Penny in the Rough with The Silent Comedy
Penny in the Rough with The Silent Comedy
As I arrive at The Silent Comedy’s campsite, all five members of the band are lugging equipment across the road for set-up. Pine needles and fallen leaves crunch under our feet and sunlight dapples our skin filtered by the canopy of treetops. On one of the trips to and from their van, I spy Tim stuffing a Ziploc bag of cookies into his pocket; I’m guessing he has a sweet tooth. Between our huffing and puffing, the guys, Ian, Tim and Justin and brothers Joshua and Jeremiah speak casually with me. I learn that Joshua is being somewhat slandered by a cyber fan on Gossip.com but that’s to be expected when you’re in the public eye and Joshua handles it well, making fun of himself and the strange intimacy of the internet. After camp is set, we cluster together under idyllic blue skies to find out what The Silent Comedy has been up to as of late.
Penny: First off, thank you so much for playing our Release Party Show at the Ruby Room this past summer. Do any of you have a favorite memory from the event?
Josh: Yes, the event was awesome, it was a ton of fun, the coolest thing was there were so many bands playing but more than that, all the best bands in town were there mostly, even if they weren’t playing, and it was cool, it felt like a real festive family vibe. I drank moonshine in the Burning of Rome bus.
Ian: Josh, are you sure that the best part of the evening was not the very, well, she was still attractive fifty-nine year old blonde gal with the wacky self-haircut and the tummy showing out of her belly shirt hitting on all of us? ‘Cause that was my favorite part of the night.
Josh: She took my hat and I wanted to get it disinfected after she put it on her head.
Jeremiah: I think she’s an old soul and other things, she’s old.
Ian: Yeah, you could have left soul off of that.
Jeremiah: One of my favorite parts of the evening was watching Cooper from Crash Encore/Transfer interact with his personalities and he was interacting with these wonderful characters. And I wish I had a video camera, I really do. It was comedy, it was good. Actually, no, that’s not true. My favorite part of the evening was seeing all the other bands, that was cool.
Penny: You’re friends with our photographer, Rebecca Joelson, she tells us that you guys are proud San Diegans, elaborate on that for us.
Josh: Not all of us are originally from here, which is cool but we’ve all expressed to varying degrees that we want to try to do something in San Diego because a lot of people leave when they’re involved in the Arts, to go to cities that are easier, that have a better art scene or music scene and when everyone who is talented leaves, that creates a vacuum. So, we have wanted to stay here and do something in San Diego and through the band, we’ve really been able to that a lot actually. In the past year, that’s increased a ton and there’s a much more cohesive friendly scene which is kind of what the show at The Ruby Room showcased. We are all friends, all the bands that played and then other great bands from town came out and hung out and watched and supported and that’s what’s really been developing over the past year, I would say. We do try to find the stuff we love about San Diego and support it instead of being negative about the town because it is tough to do arts here but that doesn’t mean that people aren’t doing great things. Kevin and Rebecca Joelson are a perfect example of that.
Ian: I like what you said, Josh.
Penny: On a side note, why do you think it’s (San Diego) tough?
Jeremiah: I have the short answer. I think that honestly, there’s just an attitude. Some people say it’s regional, the weather’s too nice, and that’s part of it. There’s a million things to do, it’s not just that because you cross over to Tijuana and people are supportive. I’ve heard of bands that are sound checking and people are applauding. I think it has a reputation of being a resort town, a vacation spot, people are used to coming here to golf or sail or to go to Sea World and they don’t necessarily think about Arts in connection to San Diego. They think about the sun, the golfing, and the beaches and there’s not that awareness nationally and I think that spills over into the local mentality as well. People think that’s just not what we do here very much. And it’s so centered to the lesser known areas around town like around the park (Balboa). People think of San Diego as P.B. (Pacific Beach) and downtown and La Jolla. They don’t think of other parts. Jeremiah speaks with purpose somehow not distracted by a group of passing gnats who try to invade the interview.
