BEDHEAD INTERVIEW

ANTIDOTE: You recorded your newest album in an old church in Dallas. I'm curious as to your thoughts about recording in specific environments. How did you decide to record there in particular and did you consider other locales before you finally decided on that one?

BUBBA: Actually, that was what we called the "4-songCDEP19:10" that we recorded 2 years ago. It's 4 songs done live and recorded with one stereo mic in a church that was being renovated and also happened to sound good.
The new record was recorded in a studio in Austin. Some songs were done live (except for vocals) and some partially live, but the amount of overdubbing never exceeds what we play live; it was only done for acoustic reasons.

ANTIDOTE: Did a member of the clergy preside over the recording?

BUBBA: Absolutely not, but the hand of God may have touched a few bass strings here and there.

ANTIDOTE: You would think that a line-up that includes three guitarists AND a bassist would make for a muddy, heavy handed sound, yet this is really not the case at all in your recordings or live performances. How are you able to maintain such a restrained/minimal sound with so many musicians in the band?

BUBBA: Well, thanks. Actually, no one in the band is completely ego-driven to play music to the point that he would insist on being a ham or get in the way of the other instruments. We all want to do something that, as a whole, is good.

ANTIDOTE: Have you been at all effected by the recent resurgence in varied instrumentation [Tortoise, Trans Am]? Will there be a Bedhead album incorporating vibes or Moog organ at some point in the future?

BUBBA: Bedhead came from a band that Matt, Trini, and I had from 1989-92 with a viola player. We made recordings with viola, violin, accordion, and vibes (some of which we have thought about releasing in the near future). We never really felt too comfortable having a viola player in the band all of the time when it only sounded good on a handful of songs, so with Bedhead we incorporated the sustaining quality of the viola into an extra guitar and solved the problem of the viola's more than occasionally unwanted timbre.
There is glockenspiel on our first record ("Crushing"), on two songs on the new record, and I don't think that we would ever rule anything out, but it wouldn't be because of Tortoise or Trans Am (the latter of which I've never even heard). These kinds of cycles keep recurring. In the 60s it was the sitar, now it's the organ and vibes. The problem arises when the excitement for a "new" and different sound precludes any striving for musical development. In other words, sounds for their own sake can make for lifeless music - fusion, new age, et al.

ANTIDOTE: What was it like recording for John Peel and the BBC?

BUBBA: Because of a scheduling mishap, we never did it. We hope we can make it up this fall when we go over there to tour.

ANTIDOTE: Texas has produced The Butthole Surfers, Ed Hall, The Fuck Emos and others. And though these bands certainly don't define the scene there is something to be said for the presence of a raucous, punk tradition in Texas. Do you view yourselves as an anomaly in the area?

[no response]

ANTIDOTE: Briefly describe the personal characteristics that make you effective in working with people and outline your skills, interests and aptitudes and temperament in relation to your suitability to a career in music.

BUBBA: You might want to direct that question to some GIT (Guitar Institute of Technology) applicants.

ANTIDOTE: The vocals on most of your albums are almost, well, "ambient" [for lack of a better word]. It's almost as though you're singing to yourself. How important do you consider your lyrics?

MATT: They're as important as the music. We're not adverse to instrumentals -- if we can come up with them -- and I think we recognize a song as an instrumental either if it works that way or if lyrics get in the way. By the same token, if drums don't work for a song then there are none, if bass doesn't work there is no bass, if three guitars.... I'd like to think there's nothing completely arbitrary in the songs we play, that we don't do the things we do for the sake of convention. In some songs the vocals are mixed more loudly than they are on others, which may make them sound more personal if only because they're incoherent. But in neither case are the lyrics less important than the music or less intended to be listened to as an inseparable part of the song.

ANTIDOTE: Is there some live performance in your past that was instrumental in the development of the music you play now?

MATT: Not really.

ANTIDOTE: Does it bother you that you are oftentimes pigeonholed as more practitioners of the whole "sleep rock" phenomenon?

MATT: Yes.

ANTIDOTE: How many of you have sleep disorders?

MATT: Six.

ANTIDOTE: Have you ever been convicted of a crime, either felony or misdemeanor for any legal infraction other than a parking or speeding ticket?

MATT: Two have, three haven't.

ANTIDOTE: King Coffey signed you guys on the strength of your first 7" alone and given the opportunity, will sing your praises as loud as you'll allow him. What are your thoughts on Trance Syndicate as an independent label?

MATT: Besides being the best Texas label the state has ever had, Trance is also one of the best independent labels in the country. In a lot of ways music seems more regional than I imagine it was, say, ten years ago. Bands do well in the Midwest, but not so well out west, or they can tour endlessly on the East Coast but nowhere else. And usually the area of the country where the band is from explains they label they're on. Until Trance came around there really wasn't any label for Texas bands. Since they usually did well only in Texas, they either had to play a lot in the Midwest, and be lucky enough to get on Touch and Go, go to California, the East coast, wherever. Before we made a record for Trance we had never played out of state (we had been to Germany but for unusual reasons). If Trance hadn't been around we would have either had to tour more than we were prepared for or to try to get on a label somewhere on the other side of one of the expanses that surround Texas. If we had done the former we would have killed each other, if the latter, we would probably be unhappy being so far from the people putting out our records or, worse, less a priority for them. Trance offered the great option for us that I'm sure labels like Merge or Drag City offer for bands in different parts of the country. And now that we're less confined to the region, we still like them very much.

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