Saturday Looks Good to Me

The band began as a recording project back in 1999, put out a weird collection of songs on a record and slowly became a band that toured and made other weird records starting in 2001. We started working with Polyvinyl Records in 2003, and they’ve put two albums and an EP with us. Ypsilanti Records is a very small record label that I run out of Ypsilanti, MI, where I was born. The label started in 2000 and it exists to showcase the work of a community of friends and artists in the Detroit and Ann Arbor area. Our active bands include Kelly Jean Caldwell, NOMO, Saturday Looks Good To Me, Jessica Bailiff, and Terror At The Opera.

Do you see yourself as the principal songwriter or does everyone share ideas?

I write all the lyrics and basic song ideas for SLGTM, but everyone in the band brings their own personality and whatnot to the songs.

Why the revolving door policy with the band, who do you think you are, Bob Pollard?

I think I am Johnny Ramone. Who’s Bob Pollard exactly? Really? There have been a lot of people in the band over time but our current line-up is pretty solid. Most of the changes and revolving doorery have been due to logistical issues like someone has a job or a school commitment so they can’t come on tour. The band right now is me, Betty Barnes, Elliot Bergman, Scott DeRoche, Scott Sellwood, Steve Middlekauff and sometimes Justin Walter plays trumpet with us.

What’s your perfect writing atmosphere? Can you write on the road?

I always sing and play guitar in the bathroom. Maybe I have to hear what a song will sound like once we get a bunch of reverb on it, but maybe I just like to look at myself in the mirror. The songs for this band just come out of old discarded radio waves, so sometimes songs transmit through while they’re touring, but it depends on how clear everything is.

Described how you get that muddy, highly-recognizable SLGTM sound.

I can’t give away the secret, but I will say it’s not even barely muddy enough. I have always produced with help from Warn DeFever (His Name Is Alive) who knows a lot more about technical stuff than I do.

What bands/producers/songwriters have inspired your music?

So many, way too many to list. At first we were just doing a direct ape of Crispy’s Band Teach Me Tiger. Teach Me Tiger was a one-man-band four-track album of Crispy re-interpolating Joe Meek and Phil Spector jams with his own vibe on it, really crumbly and weird sounding. That was the gateway to listening to old ’60s pop music and developing a love of weird, old production, recording set-ups and lost feelings. This has changed a lot and I think there’s a whole lot of difference between those basement 4-track recordings and Every Night but it’s all really just heart-broken pop music whatever name is on it, whoever made it, mostly right now we just listen to The Ramones.

Do you enjoy touring?

It’s either the best time of your life or the worst, and both every day. I enjoy it very much and we try to tour as much as we can.

You started a tour diary at the official site this tour, why now?

This is the first time we’ve had laptops with us on tour, so rather then sleeping all day, sometimes I’ve been typing while we drive. My dad read one of the entries and called me up to say how funny and ridiculous he thought it was, so I’m happy with the results.

If you could tour with any band (besides The Ramones) throughout history who would it be?

Besides The Ramones is a mean and filthy trick, but since you’ve stooped to such a level, I will stoop right back. If we could tour with Albert Ayler’s 1966 band, that would rule, if only to see that kind of energy and spirit up close. Or Bob Dylan from the same time due to the utter sheer cool which emanated from his fingertips at that time.

SLGTM is continually mentioned in the same sentences as "Motown" and "Detroit scene", do you agree with the being aligned with these words or does it tend to pigeon-hole the music?

We are a band from the Detroit area. A lot of our songs take inspiration from the Motown Records label. So those things are appropriate. I don’t feel that we have much of a place in the "Detroit scene" as it were, though. If there is one. We play shows in Detroit with bands that sound nothing like us, and that’s cool. We have a bunch of friends and acquaintances that all make music together support each other’s bands, but I don’t feel like when they make the "Detroit 2004" movie there’ll be much attention paid to any of these bands, and we don’t aspire to having anything to do with it.

Give your impression of the state of independent music, do you believe it’s become stagnant or does new stuff impress you?

It’s an amazing time in music right now. There are always a ton of shitty bands, but that’s an endless inevitability. The new wave of fucked up folk like Joanna Newsome, Coco Rosie, Devendra Banhart, Little Wings, Jason Anderson, etc. is all really exciting just because its so good and nice to hear, as is some of the more intense noise stuff like Wolf Eyes, Piranhas, Human Eye, Lightning Bolt, and their ilk. The real test of if it’s a good time in music is if people are making actualized records or just glorified singles, like a few good and thoughtful songs and much filler. I think a lot of really solid albums are coming out right now.

If given the choice would you stay with Polyvinyl or join a major?

Of any major labels we would only sign with Sire. One word – the fucking Ramones.

You’ve released a couple solo records, any thoughts on releasing anything else by your lonesome?

I’m working on this record right now which is gonna be on Ypsilanti Records under my name. It’ll be a bunch of songs and then a silk-screened book with a ton of weird collage art and Xerox stuff I’ve been working on. The cover rules, it’s a drawing of a unicorn barfing on another unicorn who’s barfing on a rainbow. Imagine it.

| INTERVIEWS | HOME | SUBSCRIBE | SHARE |