Faulkner Detectives: The Modern Handshake
In late May, the New York City-based indie-rock quartet Faulkner Detectives released its new EP, The Modern Handshake. To mark its release the quartet–which consists of Elizabeth Keenan-Penagos on bass; Vanessa Lopez on drums; Alex Segura on guitar/vocals; and Meg Wilhoite on keys/vocals–was kind enough to participate in a brief email interview. (Full disclosure, Alex and I are old pals, since the days I wrote for The Great Curve [the comics blog precursor to Blog@Newsarama {now Robot 6}]). Once you’ve enjoyed the interview, be sure to follow the band’s advice: “You can get it pretty much anywhere digitally — iTunes, Amazon, eMusic, CDBaby, BandCamp, stream on Spotify – and if you’re a fan of holding records in your hands, like us,you can also get hard copies via Livid Records!” My thanks to Faulkner Detectives for their time and thoughts.
Tim: A lot of folks play in bands, but not every band are organized enough to release an EP. Why do each of you think you collaborate so effectively and what were some of the biggest challenges to getting this EP together?
ELIZABETH: As a band, we’re a good mesh of personalities. I think it says a lot that both Meg and Alex have been my roommates in the past, and I’m still happy to be in a band with them!
For me personally, the biggest challenge getting the EP together is that I hate recording. I was a music major in college, so I have a long history of recording. But I’m a perfectionist, and I hear every mistake, which can be frustrating if you only have a short time to record.
VANESSA: Yeah, I think we all really respect one another and really respect that we all have commitments outside of the band. That’s probably the hardest part, getting together to practice regularly when we all have careers and lives that demand a huge amount of time and attention. I think we have a very mature collective mindset that allows us to work around that.
ALEX: Respect’s a big part of it, definitely. And, we’re a pretty drama-free band. We get along. We’re friends. We enjoy each other’s company. And while we all don’t like exactly the same kind of music, we overlap enough to keep it interesting. I think we all came into Faulkner Detectives with similar goals, too. We wanted to play shows regularly and eventually record an EP and so on. So that really helped.
As far as challenges, I think it was tough for me to get into the mindset of recording, as opposed to playing live or practicing. But it’s like anything else. We were on a budget and had some time constraints, so we had to do the best we could and work on making each take count. I’m pretty happy with the end result. It captures the band well.
MEG: Like Alex said, it really just boils down to us wanting to record and hold a physical CD of our music in our hands. The biggest challenge was probably that none of us had a ton of experience recording in a studio, which is such a pressure-cooker type situation.
Tim: Do each of you have a favorite cut?
MEG: My fave cut is probably the chorus of “Fully Formed.” Jamie did some really cool stuff on mixing that.
ALEX: I like all the songs for different reasons. “A Matter of Time” is special to me personally because it’s the first full song I wrote, years ago. But I also love “Fully Formed” because it’s really catchy and I think it’s a good example of us as a band — strong rhythm section, moody instrumentation and nice vocal interplay. But yeah, I like them all. I like the bassline to “Bad Timing,” the build-up to “Render” as it ends, etc.
ELIZABETH: I’m also a huge fan of “Fully Formed,” which sounds, uh, more fully formed in Jamie’s recording than in our earlier versions of it. It’s one of those times that a producer really brought out the song’s potential.
Tim: What musical or songwriting skills do you admire in your band mates?
VANESSA: I love Alex and Meg’s lyrics, E’s basslines, Meg’s piano, and on and on. I basically just dig my bandmates. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
ELIZABETH: I admire Alex’s ability to write a catchy chorus. I think that’s one of the hardest things to do in a band–and it just seems to come naturally to him. Meg is the best when it comes to chord progressions and inventive keyboard patterns. I love that her playing isn’t typical for rock music. Vanessa has really great energy and creativity as a drummer, and, as the bass player, I rely on her a lot!
MEG: Vanessa is good at guiding the “form” of the songs, Elizabeth is good at coming up with counterpoint-driven baselines, and Alex is good at writing lyrics and then matching them up in an interesting way with melody.
ALEX: Elizabeth, Meg and Vanessa are very skilled musicians, so it’s fun to play with them. It also helps that I consider each of them close friends! Elizabeth is great because she combines the best of new wave and Motown bass-playing into something really funky and also heartfelt – and she makes it look easy and natural. The basslines always jump out at me when listening to our songs, and help me keep my place when playing! So, a good combination. Meg’s lyrics and vocals are a good counterbalance to mine, so when we sing on each other’s songs, it creates a nice contrast. Plus, she’s a great instrumentalist. The mood the keys provide the songs really make us stand out as a band. We don’t really do guitar solos! And Vanessa impresses me because she’s really immersed in her playing. She never just settles for the easy fill or beat. Each song sounds different and she knows when to emphasize or step back. The intro of “New Blood” is a good example of her waiting to jump in, and I’m really fond of her playing on “Render.”
