ADAM SACHS OF WIVES
Hi Adam and thanks for taking the time out to speak with us at Musicology. Firstly congratulations on your record So Removed, a staggeringly fine piece of grungy dark-wave post punk. Of the singles released so far Waving Past Nirvana, can you elaborate on the lyrical background to this track?
Waving Past Nirvana was Jay trying to be Kool Keith but it not working. The basic tracks were sick though, so he took the instrumentals back to his bunker and hacked some new shapes based on a poem from one of his notebooks.
Tracks like Hit Me Up and Whatevr draw parallels to the Pixies and Ramones respectively which begs the question what are some of your influences that as a band you all collectively share?
We all like a whole bunch of punk rock and hip hop. Five records that we can all agree on are: Sonic Youth ‘Sister', Jesus and Mary Chain ‘Psychocandy,’ Ol' Dirty Bastard ‘Return to the 36 Chambers: The Dirty version’, Black Sabbath ‘Paranoid’, & The Velvet Underground & Nico.
With its driving, stretching guitar hooks, Workin is an epic piece and specifically was it this element that shaped the track or was it a later edition that came as the track was eventually fleshed out?
Workin was made while we were trying to record something else. Jay started playing the 2 chords as a vamp and then the band jumped in. Andrew came up with the guitar line on the spot and the whole thing coalesced and came together as a flow, it was recorded in one long take that was originally about 12 minutes long. The five or so minutes on the master were the last five mintues.
The marching beat of Even The Dead and its deep fuzzed out bass frames the lyrical delivery so well. The monologue narrative is so complimentary to the track and for Wives, is there an approach that the lyrics come first and the music secondary in terms of creating your tunes of vice versa?
‘Even the Dead’ was created in almost exactly the same fashion as ‘Workin’, one take almost entirely improvised on the spot. Other songs like ‘Servants’ and ‘Hideaway’ the lyrics come first. It depends on the piece. ‘20 Teens’ for instance, the lyrics came first but the music was so much better than the original lyrics that Jay had to go back and write new ones!
In what ways has the addition of Andrew Bailey of DIIV and their washed out My Bloody Valentine-esque vibes altered the dynamic for the sound of the record?
Andrew is a brilliant musician and great friend. We are all brothers. His aesthetic stretched and colored our more basic punk rock direction. But Alex does that too.
How has the current New York underground scene shaped your record and the ultimate direction it took?
New York is a grind but if you can stick it out then you did something special. A lot of wannabes have moved to LA, and we love LA very much actually, but it has left NY with a collection of true believers, sometimes to the point of satire, which is what ‘Hit Me Up’ is about.
Performing in such a vibrant scene and playing alongside so many amazing artists, has there been any words of wisdom spoken to you that really resonated and in turn altered the way you approach your craft?
One day Jay was in a random studio in Williamsburg and doing some sort of recording for a friend's band. John Agnello walked in to talk to the studio owner and he and Jay had a beer and a smoke in the lounge (or Jay had a beer and a smoke with John, who may have only been drinking tea or whatever). They had a pleasant conversation but the thing that sticks out the most was when he told Jay "You just gotta keep going. Keep doing it. You never know what breaks or what happens. Never stop doing your thing. Determination is key."
About to embark on a large European tour are there certain venues and support acts that you are looking forward to?
We heart France. Psyched about our co-headlining date with B-Boys.
A question we like to ask all those that we interview for Musicology is, what does music give you that nothing else does?
A release from Saṃsāra
