interviews this is the only interview i've found so far. it's by john davis from held like sound. HLS - How'd you wind up playing together? Devin - Yeah, that's a long story. Chad and I moved from L.A. We grew up there and played together in a band. He played bass, I played guitar and we had a drummer. That was when we were, I guess, 18. About four years ago, we moved to New York. We didn't really play cause we didn't have a place to play. We sold all our instruments and stuff to move to New York. We came down here (to D.C.) and that's when I joined Smart Went Crazy. I hooked up with Jeff and that's when Chad started playing drums. So he's only been playing for, like, two years. That's kind of how it went. Jeff - Faraquet went, at the same time as Smart Went Crazy, on tour together last spring. HLS - How long have you been playing your instruments? Devin - I've been playing drums, I don't know, about seven or eight years? HLS - Do you consider yourself a guitar player, a drummer or both? Devin - I just recently accepted the fact, or maybe the idea, that I could be both. I'm still leaning toward the guitar. I've been playing that longer. That's what I started with. HLS - (to Jeff) Do you feel as comfortable playing bass as you do with guitar yet? Jeff - No. (laughs) But I'm getting more comfortable, slowly. I really like to play bass, but it's definitely different. I play bass half out of necessity and half cause I want to play it. I'd never really played, but have played basses here and there for the fun of it. I like the idea of playing a different instrument just to get a different orientation. But it's been a little harder than I thought it was. At first it seemed pretty easy and now, the more I start thinking like a bass player, it's hard to play what I'm thinking. I always hear stuff, but then fumble all over it cause the strings are so thick and the frets are so far apart. I'll just slur our what I'm trying to do or not do it at all. HLS - After seeing Faraquet and Smart Went Crazy separately, I had been wondering what your primary instruments were. Jeff - Devin's right at home. (laughs) Devin - I'm feeling better. (laughs). But after not playing in a band period for, what was roughly two years, and then the first band I got into was playing drums just cause they needed a drummer. By the time Faraquet got started I had almost forgotten how to play guitar just because it had been so long and I wasn't as comfortable. But now having played again, I feel much more comfortable with the guitar. HLS - Well, two questions about that. One: How did you meet Smart Went Crazy. Two: Why did you start Faraquet? What was Smart Went Crazy not providing? Devin - It seems like it was two things. Travis from the Dismemberment Plan was pretty much the only person I knew here when I first moved, because my fiancee went to school with him ... grade school. He knew that I played drums and for some reason. So, Chad and I were playing ... he was playing bass and I was playing drums just cause we were trying to play some music. So, Travis really thought of me as a drummer and never really thought of me as a guitar player. He knew that Smart Went Crazy needed a drummer so he called me up and told me. Oddly enough, I'd never even heard their record. I'd heard of them, but ... we won't go into that. So, I called them and said "sure, let's play." The main reason for Faraquet personally, because we all have our reasons, but for me it was because Smart Went Crazy was just a side thing. I never wanted to just play drums cause there are such limited songwriting abilities. I enjoy doing it, but it wasn't my goal. So the idea was always to start something with Chad, but we always needed a third member. We were always looking for a drummer, which is kind of why Chad and I play drums because we can never find one, so we'd just do it ourselves. Jeff and I got along really well. As soon as I got into Smart Went Crazy we hit it off really well and had the same interests and everything. We knew we wanted to start another band and it wasn't anything serious at first, but t became the main thing for all of us. Since Smart Went Crazy was kind of dying since I got in it ... (laughs) HLS - Why put out that single so early? Devin - We put out the single because we were touring with Smart Went Crazy and we wanted to have something to pawn. and also, it's one of those things where your first record legitimizes you band and we wanted to get it done. Jeff - It gave us a goal. HLS - It said on the artwork to the 7" that it was the second release on the label. What was the first? Devin - The first was a band that Chad and I were in called Boyd. It was a very limited pressing. We've got about 20 left. HLS - So, who's into film (re: the band's label, Mis En Scene)? Devin - We were at the time and Chad's actually still into film. He's got projectors and he's buying 16mm stuff. At the time, we had gotten into Super 8 animation and stuff. That's where that came from. HLS - What records are coming out for Faraquet? Jeff - It's a little up in the air right now. Devin - We've got a split with a band from Milwaukee called Akarso in the works. But, it's kind of unclear what's going on with that. We recorded nine songs and four are going on that. We're just sort of shopping around at this point hoping someone will put us out. The main goal is to try and get a record out. Jeff - We're also doing a song on the Smiths compilation that First Time Records is doing. It'll be out this spring probably. HLS - What song are you doing? Jeff - Looks like it's gonna be "Oscillate Wildly." We're doing it, actually, today. We're going to be practicing that and recording it the next couple weeks. HLS - What was the response when you toured with Smart Went Crazy? Devin - Pretty good. We sold a good amount of 7"s and people seemed to be into it. Jeff - Generally very positive. People were nice. HLS - Do you feel there are any expectations you have to live up to in the wake of Smart Went Crazy. Jeff - No. (laughs) Devin - No. (laughs) Jeff - I feel pretty free of expectations. Devin - (laughs) Yeah, me too. Jeff - It just feels different. We're playing different instruments. It feels pretty divorced from what Smart Went Crazy was doing. HLS - Is there anything, aside from the fact that you were in Smart Went Crazy, that carries over? Jeff - Probably a little bit. I don't know what it is. Devin - Yeah, not as far as sound. For me, it's always been that songwriting has always been the same. Smart Went Crazy didn't work that way. Now, I think it's the way it should be. Whereas, Smart Went Crazy was an experiment in differences. HLS - I may be wrong, but