INTERVIEW: Twin Peaks

Chicago-rockers Twin Peaks kicked off the U.S. leg of their North American tour on May 18 at The Sinclair in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The band is touring their third album, “Down in Heaven,” with fellow Chicago natives, NE-HI and Jimmy Whispers. WTBU DJ Olivia Gehrke sat down with Jack Dolan (bassist, vocalist, songwriter) and Clay Frankel (guitarist, vocalist, songwriter) before the show to discuss the creating and touring of their latest album, released on May 13.

Olivia Gehrke: You guys just finished touring Europe and Australia and have done some festivals—what have been the reactions to the new material live so far?

Clay Frankel: It was good. We were playing it for a few months, like a lot of new stuff. I guess I’ve noticed a slight difference from when the album actually came out because usually before it was the singles that people would get excited for, but we played a lot of the other stuff on our record obviously. I think people are starting to know those songs pretty well, don’t you think?

Jack Dolan: Yeah. I’m pleasantly surprised by the reaction because this record, overall, it’s a little more mellow. Initially we were kind of wondering which songs would actually be good live, because our live shows are typically so crazy, but we found out that we could still make shit rock.

CF: It’s nice finding ways to put energy to songs that are slower. They still have good energy to them.

OG: Even just working off that, the album has definitely been noted for being mellow and laid-back. Do you think that’s a product of recording in Western Mass as opposed to Chicago? Like would it be a different album?

CF: I definitely think so, yeah.

JD: It allows you to do that much more in that environment for sure.

CF: It definitely had an influence on it, just in the instrumentation you choose. You’re almost more likely to pick up an acoustic guitar if you’re in a farm area.

OG: It’s no secret that you guys are definitely heavily influenced by the Stones, Beatles, and Velvet Underground.

CF: Never heard of them!

OG: How do you manage to take that style of the past and tie it into your own style?

CF: I don’t know how conscious it is. We certainly like those bands a lot, and I guess there are certain ways you can play guitar that are similar to that. You gotta make it your own. A good way to do that is with lyrics—sing about shit that makes it you—or melodies and stuff.

OG: Influences for songs—do you guys find more influences on the road, or more in things that happen when you’re off tour? Or a bit of both?

JD: I guess just overall life experiences. I think we might write, like more recently, about being on the road or my life relative to what I’m doing right now. Right now what I’ve been doing for the last four years is touring around, so it might be different from songs I had written awhile ago. You just take from what you know, I guess. You never want to try too hard to get people to relate to you. Just say what you want to say.

CF: You don’t want to be melodramatic about it.

OG: Sometimes bands, with their early albums, feel like they can’t relate to them as much. Have you found that to be the case with “Wild Onion” and “Sunken?” Or does it still feel pretty relevant?

CF: I feel like our early records, I really like them. Especially the first one I really like. I can’t imagine ever kind of writing—not that I couldn’t write songs like that again—but you just change as you’re writing songs, and you always want to do things that are new and interesting to you. You don’t want to make the same record over and over again, so you try new things. There are just some things on that first record that I feel like we just came up with because we were really young. Just crazy ideas, I don’t know.

JD: Yeah, it’s interesting to look back on those for us because those marked such moments in time for us as a band. We probably look at them way different than anyone else would, obviously. But I get nostalgic thinking back or listening back on all that stuff. And we still play a shit-ton of the songs from both records.

CF: Yeah, that’s good. We play a good mix of all of them.

OG: Because the first one came out when you guys were in high school, right?

CF: Yeah, we were like 17 or 18. Second one was when we were 19.

JD: Yeah, those were all songs we had been playing all through high school, and we had recorded them right when we graduated, basically.

OG: You guys site Chicago’s DIY scene as influencing the band you are today. As you’ve grown in success and toured nationally and internationally, do you still feel like you’re part of that scene, or have you outgrown it?

CF: Well, it’s like are we playing basements in Chicago anymore? No fucking way.

JD: Unless you have the biggest basement in town.

CF: We’re trying to set up things in more of like loft spaces, stuff like that, which they had a lot of when we were first starting out. It’s hard to play the 30-person basement. But on this tour, we’re bringing a lot of Chicago bands that have hooked us up in the past from the DIY. Every band on this bill is from Chicago. Good friends of ours. You know, spread the love.

JD: Yeah, we definitely owe a lot to Chicago. At least the scene and the people who inspired us to really push this as a career because we did it younger than a lot of the bands in Chicago did. Everyone’s proud of us, and we just want to give back.

CF: It also makes it easier probably because we did it young. Most Chicago bands have jobs. We didn’t have any things to really work out, so any tour we could pretty much do.

JD: It was perfect timing.

OG: When you guys write music for “Down in Heaven” and the other albums, do you have how it’s going to translate live in your mind, or just how it’s going to sound in the studio? Or are you not even thinking about it really?

CF: I think for the most part we take it pretty separately, like two different beasts. We just want to get a really good recording, the heaviest recording we can have with it, and then we’ll try to figure out how to play it live. It’s not like “Oh man, we shouldn’t lay down this saxophone on here because we’re not going to tour with a saxophone player.” We just get the song that we like on recording and then figure it out.

OG: You released “Down in Heaven,” the same day you also released the “Butterfly” music video. How did the idea come about for that particular video?

CF: We were just tossing some things around, and then all of a sudden I just thought of—you’ve seen that movie “Easy Rider?” It’s like an old motorcycle film. It’s really good. It’s got a lot of great music in it. It’s a really cool movie. And there’s this scene where they take acid in a cemetery.

JD: And it’s totally freaky.

CF: So, I just got that sort of thing. Then we went to a costume shop and I saw these costumes—this cloak and the big black pirate pistol and just kind of went with it.

OG: As mentioned, Rolling Stones, Beatles—all influences. But is there a band or musician that people would be surprised to know influenced this album in one way or another?

CF: Well, we really like the Black Lips. I guess that’s no surprise. We’re big fans of them.

JD: Juan Wauters came out. We actually a recorded a song with him that is yet to be released.

CF: Yeah, he was kicking it out there with us.

JD: That was a little bit influential—his presence I guess.

OG: Is there a dream venue you guys would like to play? Because you’ve played basements, big clubs, festivals—is there a goal or dream?

JD: Madison Square Garden.

OG: Who would be the supporting act?

JD: Oh, I don’t know. Maybe we’ll start with supporting act at Madison Square Garden, and then we’ll move up.

OG: Supporting for?

JD: I don’t know. Bruce Springsteen? The Rolling Stones? I don’t know, who plays at Madison Square Garden?

OG: Like Adele, I don’t know.

JD: Yeah, we’ll do the Adele tour. That’s cool with me.

CF: Oh my god, I don’t know if I’m signing up for that one.

JD: The checks would be fat though.

CF: If we could fucking play a Wrigley Field show, that would be good.

JD: Actually yeah that’d be really good.

CF: That would just be so funny. It seems ridiculous for us to play huge venues, but we’re going to play a few on this tour.

JD: We’re gettin’ there.