the record, it will pay you back dividends for a long time to come.

So where does a band like Real Estate fit into the modern music industry landscape? Still in the game and getting better, the band’s cultural caliber is steadily rising. 

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Like many women creators in the (still) white, male dominated music industry, the Staveley-Taylor sisters aka The Staves, bring a sense of humbleness to everything they have achieved, how they are positioned today and indeed, what the future holds. Is it possible that The Staves are better than they think they are? It seems so. Originally signed to a major label of some reverence (Atlantic, just before the hypergrowth of Spotify, social media and TikTok), it is likely that their major label A&Rs saw in them a modern version of a classic rock band of old - the golden years of CSN, Carole King, Joni Mitchell et al.

And why not? Back in the golden age of music, all bands started raw, and didn’t truly hit their stride until album three or four. Back then, they were given time to develop by the infrastructure that was the music industry. Now that’s all gone but by the skin of their teeth, The Staves are out on the other side - in control of their own destiny - and progressing steadily from album to album (second album If I Was set the bar high, but Good Woman was a revelation that took the band to a different level). 

Even so, as they prepare to release their 4th LP All Now as an independent band, The Staves still need to reach the audience their music deserves. So would they rather write a hit song or make a classic album?

“We’ve never had a hit record hanging over us. It’s an incredible thing to have a song that outlasts you, for your music to become bigger than you are”. But the album - the body of work - is something that will endure more. It’s the album that becomes a significant soundtrack to a part of someone's life”.

In a sense then, the job is half done, even if the masterpiece is still to come. In whatever form the band takes moving forward, the potential to build their own quiet legend is very much in full force for The Staves.

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After the fiasco of having to cancel Beirut’s 2019 tour, Zach Condon knew he needed to take the time out to fully recover. Multiple infections, colds and in the end complicated throat ailments had led him to a total burnout, until finally:

“My manager and my tour manager saved me from myself. They told me I can’t keep touring. I threw in the towel and dissolved the touring group. I later saw the fiasco over refunds and all that, and I felt horrible about it”.

This adversity though, perhaps inevitably, led to Beirut’s latest project Hadsel, which may well be as close as a record can come to being a lifesaver. Hadsel is the album as therapy. Steeped in nature and with a meditative quality to it, it works perfectly as an immersive listen. And it works perfectly too as an expression of where Beirut finds itself as a band (even if on this occasion, Condon did everything himself).

“I was just looking for a cabin but found one with a pump organ so at that point, everything clicked. [this album] is a return to something I can’t put my finger on. But it feels more scrappy and raw somehow”.

If that doesn’t sound like creative progress, don’t worry. If Beirut’s early albums (Gulag Orkestar 2006, The Flying Club Cup, 2007) were unique, and impressive for critics and fans alike, they were essentially the product of Condon’s musical obsessions at the time - Balkan Brass, French Chanson and some mariachi thrown into the mix for good measure. Condon stripped back those styles somewhat on later albums such as The Riptide and No No No. The latter contained a lean set of what you might even call catchy tunes.

Those records were proof that through all the unique stylings, there is a substance to Condon’s work that always comes through. He writes lovely songs with strong melodies. Perhaps in the end, that is why Beirut’s songs have foound their way onto playlists and done relatively well on streaming platforms, especially Spotify.

Zach is both amused and bemused by this at once, not recognising most of the other songs and bands he is juxtaposed with on those playlists (largely in the crudely tagged category of indie). But then his whole career has not been one of following the music industry conventional forms. Instead, Zach has always found an alternative route.

“I’ve always felt that I stood right outside the river. The music industry is this river and it’s always flowing in this direction and there are all these people that are part of it, moving along with it. And I’m outside it, but somehow I've made my living and I’ve found my audience”.

Good thing too, since when music is a destiny calling, there’s no point becoming too attached to the outcomes, just focus on the music from project to project and make it as good as it can be.

"I didn’t really choose music but as an obsessive - music was a type of possession where everything else disappeared. It was an addiction in many ways and still is”.

It may come as some relief to Beirut or not, but somehow through all the adversity of recent years, the winter solace of Norway, and his nomadic approach to music making has literally taken his music even further. 

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Metric has become one of those bands that have paved the way for independence, along with Aimee Mann, Chance The Rapper and the other self-releasing copyright owning pioneers. Their fifth album Synthetica (2012) as it turns out, is a favourite of the band’s front woman and main co-writer Emily Haines. Even though it didn’t reach the commercial heights predecessor Fantasies did, it was a mature and ambitious record, setting the tone for Metric’s accomplished and reliably strong catalogue. 

It brings us to the band’s recent projects Formentera (2022) and this year’s sibling album Formentera II, neither of which miss a beat - not a weak track among the combined 18 songs. If consistency is what you’re after, Metric should be your new favourite band.

It was refreshing to hear that there was no particular logic to the selection and scheduling of both the Formentara albums - no grand design - just the sound of the band hitting their stride enough for a double album (even if it is released in two seperate packages).

“We had made a body of work and knew we had a double album. When we rejoined civilization after our Doomscroller tour, we thought this was the most fun way to release it. I’ve always envied the surprise release. So we announced on the one year anniversary of Formentera, there is a second album”.

This magnum opus came with other influences too, including the “impossible-made-possible” stylings of British filmmaker Terry Gilliam, in particular his 1985 cult masterpiece Brazil. Once you understand the connection between Formentera and Gilliam, you are reminded of a deep artistic sensibility behind Metric that sets this band apart. But what is Metric’s secret to making such consistently strong material?

“It’s terrifying to me that we don’t really know what we are doing. Everything we do from a sonic standpoint, to a visual, to lyrical themes…it all comes down to this feeling. All I know is that when I feel it I know it, and if I don’t, it will never see the light of day”.

No wonder Metric’s catalogue is such an entertaining ride.

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