Radio Exile | Radio Exile Interview with Creaky Boards

Radio Exile Interview with Creaky Boards

By Radio Exile Staff December 19, 2008 Post a comment | Email the author

Recently, our very own Tom Williams got to sit down with Andrew Hoepfner from Brooklyn’s Creaky Boards [Myspace] to discuss the success of their latest album, Brooklyn Is Love, the awesomeness of Brian Wilson and this whole Satriani-Coldplay-Creaky Boards saga. Here’s what Andrew had to say:

Tom Williams: You reference a muse in the title of one of your songs but from listening to the album, your muse seems to be less of the traditional lover and more Brooklyn/life in New York. Where do you draw your inspiration from?

Andrew Hoepfner: Unfortunately, I must admit that most of the stories on Brooklyn is Love are of the traditional lover variety. It seems the city metaphor makes the album appear like it is about something bigger. Thank goodness!

A lot of songwriters gravitate towards expressing personal stories about themselves and their experiences with love. That instinct was guiding me for a long time, too. But releasing this record feels like the end of an era to me. Now I’m sick of autobiography. I’m gonna try to turn my eyes to the outside for a while.

Check out more of this exclusive interview “after the jump”

TW: What brought you to New York and Brooklyn?

AH: I roamed around on the Greyhound bus for two months, and I had a list of my favorite spots. New Orleans, Austin, Savannah, and Los Angeles. But New York was at the top, without a doubt. When you take a stroll down the street, you’ll see thirty different doors you kinda wanna peek inside. There aren’t many places I’ve found with the same allure.

TW: One of the great things about Brooklyn Is Love is that it’s a wonderful recreation of Brian Wilson’s recreation of the Spector Wall of Sound. Where the 60’s versions of the Wall of Sound always sounded somewhat impersonal to me, yours sounds very personal, like you play most of the parts on the album. How was the album recorded?

AH: My bathroom is completely tiled, even on the ceiling. Background vocals and castanets and whatnot were recorded in there. The rest of the instruments were recorded in my apartment bedroom. Every sound was recorded through PZM microphones. I believe their traditional use is to partly capture drum sounds, together with the overheads and the close mics. But I used PZMs for every single sound on the album. Except, ironically, the drums. I am ashamed to admit I have not mastered the technique of recording drums yet. Those were recorded by a masterful man named Marc Ospavot at Emandee Studio. I am not sure whether or not he used PZMs. I drenched everything in my Peavey Valverb, which is a wonderful tube reverb rack device.

TW: The influence of Brian Wilson shines throughout Brooklyn Is Love. What is your relationship with the music of Brian Wilson?

AH: The 60s original Smile sessions are some of my favorite sounds ever. I tried to quit music for a few years because I thought it was bound to lead me to unhappiness and self destruction. But in 2006, Smile convinced me to start playing again.

TW: In my mind, your YouTube video pointing out the similarities between “Viva la Vida” and “The Songs I Didn’t Write” was one of the great PR moves by a band in recent memory. In less than a week you went from being almost completely unknown to being close a household name. Did you at all expect the reaction the video received?

AH: No. When you decide to be a musician, you’re pretty much deciding to be a completely unknown musician. Every day I’m surrounded by friends who I consider genius artists. The work they make is as moving and powerful as anything. Here and there, one of us will get famous or have a brush with fame, but for the most part, we will stay under the radar. But we’re well aware of this, and we keep going because we get our happiness from the creative stuff that doesn’t have to do with commercial success.

My recordings and performances are made for the little clusters of people that come to our shows, in New York and on our makeshift tours. And for the handfuls of folks who click around at our online stuff. They are for our friends in the bands playing before us and after us, and the bartender and the sound guy and the scatterings of strangers at these clubs and bars where 10 people come or 80 people come or whatever. That’s who the Coldplay video was for, too. And it just happened to go a lot farther.

A lot of people have asked about that video since I posted it, and I’ve even found myself changing my answer because it feels weird to regurgitate. At first, I said it was fun little art project I did once over a weekend. Then I described it as prank call that happened on a really large scale. Now, I sometimes think of it as giving the world a little tickle below the ribs. At least the entertainment world. And yes, to some extent, the video was a publicity stunt. But I don’t like how that term implies that I was some attention starved dude who was willing to do any desperate ploy to nab an audience. I made that video because it felt like a natural way to express my surprise after seeing the iTunes commercial, and I thought my friend Dan’s script was a clever paraphrase of a conversation we had. And the video still seems like a clever, entertaining, pretty little clip to me.

TW: You seem to be at the center of a lot of great underground music in New York, with your own project and also playing as one of Shilpa Ray’s Happy Hookers. What are your favorite bands from New York, the bands that more people should know about?

AH: I want to give a shout out to two other bands that I play bass in. I know it seems self-absorbed to list more bands of mine, but these ones are completely masterminded by my friends, I just show up and play the notes at the live shows. One band is Darwin Deez. The music is kind of like Michael Jackson combined with the Strokes. We do choreographed dances in between the songs. It’s a really unique fun happening. The other band is A Fermata/Felt Light Strikes. Michael sings exceptional lyrics, one song will be about insects and fish and the peace of nature, and then the next will be about the strange downfall of Gary Glitter, each in a spiritual, enchanting way. We are playing New Years Eve at the Bowery Ballroom opening for Patti Smith, and so excited of course for that. Lastly, I would like to give a shout out to Nan Turner, who I have never played with, but today, I cannot stop thinking about her new raps. Nan is a rock ‘n roll drummer but recently she has came up with a few raps that I find very vivid and bold and fun and free and inspiring.