Q&A with The Beanstalk Library

Congratulations on releasing five new tracks! They all sound great, but "Feeling My Way in the Dark" happens to be my personal favorite. The organ gives it a very strong late-1960's vibe, but the singing and lyrics keep it modern enough to prevent it from slipping towards hokey. What was the inspiration for the song?

Thanks for the congrats! We’re very excited! That song is sort of an oddity in terms of its writing, in that its lyrics and music were written quite separately from one another. The lyrics were written in probably 2003 or so. I found them several years later, I think when I was moving. If there ever were chords or music written for the song originally, there was no evidence of it. So I started writing music for the lyrics, and everything fell into place really nicely. Musically, it’s sort of R.E.M. with a little bit of a Latin thing mixed in. The organ part (played by Brett Niederman of Exit Clov) developed as we arranged the song as a band, and…I agree, it makes it sound like one of those really infectious slightly bubble-gum 60s pop songs. Live, the song’s length really began to stretch out the more we played it, and the original recording was very similar, but when we were mixing the track we decided to go in a more accessible direction and so we lopped out a good bit of it and made it more of a “single.”

Your first album, America at Night, was released about a year and a half ago and earned the band a strong following as well as much praise from local media outlets. Are you working on a follow up album?

No new full-length yet. We were holed up in the studio long enough for my taste, working on these new songs. We’re going to focus our attention for a while on regaining our footing as a live band, and expanding our recognition beyond the area. But I feel like the material we’ve been writing and arranging falls into two separate camps thematically, so who knows? Maybe there will be two new albums, but probably not until next year.

I understand that the band had completed a significant amount of work on all five tracks ("Feeling My Way in the Dark" being one of them), but in the Fall of last year, amicably parted ways with two of its members. Was it hard for you and Brian Kent to complete the tracks without them?

These were all songs that we’d been playing live for a while, so it was easy to record the basic tracks very quickly before drummer Mike Fellenbaum and bassist John Rapoza left. We went into our practice space, set up a bunch of mics, and knocked out all 5 songs in one afternoon. Then, much like on the album, Brian and I spent a while adding more stuff, but the other guys’ work was already done.

I've read that you incorporate a lot of your friends who are musicians into your music. Do any make an appearance on one or more of these tracks? Are there any surprise guests in store for the audience during your next show on May 25th?

Yes, in fact, coordinating their schedules was the biggest impediment to finishing the tracks quickly. We have lots of friends in other bands and projects who play lots of different instruments and we love to add those colors to the songs, because we like a big sound and because it gives more variety to the songs. Susan Hsu from Exit Clov on violin, Tom Hnatow from These United States on pedal steel and Kate Rears from the now-defunct The Alphabetical Order on cello are some notable musicians who appear both on our album and on these new songs. The show will feature some new friends sitting in with us, as well as a couple of familiar faces. You never know who might pop up on stage with us from show to show; we get sort of adventurous that way.

Speaking of, The Beanstalk Library is playing its first show in seven months, which I assume is also the band's first show with its new lineup. Are you nervous? Excited?

I only get nervous for something if I feel underprepared, and we’ve been working really hard to get ready for the show, so I’m not really nervous. But definitely excited. I love playing live so much; I’ve been miserable going all these months without doing it. And having to sort of go back to the drawing board when you lose members is no fun, but we’re sort of emerging from that wilderness as well. We haven’t quite arrived at our new lineup, though we’re well on our way, but for this show there are a couple of people helping us out on a temporary basis and it’s been a lot of work to make sure they all know the songs, but rehearsals have been really fun. This is a new band in a lot of ways, but it’s going to be really good. We’re all really excited. We can only hope people will enjoy the new stuff and come out and see us.

What's your favorite thing to do when you have down time in Washington, DC?

It seems so rare that I have down time these days, but some of my hobbies include record shopping, seeing old movies on big screens, and going to Nationals games. Let’s not get started on that last one. Also, I feel like it’s easy to take for granted all the historical stuff there is to see around town when you live here, but when I do get a chance to go to a museum or something downtown, I really enjoy it.

And lastly, May 19this the release date of "Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus", staring Lorenzo Lamas and Debbie Gibson. (It's true: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1350498)

Oh, I’ll have to make sure to catch that so I’ll know what everyone’s talking about during next year’s Oscar race! It’s funny, this is no lie, my friend and I were having a discussion about which cover art was which, between Debbie Gibson’s two albums Out Of The Blue and Electric Youth, and then I found them both on vinyl for a dollar apiece and gave them to him. He loved them, but now he has to purchase a turntable. Is she going to be the shark or the octupus?

In anticipation of this sure-to-become-blockbuster hit, who do you predict would win if a mega shark and a giant octopus were to battle to the death?

My money’s on the shark. I’m not sure what argument there is for a jelly-like creature killing something with a whole bunch of sharp teeth.

Listen to The Beanstalk Library’s other tracks on DCist, BrightestYoungThings, Instrumental Analysis and Baby, You Got a Stew Goin!. All tracks will be available for download beginning Tuesday, May 26^th on the band’s website: www.thebeanstalklibrary.com.

Also, check out The Beanstalk Library live on Memorial Day, Monday May 25, at IOTA. They will be joined by In Technicolor and fellow DC band, Typefighter.