“The Belle Brigade Interview: Poly-rhythms & Harmonies”
By Nathan Emerson
September 11, 2014
Artist, Interviews, Nathan Emerson
The Belle Brigade start off their new album, Just Because, with electronic blips and blurps that explode with a catchy use of a wooden train whistle. The song “Ashes” segues from this catchy whistle and fast drum beat into just a swell with the same pop beat, and lyrics slowly appearing. It starts pulling you in as each word hypnotizes like starring into a fire. Throughout the album so many little idiosyncrasies appear that add twists of flavor with multiple dynamic markings in each song waking your attention. That manipulation of organic noise is the modern sound they went for. Helping with that new sound was Shawn Everett co-producing. He hass worked on albums for Weezer, Bob Dylan, Pete Yorn, Ozomatli, and Har Mar Superstar. It isn’t so much a brand new sound as the harmonies are still there, but the production gives them a fresh sound that carries over into their live show. Energetic sounds and meaningful lyrics invade with their synergies creating a solid album for any music junkie.
Their debut album had a more organic and vintage sound, featuring two songs that inspired much acclaim. “Losers” became an instant favorite and anthem as “Where Not To Look For Freedom” screamed Power Pop at its finest. The hit songs brought them on late night TV including Conan, Kimmel, and Fergusson. They then toured with KD Lang, Dawes, Blitzen Trapper, Grace Potter, and G. Love. The Belle Brigade recorded for Amnesty International’s Benefit album of all Bob Dylan songs “Chimes of Freedom” and donated a song “I Didn’t Mean It” to one of the Twilight movies soundtracks. They actually turned down making a video for the song.
So now that we’ve focused on the music I can introduce you to the people if you don’t already know of them. The Belle Brigade is a brother and sister duo. Barbara and Ethan Gruska compliment each other’s voice and instrumentation perfectly. They sing in perfect harmony, distinguishing each other’s voice can become a betting game. Ethan’s intensity while playing guitar and Barbara’s playful syncopation on drums creates a perfect blend, bonded in blood. Their father is a music composer and producer in the LA music scene and even co-wrote a song with Michael Jackson. Their great-grandfather was a known jazz drummer for Raymond Scott whose music was adapted into all your favorite cartoons: from Looney Tunes and Animaniacs to The Oblongs, Duckman, and several Ren & Stimpy episodes. Their grandfather wrote the score for Star Wars, both Macaulay Culkin Home Alone movies, a couple Harry Potter films, and almost every movie Stephen Speilberg directed, and there was a movie made about them as well.
As you can tell there are many distractions from their music. But along the way, together, The Belle Brigade’s music and relationships have been what propelled their success. Barbara played drums professional (Jenny Lewis, Fiona Apple) before she started making music with her brother and since then The Belle Brigade has played as the backing band for Ray LaMontagne. Their major label Reprise Records was cynical about the new album, so they took it to the amazing ATO records (My Morning Jacket, Alabama Shakes, Drive-By-Truckers) and have worked determinedly touring.
Currently, they are still wrapping up the tour opening for Ray LaMontagne where they also come back onstage and serve as his backing band. Starting this month, they will be opening for The Head and The Heart making three stops here in the Midwest. These will be extremely energetic shows at three remarkable venues: The Significant Meyer Theatre in Green Bay Sept 21st, The Historic Hoyt Sherman Place in Des Moines, IA Sept 22nd, and Arvest Bank Theatre at the Treasured Midland Building in Kansas City Sept 24th.
Here’s our interview.
Your harmonies are great together, so how do you distinguish when to have a solo voice and when sing together?
On our last two records we’ve tried to do as much as we can in harmony, but when it’s felt more powerful and emotional, we’ve gone with just one voice.
Barbara, do you have to focus your singing and drumming around each other or does the breathing come natural?
It’s instinctual.
After Opening for Ray LaMontagne, you then came back and played as his backing band for the tour. Your friends, Dawes, recently did this with Connor Oberst; and it’s been picking up more recently. Do you suggest more bands to try this? I am wondering how that could affect or inspire your live performance and creative writing.
It’s been a great experience, and being a part of someone else’s band is totally inspiring… It forces you to get out of normal habits and gives you more musical opportunities to explore and grow. Also, learning how to serve other people’s songs is a great knowledge bank to have when writing your own material. Basically, you get to play more often and with more variety so you just can’t help learning from it!
Ethan, when playing with Ray LaMontagne, I was wondering if you used your own gear or if you got to experiment through some fun new gear?
Almost all the gear I use in Ray’s set is my own, but the Nord Electro I use is Ray’s. I use it a lot and I love it!
While working with Shawn Everett what were some takeaways or things that helped morph the album?
Shawn added so much to the record, it’s hard to narrow it down… Originally we hired Shawn just to engineer the record, and two days into recording with him we felt like he deserved co production credit because of how much creativity he was bringing. Shawn is one of the most creative people I’ve ever met, and he is never afraid to take the time to experiment heavily and that was really inspiring to us! He really opened our minds to more forward thinking studio techniques and helped our sonic taste evolve!
The new album is very energetic, yet has some serious undertones lyrically. You left one slow song on there called, “Back Where You Began.” Can you tell us about that track?
We wanted the arrangement for Back Where You Began to remain soft and a ballad but have it be inside of a weird sonic world and give it really high intensity… All that percussive stuff happening in the background is just us messing around and banging on stuff in the studio and then we organized all the noise later to be more rhythmically precise. Blake Mills also makes a cool harmonica appearance on the track! I’m happy that the album ends with it… It’s hypnotizing and unique for us and the way it trails off felt like the right way to end the record.
The song “Losers” from your last album was inspirational; and you also recorded “No Time to Think” for Amnesty International’s Bob Dylan Tribute album. Do you have any plans for more social issue songs or even awareness shows, and what would they be?
The Dylan tribute was a really cool thing to be a part of and we are always interested in being a part of awareness organizations when the opportunity arises… We don’t get too political with our music, and we try to not be too preachy with our lyrics, but when we are inspired by something happening in the world enough to write about it we don’t avoid it and we just try to be honest. A lot of what we have written about has been very personal and as we grow as people and travel more I suspect that more of our writing will be influenced by what’s happening outside of our daily life a little more…
What kinds of music have you two been listening to together on the road recently?
A lot more electronic stuff and a lot of Jazz and Brazilian music.
Growing up in a musical family what are your first memories with music?
Coming home from school and going into our dad’s studio in the backyard and hanging with him while he worked.
You have played some amazing venues and late night shows, what have been the highlights, and where are you still looking to play?
Red Rocks was a total dream come true to play and we are really looking forward to playing the Greek in LA in the fall!