The Velvet Teen

Few bands are setting out on cosmically ambitious paths with the same fervor as Santa Rosa, CA's The Velvet Teen. From the band's debut, they eschewed the pomp of indie rock predilection and instead vented in sonically voracious ways-always anchored by the lofty vibrato and buoyant musicianship of lead vocalist/guitarist Judah Nagler. The band, however, is no one-man army. Both Josh Staples (bass/vocals) and somewhat-new drummer Casey Deitz project the pathos and pensiveness through either frigid subtlety or majestic bluster. Their latest, Cum Laude (Slowdance Records), is a study in distortion-laced distension, and is a major departure for the group-in production style, at the very least. The band's methods may seem odd to the novice listener-and, with Cum Laude, even more baffling to the acquainted-but their drive to perpetually push the envelope is a primary force behind the band. And according to Nagler, all the pieces seem to be in place to forge a path in new directions. After all, they have technology on their side.

The new album definitely has a more distinct production than Elysium-the electronic elements. What kinds of things influenced the band to stray from a cleaner recording?
Well, I've been doing electronic music since I was about 17, and I've always wanted to put it into the band atmosphere and really hadn't had that opportunity until our drummer Casey joined up a couple of years ago. He can play a lot of really fast drum 'n' bass-influenced beats and doesn't mind playing to a click. Really, that was the main thing that prompted it-because finally we could. As far as the vocals being distorted, I really like distorted vocals. They really bring out the harmonic qualities of the voice. We may have been a bit heavy-handed on it and done it on too many songs, in some people's opinions, but it seemed like it fit each song.

Has adding Casey to the band changed the band's direction in any other ways, aside from the electronic exploration on Cum Laude?
Well Logan [Whitehurst, former drummer] was a great drummer, but he definitely had his limitations for what he could do and what he wanted to do. We weren't tied down by any means; we only got to do two full albums with him, besides some earlier stuff. We kind of were thinking about doing a straightforward guitar record too, at this point. But we all seemed to be in agreement that we wanted to do something with a few more possibilities, as far as sound experimentation. We didn't have a set idea in mind other than what we wanted to try.

Were there any musical influences that spurred the new direction as well?
I've been a fan of Squarepusher and Aphex Twin and a lot of the Warp [Records] catalog for a long time, so that's been an ongoing influence for me. Our cumulative influences are all over the map. My least reputable influences are other graphic designers for the Web. I really like the way that people can make art through little programs that build themselves or work off an algorithm and just do their thing-when it's done the right way. I do a lot of flash animation and coding.

Do you do that for The Velvet Teen's Web site?
Yeah, but ours is pretty minimal right now because I do [coding, flash animation] as my day job and don't really feel like doing it after work [laughs], but I'll get to it later.

Are you worried at all about any Velvet Teen fans who might miss the more subtle sound, or if you feel like you have an obligation to any fans of your past albums?
No, I think it's to be expected that we're gonna lose a couple people in the shuffle. But it doesn't really worry me. A lot of our favorite artists have really different sounding albums from one to the next, like Björk or Prince or Squarepusher, whoever. But they always have something that's a trademark sound; like you can always tell a Prince song no matter what album it's from�I think the people who get us are gonna get that too. We're still only three albums into it, so it's not gonna be as drastic of a change from here on out since we've got the wide open possibilities of electronics to work with. We have a template to work with and a very solid band to work with, so it'll become less of a question the more we do it.

By Ryan Prado
Photo by Ryan Kitson

Bookmark: