Our very own UK reviewer/interviewer Denis was lucky enough to sit down with Chris Freeman of Manchester Orchestra earlier this week prior to their electrifying performance at the rather appropriately named venue; ‘Heaven’, for an in-depth interview, exploring the band’s breakthrough classic Mean Everything To Nothing, multitude of side projects, record label, relationship with Brand New, hotel room affairs, and the band’s upcoming, 3rd studio album. You heard it here first.
Denis@RRR: I’m here with Atlanta’s Manchester Orchestra. First off, thanks for taking the time to answer a few of our questions. Would give your name and tell us what you do in the band?
Chris Freeman: My name’s Chris, and I play keyboard and secondary drums, and sing backup vocals.
Denis@RRR: Welcome back to the UK again
Chris: Thank you.
Denis@RRR: How’s the UK tour with Biffy Clyro, along with the few German dates, been?
Chris: Awesome. Biffy [Clyro] tour was great, it was really fun, seeing those guys again, we’re good friends with them, so it was real nice to hang out with them every day, and eat their catering, and smoke their cigarettes! The German dates were really fun, we’ve never been in Germany before that was really cool to… drink German beer.
Denis@RRR: Is it unusual playing to non-English crowds?
Chris: Yeah that was our first time playing to a crowd that didn’t speak English. Our banter, our witty banter, didn’t really go over so well, nobody really laughed at all….
Denis@RRR: Maybe because it’s not funny?
Chris: I think it’s funny! [laughs]
Denis@RRR: So how’s your music been received in the UK, as opposed to the States?
Chris: It seems well received by the live audiences, not so much the record sales, but the live aspect seems to be well received. In the States it’s been really great, we sold a lot of records and had a lot of people.
Denis@RRR: Now, the name ‘Manchester Orchestra’ roots from Andy’s love for The Smiths, when he was growing up. What other artists do Manchester Orchestra hold close to heart, in terms of influences?
Chris: Weezer, Radiohead…I don’t know…Nirvana, just all like the heavy rockers I guess, like the early 90’s, especially on this last record, it was all about 90’s rock and like Pinkerton and that shit!
Denis@RRR: Earlier this year, you released your second studio album, Mean Everything To Nothing. For me, I find the record to be an absolute masterpiece…
Chris: Thank you.
Denis@RRR: Definitely one of the best releases of 2009, and one of my favorite aspects of the record is the lyrics. Guide us through the writing process for the album…
Chris: The process was pretty much just Andy sits at home on the acoustic guitar and writes the song and then brings it in and then we build off that, whether it’s just a riff or a few lyrics, it’s kinda different for every song but it’s very much Andy bringing in a song and then we just build off of that and he’ll write lyrics in the studio or beforehand or whatever - it’s a very natural process; it took us a week to write this album, it was like one song a day, played it 5 or 6 times once we got it down and that was it, so it was a really quick process.
Denis@RRR: Where did the inspiration behind the lyrics come from?
Chris: I think just general life. As far as Andy is expressed, lyrically the record of course is split into two parts. The first half is very much about being on the road, and life on the road and the hectic, hectic idea of being on the road, and the second half is about being home. He got married last year, so that life of coming back home to married life and normal suburban bullshit I think is what the second half is about…
Denis@RRR: So the fast part and the slow part?
Chris: Yeah.
Denis@RRR: What about the recording process for the record? I find the production to be pretty amazing…
Chris: Yeah, it was Joe Chiccarelli and Dan Hannon who did our first record, co-produced it, as well as we did, and Joe was just an amazing producer; the sounds he got I think we the best parts of having him around, he’s a very hard working guy and we’re not a very hard working band as far as the studio goes – we like to be very relaxed and kinda of like “we’ll get a good take whenever”, but he was very much like “go, go, go!”. The best part about him was he mic’d shit up himself, it wasn’t like he was having someone else mic everything, it was him, in the studio – this is a guy who has done platinum records for the last 20 years, and he’s in there moving microphones around, tweaking amps and stuff, so I think the sounds on the record are amazing, it’s only because of Joe!
Denis@RRR: How did the whole process compare to that of I’m Like A Virgin Losing A Child, and indeed, how do the two albums compare, in your eyes?
Chris: Well, Virgin… was more of us just trying to get all the songs down on paper. We’d been playing those songs for two years beforehand and then we just wanted to make sure we recorded them before we tried to go on tour again, and with this record it was more like “we’re going to write for the record”, rather than playing off the.. we didn’t even really know the songs that well when we went in the studio. We’d only played them 5 times, but the previous record, Virgin…, we’d played those songs all over the country for 2 years, so it was a bit nerve-racking - we played the songs probably 20 times a day in the studio, just trying to get them right.
Denis@RRR: The eleven tracks of Mean Everything To Nothing are each accompanied by their own video. Where did the idea of making a video album originate?
Chris: That was our manager’s idea. I can’t remember the guy’s name, but he did a video for Virgin…, did a video for “I Can Barely Breathe” and then we asked them to do a video for every song and they said “no”, and they heard the record and they said “yes”, they would do it, so it was we just handed the record to them and they took over the whole thing.
Denis@RRR: How much fun did you have making the videos?
Chris: It was cool, because they would just send us a video and we would look at it and say “that’s cool” or “change that”, we really had no day-to-day part in making those videos, it was simply somebody taking our record, and visually showing what they thought they heard on the record, and then they’d show it to us and we would say “yes” or “no” and that was it, so it was really cool to see that, see somebody else’s vision for our record.
Denis@RRR: So the concepts weren’t your idea?
Chris: No, those were the director’s ideas.
Denis@RRR: I would say that one of Manchester Orchestra’s most valuable assets is the sheer amount of emotion contained within your songs, and on this line of thought, “I Can Feel A Hot One” is fast becoming a fan favorite. What’s the story behind the song?
Chris: I wasn’t in town, I didn’t play on that song, that was a studio song that was done for an EP before we made the record. It’s once again about being on the road, that’s the first song on the second half of the record, it’s very much like “Shake It Out”, in the sense of being on the road and being annoyed and upset about things… I don’t know, I didn’t write the lyrics and I wasn’t there for recording…
Denis@RRR: Surely you know what it’s about?
Chris: Not really, I mean it’s…
Denis@RRR: It’s so powerful!
Chris: It’s so personal to Andy. There’s some things on that record that are… like, Andy and I hang out a lot, well, we hang out every day pretty much, when we’re home and when we’re on the road. There are things on the record that are so personal to him; moments in his life, that I don’t know about, that I don’t want to ask about, because I don’t know what that’s about – “I Can Feel A Hot One” could be about a million different things – I think it’s a beautiful song, and I loved it when I heard it the first time.
Denis@RRR: Following the release of Mean Everything To Nothing, you received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics, we gave it 4.5 out of 5…
Chris: Couldn’t get that other half? Just kiddin’, that’s cool!
Denis@RRR@ And the fans’ reaction was equally positive. How does it feel to have created a record which is being branded as a classic?
Chris: I didn’t know it was… really?
Denis@RRR: That’s a quote from a review…
Chris: Really? Branded as a classic. That’s awesome. That’s great. I mean, it’s cool. We literally just made a record that we wanted to make, we said we’d never make a record that we don’t like, so we just made a record that felt good to us, it was literally- the writing process was simply, we played a song, it sounded badass, so we kept it, that was it.
Denis@RRR: Are you surprised?
Chris: I’m very surprised, I’m very happy, very satisfied at the fact that people actually like it, we didn’t really- you know, we make records all the time, this isn’t our second record, this is our twentieth, we make records all the time at home and we don’t release them, but it’s cool that people liked it!
Denis@RRR: You guys run your own independent record label, Favorite Gentlemen Recordings, which is described as “a community of friends”. Why did you decide to start a record label?
Chris: So we could put out our first record. We weren’t signed when we put out Virgin…, so we needed someone to put out our album, so Andy and Jeremiah had written a song a long time ago about their ‘favorite gentlemen’, I don’t know why, and they decided to name the label ‘Favorite Gentleman’ and then we wanted to have the idea of a community, among bands in Atlanta, because there’s no real community in that city, and I’m in Athens, Georgia, so I think it was an idea of having a group of friends, because we knew so many bands, that we could just all put the same stamp on a record, so if anybody saw that stamp, they would say “hey, they’re connected with those guys, I like those guys, maybe I should buy this record”. It turned into being a real label once we got signed, and signed the label as well, to Sony, so that’s how it became a real label, but at first it was just simply the idea of being able to give our friends money for bands.
Denis@RRR: What’s the future like for Favorite Gentlemen Recordings?
Chris: I think it’s going to grow a lot stronger, we have an office now, we have a studio now, where our bands, if they come to Atlanta, can record for free. I think Favorite Gentleman is going to grow. As far as I know, now we have at least 10 bands on Favorite Gentleman that are touring bands, who are making money, who are wanting to do more and who are recording all the time, so I think we’ll continue to put out records and will continue to be able to demo some of our friends’ bands and be able to give them money so they can do what they want to do.