Tim: It’s a vacation spot to the nation. It’s not a “Hey, let’s go to San Diego and check out some awesome arts.” It’s like, “Hey, let’s go to the beach. Let’s go sailing.” Nothing to do with music. That being said, you’re already in an uphill battle. If you say Seattle or Portland, or even Omaha, Nebraska…
Josh: (interrupting) Montreal…
Tim: ... yeah, Montreal, or Austin, Texas, you say those places and people are like “Oh, yeah there’s music there.” Or, “Yeah, there’s scenes there.” I’ve never been outside of San Diego and had people be like, “Oh, you’re from san Diego.” Most people, when we’re on tour, they’re like, (in a quizzical tone) “What? You’re from San Diego?” Because the sound that we have does not closely reflect the scene that was here at least. So, yeah, it is an uphill struggle a lot with where we’re from and how this town is already perceived.
Josh: Strangely, something that I found frustrating about it too, is in the last six months, magazines like Rolling Stone and Spin and all these people have been latching on to San Diego and calling it the new emerging scene and the next Seattle or Portland and they’re only talking about Crocodiles and Waves and this tiny little portion of music that’s being produced here and those guys actually don’t have a really big part in the local scene at all. They’re proclaiming San Diego as this new heralding of whatever but they’re ignoring all the really great music like Transfer and Get Back (Loretta) and all these great bands that are coming out of here.
Justin: From the beginning of the band, we were always into the idea of building something from the ground up so we sort of appreciate the lack of notoriety because the scene has been malleable. In the past few years, when we started what we’re doing and people latched on to it, people have taken it and done their own thing with it. I really feel like San Diego is a real diverse scene, maybe all cities are, but I feel that we had a part in creating it. It’s part of why we love it and a part of why we appreciate being a part of it. A gentle breeze blows over us temporarily cooling our sweaty brows.
Jeremiah: I felt, at least for the first year, year and a half that we were a band, I felt real isolated and we had friends from other cities that we wanted to play with on tour or whatever and it was like man, if only bands like you were in our town. And then like in this town, people like Brian Stratman who has a studio or Sean Cornell who also has a studio or even Brian Carsick who owns a studio….
Josh: of Crash Encore, Transfer, Luis the IVX, just to clarify.
Jeremiah: They’re not only in bands, they’re people that own the ability to help other musicians record their own music in an actual real way, not just putting a mic in a room with a tape deck but actually have some quality to the production and I think that the value of that can’t be underestimated. The ability to go into Capricorn (Studios) for example and lay down an EP’s worth of material and work with somebody as not only an engineer but as a contributing member of the music scene who is in a band and helps other bands, there’s an artistry to it that’s invaluable, I think. If you get people that are only technicians, not to downplay the role of technicians, it helps to have people who know what it’s like writing music and performing music with you in the studio saying, “Yeah, let’s add this.” Or, “Let’s try that.” I think it adds a whole different flavor to the scene when it’s not just people playing live, it’s also people that own studios being willing to contribute their time and their resources. Meeting all of those people in the last year or two, we’ve started to see a community instead of just competitive isolated islands of music. It has been really rewarding considering we started out feeling so isolated, now to feel the camaraderie. That’s why the Ruby Room Show was so great, everyone there, oh, everyone’s in a band, the bands that were playing, there was such an atmosphere of community. You didn’t feel like anyone was competing with anyone else, it was great.
Ian: It’s prevalent and obvious but it’s weird to think about a time that it didn’t exist, that there was a place in time that we didn’t know those bands. And they’re so much a part of what we do now that it is almost hard to remember a time when they didn’t exist
Penny: You’ve been spending a lot of time in the studio, what is the atmosphere like recording your new full length?
