Comet Gain
Interview Cameron Cook
Photography Jonathan Black
Indie rock is littered with forgotten gems. You stumble upon bands and they quickly give life a new, fresh meaning, even if only for the time it takes for your record player needle to span the width of a 7-inch. There was a time when people felt that exciting novelty about U2 (though it’s hard to believe now) and then the Smiths, then Jesus and Mary Chain, and then the Vaselines, then the Cribs, and so on and so forth. The bands pass the baton forward through the insatiable appetite of music fans, who then in turn pick up their guitars, synths, drumsticks, laptops, and continue the relay.
The funny thing about Comet Gain is that – although formed by frontman David Feck in 1992, and having released several albums on several record labels (Wiija, Kill Rock Stars, Fortuna Pop! and What’s Your Rupture?, to name a few) – the band are only now really passing their proverbial baton to the next crop of bands. On the night of this interview Comet Gain play at a packed Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn with hotly tipped opening act Crystal Stilts. The Pains of Being Pure at Heart and the Cribs have both gone on record saying that the band are a huge influence on their sound. In 2009, indie pop is back in a big way, and we can partially thank Comet Gain for the revival.
Comet Gain are in New York for two reasons: firstly they’re recording a single in the home of Gary Olson from Ladybug Transistor, and secondly, they’ve scheduled a very brief East Coast tour in support of their new compilation, Broken Record Prayers (What’s Your Rupture?, 2008) a collection of b-sides, rarities and a few new songs to whet our appetites for a new Comet Gain full-length, which may or may not be on its way.
The lights dim and the crowd goes wild as soon as Comet Gain take the stage. It’s almost more like a musical revue than your traditional rock show. David banters with the audience just about as much as he actually sings, and co-lead vocalist Rachel Evans charmingly delivers her verses like a coy schoolgirl discovering indie for the first time and loving it. It’s funny to think about all the people in this crowd who just might go home and start shambolic, beautifully discordant bands on their own after witnessing a Comet Gain show. Like the Minutemen said all those many years ago: “Our band could be your life.”
’SUP spoke with Comet Gain backstage at their packed show at Music Hall of Williamsburg in Brooklyn for a wildly amusing and revelatory interview.
You guys are in New York recording; how is that going? Are you making a new album?
David: It’s just a single, really.
Why just a single, and not a new Comet Gain LP?
David: Well, we only had two days here, so we did four songs, one of which is going to be finished by a bunch of drunks.
(Laughing) What?
David: It’s true! It’s going to have a very frat rock vibe: just guitar, bass and drums. We’re giving it to Kevin [Pedersen, founder of What’s Your Rupture?] and his crazy friends, and they’re going to write the words and sing. Kind of like a New York Comet Gain extravaganza.
That’s amazing. Whose idea was that?
David: Seeing as it’s a stupid idea – it was mine (laughs).
I find that every one of your albums has a very distinct feel to it, from the lyrics to the songwriting, right down to the actual recording process. I know that for Réaslistes (Kill Rock Stars, 2002), you recorded that album in a very haphazard, organic way.
David: It varies with different records. You think about how you want the record to sound, and just try different ways. Also sometimes, literally, you don’t have much choice. We do each record with different people in a different way, and therefore it sounds different. You don’t want to do a whole much of similar sounding records. There’s always a haphazardness. The more haphazard the better.
Speaking of recording with different people, at this point does Comet Gain pretty much operate on a revolving door policy?
David: Oh definitely.
Rachel: I would say so. That’s how it works. Dave is the central hub of everything and the members just rotate with what we need, really. I’d say recently we have been pretty consistent though. Kay and me have been in the band for a bit more than most, but then drummers change. Anne-Laure has come into the fold, which is good, because we have a keyboardist now, so that’s a different sound.
David: There are about 55 other people that we forgot to mention.
Rachel: (laughing) We wanted to produce a badge to sell at shows that says ‘I Played In Comet Gain.’
Steve: The members are well into the twenties, I’d say.
David: Oh, there are more than that.
Steve: You think?
David: Oh yeah. More than the Fall. But with less violence.
Well that’s always good. Less alcoholism, amphetamines.
David: (laughing) But tonight, you’ve got the A-team.
Oh, this is the all-star lineup? The Comet Gain Dream Team? Awesome.
[Kay inconspicuously picks up a packet of M&Ms and starts eating them one by one]
Are those M&M’s? I’ve become addicted to the peanut butter ones. What’s your favorite color?
Kay: I don’t think it matters!
I never thought about it but M&M’s don’t even have different flavors! They could all be brown and it would be the same thing.
Steve: You say that, but there is a difference between the regular M&M’s and the peanut M&M’s, color-wise. Okay, this is a trivia question: What color do they have on regular M&M’s that they don’t have on peanut M&M’s?
Yellow?
Steve: No.
Kay: Blue? Blue ones are bad.
Rachel: Green?
Steve: No, brown. There are no brown peanut M&M’s. I have no idea why I know that (laughs).
