Inspired by Being John Malkovich
Secret Machines are sitting in the lounge with SUPERSWEET. They have just been given one of the best and worst news at the same time. See, we were informed last Christmas by Warner Music Thailand that they were planning the release Secret Machines locally, based on our rapturous support. That, of course, gets Brandon's, Ben's and Josh's hands flying in the air - only to be let down three seconds later by the inevitable 'but'...
"Oh no! No 'but'!" The three gentlemen collectively start yelling at SUPERSWEET before we even get a chance to tell them that the label recently changed their mind. That next step is followed by a series of painful moans. It seems too cruel to tell on their only day off from an extensive UK tour. But don't they get it? We're no less disappointed than them.
"For a second, I thought our record was out..." mutters the younger Curtis brother, Ben (guitar, vocals) before being interrupted by drummer Josh Garza whose eyes sparkle all of a sudden, "I know! We'd get to go and eat some real Thai food man!" Ben is still upset, "Maybe it’s better this way that we have the let down right after the good news, right? Thinking we’re going to have a record, and we didn’t have to wait months to find out about it."
Bygones... Surely it can't be the end of the world. There is so much more to be looking forward to, especially today, the very day their second album Ten Silver Drops hits the shelf. "I’m thinking of going to Virgin to buy our record today," Josh enthuses, "I’m not normally superstitious, but I thought I’d buy it for luck!"
They hardly need it. This stunning follow-up to 2004's brilliant debut Now Here Is Nowhere couldn't have been more natural a progress. In fact, there will be nothing more organic that could have come out since their most recent work, The Road Leads Where It's Led EP - a collection of mostly covers deconstructed to create a new blueprint for those who forever wonder how one can lose the pastiche in a piece of history - objectively and beautifully.
Their methods of sequencing songs in order to complete the big picture have always been a big thing. Sometimes it is a journey through musical acts, at times urban tales. And these guys do it like no one else. With Ten Silver Drops, the whole point of music-making itself seems to be the focus of the album. Songs that are the biggest departure for them are cunningly left as the last two drops: 'I Want To Know If It's Still Possible' and '1000 Seconds', as if to hint what may come next in the evolution of Secret Machines.
"We played [I Want To Know...] with Garth Hudson from The Band, he played accordion on that. He told us about music and how it should be done," Brandon (vocals, keyboards, bass) explains.
"What was fun for us was that it was a chance for us to go somewhere totally different. Our taste in music is all over the place and I think it’s important to show that," Ben muses over a cup of coffee, "This time round, one of the ideas is to bring back a really solid creative rock and roll record. I think we haven’t had one of those in a while and a lot of bands are trying to really really revive it. A lot of times, our music is the reaction to what we don’t hear other bands do."
"Also with all the toys that were available in the studio, more so than in the past, we kind of explored that a little more as a band. I don’t think we deliberately..." Josh pauses, searching for the right words, "There wasn’t a mission statement or anything but I think it’s just kind of turned into that. It was fun to see that happen."
There are also songs that wrote themselves through 'live' experiences like 'Lightning Blue Eyes' and 'Daddy's In The Doldrums' since the first album.
Some songs are what they call 'blues'. "'I Hate Pretending" is a true story," admits Brandon, "We were mixing our record in L.A. We just stayed there for too long, and that's no good," he gently shakes his head. "I was trying to write a blues song, you know. In blues songs, they always talk about something happening… like someone’s going away, looking for something; baby needs a new pair of shoes, that sort of thing. I don’t think anyone thinks that we were trying to make blues, but it's the purest rock form. It’s going back to where subject matters and ideas used to be. But we’re not in the 20th century any more, unfortunately."
"'Daddy's In The Doldrums' is another blues song," Ben smiles, "Brandon doesn’t always calls himself daddy, but we do, we call him daddy!" He and Josh burst out laughing.
"Are you in the doldrums? How do you get out of it?" We ask.
"You can’t get out of the doldrums by yourself," straight-faced, he answers wisely, "You need someone else to come and get you out." However, Josh provides a new tip, "You need some wind," he chuckles, "Yeah you need some wind dude!"
'Faded Lines', they say, is a song that shows certain aspects of the band and is regarded as a "defining" song whereas 'Alone, Jealous And Stoned' reminds them of [Dallas band] The Bedhead. "I know it really isn't the inspiration, but lyrically, it just really connected the two pictures when I first heard it." Josh looks at his lyricist, "I think you've kind of nailed the vocals too, man."
The band go on to amuse SUPERSWEET, Ben tells us the history of 'All At Once (It’s Not Important)'. "That was initially was going to be… Wasn’t that going to be our Christmas card?" He smiles, "We were going to write it and record it and that would be our Christmas card, in keeping with our holiday bummer. I like to remind people that it’s not all happiness in this world."
"There’s no better way to remember the good times without the bad times. We’re here to just back that up," adds Josh, as if to suggest that this, too, is his band's politics.
"Especially during holiday seasons, it’s never so good. But then it’s too good a song to just waste in holiday cards. So we didn’t send them," Ben recounts with help from his brother, "No, we didn’t do our Christmas cards. Once we have the idea, that’s exactly the part. The boring part is doing it!"
So here we are, all eight songs. They are hardly enough.
"45-50 minutes is about as long as we wanted to make the record. It’s about the right time that we thought we could make one," says Brandon.
"But in theory, you kind of proved us right by saying it’s not enough," debates Josh, "It's better than having too much and you going, 'Jesus, it’s killing me!'" He mimics SUPERSWEET, "It’s better than you skipping the last 10 songs."
"And when we play live, like when you do one show you want to just knock one out, rather than leaving many of them out. So this way you can have space for all the songs to grow a bit more," Brandon sits up and leans forward, "And remember, we nearly included 'Lightning Blue Eyes' and 'Daddy's In The Doldrums' in the first album...
"If we did, then I guess we’ll only have 6 songs for you!"
Photography: Kriangkrai Srithongthai
Digital Imaging: Krittarwit Kritmanorote