CoolJunkie Interviews Manchester Orchestra

April 13, 2009 1:12 PM
by Marcos Colón

There’s nothing better than having a young rock act come out of nowhere and break onto the scene with a fury. With scene it before with the Arctic Monkeys’ meteoric success, but now it seems that the U.S. has their own act to compete, Atlanta’s own Manchester Orchestra. Coming together during their junior year in high school, this Southern-quintet deliver an emotional punch of jolting melodic rock. Their full-length debut, I'm Like a Virgin Losing a Child, was a major catalyst in their success, but with the recent release, Mean Everything to Nothing, the band hopes to truly catapult into the limelight.

CoolJunkie was lucky enough to interview Manchester Orchestra keyboardist, Chris Freeman, and chat about the band’s recent release, Atlanta’s unique live music scene, and how Americans should take notes on how the Irish treat the band during shows.

CoolJunkie: How have things been going this year for you guys so far?

Chris Freeman: Really great man. We’ve been able to enjoy a lot more time at home than we thought we would, but it’s been great.

CJ: You guys are about to release, Mean Everything to Nothing, so big congrats on that. What do you think the major differences were going into the studio for this album, compared to your first, I’m Like A Virgin Losing A Child?

Chris Freeman: Well for the first album, we had been playing those song for a really long time. We had been touring for about a year and a half prior to recording that album. So we went into the studio knowing how to play those songs really well. There wasn’t too much experimentation with the sound, we were just pretty much trying to get it down on paper. But for this one we had time to write. We just took a week and we wrote a song a day. We just sat there and thought hard on each one. It left a lot of gaps by the time we got into the studio, so the songs were like skeletons. But once we got into the studio, we were able to take as much time as we wanted and mess with them.

CJ: You touched up a bit on songwriting. Who’s the primary songwriter in the band, and when you guys do get together, how do you work things out?

Chris Freeman: Andy is the primary songwriter. He’ll come in with the melody and the lyrics as well as his guitar part. He’ll have some sort of idea as to how he wants the song to go, and then he kind of lets us go. He’ll play a bit of it at first, then Jeremiah will do the drum part. It’s very natural, as far as there’s not too much conversation. Someone will play something, then somebody else starts playing their part. We did one song a day for this record. Written and recorded in one day. So we all came in knowing what we wanted in this record.

CJ: In terms of lyrics, what would you say the major differences are between your two album?

Chris Freeman: Listening to Andy talk about the lyrics on this album has been very interesting because for a lot of the recording process I had no idea what the hell he was talking about. But for this record he was saying that he was a bit selfish and being a lot more introspective. Like A Virgin dealt with a lot more searching outside of oneself. Then this record was very much more about him talking about whatever he wants to talk about. He doesn’t tell what each song means, we sort of each come up with our own interpretation of it and we’ve always one that. So one random day a year later I’ll be like, “So what in the hell was that song about?” (laughs)

CJ: How was it working with producer Joe Chiccarelli? He’s got a hell of a resume.

Chris Freeman: There were a couple of different guys that were coming to the table. But then Joe came up and I asked Andy, “Well what all has he done?” Then he mentioned he did The Raconteurs, The White Stripes and My Morning Jacket. Every album he mentioned was one of my favorites of the last five years. It was cool to work with him. We never had anyone push us in a lot of ways the way he did and it was great. There was a lot of give and take, and he was a really great producer to work with.

CJ: You guys are still a very young band, yet you’ve been together for quite some time now. Do you guys feel like you’ve had your ‘holy shit’ moment yet?

Chris Freeman: It would have to be when we sold-out Variety Playhouse, which is here in Atlanta. That’s where Andy saw Death Cab for Cutie play for the first time. It’s in the cool part of town and it was the last date of the tour for the EP, and we were hoping to sell 400 tickets. Then we got there and the pre-sales were at 700 and we were freaking. And when we got up on stage there were 1,200 people there. It had sold out an hour before the doors opened. I got up there with a big smile on my face, and we all looked at each other and we were like, “Holy shit!” (laughs)

CJ: Do you guys have a lot of things in common as far as musical influences go?

Chris Freeman: It’s divided amongst the band. Robert and Jonathan grew up more on the punk side. Andy and I have recently been on a hip hop tip as of late which is kind of funny. (laughs) I’ve been listening to Ghost Face Killa’s Fishscale non-stop. We listen to Pavement, My Morning Jacket, whom I’m glad is getting a lot of notoriety lately. We listened to The Smiths a lot. That’s the reason we’re named Manchester Orchestra, because Andy had been in love with Morrissey at the time.

CJ: You guys grew up in Atlanta. What’s the live music scene like there?

Chris Freeman: It’s growing which is great! When we started out we weren’t in the cool scene. There’s this whole scene here with bands like the Black Lips that are…cooler than us I guess? (laughs) I guess it’s because we’re from the suburbs. We weren’t really into the scene at all. That’s why I’m glad that the community is growing here, and at some point will be like the one in Athens. There’s a bigger live music community in Athens, especially because of the college kids. Hip hop’s big here, obviously. There are some glam bands, and some jam bands.

CJ: Now, outside of Atlanta, where do you guys think you get the biggest response in the U.S.?

Chris Freeman: For a long time it was Pensacola, Florida. That was a big market for us for some strange reason. Columbus, South Carolina was another one. We used to play there once every two months. Of course, there are the major markets like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. But we do well in South Carolina.

CJ: You guys have been in the U.K. already, and have a show lined up in London that’s already sold-out. How do you compare the crowd over there to the kids here?

Chris Freeman: They’re crazy! I love it. It sucks because it’s more expensive, and it’s cold and crazy, but the fans there just love it. They’re very into it. We had a group of guys buy us a round of Guinness in Scotland one day. We were playing a show that had about 20 people, and all of a sudden six of the 20 left. So we were like, “Great I guess they hated the show.” But about five minutes later they all came back with pints of Guinness and lined them up on the stage for us.

CJ: What do you guys have in store for the remainder of the year?

Chris Freeman: Well we’re about to embark to go to South By Southwest. Then we have a full U.S. tour. Then we have a U.K. date with our friends Dead Confederate which we’re extremely excited about. Then we’re doing some music festivals. Can’t really tell you which yet, but look out for the lineups.

Click here to hear more from Manchester Orchestra.