Denis@RRR: The label’s very selective about who it signs…
Chris: Favorite Gentleman?
Denis@RRR: Yeah…
Chris: We sign our friends. That’s it. We’ve had a lot of requests from people to join Favorite Gentleman, but it’s not like that, that’s not what it’s about, it’s about community, it’s about people that we’ve met on the road and need help.
Denis@RRR: A few questions about side projects coming up now… Alaska Him Nicely is yours, right?
Chris: Yes… [surprised] It’s funny that you know that name.
Denis@RRR: Can we just quickly ask first, what does the future look like for Andy’s project Right Away, Great Captain?
Chris: Hopefully he’ll make his third record soon, because it’s a trilogy, so hopefully he’ll have time to be able to record his third… sometime soon, hopefully in maybe January- I doubt it now, we have a lot of new year stuff, we’re just trying to find time to record for a lot of our side projects, especially Right Away, Great Captain because it’s done so well.
Denis@RRR: I understand that Robert’s project, Gobotron, has a record finished?
Chris: Yep.
Denis@RRR: Any idea when that’s coming out?
Chris: We’ve been talking about that for the last couple of days, we’re trying to find a time to coincide with our touring… so the next 5 months I’d say, it’ll be out.
Denis@RRR: Finally, what about Alaska Him Nicely?
Chris: Robert and I are trying to get into the studio to do an Alaska record, all of the stuff up on the MySpace are just weird demos in my bedroom, so hopefully we can get a real record together in February, at least start it, would be nice…
Denis@RRR: What do you want to achieve with the project?
Chris: Anything. I don’t care. Make a little bit of money I guess, I don’t know. I just love writing songs, and that project is just fun for me, and it’s funny that because of Manchester’s success that anybody would even know that name, Alaska Him Nicely – it’s a joke, it started as a funny thing in my living room before we went go play put put golf…
Denis@RRR: I’ve done my research!
Chris: I guess, yeah. And that’s amazing, I’m in a different country, the other side of the world and… you know that name, it’s just funny.
Denis@RRR: Are there any more strangely named Manchester Orchestra side projects we should know about?
Chris: There are, but no, you should not know about them.
Denis@RRR: Ahh… We have a very specific question from a curious fan; what happened to the ‘I remember I wanted to kiss/kill you’ song?
Chris: Nothing. We played it the other night, we’ve opened with it all three nights in Germany.
Denis@RRR: It’s not been released officially though… any plans for that?
Chris: I don’t know, it’s been demoed a few times, and every German show we’ve just played, all three, we opened with that song.
Denis@RRR: Why did you leave it off the record?
Chris: We had 73 songs written for the last record
Denis@RRR: Woah…
Chris: Beforehand, so it’s like… shit’s going to get left by the wayside! It was just like, “oh we’ve got this set up, we’ve got these great songs, we’ll get that later”.
Denis@RRR: There’s plenty of musical wealth in your back catalog. Are there any plans to release or re-release some of the old material?
Chris: I assume you’re probably talking about I Brains- like, the first record?
Denis@RRR: Yeah…
Chris: Eventually, we’d like to release uhhh…
Denis@RRR: Nobody Sings Anymore?
Chris: Thank you! Wow, that is sad, I don’t even know the name of it. I wasn’t in the band at that time. Yeah, well we plan to release that… eventually, and also a lot of the back catalog stuff that we’ve done, we have a lot of demos, we demo all the time, now we have our own studio, so we’re able to, if we have an idea, just go and demo it and see what happens, so yeah, it would be nice to be able to release a b-sides record, maybe with the next record that would be nice.
Denis@RRR: In a nutshell, summarize what the next year in the life of Manchester Orchestra will be? Would it be too soon, too early, to mention the possibility of new material?
Chris: Oh God no. We’re going on tour, playing some radio shows here and there in January and February, and I think we have another headlining show at the beginning of next year, at some point, and then we’re trying to go back in the studio, in June to write another record, we’re trying to do it from June until August maybe, maybe longer. We’re just trying to get into the studio again, because it’s been a year and a half, and we’re kinda angsty again to get back in…
Denis@RRR: So are the fans! So maybe a late 2010 date for the album?
Chris: Yeah hopefully, I mean, I’d like to release the record tomorrow, I want to get back into the studio as soon as we get home, that’s my favorite part of the whole thing, I think that’s all our favorite parts, we love being in the studio, so maybe we can do… I don’t know, fuck it, we can do a double record or something, I don’t give a shit, anything! I just want to record!
