From The Editor's Floor: Jarrod Gorbel of the Honorary Title

Posted by Scott Heisel on 10-Dec-07 @ 10:50 AM

We here at AP love to talk. So much so that when we do interviews with the rich and famous (or the on tour and barely scraping by eating Taco Bell), we end up with an excess of Q&As that can't be wedged into the magazine, no matter which way we turn it. This is why we have From The Editor's Floor. This week, enjoy copy editor Rachel Lux's full interview with the Honorary Title frontman Jarrod Gorbel about his band's latest album, . -AP

Rachel Lux: What was the catalyst for changing from an acoustic two-piece to the full band with electric guitars?
Jarrod Gorbel: I would say, it's kind of a natural progression. I mean, the writing process for me has always started with an acoustic guitar and myself in a room, but when we started adding more members to the group for the touring process, the band just evolved live and then that live sound kind of got taken home, you know? All the pieces we added during live sets just became part of the sound as well. So because I used to write all stripped down, and now that it's a bigger band, we write together as a band. The evolution of the sound...I'm trying to think of... Yeah, it was just like, the songs were written and played, like, not far off from the way they were originally written. This record, I might bring a song to the table, but John would automatically add another layer and Adam is a lot bigger drummer than the previous drummer. And I think on the first record, we used drummers that were a little more organic and more mellow; Adam's far from mellow.

Yeah. He played with the Format before, correct?
Yeah, they're still a rock group, but they're not, like, crazy.

Right. So, did it change the recording process or the writing process with everyone contributing?
It definitely helped. I mean, it wasn't any less stressful, cause, I mean, I was there the entire time, you know, making sure it was the way I wanted it be, but Aaron deals with things like keyboards and what we were going to do with the bass parts, and John and Adam, you know, we're all very good at vocal harmonies and accompanying the vocal parts or coming up with our own sort of crop melodies. And John is into production a lot, too, and he'll put down one guitar part, which will turn into 8,000 guitar parts. We kind of control him. We're like, "Oh, that's great, we don't need to harmonize that harmony, we should harmonize with the other harmony." But overall, yeah, the weight wasn't on me so it definitely deducted from some of the stress. That was good.

Why did you guys go with Rob Schnapf as the producer?
I guess it would be for obvious reasons. He's worked with Elliot Smith and Beck and just awesome, great artists that we respect and love. I guess, the reason I thought of him at the last minute was my friend Kevin Devine, who had just done his last record with him, and I was in the process of looking at producers and looking for them, and he just like, "Rob's amazing, you should use him." Kevin had played me some of the tracks that he was in the process of doing and they sounded amazing, so he just sent our demos off to Rob and he was in to them, so we were like, "Okay, perfect! Let's do it!"

What did he bring to the album that surprised you?
I knew he knew what he was doing, so I expected great things, but one of the main things he brought was kind of [that] he helped trim down the songs and give them haircuts, take out any extraneous stuff that I myself would have kept in the first place. He really wanted to make them more concise. He needed to comprehend from my perspective that I was just writing for my own ear, for what I wanted to hear and it was like a great outside opinion, a professional one at that, that I could respect and just appreciate. He just kind of made the songs shorter. [Laughs.]

So as far as lyrically, you are known for writing about personal experiences, and this album seems to take that idea to a darker, more pessimistic place.
I wrote this record during a pretty big break-up in my life, a relationship that was a couple of years long, which actually, the last record, I think I was coming out of a similar situation, but this one was a deeper, longer relationship. The last one was more psychotic. The first record I was coming out of a psychotic, shorter, younger relationship. So... [Laughs.]

Sure, so the energies were different?
Yeah, I was just coming out of something like that. "Far More"... What else-what the hell's on this record? [Laughs.] What did I write? "Far More" is a track that was about what I was going through at the time and so was "Wait Until I'm Gone" and "Only One Week." But "Stay Away" I wrote from a friend's perspective. I wanted to try and be able to do on this record-just see what other people were seeing and not be so self-centered.

Was that something that was new for you that you hadn't really experienced before?
No, I mean, I tried [before], but not successfully. [Laughs.]

Is it ever a problem to sing about your past onstage, or can you detach yourself from the content of the songs?
It's more the opposite. It's not like the songs bring you down because they have sad themes. When you play them so much, it would be really draining to feel that every single night; or the opposite, like, when I'm on stage playing a song for the 8,000th time for the 8,000th night in a row, I kind of have to channel something sad myself so I can communicate it the way it was intended. You know what I mean?

Sure.
It's like something where I can be in a fine mood or I can be in an okay mood, so I have to find something that will bum me out because I might not necessarily mean what the song is about because what happened during the song, everything sad happened so long ago. I'm over it, so I have to think of what's currently bugging me so I can channel getting bummed out again onstage.

Yet the album is very catchy.
Yeah, I think the first record is more of a "put on when you want to go to sleep and feel depressed" record. This one, you have to feel a little more upbeat. [Laughs.]

What are your plans after the summer?
I guess we're going to be doing another big tour in the fall, that's kind of in the works, we don't know with who yet. I'm sure we'll make a video for the song "Stuck At Sea."

That's the first single, right?
Yeah, that'll be like the first official single, so we might being doing a video for "In Touch And Intact" just for the hell of it.

Oh, cool. Was there any story for picking "Stuck At Sea" as the first official single?
People noticed it right off the bat. It's bigger sounding than what we're used to having-kind of more of a rock deal. So I guess that's why. Everyone likes it, so fuck it. I think it sucks, but you know, it's all about what they think. [Laughs.] No... I like it.

"Far More" was the first one that really stuck with me.
That and "Stay Away" are my two favorites, but I like the sad songs better. I live in the melancholy world of the bedroom. That's mainly what I listen to; sad, slow records.

So, fans of your first album who maybe haven't seen you since it was just you and Aaron, how do you think they're going to respond to coming out and seeing you now or hearing this record?
I think the hardcore fans never left us and they've watched the transformation themselves. Because live we've been kind of playing more rocked out for a while. So I think they'll be ready. It's kind of the ones who went into hibernation after the first record. It might be a battle, but I hope they welcome us with open hearts and open minds because it is different. Even me, personally, there are bands that I like who started with that kind of lo-fi sound. Like Death Cab We Have The Facts, then all of a sudden their next record was bigger and more produced. I mean, I always liked the original version better. I always like the bands' early, more lo-fi, kind of depressed records way better. With Modest Mouse I always felt that way. The thing is, there's always those people, and then obviously there's always these bands that have all gotten huge, so that means that there's a ton of other people who prefer it. So I'm hoping that's what happens: there's a couple people who understand that we've matured and we're evolving and we're not always going to play the same thing. Hopefully they'll understand that.

Has being upstreamed to Warner Bros. changed anything with recording or the promoting?
It's too early on to say right now. I'm waiting to see what they can do. Once the record's out, we'll be able to see if it does make a difference. I'm not sure right now. People always say that major labels are a lot slower than indies. Indie labels just put out the record and there's no stress about it. But there are a lot more people involved now, and it's a way bigger machine. The actual process takes longer, but supposedly once it gets moving, it's really powerful. Also, at Doghouse, there was not many... We're competing with a lot of big bands now-we have to kind of make sure we don't get lost in the shuffle, because we've got the White Stripes and Muse around us, and they're huge. It's a little scary, but we'll see. Hopefully it will work out.

Portions of this interview originally appeared in AP 230.


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