Iran

A conversation with Aaron Aites

(February 2009)

Interview by Adam McKibbin

Many moons ago, two creative types named Aaron Aites and Kyp Malone became buddies. Eventually, they began making music - and making music together, too. They called themselves Iran. That confused people. Their music confused people, too. Big time. People compared them to Sebadoh and drills going through walls. Coke Machine Glow's critic was so thunderstruck by 2002's The Moon Boys that he dropped the f-bomb twice (it was "fucking beautiful" and "fucking gorgeous") - and you know critics are serious when they drop the bomb. Pitchfork dropped this bit of science to explain the mysterious noisemakers: "imagine Simon Wickham-Smith, Three Mile Pilot, and Goosewind collaborating with Arab Strap on muted/mutating pop, sung all at once by Wallpaper, Lou Barlow, and Elliott Smith." Ah, now I get it!

As befitting a properly mysterious group, Iran then disappeared, more or less. Aites wound up pouring his time and energy into a documentary film, Until The Light Takes Us, which examines the history of Norwegian black metal. Malone became a key member of TV on the Radio, which remains his primary day job (and long may it run).

Dissolver is both a return and a reinvention of sorts, taking Iran out of the bedroom and letting them bloom in the studio, given an assist from TVOTR's Dave Sitek. There are hooks aplenty as Aites, Malone & Co. explore the record's unusual storyline. And while there's probably less weird by volume, there's still a fair bit of adventure.

Aites pulled back the curtain to shed some light on the making of Dissolver, his experiences as a documentarian, and the downfalls of leading a band called Iran in a post-"Axis of Evil" world.

What sort of influences shaped the expansion and evolution in sound between The Moon Boys and Dissolver?

Well, we actually released another record between The Moon Boys and Dissolver which Kyp and I had pressed ourselves.  It was only 50 vinyl copies that were only given to our friends, so not many people know about it.  It kind of bridges the gap a bit; we're going to release that stuff plus a few other odds and ends on CD later in the year called Chinese Chairs.

But, to answer your question, the evolution was pretty natural.  We were feeling a bit limited in what we could do in our bedrooms and in the intervening time Kyp had gained a lot of experience in the studio with TVOTR.  Even if he hadn't, we had planned to make the album a hi-fi one anyway.  As for the subject matter of the record, it was influenced by my experiences shooting the film over two years in Norway and the difficulty I had readjusting to life after I came back to the states.

When you were working on Until The Light Takes Us, were you continuing to do your own music – or was the film pretty all-consuming?

I was pretty much working on it straight through, but Kyp and I did record Iran songs during that time as well.  I was also involved in another musical project with our mutual friend John Dwyer for a little while during that time.  But I spent the bulk of my time working on the film.  The learning curve for making a film was pretty steep!  I also spent some a chunk of time with a serious medical condition that I had to have surgery to correct, but that was after the recording of the album.

What was your favorite moment of discovery or revelation in Until the Light Takes Us?

Well, that's a pretty tough question.  I had researched everything extensively before I went to Norway.  Maybe the biggest revelation was that there weren't any surpises! The conventional wisdom is that documentaries are sort of "discovered" in the editing room, but the differences between the finished film and the initial conception are fairly small.  That's not to say that it was easy and things went smoothly, but the finished film is nearly identical to what we had on paper before we started shooting.

There's a great twist ending to "Buddy."  What's the story behind that? 

Well, I wouldn't say it's a twist so much as much of the story that's told on the album is told through the voice of a very unreliable narrator who at times (like in "Buddy") tries to be deceptive and at other times (like say "Airport '79") is unaware of the fact that reality as he's experiencing it differs from objective reality (i.e. he's not really talking to someone on the plane).  The album is sort of a throwback to concept albums of the '70s I guess, although it doesn't have to be listened to with that kind of a mind-set.

And was "Buddy" an easy choice to be the single that went out into the world a few months ago?

Yeah, it was an easy choice.  It was the first one we finished and it was the one we gave to Pitchfork as a preview.  We were pretty set on that track being a single before we even recorded it in the studio.

Another twist is the sampled audience on "Cape Canaveral/Buddy (Reprise)".  Was it part of the conception or was there a point when you thought "Hmm, we need something a little extra here"?

It was definitely part of the conception of the album, that's kind of the character's big breakdown.  You can hear the crowd cheer as the microphone the hits stage as "the singer" collapses mid-performance.  The song I Already Know You're Wrong kind of tells the same story from a different vantage point.  Kudos to Billy Pavone for making the crowd noise etc. in that song really work.  He did a great job.

Was there ever the thought that the explosion of TVOTR would take Kyp away from Iran?

No.  If anything, there was the thought that my decision to start making films would take away from what we could do with Iran.  We kind of each do our own things and then also continue to do Iran together. 

There's a literary influence behind your band name.  Do you have any new additions to your bookshelf that bear recommendation?

Well, I'm deep into working on my next film, so my reading list is mainly devoted to research for that project (it is a fiction film called The Living Day).  The book I read most recently that was just for fun was The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell.  As long as I'm making recommendations, I'd recommend The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein. [editor's note: Vociferously seconded]

In the couple years after 9/11, I talked to a number of bands with supposedly suspicious names (like Anti-Flag) who said that they ran into occasional problems getting shows, getting songs on the radio or getting albums in stores specifically because of their band name.  Have there been any weird negative repercussions to being called Iran?  Are you on the federal No Fly list yet?

Yes!  Well, no, I'm not on a no fly list but we had a wire transfer frozen by the banks for a long time.  It was to buy some music gear and it had the notation on it "equipment for Iran" or something like that!  We won't make that mistake again!  It was a really big hassle, actually.

It's been said that seeing Iran is as rare as seeing Neutral Milk Hotel or David Berman's Silver Jews [editor's note: R.I.P.] – but of course Mr. Berman, who's been an interview guest of ours a few times, has been spending an unusual amount of time on the road recently.  Iran fans will have a chance to get up close and personal with Dissolver, right?  Is there an idea of how extensive the tour will be?

I don't have any details on a tour yet, except to say that there will be one, it will likely begin in March, and we are currently getting our feet wet (and for my part, getting over my stage fright!) by doing shows in Williamsburg, where we live.

With such a large amount of time passing between albums – and a considerable difference in style between them – is it a challenge to rekindle the connection to the older material?

Not really.  The only challenge is remembering how to play them!  We will be doing material from the three early records when we tour along with songs from Dissolver.  For that matter, we'll also be doing songs from the next record.

Bloggers seem to like to refer to you as "mysterious."  Who do you consider to be mysterious?

Bloggers.