The Ataris are back, no not your 2600 so put your thumb away. The rock band, which back in 2003 released the hit album So Long, Astoria. Now after four long years and leaving their major label theyve teamed up with Sanctuary Records for Welcome the Night. I got a chance to talk with their lead singer Kris Roe.
Check out the official site of The Ataris
Daniel Robert Epstein: What are you doing today?
Kris Roe: On Wednesday I flew into London from Amsterdam. Now Im doing some press and whatnot and going to see Bloc Party tonight.
DRE: Thats cool. You dont live in London though.
Kris: No, I still live in the Midwest. I live outside of Indianapolis and the rest of the band live in New York. Its a quick ten hour drive for rehearsal. Other than that, we pretty much get together wherever were about to start playing. We havent been doing much touring or anything, except we did Mexico City and South America. Now were going to rehearse the week before we do our full US.
DRE: Hows everyone getting along?
Kris: Great. Its pretty much like a new beginning. For a long time I felt it was very stale and like it was something that I really wasnt into anymore. I think [lead guitarist] John [Collura] would probably say the same. We were always the best of friends so theres a really good chemistry with us. When he joined this band in like 2002, it felt like there was a weight lifted off my shoulders because he started writing a little bit. Prior to that, I was the one who always had to carry the weight of everything. That was the biggest problem when this band imploded on itself. We had a couple guys in the band, the old bassist and drummer, who werent all on the same page with what we wanted to achieve. They got caught up in the excess of music lifestyle and I think they wanted to have the whole rock star thing. To John and I, that was never really something we ever thought about. For us it was, lets go play some songs and see the world.
DRE: Its hard to blame them for wanting the rock star lifestyle.
Kris: Look man, everybody likes to drink and get fucked up every now and again but to trash hotel rooms and get us banned from a fucking radio station because you were jacked up on coke and you knocked a hat off a police officer is too much. You got to draw the line somewhere. I was always the guy that liked to pull practical jokes and pull the fire alarm in the hotel in Japan. Thats because in Japanese hotels, the hallways seal up if the fire alarm gets pulled. It sucks all the air out to put out the fire. We did that and our drummer got stuck in the hallway. It was pretty awesome. Shit like that was always fun but it came to a point where it started to become too much like a satire. It wasnt representative of who we are. I felt very limited with what I could create musically speaking with those guys. John and I were always more into the indie side of things or the early 90s shoe gaze thing. Those guys just really didnt listen, well [former drummer] Chris [Knapp] didnt listen to anything. He would play drums and get fucked up. Mike [Davenport], our old bass player, was a big music lover but unfortunately he couldnt pull off the musicianship side of things. I think in the end there were a lot of things that led John and I to start over. Now were seven of us when we record and five when we tour. We couldnt be happier and were all best friends.
DRE: I read that some people are saying that Welcome the Night resembles a concept album. Do you look at it in that vein?
Kris: I would never say that because then I would like a pretentious bastard or something, But I definitely think that all the songs fit together in some way or another. It tells the story of the past two fucked years we that we went through. It is also me trying to take a look at myself and try to find contentment and inner peace and question a lot of the dogmatic bullshit were faced with in this world.
DRE: I know you were going through a lot of personal stuff when you were making this album. Did that also lead to you guys wanting to shake things up and change labels?
Kris: No I think that was just inevitable. What I was going through in my life personally were things that were going to happen regardless. You can only spin so much of a web of dishonesty and bullshit and lies before the fucking rug is pulled out from under you. As far as the label goes, it came to be a situation whereby the time we started recording Welcome the Night, pretty much over half of the people at Sony had quit or been fired. We took it as an opportunity to ask those fuckers to let us go. Strangely enough they actually obliged and then the president quit a week later. The best part of all of it is that once we decided we were going to put it out ourselves, we did the deal with Red Distribution and Sanctuary and Red is Sonys Distributor so we kept the same distributor. Now we have such little overhead so we dont have to sell a fucking million records to make money off of the sales. If we do a portion of what we did on the last record, then well at least be able to continue traveling and making a living doing what we love.
DRE: Howd you find the new members?
