Spanish for 100

A conversation with Ross McGilvary and Corey Passons

(December 2005)

Interview by Adam McKibbin

Although Seattle is home, Spanish for 100 take their musical cues from a different part of the country.  Despite frequent comparisons to geographical brothers like Modest Mouse and The Posies, the quartet has a sound that is pure heartland:  earnest and expansive, the sort of stuff that would fit comfortably on a mixtape with Carl Newman or The Jayhawks.  2005 saw the release of Spanish for 100’s hook-laden Metric EP, and a new full-length will be forthcoming in ’06 [take note, labels: these boys are looking for a happy home].  

Founding members Corey Passons (vocals, guitars) and Ross McGilvary (bass, vocals) talked to The Red Alert about building their band from the ground up, switching producers for their new record, and bringing music back to a prison in need.

I’ve heard the EP, of course, but there’s a new record on its way, right?

COREY PASSONS:  Yeah, there’s one in the hole right now.  It’s mastered but not edited.

Is it a continuation on the themes of Metric and Newborn Driving?  Is it a sharp right turn?  What can we expect?

COREY:  We’re working with a different producer.  Both of the first two recordings were with Phil Ek.  This time we worked with a really stellar Seattle producer, Johnny Sangster.  The sound that we wanted was a lot more live—we wanted to hear the room, we wanted there to be looser production control in terms of tones.  Johnny was great for that.  He gave us a record that captured a lot of the live energy from the group.

Any thoughts on timeframe?

COREY:  Well, this winter we’re hoping to introduce it to some people and see if anybody is interested in helping us release it.  So probably spring.

ROSS McGILVARY:  Yeah, we’re looking to shop it around a little bit, see if we can generate some interest.

And you're playing shows in the meantime?

COREY:  Yeah.  We’re trying to keep busy here.  We’re writing some new material, too.

I wanted to talk about touring a little bit, since you guys have had some experience out on the road.  How did you know you’d reached a point where you felt confident booking and promoting the first national tour back in 2004?

COREY AND ROSS (simultaneously):  Wellllll…

(laughter)

ROSS:  I think if you play enough shows with the group of guys and you have a belief in the music, you’re willing to take the chance and hope it will translate to the various audiences you’ll see as you travel.  I think it’s just confidence in your playing and your music that sells it more than one particular act.

COREY:  Yeah, anyone I’ve ever heard talking about becoming a great band will always mention touring.  We knew it was imperative to get out there and tour.  Also, we all want to become better musicians, and playing nightly is one of the best ways to do that.

So there was a certain sense of just taking the plunge?  You didn’t have it worked it that you were going to draw x amount of people each night.

ROSS:  Exactly.

COREY:  We expected some empty rooms here and there.  And lo and behold, they appeared!  (laughs)  But we had some shows that really surprised us, and we got some press.  Our second tour was even more affirming.

How did you choose venues and places to play?

COREY:  I think we just kind of scoped the cities and drew some crazy lines on the map to try to find the venues that fit us the best.

ROSS:  I think also that we did some research to see what other bands in our genre and of a similar ilk were doing with their tours.  Once you do some research, you see a pattern in the clubs and get an idea of what kind of room is going to work for you and what isn’t.

You two had previously been in a band [Preston Mill] that was pretty established in the Northwest, but you hadn’t ventured out nationally, right?

ROSS:  Yeah, it was pretty much just a regional act.  A couple of members were still in school.

COREY:  We went out to Montana once in a couple of cars in a caravan.  We did a show or two and headed back and licked our wounds.  (laughs)

How did you guys meet Aaron [Starkey, guitarist] once he had moved out from Chicago?

COREY:  Well, he moved out here only about three months after the band had been formed.  Our original guitar player was pretty much unable to be in the group anymore, so we posted an ad and Aaron was the first guy to respond.  He called on the day that we had our first show as this band, and he came out and saw us that night. 

What was that first show like?  Did you have a good overlap from the band you’d bee in previously, so you had a good draw?

