Q&A with Pelican

Pelican is an entirely instrumental band with post-rock and doom metal influences hailing from Chicago, Illinois. Staff writer Marcela Guimaraes talks to band member Trevor de Brauw about the process of composing songs with no vocals, the band’s hiatus, what it’s like working with new guitarist Dallas Thomas and how its current tour is going.

Diversions: What made you guys want to start a solely instrumental band and keep that way through the years?

Trevor de Brauw: Well it wasn’t actually by design. Three out of four of us were in a grindcore, kind of like a progressive grindcore band called Tusk and Laurent, who was the bass player in Tusk, started writing songs that didn’t really fit the template of what we were doing in that band.

So rather than divert stylistically too much we decided to start two parallel bands and for the first year that we were doing Pelican the plan was to at some point try to find a way to integrate vocals or find a singer. None of us felt up to the task, we didn’t really know how to place vocals in it ourselves and we just never found a singer.

And at some point we were offered a show and we decided to take it and see how it went instrumental and it seemed to go over really well and before long people in Chicago started to catch on to the band and respond to it in a way that none of our previous bands have been able to break through with people so we just sort of realized that it worked without vocals and we started modifying the way we were writing and going forward to account for that.

Dive: So do you guys find it easier to compose your songs without a lead singer or front man?

TdB: Yeah I think so just because we are very guitar-minded and we don’t have to think about where the vocals are going to fit, which was a shortcoming when we were trying to find a vocalist but when we came up with that we sort of had free range to do whatever we wanted with guitar which turned out to be advantageous and really fun. Sound-wise onstage too because when you are doing louder style music that has vocals there is a lot of give and take in terms of the volumes onstage and mixing things together so it all sounds good. We never had to worry about that, we just crank up our amps and do whatever.

Dive: What is the process of coming up with song titles that have no lyrics?

TdB: We usually do it record by record because we over time kind of became an album band, and with each album we will get half way through the writing process and we can start to sense what kind of direction the album is going in and what kinds of themes are being evoked by the music.

And from there we decide on a conceptual direction for the album and that kind of informs us how we decide to title the songs. I think our songs in a way set a scene and it’s never anything too specific, we try to leave it open for interpretation so the listener can bring in their own set of filters or interpretations to it. Keeping in mind there’s a kind of a theme set by each song so we try to pick song titles that evoke whatever it is that we’re hearing in the song.

Dive: So the band had a hiatus before putting out this album, what motivated you guys to pull back together to put out a new album and how does it differ from previous albums?

TdB: Well the hiatus was brought on by the fact that for four to five years we were doing the band full time and touring quite a bit and we kind of reached a point where the band didn’t seem like it was capable of sustaining itself in that way.

We could have continued to make a living off of it as frequently or more frequently than we were doing but it didn’t seem like a sustainable lifestyle. All of us were crossing over into our 30’s and you know it gets harder to spend six months out of the year living in a van. It’s a very difficult lifestyle, and for some people it comes really naturally and they’re sort of geared toward it and I think all of us are geared towards a more normal, structured existence and we weren’t really thriving on the road. So we made a conscious effort to reconfigure the band and reconfigure our lives and find a way to pursue the band as a passion instead of as a career path.

So that took quite a while because as random and as varied a lifestyle of touring and composing is it’s kind of rudiment in a seasonal kind of way so it’s like you write a record, then you record it and then you go out on the road and then you get home from tour and you’re used to writing again so we had this lifestyle pattern developed and once we broke out of that it was a matter of figuring out how to get the gears turning again. We took a good year and a half off from writing and then we started to figure out how to get the gears turning again and along the way we lost our original guitarist.