Kris: They were all just friends of ours. Those guys were always around when we were recording and did demos at Johns friends studio. We were just putting some ideas down and we all started playing music one night. For lack of better words, wed just space out and jam. We started writing a bunch together and eventually we were like, Whos to say what the confines of this band ever needed to be or should be? We just wanted to write songs that were honest and set to music. At that point we hadnt talked to Mike or Chris in like forever so we split up. As far as adding our cellist and keyboard player, theyve been friends of ours for a long time and I had worked with the keyboard player, Bob [Hoag], on his side band. I felt that it was enough atmosphere with the five of us but for the recording lineup I wanted to add more instruments to really bring out that ethereal quality and that atmosphere in the songs. Those guys came in and we started rewriting the songs again. I felt that really helped because our previous records were versions of songs that I downright loathe. They feel so dated so we werent playing it. Of course those are the songs that every 15 year old jackass will be shouting for. The song youre least proud of is the one that everybody really likes.
Our bands been playing for a long time but then there might be someone out there in fucking Iowa who will go to an independent record store, discover something I wrote when I was 18 or 19. But now Im 30 so if they see us now we are on a completely different page at this point. Some people actually expect you to create what you created 12 years ago. As much as Im proud of some of things we have done in the past, theres definitely a thing called progressing and evolving and continuing to do whats honest to you. I think we try to take a good 10 to 15 % of our set and just suck it up and play certain songs and for the other part well try to be pretentious assholes, self-indulgent artist guys.
DRE: I wanted to ask about a couple rumors so that you could confirm or deny.
Kris: Yep.
DRE: Did Sony ask you guys to write more commercial songs?
Kris: I think thats partially true and partially not true. With any major label, anyone will tell you that you have to have at least three songs that they can do a video for or a single. At the beginning, I felt like we had the start of a good record but we didnt have the songs that could work like that. If you look back at fucking any of the more daring albums of the last 10 to 15 years like OK Computer by Radiohead for example. That had songs on there that they were able to push towards a single.
We were still writing anyway and by that point we actually were able to leave the label. So by the time we recorded those next songs, I was actually thankful that they pushed us to write more because I felt like we ended up writing another half of the record. That never would have happened if it wasnt for a couple criticisms. Sometimes you cant be your own good critic. You definitely have to take some of that and actually listen to those people sometimes, even if they are somebody thats in a fucking suit and all they know are charts and graphs. It might actually push you to do something that you might be proud of.
DRE: Do you think the Freemasons burnt down your house?
Kris: Youre the only person whos ever asked me that flat out. Why? Are you a Freemason whos going to come to my house?
DRE: Everything I know about the Freemasons I read on Wikipedia.
Kris: Well, thats a crazy long story and one night if we get really piss drunk I can tell you in detail. But I will tell you is, therere a lot of really bad sides to spirituality and religion. I think its a good thing as a whole but there are too many people that take it a little too seriously and dont actually read into what they believe. I read a lot about freemasonry because I had a father-in-law who was a fucked up pile of shit. I put him next to George W. Bush in my opinion of people on this planet. I found this really awesome story about a case of a freemason in the early turn of the century in Boston. He was going to expose and publish a lot of freemasons rites and rituals in public. Suspiciously he was put into jail for not paying some fee then just as mysteriously, the next night he was bailed out and was never to be heard from again. I was fucking mesmerized by all this and I just read more and more about it and I realized that with any religion be it masonry or Mormonism, its all about questioning it before you really absorb it because too many people are forced to believe things. Thats how I felt about the people I know that lived in Salt Lake City when I was growing up in a small town in the Midwest. I just feel for them.
DRE: Years ago, David Lynch went to a therapist and in his first session he asked the therapist Could therapy change my work? and the therapist said Possibly so Lynch left and never went back to therapy ever again. Did you think about anything like that as you were taking anti-depressants and going to therapy?
Kris: No, I felt almost the opposite. I felt that writing this record was about trying to find contentment and trying to find the right place I needed to be in my life. I felt like I set a lot of standards for my life and I just didnt really feel like I was achieving them. I was not leading up to where I needed to be. I needed to do those things to get my life in order and when it came to the artistic side of it, Ive been going through therapy and things like that for my entire life and I felt that it only helped to channel that darker place and let it come out in an artistic way. I wasnt ever really afraid of that although I see what you mean. Lynch is who he is because hes just so him. I guess a lot of artists would sometimes be afraid that it would change who they are. But Bukowski would have still been Bukowski even if he werent a drunk and a womanizer.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Check out the official site of The Ataris
Daniel Robert Epstein: What are you doing today?
