Interview: Rachel Stolte of Great Northern

BY MYCHELLE PETERSON

After landing a dream opening slot on the Gutter Twins’ first U.S. tour, Great Northern is ready to take the music world by storm. They’ve got clear opinions on everything from the L.A. scene to “selling out” and not being concerned with being popular amongst the cool kids. Singer Rachel Stolte sat down with The Scenestar as the band got ready for a show in Chicago. Within seconds, I felt as if Rachel was an old friend, chatting about our backgrounds and experiences as theatre majors at Northwestern (me) and UCLA (Rachel). But more importantly, we talked about the tour, the state of the music industry, and how passion almost always trumps technical prowess when it comes to music.

The Scenestar: How did you hook up with the Gutter Twins? Obviously it’s a huge tour to be a part of, a really coveted spot…
Rachel Stolte: Dude! You have no idea. I’m excited every night. I mean, they play almost two hours, and I’m glued to the stage the whole time. Even after drinks, and normally I get tired, I’m just …. You’re in for such a treat.

SS: I’m really excited to see them. No doubt about it. But it’s a really nice double bill because you guys are a stark contrast to the Gutter Twins musically.
RS: It feels like the best pairing yet tour-wise because we’re both moody bands. And you know when you’re young and you go to a concert, and it lasts for a really long time. It’s like an event. That’s how it feels. It’s not just a show, where you’re texting your friends or waiting to go to the next show. Or you go just because your friend plays, or because it’s the scene you hang out in. It’s an event! We hooked up with them because the guy who produced and recorded some of the album with us, Mathias Schneeberger, is an awesome guy! He is also part of the Gutter Twins and recorded their album too. So Mathias along with our publicist Juliana and a bunch of people who surround us, seem to surround them, too. And everybody put in a good word. We played a show with the Soulsavers with Mark Lanegan, and it just blew my mind. His voice is the best in American music. Hands down. It’s like someone punching you in the stomach when you hear it. So we met him that night and talked to him…

SS: How was that? He seems to be a rather intimidating figure. How did the conversation go?
RS: I think…. I mean, I don’t know him well enough to say, but the vibe I get is that he is just really protective of everything he’s gone through. It’s almost like he doesn’t speak because he doesn’t have to. His voice speaks for itself when he’s onstage, and he’s a man of few words. But by no means is he mean or anything. In fact, he’s really sweet and soft-spoken.

SS: I was going to ask what the highlights of the tour have been thus far, but it sounds like just seeing the Gutter Twins play live every night is your highlight. Have you had any weird or bad experiences so far on the tour?
RS: Not yet. It’s been really great. We’ve been on tour in the past with bands that are on our level, you know up-and-coming with buzz. But this feels like it’s taking us to the next level because we get to play to sold out crowds every night and in bigger venues. And it’s just us and them. It’s not four bands where you have to tear down in between in front of people. It feels like there is a really nice flow. And knowing they picked us, and they wanted us there. It’s been rad. Knock on wood [knocks on the wood table in front of us]. We’re only six days in, but so far I’m loving it.

SS: One of your songs (“Home”) was recently featured in a Nissan commercial that aired during the Superbowl. So I’m guessing you guys are comfortable with that as a means to get your music heard through placement in advertisements and TV.
RS: Absolutely.

SS: What has the response been from that? Have you felt any impact yet?
RS: Well, we’ve got like four things at once right now. We have a song in that movie, 21, that’s coming out. And then we were in that TV show, “Bones.” I mean, basically, as a musician, that is the way you make money now.

SS: Do you feel like it is the new radio in terms of exposure?
RS: It is totally the new radio. Getting signed to a major label doesn’t mean shit anymore. It’s like… If you want to continue to make music and put out records, you need money. And lots of labels don’t give that to you, and it’s kind of the only way to stay afloat. I have nothing against it. We’ve gotten actually a lot of response, like messages on MySpace saying “that’s so cool you were in the Nissan commercial.” Some bands won’t do that at all, and they think it’s selling out or whatever. I feel like that’s kind of an old concept. Times are changing, and you just have to make it work. I mean, when we get that check, and I don’t know when that’s going to be, but it’s going to be really great. I don’t want to have to do anything else! To be able to spend time writing songs and taking the time you need to do that is essential. But if you can’t pay your rent, then how are you supposed to do that?

