The Paddleboat
The PaddleboatOn a relatively warm night, I walk into a cloud of cigarette smoke just as dusk hits. Two dark haired girls in skirts talk in line ahead of me.
The doorman gives me a once over before opening the door and then I see the members of The Paddle Boat across the way and head over. I like the swanky atmosphere and almost East Coast vibe of the dinner club immediately, the only drawback is the noise, a lot of people are talking, eating and drinking.Jeremy talks to me like were old chums while Jackson and Dave relocate us to a bigger table. Bob Dylan’s “Tangled up in Blue” plays in the background and I take a seat on tan leather barstool, photographs of horses adorn red walls and for a slight moment, I feel like at my uncle’s country house instead of The Turf Supper Club. My eyes follow my ears over to Dave who is tapping to the music on his knees. That’s when I notice the lovely Jane, who no joke looks like she just stepped out of high school. Somehow amid the chatter, I learn that Jane did a “Bohemian Rhapsody” sing-a-long at The Imperial Hose to a full crowd. After warming up to them, I admit that the noise in here isn’t ideal for audio recording the interview. Jeremy finishes sipping down his Long Island iced tea as we make our way outside. We cross the street and sit outside of Luigi’s Pizza Place adjacent to a flower shop.
Maxwell: Your MySpace lists current members of The Paddle Boat as Jeremy Scoot, Jackson Milgaten, and Dave Mead but on your latest release, I Wonder if The Water Ever Tires of the Sea?, clarinetist Jane Weibel is featured on several tracks including vocals on Just Like a Good Girl Should. Did she recently leave the band or does she regulate herself to guest appearances? Did she recently leave the band or does she relegate herself to guest appearances?
Laughter from Jane.
Jackson: Yeah, Jane is no longer in the band but she’s on the entire record. She’s over there now (pointing to Jane). We wrote all those songs with her and with a clarinet in mind. When Jeremy and I were arranging those songs, it was definitely, it was premeditated, and we wrote the songs around Jeremy’s vocals and her clarinet so she was a big part of that record. I guess that was a big transition for us. I would say that if you come see us live now, it’s like some sort of fusion between where we’re going and where we were. We still play a lot of those songs but we don’t have the clarinet in them, we do them with a different mentality than we did in the past and it kind of changes the whole end result. We’re definitely heading in a different direction because of her leaving the band.
As Jackson talks, he gestures with his hands.
Maxwell: Jackson, Vision of a Dying World is still playing shows
Jackson: I play by myself right now. I’ve been doing that for the last six months, I don’t know, it’s been a while. I’m going to start have other people play with me I just haven’t figured out who yet.
A breeze blows the scent of fragrant honeysuckle towards us and then the sky rips open as a plane descends into Lindbergh Field. Jane excuses herself to go order some food.
Maxwell: There seems to be a somewhat incestuous trend in the local San Diego music scene of band members jumping ship so to speak into different bands is there too much musical talent to be contained in one ensemble or are personality conflicts to blame?
Dave: I just think that’s kind of natural just because everybody who know is gregarious and enjoys hanging out with new people all the time and then a lot of times the best way to hang out is when you’ re doing something so I like just meeting new people and playing in new bands. Sometimes that does mean that bands start that don’t record and don’t play shows and that kind of thing but that’s just a trial and error situation. Everybody kind of just plays with each other. (He smirks)
Jackson: That’s what she said.
Laughter.
The neon sign of the market across the street plays across our faces.
Jeremy: I think you’re going to see that trend anywhere you go. In every city there are artists and they gravitate toward each other and you can’t help but collaborate. You need a band, you’re gonna turn to the people you know. You’re an artist, you meet artists so you can’t help but start a band with other artists. So, I don’t think San Diego is particularly unique in that sense.
Jackson: I think that because there’s this kind of closeness to a lot of the musicians in San Diego whereas in other cities that I lived in, it doesn’t necessarily seem to be like that. And it even bridges scenes or genres of music. I’m friends with so many people in so many different kinds of bands. Maybe our bands have never even played a show together because it wouldn’t make any sense in terms of style but we still have a mutual respect and we still have a friendship. So I think that out of that, you need people to help you realize your musical vision and because you can’t play all the instruments at once, if you want to play live at least. So, I think that there’s a lot of really talented people, all these different bands, I like to look at each of the projects as a representation of the personality of the main force behind the band and sometimes that can be shared by two people that are propelling it at the same time but usually, it’s one person’s thing it’s this very physical, tangible manifest destiny. (He furrows his brow in thought) There’s a need even though I love playing bass and I love playing in the Paddleboat as a bass player/harmonizer back-up auxiliary player than I am….I think I serve my purpose best under that role but I still have a need to write my own songs and to play those songs for people. And I think that can basically be seen in everyone that plays in any of these bands and all the multitudes of projects are just a result of that need.
