Change of Plans

No matter how vastly different every person is, there are a few basic tenets that bond us together as human beings. In the Western world, everybody has experienced the perplexing horridness of hearing the sound of their own voice. Yes, you really do sound like that: the outgoing message on your answering machine doesn't lie. This is just one of many ways we figure out that the world perceives us much differently than we do.
I pondered this whole phenomenon while my voice echoed back to me over the telephone. Hearing the sound of your own voice is bad enough in the first place, but having your questions repeated to you by the specter of your own vocal chords is simply unbearable. The Dismemberment Plan's bassist and keyboardist, Eric Axelson, having had much experience on the phone both as an interview subject and a former telecommunications temp was patient and understanding. According to him, I had the misfortune of getting one of the "few bad carriers in the bunch."
"I used to do phones a long time ago and there's a lot of weird shit that happens." Eric's quick rapport and warmth was reassuring after the off-centering assault of my own vocal boomerang. After twice receiving my phone call and the subsequent pleads to call back, we overcame the technical difficulty and started to talk about their latest tour, their new approach to songwriting and the remix album that the group is currently taking open submissions for. We also tried to shed light on some of the misconceptions that have followed the band since their inception on New Year's Day, 1993.
If you've ever been prejudged by the way you speak or dress, the music you listen to or God forbid your skin color, religion or sexual preference, you know how infuriating it is to have somebody assume something of you that you're not. Washington D.C.'s The Dismemberment Plan have suffered through many suppositions about their band over the years. One look at their name and it's easy to imagine the spidery riffage and guttural growls of death metal, an assumption that made for some surprisingly varied concert bills in the early days of Dis Plan. They are decidedly not a metal band.
Once it was widely discovered how little their music resembled metal they found themselves opening for friends' bands like emo-core linchpins the Promise Ring and Braid, and releasing records and singles on DeSoto, a Maryland-based emo-friendly indie label. One look at the roster of their label and the groups who they've toured with and it's easy to think they must be an emo band, right? Guess again.
"I'm always kinda perplexed when I hear us being described as an emo band," chuckled their friendly ambassador. "We use more melody and less aggression than a lot of those bands. I think [emo is] a different style that what we sound like."
I couldn't agree more. Although singer Travis Morrison croons in an impassioned high tenor and at times the band can be found pounding through frenetic straight-ahead simplicity, even a general musical category like emo seems inappropriate. The Dismemberment Plan occupy an otherwise uninhabited space where heartbreaking melody and dissonance hold equal weight, where The Talking Heads and Britney Spears clock equal playing time, where emotion and intellect reach a gentleman's agreement to work together. Despite the skin-deep depictions from a few popular press notables, Dis Plan are as much an emo band as they are a funk band or pop band: facets of many genres are represented, but none hold a majority share in The Dismemberment Plan's sound.
Many more misconceptions can be drawn from a quick glance at their musical resume. Taking a glimpse at Dismemberment Plan's latest exploits, an uninformed person could come to certain conclusions about a band who was signed to Interscope Records, did a recent European tour with Pearl Jam and whose next release is slated to be a remix album. However, look closer at the details and a rather interesting story takes form.
Having released two full-length albums and a variety of EPs and singles on DeSoto, the group signed to the then respectable Interscope Records, who released an EP (The Ice Of Boston in 1998) and financed the recording of a full-length album. When the major label mergers of the late-'90s squeezed the band into the neither regions of non-priority status, the two parties parted ways. Somehow, Dis Plan left Interscope with the master tapes to a newly completed, unreleased album and with the label owing them some serious coin. The group called the debt even, went back to DeSoto and released their third full-length, Emergency & I, to rave critical reviews, leaving Interscope completely out of the loop. Any band that can finagle a major label into footing the bill for a recording, then leave with the master tapes and no obligations leads some sort of charmed life.
Dis Plan has a firm grasp on how to get people so into their music that they'll work for a song. Take for instance, their upcoming remix album: the band made tracks from their previous albums available on their Web site for download and are taking open remix submissions. This means that you can actually go to www.dismembermentplan.com, download a couple of drum, bass, vocal and guitar tracks, dump them into an audio program like Pro Tools or Acid, work on your own version of their song and send it to the band. It's an exhilarating prospect for both the band and their fans.
"People seem really excited that they can download parts of our songs and play with them," says the enthusiastic bassist. "It's something you couldn't have comprehended five years ago. I'm overwhelmed at how many we're getting. It's cool to see that that many people are into the idea."
Axelson says the band gets a couple submissions per week, everything from house remixes to noise compositions. I asked Eric what he thought constitutes a good remix.
"When they really nail it, when it sounds like they wrote the song themselves. If someone listens to it without knowing who we were, they would probably think that's the way the song sounds. It wouldn't occur to them that that's a remix."
Getting a chance to hear fans' reinterpretations of their songs is a thrill, says Eric.
The remix album, which the band plans on releasing next spring will consist of the group's favorite mixes. The project is not only unique because no band has ever made their music so widely available and held open submissions, but it's an interesting science experiment for the band. They get to hear new interpretations of their own music, and for them, it's kind of like hearing your own voice for the first time.
Besides, they've got some time on their hands for projects such as a remix album. Having quit their day-jobs two years ago, the members of The Dismemberment Plan have been hard at work handling the many aspects that come along with being a professional band. Although they have a publicist and booking agent on their team, promoting the band and securing tours, the self-managed group takes care of the day-to-day business responsibilities themselves. While there are benefits to taking the independent route, the 12-hour day realities of doing the whole operation can have its drawbacks. "How is this playing in a band?" laughs Eric as he thinks back on his occasional computer terminal life as a full-time Dismemberment Planner.
But at least they don't have to clock in at random temp jobs to pay the bills. Their self-employed status allows for more time to write songs, practice their instruments and further develop the Plan's unique sound.
"Yeah, there is more time to sit and play bass all day, and for Travis to write melodies and lyrics," Eric recalls of his band's freedom. "This year we all picked up a lot of computer software for recording and for writing with."
The Plan has been displaying the fruits of their labor this fall, road testing new songs while on tour.
"One of the best ways to figure songs out is play them in front of a crowd," Eric explains with rapid-fire speech. Although a home studio environment is great for writing basic structures and arrangements, gauging an audience's reactions can be integral to figuring out the quirks and nuances of a song.
Lately, Dis Plan has been taking a different approach to songwriting: trimming the fat, eliminating unnecessary parts and heading straight to the heart of the song. Since shooting a video for "Time Bomb," a track off of their latest full-length, Change, Eric says that the group has been conscious to how much repetition goes into a song. In order to make "Time Bomb" fit a typical video's length, they had to cut a minute off of the track, prompting the group to take a new direction in their writing. Instead of exploring a part and letting it breathe for long periods of time, their new songs focus on getting back to the vocals, says Axelson.
"It's hard to get used to at first, but it feels nice. For now, less is more."
They're putting that new philosophy to task while they continue along their month-long West Coast tour, which stops in Chico this Tuesday, November 5th. As much joy Eric gets out of playing live and developing their songs, he says that the excitement on the part of the audience is the best aspect of their energetic shows.
"I'm conscious of when people go home happy. It's cool to see people walk out smiling or laughing, talking to their friends - it's cool to see the people leave having a good time. A lot of people go to shows and they don't dance, they kinda just stand there, but it seems like at a lot of our shows people dance and have fun. It's good to see people going home having a good time."

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