Interview: The North Country
In the 1920s, Exquisite Corpse became a popular pastime among artists of the Surrealist movement. Described by the MoMA as “a game in which each participant takes turns writing or drawing on a sheet of paper, folding it to conceal his or her contribution, and then passing it to the next player for a further contribution,” anyone who’s ever been to art school or spent a considerable time around artists has probably participated in, or at least encountered, an exquisite corpse drawing.
Isolated from one another during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Washington, D.C.-based sextet The North Country decided to use the exquisite corpse process as the framework for a new batch of songs. It initially began as an interesting creative exercise without high expectations, but ultimately led the group to produce some of its most attention-grabbing songs to date. Free of the usual creative restrictions of the studio setting, the experimental pop band audaciously blends genres on the resulting 2022 release, Born At The Right Time (Exquisite Corpse), in ways that previous records only hinted at, implanting each track with its own unique set of twists and turns.
With the group set to perform at Fleetwood’s on Thursday, Feb. 16, with support from local bands Krave Amiko and Hi Helens, Asheville Stages spoke with several North Country members about the distinct creative process behind Born At The Right Time (Exquisite Corpse), as well as the future of artificial intelligence in music.
Jonny Leather: It’s my understanding that Born At The Right Time (Exquisite Corpse) was written and recorded entirely remotely. Can you elaborate on the process?
Jon Harmon (guitar): This record is basically the result of an experiment. Originally there was no intention for release. It was more of a team building exercise — a trust fall. We each were tasked with coming up with a seed for a song. That seed could be a drum beat or a chord progression or vocal sound. It would then get handed to another band member in a way that was predetermined. Andrew [Grossman] did some crazy math and found a way to have each seed take a different path through the band so each song has a really different feel as a result.
Grossman (vocals/guitar/synth): Each member of the band would write and record a short piece of music then send it to one other person in the band. Then they would work on it, adding to it for one week, and then pass it along to one other person in the band. Using a 6x6 matrix of non-repeating numbers in rows and columns, we set up a schedule so that each piece of music was passed to a new person in the band, in a unique order, and each person sent to and received from someone new each week. Nobody heard the whole thing until the very end.
One or two ideas added per round. Ideas can be instrumental, structural, lyrical. Don’t be afraid to get weird. And that was it.
JL: Did this different approach lead the band in directions it may otherwise have gone if collaborating in the same room?
AG: Completely. The record was made remotely, during a pandemic, using a method that was completely novel to us. It’s hard to imagine any other set of circumstances where we make this record.
Also, because we set a schedule for how long any one person could be with a piece of music before having to pass it on, no one could second guess anything. Whatever we got, we had to say “yes” to and figure out how to add positively to it.
Laurel Halsey (vocals/keyboards/synth): We also couldn't re-record anything once we had sent it off. Once we had let it go, we couldn't revisit it. That, and the fact that we were only thinking of these little creations as a creative exercise, and not necessarily songs on a future album that we would share publicly, led to a certain freedom — a certain detachment.
JH: I think the space we created through the exercise was very different from the space that usually exists when you share an idea at band practice or as a demo. I certainly shared an idea that I never would have shared in those other contexts. But because the stakes were low, rough ideas were examined more closely, and I think we really ended up polishing some gems that would’ve otherwise never made it out of the ground.
I think the structure of the exercise also encouraged sitting with an idea and letting your feelings towards it evolve. Rather than it being kind of an elevator pitch scenario, this was much more nurturing. I don’t know exactly how my idea was received on first listen from our drummer but the end result demonstrated a lot of love and care and validation.
JL: It’s likely your most stylistically adventurous record. Could you elaborate on the variety of influences and ideas that each member contributed?
AG: Pandemic-induced solitude and existential angst is probably the dominant influence, at least for me.
LH: This is probably as difficult a question for me to answer as, "So what kind of music do you play?" I probably should be able to come up with something, but all I can think of so far is: a little of this, a little of that. Sorry! I haven't yet been able to skillfully pinpoint what enters my brain and then comes back out again as original art.
JH: As an individual, I have a strong leaning towards punk/math/prog rock and electronic music. In performing older material from previous The North Country albums, those influences didn’t really have a place. And so I really seized at the opportunity to introduce some of those influences right off the bat just to see how people in the band reacted to them.
There were moments where I didn’t have an idea for a guitar part. So instead, I’d manipulate the recorded material someone else contributed with an eye towards some of the electronic and hip-hop artists I admire who use sampling in their work. That is a pretty huge departure of how I would normally contribute during a more traditional songwriting process.
JL: How will the approach and results of this process inform your future recordings?
AG: The cat’s out of the bag now. I’m not entirely sure what form it will take in the future but I think we’re all interested in exploring other new ways of collaborating in the songwriting process.
LH: We have not totally abandoned our traditional approach, which is that Andrew as the main songwriter introduces a demo or skeleton of a song with lyrics, chords, and a structure, and the rest of us flesh it out and tweak it. We still do that, and it's actually pretty collaborative already. However, we are talking about getting together for a "band camp" in a few months — a sort of writing retreat to which each of us would bring a musical idea that we'd then share and work on with the group. Detailed plans are still up in the air, though.
