5A — Wednesday, March 7, 2018
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Ypsilanti-born Fred Thomas has 
been making music since 1992. In 
addition to nine solo albums — his 
most recent, Changer, was released 
in Jan. 2017 — he has contributed to 
countless projects and played in a 
myriad of bands, including Tyvek, 
Hydropark, Saturday Looks Good 
To Me and so many others. Though 
a longtime fixture of the local 
scene, Thomas as a solo performer 
didn’t receive widespread attention 
until 2015’s All Are Saved, a 
thematically dense work that spans 
an impressive variety of sounds and 
textures. Thomas’s vocals range 
from absent to sing-song to spoken 
word.
“It’s supposed to be a little bit 
irritating,” Thomas said when I 
asked him about his lyrical style on 
the record.
“I had a lot of songs that were 
more like straightforward pop 
songs, but … I had more going on 
personally that I wasn’t getting 
to the core of, and once I started 
tapping into the style of that record, 
I was like ‘This is great! This feels 
so good! I don’t know if I would 
enjoy listening to this,’” he told 
me, before doing an impression 
of his wife doing an impression of 
his music, a hysterical sputtering 
lacking a discernible melody.
“A guy trying to catch his breath 
while he says everything on his 
mind,” he finished, “and she’s 
right.”
I 
disagree 
with 
Thomas’s 
evaluation of All Are Saved as 
annoying, but his wife’s assessment 
of his sound and the urgency is spot 
on. What I’m curious about, though, 
is what changed for Thomas ahead 
of the album’s release. How and 
why did it receive so much more 
attention than his previous work?
“I’ve tried to answer this 
question concisely before, and I’ve 
failed, so I’m going to try again 
today,” he responded.
Thomas’s answer reflects both 
his lifelong dedication to music and 
his humility. First, he talked about 
how he’s “always playing music. 
One hundred percent of the time, 
I’ve been in at least two bands since 
I was a child.”
By his mid-20s, Thomas had 
seen the greater part of the civilized 
world, spending up to 10 months 
touring each year, but largely just 
went with the flow, musically. 
“Everything that happened before 
All Are Saved was just what I was 
thinking about at the time,” he 
said. By his mid-30s, he reported 
feeling out of place — “Everyone at 
the show or in bands was at least 10 
years younger than me” — but not 
necessarily in a bad way.
“As soon as I started feeling that 
weightlessness of not really having 
to think about everything that 
surrounded (the music) … I just had 
no choice but to tap into what was 
happening to me, and part of what 
was happening to me was that I was 
no longer really concerned with 
getting attention for my record. 
Ironically, that’s when more people 
started paying attention,” he said.
He also mentioned at least 
a couple of unique sources of 
inspiration at the time. He had 
worked as a caretaker for a dog 
— Kuma, which is also the name 
of his 2012 record — who passed 
away, an experience he told me 
“heightened (his) spiritual sense.” 
While he was writing All Are Saved, 
he also “met and fell in love with 
the woman (he’s) now married 
to.” Both certainly contributed to 
the themes of both love, at its most 

