Interview: Revolving Doors
An instrumental band shows some growth on Songs For Car Commercials
Adam Perkins
Article Tools
It turns out Madison-Milwaukee instrumental band Revolving Doors’ second album, Songs For Car Commercials, is a good one to put on while washing dishes. In this case, that’s a compliment: While a lot of instrumental-rock groups get stuck heaving themselves through one windy crescendo after another, Revolving Doors’ earnest and layered blend of pop melodies and electronic treatments can actually catch listeners off-guard in such lonely or dull moments. Since the trio put out its first, self-titled album back in 2007, it has grown into a more diverse and confident outfit, and certainly more at ease in its singer-less existence. On new tracks like “Summer’s End,” Scott Cannaday’s multi-tracked guitars and Robert Berry’s keyboards mesh together and take the lead as drummer Brad Hawes provides a multi-dimensional backbone. Before celebrating a dual CD release with friends The Cemetery Improvement Society this Friday at The Frequency, Hawes and Cannaday sat down with Decider.
"AM Radio" by Revolving Doors
Decider: The song “AM Radio” is a good example of how this album’s different from the first: There’s a chord progression and a few other different elements built around it, but not any one central hook. How did your writing process change on this album?
Scott Cannaday: The song that comes after it, “Ryan’s Beard,” was originally the song. I just wasn’t entirely happy with how the song was starting. The first chord hit and it just sounded funny to me. I added the electric guitar part that’s in it, then I came up with the classical part, and it was just kind of all these things that became a little proceeding song that led into it, gave it a nice little transition and a better feel to the next song. I hope. That was something entirely out of just having the time to sit down and work on something, instead of being in the studio and always looking at the clock—it kind of holds back creativity a bit.
D: The title Songs For Car Commercials seems pretty self-deprecating.
SC: A lot of times with instrumental bands, there’ll be a song that you’ll listen to and say, “I think I heard that on a car commercial.” There’s a song on the album called “Song For A Car Commercial,” which was intended to be kind of that style, so I guess it’s a slight stab at that type of music, but also at the same time enjoying it.
D: It’s funny, because a lot of instrumental-rock bands go for that epic, post-rock feel, but it seems like you’re going for something different here.
Brad Hawes: When we first started, we were really naïve about instrumental music. We thought we had stumbled upon this original idea, but not only are there a lot of bands doing it, it’s almost a style that’s become kind of cliché.
SC: The way I describe [the new album] is pop-instrumental rock. The first album, we didn’t really have any songs under five minutes, and on this one we tried to keep them all under four, four and a half. Not necessarily to the detriment of the song, because we try to write more stuff that would keep the listener’s attention at all times.
D: There’s a decent number of instrumental-rock bands around town. When are all these bands going to actually get together and do a show?
SC: We’ve never been able to do all-local bands, but we love to do all-instrumental shows. We did a show with El Valiente and Cougar [in November 2007], and then we did one with El Valiente and Dub Trio last year. So those shows are always a blast, and when national bands come through, to be able to put local instrumental bands on display like that—it’s a style of music that is really hard to get out to everyday people, so to have an audience actually paying attention is great.
BH: I think it helps, too, for people who aren’t exposed to that kind of music, to have an instrumental group sandwiched between two groups with vocalists. Most of the time, if you have a whole night of [instrumental music], it’s like, “Okay, this is the theme here, I guess I just kind of have to get used to it!”
_jpg_50x50_crop_q85.jpg)