Kris Roe: On Wednesday I flew into London from Amsterdam. Now Im doing some press and whatnot and going to see Bloc Party tonight.
DRE: Thats cool. You dont live in London though.
Kris: No, I still live in the Midwest. I live outside of Indianapolis and the rest of the band live in New York. Its a quick ten hour drive for rehearsal. Other than that, we pretty much get together wherever were about to start playing. We havent been doing much touring or anything, except we did Mexico City and South America. Now were going to rehearse the week before we do our full US.
DRE: Hows everyone getting along?
Kris: Great. Its pretty much like a new beginning. For a long time I felt it was very stale and like it was something that I really wasnt into anymore. I think [lead guitarist] John [Collura] would probably say the same. We were always the best of friends so theres a really good chemistry with us. When he joined this band in like 2002, it felt like there was a weight lifted off my shoulders because he started writing a little bit. Prior to that, I was the one who always had to carry the weight of everything. That was the biggest problem when this band imploded on itself. We had a couple guys in the band, the old bassist and drummer, who werent all on the same page with what we wanted to achieve. They got caught up in the excess of music lifestyle and I think they wanted to have the whole rock star thing. To John and I, that was never really something we ever thought about. For us it was, lets go play some songs and see the world.
DRE: Its hard to blame them for wanting the rock star lifestyle.
Kris: Look man, everybody likes to drink and get fucked up every now and again but to trash hotel rooms and get us banned from a fucking radio station because you were jacked up on coke and you knocked a hat off a police officer is too much. You got to draw the line somewhere. I was always the guy that liked to pull practical jokes and pull the fire alarm in the hotel in Japan. Thats because in Japanese hotels, the hallways seal up if the fire alarm gets pulled. It sucks all the air out to put out the fire. We did that and our drummer got stuck in the hallway. It was pretty awesome. Shit like that was always fun but it came to a point where it started to become too much like a satire. It wasnt representative of who we are. I felt very limited with what I could create musically speaking with those guys. John and I were always more into the indie side of things or the early 90s shoe gaze thing. Those guys just really didnt listen, well [former drummer] Chris [Knapp] didnt listen to anything. He would play drums and get fucked up. Mike [Davenport], our old bass player, was a big music lover but unfortunately he couldnt pull off the musicianship side of things. I think in the end there were a lot of things that led John and I to start over. Now were seven of us when we record and five when we tour. We couldnt be happier and were all best friends.
DRE: I read that some people are saying that Welcome the Night resembles a concept album. Do you look at it in that vein?
Kris: I would never say that because then I would like a pretentious bastard or something, But I definitely think that all the songs fit together in some way or another. It tells the story of the past two fucked years we that we went through. It is also me trying to take a look at myself and try to find contentment and inner peace and question a lot of the dogmatic bullshit were faced with in this world.
DRE: I know you were going through a lot of personal stuff when you were making this album. Did that also lead to you guys wanting to shake things up and change labels?
Kris: No I think that was just inevitable. What I was going through in my life personally were things that were going to happen regardless. You can only spin so much of a web of dishonesty and bullshit and lies before the fucking rug is pulled out from under you. As far as the label goes, it came to be a situation whereby the time we started recording Welcome the Night, pretty much over half of the people at Sony had quit or been fired. We took it as an opportunity to ask those fuckers to let us go. Strangely enough they actually obliged and then the president quit a week later. The best part of all of it is that once we decided we were going to put it out ourselves, we did the deal with Red Distribution and Sanctuary and Red is Sonys Distributor so we kept the same distributor. Now we have such little overhead so we dont have to sell a fucking million records to make money off of the sales. If we do a portion of what we did on the last record, then well at least be able to continue traveling and making a living doing what we love.
DRE: Howd you find the new members?
