THESE ARMS ARE SNAKES

The band talk about their new record, being impossible to market, and the growing influence of the American bible belt..

Left: Backstage 8th August 2006
Photo by Gemma Land

How exactly does a label try and sell a band that cannot be neatly pigeonholed or summed up in a catchy sounding soundbite. One that doesn't follow trends, one that's considered too artsy and cerebral for the kids, but on the other hand too abrasive and wild for the older crowd. One that quite frankly just doesn't sound like anything else out there at the moment? That's exactly the dilemma facing Jade Tree Records with Seattle's These Arms Are Snakes. Of course, any act containing former members of such underground luminaries as Botch, Kill Sadie, Nineironspitfire and Harkonen were sure to attract attention from curious fans, but TAAS's 2003 EP This is Meant to Hurt You, had not only fans of yesteryear, but also hoards of newcomers salivating at their unique fusion of styles. Debut full-length Oxeneers or the Lion Sleeps When Its Antelope Go Home followed suit a year later, with this October seeing the release of their sophomore album Easter. Briefly calling over to Europe for a couple of festival dates in Spain and a one off London show, Dan Jones caught up with the band, Brian Cook (Bass), Ryan Frederiksen (Guitar), Steve Snere (Vocals) and Chris Common (Drums), before their show at the Camden Underworld to talk about their new record, being impossible to market, and the growing influence of the American bible belt...

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Welcome to London! This is the second time you've been here together as a band - have you had much time to look around or anything?

Steve – Not today no, tomorrow we're going check out "Giant Ben" [laughs]

You're over in Europe for three shows only, the other two dates are at Spanish Festivals, it seems a little odd just coming over for these few dates, what's been the thinking behind it?

Ryan - They (Sant Feliu Fest, a festival in Costa Brava, Spain – DJ) got hold of both our UK and American booking agent and asked us to play, so they actually spearheaded us coming over here and then Jodie (TAAS UK / European booking agent – DJ) was able to set up this show and there was another festival, called the Noiznahi Fest, which came up at the same time...and it gives us a few days off in between.

So you've wrapped everything up with Easter (it's out over here in October). How do you feel it compares to Oxeneers...? What's been the response you've been getting from people who've heard it so far?

Ryan – It's been a good response so far, I mean we're all really happy with it, we all like it much better than Oxeneers cos it's our first album as a real band, before we lost a drummer, and had a fill in drummer to help write and record....

That was Erin from Minus The Bear right?

Ryan - Yeah, so that was all in the span of about three months, and so this is the first time we've been able to sit down and write, think about the way we're going to approach the record, and we had an amazing drummer to be with us the whole way.

Would you say that lyrically this record is a concept album? Oxeeners... had a story running throughout...

Steve – It's not so deliberately conceptual, it just is. It turned out to be. On Easter it deals with I guess... in some ways Christianity in the US has taken over. It has gotten into everything, it's coming out the f*cking facets as we're drinking from it, it's affecting politics and it's affecting...
Brian – Mainstream music
Steve – Music. It's basically effecting everything, everything is being strictly judged on Christian moral values. And there's the spiritual sides of it that are strange to us, so we wrote some things about that, and it's just so in our face right now. Plus of course I'm sure you've heard about what's going on in Iraq? We have this president who's basing everything on Christian morals and whatnot? I guess it kind of it deals with that concept
Ryan – It's crazy now, all the stuff with Lebanon and Palestine, and they're "It's just like they said in Ezekiel, the end time is coming!". It's like please, oh my god, do not base how we're going to deal with the situation on what's written there.

It has been the in the news over the last few days that the UK and the US were the only two countries not to come forward straight away and ask for an immediate ceasefire...

Chris – Yeah, it's getting bad
Steve – Everything's just so out of your hands, I think that plays a big part in this record...desperation

You say that these morals have taken over America, I've got family there and spend quite a lot of time in the US. It seems to me at least that, obviously you're from Seattle on the North West coast, but the more central you get more that kind of mentality appears.

Brain – Totally
Chris – I think it's that people that live in big cities are forced to deal with people from different countries and in various walks of life, and they realise that, oh, just because their not white and Christian doesn't mean that their not human. A lot of them get to relate to different kinds of people and their values, ways of living... and I think that makes them a lot more open-minded. When the people who just live in the middle only know each other, it makes people really closed minded and intolerant of others.
Steve – The heartland man, the heartland has no heart!

Easter was recorded in the Red Room in Seattle wasn't it? Chris you handled the production duties yourself didn't you?

Chris – Yeah, I own that studio along with producer Matt Bayles, and we wanted to try it our own way, you know, a different cook in the kitchen. It also gave us a lot of time as we could get the studio at lower rates, so we could stay in there for a block of thirty-one days straight. It was a good experience.
Ryan – We butted heads one or two times, because he could be really insane [all laugh], but that's bound to happen when you're dealing with someone in the band. I think after Oxeeners, when we had to rush into the studio to track all our songs and see what the songs sounded like. This time we wanted to go in, and we really want the record to sound like this and be more hands on. If it works live but didn't work in the studio then we didn't need to just let it be, what is it about this song live that works but isn't working right now?
Steve – Take some mushrooms and it works! [all laugh]

Ryan, I've read got a quote from an interview you did with www.aversion.com, where you said "We're not 100 percent marketable to kids, but we're not 100 percent marketable to the older crowd, either. We've got that weird gray area. It makes it hard to sell yourself 100 percent to one particular thing. To me, I think that's awesome." Would you agree that one of the greatest things about your band is that you're impossible to pigeonhole, you're not going to get lumped into any passing scene?