SS: Well, I feel like it’s different than if you’d written the song for a specific product or something. I know that [singer-songwriter] Jill Sobule recently announced that she needed to raise $75,000 to make her next album. And there are donor levels – like if you donate $10,000 you get to sing on the record, and if you donate $5,000 she’ll come play at your house. To me, that’s going a little far.
RS: Oh wow! That’s interesting…

SS: But I think having your song featured in something is different. I mean, they heard your song long after it was finished and liked it enough to want to feature it with their product.
RS: Right. There’s no compromising. But I also think it’s important as an artist to not box yourself in and be afraid of success in any way. Because I think that if someone asked us to write something for a commercial, I would totally do it. As long as it represents something that comes out of me or Solon [Bixler] because we do all the writing, I don’t see anything wrong with that. I just think times are changing. Like before there were no digital sales of records, and now 75% of our sales are digital. iTunes helped us immensely. But I still go to the record store and buy records, and there is nothing like that. There is nothing like the sound of vinyl, but I also buy cds too. I still have tapes! The world is full of opportunity and you shouldn’t close the door on any specific one. Be open. If it’s right, you’ll know. If it feels weird, and they want to use it in a hemorrhoid commercial, you might not want to go there. But in general…

SS: I think that’s a good attitude. You really have to adapt to what’s going on around you. I mean, every day, someone else is dropped from a major label and now artists are releasing things without labels. Radiohead did it a few months ago, Nine Inch Nails did it last week to tremendous success… how do you feel about that and what your place in that whole system is?
RS: I think it’s genius. I don’t know how we fit into that at this point. But I think it’s genius what Radiohead did. Their music speaks for itself. They sold so many records right off the bat. And Nine Inch Nails getting out of the label because Trent Reznor found out that the label was charging something like $29 a cd when he didn’t want to charge kids that. He couldn’t have bought that as a kid, and those are your fans. So he was like “fuck that.”

SS: But he did make over $1 million in about a week’s time with just the $300 super limited edition and $75 limited edition versions of the album. They sold out.
RS: Wait, sold out, or “sold out?”

SS: They literally sold out of the 2,500 copies.
RS: Oh, ok. I get it.

SS: No, I don’t think it was selling out at all. Trent is such a perfectionist, and the amount of time and effort that goes into the packaging and the artwork is worth the price alone. I just think it’s interesting with all these artists trying new things to see what works.
RS: I do too.

SS: The Dandy Warhols just signed an agreement with World’s Fair for their own imprint, which basically puts them in control of their success. Everybody seems to be adapting, whereas a few years ago, people were just bitching about how they hated the major label system. But people have started taking real action.
RS: Exactly. And any time you’re complaining, I think you’re placing blame on someone else. I think you’re in charge ultimately of your own destiny. You have to take action if you can, or try. That’s why what Radiohead did – they always sound so ahead of their time. They play chords I’ve never heard before. And I think this is an age that is all about that, adapting and changing and figuring out what works for you. Not being opposed to something just because it was lame 10 years ago. It used to be you got signed to a major label, back in Guns n’ Roses’ days, and you were doing cocaine off the glass table in your hotel suite. Well, he still is doing that, in his mansion [Laughs]…. But it’s not the same rock n’ roll that it used to be.

SS: Definitely not. But you seem to be so open to making things work and trying new things, and that seems essential right now. One of the things I really love about you guys is your website. I think it’s beautifully designed. It flows really wells, and it captures the same mood that the album evokes. How much involvement of the site design did you have?
RS: We pretty much did the creative stuff. We’re still at a level where we are able to give our input, and I hope that never changes, but you never know. All the artwork of trees I drew, and they ended up on the cover of the album [Trading Twilight for Daylight], and then Solon photoshopped them for the website.

SS: It works really well because it gives you that somewhat spooky, eerie kind of feeling.
RS: It’s good to hear that it works because we’re actually in the process of re-doing some of the site. I’m glad you like it.