Kris: They were all just friends of ours. Those guys were always around when we were recording and did demos at Johns friends studio. We were just putting some ideas down and we all started playing music one night. For lack of better words, wed just space out and jam. We started writing a bunch together and eventually we were like, Whos to say what the confines of this band ever needed to be or should be? We just wanted to write songs that were honest and set to music. At that point we hadnt talked to Mike or Chris in like forever so we split up. As far as adding our cellist and keyboard player, theyve been friends of ours for a long time and I had worked with the keyboard player, Bob [Hoag], on his side band. I felt that it was enough atmosphere with the five of us but for the recording lineup I wanted to add more instruments to really bring out that ethereal quality and that atmosphere in the songs. Those guys came in and we started rewriting the songs again. I felt that really helped because our previous records were versions of songs that I downright loathe. They feel so dated so we werent playing it. Of course those are the songs that every 15 year old jackass will be shouting for. The song youre least proud of is the one that everybody really likes.
Our bands been playing for a long time but then there might be someone out there in fucking Iowa who will go to an independent record store, discover something I wrote when I was 18 or 19. But now Im 30 so if they see us now we are on a completely different page at this point. Some people actually expect you to create what you created 12 years ago. As much as Im proud of some of things we have done in the past, theres definitely a thing called progressing and evolving and continuing to do whats honest to you. I think we try to take a good 10 to 15 % of our set and just suck it up and play certain songs and for the other part well try to be pretentious assholes, self-indulgent artist guys.
DRE: I wanted to ask about a couple rumors so that you could confirm or deny.
Kris: Yep.
DRE: Did Sony ask you guys to write more commercial songs?
Kris: I think thats partially true and partially not true. With any major label, anyone will tell you that you have to have at least three songs that they can do a video for or a single. At the beginning, I felt like we had the start of a good record but we didnt have the songs that could work like that. If you look back at fucking any of the more daring albums of the last 10 to 15 years like OK Computer by Radiohead for example. That had songs on there that they were able to push towards a single.
We were still writing anyway and by that point we actually were able to leave the label. So by the time we recorded those next songs, I was actually thankful that they pushed us to write more because I felt like we ended up writing another half of the record. That never would have happened if it wasnt for a couple criticisms. Sometimes you cant be your own good critic. You definitely have to take some of that and actually listen to those people sometimes, even if they are somebody thats in a fucking suit and all they know are charts and graphs. It might actually push you to do something that you might be proud of.
DRE: Do you think the Freemasons burnt down your house?
Kris: Youre the only person whos ever asked me that flat out. Why? Are you a Freemason whos going to come to my house?
DRE: Everything I know about the Freemasons I read on Wikipedia.
Kris: Well, thats a crazy long story and one night if we get really piss drunk I can tell you in detail. But I will tell you is, therere a lot of really bad sides to spirituality and religion. I think its a good thing as a whole but there are too many people that take it a little too seriously and dont actually read into what they believe. I read a lot about freemasonry because I had a father-in-law who was a fucked up pile of shit. I put him next to George W. Bush in my opinion of people on this planet. I found this really awesome story about a case of a freemason in the early turn of the century in Boston. He was going to expose and publish a lot of freemasons rites and rituals in public. Suspiciously he was put into jail for not paying some fee then just as mysteriously, the next night he was bailed out and was never to be heard from again. I was fucking mesmerized by all this and I just read more and more about it and I realized that with any religion be it masonry or Mormonism, its all about questioning it before you really absorb it because too many people are forced to believe things. Thats how I felt about the people I know that lived in Salt Lake City when I was growing up in a small town in the Midwest. I just feel for them.
DRE: Years ago, David Lynch went to a therapist and in his first session he asked the therapist Could therapy change my work? and the therapist said Possibly so Lynch left and never went back to therapy ever again. Did you think about anything like that as you were taking anti-depressants and going to therapy?
Kris: No, I felt almost the opposite. I felt that writing this record was about trying to find contentment and trying to find the right place I needed to be in my life. I felt like I set a lot of standards for my life and I just didnt really feel like I was achieving them. I was not leading up to where I needed to be. I needed to do those things to get my life in order and when it came to the artistic side of it, Ive been going through therapy and things like that for my entire life and I felt that it only helped to channel that darker place and let it come out in an artistic way. I wasnt ever really afraid of that although I see what you mean. Lynch is who he is because hes just so him. I guess a lot of artists would sometimes be afraid that it would change who they are. But Bukowski would have still been Bukowski even if he werent a drunk and a womanizer.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 5 of 5 COMMENTS
It's nice to hear about the "new" ataris