The Static Age

A conversation with Andrew Paley and Adam Meilleur

(April 2007)

Interview by Alexis Roberts

The Static Age have been around for a few years now, opening for bands like Hot Hot Heat, Interpol and AFI, yet still flying relatively beneath the radar.  The Red Alert had the opportunity to talk to singer/guitarist Andrew Paley and bass player Adam Meilleur about everything from their punk rock roots to the “Burlington Curse,” all while sitting in their van/home. Andrew is a guy who is overflowing with creative energy and Adam really likes baseball, but he hates the Yankees…

How are you guys adjusting to your new label?

Andrew: ReIgnition is really cool, but it’s just a one-off deal. It’s really cool to work with ReIgnition, I really like Ross [Siegel], but it is just a one-off deal and we are not going to do another record with them. What happened was, we were on Tarantulas for the last record and they had some stuff happen at the label and we wanted to distance ourselves from it. So Ross basically had been watching the band forever and really wanted to do a record with us, so he came out of nowhere and basically said he would do a one-off and that way we could get right back into the studio and everyone would be happy. So that was how that came together. We had known Ross for, what, three or four years?

Adam: Yeah, we had met him a while ago…

Andrew: I had met him in New York, and known him just as a friend, so when he offered we kind of jumped at it, and things have been great. The record (Blank Screens) came out in September.

Adam: September 18th!

So it has been out for about six months now then…

Andrew: Yes and it came out pretty quietly because we really only did that one tour for it around the Northeast. So this has sort of been our first tour really in support of the new record. This has been like our new push for it.

As far as the label issue goes, are you just going to play it by ear and see where this takes you?

Andrew: Yes, we have been talking to other people, and there have been things here and there. Right now we just want to demo and really get into writing because we have two months before we tour again. So we really just want to demo and work to get that figured out on our own. Now we have our own little studio/practice space thing set up over in Upstate New York, so once we’ve really all settled in we will start seriously looking for another label.

I have also heard that you are more hesitant to go anywhere with a major label…

Andrew: Yes. It’s funny, there is a long history of the band dealing with some labels that I think could probably have done good things if all we wanted to do was get in front of more people, but we didn’t really see eye to eye with the ideology of the label… Or we had problems with people that were there, or we just didn’t like the vibe of the label, for lack of a better term. So we had a few things where we went through six to eight months of negotiations and it was this huge deal and we ended up not signing.

Adam: We just didn’t feel comfortable with it.

Andrew: I mean to each his own- I think every band has to make that decision, and, I don’t know, I think there are a lot of great labels if all you want to do is promote your band, but there were just other things happening and we really didn’t want to get involved with some of the marketing plans.

You really value having your artistic freedom as well, then?

Andrew: That and we really just wanted to be a band. I think that it’s going to be really interesting tonight; I imagine that we aren’t going to draw a whole bunch of people. We’ve never been to Pomona before, and we don’t know what the promotion was like for this show. I haven’t even seen a flyer, so that’s a bad sign! (laughs) But I think that that’s all part of being a band, at least from all of the stories that I have read, and all of the bands that I have loved. There’s always sort of a struggle and a fight. I think it can be disheartening sometimes but I think that makes you really want it, and it makes you hungry for something, rather than just having it handed to you because someone said “here is $15,000 to buy a bunch of magazine ads.”

Adam: A lot of bands want it now. They don’t want to wait.

So it’s kind of like the old saying “you have got to crawl before you can walk”?

Andrew: Yeah, and I don’t know if you necessarily need to suffer for your art, that might be too strong, but I think that there is something to bands that really create interesting things, and that have fought for something more rather than being assumed into something. I’m not saying that necessarily happens to anyone who signs to a major label right off the bat. I think that developing identity takes time and sort of takes that kind of a struggle and I think that a lot of bands that don’t have that sort of end up becoming assimilated in  something bigger if they are not careful. I actually know looking back on myself just two years ago that had I fallen into that trap I wouldn’t have developed an idea of what I want to do. It sucks sometimes… but for what it’s worth, that’s what we are doing.

Going back to what you mentioned earlier about the bands that you were into and that inspired you... Who are they?

Andrew: There’s a ton! I think dating back to the stuff I grew up on personally, I used to love stuff like Psychedelic Furs and The Police. Adam and I both were in punk bands during high school. That is actually where we cut our teeth and learned to play. DIY punk bands. We booked all of our tours ourselves, we didn’t really seek anything higher, we just wanted to put our records and spend summers away from home on the road. Adam and I were in a band like that up until this band formed. We had a different singer, the band sort of split up and we were just practicing with a bunch of different songs and that sort of just became The Static Age. It just works out that we always have listened to a bunch of other styles.

You two have been playing together for quite a while then…

Adam: Yeah, since about 2000.

Andrew: Static Age formed when I was just beginning college. We were in an old punk band together before that, and actually the original drummer of The Static Age was in that band too.

And you have a new official drummer that’s going to be with you for a while?

Andrew:  Yes, we toured with a couple fill-ins in the end of 2005. We had Coby from Say Anything. Then we took most of last year to find a new drummer, and record the record. We took sort of a low-key year. Now we’re just getting back into touring. We’re probably going to spend most of this year on the road.

