The Big Sleep
02.15.06
Q&A
words:
Alec Tabak
photos: Isabel Asha Penzlien
Danny Barria and Sonya Balchandani are two-thirds of The Big Sleep, the power trio with arguably the greatest volume-to-vocals ratio in the five boroughs. Son of the Tiger
, the band's debut LP, will shred speakers near and far at the conclusion of a bidding war that's lately turned bitter - may the deepest pockets win. Though taciturn in their music, the pair found plenty to tell Loose Record over coffee and hot chocolate at a cafe near their Greenpoint, Brooklyn headquarters, sounding off on their band name, the meaning of life and deaths most preferable, drummer physique, and the physical impact that's often missing from the equation when bands play live.
Loose Record: To what extent do you sound like Raymond Chandler's novel
The Big Sleep?
Danny Barria: [Cracks up]
Sonya Balchandani: Let me paint you a picture. I'm just pulling this out of my ass, but I'm going to do it anyway. In the end, however complicated the story gets, you have these really iconic characters, which I feel like... What we do, it's really simple music. I mean, I don't think we're doing anything really complicated. I feel like there's something that's simple but bold about it. A lot of the characters in that movie are so simple, but they're not one-dimensional.
DB: I have never thought about the music we make in relation to the film or the book except in terms of, like, a certain starkness. I feel like, especially when we play live, there're three elements up there that are pretty much making it. The name itself: I feel like a lot of people find the name misleading, and I don't know why.
LR: What does your name make people expect?
DB: Well, a lot of people have said to me, "Big Sleep sounds like something mellow, it sounds like something shoegazing."
SB: I don't think that's true at all. The idea of "the big sleep," I mean, it's referring to death. I don't think that death necessarily sounds mellow. I feel like it's weird that people think that.
LR: If you had to die, how would you go?
DB: As a band, I don't want to go down in a plane: it's cliche at this point.
SB: I think you should get electrocuted.
DB: Why do you think that?
SB: It would work. It would be really dramatic.
DB: You think?
SB: Yeah.
DB: OK, this is what I don't like about a death like that. I'd like a death where I'd...
SB: You'd shit yourself.
DB: That's exactly what I was going to say.
SB: Embarrassing.
DB: It is - there's no dignity in that. And I mean, my whole problem with bodily functions aside...
LR: You have a problem with bodily functions?
DB: Not necessarily. I resent the fact that I have to eat and I have to sleep and I have to shit. I don't like having to do it. I don't like that it's a necessity.
LR: Why?
DB: For me personally, it's kind of a waste of time. I'd rather be doing things. I'd rather be experiencing life or, you know, getting ahead in whatever it is I want to do.
SB: That is experiencing life. You see it wrong.
DB: Well, that's for you. For me, all of that stuff is purely functional. Purely functional.
SB: His sense of taste is compromised because his tongue doesn't work.
DB: Yeah, I've got a weak sense of smell and my sense of taste isn't so great.
LR: So that's how come no vocals. Your tongue doesn't work.
DB: Right, exactly.
LR: Now I get it.
DB: And let's clarify. Not no vocals: fewer vocals than most other bands. But just to make a point with that, a lot of bands are just, this is all you see: "I'm playing my chords..."
LR: We've got to take a note here. Danny is gesturing with his hand.
DB: Let the record show that I'm making the yap sign with my fingers. "I'm playing my chords, strumming my guitar, and I'm just saying a lot of words over it." For some people, that's great: your words are totally powerful, and that means something. But for 99% of bands, it's not. It's not doing anything compelling for me, personally. I kind of like the idea that when we sing, it's actually going to mean something. For us at least, it'll be compelling.
LR: How do you guys write; what's the process like?
SB: It usually starts when Danny comes up with something. Then we work arrangements out together. We add parts. Sometimes one of those parts is a vocal part.
DB: We don't like the vocals to be super upfront. We kind of treat them as another instrument.
SB: You mean they never come through?
DB: [Laughs] Yeah. We try to focus on getting the music totally set out, and then, we can always feel when it's going to be a vocal song and when it's not. And when it is, we'll allow for that when we're arranging. Then it's kind of up in the air as far as who comes up with the vocals and the lyrics. Our goal is always music first and then we'll add a vocal as an addition, as another layer, if we feel it's necessary.
LR: Gabe [The Big Sleep's drummer] obviously couldn't be with us today. If you could send him a message through this interview, what would it be?
SB: That he's totally unnecessary. Eye candy!
LR: It's too bad that playing the guitar or the bass doesn't really tone you up the way playing the drums does.
SB: Are you kidding? I don't want to say anything against Gabe, or any of the drummers that we've known, but I do not think that your assessment is accurate at all. Because drummers drink a lot. They get depressed because they're in the back and nobody sees their faces, and after the set they go out into the audience to talk to girls, and they're like, "Yeah, I'm in the band." The girls are like, "I don't know what you're talking about. I didn't see you up there." So they just drown their sorrows in beer, and they get guts.
LR: What are New York's three loudest bands right now?
DB: We may be, but I'm not actually going to count us. From what I hear, Black Dice, Gang Gang Dance, maybe.
LR: That's only two.
SB: Obviously, there's gotta be more...
DB: All right, fine, fuck it - us.
LR: You're in the top three, but we're not going to give you a specific position.
DB: No rankings, no rankings. But that's something that I think's missing from a lot of shows, just a physical impact. So I'm totally happy to physically impact you.
SB: You feel that?
LR: Sonya just punched my shoulder. This interview is over.
(See The Big Sleep Friday, March 24 @ Brooklyn Lyceum and Sunday, March 26 @ Bowery Ballroom)
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