SS: One of the other things I noticed is the flow of the songs on the album. Did you guys consciously work to develop the flow from track to track? It sounds really effortless, and things go from one song to the next really well.
RS: That’s so funny. I don’t know. Solon and I wrote those songs a long time ago. It was just us sitting in the studio with Mathias, knowing that we were done. And just using our instinct of what would go where. We never had an idea of what would start the album. It changed a lot. We mastered it, and then we added another song. So we changed the order again. We’ve gotten mixed reviews. A lot of people think it’s all over the place because our songs aren’t all the same.

SS: That’s actually what I like about it. It’s like a bit of a roller coaster, but it’s not chaotic at all. So the tour wraps up in L.A. at home on April 2, and I’m sure that’s going to be a huge show for you. How do you feel about the L.A. music scene? Do you feel like it’s a welcoming environment, or do you not really see it so much as a ‘scene’ necessarily?
RS: It’s funny. We’re in that whole Silverlake scene, and before I was in that scene, I thought there was no scene. And I thought it was all…. Well, I wasn’t into it. I would go to Spaceland, and I felt like it was high school all over again, cliquey and weird. And if you were happy, you know, something was wrong with you! [Laughs] But then, that was me on the outside looking in. What I see and feel now is a total musical community. I think no matter where you live, you gravitate towards people who are like you. I mean, not everybody is amazing in that scene, but there are some really great bands. Like Silversun Pickups are good friends of ours, and they are across the board amazing people – super talented and full of ideas and very supportive. Twilight Sleep is an up-and-coming band, and The Pity Party…. So yeah, now Spaceland is a whole different thing for me. It’s one of my favorite places to go. But there are other bands, who I won’t name, who aren’t that way. So I don’t really feel like supporting them because they don’t have that same way of approaching music. I think that music is such an amazing way to connect, and when you try to make it elitist, that’s stupid.

SS: It sounds like there are different parts of the same scene, some good and some bad.
RS: Yeah, everybody knows each other. And there’s gossip and all that. But I think there is a lot of good music coming out right now. I think politically things are changing – thank god – and as a result, there has been a resurgence of people reacting to what’s been going on. So there is art and music being made that is better than it’s been in the past. It’s good. I’m feeling really positive at the moment!

SS: It’s rare.
RS: Yeah, it is, so I just keep holding onto it.

SS: Other than the bands you’ve mentioned, what else are you listening to right now? What’s influencing you?
RS: We listen to M. Ward a lot. And The National. Love them! So good. We really love that Interpol record. A lot of people don’t….

SS: It’s a grower. The first time I heard it, I was let down. But I kept listening, and I really love it.
RS: Love Cat Power. PJ Harvey is my all-time favorite ever on the planet. But yesterday, we also listened to Guns n’ Roses, Queens of the Stone Age, and Helmet. We drove for 37 hours in a snow storm from Seattle to Chicago, so we had time to listen to a lot of music. Oh, and I love Bright Eyes.

SS: So you’ve got some eclectic taste.
RS: I’m drawn to really sad, dark music, and Solon is as well. But he also has the influence of the Beatles. I didn’t grow up listening to the Beatles. And they’re still not my favorite. I know it’s totally unpopular as a musician. I like John Lennon’s solo stuff.

SS: The Beatles never sounded very passionate, but Lennon did.
RS: Yes! It’s all about the passion. Technically amazing musicians do nothing for me. It’s like that’s amazing, but I don’t really care.

SS: You have to see the passion. I’d rather someone be less technically proficient but have the passion.
RS: Totally! I’m there.

It was evident throughout our conversation that Rachel is a fan of music first and foremost, and it really translates into Great Northern’s live performances as well. The passion conveyed on-stage is contagious, and you can’t help but feel a little giddy watching the band play. Be sure to catch Great Northern when they wrap up their tour with the Gutter Twins on April 2 at the Avalon. Tickets are available here.

Great Northern also has a new EP cleverly titled, Sleepy Eepee, out now on iTunes and in stores on March 18.

Comments

[cheryl]

Great interview Mychelle. I have to catch them the next time they're playing!