This is Songwriters & Tour Riders, a music podcast from KOSU hosted by Matthew Viriyapah.
On this second episode is surf-pop band, Husbands. Made up by Danny Davis and Wil Norton, the two started the band after forming a connection over a production of a Godzilla musical.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hd5VYRdx3hs
In college, they were the only ones married amongst their friends. But now in their thirties, marriage is typical and their recently-released album, After The Gold Rush Party, is about trying to balance their jobs and families with their creative energy.
Their single, Mexico, has been featured on NPR's Heavy Rotation and was named the number one song of 2019 by the Oklahoma Rock Show. The song was written after a burst of inspiration from working with Chad Copelin of Blackwatch Studios, known for producing albums with Broncho and Sufjan Stephens.
They spoke with Matthew about the song, break down the rest of the album, and explain how they went from a pool of seventy songs to just thirteen for the album.
We were always kind of aware of being square - Danny Davis of Husbands
Wil: There's just a kind of like funny tension there of seeing yourself as a punk rock type of person when you're totally not.
Danny: In a way, we were self-conscious about that from the beginning. We were in college married.
Wil: We kind of have from the beginning also thought about our music as sort of an escape and sort of like a childlike kind of fantasy. Everyone who plays music really loves to just sit in a room and work on songs and record them. And by doing that you're kind of inherently shirking your other responsibilities in life.
Danny: Wil and I talk about how a lot of times like, sometimes best things you do are the things you do when you're definitely supposed to be doing something else.
Wil: I always felt like I wrote my best songs whenever I had my finals coming up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhU9sQsOCQU
On influences
Danny: On this album, we were interested in some kind of Krautrock kind of themes. And we kind of thought that would complement the general themes about kind of growing up and being part of a nine-to-five. Just the repetitive motion.
Danny: We've always been big Devo fans.
Wil: Listened to a lot of like Can and Neu! and things like that throughout this whole period of time.
Danny: Talking Heads, specifically "Once In a Lifetime," was kind of a song that we thought was kind of a good touchpoint for what we thought would be thematically consistent with what we were trying to do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IsSpAOD6K8
On taking their time making the album
Danny: In terms of sound quality, [we] wanted to create a better sounding album and try to reach at least a mid-fi grade, as opposed to a low-fi grade sound. We were kind of harder on ourselves with this album because we wanted it just basically to be better.
We worked with Chad Copelin at Blackwatch [Studios], who was recorded Broncho and Sports and Sufjan Stevens, among many others. He helped us get our sound quality up to a certain level. That was just inspiring in a lot of ways, to help us figure out what we wanted to do next.
On '90s movies
Danny: I was watching a movie called "Heathers". It's a crazy movie but they say all these funny '90s phrases. "What's your damage?," they say that a lot. And "Mexico" used to be called "What's Your Damage?" That's the original title of that song.
Basically just tiny lyrical bits, not something to relate to "Heathers" itself but the silly things they're saying in the movie.
Wil: Yeah, I think for this album there's a lot more visual inspiration. One thing that really comes to mind is Tarzan for "She's a Betty."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYYJwd2mfnE
Danny: For me, it was more a movie thing. Like "Mr. Downtown" is a line from "That Thing You Do.' That's like one of the fake hits from that movie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqzkWSz1Onk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYF3_zL7l6E
Husbands' latest album, After the Gold Rush Party, is out now on their label Cowboy 2.0. You can see them perform live at Tower Theatre in Oklahoma City on Saturday, January 18th.
Music featured in this episode:
- Husbands - 3 AM
- Husbands - Tijuana
- Devo - Girl You Want
- Talking Heads - Once In a Lifetime
- The Husbands - Take It or Leave It
- (French) Husbands - Dream
- Beach Fossils - What a Pleasure
- Les Baxter - Tropicando
- Husbands - Culebra
- Kelsey Grammer - Tossed Salads and Scrambled Eggs (Frasier Soundtrack)
- Husbands - Manhorse
- Husbands - She's a Betty
- The Wonders - Mr. Downtown
- Husbands - Mr. Downtown
- Don McLean - American Pie
- Husbands - Speed Racer
- Husbands - Stay Gold
- Husbands - Mexico
- Husbands - Ms. Universe
- Husbands - Bikini Bottoms
- Shed Club - Dorothy
- Husbands - Scary Cavallari
- Smash Mouth - All Star
- Husbands - Piggy
