Interview

A few weeks ago I headed to the Annex in New York's Lower East Side, normally home to Ruff Club bacchanalia. I was there to check out the third incarnation of a Boston-based band by the name of Baker, who played a lively set of indie pop tunes. Their new album, "Bike Ride," is out now on Top Shelf Records.

EP: Did you all grow up in Boston? You don't sound like you have a Boston accent.

Conan: I'm from England, actually. When I get home to London, people think I sound like I'm American, but I've been living here in the U.S. for around four years now – and my wife's American, so

EP: Oh you've got a wife?

Conan: I do, indeed.

Andy: Interview over!

Conan: Totally, you must think we're so lame now!

EP: No! It's just that you seem younger.

Andy: Conan's got a wife and a mortgage.

EP: How old are you guys anyway?

Conan: I'm 27.

Andy: I'm 29 – we're the two oldest in the band.

EP: Why don't you guys introduce yourselves to start off?

Andy: I'm Andy, I play guitar and sing.

Conan: I'm Conan, I'm 27 and I sing.

EP: So I understand that this your debut full-length, Bike Ride, is now being re-released on Top Shelf Records – it originally came out October 2007. Can you explain why it's being re-released already?

Conan: Initially Top Shelf didn't have national distribution – well they had web distribution – but they didn't have physical national distribution. But now they do – [to Andy] I think it's through Caroline, right?

Andy: It's through whoever does Ben Folds Five...

EP: Oh I was gonna ask you guys if you're influenced by Ben Folds – I could hear it a little in your sound.

Conan: Yeah, actually I love Ben Folds Five –

Andy: I don't!

Conan: It's funny, yeah, a few people have said that. It's good to hear you know... hopefully we sound something like them.

Andy: Hopefully not! Hopefully, we sound like Sonic Youth.

Conan: We have divergent tastes.

EP: So how did you guys first meet?

Andy: Well I went to college with my friend Nate – and Nate and Conan were doing this sketch comedy thing –

Conan: Well this is going way back, because I moved to the States about four years ago.

EP: Where did you go to school?

Andy: I went to school in Pennsylvania – Lehigh.

EP: Oh really, I live sort of near there – I'm from Valley Forge.

Andy: I'm actually “foreign” – I was born in Ireland but I moved here when I was nine.

EP: You don't really seem have an accent anymore.

Andy: Yeah I lost it.

Conan: Now he's got a North Reading Massachusetts accent.

Andy: How aaww ya?? Let's get wickeed retawded.

Conan: Do you live around here?

EP: Yeah I just moved to Williamsburg about a month ago..

Conan: Oh nice that's a good place. Where's you move from?

EP: Philly.

Conan: Philly's a cool town, we've played at the Khyber.

Andy: I like Philly too.

Conan: We shot the “Fingers” video down in Philly, just outside actually actually – in Bala Cynwyd.

Carolyn: Oh yeah? I went to high school right by there.

Andy: Did you know that Conan went to high school with Prince William?

Conan: No I didn't – I played water polo against him though.

EP: Oh really, what was he like?

Andy: (laughing) Conan played water polo with Prince William!

Conan: He's really nice guy, it's a tough game!

EP: Ok, before we get even more off topic, how did you all meet again?

Conan: So I moved here four years ago. Andy is from the area – everyone else in the band is from the Boston area. When I first moved here we did this sketch comedy show called “Hooray For Fun.” If you want to do an internet search you can look up hoorayforfun.com – there's still some of it left. We stopped doing it though, it kind of went down hill. Anyway thats irrelevant. So I was doing that with Nate and he went to college with Andy, and they played soccer in college together. So met them when we were out drinking one night.

Andy: And went up to Conan and said listen to this song I wrote! I just went “[indistinguishable drunk noise]!”

Conan: I was like, “This guy's got potential!” And I still say that today.

Andy: Conan was floored – and the rest is history.

Conan: (laughing) I blew him away with my alcohol breath.

Conan: Nicole, I actually met on –

EP: MySpace?

Conan: Craigslist – this was pre-myspace, well maybe not that early.

EP: Did you guys date before you met your wife?

Conan: No!

Andy: You mean me and Conan?

Conan: Oh yeah sure we did – we all date. But they're not dates – they're called gigs!

Andy: So Nicole was on Craigslist and then Steve and James used to play in a band together called The Animal Closet, that Conan's old band used to play with –

Conan: Yeah, I had a different version of Baker before which was just a three-piece.

EP: So how did you figure out your band name?

Conan: Well actually, our band is the third incarnation of Baker – it's been three completely different bands each time. We just kept the name because we already had the website – which we no longer even use.

Andy: Yeah we don't use it now – I wanted to be called “Douche Bag Ravine.”

Conan: Yeah, well that was the main thing – I had a name and I played in the old Baker. When that band broke up I got together with James and Steve and recorded, and then when the five of us finally came together we brainstormed names – which is the worst thing to do with five people, I'm sure.

EP: Yeah it must be an exercise in futility.

Andy: There were some good ones though – there was “The Mexican Triage”, “The Christy Ally Cats”

Conan: Oh yeah, “Boomerangatang.”

Andy: “JFKFC” – it just went on and on and on, it was amazing.

Conan: Yeah “JFKFC” was a good one – it just got really ridiculous. So in the end it went nowhere and we had the Baker website already set up.

Andy: So laziness was basically how we did that.

