Interview - Peter Silberman of The Antlers (Portland, OR; Spring 2010)

Before his first Portland gig, Peter Silberman, principal songwriter, lead singer and guitarist of The Antlers, graciously sat down with us, answering questions about Hospice, their upcoming tour with the National and the status of the new record. Check it out.

Colin McLaughlin for melophobe: Does the concept of Hospice still feel fresh to you or is it something you want to put out to pasture after talking about it so much?

Peter Silberman of the Antlers: It’s weird. I’m kind of coming around to it again. It has been a long time since I wrote this record and since it was recorded and we’ve been touring on it awhile now. So it did get to a point where I didn’t feel as connected to it and now I’m almost just able to look back on it and have a better understanding of it because I’m a little older now and I’ve had some space from it.

melophobe: Like a full circle?

PS: Yeah it is.

melophobe: You’ve said that you wrote Hospice during a period of social isolation. What did that entail and what made it translate into such a monumental record?

PS: Well, to attempt to set the record straight, which is what I’ve been doing for about a year…The record itself is about a relationship that leads to two characters being closed off from everybody, specifically the narrator shutting people out of his life because of this destructive relationship. And that is what the isolation is about…it’s about the subject matter of the record.

melophobe: So it’s not you?

PS: It’s me, but it’s…

melophobe: ...it’s also this character.

PS: It’s also this character and the answer to it, what happened with this isolation, and what it’s about. But what it’s about is the record. The story told in the record. The record wasn’t written in a state like that though, it was written after coming out of that.

melophobe: After the reflection?

PS: Kind of during the reflection. The reflection was more of a process of putting that behind me. Kind of reconnecting with a lot of people, making amends, things like that. And the thing I’m making amends for is what this record is about. But the record itself was not a shut-off process like a “go into the woods, write a book, come out a changed man.” Yeah it’s really just the subject matter that is the isolation part, not the process.

melophobe: Being that this record is tied to such powerful emotions it would seem that a lot people would feel the need to tell you how it’s affected them; do you find that to be the case?

PS: Yeah, a lot of people have. Which is really awesome actually. It’s definitely intense sometimes and a lot of people have really difficult stories to tell…

melophobe: Get some overshares?

PS: Some overshares, but at the same time it’s…I’m glad they feel that they have some sort of outlet to be able to share that and they feel some sort of comfort with the record. It’s not easy to talk about that stuff. Trust for a stranger is really strange, but it’s also really encouraging. I feel like people are connecting to it and that’s a really great feeling.

melophobe: Does playing these songs again and again give you a chance to move past the emotions or is something like going through the muck and it’s dragging them up every time you do it?

PS: For awhile, it felt like that. For awhile I felt kind of trapped by it - like I was trying to move on, but I couldn’t because I was retelling this whole thing.

melophobe: Re-traumatizing yourself?

PS: In a weird way, yes. But at the same time, the bigger the audience has become the less it’s felt like that. Because it doesn’t feel like it’s about me anymore, it’s them. And I feel like it’s developing a relationship with an audience that cares about this thing and it means something to them. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t feel like my thing anymore. I’d rather have people have their own interpretation of it, their own way that it relates to their life and that’s why they’re coming to the show. Not mythologizing something about me…

melophobe: Some legend?

PS: Yeah. It is more meaningful to me to make a connection to people than to be like a character.

melophobe: Have you already started working on a follow-up (to Hospice)?

PS: Yeah. We started working on it in January and it’s been changing a lot. We’ve been on the road a lot and haven’t had a ton of time for home recording, but it’s being written right now and it’s in the works. Should be coming out sometime in the next year.

melophobe: Nice! Will it also revolve around a concept, or have you met your concept quota for your career?

PS: You know, I thought going into it, it wasn’t going to be a concept record at all and then, I was having trouble writing it…I had a very vague idea of what every song was about and they all were sort of circling around this thing and I couldn’t quite pinpoint it and then I figured it out about a month ago. So it’s a concept record, but it’s not as in-your-face a concept.

melophobe: Is it a concept like a collection of songs that work together thematically because they are attached to the particular time in which they were written?

