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