awkward and purest, and loss, at its 
most numbingly devastating.
On the same day of our 
conversation, before I walked to 
Roos Roast Coffee, where Thomas 
agreed to meet up, I was going 
through some old things and 
stumbled on the first issue of a 
zine called “Balcony” that Thomas 
started just over a year ago. Seeing 
his post on Instagram in 2017, I had 
messaged mw address and shortly 
thereafter PayPal-ed him for a copy. 
Thomas opens the zine with a piece 
called “Season Three” in which 
he, among other things, belabors 
the virtues and shortcomings of 
“Jersey Shore” and recounts the 
arduous, self-doubt-ridden process 
of choosing a title for the zine. The 
first sentence of the essay reads, 
“Names are difficult.” Naturally, 
then, my last question about All Are 
Saved is regarding its title.
“Wow, speaking of Instagram,” 
he started, “some beautiful times 
were happening and some really 
dark times were happening, and it 
was all kind of happening at once, 
as it often does, and I was going 
through the car wash, having a 
total existential freak-out … I took 
a picture of the car wash bristles 
for Instagram and I titled it, I was 
like, ‘All Are Fucked,’” his voice 
caricatured to accentuate the 
pseudo-edginess of the statement. 
“And it was like ‘no, that’s stupid’… 
I erased it and put ‘All Are Saved’ 
to try to save that moment and 
to try to save myself from the 
negativity that was creeping into 
so much of my life, and it just kind 
of stuck. I was like, ‘Oh, this is a 
beautiful idea.’ Sometimes the most 
beautiful ideas, you feel like you 
didn’t actually have anything to 
do with them, they were just kind 
of broadcast into you, or through 
you.”
If you read an interview or 
piece about Changer, 2017’s follow-
up to All Are Saved, you probably 
also read about its title, about how 
Thomas had gotten married, quit 
his desk job and moved to Montreal. 
What you may not have read is that 
“Changer” is also a reference to a 
song of the same name that Thomas 
wrote for a band he used to play in.
“It was one of the songs we 
wrote early on, and we only played 
it a couple times, but I was like, ‘I 
love that song! … I’m gonna keep it 
in the back of my mind for another 
time.’”
For a man who claims to have a 
difficulty with names, he’s chosen 
some awfully good ones. They 
lack 
presumptuousness 
while 
ringing with personal truth, two 
qualities that seem to lie at the 
core of Thomas’s entire pursuit 
as a musician. “I feel great for 
anyone who can navigate the music 
industry and still retain their sense 
of self,” he told me, earlier during 
the interview, before pausing for 
a moment. Then he continued, 
“That’s my goal. I don’t know if I’ve 
done it.”
Later in our conversation, he 
touched on a similar note when I 
asked him about the responsibility 
of artists to acknowledge the world 
politically and socially.
“I do think that there’s a 
responsibility for people to, if not 
speak from their political heart, to 
just actually speak from who they 
are, and tell the world who they are 
in as honest and straightforward 
terms as possible,” he said. “I do 
firmly believe that the personal is 
the political, and just the bravery in 
even making any song at all about 
how you’re doing and what you’re 
going through is a political act, and 
in that way, I’m trying to do my 
part.”

We talked about Frank Ocean’s 
Blonde — Thomas likened it to 
Pet Sounds in terms of cultural 
importance and called it his 
“hangover record” — in the 
same vein. “Blonde is such a raw, 
beautiful record … and it doesn’t 
feel like anything besides, ‘OK, 
this is my mind, this is where I’m 
at, this is my perspective, which 
is different from anybody else’s 
perspective in the world,’ and I 
think that’s political in itself,” he 
said.
Moving 
forward, 
to 
2017, 
Thomas immediately mentioned 
Mount Eerie’s A Crow Looked At 
Me as one of his favorites “of the 
last many, many years.”
“I listened to it two times on tour 
and I can’t even actually talk about 
it without feeling like I want to cry 
… talk about a unique perspective, 
and a heart-ripping one. I can’t 
even imagine,” he trailed off, and 
I interjected with my memory of 
Mount Eerie’s performance at a 
festival called Waking Windows 
in Detroit this past summer. 
The venue’s manager had flown 
Elverum in from Oregon to play 
his songs for one 
night only. The 
crowd wound up 
just about knee-
deep 
in 
their 
own tears.
“I don’t know 
how he could do 
it. I sometimes 
cry when I play 
because 
my 
songs are very 
personal 
and 
important 
to 
me. I can’t even 
get through that 
record 
without 
wanting to call everyone I’ve ever 
loved and apologize … The gift that 
is our very, very short time on this 
planet is completely — the point 
is driven home with that record,” 
Thomas said.
On to 2018 and Thomas told 
me his forthcoming record will 
be here in October. “It’s so very 
very different,” he told me. “I have 
nothing but happiness and joy to 
report, but my record is super sad.” 
Where much of the triumph and 
sorrow alike on All Are Saved was 
sourced from Thomas’s personal 
life, it sounds like this new album 
will offer a reaction to the 2016 U.S. 
election and the proceedings since 
then, though he was an observer 
abroad while it all unfolded.
He summed up his feelings on 
the matter with a pithy anecdote: 
“At a certain point into the Trump 
era, I was like, ‘Oh yeah, I haven’t 
listened to Belle and Sebastian in 
a minute.’ Because it feels almost 
irresponsible to have happiness or 
be care-free.”
And if it feels irresponsible 
to listen to music that doesn’t 
in some way reflect the current 
state of affairs, then Thomas 
must have something to say about 
making music that doesn’t seem to 
acknowledge reality.
“I need to know what we can do 
to swing the pendulum back to at 
least where we feel less suicidal … 
I feel like all my time, from when I 
wake up to when I sleep, I have to 
be doing something to fight against 
the legalization of oppression of 
anybody who doesn’t fall into a 
strict red-state blueprint. So that’s 
kinda the vibe of my record,” he 
said.
Throughout our conversation, 
Thomas 
demonstrated 
an 
impressive awareness of himself 
and the world around him. Maybe 
it’s this hyper-awareness that 
comes through in his music as 

