Causecast

Since first emerging from Portland, Oregon in 2003, the unrepentantly whimsical folk outfit Blitzen Trapper have self-released three albums and two with Sub-Pop, each winning critical acclaim, including the Pitchfork tip of the top-hat for 2007 Best New Music.

Brandon Deroche sat with Blitzen Trapper to discuss volunteering with the School of Rock and why even its laureates struggle to succeed today.

Causecast: I’ve been asking a lot of musicians the same questions. The first one seems rather obvious – Do you feel that music can be used as a vehicle to create social change?

All: Yes.

Marty Marquis: The obvious way that that can happen is maybe the traditional ways through writing protest songs, or things like that. But one thing we’ve noticed as we’re traveling around the country playing music, is that a lot of times the clubs where we play, the venues are in some of the more distressed parts of the city, places that don’t have much of a community or much sidewalk life. The kind of music that we play attracts people down to those kind of areas and provides a venue for them to interact with each other and to forge connections that they wouldn’t have. And then hopefully it fosters the growth of other businesses in the area and starts to help revitalize parts of the city that haven’t had a whole lot of love. So that’s one way that happens.

For example, there’s a club in Portland, Oregon, where we’re from, that opened on a stretch of road that was pretty run down. It’s been open maybe five years now, and just by providing a place for people to come and listen to music which is a quintessentially social experience, it’s really helped change the character of that part of the city, in Portland. But there are examples like that all over the country.

CC: Can you name any artists that have really embodied using music for that purpose?

Brian Adrian Koch: I always think of Bono as like the quintessential crusader, you know? Maybe Radiohead, now? They definitely have a platform, on which they’re using music to pull that along.

Marty: It’s almost like, by making good music, they’ve been able to gain a voice in culture that they wouldn’t have otherwise. It gives their stances on social issues a lot more credibility. It’s almost like the music market is sort of a democratic mechanism, that elevates certain people and gives them a place to speak from.

“…I think our cause is music. That’s what we do and that’s what we love to do, and whether or not we can make a living off it, we’d still be doing it. ”
- Marty Marquis

Erik Menteer: It also kind of helps people that aren’t necessarily involved in music – they can almost use music as a conduit into getting their message across, you know? Or maybe the music can be an empowering thing, where otherwise the person might not have a venue to express their opinions or get any sort of like social change or information about it out to people. It just provides a nice social venue that that can happen through.

CC: Are there any causes that you guys, as a band, are passionate about?

Michael VanPelt: In a broad sense, I think, feeding ourselves has been the biggest cause for us.

Marty: [laughs] I think it comes down to, ultimately, whether you’re doing this because it helps everybody’s quality of life out, you know – the crowd, and us as musicians, and the other people who are benefiting from us in different ways, or whether you’re looking at it as strictly a money-making venture. And so, I think our cause is music. That’s what we do and that’s what we love to do, and whether or not we can make a living off it, we’d still be doing it. And hopefully, you know, helping bring people together on whatever small scale we’re able to. But there’s a friend of ours in Portland, who started a print-making studio. It was a non-profit, and she just wanted to open up a space where people could get together and use print-making equipment. And we played benefits for her for several years, but I think that’s the only official cause we’ve ever…

Michael: What about School of Rock?

Erik: Oh yeah, we did that…

Michael: Brian sat in with the School of Rock boys – and girls.

Marty: Do you guys know about School of Rock?

Brian: It’s an organization that helps kids learn how to play rock and roll music, loud, heavy and properly, with everything that comes along with it, you know? There’s a documentary about the creator, about their… I think it’s called Rock School, I think… I’d imagine the character that Jack Black plays in the School of Rock to be based on this fellow, but I don’t… It doesn’t really make sense that that would be based on him, but… So then in all these different cities, there’s Rock Schools where young kids learn the language of rock and all the different rock chops that come with it. And then they play shows, and they play cover tunes primarily. So there’ll be an all-star band that will play, like, all of a Judas Priest record, or something. And then they’ll do it out live, and people will come to see them. It’s pretty amazing.

Marty: Keeps them off the streets, too.

Brian: In Portland, they did one where all the kids played with a member of each of the bands that they were covering, so…

Erik: And it was all local bands, right?

Brian: Yeah, Northwest.

CC: So, you guys were kind of discussing this, but what is the biggest struggle as a band in today’s world to succeed, or progress, or survive?

Marty: What are the biggest challenges to a band’s survival these days? Gosh.

Erik: DJs?

Marty: [laughs] Yeah.

"… For me, going to see a live show when everything works out… Gives you a taste of what it was like when I was first listening to music as a very young child and was just totally in awe of this thing that I didn’t understand but was somehow really deeply connected to me. "
- Brian Adrian Koch

Eric Earley: It’s mostly just the proliferation of bands, like there’s millions of them. It’s easy to make millions of extremely mediocre records. But I think that’s one of the main problems of the world, is that there are too many people. There’s not enough food or enough water, not enough space to live, an economy that’s so complex because there’s so many people, and everything’s so messed up and nobody knows why. But yeah, you could call that a band’s struggle.

Marty: You could say – it’s hard to be heard. Everybody can make a record if they’ve got a bedroom and a computer.

Eric: And there’s no objective, like, cultural way to like, weed out the shit from the good stuff, you know? I mean, especially in America, where we have very little like, real culture, in terms of roots. I think that’s part of the reason right now why Americana music has got a certain popularity going on, because Americans, at this time, are trying to find someplace to root down and find themselves.

CC: Do you guys care more about someone buying your album or coming to see you play?

Brian: They’re both great.

Eric: I mean, I think they’re two different art forms. And so I think some people appreciate one more than the other.

Marty: I think that, you know, when you have a bunch of people getting together to see a show, there are synergies that are possible that aren’t possible when you put on a record in your bedroom listening to it in headphones. So, yeah.

CC: So if someone downloaded your album for free, but came to see you play…?

Marty: That’d be great, you know? Ultimately, we just want to get the music out there and help people appreciate good music, you know?

Brian: For me, going to see a live show when everything works out gives you a taste of what it was like when I was first listening to music as a very young child and was just totally in awe of this thing that I didn’t understand but was somehow really deeply connected to me. And I think live shows provide that much more than a record will – that feeling where you’re just getting lost in something -

Erik: It’s intoxicating.

Brian: And this kind of comes back into the community thing, too. I think that ultimately people are going to always want to gather together. There was a time, it’s hard to imagine, before advertising, when people were still just getting together to listen to music for the sake of the music.

Read more Causecast musician interviews at www.causecast.org/music.

Find more on Blitzen Trapper at www.BlitzenTrapper.net

Transcription by NICHOLAS CHUNG, Causecast Writer

Photo 1 by Junichi Furukawa, Concert Co-Op.

Photo 2 by Christian Reed, Concert Co-Op.