ROSS:  Yeah, that helped.  That definitely helped.

COREY:  It was in the same venue two months to the day earlier that we’d played our last show with our former band.  So there was a pretty fast turnaround, and we had a lot of friends come out wondering what was up with the new project.

Had some of the Spanish for 100 songs started back then?

COREY:  No, it was all new.  Clean slate.

Would getting a label to help with booking be exciting?  Or would it be hard to give up some of that control?

ROSS:  Honestly, what we’re looking for from a label would be somebody who could do some tour support and pair us with another band that would equate to interesting sets and good draws.  As far as booking, I think we kind of do like having that control to a degree.  We’ve farmed out some of our press in the past to mixed results.  Because we’re more passionate about it than somebody you hire to do it—at least at this level—we’re able to give it more energy and more love.

Are you still doing the day job balance, too?

ROSS:  That’s part of the balance.   We’d like to be on the road more and playing more, but you can’t just drop your job for an endeavor that doesn’t pay your bills.  (laughs)  We’re walking that fence on a daily basis.  Aaron, Corey and I are very much people who are more inclined to want to play music than anything else.  It’s what motivates me personally to get up and function everyday.

Are the songs fleshed out with the whole band getting together?  Or since time is at a premium are you working a lot of stuff out individually?

ROSS:  I think it’s a little of both.

COREY:  A lot of times I’ll write a song and finish it on an acoustic guitar, and it will become something totally new and different with the group.  A lot of times we’ll have a riff that we’re working on collectively and we’ll flesh that out and see what happens.

It is the end of the year, of course, and everyone is doing their lists.  I won’t confine you to just albums, but what are some things that you’ve watched or heard or read that you wish everyone would have the chance to experience?

COREY:  I can tell you a book.  War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning by Chris Hedges.  He’s a longtime war correspondent and he’s basically covered conflicts for the past 20 years—Central and South America, Bosnia, Iraq, Afghanistan—and he talks about propaganda frenzy and nationalism and how it can infect and potentially destroy culture.  It’s a pretty great book.

Good pick.  Anything else?

ROSS:  As far as music, I’ve been listening to a ton of different stuff lately.  I’m getting excited – there’s a big Wrens and Okkervil River show in town tomorrow night.  I’m really excited about that, and I’ve been listening to both of their most recent albums to get up to speed.  That and The New Pornographers are what I’ve been listening to a lot this year. 

More good picks!  Switching topics here before we wrap up, if you guys get to the point where you could play a big benefit concert, do you have a sense of what cause you might like to take on?

COREY:  Well, we did a show in a maximum security prison here in Washington a couple of months ago.  That wasn’t for any particular group—I mean, I’m involved with a group in that prison—but it wasn’t for a particular political agenda.  But what we were affirming by playing that show was a belief in the humanity of the people who are inside the prison.  Currently, I don’t think our system affirms that.  By being in there and playing music and trying to get the music going, it’s sending a signal that these people are human, they did something, and they can be rehabilitated.  The current system is all about incarceration.

Is there a lot of red tape you have to cut through to even be able to play a show like that?

COREY:  Oh, yeah.  There are a bunch of forms and you have to check all the gear in, and each guard has their own protocol. 

ROSS:  It was an ordeal.  It was months in the making, really, and Corey put a lot of time into making it happen.  It was the first time that prison has had any sort of outside show like that in six or seven years.

COREY:  The music program had just been shut down in there.  I’m currently working with the guys inside to try to get the program kicked off, so the guys can play drums and bass and guitar and stuff.

Was that a budgetary thing or a punitive thing?

ROSS:  It’s a bullshit thing is what it is.  It definitely falls more in the category of punitive than budget-related.  There was equipment there before.

COREY:  Yeah, the room was stocked.

ROSS:  Where it went is the subject of much speculation.

Did you get some feedback from the inmates?  Were they pretty charged up?

COREY:  Yeah, the guys were really excited.  We’re a rock outfit, and we also had a hip-hop artist who was with us.  Between the two, I think we reached a lot of people.