Interview: Catching Up With The Whirlwind That Is Twin Peaks
By Staff in Arts & Entertainment on Oct 30, 2014 7:00PM
It was Labor Day, shortly before 6 p.m., and a line maybe thirty deep extended west down Chicago Avenue in front of Permanent Records’ tinted black window. With Twin Peaks about to launch into their set, all that’s left is the hope of getting in for those still in line. At this point, the quaint Ukrainian Village record store is already packed full with fans in anticipation of a free in-store performance from the young Chicago rock and rollers.
A few weeks earlier, Twin Peaks released Wild Onion—the follow-up to their solid 2013 debut LP Sunken. But Wild Onion finds the band in a far more confident state. Gone is the hazy reverb that soaked the entirety of Sunken. Instead, the band offers up a slightly more polished and certainly tighter sound that when coupled with their much-improved songwriting makes Wild Onion a record that could rightfully claim a spot on many “Best of 2014” lists.
And though the record had only been out for a month at this point, Twin Peaks sent the sticky, sweaty crowd into a dizzying frenzy with every Wild Onion cut performed. Many even sang along as if the album had been out for years. From the hyper fuzz riffs of “Fade Away” to the soulful glam rock hooks of “Making Breakfast,” Twin Peaks proved that although they’re young, they’ve got this rock and roll thing all figured out.
After the show, Chicagoist chatted with all four members of Twin Peaks (Cadien Lake James, Clay Frankel, Connor Brodner and Jack Dolan) about the experience performing at this past summer’s Pitchfork Music Festival, the story behind Wild Onion and playing hometown shows, the next of which is tonight, Oct. 30, at Lincoln Hall (which is sold out) with NE-HI and Flesh Panthers.
CHICAGOIST: So, now that you all are touring nationally quite often, including big festivals and major cities, does playing hometown shows in Chicago still feel special to you?
CADIEN LAKE JAMES: Yeah, because it’s always fun coming home and playing. Plus, I like to be at home. It’s super sweet now too because the crowds at home are absolutely the best. We’ll have great crowds in New York and LA. But there’s nothing like playing at home with how passionate the people are here. I think we mean something extra special to them.
CONNOR BRODNER: People like to see bands come up in their city or anyone come up in their city and represent it all. I don’t know. It’s crazy how much love we get. We’ll get recognized on the street or some shit. It’s all over the place. It’s kind of surreal. But it feels good to be home all the time.
CLAY FRANKEL: All of our friends come. And if we’re coming off a tour that’s like a month long, it’s so good to see your friends and jumping off the stage and having a good time.
JACK DOLAN: And all the shots of Malort, by the way.
CLAY FRANKEL: Also because they’re the ones that keep you in check. We just flew out to Los Angeles, and we’re doing new things like playing big festivals. Then you’ll come home, and you’re friends are just like, “Yeah, what’s up you pussy.” [laughs]
CONNOR BRODNER: It’s a good reality check. Like we’re still just some dudes from the city and shit.
C: Speaking of playing festivals and your hometown, can you talk about the experience of playing Pitchfork Fest this past summer?
CLAY FRANKEL: I mean, we had been going to Pitchfork for kicks over the last few summers. We saw bands that I really admire. So actually being on the stage where I would probably be just hanging out as a fan, it was the best. It was really fun.
CADIEN LAKE JAMES: Two years ago I was in the crowd for the same stage we played on this year, and I was high as hell off some hash. I was crying while watching Deerhunter while they played “Little Kids.”
CLAY FRANKEL: Yeah! He was standing right next to me, and I looked over, and what’s that song they have with the really long krautrock thing?
CADIEN LAKE JAMES: “Little Kids!”
CLAY FRANKEL: Yeah! And he was crying. [laughs] It was crazy!
CADIEN LAKE JAMES: So, to get to go up there, and be on the same side as Bradford Cox, and my boy in the same spot as the bassist who was also killing it—I don’t know his name—but, yeah, it was awesome.