Josh: The atmosphere is very… it’s goofy. We laugh a lot and we have a lot of fun but we’ve also been more serious and productive during this process than we’ve ever been before but you wouldn’t know it hanging out in the studio because we’re laughing the whole time. Goofy like when Ian had to go to the bathroom outdoors and one of the other guys sung out, “Ian’s a peen’!” This promptly reduced me to fits of giggles.
Ian: We’re spending more time on it, it’s the business mindset, getting down to work, we have the opportunity while we’re in our own studio to sit down and rewrite a whole part or spend three hours working on harmonies or a little new way to rethink something. So we’re just kind of hanging out and having fun and being creative. We’ve been offered this new opportunity that we haven’t had in our previous recordings of three days to get everything in there and so that’s just really opened up our world of ideas in an awesome way. Tim receives a text on his phone, briefly looks at it and breaks into a quiet smile.
Jeremiah: We’re a band, we’re not studio musicians, we’re not riff players or spotlight players, there’s no lead guitarist in our band to throw his hair back and be like, “Check out my lead, man.” And because of that, we’re all kind of ruminative players. Is that even a word? We develop parts over time with playing live so like the running guns style of just like going into studio for a mammoth three days to record a record, I don’t think showcases the band as well. What I think this does is allow us to kind of develop these parts that otherwise would have taken a lot more time to develop on the road and playing live and I think it’s going to showcase a lot more of what the band is able to do because we’re more vibey. We tend to just go over things over and over again until we lock into a set pattern. It’s nice to be able to do that recording and not just live.
Penny: Who is the engineer on your new full length and where is being recorded?
Jeremiah: We’ve several engineers, Sean Cornell being our bass guitar, drums and piano engineer. And then, Giovanni Macias who helped us record a couple of things. Giovanni is actually a really good friend of ours and he is the most generous human being, I mean he has helped us so much. He recorded the very first thing we ever did and he lets us borrow gear all the time. He’s just great. So he’s been helping out engineering and I’ve done some engineering on the other stuff as well.
Josh: It’s important to note that his name is Pedro Giovanni Garcia Macias III, so we shortened it down to just a nickname which is el guapo. He has a heart shaped patch of chest hair which just shows you the kind of passion that he has wound up inside of his body. But, Sean Cornell’s where we recorded bass, drums and keys is called Blue Roof Studios and our own studio, our production space does not have name but we’ve done about half of it there, so about half and half.
Penny: Are there any glaring differences between your last recording, a self titled EP and the new one? All of the guys laugh at this question.
Ian: It’s pretty night and day.
Josh: The difference is going to be extreme from all of our previous recordings until now. The biggest feedback we got on our previous recordings was they don’t do the live show justice at all; they’re not anything like the live shows. We recorded a lot of soft songs on the record because they’re easier to record, we didn’t have a lot of resources previously and this album, we’re trying to make more like a live show. So, it’s going to be dirtier, blusier, dirtier, grittier, hairier,…
Ian: It’s going to be waxed occasionally in spots.
Josh: There are also going to be some pretty points, some ballads and some good things like that but, it’s going to be a lot more like the live show than anyone’s ever gotten from our recordings before.
Penny: I read Bungalow Bill’s interview with Joshua in the last issue, at that time there were loosely about fourteen members of The Silent Comedy. Are just the five core members (J. John, J. Benjamin, J. Michael, Ian Forbes and Joshua Zimmerman) playing on the new album or are there any cameo appearances?
Josh: Those five are the core members but Andy Ridley plays drums on the record. And there will be a lot of guest performers on the record but we have yet to decide who those people will be. We imagine pretty much all of our friend bands will be represented, Transfer, Get Back Loretta, Dirty Sweet, Scarlet Symphony, etc. Much to my chagrin, I’m forced to admit that in our first issue, Ian’s name initially appears as Ivan at the beginning of Bungalow Bill’s article. Ian laughs it off but the rest of The Silent Comedy use it as fodder to tease Ian for the remainder of the day.
Ian: Yeah, Ivan, that’s my Russian nickname.
