The Stills
06.18.06
Q&A
words: Phoebe Assenza
photos: myspace.com/thestills

On their debut, Logic Will Break Your Heart, The Stills came off as un-ironic wearers of heart on sleeve, while still keeping a comfortable distance for an otherwise sincere and feely indie band. Their songs were about being in love and being afraid and stuff, and consistently delivered with a dark and lovely dream pop; never-too-precious detached coolness. Their new and even bigger heartbreak, Without Feathers, ups the ante of plain honesty to almost Billy Joel proportions: A song like “The House We Live In,” is about two people trying to live in an old, dilapidated mess, and “She’s Walking Out,” is literally about a girl walking out on a dimming relationship.

All is not sad and lost, though. Hope, the bigger theme of the record, (yes, hope!) is all over more transcendent, pastoral romps like “Helicopters,” and “The Mountain.”

Loose Record sat down (on the phone) with singer/writer/guitarist Tim Fletcher to discuss the pain of loss, the loss of pain, Woody Allen, Emily Dickinson, adjusting to this crazy world of show business, and kitchenware as unconventional musical instruments.

Loose Record: I’ve had the new album for two days and it’s been on constant repeat. It seems like the band is headed in a different direction yet still remaining distinctly Stills. This is probably an ideal scenario for a sophomore release.

Tim Fletcher: That’s why we put it out, we were thinking the same thing, but we also knew it’s a little bit dangerous. Record companies, fans, and people’s expectations in general can sometimes be a bit fickle. They want to hear the same thing so they can rely on you. If you’re a band that really wants to express itself fully and go down it’s own path, then you have to sometimes…not please everyone. But like you said, I think it retains a lot of familiar elements, because it’s the same songwriters, and although we’ve changed as people, there are similar sensibilities there. We haven’t changed so drastically that you can’t recognize us anymore. I don’t think, anyway.

LR: How do you think you’ve changed? Collectively, or as individuals?

TF: Well, a lot of stuff has happened as a result of being in this band over the past three or four years, especially through touring, and through seeing the world as a result of being this band. You see so many things, you realize your dream, and you meet all these people that are doing the same thing as you at the same time. But then, you leave a lot of people at home, and there’s a lot of unfinished business. It’s a huge thing to grapple with. Musically, you’re listening to all different types of music, We were listening to tons of different records, becoming different people, growing up a little bit… Though, some people might argue that we’re not grown up.

LR: That’s interesting, because I thought you sounded pretty mature on the last record. On Without Feathers, you sound even more evolved. There’s also a characteristically American classic rock feel; was that something you were all listening to while writing?

TF: Well, we were working as a collective, writing things together, as opposed to before, where someone wrote all the songs and all the parts and we just went in the studio to re-do it. We developed this sound and it turned out to be sort of a soul, Motowny kind of 70’s rock thing. Sort of like a London Calling, meets Van Morrison, meets Fleetwood Mac…

LR: I was going to say, definitely Fleetwood Mac.

TF: Exactly. I think we’re all into their type of songwriting. It’s really touching and evocative, even though it’s in such a format. So, yeah, I guess all those things fit into a more classic rock spectrum, and that’s what we were drawing from. If you look at John Lennon’s music and a lot of music that was happening in the 70s, it was pretty universal. If you try to be universal, you’re touching on things that more people can relate to than less.

LR: Instead of trying to fill a very specific niche-genre, something that only people in-the-know could even pretend to understand. So, not only is the sensibility of the album more universal but the sound--

TF: Can you hold on two seconds? (Tim starts talking to someone in the room about something being carried downstairs, if that is all right for the thing to go downstairs, etc. The rest of that conversation was muffled and spoken in French.) Sorry about that.

LR: It’s okay. I was just saying how the universal feel you were striving for meshes really well with the big, overall sound of the album. There’s all this new orchestration that wasn’t on the first record.

TF: The organs and pianos and keyboards and the synths and this and that, we have a one-man--well, he’s just basically good with anything that has black and white keys.

LR: And he’s new to the group, right?