Denis@RRR: Plenty of touring?
Chris: Well, hopefully we’re going to take it slow after the beginning of next year, it would be nice to be home, two of the guys are married, Robert has a girlfriend, so it’s like, we need to be home and see our families for a little bit, we’ve been gone for 5 months now, so it will be nice to be home for a little bit.
Denis@RRR: Speaking of touring, can we hear a crazy, insane, tour story? And don’t… say you haven’t got one, because you’ve been a band for a very long time
Chris: Yeah, yeah, there’s crazy stories, there’s people throwing up, people jumping off of roofs into pools. The most recent, is me, Jeremiah, our drummer, and our tour manager, sat in our room, and drank three bottles of wine, and punched each other in the face to see who would get a black eye first [laughs from all]. Nobody got it that night, but the next morning we woke up, and we got charged £50 ($83) for being too loud, another £50 for smoking in the room, and our heads, like the size of my head was probably three times its regular size, because I got hit in the temple a bunch of times. I ended up having a massive black eye, our tour manager ended up with a massive black eye, Jeremiah couldn’t open his jaw… I’m happy it’s going away, right before I get home, so don’t have to explain to my mom how I got really drunk and punched everybody in the face.
Denis@RRR: At what point did punching each other in the face seem like a good idea?
Chris: [confidently] After the second bottle. Well, we beat each other up in the elevator; we decided that every time we get into an elevator it’s going to be like, a cage match! So we go in the elevator, I take my glasses off, take my hat off, and we just go at it, no face hits, just all body hits, just beat the shit out of each other, and then we got to the room and decided to hit each other in the face after the second bottle of wine, it was great.
Denis@RRR: On a serious note, would you say you guys have ‘made it’?
Chris: Made it?
Denis@RRR: Made it.
Chris: No. Not at all. I mean, we far have exceeded anything we thought we’d ever do, ever, but no, we definitely haven’t made it. The Kings Of Lean have made it, we have not made it.
Denis@RRR: [quietly] You’re better than them…
Chris: Tsk! Those are good friends of mine [sarcastic joking tone]
Denis@RRR: [pause] They still suck! [all laugh]
Chris: I’m happy you said that, that’s honestly!
Denis@RRR: Nah, I’m joking. What are your favorite records this year, and are there any records you’re looking forward to this year, or maybe 2010?
Chris: I don’t really know, it sucks, we were just talking about this the other day, in the band, about yearly records; we don’t really listen to a lot of new records, I really like the new Animal Collective, I really like the new Flaming Lips – The Flaming Lips is amazing, kinda mind-blowing, but we all seem to, for the longer we get into this whole process, we end up going back more, I was in love with old school for the last 8 months, so I don’t know what records came out this year… I think The Flaming Lips came out this year, and that was… The Flaming Lips, The Flaming Lips, great, that’s it.
Denis@RRR: What about Daisy?
Chris: Daisy! Great album! I got the record, and I thought I had the wrong one, like when it first started with that intro, and then how crazy it was, I had no- because they wouldn’t give it to us, Brand New wouldn’t give us Daisy at all…
Denis@RRR: Really?
Chris: They wouldn’t let us hear it…
Denis@RRR: Until when?
Chris: Until it came out. And it came out right before we went on tour with them in the States, so, I heard it, and I was blown away absolutely, but I thought, literally for about 30 seconds, thought I had the wrong album, and then I realized I didn’t, because everybody else had downloaded it. I think it’s a great album, I think it’s their best, I think that’s the one I can get behind the most, honestly.
Denis@RRR: Is that the only one you’ve listened to? [laughs from all]
Chris: No, no, I mean, I’ve listened to Deja, I’ve listened to The Devil And God… - I think they’re great albums, those are great friends of mine who I think make great music, but that record is probably more honest than any of their other records, as far as musically, the way that they feel about making records…
Denis@RRR: Do you enjoy touring with them?
Chris: Yeah, absolutely.
Denis@RRR: Because you very often do tour with them..
Chris: Not really, actually, we’ve only toured with them a few times
Denis@RRR: Thank you, so much, for taking the time to answer our questions… is there anything you’d like to add?
Chris: Absolutely not, thank you!
Many thanks to Sarah at Division Promotions for making this interview possible.
Great interview dude loved it and score for us getting to announce their new record first
great interview.
so stoked for them to go into the studio!