CONNOR BRODNER: Yeah, I only just recently saw the live video or whatever that was put up on YouTube. It’s so fucking badass to see yourself legitimately at Pitchfork Music Fest. Things just keep getting more and more surreal. I think the epitome was these past two music fests and being treated like kings.
C: And for you Cadien, was it cool even though you were in a wheelchair?
CADIEN LAKE JAMES: Yeah, because I got so much love, and people were pushing me around, asking how I was and getting me beers all day. I was getting pampered. I mean I’m so grateful to be walking, but I’m going to miss being like little baby boy. [laughs]
CLAY FRANKEL: Yeah, and one of our good friends wanted to come to the festival and we just got him in because he grabbed [Cadien’s] wheelchair. Nobody questions the guy pushing the wheelchair. [laughs]
JACK DOLAN: Security guys started to remember him as the guy who pushes around the guy in the wheelchair.
CLAY FRANKEL: Connor got kicked out of the field house! [laughs]
C: Really? Why?
CONNOR BRODNER: I don’t know. Nobody knows. [laughs]
C: Something must have happened!
CONNOR BRODNER: I came back the next day, and they told me I couldn’t drink in there because I was caught stealing beers. Apparently, I got caught stealing beers with Danny Brown at one point.
[Everyone laughs]
CONNOR BRODNER: Yeah, I was really drunk having the best time ever, probably. They said he’s having so much fun, let’s get him out of here. [laughs] No, it was probably completely understandable, I’m sure.
JACK DOLAN: We were wrestling. We did like a whole wrestling match in the middle of Pitchfork festival, and he doesn’t remember it.
CONNOR BRODNER: Apparently, I was at the bottom of the dog pile. [laughs]
C: One thing I wanted to talk about is how bands like Twin Peaks and The Orwells are often portrayed in the press. When The Orwells were coming up, much of the press focused on their age, and how young they were. I saw some of that when reading up on you all as well. Does that ever annoy you as in "stop focusing on our age," or do you all not really care what’s written?
CONNOR BRODNER: It’s noticeable when someone’s going to write you off for being young kids playing old school rock and roll or what have you. But it doesn’t matter to us. We do our thing, and we have fun doing what we’re doing.
CLAY FRANKEL: It might even be that we don’t know any better. We just want to have a good time, and we don’t really think about it as much as some people do. I remember actually being at Pitchfork a few years ago watching Surfer Blood. I was standing next to this lady in her 40s or something, and Surfer Blood was pretty young or at least they looked young. She just turns to her friend and says, “I feel like a fucking babysitter.”
[Everyone laughs]
CONNOR BRODNER: It’s going to keep coming, but I feel that people who see us live cannot talk shit. To be real, I don’t think anyone has even talked shit about our live show. Except for the people who get minor injuries.
CLAY FRANKEL: We got an email.
CADIEN LAKE JAMES: Yeah, we got an email one time.
C: Why? What happened?
CLAY FRANKEL: It was a little while ago. We were playing in New York, and I don’t know, man. I blackout on stage because I’m having so much fun I don’t know what’s going on. Anyway, I must have walked close to the crowd, and I ended up hitting a girl in the face with my guitar on accident. Then we got this long email.
CADIEN LAKE JAMES: It’s because you crowd surfed during Born Ruffians’ set.
CLAY FRANKEL: Oh yeah! They wrote in the email, “I understand that you guys have your own show going on, but the fact that he would come back out for the headlining band and think that it’s his time to crowd surf. I’m not coming to your guys show ever again.” [laughs]
CONNOR BRODNER: The funny thing about that is the Ruffians were so down with everything.
CLAY FRANKEL: They told me to do it every night. They said when we play this last song you have to crowd surf, and then the crowd would never catch me.
CONNOR BRODNER: [laughs] Pretty much every night he would just straight up fall on the ground.
C: So, Wild Onion is out now, and I think it’s a really great record. I especially feel that you all have evolved as songwriters from Sunken. So, my question is can you talk a little bit about the story behind the writing and recording of Wild Onion?