Faraquet strikes me as a jam band. As in, at practice, you write your songs in a loose format, coming up with the parts there. Devin - In a way we do that, but it's odd. Most of our songs, the parts are already written. A lot of them are guitar parts I've been playing for, like, three years. I think the jam part comes in on arrangements Putting it all together, to make it into one song. Jeff - The jamming comes in with us trying to work around Devin's guitar part, coming up with our own parts. Devin - It's changing now. Our songwriting has evolved, as far as the process. Jeff - Smart Went Crazy was that way. Chad Clark brought in a lot of guitar parts, though, in general, he had more developed parts and would come in with several parts finished. HLS - How important do you consider vocals to the band? Devin - I consider them to be another instrument. They're just as important as, say, having a bass player. They're not as prominent as some bands, but it depends. I'm open to things. Some songs have more vocals than others. It's just the way it works out for now, that the vocals are just a layer. Jeff - For our first 50 shows or so, I think he made up the lyrics on the spot. Devin - I didn't write lyrics until we just recorded them. That's kind of something I've done, always. Writing lyrics is a labor for me. Jeff - I think we'll have more vocals on some of the newer songs. We're talking about having more background vocals. Devin - I like a lot of instrumental music, so a lot of songs start off as instrumentals and I can hear vocals in there, so I add them on. HLS - Are there any musicians or vocalists you're emulating? Jeff - I've never had any heroes, so I just kind of try to learn the bass on my own. Devin - I've got a lot of influences, though I think the most obvious would be King Crimson and Robert Fripp, guitarwise. Jeff - Once again, early '70s. Yes ... HLS - I just bought The Yes Album again, finally, on vinyl. I used to have it in 7th grade and traded it in along the way and I'm coming back to my roots! Jeff - Yeah, same with me. Devin - We appreciate all of the progressive rock of the '70s, though it was pretty unfashionable for a time. Jeff - I think we're all pretty big Who fans. I've always like John Entwistle. He plays bass like the guitar. Devin - Pete Townshend ... Jeff - ... smashing his gear. You can't get enough of that. Devin - Singing wise, it's tough. I just try to emulate things I've been listening to. When I first started playing, I was trying to sing like Dave Vanian or Paul Weller, which being a 16 year old kid was pretty hard. I just ended up sounding like a dope. So, I now just try to sound like myself. Whatever comes out ... that's pretty much it. There's always Minutemen, Gang of Four. Those are big influences on me. HLS - So, when Chad switches to bass, how does he get that sound? Jeff - It's a piccolo bass. Devin - Basically, it's a 3/4 scale learner's bass, I guess. They're smaller. So, you put piccolo strings on it, which are between bass and guitar. They're lighter strings. It's pretty crazy. Jeff just got a baritone guitar and it sounds really great. Though we'll have to transpose up to A. It's freaking us out. We tried it the other day. I don't think it's gonna work on the songs we already have. Jeff - Our songs are pretty complicated already, for us anyway, and trying to transpose them was a total disaster. It was comedy, really. HLS - How successfully have you incorporated keyboards so far? Devin - Not as successfully as we'd like. At least live. On the recording we did some stuff that turned out really well. But as a trio, it's hard to do some of the gymnastics to play those parts live and jump over the keyboard and not screw up what you're playing. Jeff - It's really hard to play two instruments at once. Devin - None of us are Geddy Lee. Jeff - That's definitely in the development stage, though we're focusing on it. We've got the gear, we just need to get better. Probably, at some point, I'll just play keyboard parts and drop the bass when we play live. But we'll see what we do with that. I'd like to play guitar a little bit in the future, so we'll change things around a little bit for songs here and there. HLS - When I was in a band that switched instruments, I always worried about it stalling momentum. Devin - Yeah, at this point the keyboard has been the momentum ... Jeff - Just trying to divert the audience while we switch and Devin sets up the drums. Devin plays three different instruments in our current shows so he's switching guitars for tuning and things like that. Devin - It feels a little excessive, but you gotta do what you gotta do. Jeff - It's easier to switch guitars than to retune them. Devin - People would get really bored with that. HLS - How do you set up your drums differently? Devin - It keeps changing. [Chad] started playing my kit when I was in Smart Went Crazy. So it was always set up for me. So he learned to play on a little man's kit. He's a large guy. So now it's his style now. He kind of bounces around. Jeff - His arms don't move, but his torso does. Devin - He's snapped, like, three bass drums pedals. Breaking all of my equipment. Jeff - He's a very destructive player. (laughs) Devin - But it was strictly him playing drums up until that song we wrote with me playing drums, so he started spreading out and and I had to, kind of, put them where they should go. HLS - What sparked the idea to have you play drums on a song? Devin - That was a pretty conscious choice, to just have me play drums on a song. Jeff - We started jamming. That was a jam song. Chad wrote his line, just jamming. HLS - What do you think of music around here and how you fit into it? Jeff - Oh boy. You tell me (laughs). Devin - That's a tough one. Jeff - We really like a lot of the stuff that Juan (Carrera)'s been involved with. Devin - The Sorts ... The Crainium was really good. Unfortunately they split up. Jeff - A lot of Dischord bands. Devin - That's a tough one, where we fit in. I always figured that we fit in with ideology. As far as music, I kind of like the idea that you don't have to fit in musically. It's all up in the air. Jeff - I like what Mike and Carleton are doing with Resin. They're doing good stuff. Devin - Yeah. There's a lot of stuff happening now, where the next generation of players is coming out. There's tons of bands out there that I don't even know about that, I'm sure, rock. HLS - I do sense that, that there are a lot of new bands emerging, that didn't seem to be there a year ago. A lot of bands seemed to have hit their stride or come close to it recently. Bands are more visible. Devin - We're trying to get out there.