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| Attaining Harmony | ||||||||||||||||||
| Entering The Studio, Athens Pop Band Modern Skirts Works on Songcraft | ||||||||||||||||||
Phillip Brantley (bass, guitar, vocals), John Swint (drums), Jay Gulley (guitar, vocals) and JoJo Glidewell (piano, guitar, vocals) are the Modern Skirts. The Athens group is plowing its way into the hearts of many who hear the Skirts' music. Growing out of the Americana-pop of F.F.S., the Modern Skirts retooled their sound in the spring of 2004 and started playing mostly as an acoustic act, booking shows wherever they could.
In November of 2004, the band released the EP This is Winning and Thinking, a collection of songs drawing influences from Pink Floyd, the Yardbirds and Brian Wilson. Before they headed to Atlanta for a six-week marathon recording session to craft their debut full-length due out this fall, the Skirts sat down in their practice space with Flagpole to get the logistics straight. Flagpole: When did you guys start playing music together? John Swint: Jay and JoJo have been playing for years, since high school, and Phillip and I have done the same thing. We've played together for many years. We all got together at a party. We had no real goal. Jay and JoJo had some songs that they needed drums and bass for. Phillip and I just obliged, and played their music for awhile, and we started writing together. FP: When did you record your EP? Phillip Brantley: Over spring and summer [of 2004]. We did most of it during the spring, and during the summer we recorded "My Bully" and added that. That song just kind of happened. We threw it down, it was almost a live take, really. FP: You used to have more of an acoustic sound, and you've changed. Jay Gulley: Thankfully we geared away from that. FP: Consciously? PB: It was that piano. [Jay and JoJo] started writing these songs that were so much further… head and shoulders above the older stuff John and I'd been playing with them. JS: Jay and I were pretty pissed cause we had to pay for it. $75! God! JG: That's a lot of money to us now, but then it was just so expensive… PB: And the effort it took to get it into y'all's house. JG: We had it in our house for a long time before we brought it to the practice space. It really changed where we were going, musically. FP: So you're working with Troy Aubrey, your manager. It seems like the only people who have managers are Christian bands in high school and huge bands like Radiohead. JG: Well that's the sound we're going for: Christian. Our dream is to be on The Fish. PB: Well, the manager thing comes when you start getting serious. It's easy to promote yourself around Athens, but it gets so stale, to play the same places. JoJo Glidewell: It was nice. Troy knew everybody, and it's easier to book shows. FP: How'd you meet him? JJG: The tourism center had this thing that had travel writers from across the country come. They had a couple of bands… we were the "rock band." It was at the Speakeasy, and they had a big dinner for everybody. They presented a bunch of awards. We were the band that played after everything was over, and Troy heard us. And he was really drunk and he came and talked to us. FP: How do you write songs? PB: Most of the time, somebody has a pretty good idea, or a foundation of a song, and we end up redoing it. JJG: And it's usually completely different than what we started with. FP: What are you doing now? JJG: I guess the biggest thing is recording. We're working on a full-length album. FP: Where? PB: We're recording with Geoff Melkonian in Atlanta. We're going to go in and do pre-production. We're going to lay down a lot of our material live, and then we want to go back in and find out what we like, and lay it down, and be done with it. We're all pretty fresh to this. JJG: I think Geoff is a good producer. He's not going to take it and make it something different than what it is. FP: When did you each start playing music? JJG: I started playing piano in like, sixth grade. JG: I played in the high school band in ninth grade. Then I picked up the guitar. JJG: And we started writing together in 10th grade. JG: The whole Nirvana thing definitely made me want to play guitar. FP: You write really complicated harmonies - do you write those mathematically, or do you just sing and work it out? JG: Some of it is mathematical. PB: But mostly we just try stuff. We sing together and say, "That's good. Do something else here." JS: And then we end up getting in big fights. JJG: Not fist fights. PB: And then we buy beer. JJG: Do you want to hear a new song? FP: Yes. PB: It has lots of harmonies. JG: Oh, it's all downhill now. At that point Glidewell grabbed an acoustic guitar and a capo, and his quiet song filled the practice room. Gulley and Brantley sat looking down and really listening until their voices swept in together and swelled with Glidewell's. It was difficult to tell that there was only one instrument playing, because the song felt so full with their voices. The individual Skirts sing their own melodies, and each overlaps and comes back to the others in a way that is difficult to capture. There is a kind of reverence that the Modern Skirts approach their music with. They aren't trying to be clever or dramatic or moving, because they don't need to try. They're just listening to each other, and that makes it much easier to listen along. The Modern Skirts' back-to-their-roots performance on Monday, June 13 is an acoustic show. The Athens Folk Music and Dance Society supplants its monthly "Hoot" program every June with the "AthFest Sampler," a selection of acts who're performing at the late-June downtown festival. | ||||||||||||||||||
| Bunny Mcintosh | ||||||||||||||||||
| WHAT: "AthFest Sampler" with Monster Zero, Modern Skirts, Little Country Giants
WHERE: Hoyt House Pavilion WHEN: Monday, June 13, 8 p.m. HOW MUCH: FREE! | ||||||||||||||||||