CONNOR BRODNER: It’s kind of surprising how big it is right now. It kind of almost feels like a spectacle. We worked really hard on it and all that. We put in our best. But it’s been very surreal lately.
JACK DOLAN: It’s different for me because I was so much better than when we recorded Sunken. I got so much better from all the touring and constant playing. I was in the studio surprising myself with shit. Just like, “I just did that? Nice!”
CADIEN LAKE JAMES: I remember writing the chorus for “Hold On,” and you kept playing the beat before we recorded it. Then between takes for other stuff, you’d say, “Man, I came up with this! It’s crazy, dude. I can’t believe it!” [laughs] I feel like for me, it was awesome to get in the studio with everybody after we were touring for so long. We were so much better and so much tighter. There was so much delay on everything on Sunken. I think the songs were great, but we didn’t really know how to record that well. We were winging it, and I was putting delay on everything to make it like, well, the criticism it got for being too reverbed-out. I think it sounds good for that, and I still like it. But that was certainly something I felt like we didn’t need this time around because we had people helping us record.
CLAY FRANKEL: When Sunken came out, we had played a handful of shows. But before Wild Onion came out, there was a year and half where we were just touring and playing a ton of shows. We were really getting better as a band. We also have a habit of doing things really casually. So, we recorded the album very casually. So, it’s interesting because people now think it’s the best shit ever. We just felt like we had a good time and laid down some songs.
CONNOR BRODNER: We’re definitely still growing into it, and it can only get better at this point.
CADIEN LAKE JAMES: Songwriting is definitely different for me too because it’s all about girls now. [laughs] That wasn’t the case before.
JACK DOLAN: Yeah, it’s starting to get real. [laughs]
C: Also, one interesting aspect of Wild Onion for me was the length. Sixteen songs seems like a lot to me in this seemingly loss-of-attention-span and single-focused era of digital music with Spotify and iTunes.
CLAY FRANKEL: We had a ton of songs. When we sat down and wrote the new record, we probably had about 20 songs or so that we had ready to go. Some were old songs and some were new, but we were listening to Exile on Main St. for a while, and we wanted to make a fat rock and roll, track-all-over-the-place record.
CONNOR BRODNER: We had been touring off Sunken for so long that, in a way, we were almost desperate to record more music. We hadn’t recorded anything for almost two years. So, once they put us in a studio, gave us an advance and all this shit we had never experienced before, we wanted to do it all.
CADIEN LAKE JAMES: Flex.
CONNOR BRODNER: [laughs] Yeah, flexing.
CADIEN LAKE JAMES: I remember talking to our label, and they said 16 tracks seems like a lot. But then I sat down to think about it, and I didn’t know what tracks to even cut. They’re all good, and they all work together. So I thought let’s just keep it. Let’s roll with it. They all fit on one album.
CONNOR BRODNER: In the end, we’re thinking about the fans that want as much music as they can fucking get.
CLAY FRANKEL: It is strange because Cadien was saying for a while that he wanted to record just for people in Chicago. When Sunken came out, some people were slow to hear it or whatever. But in Chicago, people were listening to us at parties, and things like that for two years. Cadien’s said we had to put out some new stuff at least for the folks at home. So, we wanted to put it all out there.
JACK DOLAN: We’re still going to try and push for that direction, too. We don’t want another situation where we wait two years to record another goddamn album. We’re already ready to get more shit out, I think.
C: On that note, what’s next for Twin Peaks?
CLAY FRANKEL: We’re doing a Midwest tour with Chicago band NE-HI, who just released their first self-titled full-length off Manic Static, and they are a great rock and roll band. They’ll be there at Lincoln Hall on Oct. 30 with Flesh Panthers—another great Chicago rock n roll band.
C: And maybe a trip back to the studio soon?
CADIEN LAKE JAMES: We’re scheming a little bit maybe. But we’re touring throughout the fall, so that’s what’s on the plate right now. Then we’ll possibly take a little breather in December and keep on touring come January. But we’ll probably sneak in some recording somewhere. So, keep your ears out, I guess.
By: Richard Giraldi