TF: He’s an old friend, Liam O’Neill, he joined right before we recorded Logic Will Break Your Heart, and was our touring keyboard player, but he wasn’t fulfilling his potential. It was Dave and I writing keyboard lines, which were rather simple. Once Liam started working on stuff, he was just, all over everything. We could be like, (frustrated) “Ah, I’m feeling this, but I don’t know how to communicate it.” And Liam would be like, “Oh, you mean this?” And then he’d play it! He was really intuitive and just naturally gifted at it.

LR: People would say that “Logic Will Break Your Heart” was a post- 9/11 rumination on things like feeling safe, and how that plays out in different facets of personal life. Is there any particular theme in this new album?

TF: I think Logic Will Break Your Heart may have been a little bit cold, a little bit distant? It was very heady in a lot of ways, very cerebral. I’m not saying that as detraction; I think it’s really charming in that way, but the new record is more about actual situations that involve real heartbreak, as opposed to just moods we were feeling and theoretical musings on those moods. This record is more like, “Wow, we’ve been through the ringer.” It’s pretty much about break-ups, relationships falling apart. A lot of people haven’t seen that, so, did we accomplish our goal? I don’t know.

LR: Do you mean people haven’t seen that from The Stills in particular?

TF: I’ve read a lot of lazy reviews of the record, from people who are just not getting into it as deep as they should, which is them not doing their job, essentially. But, yeah, it’s an album about break-ups, it’s an album about trying to find a home, and trying to feel comfortable in all the uncomfortability (sic) of the world.

LR: You mentioned part of going into this record was the feeling of having unfinished business back at home.

TF: Yeah. People are in romantic relationships, and there are friends and family that you never left behind to such a degree as when you leave forever on tour. To go follow your dreams and pursue this thing, which is kind of…It’s not that weird, I mean, people do it all the time, so it’s not like we’re special, but still, this situation requires you go do some maybe unorthodox and irregular things. It’s alienating. You feel like, “God, how am I gonna go back to my friends?” Eventually, it’s no big deal. You’re just like, “Whatever. It’s my job.” But a lot of relationships suffer despite all your attempts to be level headed about things. And it gives you a lot to think about, a lot to write about (laughs).

LR: Did that surprise you, or did you see that coming?

TF: It’s hard to say. Like I am right now, you can get really lost in your head about things, and it’s not a good time… Without Feathers is a record we made out of hope. Out of a desire to give ourselves hope and the desire to give ourselves some kind of celebration, some kind of affirmation that what we’re doing is good, it’s fine, to (inaudible) with some love, I guess. I think we feel a lot more at ease being in this band and living with this record. We’re in a better place now to deal with past issues like leaving, missing people, alienation, et cetera.

LR: And the title, Without Feathers, that’s an homage to Woody Allen? (Allen wrote a book of non-fiction essays with the same title.)

TF: It’s several things. Emily Dickinson said, and this quote is in the beginning of Woody Allen’s book, “Hope is a thing with feathers.” We’re all huge Woody Allen fans, so, it’s fun to refer to him, but it also refers to that (Dickinson) quote, in the sense that, (after the first record and tour), we felt just beaten down. All our feathers we beaten off of us. And finally it was like, “Okay, guys, this is us. Let’s make (more) music.” Which is what we did. It also refers to the fact that there are not a whole lot of frills, not a lot of bells and whistles. I mean, there are bells and whistles—

LR: Literal bells and whistles rather than figurative.

TF: Exactly.

LR: I thought it was weird that you had a teakettle whistling on the record, and then I realized it was my teakettle.

TF: (laughs) That’s hilarious…

LR: It happens a lot with police sirens, too. So, it’s a hopeful record? You’ve reached a place where you feel more hopeful?

TF: It’s always changing. Who’s to know how we’ll be feeling after another year of touring this record. But we’ve really adopted a better approach to this lifestyle. The trick now is to not avoid things. You can always live in a bubble, and when you’re on tour, there are things that you don’t want to deal with, and there are things that you need to NOT do to be happy. Sometimes you feel uncomfortable, but you need simple things. Simple pleasures. Smple satisfactions.

LR: They say that’s what it’s all about.

TF: Yeah.

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