PS: It can be. I’m definitely making an effort to tie these all together. And they are connected and they are related and it is a story, but it’s less narrative than Hospice. Because Hospice is very much a huge outpouring of lyrics, and it’s told in a story format and this is going to be a little bit...the concept part is a little pulled back and little more tied in to a different style of writing lyrics and things like that. So it’s more of a challenge. I feel like I could write probably write something in a similar way to Hospice, but I don’t want to; I want to try something different.

melophobe: You don’t want to get pigeon-holed.

PS: Exactly. Like the band that just makes concept records and then doesn’t make one.

I feel good about the direction it’s moving in and it has its theme, it has its idea, but it’s not this telling of all these things that happened. I think it’ll be a little less clear-cut than Hospice.

melophobe: Is it difficult to start writing songs after a record that was met with such critical and kind of fan-led success?

PS: Definitely. It’s easier now that I know what the record is going to be about…There’s a lot of lyrics and pieces of songs that I just ended up throwing away. They just didn’t make sense and I wasn’t happy with it. I think the pressure of a follow-up can be a really good thing because it pressures you to work hard and really put a lot of effort and thought into what you are doing because the other option is that you feel like you need to make a record…

melophobe: ..to satisfy some thing, somebody wants.

PS: Right. You could go into it and say, “This is what made us popular in the first place; let’s try to do it again.” And that’s not going to work.

melophobe: It’s going to come off as forced.

PS: It’s going to come off as forced or derivative of the last thing you did, or just a lesser version of the last thing you did. The other thing you could do is totally alienate your fans by making something ultra weird.

melophobe: Now that you have a band, is everyone contributing songs, or are you still where the voice comes from?

PS: We’re all writing each song together. It’s not necessarily like each person comes in and says, “I have this song,” and then we put them all together. There’s a division of labor with the record. So, Darby is spearheading the sound of the record. We’re all involved in that in a lot of ways, but he’s taking the reins with the sound. And I am focusing on the ideas, what the record’s about. Lyrics and vocals. But it’s a good marriage. It’s helping us not step on each other’s toes, but really work off each other.

melophobe: And each one gets their own creative space?

PS: Exactly. It’s about having enough creative space and everybody feeling like they’re contributing in a productive way.

melophobe: I hear a lot Jeff Buckley in your music. Would you agree?

PS:  Sure. In high school I was listening to Buckley a lot. I haven’t listened to him in many years, but I’ve always loved his voice.

melophobe: It’s amazing.

PS: Yeah, it’s an unreal voice. It’s something to aspire to, but then never, ever, ever reach it.

melophobe: I saw that you are touring with the National in June, so I was wondering 1) are you excited…?

PS: Yes!

melophobe: and 2) how are you going to stand out in a room full of National fans after an album like High Violet?

PS: I have no idea. I have been listening to that album many, many times in the past few days. It’s a really, really terrific album so to answer your question...with any opening spot--and we’ve done a bunch of them now--that’s always the question: are their fans going to like us? This is a tour where I can’t predict that, but I feel like it’s a good match. I feel like we could end up appealing to their fans. At least I hope we will.

What I love about the National is that they clearly care about what they are doing. And…

melophobe: ...and they’re so them.

PS: They ARE so them. And as far as Matt’s lyrics, I don’t know how to describe it, but the way in which he writes lyrics reminds me of my favorite authors.

melophobe: Like a drunken poet?

PS: A little bit, but kind of like…it was called dirty realism as far back as forty years ago. People like Raymond Carver and it was this spare style and it’s very much about kind of everyman. It’s kind of like a masculine style of writing. And its sort of spare, very direct, and it has this sadness to it and it’s also comforting in a weird way and I think that’s…and hopefully that’s something I kind of aim for with our music and I don’t know if we accomplish it, but that’s why I hope this tour will work out.

melophobe: I think it will. When I saw it I thought, “that actually makes sense.” Just like this tour, when I saw you guys paired together with Phantogram, I thought that’s perfect.