Ryan – Yeah, basically that's always been our blessing and our curse, you know you can't put us on this tour because it's too much like this. We kind of fit in with everybody, we can go off with Isis on one tour, go out with Minus The Bear on another tour, whereas those bands wouldn't make sense at all. In that sense it's absolutely amazing, cos we do get to do those tours, we do get to play with the most insane bunch of people you can possibly play with, and play to and play for, and then on the curse side of it, since you don't sound like this we don't know how to market your band, we don't know how you guys fit in to any categories, you just teeter on that line
Steve – "You guys, do you want art or do you want success?" It's like, there's no f*cking middle ground on that?
Brain – We want to be a successful "art band"!
Steve – I'm mean, that's possible, I've can see it, Animal Collective are selling f*cking thousands of records and their f*cking out there! We're just trying to turn people on to our music...
Ryan – One of the nice things is when we write a song, we don't have any sort of formula or any sort of pattern, we can come in and say we have this cool noodly off time thing, or I might have this thing I wrote on an accordion and I want to use that. We can do whatever we want without feeling "oh, this is going to totally alienate people", we don't ever have to have that consideration.

Your roots are of course in Seattle. From the outside at least it looks like it's in its healthiest state since the days of grunge, bands like Minus The Bear, The Fall of Troy, Big Business, being on the inside of it all, would you agree with that?

Ryan – I think it definitely died down a bit, for quite a while there were basically only two bands in Seattle that were more on the underground side of things, his (Brain) previous band Botch, Murder City Devils were around, and then his (Steve) previous band moved into town, and then once all those bands broke up it just exploded...

It all sounds a little incestuous

Ryan – Yeah, everybody just started playing together and then people moved around, now there's a ton of bands that are all very good
Steve – All these people that were playing in bands for so f*cking long, they we like "I want to do something else"

I guess that's why everyone sounds so different to their former bands. While we're on the subject, do you think that you're finally getting away from being described as "Featuring ex members of such and such". Does it bother you when you keep hearing that?

Ryan – It's good that people still like those bands and they're not around. I think that's the priority of every artist, you want people to care about the band when it's done. I don't really know what the relevance is, who really cares who the members were in, it doesn't sound like those bands
Steve – It is cool. I don't think that Kill Sadie had any time when people were in love with them, but it's bigger than it was when we were still playing, and it's nice to know that you worked for something and then it's done and people are appreciating it, and then they'll check this out.

Does it bother you at all then that Botch and Kill Sadie are much bigger now then they were in their lifetime?

Steve – No, I don't even think about it.
Ryan – It's like people talk about it now...

But where were you then!

[all laugh]
Ryan – Yeah, but at the same time not everyone was around then, you know, it was like four or five years ago...

I think a lot of it has to do with that the hardcore scene being a lot more mainstream than it ever was in the past. More people are getting into it and subsequently bands like Botch...

Steve – So many more people are into it. They get turned on by like Fall Out Boy or whoever, it trickles down and they look into other stuff and they end up finding Botch and be like "wooo, you guys were doing this, this long ago? And it's better than this sh*t!"

You're on Jade Tree Records, which has quite an esteemed name over here. How's everything going with them?

Steve – It's essential a DIY, punk-rock label, the same label that Kill Sadie were on, 50 / 50 deal. They're a punk-rock label and always have been.
Ryan – They know how to operate a business, pay bills and write a royalty statement. They're awesome people and they work hard.

What have you got planned for the rest of the year? I've heard that you may well be coming back over here to the UK at some point for a proper tour?

Steve – It's all getting set up, we're going to be on the road for over year! So there will be a full US tour and then we'll come over here hopefully in February / March and then do a five / six week tour of Europe and the UK, Japan and Australia. You'll be seeing a lot of us!

What would you say are the long-term aspirations for the band. Would you be happy with satisfying yourselves with you art? Getting to play overseas in places like Japan earlier this year must be great. Where would you like to see yourselves in five years time?

Steve – It's hard to say, when our band started and when people asked us that in interviews, back then I'd say going to Japan and we've done that. I feel that we've accomplished a lot, but as far as the future...
Brain – Still holding our integrity, still playing music, and maybe not having to work nine till five jobs.
Ryan – In five years from now, I hope we're still doing what we want to be doing. If that means touring nine months of the year then awesome. If we're going to have to release one album every five years and do one big tour off it, then we'll make that work.

by Dan Jones

Further links

Jade Tree.com

Home to Pedro The Lion, Strike Anywhere, and more...

These Arms Are Snakes.org

Official site of Seattle's These Arms Are Snakes