Josh: Yeah, we’re gonna go with Ivan.
Jeremiah: (in a wild voice) Yeah, crazy Ivan! Laughter from the group.
Ian: It takes a few drinks for Ivan to come out!
Justin: That’s what she said! (Penny blushes)
Penny: Being out here in nature brings to mind thoughts of The Old West, what do you think were the biggest challenges of that time period? Ivan, how was it growing up in Russia? The guys laugh.
Ian: Old West? Just seems like survival was the hard part. Just trying to eat and live.
Jeremiah: Now, relate it to the band somehow.
Ian: We’re just trying to survive in the new wilderness and unknown darkness of the recording industry.
Jeremiah: The lawless West.
Ian: The lawless West and new frontier that is our lives.
Josh: I’m going to say this in all seriousness, syphilis. (Everybody laughs)
Josh: In the Civil War, I think it might have been in Memphis, where a lot of soldiers were being sent, something like half the population had syphilis at one time.
Ian: So watch out for that, right?
Josh: Yeah, it was a huge deal. I’m not sure exactly when penicillin came around to treat syphilis but it was usually fatal before that. So, I am 100% serious when I say syphilis.
Ian: Just don’t give me syphilis.
Jeremiah: I think the lack of indoor plumbing would be a challenge. The chamber pots, the out houses. Think about it, we’ve all been to music festivals; those port-a-potties aren’t pretty. Think about that, there was no guy with a pump to get rid of that shit.
Justin: Literally.
Jeremiah: Ew, that’s gross. Shit everywhere. Who wants that? Hence the disease ‘cause you can’t take care of the waste.
Ian: There you go.
Jeremiah: And no electricity. It’s a lot like playing one of those outside stages.
Justin: But I’m just saying Jesse James robbed trains and led a normal life with his wife and shit until Robert Ford shot him. So, as many challenges as there were, there were also benefits and advantages I think.
Josh: It was a great time for crime.
Justin: It was.
Jeremiah: Gun-slinging!
Tim: I would say the hardest part of being in the West back in the day, would be not being able to check your Facebook. That would be the hardest part, in my opinion.
Ian: And what about those giant mechanical spiders?
Justin: And Selma Hayek.
Josh: I want to add that it would be hard to know what was happening here in the burgeoning San Diego Area without Gossip.com.
Ian: Totally, a great informer.
Penny: Do you think that the use of piano and harmonica on songs like Poison and Contessa’s Fable (Exploitation) give those songs an Old West Saloon feel? Was that purposeful?
Jeremiah: It’s less attempting the saloon thing and more just trying to be a little earthier with the songs, trying to get back to some of the roots of acoustic music. One hundred years ago, more people played instruments more regularly and with greater facility than now, the music that they made was the greatest source of music in their life and I think there’s something beautiful about that. Whether that’s a conscious effort or not, we all live with that joy. And I think more people back then were enjoying that unfortunately for us. So yeah, I think we’re trying to go for a more roots, blues sort of thing. The sun shines strongly through a break in the trees as Jeremiah speaks. Then suddenly, out of nowhere…..
Ian: Holy shit! A swarm of bees is about to descend on the group and we all scramble to get out of their path, I run briefly alongside Ian, but my short legs don’t allow me to keep pace with him for long.
Josh: Yeah, that’s a little scary.
Justin: As long as you’re not fuckin’ with their hive, it’s fine.” We reassemble a few yards away and the questions continue.
Penny: The vocals on those two songs sound more rugged than your prior releases, was that intentional?
Josh: Fuck yeah. Yes, and they’ll get rougher than what you heard.
Josh: That’s part of…
Penny: (Interrupting) Well, I like it rough so that’s good. The boys hoot and howl.
Josh: (Laughing and pausing to recollect his thoughts) That’s part of the intention of trying to reproduce the live show because at a live show, we’re going all out for it and we really want that kind of dirty energy. So yeah, they’re rougher and the whole album is going to be rougher.