PS: That’s funny. A lot of people say the opposite, they say it doesn’t make sense to them, but I think that they see the live show and the two of us together and then they go, “that kind of does make sense.”

melophobe: It’s the sonics. It’s the sonic elements. It’s cool. I was so excited to come.

PS: Yeah. We were excited to bring on a band where we just love their record and we want to see them every night. We just love watching them.

melophobe: From your experience, what’s the best way to blow away a live audience?

PS: Oh I don’t know. It’s tricky; it’s in their hands. I’ve found that we’ve had the best experience when we feel connected to the audience and we feel like they’re listening. You can’t necessarily control that, but you can make the effort. A lot of bands definitely don’t acknowledge the audience, they don’t seem appreciate of them.  And I think it’s really important to appreciate the audience. They don’t have to be there. They don’t have buy tickets, they don’t have to buy your record, they don’t have to do anything, they don’t have to give a shit about you. The fact that they do, is really cool. And it should not go unthanked.

melophobe: And honestly, as someone who is in the audience a lot, it seems like at the end of the day we are all there to share something. It’s not just give and take, we all just supposed to come together and have a good time together. And go inside our heads or do whatever.

PS: Yeah. And if everybody feels like they are sharing something, then hopefully that will lead to a good show. If they like what you are doing. And I don’t talk a lot on stage. The more I talk the less sense I make on stage for some reason, so I don’t really talk that much, but I try to get across that…how important they are to us.

melophobe: What’s a perfect record to you and do you aim for perfection when you write?

PS: Let me think for a minute. Well, I would say like Kid A is a perfect record, and that’s an understatement. Not just perfect because every song is really good, it’s perfect because it achieves this really, REALLY difficult thing of being incredibly strange, but being so listenable. And I’ve been working on just trying to, I mean I’ve been listening to that record for so long now. And I’m only now just starting to understand it. And these new kind of revelations I’m having about are making it better than I ever could have imagined.

melophobe: And the other thing is, I remember when it first came out and all these critics, and all this writing and people were talking about how, “it’s so weird, but it’s fascinating,” and all this stuff…and it’s kind of mysterious and they (Radiohead) really just said, “fuck it, we’re just going to go for it.” And it still feels like that. How the fuck does that happen? All the buckets of ink that have been written about it and the typing, and it still feels like that.

PS: Yeah. I feel almost the same way about Amnesiac. I love that record too because it’s so dark and weird, but Kid A….so many people rip off Radiohead, but nobody can rip off Kid A. I’ve never heard an album where I’m like, “this just sounds like Kid A.” Because nothing sounds like it and there are so few records I can say that about. It never gets old. It never becomes crystal clear exactly what they intended. The more time I get with it, the more I understand it. It’s a long process. That came out in 2000, its ten years and it still sounds so ahead of “now.” It’s incredible.

And there’s always that inclination with Radiohead that people are rolling their eyes at you like, “fucking Radiohead, of course,” but it’s…of course they are the most respected band in music and then I think you can lose sight of that because everyone sort of agrees on that, but if you come back to it and forget all that and listen to it very closely, it’s even better than that. It’s as if they’re not even respected enough. I’m really fascinated by them and they’ve probably been my favorite band for years and years and years, but only now am I just thinking about it even more. It’s just a lot to think about.

melophobe: And they are so worth the time you put into it, like a good book, movie, or something you study. And that’s the thing, you can study it or just take it as it is and it’s fun either way.

PS: Yeah.

melophobe: What else would you like to accomplish with The Antlers before you throw in the towel?

PS: More records, more collaborations, more side projects…We’ve seen a lot of the world so far, but there’s a lot more to see as far as touring…and then I don’t know. It’s already exceeded my expectations by a million. I never expected it to get this big so whatever happens I’m just excited about it and I’m like, “OK! Cool, didn’t expect that.” I didn’t expect this record to still be going and all this insanity. It sort of feels like I went to sleep when we put the record out and this is what I dreamed. And I can’t really believe it.

melophobe: Like you’re in the middle of some waking dream?

PS: A little bit.

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