We take a break and I seize the chance to run off to the loo and when I return The Paddleboat including Jane are saying a rowdy good-bye to a group of friends who look sort of familiar to me. I take a seat at the red and white checkered picnic table and resume questioning.
Maxwell: You guys have a very distinct sound; your recordings could be mistaken for something from the 1930s. Do you analyze old recordings for ideas to put in your songs?
Jeremy’s face falls serious, he pauses and looks up to the sky as if for inspiration and a second plane roars by. A man wrestles dishes at the table behind us creating a cacophonous symphony. Jeremy regroups his thoughts and begins.
Jeremy: As far as recordings from the 1930s go, Jazz Standards, yes, I am definitely very interested in Jazz Standards in the subtle movement and the cooperation between instruments used in that style of music coupled with the concentration on melody is what mostly influences me.
Jeremy: But that’s not to say that I am only influenced by music from the 1930s. I like the sound of the guitar from that era. I love Patsy Cline and the sound of that guitar, I try to replicate a little bit. It is more the instruments working together, guitar solos, they don’t really play a part in this band. Drum solos, I don’t really think we have that. Bass solos only really exist in the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Maxwell: Is there a special place where you like to record? Do you do it yourselves?
Dave: I found recently that recording in a new place and experimenting is really helpful. Just in a lot of different ways. It kind of helps you understand the song better. We always recorded with a man named Keith who is Jackson’s brother, he was actually just here. He does a phenomenal job but this last recording was done at this beautiful house in Oregon that we brought the recording equipment too.
Oh, so that’s who they were saying goodbye to, I thought they looked familiar. I study Dave’s five o’clock shadow as he answers but get somewhat distracted by the lingerie pin-ups that line the inside of the flower shop just over his left shoulder.
Jackson: Santino Romeri’s family.
Maxwell: yeah, I saw the thank you on your vinyl. There’s a lot of You. Tubes of Get Back Loretta at that house.
Jackson: They played there?
Maxwell: No, they stayed there.
Jeremy: As far as recording goes, yes, we record with Jackson’s brother Keith Milgaten (Milg-uh-tin). I’ve been very close friends with him since I was about 12 years old, we developed musically together and I don’t want to record with anyone else but him. We did go to Oregon and he brought a studio with him to Sonny’s house and we recorded the last record with him and we plan on recording everything we do in the future with him as well.
Damn, I bloody butchered these guys’ names. Jackson’s pizza has arrived and he takes a swig of Red Stripe.
Maxwell: I’m sure that you guys do not have a huge budget to work with yet your recent video; the B Side of Life was very inventive. Who thinks of the ideas and who makes it all happen?
Jeremy: A very close friend names, Jesse Pellegrino made that happen. She went to school at UCSD and she was a film major. We worked together and she took an interest in our music. She wanted to make a video and we decided on that song and a friend of hers who works in L.A. came down to help her and we filmed it at the UCSD film studios.
Jackson: It was all her.
Jeremy: Yeah, it was her concept. She put the whole thing together; we showed up and did it.
Jackson: All that.
Jeremy: Yeah, she’s a genius. She lives in Brooklyn now and she works on films with such actors as (announcer voice) Harrison Ford, Mel Gibson.
Jane: Jodie Foster.
Dave: Oh, the big three.
Laughter.
Jackson: I would say though that outside of that video, just in general with creative thought, it’s very much a collective effort. Jeremy definitely writes, he’s the core of the band in that most of the songs are coming from him but, it’s definitely one of the most collaborative projects that I’ve ever been in whereas I feel like when The Vision was a full band, me and Jeremy were just telling people what we wanted an then we’d all try to achieve that and with this, it’s more like, I don’t think even Jeremy really knows what he wants when he brings a song to the table.
Jeremy: After this first album, more recently, nothing that’s been recorded yet…where are we going? What is the question? Are we off on a tangent?
Jackson: We’re talking about where our ideas come from.
Jeremy: Oh, I get as drunk as I can and I sit in my room with all the lights off...
Dave: Take acid.
Jeremy: and I light a candle, I pray to my personal God, Grugen and I fuckin’ come up with a guitar part and I hope they’re gonna like this. Sometimes, I just bring pieces, let’s come up with something.
Jackson: And then with the visual stuff, apparently we’re all terrible at that. Jeremy can draw really well. We made a cover for the record, everyone hated it. It was repulsive to everyone else that looked at it.
Dave and Jeremy laugh.
Dave: It was awesome.