Tim: What were some of the influencing factors in tapping Jamie Muffett to produce this album? And how did the band land at Livid Records?
ELIZABETH: Well, Jamie is Meg’s brother-in-law. And he also acted as a temporary drummer in Faulkner Allison with me and Meg. When he turned to recording, we couldn’t find a permanent drummer. So we merged bands with the Frozen Detectives (which I was already in, with Alex and Vanessa). But Jamie seemed like the ideal choice when we decided to record. We already knew him, and he’s a really skilled producer.
ALEX: I’ve known Chuck – who runs Livid Records – since high school in Miami, and we’ve kept in touch off and on over the years. He’s a good dude, smart, and has great taste in music. So, once we recorded the EP with Jamie, I sent him a link as kind of a heads up, not really thinking anything of it. He replied almost immediately with “Yeah, we can do something.” I had no idea what he meant, but as we got to talking I realized he wanted to put the whole thing out! So, here we are. Livid did an awesome job on the production and marketing for the record, and we hope this is the beginning of a long relationship with them.
Working with Jamie was a lot of fun, and I really felt like it was a true collaboration. There are things he did while producing that we can’t repeat live that make the record unique, plus I think he had a good sense of what we wanted to sound like on the EP. It was really helpful to have someone in the studio who knew what to do or how to get us what we wanted.
Tim: How hard was it deciding which cuts to include in the EP?
ELIZABETH: It was a fight to the death. Not really. We don’t do that sort of thing. Basically, the songs were our set list, minus one.
MEG: We basically picked the songs we felt most confident about. Also, because we were so eager to get in the studio, we recorded half of the EP last year and then decided to record more tracks earlier this year to round it out.
Tim: Which brings you more satisfaction, getting to collaborate on an EP or getting to play live gigs?
ALEX: I like them both for different reasons. The instant gratification of a show is hard to beat – the applause, the conversations after, etc. Plus, knowing that you created this music and performed it with your friends is really wonderful. Recording’s a different animal. It’s more methodical and there’s a time lapse between the work and the reaction, so you have to be more patient with it. Plus, it’s more permanent if it exists as a CD – it’s “official,” I guess.
MEG: When we started out, I was definitely all about playing live, but this EP has opened my eyes to how much more people the music can reach by having the recordings out there.
VANESSA: Both have their merits. Live gigs are totally nerve-wracking and exciting, without a doubt. Recording an EP can be exhausting (especially for the drummer!), but totally fun in its own right.
ELIZABETH: EP all the way! It’s fun to play live gigs, but it’s also an ephemeral experience. Having an EP in both MP3 and CD format–that we didn’t release ourselves in crappy CDR format–is a lot of fun.
Tim: I know Alex loves harnessing the power of social media to market his projects, but how much does the rest of the band utilize social media to promote the band/keep in touch with fans?
MEG: Honestly, I’m not super-skilled at harnessing FB/Twitter, haha.
ELIZABETH: I’ve been on Twitter for a long time, but I’m not really focused on “keeping in touch with fans.” Mostly, I use it to keep up conversations with the various communities I’m a part of, from academia, to pop culture geeks, to my neighborhood friends. I loathe Facebook with the power of a thousand suns.
VANESSA: Haha, I’m sure the band will agree that I am the WORST when it comes to using social media for the band. I work with social media at my job, and I sort of have an aversion to it in my own life. I much prefer to connect with people at our shows.
Tim: Meg and Alex, how hard was it to hash out who would handle lead vocals (and how/when the song would benefit from both of you on vocals?
ALEX: Well, we’d both been writing songs before we joined up, so it was pretty easy. If it was one of my songs, I’d sing lead and vice versa. If you notice, we each chip in on the other’s songs with backing vocals or harmonies. It’s a little different now as we move toward writing as a band, but we just try to serve the song as best we can. We played a new song, “Stranger,” at our last show, and that basically has us both singing together for the entirety. It works well.
MEG: Yeah, it’s been pretty clear-cut so far because we just merged songs we’d written separately in the past. The brand new stuff has seen us sharing an equal vocal load on each song, so the vibe is less “This is a Meg song, this is an Alex song.”
Tim: Anything we should discuss that I neglected to ask you about?
MEG: I just want to take a moment to mention that all of our songs are absolutely group efforts. Alex and I came in with what were essentially song skeletons, and the songs wouldn’t be what they are now without Elizabeth and Vanessa’s unique parts.
ALEX: What Meg said! There’s a reason we credit all the songs to the band. They wouldn’t be the same without each individual contribution.
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