It’s going to be a rough year huh?

Andrew: This is our new home right here!

Well, it’s beautiful.

Adam: You should hear it when it starts!

Andrew: Our manifold is breaking off on the inside… so that will be a little bit expensive to fix…

Adam: But it’s a cheap high when we drive!

Andrew: Carbon monoxide… so we have to keep the windows cracked when we drive. My brain cells are ruined, but I don’t need those.

Are you still thinking about adding another guitar player, or are you just going to stick with the one guitar?

Andrew: Well we have a second guitarist touring with us right now. He did the shows with AFI with us in October and November and we decided to carry him over to this tour. He’s been working out really well. It takes a load off of me because I was always a guitarist, and singing is just hard as hell to begin with, so singing and juggling the guitar has always been kind of a struggle. Probably because I always end up writing like two or three guitar parts on the record. Live is always a struggle, but it’s been great for me to have that extra person on stage.

Who produced the new record?

Andrew: This team, called Birnbaum and Bittner. They did Coheed and Cambria, Straylight Run, The Sleeping, Codeseven…

Codeseven just broke up, too, didn’t they?

Adam: Yes

2007 seems to be the year of the break-up so far…

Adam: Everyone’s breaking up, but all of the old bands are getting back together and getting huge again!

Andrew, you live in New York right? And everyone else is in Vermont?

Andrew: Sort of. Our drummer lives in Woodstock, NY, which is actually where our practice space is, about an hour and a half outside of the city. I have been in Manhattan since the summer. I actually just subletted my apartment for touring. It’s easy when you are there for at least half of the time because I do graphic design stuff to keep the bills paid. It just wasn’t worth it for me to pay the rent if I am going to be on the road for six weeks at a time. So right now, I am sort of homeless. I’m going to figure it out when I get home. But Adam lives in Vermont, our keyboardist lives in Vermont and our drummer lives in Woodstock which is where we all get together to practice.

Is there much of a scene in Vermont?

Adam: At any given time there are really good bands but then it goes through times when the bands drop off a little bit, the shows drop off. When it’s at a good point there are a good amount of bands- well not even a good a mount, it’s just the quality of the bands.

Andrew: There a couple of really good bands, always, but they aren’t always that active. The Burlington Curse is a joke. We got out of the curse because there’s this idea that the bands over the past five years that started to leak out into the rest of the country and make a name for themselves would put out a record and then immediately break up. So that is the Burlington curse and now that our second record is actually out and distributed we have kind of broke the curse for ourselves. But that’s kind of always how it goes. There are good bands, but they don’t usually get too far outside of Burlington. 

New York City is quite different from Burlington I assume?

Andrew: Yeah! I was living in Hells Kitchen and it was cool, but it was just God awful expensive. I really like New York, I like living in the city and I have a lot of fun there. It’s weird, lots of people I have met in the last few years through the band have all ended up in New York City at the same time. Everyone was sort of exploring it together, but I do wish I lived in Brooklyn. It’s more like a neighborhood, Hells Kitchen is more of like… skyscrapers and delis.

I’d also like to ask you a little bit about your solo project. Did that album come out yet?

Andrew: It’s an interesting thing with that. The record has sort of been around in various stages for awhile. I sort have just put random songs on the internet and given stuff away. I have had interest from different labels, but I worry that it would take away from The Static Age, basically. They don’t want to see it as a side project, they just want to take it and run with it. I love doing that stuff but my focus is on The Static Age. It’s been a hard battle to find a label that I like and that would be able to put it out and not want me to tour six months out of the year. I think what will happen with that record is that I will shop it as demos and probably wind up giving away most of it online, because I pretty much already have.

Oh, I also heard you’re writing a novel…

Andrew:  There are actually two, and I don’t know…they kind of just happened! I had a week or two where I wasn’t working and I just sat down and spent all day every day writing and before I knew it I wound up with half a novel. I have a lot of fun writing; I have always primarily been a writer. It sort of just happens naturally, but I don’t know where it’s going right now. I was actually just working on one of them yesterday, but they are works in progress, and I am in no rush to finish them because I work better when I am not putting pressure on myself to work. It’s easier to sit and relax and just let it come, and if it doesn’t… then it doesn’t. You can’t force it or it ends up awful.

Adam, are you writing any novels or doing any solo work or anything like that?

Adam: I am a mess. I just want a radio show where I can just get on and vent, that’s all. I’m a grouch and I like baseball.

Who’s your favorite team?

Adam: Boston Red Sox, and I hate the fucking Yankees.

Andrew: He’s got a couple of side projects too. Man ,come on, you’ve got to come clean!

Adam: Sort of, I play in a couple bands back home, but I don’t do it a whole hell of a lot.

Are you just being modest?

Andrew: Yes he’s being modest!

Adam: Yeah.

You can shamelessly self promote if you want…

Adam: I have noting to self promote, trust me! That’s about it. I’m surly. If you ever meet me and I’m drunk I will probably yell at you and swear a lot.

Are you Irish?

Adam: Yes! You want to see my Guinness pants?

Any final words of wisdom?

Andrew: Listen to Minor Threat.

Adam: Minor Threat is a good band. CHECK IT OUT!