Fred Thomas talks titles, 
changes & what’s to come

SEAN LANG
Daily Arts Writer

CONCERT PREVIEW

POLYVINYL

the irritating quality he identified 
earlier. It’s surely responsible for 
the sense of “a guy trying to catch 
his breath while he says everything 
on his mind,” evidenced not only 
by the pace of his lyrical delivery, 
but by the content. For people who 

like tracking along with an album’s 
lyrics as they listen, Thomas’s 
catalog is a goldmine. He deftly 
weaves personal anecdotes with 
newly discovered universal truths 
in a way that feels not effortless, but 
ineffably natural. Despite his poetic 

prowess, though, Thomas will be 
the first to tell you that he’s only 
human, and he’ll tell you whether 
you ask or not. Thomas won’t ask 
for your attention, but you should 
give it to him anyway — not for his 
sake, but for yours.

Ought with Snail 
Mail & Fred Thomas

Museum of 
Contemporary Art in 
Detroit

Thursday @ 8 p.m.

$12.50 - $15.00

In 2011, four individuals living 
in Montreal formed the post-
punk band Ought, releasing their 
debut EP, New Calm, a year later. 
In the time that followed, Ought 
released their first full-length 
and began touring. The relatively 
small band that popped into 
attention following the Quebec 
student protests in 2012 became 
internationally known.
Last Wed., The Daily was able 
to speak with lead vocalist Tim 
Darcy about Ought’s new record, 
Room Inside the World and their 
highly anticipated show with 
accompanying 
artists 
Snail 
Mail and Fred 
Thomas at the 
Museum 
of 
Contemporary 
Art in Detroit.
The Michigan 
Daily: How do 
you feel (Room 
Inside the World) 
is different from 
any of your past 
records, 
and, 
just in general, 
how do you feel 
you’ve 
grown 
as a band since that first EP you 
released, Once More With Feeling?
Darcy: Well, I think parts of 
this record … we were much more 
intentional with it than we have 
ever been as a band. Even writing 
More Than Any Other Day, our 
first full-length, we were just kids 
in Montreal. We would play when 
we had time, once maybe twice a 
week, and play shows and would 
write one new song and play that 
at the show. So the process was 
really drawn-out and there was no 
real time constraint on it because 
we didn’t immediately have any 
end goals besides recording and 
that sort of thing. Then we slowly 
started building up organically, 
like first set recording an EP in 
our house and then doing it in a 
friend’s studio and then just kind 
of the natural way that that goes. 
Even with those, we had all been in 
other bands before so we brought 
a lot of those into the process of 
making that EP, but there was a 
lot of experimenting and figuring 
out what would suit the song and 
then there was a second record. 
We toured the first record so hard 
that when we got back … it wasn’t 
like an imperative but we had a 
three month window where we all 
had to learn French if we wanted 
to stay in Canada. And at the same 
time, we also were writing a new 
record so we were like taking 
night classes, writing during 
the day and we just finished the 
album and then the next day, went 
on tour again basically for another 
year. So, for this record we really 
wanted to move more slowly and 
also communication was a big part 
of it. In the months leading up to 
writing when we were back from 
tour, we just sent around a lot of 
music and little ideas. We made 
this kind of digital mood board 
and uploaded photos and visual 
art that we liked as well as songs, 