Austin Blanton (bass/vocals): I’m ready to let all the cats out of all the bags. I want to see what happens if we take this same radically collaborative idea but do it all together in a room.
JH: I hope that it will inform all of our future recordings. If not directly through repeating the same process, then at least by contributing to the sense of trust and care we have for each other’s ideas and unique musical voices.
JL: How important is it for your band to have a cohesive sound across your recordings, and how do you balance that with the more eclectic and adventurous impulses of your members?
AG: Within a single album, I think cohesiveness among different tracks is important. Outside of that, I’m more interested in having every record sound different. All of my favorite artists evolve and change over time. I’m not sure what the point would be if we didn’t do that.
LH: Yeah, sometimes when I hear multiple albums or songs by a certain artist that all sound the same, I think, “Don't you know how to do anything else?” I mean, you can't help but display some measure of a signature style over time, but I agree with Andrew that it's totally OK, if not preferable, for there to be big differences between albums.
JH: I agree with Andrew. Cohesion in an album really gets me excited. I have some really powerful and positive memories of sitting down with a new CD and listening all the way through and just really taking it in as a body of work rather than a collection of individual pieces. I’m told that's not the most financially lucrative way to approach music releases in the industry these days but I’m always gonna strive for that. Outside of an album though, I think it can be really exciting to see a band try something new. But usually there is some through-line, so perhaps it just depends on one’s understanding of cohesion.
JL: Touring as an independent band has become even more challenging and complicated post-COVID-19. How have you had to adjust?
AG: Each tour, I think we get a little bit smarter. The big thing is just being flexible. None of us are really big partiers. The focus is really on playing great shows, every show. Any sacrifice needed to ensure that we play great shows is something I think we’re all more than happy to make.
LH: To Andrew's point about getting smarter, we are learning that we have to give ourselves ample lead time on booking, and sometimes cast a very wide net in trying to book certain cities. We also masked indoors both before and during our last tour; we plan to do the same for our February tour. We really don't want to get sick and have to cancel any shows!
JH: My first “get in a van” tour was the summer of 2022, so I don’t have a ton to compare it to, but I think we’ve had to take a really sober look at the financials and think about how COVID exposure on the road can make or break whether we see a return on the investments of time and resources we put into making a tour happen.
AB: And none of us caught COVID-19 on the tour! I still haven’t got COVID after almost three years…
JL: As a band who incorporates electronic elements, do you foresee yourselves using Artificial Intelligence within the creation of your music?
AG: Our society’s current lurch towards AI seems like a really bad idea to me. Seriously, why are we doing this? For every problem AI may solve, it creates 10 more problems, and some of them are serious ethical problems. But there’s no way of stopping it. So, I don’t know. Ten years ago, I didn’t foresee that I’d be on Instagram, and here we are, so I suppose anything’s possible. But let the record show that in 2023, I don’t like it!
LH: I don't see us doing it, either! That would be like a potter buying mass-produced ceramic bowls and reselling them. Mass-produced ceramic bowls have their place, but not as a substitute for the work of a craftsman, if what you're looking for is something handmade.
AB: I disagree with Andrew and Laurel. Guitar pedals and synths are mass-produced, but people have managed to use them in unique hand-crafted ways. AI is a tool like any other tool, and can be used either to increase profits, reinforce inequality, produce homogenized culture, or it could be used to help comprehend a mysterious complex world, optimize toward a good life for all, make magic experiences that broaden minds. It's all a matter of who holds the hammer and what incentives they have.
I'm not into an auto-music system where you demand it to rip off a Nirvana riff but with your dumb lyrics. However, I think there is a possibility for weirdness and mystery with AI as a creative tool. It remains to be seen what exactly that is. In the meantime I hope the AI hype bubble bursts soon and a bunch of investors lose their money.
JH: I’m not opposed to experimenting with AI as a source of inspiration. Maybe writing songs based on generated images. Or feeding an AI-like-JukeBox a North Country album and then having it write something totally wacky and then try to recreate it as a band.
JL: AI-generated artwork is produced via prompts. If you were programming an AI to recreate your latest EP, what would your prompt look like?
AG: The prompt would go as follows:
Dear AI,
Please tell your tech-bro masters to unplug the whole fucking AI project, dismantle the whole thing so that we can all live peacefully out among the trees away from the technological dystopia.
Sincerely,
Andrew
AB: bleep bloop fuzz bass Laurel procrastinating space jazz body horror nostalgia with a sick drummer and a side of zen
JH: fragmented pop rock synth collage albert camus
LH: I'm drawing a blank, but I'm curious how the interviewer might answer this question!
JL: /imagine: catchy existentialist art rock with multi-part harmonies, as performed by a glitchy AI-program using synthesizers, guitar, bass, drums. In the style of Godley & Creme, recent Dirty Projectors, Arthur Russell, and Tennis. Six variations.
IF YOU GO
Who: The North Country + Krave Amiko + Hi Helens
When: Thursday, Feb. 16, 8 p.m.
Where: Fleetwood’s, 496 Haywood Road, fleetwoodschapel.com
Tickets: $10
(Photos by Mike Kim)
