Liars

A conversation with Aaron Hemphill

(October 2007)

Interview by Adam McKibbin

Photograph by Danielle Levitt

Titling an album eponymously qualifies as a typical choice for bands, particularly bands that are looking to prove something to their audience (see Metallica, Avenged Sevenfold, etc.)  Liars have never done much by the book, but their superb new self-titled album makes a rare attempt to color within the lines, at least in comparison to their three wildly eclectic previous albums.  Last year’s Drum’s Not Dead offered a conceptual and cerebral listening experience, complete with three videos for each song.  Liars takes a more direct approach, featuring fuzzy psychedelic pop, primal rock, ambient atmospherics, and even a bunch of songs you can sing along to.

Instead of celebrating with a headlining tour, Liars have hit the road as the support act on an arena-packing extravaganza with Interpol.   Guitarist/songwriter Aaron Hemphill spoke about playing in front of those unfamiliar crowds, discovering a new way to write a Liars album, and debunking the notion that the band doesn’t care what you think about their songs.

You and Angus [Andrew] went off and wrote individually for this album - how did that process change from your previous albums?

Well, it’s how we’ve always written the records - the difference was that we finished our demos more than we had in the past, in the hopes that the demos would be the finished versions.  This is the first scenario where this was the only method that we wrote songs; the rest of the albums have been a culmination of the different ways we write songs - either he and I completing them in their entirety, or me finishing the music and him writing the vocals or vice versa. That’s where the experiment was with this album.

When you go off and write, are you starting with a clean slate?  Or do you have leftovers and snippets still floating around from elsewhere?

No.  He and I work very differently - Angus writes constantly and he keeps things and has a really large body of songs that he’s written and continues to fine tune.  I tend to wait until it’s time to write.  I get bummed out if songs are old, and I throw everything away that doesn’t make the album.  With this one, I made maybe nine songs, and I deleted the ones that I didn’t think were good enough.  I don’t want to rework them - I don’t want to even remember them.

Liars don’t seem to have many boundaries, but do you ever write a song and think “Well, this wouldn’t be right for Liars, but maybe I could use it somewhere else?”

Yeah, we do.  “Freak Out” was one of them.  I almost didn’t put that on the CD I sent to Angus.  We don’t know what fits for Liars or what will make a good record.  That’s always scary.  It’s not like we get comfortable.  It’s always the opposite, it’s never how people view it… what we go through and what we fear about our songs.  You always think that this song is the best, and then people don’t even mention it.  I think that’s the greatest thing, too - you never know what you’re going to get when you’re creative.  And when you’re in a band, when your record is finished, you have this static object but you still don’t know what you’re going to get.  You apply all these values to the songs - “Oh, this will be the romantic song that people make out to” - but really it’s this other one.  That’s really awesome.  It makes it so we never settle into thinking we know everything about ourselves or our music.  It’s always going to be scary, basically.

When you guys did come together, how did you put together a track order for an album that’s so eclectic?

That’s one of the most important elements, and we definitely pay a lot of attention to it.  But it’s also come pretty naturally.  This is before anyone else has heard the record, and the songs always sound so different to us.  You know, we’ve gone through so many stages of editing down tracks that it’s not obvious that it’s really an album yet.  But a sequence generally pops up - with this one, Angus came up with it.  There was less pressure with this one, because I think there should be a flow, but you can skip around on songs if you want.  I think some of the songs on Drum’s Not Dead - even though they may be really great in the context of the record, I think if you just put it on a mix tape, it wouldn’t be as strong.  With this one, our aim was to have just really fun songs.

I interviewed Julian [Gross] around the time of Drum’s release and he talked about the companion DVD that came with that album, and how you guys felt it was important to give the audience an extra incentive to actually buy the album.  How did you come to step away from that approach on the new album?

To be honest, it was really a practical issue.  We wanted to get this album out as quickly as possible.  Drum’s Not Dead took almost two and a half years; we scrapped an entire album, and it was a long process to write the music and edit the songs.  This one was written and recorded between October and February.  I think we wanted to just focus on making a normal album.  If you put in a DVD, does that make it a concept record?  I think we’ve added things in the past in fear of [the album] being confusing, and what we add to aid or assist people in understanding our music then becomes the confounding element.  But after it was all finished, the three of us all did a lot of visuals.  We did video teasers for YouTube and we did some visuals for our live show.  But it just seemed like a different sort of record and it wouldn’t have matched the record to have so many videos.  Also, Julian saying that it was an incentive to buy the record, I think that was before YouTube had really taken off.  Technology has advanced that quickly - if you put a DVD with your CD, you could download that as easily as you could download the music.

Did you get any resistance to releasing albums in consecutive years?

Mute is really pretty cool.  Daniel [Miller] is very aware of the advances in technology, and he wants to be on top of it.  I feel like if we could produce quality material and it was an album a year, he would want to be on top of it.  With this one, we were able to do it as quickly as possible, and we arranged our schedule to accommodate it.  A lot of it has to do with when you want to tour on the record.  If we were at home, we could easily produce an album every three months.  Right now, I think it’s at the point where we want to tour for a while and give the record a chance to seep in.  Generally, we don’t get much pressure from Mute to slow down. 

When you got the call about going out and opening for Interpol, was it an obvious answer?  Or was there the consideration that maybe you’d rather headline while the album is fresh?

It’s an obvious response for the three of us.  There are options that you weigh, but we’ve done so many headlining tours and we haven’t opened for a band in a while.  You know, we make less money, and it’s more of a challenge opening for Interpol.  We’ve played a couple of shows with them now, so I can tell you from experience.  You always hear bands complaining about reaching a wider audience, and that’s what I think Interpol offers:  a different type of audience, and one that the three of us felt would be open-minded enough to accept us.  Granted, we’re not totally accurately aware of what we sound like to other people, or whether we think our songs are simpler than people perceive them.  We are aware that a lot of kids who go to see Interpol are going to think that we’re a weird bunch of noise.  So, again, it’s a challenge, and the bulk of that challenge is accepting the challenge, if that makes sense.  You say “I want to reach new audiences” - and then when you’re faced with that opportunity, you have to remember that you wanted it.

We really respect Interpol.  They’re one of the few bands that the three of us agree on and all listen to, because we all have really different tastes, especially when it comes to contemporary music.  So, yeah, it was pretty obvious.

How are you putting together set lists for that slot?

Well, the first important thing was that the songs sound good together for us.  We did try to focus on the more melodic material.  I think anything that we play to someone who’s never heard us is going to be challenging.  But we wanted to try the new material out on these big stages and just see how it goes.  We want to play a little bit of everything, not too much new stuff and not too much old stuff.

How much does it change the logistics of day-to-day touring?  Are you riding in the lap of luxury?

Yeah, it’s different.  We’re obviously playing larger venues and Interpol has reached a level of touring where there’s catering.  If they rent out an arena, they have to feed their road crew - and you get a hot meal when you arrive.  It’s a lot nicer, yeah.  Their sound crew helps us, their drum techs help us.  It’s great because you get to develop a relationship with all these other people who are working so hard to make a show possible.  We have some mutual friends in their crew, and that makes it a lot nicer, too.  On our headlining tours, you have the house lighting guy who could be a good mood that day.  But the food thing is a huge deal.  Usually we’re so hungry and you have so little time that you’ll just find anything that’s not fried - which can be worse.  (laughs)