Stripped Down to The Core. Robert Schneider of the Apples in Stereo talks about giving up the retro rock fetish for something new. By Allan Martin Kemler
20/09/2002
In a year rocked by terrorism, accounting scandals and a lingering recession, the view of the world that popular culture chooses to reflect back to its public seems to bear little resemblance to the day-to-day reality of most Americans’ lives. As the encroachment of ever-increasing media consolidation threatens to further constrict the information we receive and the discussions we have; as the threat of war looms on the horizon and our civil liberties are ripped to shreds amidst jingoistic fervour; and as the link between advertising, consumerism and our apathetic disinterest in playing a role in governing our own cities and towns becomes increasingly clear, it seems proper to ask what role our artists should play in helping us choose and frame the issues that inform our lives and how we might respond to them.
On the other hand, it can be argued that pop culture is nothing if not a release from the heavy issues that burden us all, and that looking for answers to philosophical, social and economic problems from women and men armed with guitars and easy rhymes may not be the best way to proceed.
But didn’t Plato both entertain and enlighten with the Allegory of the Cave? Didn’t Blake counsel us in From the Everlasting Gospel that Jesus was not actually meek or mild and that it would be Satan who would try to pacify us? Didn’t Bob Dylan electrify our synapses with Chimes of Freedom?
Somewhere in between these poles fall the Apples in Stereo. Like the Impressionists who evoked wondrous sensations which hinted at half-realized truths buried in the recesses of our souls, the Apples create blissful harmonies wrapped in effervescent melodies which tug on the heartstrings and call out the universal names for the ineffable nexus of emotions, thoughts and feelings which govern our existence.
Robert Schneider, the man behind the Apples’ genius, studied both music and philosophy at the University of Colorado at Boulder, so he is no stranger to such esoteric notions. And given the prodigious amount of exceptionally beautiful music he and his wife Hilary and their band of friends have created over the last nine years, he could easily turn his attention toward any number of issues and codify them into elegant anthems summing up the most crucial elements, and all in 4/4 time. Fortunately or not, though, he’s not interested. “I hate topical songwriting, I think it is artless,” he explained responding to a question about Village Voice critic Robert Christgau’s recent suggestion that Schneider could be a major force if he had anything to say. “[Christgau] is right. For somebody who talks a lot, I really don’t have much to say. But it is not by accident—I want to make music that is timeless, which from my perspective is the opposite of timeliness. I want to evoke without coming out and stating what I’m talking about.”
In contrast to most of the Apples previous records, the new album Velocity of Sound (Spinart), borrows more from the Ramones than the Beatles. Where its previous efforts seemed to tread the path between the groovy and the twee, Velocity simply rocks. One reason for the the discs’ newfound sound, Schneider said, is that he imposed a strict mandate on himself to eschew the use of acoustic instruments, partially because the last album took a year and a half to make and partially because he wanted the album to sound more like a real band. “In the past I was so hung up on high fidelity, I wanted this one to be more raw,” explained Schneider. “I wanted to take off in a direction that wasn’t retro, and the more stuff you put on a record the more it dilutes the feeling of a real band.”
However, to get to the real source of the record’s sound, you have to go back 20 months. Between moving from Denver to Lexington, Ky., where Schneider said he and Hilary could afford to buy a house, and the birth of their son, Max, the band experienced a break in its continuity. The break gave the band time to think about exploring new directions, which then led to Schneider’s decision to try to capture the band’s live sound. In order to do this, he said, he decided to get rid of all the usual pre-conceived arrangements and production flourishes, which, as often as are not, were in-joke references to his favourite albums. “I started to realize that maybe if we were going to do something really great, we should be doing something that isn’t referential to other people’s stuff,” recalled the native South African. “So we decided to use the eight-track instead of the 16-track because I wanted it to sound fuzzy and because I didn’t want to have as many choices.”
Despite the lack of whistles, horns, acoustic guitars and all the other stuff that make Apples in Stereo records so much fun to listen to, Velocity hits the nail on the head. Instead of the breathy bedroom melancholia of tunes like “Pine Away” or “About Your Fame” or the watery psychedelia of “Strawberryfire,” or the funky, blue-eyed soul of “The Bird That You Can’t See,” the Apples’ seventh full-length simply grinds raunchy chords against trash-can drums to create a cornucopia of old-fashioned, angsty rock ‘n’ roll.
If Velocity sounds decidedly less retro, perhaps it is because Schneider purposefully avoided writing in his typically dreamy, wistfully introspective way. In an effort to distance himself and the band from its back catalogue, Schneider said he tried to be direct and anti-poetic instead of pretentious and faux-deep. Furthermore, with the proliferation of so many retro bands, especially the kind that fetishize the 60s rather than create new music, Schneider said he wanted to rebel against the revolution he helped to start. “I am sick of retro. I am sick of oldies. I want to make new sounds and sing with my own voice,” he declared. “I want to burn down the past and say “fuck you” to current trends and do our own thing for the future.”
As artists should. But what about addressing current events? What about Christgau’s question? With such an abundance of talent it is interesting to think about what the Apples could do if they tackled such timeless issues as war, greed and corruption. Still, when you think about it, who really needs another “Biko” or “Farm on the Freeway.”
While great art can illuminate and crystallize the salient points of important issues with a degree of clarity unknown in politics—Picasso’s Guernica or most of Max Ernst’s work come to mind—the Apples, though not nearly as grim, are, perhaps, more like Edvard Munch’s The Scream. Vivid yet impressionistic. You infer through feelings what the Apples’ music is saying from its textures and sounds rather than actually understanding it literally. So maybe Christgau is wrong. Maybe the Apples do have something to say. They’re just not going to spell it out in big, block letters.
“My music is about expressionism, not statements,” Schneider insisted. “I don’t want to say anything. I want to evoke without coming out and stating what I’m talking about. That is how we experience life. It doesn’t come with commentary.”
Interview by Allan Kemler