It took White Rabbits one album—their debut Fort Nightly—to join the ranks of Brooklyn’s indie elite, and with sophomore release It’s Frightening, the band is already headlining their own tour. Kevin Lincoln spoke to guitarist Alex Even about the band’s supporting days, working with Spoon frontman Britt Daniel and developing from album to album.
Fort Nightly seemed to be distinguished by how good “The Plot” was as a single, with the rest of the album orbiting around that song, whereas It’s Frightening seems much more level and coherent as an album. Was that an intentional thing or was that just how it worked out?
Yeah, that was definitely intentional, a thing that we tried to do. After Fort Nightly had such a big sound, we kind of wanted to see if we could scale it back a bit. I think that sort of tempered some of the songs and kept it pretty cohesive.
Did you guys reduce the different types of instruments you used on It’s Frightening from Fort Nightly?
Yeah, there was a variety of instruments used on Fort Nightly, the use of horns and some other things, that didn’t really make sense for the songs on this record. Pretty much traditional rock instruments used on this record.
I’ve seen a lot of people throwing around comparisons between you guys and Spoon, which was helped along by the fact that Britt Daniel produced It’s Frightening. Could you tell me a little bit about the role he played in putting together the album?
I’ve also seen some misleading comments in the press suggesting that maybe he had something to do with writing the songs, which isn’t true. We wrote all the songs. But we would demo material that would end up on It’s Frightening, and we would e-mail it to him and talk about the songs and what we wanted to do with them and where they would go, and he would just offer some advice. I think it makes sense that people would hear a lot of Spoon in it, because he recorded it. He didn’t shy away from putting his own touches on things and we wanted that. We were really open to a pretty involved collaboration with somebody, and it was a blast.
I definitely heard some similarities to Spoon, but I think you guys overall have a gloomier thing going with It’s Frightening than you get on a lot of the Spoon albums—especially with Stephen Patterson’s vocals, which have this angst to them. Did you guys go for a darker sound?
Well, we didn’t really go for it, it just sort of happened. It’s what sounded good to us at the time, I suppose. It was written mostly at night—we would work at night and sleep during the day—and I think maybe the record has a reflection of the feeling of being awake while the city around you is asleep, that sort of darkness.
I get kind of a literary sense from It’s Frightening. Are you guys into books?
Yeah, we’re all readers. We’re probably not the most avid, but we definitely share books with each other when we’re on the road and when we’re at home. I can’t point to any specific literary influence for this record. I’ve heard people say the lyrics kind of have a Poe-ish sense about them, and I could understand that, but it definitely wasn’t intentional.
I got the American existentialism feel, the trouble of being in American society. You have a little bit of the National going on in the lyrics but not in the sound really.
Oh right, yeah. We’re friends with those guys. They’re great.
By this point, you guys have toured with a lot of intelligent indie rock bands like yourselves, and now you’re the headliners. How was it to be supporting so many great groups before you guys had your own tour?
Especially for a young band, it’s an invaluable experience just because you see how these older, more mature bands operate and the life they still bring to their music. It’s definitely shaped our band.
Are there any particular bands you’ve toured with that have really influenced you?
Spoon and the Walkmen are probably the biggest two. We actually shared a practice space with the Walkmen for a while. It’s been fun on this tour because we get to bring out younger bands and do the same thing, and I’m finding I’m just as inspired by the younger bands we take out as well. We took out a band called Glass Ghost and they’re amazing. They’re from Brooklyn. They changed the way I listen to music every night that I saw them. It’s great. And we’re about to go out with this band Here We Go Magic, and they’re simply a fantastic, fantastic band, so I’m excited.
I know you guys came from Columbus, Missouri and moved to Brooklyn. Do you see yourselves as a part of that Brooklyn contingent of indie rock bands, or is it more of a different feel because you have those different origins?
I would say yes and no. We’re friends with a lot of the bands from Brooklyn—there are just so many bands in Brooklyn, there’s like five million of them. But yeah, we go to each other’s shows, we play shows with each other and work on each other’s projects. In that sense we’re pretty tied in, but probably with some of the more obscure bands from Brooklyn, none of the blockbusters—no MGMTs or anything.
Considering you guys moved in a very distinctive direction from Fort Nightly to It’s Frightening, where are you guys going now for the next album?
That’s to be determined. We’re actually working on a couple new songs for this tour. There’s a lot of ideas floating around, but it usually takes a while for us to combine some of the members’ ideas into a cohesive thing. Chances are it probably won’t sound that much like It’s Frightening.
So you’re going somewhere else?
Right. Well, we all sort of look at records as it’s more fun to make a record when it’s just this document of a time, of what you were interested in at the time. Some concern for continuity between records, but overall just being excited that you can shape a new sound on each record is fun.
White Rabbits will play at Local 506 April 7 with Let’s Wrestle at 9:30 p.m. Tickets are $10 in advance or $12 at the door.
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