Headlights

Listen to "Market Girl" from Some Racing, Some Stopping

The funny thing about Headlights slow climb to semi-stardom, however, is that they make music so instantly palatable that their exactly the kind of band one wouldn’t blanch at seeing become overnight sensations. Their most recent release, Some Racing, Some Stopping, finds its roots in fertile ’60s pop soil, with sweetly chiming guitars, politely plunked xylophones and fervent tambourine shakes moving to the fore while maintaining some of the highly kinetic rhythmic sensibilities that underpinned their 2006 full-length debut, Kill them With Kindness. Guitartist/vocalist Tristan Wraight and keyboardist/vocalist Erin Fein once again trade off lead vocal duties and their understated sweetness and avalanche of harmonies (backing oohs and aahs abound) keep even the lightest of the material tethered to a solid core. The end result is an album both timely (“Market Girl” blends symphonic opulence and modern indie-rock elements better than any working pop band this side of Stars) and timeless (“Cherry Tulips” is pure Spector-indebted genius).

Tristan Wraight was kind enough to take time out to chat with Reveille about his band’s old-school approach to building their career and abhorrence of modern indie-rock mores amongst other topics.

Reveille: I’m curious as to why your band has such a strong road warrior mentality. A lot of the talk in the music industry now is about how touring a ton is an outdated model for building a fan base. I assume that’s a statement you’d disagree with.

Wraight: I definitely think it’s naïve to say that touring a lot is an outdated way to pursue having a music career. All of the blogosphere and intangible hype that’s starting to happen doesn’t make for lasting relationships between bands and fans. I think the only real way for people to have a connection with your music and what you do is to hang out with them, to meet them, to play your music directly for them. I certainly think that things like blogs have done a lot for bands and made it easier to spread the word on music faster, but I was just reading an interesting article about Vampire Weekend in Spin and they were talking about how easy it is to have hype manufactured but does that make it legitimate. Whether or not people are going to care about that band next year remains to be seen. We’re not interested in having that level of instant hype or press, it feels superficial to me. We’ve built our career slowly and in such a way that many of the fans at our shows are people we’ve met the time we were in town before who came back. Those relationships may take longer to build but I think they’ll last longer too. It’s bizarre how fast the music industry changes, ten years ago it was all zines, mixtsapes and word of mouth, I think that made for a slower rate of growth that encouraged longevity.

Some Racing, Some Stopping

Wraight: [Having a more live sound] was a pretty big focus for us on this record. With the last recording it was just the three of us trying to make it work even though are musical vision was bigger than what three people could realistically create at any given moment. With this record not only had we been on the road for a long time we also realized going forward we were probably going to work with more musicians [Ed. Note: Headlights is currently touring as a 5-piece]. We let go of the anxiety of creating music that just the three of us could pull off and really expanded what musical ideas we would allow ourselves to pursue. It became much more organic as we were able to drop the click tracks and have more spontaneity and just be more a band and play with that kind of immediacy.

Reveille: Originality is always a tricky subject when it comes to indie-rock. I often feel like bands will sort of self-consciously mess with their music to make sure it sounds ‘indie’ enough, particularly on debut albums, rather than just acknowledge that they have the same classic pop serving as points of inspiration as many other bands. What’s your take on that whole issue in light of the fact that Some Racing, Some Stopping is largely a more traditional and classic pop record than your first album was?

Wraight: For this batch of writing Erin and I were really both not listening to contemporary indie-rock at all. We had gotten pretty sick of it. It was helpful to block all of that kind of stuff out while recording, we didn’t think at all about what was trendy or what we should be doing. We just wanted to write whatever was coming out of us naturally. Everybody has influences, but we didn’t want to be influenced at all by the contemporary mores of indie-rock. We listen to classical, old country, old pop, it all comes through. We definitely weren’t putting on Neon Bible and trying to kick out jams like the Arcade Fire.

Reveille: Touring as much as you do I imagine there are nights when you’re just not feeling it and the last thing you’d want to do is play a show. How do you psyche yourself up for those nights and still get the job done?

Wraight:  Touring for a long time like we do inevitably people have bad days and good days. Luckily, we’re all friends. There are definitely times where you’re like, ‘Fuck, how am I going to play tonight? I feel exhausted.’ But when we walk on stage we’re able to put our game faces on. Sometime you’re up there faking it, but if you fake it well you ultimately trick yourself into having a good time anyway. There’s also a certain kind of auto pilot muscle memory thing that happens during long tours where you can get up there and relax and not really think about how you’re feeling the whole time if that’s what you have to do to get through a show.

Reveille: Many bands have just one primary songwriter who pretty much steers the ship. Obviously Headlights is a more democratic enterprise than that since you and Erin share songwriting and lead vocal duties. What is it about this more collaborative approach you find appealing?

Wraight: I think perspective more than anything. It’s a positive thing for anyone who’s trying to be creative to be challenged by someone who you respect greatly. I don’t think I’m particularly prolific enough to be in any kind of other set up. Having everyone share input and ideas gives me a lot more mileage. Erin is definitely more prolific than I am but we also have a good head for editing each others ideas and what we want to work on together. Some people might be more comfortable having their own project where they called all the shots but not me.

Reveille: As you make music full-time for a living I’m interested how you approach your career. Is there a lot of planning and goal-setting involved or do you just try and live in the moment? It would seem necessary to try and find a balance somewhere in between or you could drive yourself crazy either way.

Wraight: It’s kind of a learning curve. It’s a combination of high and low moments. You have those days where you’re wiped out and drive 12 hours to a show that doesn’t pay enough to cover the cost of your gas but then those are equaled out by really fulfilling moments where you’re playing a crowded show in front of people really appreciative of what you do. You have to remember that being able to [make music for a living] at all is a privileged position to be in. As long as we remember that we do this because we love it we’re OK. I think it’s really a bummer when bands start to feel entitled and think they deserve more than their getting. Quite frankly, no one deserves anything and if you get anything at all you’re fortunate and lucky. I understand that it can be hard to work towards something really passionately and not have good things come of it, but it does make it really amazing when things do work out. We try to take it a day at a time and so far so good. We’re lucky in that things have steadily gotten better for us. But even if it all fell apart tomorrow we’d still be creative people.