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ACL 2009 preview: And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead
Larry Kolvoord AMERICAN-STATESMAN
True fact: And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead frontman/guitarist/drummer/piano player Conrad Keely used to work at the Austin American-Statesman.
No, I didn’t know either.
“I worked at the Statesman for one day,” Keely says. The one-time Austinite is calling from his home in Brooklyn, where he’s lived since 2006. “I was there as a temp, but I was temping for the assistant to the editor. I was in way over my head. I had to learn this whole system of shorthand and I had to take dictation and I was just terrible.”
Fortunately, he was good at other stuff, such as being in one of the most weirdly indestructible (well, more or less) rock bands of the past 15 years. These days, the core of Keely, singer/drummer/guitarist Jason Reece and guitarist Kevin Allen works with a cast of sidemen that shifts every few years. Right now, pianist/drummer Aaron Ford, bassist Jay Phillips and keyboard player Clay Morris are rounding out Trail of Dead, which released “The Century of Self” in February on Justice Records, their first album on an indie label in a decade. The band plays its first Austin City Limits Music Festival when it takes the Xbox 360 stage Saturday, Oct. 3.
It’s an odd time for the band in some ways. In 2002, they seemed poised to take over… well, if not the world, then something. The album “Source Tags and Codes” (Interscope) was the sort of major label debut that most bands would kill for — close to their indie sound, but seemingly ready for prime time.
But there always seemed something a little off about the fit — as one friend commented back in ‘02, “This seems like a bad deal for both parties.” And it kind of was: 2005’s “Worlds Apart” and 2006’s “So Divided” traded the guitar squall that made them (a little) famous for an increasingly progressive-rock sound (read: lots and lots AND LOTS of pianos). This sat poorly with both the record buying public (“So Divided” sold fewer than 30,000 copies as of last year) and critics (Indie bellweather Pitchfork gave “Source Tags” a 10.0 and “Worlds Apart” a 4.0, which was probably a little extreme on both ends — for my money, 1999’s “Madonna” has aged the best). Keely seems completely uninterested in discussing label drama.
“ I never know what to say when people ask me questions about label stuff,” Keely says. “For a lot of bands, their label for them is like their identity. I’ve never felt like that. I’m more concerned about how I’m going to make the logo look on the album cover. I mean, we have a good relationship with them, but the creative side of the band is just totally different.”
So is there a concept for this one? Trail of Dead seem big on concepts for their albums.
“There’s always a concept,” Keely says. “Usually it’s pretty loose. The record before this was called ‘So Divided,’ and that was the concept. Our concept for this one was that we weren’t going to have one. Then it turned out to be more about metaphysics.”
OK, then.
These days, Keely is as likely to concentrate on visual art as rock music. The amazing image on the sleeve for “Century of Self” is his doing, part of his ballpoint pen series. He’s one of the few rocker/visual artists who — no kidding — could fall back on visual art as a profession should Trail permanently bite the dust one day. But don’t look for a comic book any time soon.
“I’ve gotten asked about that but I don’t know if my ideas go well in frames,” Keely says. “I would almost rather illustrate a story like a children’s book but to do it frame by frame, that seems like drudgery.”
And he’s done with ballpoint for the moment.
“I’m starting a new series, all color, lots of monochromatic images,” he says. “I wasn’t very good with color and one day I was like, ‘Why am I telling myself I’m not good at something? Just do it and overcome it.’ I think that extends to the way I write music also. The two are always going to reflect each other.”
Trail of Dead always seems a little leaderless, Keely’s complicated songs offset by Reece’s punkier blowout. But Keely also always writes the majority of the songs, and his stuff comes in finished.
“I tend to come in with my songs very fully fleshed out,” Keely says. “Sometimes they’re done before I even touch an instrument. But we’re also good at collaborating together. When Jason comes in with stuff that isn’t completely done, I get to do some arranging and finalizing ideas.”
OK, maybe they aren’t that leaderless.
But Keely is a weird mix of stuff — part thrasher, part progressive, part primitive, part aesthete. “I was really into music theory when I was young, but I was also into punk rock. I would go see these bands that would have abhorred that kind of formalism and try to pick them apart. I’d be at a Bikini Kill show trying to figure out these dissonances they were into. I finally decided that it would have to be intuitive. You had to not know what you were doing.”
Which explains a lot: Trail of Dead’s music is what happens when you figure out how to not know what you are doing.
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Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: ACL Festival 2009, Interview
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By Dave
September 27, 2009 7:28 AM | Link to this
Nice interview. Trail of Dead’s “The Century of Self” is a great album, and deserves to be on a lot of best-of-2009 lists.