Comet Gain have been around for a while. How did you choose the songs from your repertoire to create Broken Record Prayers?
David: We made a list of all the songs and then chose the worst ones (laughs).
Is that really what happened?
David: No. That record is mainly for songs recorded for 12- and 7-inches and therefore not available on compact disc. And then we put it out on vinyl.
Rachel: Which makes no sense whatsoever.
David: But there were also some new songs, but not enough to make an album, so we thought we’d just chuck all of it on one release.
No, it’s cool because it is really long—
David: (laughs)
Well, you know what I mean. Not really long, but if you’re a Comet Gain fan you want as many rare songs as possible. You want more bang for your buck. It is like, 80 minutes long though.
David: Is it? You don’t have to listen to the whole thing if you don’t want to.
(Laughing) I stopped after track six, I was like ‘I get it.’
David: That’s why we put all the good songs at the start!
Well, you know tracking an album is very important. Isn’t there a trusted science to it? Like, track one, three and seven are always the best songs? Being a vinyl person, on 90 percent of records, the first song on each side is really poppy, and then you have the last song that is kind of a sad ending. Then if they’re going to do weird one or a long one, or like, a funk excursion, they always put it at track three. I find that, in my favorite albums, there is a disproportionate number of really good track threes.
Steve: If you’re not grooving by track three, you’ve got a problem.
David: Track eight is always the worst song on the album. Track eight is always like, ‘Well, we’ve got this crappy track, where do we stick it? We’ll put it at the end, so they won’t notice it, but not quite at the end.’
Rachel: We’re going to have to check all of our track eights now.
David: You know how some buildings don’t have a thirteenth floor because the number thirteen is unlucky? We should just never put anything on track eight.
Steve: Yeah, to avoid that curse of track eight that ruined many a band!
There are so many indie pop bands coming that are popular right now like Crystal Stilts, the Pains of Being Pure at Heart, Pants Yell!, and I feel like a lot of them look up to Comet Gain as a big influence. Like, those bands look at you the way you might have looked to Primal Scream or bands like that. Do you think that’s a fair assessment?
David: It’s a bizarre feeling. I still look the same, listen to the same records probably. My hair hasn’t changed. Then all of a sudden you’re an elder statesman. Then in Time Out they start putting ‘indie legends’ in front of our name, or ‘has-beens’ or whatever (laughs). Or ‘veterans.’
Rachel: It’s definitely enduring. Ten years ago, we didn’t have all those things in front of our name. Now, because we’ve endured a certain length of time, we have history.
David: It’s just been consistent.
Steve: Consistent in a very inconsistent way.
David: Our mission of failure is continuing very well.
So what constitutes an indie veteran? Is it merely enduring? A lot of bands are still around, but they suck. No one would consider them to be very influential, or at least in regards to new bands people care about.
Steve: I think just not taking it all that seriously.
David: It would be very scary if we took it seriously. We’d just shoot ourselves.
Steve: A lot of bands think in a very linear way, in terms of a career, like ‘We’ve gotta do this, we’ve gotta push onto the next stage.’ Our thing is just—
Rachel: Having no ambition! (laughs)
Steve: Absolutely no ambition.
David: When [other bands] check their record sales, the moment that the sales start going down, they probably get jobs in accountancy. I have no idea how any of our records have sold. We don’t look, we don’t know and we don’t mind. As long as we get free beer and alright whiskey and M&M’s.
Comet Gain have been known to take some time between releases, but at the same time are fairly prolific in the sheer number of songs in your repertoire. David, are you one of those musicians who writes constantly and has loads of forgotten tracks lying around, or does inspiration come to you in bursts?
David: Well, Kay writes all the songs (laughs).
Kay, what inspires you then?
Kay: Uh, my cat (laughs). Actually, David surprised me because he came to me one day with a list of songs—
David: It was just a list.
Kay: But when you have something like that you can come up with a lot of ideas.
David: I had come up with a list of songs – song titles, I might add – and then we gradually filled in the songs, under each title.
[Anne-Laure whispers something in Kay’s ear].
Kay: What?
(To Anne-Laure) Are you telling her a secret? During an interview?
Kay: She was trying to tell me a secret but I couldn’t hear her.
Steve: The secret is how we write songs together! That one’s in the vault. Can’t talk about that!
David: Whenever I’m on the toilet, I just grab my notepad and go, ‘This’ll be the one.’ And every time I come out – gold.
But back to your list. Having a good title is almost as important as having a good song. It reels you in. I’ve often wondered why sometimes people don’t choose a title and then work their ways down.
David: Having a song with a generic title is always bad. There are always 250,000 songs with the same title, like “Sitting on the Mountain” or something.
Steve: Or “Rainy Day”.
Rachel: “Sitting on the Mountain”? (laughs) Obviously, we love music and we’re pretty obsessed with it, and pop culture in general. Books, movies, et cetera. If you look at our records and at our songs, there are loads of different references to, you know, things other than music.
