Contributor: Ed Thanhouser
Ever wondered what it’s like to be the fair-haired, angelic soprano-voiced leader of Loch Lomond, RITCHIE YOUNG? Me too (obvi!) Well readers, apparently it’s a lot like being HIGH ON LSD ALL THE TIME. In this exclusive interview with EXPLODER!, between subconsciously channeling MEAT LOAF, personally thanking GEORGE W. BUSH for his new venue, and getting FIRED from his younger brothers’ new band, I’m inclined to believe that Ritchie was, in fact, “trippin’ ballz.” Get all the juicy deets and read on, brave readers!
Exploder: OK, first question: You have been doing lots of EP’s lately. There was the online EP, Trumpets for Paper Children, a while back, and now you have Night Bats EP coming out… I’m looking at your myspace page and I see a helluva lot of record covers, but I haven’t seen a Loch Lomond full length in a while… What specifically draws you to the EP format? Do you have plans for an LP in the near future?
RY: You know we actually did record a new full length record… and it’s just sitting there!
XPLDR: Really?
RY: Yeah we kinda did this in a weird way. We recorded the whole record and it’s done now, and we took the song, “Blue Lead Fences” and did a video with Alicia Rose, and then our manager and the band had a conversation in Los Angeles at a taco shop before a show. Basically, he wanted to wait until 2010 to release the full length, which is called “Little Me Will Start a Storm” and and so we recorded mixed and mastered the whole thing in 20 days, and sent it out the next morning with the artwork… so we did the entire thing in like 3 weeks. And we mixed with Tucker Martin, which was amazing! He’s recorded The Decemberists records, REM among others, and he is an wonderful person and an amazing engineer.
XPLDR: So you already had an LP before you did Night Bats?
RY: Yeah, it was funny, you know cause we were going in the studio to write record mix n master an EP when we had a full-length, which felt weird but I’m really glad we did it… cause it’s not a full-length, but it’s the best thing that we’ve put out on CD thus-far.
XPLDR: I actually like the EP format a lot, and I mean, I don’t want to use the word “stopgap” but something that you can put out without pouring tremendous amounts of energy into it or whatever…
RY: Yeah, you know I love EPs, I doesn’t have to be this big “masterpiece” or whatever, you know… like Trans-Am. I love their full-length records, but they have this EP, Futureworld which is like one of my favorite records ever. And I think they were in a similar situation where their label wanted to push the LP a little down the road, and they did this EP. I think it relaxes a band, it doesn’t have to be this epic thing. It can be something that you work hard on and that you’re proud of, but it doesn’t have to live up to so much expectation… you know, like “this was their third record and it did such and such…”
XPLDR: Is there maybe even a little more focus afforded each track on the smaller format, maybe? Does it make you hone in on each song a little more?
RY: Yeah, well, with Loch Lomond we tend to stretch it out forever (laughs). It’s not a bad thing, but it just tends to go on endlessly, retooling constantly. And just when our manager and the band decided to do this, we didn’t have time to be anal or fussy, and it actually worked out to be a great formula cause we could just do it and not second guess everything.
XPLDR: When you’re writing these songs, I know that I’ve heard you say before that a lot of your songs, including “Ghost of a Worm” From Night Bats, are influenced by your dreams… can you talk a little bit about your lyrical influences?
RY: Well, the fact is, I’m really, really bad… not just average, but truly BAD at writing love songs. Love is such a strong human emotion and there are so many musicians and singer-songwriters that focus on that, but I just happen to be really bad at it… To the point where it made me laugh, when I had originally meant to be serious. I take love seriously, but I just suck at writing love songs. So I wanted to do something that sounded original to me. I’m not a great writer, necessarily, but I think that I have this… well, like, I never really got into mushrooms or LSD or anything cause I feel like I sort of am like that already. My dreams are these crazy adventures, vivid and full-color and I can control everything, it’s kind of exhausting. Like I’ve been on a crazy acid trip every night. So, it’s kind of a nice outlet, in a way. So a lot of the songs based on my dreams grow out of distorted perceptions of everyday things, like you know, earthworms… (laughs). But I stopped writing from dreams for a while, because I kinda… Well, my dreams kinda screwed me over once. I had a tape recorder next to my bed and I would wake up and I would talk about my dreams because, you know, you forget them and the details as you wake up. So I had this epic, huge, crazy dream where I had this massive, amazing song, and this song was just… man. I mean, everyone on the street was singing with me in my dream. It was like this amazing, crazy music video in my mind where people were dancing and singing with me in the street (laughs). Yeah there were like dance moves to it and everything… And so I got up and I told the story quickly and I sang the melody. And then I had to go to work, and all day I could not wait to come back to the tape player. I was so excited, I ran in the room and rewound the cassette and pushed play… and what I heard was (sings) “I would do anything for love…but I wont do that” and I was crushed! Like, ahhhhh, Fuck!
