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Tortoise Interview

loudfarm.com featured content for Thursday 6.25.09

John Herndon’s ears have always been open. Anyone who is familiar with the Chicago-based, drummer, composer, arranger, and all-around-mad-polyrhythmic-scientist who started a little side project called Tortoise over 15-years-ago will probably agree. However, if you are not familiar with him and his band, there is one thing you should take away from this 247-word intro.

1. Herndon is kind of artist who can talk about the spiritual journey of listening to the Kiss Alive! album and in the next second, compare that recording to the free jazz precision and animal-like woodwind effects of Eric Dolphy. (Essentially, he is about as comfortable in different musical genres as Brier Rabbit in a brier patch.)

Tortoise’s new album, Beacons of Ancestorship, does not waver from this collision-of-sound-is-our-friend ideology, nor does it disappoint. Synths collide with bass line hooks, foreign noises are both ugly and beautiful to the eardrum, and references to funk, jazz, ‘90s rave dance clubs and indie rock time signatures are acknowledged and discarded as if the bands’ sheet music was literally on fire while in the studio. Some will most certainly say that the record as yet another “comeback” for a band that has been continuously working for the past five years on countless side projects. Loudfarm, however, decided to sit down with one of the unspoken heroes of contemporary music about coming to terms about being a critically acclaimed musician, letting an album be done, and the most beautiful trash can lid in the world.

Loud Farm: Tortoise has probably the most “comebacks” than any other contemporary band I can think of. Well, maybe with the exception of Michael Jackson. That’s a bit ridiculous, no?

John Herndon: Yeah, the “return of Tortoise” is a bit of a ridiculous statement. Even though it’s been five years since our last record, we have been playing a lot, hosting festivals, working on side projects. However, I don’t think anyone thought it was going to be such a long space between albums, but what can I say? Time just got away.

LF:You happen to hop into different, genres, sometimes in the same song and sometimes within seconds of each other on Beacons. When do you consider a song to be done?

JH: We had actually turned in a version of the record of Beacon in December. But after a couple of weeks playing it, we decided as a band, that the record was not done. I guess, something about it will tell you that it needs to be done, or else you end up dealing with a Chinese Democracy situation. You just need to give it some legs and let it scram.

LF: Sounds like a collective decision. Would you say that as a group you are telling a story with your music?

JH:On a certain level, when you are playing a piece of music you are telling others about your life, but I don’t think of it as defined as that. I just think about how to fit into the group. There is no front person and rarely any solos, so I just think about being like a link in the chain. At the same time, music will always be an extension of you.

LF:How would you describe how you have grown as a musician, say, since when you first stepped foot in Chicago?

JH:I guess you start somewhere and you end somewhere. Your footsteps trace your path and it is kind of like that with music in my life. There is always a thread going, but I don’t think you ever arrive at that destination. Sometimes I think about growing up. I have a thing about people who put these walls around music and how they feel like it is supposed to be defined. I’m the kind of person who will love to hear something like Kiss Alive! and someone like Eric Dolphy or Snoop Dog. There is something about music where a piece of it will attach itself to me. From black metal to free jazz or syrupy pop. I like to listen to music like that, so my path musically has always been like that.

LF: What piece of equipment, instrument, or recording device has just knocked your socks off recently?

JH:I like Protools, Ableton Live, and the MPC, but I tell you what I just got this stainless steel cymbal made by Gregg Keplinger from Seattle. I got this 20-inch cymbal from this dude and it is the best thing I got in a long time. It’s like the most beautiful trash can lid I have ever played.

Interview by Patrick knowles