Q&A with SEAS

Why you have chosen to perform under the moniker SEAS, instead of Ben Green?

I suppose for some degree of anonymity, really, and for some sense of a unified group of instruments being played. The record was made by just myself, but it hasn’t been meant to be about me, or as me as some sort of representative of the songs. They’re meant to exist in their own right. The name is meant to convey the sense of a monolith, one indivisible entity, which is also why I usually write it in all capitals.

You were a founding member of the now-retired, DC melodic hardcore group Fairweather. Now you create lo-fi indie/psych-folk rock for SEAS. Why the dramatic change?

Hmm, well actually I was going for a lush, high fidelity kind of sound with this record! I suppose lo-fi is more of a genre now than a reference to sound quality, so I think I understand what you mean regarding that comparison. There are probably countless reasons for the differences between SEAS and Fairweather – the biggest factors being the passage of time, and also that Fairweather was a band with five members, and SEAS has just been me up to this point. The first Fairweather record was recorded when I was 18 years old. That was over ten years ago, so you can imagine how your sense of expression changes in a decade. In some ways, I do see many similarities to how I approached creating this SEAS record and how Fairweather went about creating the last record we did, Lusitania, and also some aesthetic similarities between them. Both were very intentionally created and produced, and were set about with a pretty clear vision of the final product at the onset of each, and both were meant to exist as one whole piece of work, not really as a collection of single songs. These two records have probably been the two most important creative things I’ve been a part of in my life. To clarify- important to ME, not necessarily anyone else- I don’t think many people batted an eye when Lusitania was released, but it is still one of my proudest moments.

As the only core member of SEAS, did you record SEAS’s debut record, Now My Home Is A Beech Tree, entirely by yourself? Or did you collaborate with other musicians during the recording process?

Everything was performed and recorded by me very slowly, piece by piece, over a year or so, probably to its detriment! Much of it was learning what the songs were going to become as they were being written, and at the same time learning how to sing to them. Really, learning how to sing in general. These are the first songs I’ve written that I’ve sung to in my life. I’ve been a guitar player leaving the vocal writing to someone else for most of my musical career, so doing that was quite a challenge.

You seem to experiment a lot within the folk rock genre on this album. For example, “Cusseta” features an ethereal post rock/shoegazer sound, while “The Buried Ranges” presents almost a garage-rock twang, and “No Shelter” incorporates bluesy elements into traditional folk (and those are just tracks 5, 6, and 7). How do you maintain a consistency within variation on an album such as this one?

The songs were all recorded haphazardly over a long period of time, and at several different locations. I might have to credit the sonic consistency to obsessive mixing and remixing, and to having a great mastering engineer who brought the whole record into focus once it was mixed. Thematically though, all the songs dwell on the same sort of feeling, and on many of the same images, on some sort of narrative which doubles back and references itself throughout the record. I don’t think I would consider the record to be really folk rock, at least in the sense of the genre I get when I think of that term, but there are definitely gospel and blues elements that I feel like kind of slap me in the face when I listen to many of the songs.

You are playing the Black Cat on March 4th . Is it true that you rely strongly on local musical accomplices when performing live? If so, who have you chosen to accompany you on stage this Thursday?

Yes- usually for larger shows that are less intimate, SEAS is a five piece band. Three of the full band were in Fairweather with me. I’ve played probably five or six hundred shows with those guys in my life, and another is a friend Jason from the DC area on bass guitar. Two members are also in local cock-rock legends Rattler. I was fortunate enough to be a co-engineer on the Rattler record, so I’ve seen their brilliant songwriting skills from behind the scenes. The first SEAS show which was about three years ago had Laura of The Aquarium on drums and Mitchell of New Rock Church Of Fire playing the bass guitar. The lineup now has been the most consistent and will pretty much stay the same for bigger, louder shows. For smaller shows, I often play acoustic with one or two others from the lineup.

Do you think collaborating with other musicians when performing live hinders or helps communicate your musical vision to an audience?

It absolutely helps. These songs have all been written to exist as full compositions with a full band playing the parts. They definitely make the songs more successful, and many times, I prefer what we do live in comparison to the way it was recorded. Having other folks play the songs with me together adds that dynamic element that sometimes I worry the record lacks.

Your music has been compared to Grizzly Bear, Midlake, and Slowdive (a very accurate assessment, in my opinion). How do you feel about these comparisons?

Well, I’ve never heard Grizzly Bear so I’ll have to get back about that one- with Midlake, I read that comparison a few months back so I listened to them to see, and I’m not sure I totally see it. They’ve got a totally tight, dry, 1975 vibe going on that the SEAS record doesn’t. If anything, I think I can hear the Slowdive comparison in some of the guitar work on the record. Mainly I hear the things I was thinking about in each song, like the lead in No Shelter being a little nod to the lead in “Rumble” by Link Wray, and small things like that. I think some contemporary musicians I get inspiration from are Phil Elverum and Mark Linkous. Those two are able to describe their worlds in ways that seem to be completely insular and self sustaining. I really admire that.

I read that you drew much of your aesthetic inspiration for the album from legendary guitarist John Fahey’s co-opting of Takoma Park, MD. Can you explain?

I’m a huge admirer of Fahey’s, and of the culture he helped to cultivate and rediscover. I am, of course a huge fan of his playing as well, but even more so, a fan of the atmosphere of murkiness and uncertainty in his songs, and the way they borrow from the land he grew up in- how he bends the land to his own ends. Most of the songs on Now My Home Is A Beech Tree are about pieces of land, and my relationship with them, and my relationship with the memory of them. None of the music sounds anything like Fahey, really, but in an aesthetic sense, much of it is directly inspired by the way he went about creating his mythos.

Check out SEAS live on March 4th at the Black Cat and on MySpace: www.myspace.com/calmsofcapricorn.