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A Place To bury Strangers - Interview
loudfarm.com featured content for Tuesday 3.31.09
New York’s psyche outfit, A Place to Bury Strangers is on a relentless upward trajectory. In six short years, the band has received widespread acclaim for their record, and with it’s support has toured opening for the likes of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and Nine Inch Nails. I spoke with Oliver Ackermann, front man of the band and creator of the boutique effects pedal company, Death by Audio, who have made custom pedals for everyone from Lightning Bolt to U2. He shared some thoughts about tour, recording and warehouse living
Loud Farm: So you have a big tour coming up, are you looking forward to that?
Oliver Ackermann: Yeah we are going to Europe and the UK again at the end of the month. It’s always nice, kinda like a little vacation, I guess. It’s less stressful that regular life.
LF: You’ve done some touring in Europe?
OA: Yeah, we have, actually. The shows in Europe with Erase Errata were some of our earliest shows. We didn’t have anything out, and no one knew who the fuck we were.
LF: In certain ways. At least all the goals are short term. How’s the pedal business? You do the death by Audio stuff, and it seems like it’s going strong.
OA: It’s going really, really good. It’s actually kind of spiraled out of control, and we just keep expanding and building more and more pedals and working on ways that we can build them better and faster. It just keeps getting bigger and bigger and crazier and crazier, but it’s really great. I’ve been working with some other people so I have had some time to come up with some new designs for pedals and stuff
LF: I know you have all done a million things over the years, but give me a brief history of the current incarnation of A Place to Bury Strangers.
OA: I kinda started the band in 2003 when I moved to New York, and the other members of the band at that time left and the current guys came in around 2004 and it’s been pretty much the same lineup for a few years now
LF: And is there a new record on the way? I know there is an EP, but…
OA: There was our fist record that came out the year before last, I think, and we have another record that we are recording, and we have been working on it almost every single day on our off time, and I think it is coming out good. Sometimes I kinda get lost on it, and I can’t always tell what’s going on, but I think it’s gonna be cool
LF: Do you have a studio at home?
OA: Yeah, I live in this giant warehouse in Brookland, and we built the whole inside, so there is this practice space/recording studio and art spaces and the pedal building factory and all that. It was one of the old Domino Sugar factory offices, so it was this big warehouse, and we built a second floor and all that stuff.
LF: So, I expect you have been touring pretty relentlessly…
OA: Yeah we did a lot of touring last year, and I expect that it is gonna start back up sometime soon when the record comes out and all that.
LF:Has that mostly been pretty positive?
OA:Yeah, really great! The other people in the band are really cool, so it’s really easy going, the shows have been really good and the kids are give a good response and all so… We have gotten to do some great shows, like a festival in Barcelona, and we opened up for Nine Inch Nails for a few shows which was really nuts, playing arenas and stuff. It was kinda crazy like “what the heck are we doing here” but it was pretty cool.
LF:So you are working on this record, do you have an ETA for it’s release?
OA:Well we are working on maybe 18 songs, but I think only 10-12 might go on the record. I am hoping we will have it all finished by the end of this month, before we go on this tour so I think it will come out in early August or something like that. I don’t want to call it done before it’s done though. Sometimes being locked up in a recording studio for days at a time will result in the songs taking on new shape, and we may start rewriting the songs and so forth.
LF: Being able to roll out of bed and be at the console is nice too. You never had that feeling of being on the clock, like in the old days.
OA:Yea, definitely, it’s nice to not have the stress of like, “we have to record 7 songs in 3 days”. I never feel like I am very happy with the products I get from those kinds of situations. I have been in bands and spend like two years making a record, working every single day at it - and I am trying not to do that kind of thing any more, but It is definitely a good learning experience to make a record that way. You have to call things done at some point.
Interview by S.McA