Jackson: I liked it too. Craig Barcolft who I run Silver Screen with was like, “Oooh, I don’t want to offend you guys but I’m not going to release this cover. “ Were like, “Okay, we don’t care.” You can put a picture of some random dude standing in front of an Easter Island statue and I would be just s happy and that’s what on the cover of the record.
Maxwell: I did notice that.
Jackson: In a way, the project is a collaboration of everyone around us; it’s sort of like a sponge.
Dave: I think that that particular visual catastrophe was an isolate incident and a minor setback and though that was a particularly bad moment in us trying to be visual people, I think that there is a good visual future for us.
Jeremy laughs.
Jackson: Let’s hope.
A third plane thunders overhead.
Maxwell: Cotillion is dreamy and surreal. What is the inspiration for that song?
Jeremy: Alcohol.
Jane laughs.
Jeremy: I don’t know how to answer that. I wrote that song when I was going through an interesting time in my life where I was trying to find meaning in anything I possibly could and I was drinking a lot of alcohol and I wrote that song before Jackson and I went to a party and I made him sing harmonies with me so that would remember it and I made him promise that I would remember the melody even after we got home from the party and luckily I did. The song just like Jackson was describing before, it’s about us developing songs in pieces.
Jackson: The song took us like six months to write.
Jeremy: It took us forever, we had the beginning part, I wrote the harmony with Jackson and then Jane and I came up with the clarinet part at a totally different time. And then we brought the whole thing to practice and it just took forever and it wasn’t going anywhere. Then, Jackson one day…
Jackson: You had another piece of a song and I said why don’t we put that in the middle?
Jeremy: It’s not in the same key, it doesn’t even make sense but he said do it and I said fine. And there you have it.
Jackson: And the whole song kind of became pieces put together.
Jeremy: That was the first song we developed as a band like that that sort of pointed us in the direction that we’re on now.
Jane: That’s the first song that Dave participated in.
Dave as if on cue bend over to tie his shoes and makes such a production doing it that he sounds like Cookie Monster.
Maxwell: I like the song Crazy Horse Medallion; it strikes me as part love song, part Charlie Chaplin skit. Where did this song originate?
Jeremy: I wrote that song after I moved into an apartment with a girlfriend that smashed my instruments. I was lying in bed while she was brushing her teeth and I was just hearing that melody. I got up and started playing guitar; I didn’t have a job at the time. She was working and I was just writing music and she came home and I played it for her and she was actually playing trumpet on it for a while and that’s where that came from. I don’t know if it’s necessarily about her but she did break the guitar that I wrote it on.
Damn, that’s cold. Ladies, you can a break a man’s heart but please have some mercy and never break his guitar, that’s just not right. Yet another plane passes noisily overhead.
Maxwell: The lyrics, “the animal sleeping beside you doesn’t think you’re worth marrying.” From the song One Legs sound like they’re pulled from a John Irving novel. Is this song based on a real life experience? If so, whose?
It suddenly falls quiet; I can hear the two pizza chefs talking in the kitchen. Jeremy’s eyes flicker with pain.
Jeremy: I don’t really want to talk about it.
I get the feeling that is in not the same girlfriend elaborated on in the previous question but I’m not about to push him even if I am intrigued by the lyrics. These guys are laid back, friendly and approachable and I’m not about to sour that.
Maxwell: What’s on the horizon for The Paddleboat?
Jackson: we are doing a West Coast tour starting April 29th and then, we’re going do a larger tour that will probably take us everywhere in the Western half of the country in July. We’re just writing songs and we’re maybe one third of the way to a new record but the songs that we’ve got are definitely taking us in a new direction.
A plane thunders over head.
Jackson: This one’s going fast. (He makes a sound effect)
Dave: (dejected) Hey, I was gonna do that!
Laughter.
Jackson: We’re kind of like, “What the fuck do we do now?” And we’ve spent the last…however trying to do figure that out. I think we have figured it out at this point and we’re just really starting to fully embrace that and the new songs are definitely a reflection of that and Dave and I are doing are more than we used to, he used to just play the drums and I used to just play the bass and we would sing some backups. Now, I’m kind of playing a bunch of percussion and some other different little musical touches on the song for meldoica. And Dave is an electronic sampler as well as the acoustic drums. I think that the new stuff sounds less like, it sounds like the 1930s meets Blade Runner. We’re getting our bearings and writing a new record and touring and that’s pretty much the plan for this year, I guess.
The Paddleboat’s music is off the beaten path and that’s what makes it interesting. You’re not sure what is going to happen to next and judging by the end of this interview, neither do Jeremy, Dave, and Jackson. Which is very exciting, these very regular, down to earth guys create textured, ethereal music that is sure to entertain. So as The Paddleboat begins to plan its new course, Maxwell for one will be expecting it to be into uncharted waters.