XPLDR: What song is more epic than Meat Loaf, really? (Laughs) Yeah, I guess your sub-conscious robbed you a bit.
RY: I just felt like my brain was playing jokes on me at that point…
XPLDR: OK, lets talk a bit about your venue, The Woods… what was it like opening a buisness in this economic climate? What was it like to open a venue? What exactly drove you to open your own place? How did you decide on your location? That sort of thing…
RY: I think, it was part… uh… I was really tired of getting fired, for being on tour, you know. Everyone except me in the band had the sort of job that would allow them to leave and then come back. Everyone else just had these really malleable schedules. Everyone in Portland is in a band, and everyone’s touring and everyone already has those jobs and I just couldn’t find one, and got really tired of looking for new jobs. Vivian Lyon, my buisness parter, was tired of being a lawyer, and was wanting to work for herself, so we just started looking around… It’s kind of a long boring story, but basically it just fell into place. And it really wouldn’t have happened if it werent for the economy dropping like it did.
XPLDR: So that actually worked in your favor, with the market and the real estate prices, etc?
RY: Oh totally! It definately wouldn’t have been possible if it weren’t for the great Gorge W. Bush’s fucking total mishandling of the United States. I think it’s one of the pluses of a bad economy that it affords opportunity to certain kinds of small businesses, and we just happened to be one of those.
XPLDR: Well yeah, and you can take risks as prices go down...
RY: Totally… everything was slashed in half. The owners of the building are wonderful, but they would never have even talked with us if it hadn’t been for everyone else leaving the table!
XPLDR: What’s one of the best shows to come through The Woods so far?
RY: I’ve been really impressed with Caroline Buchalter, who used to book Mississippi Studios. She’s done a great job of booking an unknown club. I’ve absolutely loved 95% of what I’ve seen here so far. I’d have to say my favorite two shows that have come through lately were Museé Mechanique with Billy Goat, which was amazing. Also Sally Ford and Pancake Breakfast. I remember thinking that Sally Ford was so amazing and had such great energy, that I thought , “man I would hate to have to go on after that…” but then Pancake Breakfast just really killed it. I mean he had shadow puppets and stuff going on, I just loved it. He and his band are so fucking amazing…Yeah, he is an amazing bandleader.
XPLDR: Yeah, I wasn’t there myself, but you know, people were actually walking around talking about how that was a really amazing show… You know another show I heard a lot about recently was the Brothers Young. Now, these are your younger brothers, right?
RY: Yeah, we were originally in a band called 4 Ever Young, cause you know, it’s our last name and there’s four of us… but they kicked me out.
XPLDR: Harsh! Creative differences?
RY: No, you know, I was really busy with Loch Lomond, and they really wanted to take it seriously, and even though I am not a bossy person for some reason when I was playing with then I was totally bossing them around and being the older brother dickhead. So they booted me. I still love playing with them. I sing with them every once in a while, but it really is their band and they’ve done a great job. I know I’m totally biased, but everyone play it for just loves it. What’s really great about them live, you know, a lot of people sing harmonies, but you know when you record, a lot of people double their voices. Well, live they sing unison and there’s three of them singing and their voices are extremely similar and it sounds just like a doubled recording. It’s really impressive live. It kind of makes you feel weird, it’s rare. I love harmonies, you know Fleet Foxes and Grizzly Bear kind of stuff, but it’s kind of rare when someone can actually sing in pitch and do it in unison.
XPLDR: Yeah, and it’s harder than people would think to get it to mesh right. That’s an interesting take on having multiple singers. What’s their EP called?
RY: It’s called The Sun Says He’s God. They’re having their record release at the Woods, November 5th with a cool band called Boat.
XPLDR: Are you guys gonna share a stage any time? Is there going to be a Loch Lomond/Brothers Young show or tour?
RY: Yeah, I think so… I think we’d like to take them out sometime this spring.
XPDLR: And when does Night Bats Come out? Are you guys having a release party for that at The Woods?
RY: Yes, it’s November 10th. We’re playing with Tu Fawning and we’re excited. We’re going on a West Coast Tour, playing some dates with Horse Feathers and The Generational. Its kind of funny. Loch Lomond hasn’t played here yet, and it’ll probably be the last for a while, cause you know, it’s weird to play your own venue. And it’s kind of funny that we’re having both the Brothers Young and the Loch Lomond CD releases 5 days apart… it kinda seems self serving, and it is, I guess (laughs), but we’re just going to be self-serving for a bit November, and then we’ll stop.
Listen to Loch Lomond on Myspace or at Hush Records. Listen to clips from The Sun Says He’s God by The Brothers Young at CD Baby or Myspace.
