Seattlest Interview: Adam Granduciel of The War on Drugs

We had the pleasure of speaking to The War on Drugs frontman Adam Granduciel before catching their (excellent, as predicted) set at the Tractor Tavern on Wednesday. We'll let the interview speak for itself but highly recommend you catch them when they come back in town.

How is the tour going so far?
Our shows been great. This is our first tour with our own sound guy, which has been a huge step for us. It feels like he's sort of acting as a fifth member of the band.

What has your experience been like playing the new songs live?
The record is pretty layered, so we do have a few samples that we play along to. For the most part, we do the songs justice, but we definitely try to find little moments where we can expand and try to take to a bit of a different place every night. We do a lot of the interludes, which is fun. We try to play a lot of our catalog- we've been playing a lot of old songs.

I noticed that a few of the tracks off of the Future Weather EP have made it on to Slave Ambient.
With some of the tracks, like "Baby Missiles," I worked on for so long that I knew I wanted to put it on a full length so it could get to more people. Other tracks, like "Brothers," were a similar experience. It feels like the same song, but both versions put you in a completely different place.

Are there other tracks that have gone through a total process?
A lot of the songs on Slave Ambient are the product of being built up and then changed over the course of a period of about three years or so. I'm always taking one idea as far as I can and then stripping it away."I Was There" is another example -- I ended up using the original vocal track for the full length. It felt the most honest, or something,

That's interesting.
I did the basic track in Dallas and started working on it when I was back in Philly. I was working on guitar stuff with some friends, drinking wine, and I decided to record some vocals. I had some melody ideas and a few lines in my head. I sang it, and I really liked it. Over the next few years, I redid the song a couple of times, but when we were mixing I decided to go back to the original take. It's the only one that really did it for me. Even if there's a little gibberish in there, it works. Our music isn't the work of a perfectionist, but it's more of a collection of little moments -- like a guitar lick -- that make the recording for us.

Your songs sound entirely intentional but also posses a rambling quality. How much of your lyrics are improvised?
A lot of the songs on this record were. It's the kind of thing where if I'm working on the song and an arrangement for it, I'm always doing scratch vocals or have one or two lines in my head. When it comes to recording, I'll usually have had a few months of thinking about it so it's not like I'm reading lines off of paper or something. I always get to the point where by the time I'm recording the song I'm extremely close to it. Little gems come out that I don't think I could have written, but were created in the moment. Sometimes those are the best ones.

Your recording process has thus far been gradual and taken place over the course of years. Do you see yourself ever recording consistently in a studio?
I don't think we'll do another record over this much time. I think that I can now get there a lot quicker, but with the same results. I would love to try something live with the band. It might be interesting to do something with the chemistry and the experimentation that goes along with it.

Where does the title Slave Ambient come from?
Originally it was just a working title. I was staring at the back of a compressor where you "slave" two machines together, so I started cataloging the songs I was working on as "Slave One" or "Slave Two" so I knew what version they were. I had written down "Slave Ambient" on a cassette, and I knew when I saw it. It made sense -- the two words felt right together. For me, it wrapped the whole album up.

What's coming up for The War On Drugs?
We have a few East coast shows in December, and then we're doing a mini-European tour in February. We'll be back on the West Coast later this spring.