Interview with Daniel Lawson of Venice is Sinking

Your new album Sand & Lines was recorded in the Georgia Theater, which burned down not long after recording. You guys generously set up a fund to send donations to the rebuilding of the Theater. How’s the reconstruction project coming along? You guys definitely earned playing the inaugural show there.

Daniel Lawson: I ran into Wilmot Greene the other day and he told me that the state historic preservation office had finally approved the reconstruction plans and that work was slated to begin in a matter of days! He was really excited and relieved. They still don’t have all of the finances in place to afford the cost of reconstruction, but they are finally able to get the process started. We didn’t actually set up donation fund – we’re just giving all of the proceeds from the album back to rebuilding effort. We’re all really excited about eventually getting to play there again once it re-opens.

Sand & Lines sounds like it’s a studio record, besides a few sections of dialogue. With only a couple of microphones, how did you guys get such a clean sound? Did doing it all in one take place extra pressure on the band to nail every note?

You’d have to talk to David Barbe how he was able to get the sounds he did using just two microphones. It was not an ideal situation in which to make a record, but I think Dave liked the challenge of it. All of the mixing had to be done on the spot, and “mixing” consisted of moving us and our amplifiers around on stage until everything felt right. On one song he even sat by Karolyn’s amp and turned her up or down as needed because we couldn’t get the dynamics quite right on our own. Honestly, I think a lot of the sound quality came from the type of microphone that was chosen and the quality of the 1/4″ tape mix down deck he was using. He spent a lot of time getting the right equipment. Oh, and of course the sound of theatre itself.  My favorite thing about the microphones is that they are omni-directional, so when you listen back with headphones everything is panned to the exact location where it was on the stage when we did the take. For instance, most of the guitar is panned the left side – since that is where I was standing for the majority of the sessions. And yes, there was definitely a lot of extra pressure for us to not screw up. If one person missed a note or dropped a beat, we’d have to run the whole song over again. I remember one of my favorite vocal takes having to be re-done because somebody messed something up in the middle of the song. Frustrating!

One thing that really impressed me about it (Sand & Lines) is you have this wonderful Bardstown Orchestra and several other folks lending their services for the symphonic aesthetic, yet you guys don’t indulge them and let them take over songs with big, swollen sections. Venice is Sinking is a subtle band, and you guys are true enough to your identity that you can resist letting these very talented people step out of the band’s context.

Some really great people were willing to donate their time and talent to come and play on the album. Karolyn’s husband Andrew Heaton played violin on several songs, our good friend Erin Wright added a second viola and another good friend ours Colin Jones played trumpet. The biggest contributor was probably Jesse Flavin, who actually ended up playing on more songs than our bass player Jeremy! I think recording our second album, AZAR, forced us to think about arrangements more than we ever had previously. Before that record we definitely had a tendency to try and throw everything we had at each song. Scott Solter taught us to leave some elements and ideas out and to try and make everything that we left in the mix really matter. I hope some of those lessons from AZAR made their way onto Sand & Lines.

You guys cover Dolly Parton’s “Jolene,” which I thought was really interesting. How did that come about? Any other covers I couldn’t place besides Galaxie 500’s “Tugboat”?

Covering “Jolene” was actually our old bass player Steve Miller’s idea (no, not that Steve Miller). He came to practice one day with the idea of turning that song into a dirge-y, desperate waltz. Anyway, he started playing the bass line and everything else came together really quickly. We were all excited about how our version turned out, but it’s a song that has been covered to death, so we were actually a little nervous about including it on the album. In the end, it seemed to fit well with the rest of the songs we were writing at the time so we left it on. It was actually kind of fitting because before we started working on Sand & Lines Steve left the band (amicably), and we were kind of scrambling to find a new bass player in time to make the record. Jeremy stepped up and into place wonderfully, but we didn’t have time to teach him this particular song – so Steve got to play bass with us one last time on the recording. The only other cover on the record (aside from “Tugboat”) is an old Waylon Jennings song called, “The Wurlitzer Prize”.

I think you guys nailed the goal of a cover, which is to take a song and give it an original spin. Despite doing a song that’s been covered so much, I think you guys actually made “Jolene” a real Venice song–totally independent of the original. Speaking of covers, I actually prefer your “Tugboat” version to Galaxie 500’s, which might sound blasphemous to Galaxie, but I think it’s just a testament to Venice’s talent.

Oh wow, that’s quite a compliment! Thank you! We actually found out through a friend the other day that Dean Wareham has actually heard our version and liked it, which was very exciting for us to hear! I mean I’ve been a huge fan of that band since I was fifteen, so you can imagine how it made me feel to know that he had heard anything that we’ve done. I think he said something along the lines of, “It’s the horns that make it special”, which is pretty cool. We were asked to open up for him in Atlanta on his upcoming tour and we said yes immediately. I haven’t been this excited about a show in a long time. The band is having kind of a hard time deciding whether or not we’re going to play “Tugboat” at the show actually – what do you think we should do?