Conan: But the reason for calling it Baker went back to a band I had in England with my brother. Right before I left for here – we just put it together for one show. I pretended we were a different band and we got a show at a really good venue in London. So we had to quickly write stuff and play – and my brother got his mate to let us practice in his flat. We lived on Baker Street in London.

EP: What's the music scene like in Boston?

Conan: It's great, yeah have you been up there much?

EP: I've been there before, but I've only really heard stuff about the hardcore scene.

Andy: Oh yeah, Steve (the drummer) was definitely reliving his high school hardcore days on our drive here. But right now in Boston there's a growing eclectic pop rock scene – a lot of bands like The Self Righteous Brothers who we're good friends with, and Viva Viva, Drug Rug –

Conan: Andy is it Viva Viva or Drug Rug who plays on Dr. Dog's label? So all those guys are part of the same crew – and we've all been switching bands for the last three years, we all know everyone.

EP: Have you played with Dr. Dog?

Conan: Oh yeah, several times – a good show we had with them on the Cape last summer and then we played with them at other venues in Cambridge and Boston – they're great.

EP: What inspired you while you were making the album?

Andy: Complete boredom...

Conan: A lot of the songs ended up on this album because they've all come from our different bands – some of the songs were ones that were written by Andy before he joined the band or written by me before I joined the band – and we just ended up working on them, and tweaking them to accommodate everyone's taste – which can be difficult.

EP: Who produced the album?

Conan: We went to Philly and worked with Brian McTear. He's in Fishtown down the street from Dr. Dog. He's pretty much like the big, young affordable producer in Philly. Mind you, I don't know how many big producers are in Philly. But yeah he's a great guy. The guy who engineered our album is Justin Pizzoferrato – he's a young Boston guy, who lives in Weston Mass and worked with Dinosaur Jr.

EP: Oh that's awesome.

Andy: Tell the story about when you went to do vocals with Jay Matthews!

Conan: Oh yeah, that was awesome. We wanted to redo the “Fingers” vocals because we weren't happy with them. So Justin said, “Oh I can squeeze you in at Jay's studio – and I love Dinosaur Jr., so I showed up and Jay Mathews is living in this mansion that used to be Uma Thurman's house – he's just sitting there eating, and there's dirty dishes everywhere. His wife is this really young hot German chick, and so I walked in and he's like quite old in comparison, but he's an awesome guy. He barely said a word to me though, except when he made some comment about styling his hair with egg whites or something, and I didn't get it – it was just this awkward exchange. And then I went out to his big mixing studio and lay down some vocals and that's pretty much it. He's such a character though – his whole house is painted purple.

Andy: Didn't you ask him a question though, and he didn't even respond – he just looked at you for like five minutes?

Conan: Yeah he just stared at me, it really caught me off guard. But it was so nice of him to squeeze me in. It was when he was in the middle of recording the new Dinosaur Jr. album.

EP: Oh crazy, so how did you guys get hooked up with Top Shelf Records?

Conan: I forget how they first heard about us – it might have been through Westfield State radio station or something.

Andy: When we first finished the album and got it mastered, we were just sending it out –

Conan: It was being played on some college stations and I guess Seth [the head of Top Shelf] had something to do with one of the stations. And so they contacted us and took us out to dinner. We talked about getting something together and we signed a contract at the end the summer. And they got to it, pressed a bunch of albums and now they just got national distribution so it's kind of a new phase. They're really good guys. They booked some of our shows in Weston Mass as well, because they know the area well.

EP: Are you working on any new material right now?

Conan: Yeah actually we played two new songs tonight. I think we might release a little EP ourselves, and we'll talk to the label to see what their plan is. But we just want to do something small just to kind of keep everything going.

EP: Have you been touring a lot lately?

Conan: Not as much as we were at one point. And we've been touring mostly in the Northeast. I guess last year at this time we were busy playing –

Matt: [enters room] Holy shit!

Andy: This is Matt – Matt do you want to answer some questions?

Conan: Matt's from the Bleedin' Bleedin'.

Matt: Oh I'm sorry am I interrupting?

Andy: Come on!

Matt: I play bass... I'm from San Francisco.

EP: So anyway, what are your future plans for the next year? More touring?

Conan: There was talk of being offered some tours with some bigger bands – Lucero is one of them. I'm not sure if that one's official yet though.

EP: Oh yeah, I've heard of them. Who else have you played shows with?

Conan: Well besides Dr. Dog, there's Apollo Sunshine.

Andy: They're playing the O2 festival.

Conan: They've been on tour with Dr. Dog too, and also with They Might Be Giants. We're playing with Langhorne Slim fairly soon.

EP: What are you listening to right now, and what were some of your favorite bands when you were growing up?

Conan: We all have really different taste. I like bands like Men At Work, really '80s bands. We actually played –

Andy: I bought Conan their record the other day – I was like I gotta get this for Conan!

Conan: Business As Usual, great album. But yeah I mean Andy, he's into Joy Division and stuff like that, Sonic Youth.

Andy: Wolf Parade.

Conan: Oh yeah we played with the guy from Wolf Parade – that was a big deal for us.

Andy: Sunset Rubdown.

Conan: Yeah the Wolf Parade side-project, Sunset Rubdown is really good.

James (the bassist): We've played with Limbeck a bunch, they're good, they tour all the time.

Conan: Who else have we played with who's a bigger name?

James: Kevin Devine.

EP: It's really good you guys have been getting all these shows. It helps get your name out there.

Conan: Yeah it does.

EP: Well, I'm pretty much out of questions now. Thanks for doing the interview.

Conan: Thanks for coming out, it's nice to meet you.