by jon bosworth jaxvillain@yahoo.com
WHAT: Summerbirds in the Cellar with Dear & Glorious Physician
WHERE: Jack Rabbits
WHEN: April 18th
When Summerbirds in the Cellar first hits your ear, you’re likely to compare them to a more organic Postal Service, but that doesn’t quite fit. After a deep breath and another song, you start to think perhaps they are more like a more electronic version of (another Athens band) Elf Power, but that is definitely far-fetched. In my third attempt, I resolutely declared them a less pretentious Interpol, with a beat you can dance to and an atmospheric My Bloody Valentine guitar sound, but that’s just too obtuse.
“It’s weird, we get compared to REM a lot. Although I don’t see the similarities, I’m flattered by the comparison.”
I spoke with Brad Register, the guitarist for Summerbirds in the Cellar, while he took a brief break from the studio where they are putting the finishing touches on their new album. Summerbirds in the Cellar is half of Now It’s Overhead (Brad and Curtis Brown both play with Now It’s Overhead) but they consider Summerbirds in the Cellar to be their priority.
“It’s pretty simple to juggle Summerbirds with Now Its Overhead, because Andy does a lot of touring with Bright Eyes, so when that is happening we make Summerbirds our priority. Now It’s Overhead just seems to fall into place. It’s surprisingly easy.”
Although most of the band is actually from Lakeland, they relocated to Orlando because of the great support that music scene provided, but last year they moved the band to Athens.
“Orlando is better than people give it credit for, but Athens is known as a music town. The nuances are tremendous, but I’m still getting used to how laid back everything is here in Athens.”
As a lifelong Southerner, Brad finds it hard to distinguish where the influences of the South are in the music of Summerbirds in the Cellar, but he is adamant that growing up in the South is undoubtedly influential on their music, but not necessarily particularly evident.
“To me, it seems we experiment with electronics more than most bands from the South.”
Utilizing acoustic drums and electronic guitar as the foundation for all of their songs, they sequence the bass and incorporate electronic elements. Michael Yardley usually plays electric drums and synth with us. The humble singer/guitarist took a few moments with me on the phone to answer some of my more annoying questions.
EU: How would you describe your music to your girlfriend’s mother?
BR: I would probably say… Shit, that’s difficult. It’s danceable and if you …for my girlfriend’s mother I’d say: ‘If you don’t pay too much attention to the lyrics, you won’t be offended.’ No, it’s hard to say because I don’t have a girlfriend, so I just think about my Mom. It’s my girlfriend’s mother, right? She’d support me. I’d say it’s fun to listen to and you can dance to it.
EU: What inspires a Summerbirds song? Does one member bring it fairly structured to the rest of the band? What is the writing process like?
BR: Since we don’t get much time to sit and write together, each person brings different ideas to the table. Tyson [Bodiford], our drummer, will write as many songs as Curtis or myself. Rarely, it doesn’t happen often, but rarely we’ll be messing with something in a practice situation and it will turn into a song. Sometimes on tour we will polish up some songs that we wrote and want to take into the studio. We all contribute to each others’ songs, obviously, but the source ideas come from the individuals in the band.
EU: What is the best forgotten band that you find many people overlook? Maybe your private secret band that you champion but not many people have heard of?
BR: Hmm. This band Macha from Athens. We are hoping to get Josh McKay, he’s sort of the creative force behind Macha, into the studio with us. He does this really Eastern music with some rock. They put three albums out then disappeared, but we are all really impressed with their music.
EU: How difficult is it to create your simple, melodic songs with so many instrumental layers (especially with two drummers)?
BR: It’s quite the opposite. We add a billion parts and a billion tracks to every song. It’s more difficult to cut out the parts that we don’t end up using. We often have great parts that go unheard. We work with Andy LeMaster from Now its Overhead a lot because he’s good at saying when there’s too many things going on. Aaron Marsh from Copeland also helps us strip songs down, which is very valuable to us.
EU: How did you hook up with Dear & Glorious Physician?
BR: It’s an Orlando/Gainesville connection, we were bound to come together. They are one of the best bands in Florida. I enjoy playing with them because I love to watch them.
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