The Silence of the Songs
What! A Magazine
- by Chris Yackoboski
Watchmen singer Danny Greaves once told me he wants to write an opera;
not a rock opera, but something that perhaps Pavaroti might sing. Of
course, the band members also just love music. Drummer Sammy Kohn
laughinly says he'd love to play in an R.E.M. cover band "maybe one day
to pay the bills."
Somewhere between grasping for greatness and the admission that being
in a band can be simply a job, The Watchmen keep moving forward. The
new record, Silent Radar, is a mix of immediate grab-you-by-the-collar
singles like "Stereo" and moody, melancholy, beautiful numbers such as
album-closer "Brighter Hell." Its notable that there are quite a few
quiet, slow songs here. In this period of fast-food manufactured hits a
la Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys and N-Sync, it's an accomplishment when
your band doesn't nees force-feed listeners obviousness (though if they
called themselves Watchmen Boys/Girls, they might make more money, eh?).
"There's more patience and time in the music, we're not recording too
much. We know when to stop," Greaves suggests. "There's a lot of space
on this record, which to me is the cat's ass."
"We're coming into our own a little bit with that," adds Kohn. "The
songs with a less beats-per-minute are ones we enjoy writing more,
playing more and grow live more than the fast, heavy, angry thing."
"Those mid-tempo songs are the ones that live longer," continues
Greaves. "Beatles songs or Tom Petty songs - those ones people love -
they've often mid-tempo and really simple. The grow on you."
Tom Petty and his body of work have obviously had an effect on the
members of The Watchmen, to the extent that Petty's long-time keyboard
magician, Benmont Tench, was called upon to add colour to the record.
His work is especially evident on "Any Day Now," a song which may be the
most likely to break the band to a wider audience. Not worlds away from
the Wallflowers or Counting Crows, it's a song with rootsy, warm tones
and it fits like a nice warm sweater. Ironically, the song seems to be
at least partly about Winnipeg, the home of nine-month-long winters.
It makes sense that upon releasing its most diverse yet coherent album,
The Watchmen are going international. The band is hitting numerous
Eroupean countries, and Greaves and Kohn seem confident a U.S. release
is going to happen. No one can say the band isn't ambitious.
"It's just a matter of deciding who to go with (in the States)," Kohn
says. "Slowly, carefully, like building steps, we've quietly sold lots
of records in this country. We want people to have our records in thier
collection, we're not a singles band. Some people want to buy Big Shiny
Tunes, and that's fine, but for us every song is as important as the
next on the album. So everything we do is done for a reason, we're
selective in where and when we play and the decisions we make about our
career."
The band has been together almost 10 years, so it's already outlived
many others. With a recent record label change to EMI, Greaces and Kohn
seem rejuvenated if slightly unfazed.
"It was a surprisingly seamless change," Greaves offers. "The new
company is just a better fit."
"The label's excited about the record," Kohn interjects. "They seem to
understand our long-term game plan."
The Watchmen won over another sympathetic ear in producer Adam Kaser
(Soundgarden, R.E.M.) and found another perfect fit in choosing Seattle
- specifically Studio Litho (Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard's place)
- as its recording location. The last song on Silent Radar, and
atmospheric, melodic tune called "Brighter Hell," was recorded there in
one take. It also features one of those unexplained found moments that
helps make a song more than the sum of its parts.
"I was playing a kind of overblown Rhodes and I put it through a pedal
and worked it through a Marshall," expains Greaves. "It started picking
up the radio - I think it was some play that was being broadcast - and
we just left it, went for it. So at the end of the song you can hear
some talking, and something else that's really eerie. There's this
weird acoustic piano sound playing this thing, this ghost piano. We
can't figure it out, because it was never recorded. I wasn't playing
piano, I was playing Rhodes. I swear this is True."