It seems like Galaxie would be really cool with it. It would be the audience you’d have to worry about, if they’d be open to it or only want Galaxie to play it. Maybe you could announce beforehand, “Dean had kind words when he heard our version to this song, so we’d like to do it for you.” I say you go for it.

Hmm…that sounds like a pretty reasonable approach actually. I may just say what you suggested verbatim! I think you’re right though about the audience – they would probably be the ones to worry about more so than Dean. I’m just not sure if they’re going to want to hear that song twice in one night!

Despite what I said about the subtle nature of the orchestra, they still really elevate the music. Is this album more orchestral than you guys are used to?

I’m not sure. Maybe? I think the answer is probably yes, just because when I think of an orchestra I think of a large group of people playing music together live in a room. Our previous recordings have been almost completely created in the studio, with a lot of overdubs and people laying down their individual parts separately from one another. Sure, there are orchestral elements present on our old albums – with both a viola and a trumpet player in the band that stuff is pretty hard to avoid – but keep in mind we were rarely even in the same room together most of the time when we made those records! Sand & Lines is the complete opposite of that. The entire record is the sound of us performing on a huge stage with a bunch of great musicians playing the songs together over and over until we got everything right (or close enough to right) in a huge, beautiful sounding old room.

How much of being in a band is just politics and people management? Everyone understands they have to coexist, not to mention you’re probably already friends, so there has to be some thinking before speaking. How hard is it to have to tell someone that their part is wrong or not good enough? Obviously you have to make a good record, but can it be difficult to be honest to people who are doing something so vulnerable as creating music?

I guess it’s always a challenge to collaborate with people on any kind of project, and working with the other members of this band is no exception. Honestly, we’ve been a together for so long  and spent so much time together at shows, rehearsing and recording that nothing really fazes us anymore. Don’t get me wrong we argue. A lot. We yell at each other. A lot. But we all know one another so well that we’re usually able to say what we need to say and get past whatever issue we have quickly. It’s pretty trite to say, but being in a band really is a lot being in a fucked up marriage or something. Only instead of having one partner you’ve got five. You’ve got to understand that we’ve been through a lot together – I mean Karolyn and I dated for two years and had a terribly messy break up that happened during one of our tours. I’m sure it was miserable for everyone to be in the van while that was going on. So yeah, I don’t know…we’re just like any other family I guess. Dysfunctional at times, but there’s definitely a weird kind of love there.

I know a lot of our readers probably dabble in music, to varying degrees of pursuit. How much of getting recognized and distributing your music is good fortune and how much is a lot of diligence and patience?

I don’t think you can discount either. There is definitely a lot of luck involved though, and we’ve been pretty fortunate in that department. Our drummer Lucas used to work as a music publicist and I think that has probably opened some doors for us that wouldn’t have opened otherwise. I also think some of our recent success can be attributed to how long we’ve been a band and how many albums we’ve put out over the years. I mean we’ve been performing together for nearly seven years at this point – which is actually kind of scary to me! But yeah, if you put out records consistently and keep playing shows hopefully good things will eventually come your way. I’m still waiting for that mythical European record label or booking agent to pick us up and send us over there to tour for a couple of months though… Maybe we’ll get lucky and this year will be the year!

You guys aren’t headlining Lollapalooza or anything, but you’re a very good band, putting out records and touring. I bet that’s a life that a lot of kids would love to have. Is that life as satisfying as it sounds or is there always a natural inclination to want to be bigger and want more?

Ha! Thanks for the kind words, but I’m not sure there are too many kids who would want to be where we are honestly. It’s definitely not easy. None of us are able to rely on Venice is Sinking for any sort of income or anything like that. If anything, being in this band can actually cost you money! I’m not trying to complain or sound unappreciative, but that’s just the reality of our situation. We all have full time jobs or are in school working on graduate degrees. We can only tour on weekends and for a couple of weeks in the summertime. Almost everything we make from shows or from record sales goes right back into the band for either gas money or to save up for recording or promotional costs. Scott Solter once told me that being in an indie rock band was like being in a giant race to the bottom, and I think he was right. Having said that though, I think all of us are pretty happy doing what we’re doing and can’t really imagine doing anything else. We just all love making music and maybe one day we’ll be lucky enough to do it full time.

What’s it like doing a show and playing a song for the 30 ^th or 40^th time? Does it get tiring or is that something you just don’t think about? I imagine it would get tiring being someone like Percy Sledge and having to play “When a Man Loves a Woman” every night for 30 years. Luckily Venice is Sinking doesn’t have a song they have to play every time, right?

We do kind of have a couple of songs like that! There is a song on our first record called “Pulaski Heights” that we played at every single show until very recently. We absolutely get tired of playing certain songs over and over again, but I don’t think we ever really get tired of playing shows. I know I don’t. I’m sure if we were playing 300+ shows a year that might change though. I don’t know – I think I am happiest when we really know a song inside and out as a band. It sort of lets you put the technical aspects of the song on auto pilot, which then allows you to focus on different and more fun aspects of the song – like connecting with the audience. It’s nice to not have to think about or worry about what you are doing sometimes…it can be kind of liberating.