or we’d upload a whole record that 
sounds nothing like us but is fun. 
We’d say, “Oh I’ve been listening 
to this a lot, everybody check it 
out.” That part was really fruitful 
for us to wade into each other’s 
subconscious. So, in that way, this 
record, I think, builds some songs, 
builds upon things that we were 
doing on the other records and 
I think do them in the most full 
and fleshed out way that we’ve 
done yet. And then there are other 
things that are completely new 
and that’s exciting for us to get to 
bring that in on our third record.
TMD: So what sort of music 
were you all passing around 
during the weeks leading up to the 
writing of this album?
Darcy: It’s really broad. We 
all really like ambient music, 
instrumental music — we talked 
a lot about synths, particular 
synth sounds because that was 
something Matt (May) wanted 
to experiment more with. We 
wanted to think about textures 
that could kind of add extra layers 
of paint without it necessarily 
being a distortion. But we also 
didn’t want to make an ’80s 
sounding record. We were very 
particular with those sounds and 
ended up looking at particular 
people like Brian Eno, obviously, 
and also this artist, Amanaz who 
has a record called Africa. It has 
some really nice, kind of kinky 
synth sounds on it. It was very 
much in keeping with us in that 
we have such a broad array of taste 
and we always have and to bring 
those things together, it’s always a 
mysterious cocktail.
TMD: You talked a lot about 
experimenting 
during 
the 
band’s formation and even now, 
writing this album, there’s a lot 
of experimenting with different 
kinds of music and different kinds 
of sounds. How do you feel like 
growing up in Montreal, which so 
many people have described as a 
Mecca for art and up-and-coming 
artists, has impacted your band 
and your sound?
Darcy: Just the city in of itself 
has such an aura to it. There are 
very material things like rent is 
pretty cheap and, compared to 
other big North American cities, 
it’s fairly easy to find a practice 
space that you can afford and 
there’s a pretty good network of 
venues. It’s not overwhelming. 
I think coming in doesn’t take 
that long to acclimate, which 
is also another bonus. It’s just 
kind of a perfect size in that it’s 
really fertile and there’s new 
stuff coming in but it’s also not 
so sprawling that you kind of 
don’t even know where to start. 
So in that way it’s really like the 
physical, tangible elements were 
really good for us, starting out. 
Interacting with such a wide array 
of music, and I remember there’s a 
Merrill Garbus, from Tune-Yards, 
quote, and I don’t know if it’s 
written down, but I saw her do a 
symposium in Montreal a couple 
years ago and she was talking 
about how in Montreal she felt 
like no one would be surprised or 
judgmental and she could just be 
weird on stage. It is hard to shock 
a Montreal audience, which is 

great and I think in some ways we 
… I mean we definitely rank low 
on the shocking spectrum as far 
as things I’ve seen in Montreal, 
but it’s a good environment to 
not get caught up in being self-
conscious or being so caught up 
in what is specifically on-trend at 
this particular moment. I think 
that generates a lot of liberating 
expressions. And obviously, you 
know, there’s no perfect place. The 
winters are obviously horrible. A 
lot of people are really broke. But 
Montreal is definitely in the fabric 
of all three records that we’ve 
made.
TMD: I find that your music, 
when I listen to it, it’s very easy for 
me to connect to it. The lyricism, 
especially, just seems to embrace 
the mundane details of life, 
even though your sound itself is 
very broad, as you’ve described. 
This sense of connectability, 
is this something that you try 
to purposefully convey or is it 
something that appears more 
naturally and organically as you 
all are creating these different 
albums?
Darcy: A big part of the 
“Ought-style,” 
which 
we 
all 
kind of witnessed forming over 
several records as we looked 
back, especially working on this 
record, because we were more 
intentionally 
trying 
out 
new 
things, we would get to the end 
of a song and be like, ‘Oh there 
that is, that thing that we do.’ 
One of those things is that we 
definitely combine hooks and 
more accessible rock tropes with 
things that kind of break those 
open and ideally rejuvenate that 
thing and make you think twice 
about it. That’s just been part of 
how the four of us think about 
songs like that. As far as lyricism 
goes, I think about the lyrics 
very distinctly from the music 
sometimes. It really varies by 
song. There are some songs where 
it’s much more about the melody… 
but then there are definitely other 
songs where I’m really focused 
on the lyrics. The writers that I 
like have the kind of clarity that 
you’re talking about. “Clarity” is 
the word I like to use because it’s 
not about simplicity. I really love 
writing that is adventurous. If I 
don’t feel like something is coming 
across, it loses me even if they’re 
turning a nice phrase. I need to 
feel like I’m getting something 
from it, which maybe sounds 
obvious, but focusing on little 
things, that comes very naturally 
to me because it’s very much in the 
things that I like to read.
TMD: What are some of those 
writers that have inspired you?
Darcy: So many. I read a ton. 
I think Joan Didion’s a great 
example. The way that she visits 
very iconic and major archetypes 
in the American psyche, John 
Wayne and I’m reading the 
essay on Haight-Ashbury in San 
Francisco now. She witnesses 
these things and doesn’t draw any 
conclusions. I found that a lot of 
the great thinkers are people who 
are willing to kind of live with the 
questions and sort of see things 
and kind of chew on them a bit but 
not be like, “This is what this is.”

Ought’s Tim Darcy on new 
album and upcoming tour

SHIMA SADAGHIYANI
Daily Music Editor

CONSTELLATION RECORDS

CONCERT PREVIEW