Penny: Tightrope is a beautiful ballad that shows the mellow side of The Silent Comedy. What is this song all about?
Jeremiah: I originally wrote the song to be semi-autobiographical but also kind of not entirely. It is sort of just about my life in a way, more than that, it’s just that feeling of being all alone in your life despite being surrounded by tons of people, friends and family. I don’t think that’s unique to me or to anybody. I think we all feel that way at one time or another and we all have this desire to get away, to escape and I don’t think that’s what it is cracked up to be. I think that escape is appealing because we can’t do it and I think the song is about embracing the fact that we all feel that way, that isolation and that loneliness but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. You can use it; you can be inspired by it. So, it is kind of like a different take on that whole poor me, it’s more the trials of your life can help define who you are in a good and bad way, that’s the general thrust of the song.
Penny: If I provide the smores, will one of you jaunty gentlemen provide the entertainment via a spooky campfire tale? I think I’ve caught the boys off guard.
Ian: I don’t really know any ghost stories.
Jeremiah: Josh will talk about ghosts forever.
Ian: For hours.
Justin: Oh yeah.
Josh: You really probably shouldn’t talk to me about ghosts, it could be hours. Well, I’ve got ghost stories to beat the band.
Ian: (confused) Beat the band?
Justin: I’m not really sure of that expression.
Josh: Lately, in my home, we’ve actually been having weird unexplained phenomena and it’s getting to the point of being obnoxious. There’s a lot of footsteps and stomping around in my house. It’s to the point where my brother’s wife said we should give it a name because it’s getting a little out of control; so that’s probably the ghost story that’s closest to home.
And as the day progresses, each of the members of The Silent Comedy tells me a tale of some sort. Josh confides that he did in fact send in an audition tape to the SyFy network’s show, Ghost Hunters. He said that at first the producers seemed interested but after learning he was in band, they were weary of his schedule availability. The way I look at it, it’s SyFy Network’s loss. They passed on a great ghost and a great guy.
Tim and I discuss the merits of Ayn Rand’s novels and he tells me how it was his father who turned him onto the prolific author, “One day, my dad, a military man, hands me this book and says, ‘Read this before you try to talk politics with me.’” How refreshing to be able discuss one of my favorite authors with a member of one of my favorite bands!
Ian, as long and lean as tree himself, shares with me his detailed knowledge of tree-trimming which I learn is a lot more intricate than one would expect. His knee high lace-up boots are a not only a perfect prop for the campsite interview, they’re a veritable tool of his trade. I do ask him though about encountering tarantulas on the job but he says they’re most likely not the poisonous type here in San Diego.
Justin, dapper as always in his suspenders, in all seriousness professes the virtues of mustache wax which, I guess in his case, is a must have. And, I must admit that while his bushy blonde mustache holds a perfect form, it’s actually soft to the touch, not rigid or sticky at all. I’m sure his girlfriend, Alex appreciates that.
Jeremiah speaks of his job at downtown night club, Voyeur which opened up sometime this past summer. He describes the venue’s revolver shaped lamps, gold skull studded balcony, a beautiful chandelier and a wall of flat screen televisions displaying the images from sixty night vision equipped video cameras. He also tells of a “rad DJ”, house and techno music as well as a genuine great group of people to work with. By looking at him, you’d never know he was employed by a trendy bar. I take that back, maybe the tell-tale signs of a hangover give it away.
In this girl’s opinion, anyway that you package The Silent Comedy, antique, modern, in studio, in person, clean, or with dirt under their fingernails, their essence remains the same. Undisputedly talented and uncharacteristically interpersonal, this group of inspirational musicians is a huge asset not only to the local music scene but to San Diego as a whole. I’m not much of outdoor enthusiast but if we did live in the Old West, I’d follow The Silent Comedy up the Oregon Trail and back again.