There were a few set backs along the way and we just sort of had to kind of figure out the path and I think what makes this album different than the other ones is because there wasn’t that pressure of trying to make a living off of it. There is no aspirations for “success” anymore so we were able to relax and create music that we were passionate about. We were kind of doing that in the past but I think with the pressures off we were able to make music that even though it’s aggressive, it’s relaxed in its approach

Dive: So like you said Laurent (Schroeder-Lebec), the founding member, left the band and now you guys have Dallas Thomas in his place. How did he go about joining the band and how is it working so far?

TdB: Well it came about because we had stopped touring in the end of 2009 and then we did a few selections in 2010 and in 2011 Larry, Brian and I wanted to do a tour, not anything as extensive as we had been doing, we were talking about doing a couple of weeks on the west coast and we brought it up to Laurent and he didn’t even want to do anything on that scale, he didn’t want to tour anymore period.

He didn’t want to rule it out for the future, but he knew it wasn’t for him in that time. He said, “I don’t want to hold you guys back, you should find a fill-in.” So we asked Dallas because he is a guitarist that we all really respect, he is in a band called the Swan King who we played with several times and we admired his guitar playing and his style of playing and luckily he was up for it. So we toured with him once in 2011 and then again in early 2012 and shortly after that Laurent announced that he was stepping down from the band.

Dallas was an obvious shoo-in to step in Laurent’s place but we decided to try and get as far as we could with writing the record before we replaced Laurent just because we didn’t want too much of a stylistically shift from one record to another and we felt like replacing Laurent too early would cause the sound to alter. So we had Dallas join the band earlier this year right before we went into the studio and he learned the songs pretty quickly and oiled some of the joints and tightened some of the bolts in some of the songs and yeah it came along really well, much better than I could have anticipated. The dynamic that we’ve been developing — you know, we’ve been a band for 10 years, it’s hard for him to step into that and fit in, but he totally nailed it.

Dive: How is it working with your new record label Southern Lord?

TdB: It’s great. It’s run by Greg Anderson who is in Sunn O))), amongst a great number of other bands. And it’s cool because he’s old school and he’s been in the music industry for over 20 years, and I think it’s really important for a band like us that doesn’t really conform to a specific style to be with a label that is not only run by a musician but a like-minded musician. There’s a lot more of a sense of trust and vision, wanting to see it through and do right by it. Whereas I could see how other labels who maybe aren’t musician run would not get what we’re about. I feel like there’s a great mutual trust that has been really great for us.

Dive: You guys had your European tour last year, how was it performing over there?

TdB: It’s always wonderful. We have a really enthusiastic fan base in Europe and many of the shows were sold out since it had been a long time since we played over there, almost four years, which is actually the case for this East coast tour so we’ll see. There was a while in the late 2000s where we were touring so frequently, we were hitting towns like twice a year and I think people were taking us for granted. People stopped coming out to our shows and that was the case in Europe too so it was nice we took a lengthy break from going over there and we came back and people were enthusiastic again.

Dive: Your current tour is going really well too, you guys have sold out three shows in a row, how has that been?

TdB: Pretty crazy. I mean we’ve sold out shows in the past but all three of those shows have sold out in advance, which I feel like maybe we’ve sold out a show in advance before but certainly never three in a row. That was pretty crazy. I think it’s something we take for granted after doing this for so long. The industry is geared towards new acts and stuff like that so it’s definitely an honor.

Dive: Do you think the vibe is still the same as past shows or is it a bit different?

TdB: I think in a way it’s more energized because we were at a point where it seemed like the band could have broken up but then we managed to save it and get back into it. We don’t take it for granted. When you’re touring constantly and something goes wrong you might just be like “oh there’s next time. We’ll be back, we don’t need to worry about that.”

And even if it’s great you’re like, “This is great, I can’t wait until next time because it will be great again.” But now we’re very much in the moment, we’re not thinking about the next time or the last time. The moment is there.

Dive: The band hasn’t played a show in the area since 2009, are you guys excited to be back?

TdB: Yeah, definitely. I love the area and we’re playing with a really old friend of mine, Feltbattery, so it’s going to be thrilling too.