After speaking with Charles and Ohad before their show on 11/30, I walked away from the interview with a newfound respect for these two guys. Their approach to making music both as individuals and as a collective is certainly interesting to say the least. I learned of their passion for art, which some may argue was relatively omni-present within their music and album covers, but more notably, their passion for artistic process.
You can check out some photos from the show here.
Charles Spearin
Ohad Benchetrit
Michael: When’d you guys get into town?
Ohad: Uh, 2:30 – 3:00.
Michael: Were you in New York last night?
Charles: Yeah, Manhattan and Brooklyn the night before.
Michael: How’d it go?
Ohad: Great.
Charles: Brooklyn was awesome. Manhattan was a little bit more like a Sunday night feeling, a bit quieter crowd. The Brooklyn show was really rowdy and fun.
Michael: Quiet crowds can be cool too, I guess, with a little Sunday night feel.
Charles: Yeah. It wasn’t that bad. Brooklyn was just a lot of fun. We were kind of revved up for another show and then.. a quieter crowd. Some dude passed out right in front right at the beginning. I was like okay stop the show.
Ohad: Well technically you didn’t stop until he passed out the second time.
Charles: He got up and fell over again.
Ohad: I’m okay!
Michael: When you guys went into your writing process, specifically for “Other Truths,” you all just went into a room and let whatever sort of happen?
Ohad: Pretty much. We try not to bore the drummers. You can tell when you have.
Charles: It’s funny because it’s almost like we try not to come in with ideas because once you have ideas you become attached to them and you start trying to manipulate them. If you come in with an open mind and just see what comes out of everybody coming together. It doesn’t always work that way.
Michael: Yeah, you come in with an idea sometimes and you become attached to it and then other people don’t like it.
Charles: Yeah it hurts you know? It’s just like okay.
Michael: You guys don’t like my stuff?
Ohad: Yeah and I think this was the year where everybody was kind of already taking those ideas that they would have normally brought to the table and placing them on other projects.
Charles: Yeah Ohad put out his record, I put my record out, Justin’s with the Lullaby Arkestra record..
Ohad: So this is more of what’s left.
Charles: Yeah, this is Do Make Say Think, you know, it’s not any one of us.
Michael: Very cool. I mean with that style, do concepts for the album sort of evolve with the writing of the songs? And also, how did you narrow down? I imagine you guys wrote a lot?
Ohad: Actually we didn’t write a lot. These were the only four songs that were written.
Michael: Just a lot of focus.
Charles: In a way there wasn’t much of a concept for this record. Music, inherently, is abstract. It’s sound. You can add concepts to it, you can say it feels like this or it reminds me of this but music in itself is like an abstract painting. You just get what you get from it and then you can add all kinds of concepts afterwards. This record, even in a way, we tried to steer away from adding too many ideas and just leaving it as music. Even the album title, “Other Truths,” is a way of respecting each other’s opinions and letting everybody have their own perspective of it. It took me a while to accept that as being valid. Before I always somehow thought music had to have meaning, but it does anyway. You can sort of add your own to it, but ultimately, music is abstract and I kind of appreciate that a bit more. So it is what it is and everybody appreciates it how they appreciate it. That’s where we kept it going.
Michael: I like that non-concept. It’s a concept but it’s not at the same time. It’s an approach where it’s like, ‘okay this is fine on its own just because.’ A lot of times, some people have trouble accepting that.
Charles: Yeah it could be naïve or something like, ‘oh you’re just fucking around.’ Like yeah, we’re just fucking around but at the same time we’re intelligent about it. We know somehow we’re selective in our notes; we’re selective in our sounds. We don’t really know what it is that’s pushing our fingers around and what it is that’s making these decisions.
Ohad: Concept is about having intention. When you have intention you let that direct and guide what you’re doing and sometimes that’s a wonderful thing. But I think with Do Make it’s a lot of the times more emotional, and concept can get in the way of an emotion. Like, I can’t do this because the concept dictates that we do that, but emotionally, this is where we want to be going. And when it’s all about that, it’s going to mean different things to different people. It’ll carry a context. You know you can’t do something sad and pretend it’s happy. But how sad it is, and why it’s sad is going to be different to everybody who listens to it. I think with what we were doing with this record was more about setting up that context. So it’s just writing colors and waves as opposed to signing a precondition of each movement.
Michael: I love it. It’s great. So what would you guys do on an off day, if you were doing your own thing and didn’t have any plans. What would you do?
Charles: We’re both family men, so..
Michael: Oh you guys have kids?
Charles: Yeah we’ve both got two kids.
Ohad: It can range from sleeping and doing absolutely nothing to walking as much as I possibly can depending on where you’re are and what there is to see and what you’ve done before. With 26 shows in a row without a day off, I think if we had had a day off, my only intention would be to stay in bed. For others, it’s about drinking as much beer as possible.
Michael: When’s the last time you played Philadelphia?
Charles: Last time we were coming we were supposed to play here and then our van broke down on the way here.
Michael: As Do Make?
Charles: As Do Make Say Think, yeah.
Ohad: We weren’t going to play here, we were going to play somewhere else.
Charles: We were going to play here, but we ended up playing somewhere else.
Ohad: No we did that but it was going to be that same place we played with Broken Social Scene.
Charles: It was supposed to be an all ages show, and it was going to be great. We sold a bunch of tickets and we were really excited to come down and we realized we weren’t going to make it. We just push forward and they managed to switch venues at the last minute to this tiny little place that was 21+ and the stage was tiny. We were all burnt out. We’ve played this basement a bunch of times though.
Michael: You guys said you were both family men. I guess I’m just wondering how you handle being away from the people you love. You are with people you love, but there are people you love somewhere else. How do you balance that?
Charles: I think I’ve toured a bit more over the last bit just because Ohad and I both played in Broken Social Scene, but the past couple of years I’ve been touring with the band a bit more than he has. When you’re away, you don’t see your family at all. But when you’re home, you actually get to spend a lot of quality time at home. We don’t have day jobs you know. We’re just on the road except for living at home and working at the studio and stuff like that. So you know a lot of dads don’t see their kids, you know, nine to five, and only see their kids on the weekends. I know my daughters really well, Ohad knows his kids really well because we spend a lot of time together when we’re home. Yeah, it’s hard when we’re away, but dad’s got to work. I think it’s kind of the best of both worlds. It’s a good job.
Ohad: You learn to adjust. The point is, that when we’re home there really is a solid connection and I think you just learn to adapt. The human condition is set up to do that and when we’re on the road, this becomes our life for a little while. When something happens at home, the gap just gets filled up by something. Everyone just seems to manage and it’s never for too long.
Charles: It’ s not like we’re in the army.
Ohad: Yeah it’s not that crazy. We’re not doing two-year tours exactly. So it’s three, four weeks here and there.
