It's unusual to find a band of friends who are able to believe in their adolesent fairy-tales when they grow up. But since high school, Avey Tare, Panda Bear, Geologist, and Deakin continue to nurture their shared musical interests, evolving their whimsical jams under the Animal Collective moniker. Street spoke with Geologist (a.k.a. Brian Weitz) about the recently released Strawberry Jam, their unorthodox shows, and how they linked up with an unknown Philly artist for their nationwide tour.
Street: About the new album, were you guys working with any concepts or specific ideas while writing?
Geologist: It's not as much of a concept album as Feels. All of our albums deal with our lives at the present time. Specifically, some of the themes on Strawberry Jam are fatherhood, death, being older, growing apart from your parents that still want you to be a good son, and current relationships after the initial period of falling in love. Despite the fact that people write about us as juvenile "man-children" writing about their adult fantasy, we try to extend ideas from childhood in the context of an adult. I think that this is our most mature album yet.
Street: And sonically, what was your idea for the sound of the album going into the studio?
Geologist: For this record we tried to keep it stripped down. Normally we record songs as they are live and throw on 100 overdubs. It usually ends up as one big cloud of sound. We decided to limit ourselves and keep it so you can hear the edges. For us, it's the most minimal record we've ever done.
Street: How have the shows been going?
Geologist: The same as usual. We've written a lot of new material so that's the majority of the set we've been playing. The reactions change a bit, you can see in the faces. When we play the songs no one knows it's a bit mellow but when fans hear songs off of past records they really liven up. We've gone out of our way to make a point of mentioning that the bulk of what you're going to hear is unreleased. We hope that fans are willing to lose themselves, assuming we do a good job, and just come along for the ride.
Street: Your supporting act for the tour, Tickley Feather, is a pretty unknown act even in her hometown of Philadelphia. How did you guys meet up with her?
Geologist: It was actually a friend who introduced us to her during work on a film he was producing. He mentioned she also made music, and we checked it out on her MySpace. We were impressed, so we asked her to open up the Panda Bear show in Philadelphia. Afterwards, we all sat down and decided to bring her on tour. We're really excited to get her name out there.
Street: Anything you want to say to your hometown fans before the show?
Geologist: Go Eagles.
Animal Collective performs at Starlight Ballroom (9th and Callowhill) on September 29th.
