Peña
Don't call it math rock
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Try and name all the post-rock bands in Denver. Tough, huh? There aren’t many, but that may actually be a good thing for Peña. Why sound like an imitator when you can be an innovator? The band—comprising guitarists Aaron Ray and Dave Allen, bassist Nick Sullivan, and drummer Michael Scarano—touches, better than most, on subtle post-rock conventions and melds it with mellow electronic interludes and trumpet solos. Its new Best Friends EP, to be released tomorrow night at The Larimer Lounge, is layered with extended guitar crescendos and crushing drums—it’s post-rock nuance all the way. Decider spoke with Ray about friendly monsters, robotic playing, and how Peña songs can be really confusing to arrange.
Decider: Is the EP title Best Friends a little tongue-in-cheek?
Aaron Ray: [Laughs.] It's funny because our music is sort of on the darker side, but as people we're really sarcastic and joking constantly. Mike [Scarano] did this awesome cover illustration for the album, which is of all these big monsters destroying this city—but it's cartoony, and the monsters look happy. So, we were sitting around thinking of titles and we said, "Let's just call it Best Friends," because the monsters are all having a good time.
D: That's a rare case of the album title coming from the album art.
AR: We're actually really bad with names and song titles. We usually don't even name the songs. We call most of our older songs something different each time.
D: The three long epics on the new album are separated by three short, mellow interludes. Is there a mellower side of Peña emerging?
AR: We've definitely wanted to experiment with more ambient, electronic stuff for a while, and we finally got a chance to do that. That's how we ended up bringing in this guy Joshua Trinidad, who's a local jazz guy that plays trumpet. He's really amazing. We're hoping with the next record we can push it even further.
D: The song "Escalators" on the new album is 12 minutes long and has at least 10 distinct parts. How do you keep track of it all when you’re jamming and writing songs?
AR: We have a dry erase board, but we haven't used it like we should. We try to name a part something we'll remember but, by the end, we're at part 10 and it gets sort of confusing. We usually give the parts dumb names like "The Panda Fight Part" or "The Sad Robot Part"—just dumb random things.
D: You've been described as math rock, but the music is too spacious and melodic for that title.
AR: When we first started, that was more of what we were doing. But we were never that math-y. When I think of a math rock band, I think of really schizophrenic and noisy stuff. I think our older stuff sounds almost like what Pinback would sound like without vocals. We've always been more melodic and cinematic.
D: Are we ever going to hear some vocals? Does anyone in the band have secret golden pipes?
AR: No, not at all. Actually, Dave [Allen] might, but I think his vocals would sound more like The Beatles. I actually sang a little bit in the first band Mike and I were in, but it was pretty awful, so we got rid of the vocals.
D: Peña's music is heavily based on these interweaving, endlessly looping guitar melodies. What does repeating a guitar line 50 times in a row offer that playing it once doesn't?
AR: It gives us the opportunity to build the energy through layering instead of playing a riff the standard four or eight measures. We extend that, and I think that adds to the intensity of things once it gets to its full peak. Mike and I both started playing music in 2000. He bought his first drum set for 200 bucks, and I bought a guitar from a pawn shop. So, I learned to play guitar exclusively with drums, which has made me a really rhythm-oriented guitar player. I play like a robot sometimes.
D: Do you think your lack of formal training has led to some interesting sounds?
AR: I definitely think so. I think if I had lessons, it might have hindered some of the stuff that I have come up with. But the other two guys in the band, Dave and Nick [Sullivan], know a lot of music theory, and Nick plays in a blues band as well. Those two guys come with the rules, and then Mike and I break the rules. All of us working together make for some cool stuff.
