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Music

Lame Drivers Page the Underworld in The Video for ‘Unseen Tarot’

Tarots, hocus-pocus and fun time pop hooks feature on this new video from the New Jersey/Providence/NYC trio.

Crystal balls, apparitions, secret potions, haunted houses and a whole lot of supernatural activity features in "Unseen Tarot" the newest video for Brooklyn band Lame Drivers.

Just as a tarot has many cards, Lame Drivers have many sounds that includes; punk, garage, psych, experimental, and pop from the power to the minimal.

On paper, Lame Drivers have been a band since 2004, but the current three-piece lineup of Jason Sigal, Jeff Wood and Joe Posner came together in 2008. After a number of tapes, cds, mp3s and a flexi book they’ve finally released their debut album Chosen Era.

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We had a chat to guitarist and vocalist Jason Sigal to find out more about the video and Chosen Era.

Noisey: The track is about tarot and fate. Would Lame Drivers be a Major Arcana or Minor Arcana card?
Jason Sigal: I wouldn't want to limit Lame Drivers to any single card. The upside down chariot is an obvious choice. Our reading for this album might feature the moon, the ace of wands, and the upside down world among others. But "Unseen Tarot" is about letting fate conceal your card. That way, the card could be any card. Your fate could be any fate. It's like Schrödinger's cat.

You have been around for a while but this is your first ‘proper’ debut release.
We’ve mostly thought in terms of individual songs, or EP-length song groups, rather than albums. Freeform radio is a big inspiration for us, and we’ve always been a lot more interested in following our impulses to explore song ideas rather than solidify one “sound” that is “our sound,” so the songs don’t always have a cohesive style. At one point we even started to invent a different band persona for each song on the album…turns out it’s hard to write a traditional album this way, although projects like Sonny Smith’s 100 Records are definitely inspiring.

Usually, the best way to improve a song is to write a new one. So a lot of our music never makes it out of what we call the Demoverse, or lends itself best to EP's and scattered mixtapes like Cruisin Classics and Unlimited Ride. Lame Drivers is always moving forward.

I like that you are giving out free pens with each release. What are the pens like for writing? Do they have a good feel?
I wanted to make stickers, but Jeff and Joe said we aren't a sticker band. Stickers just end up on venue toilet seats and get pissed on. Instead we made pens. They’re great for doing crossword puzzles, but they’re classic lame pens—they’re the type of pens you get for free at auto garages or veterinarian offices. They don’t feel great, but they do the job.

Your sound is sometimes compared to Guided By Voices. Travis Harrison, one of Chosen Era's producers has worked with GBV's Bob Pollard. Did he have any good Bob stories?
Apparently Bob's trick is beer. Travis did Waving at the Astronauts by Lifeguards which is Doug Gillard’s music and Bob Pollard’s vocals. They hadn't heard any of the vocals before Bob walked into the studio. He cranked through them in sequence, listened back, maybe punched in a mistake then moved on. A few hours and a case and a half of Miller Lite later, it was all done.

"Chosen Era" is available now on Bleeding Gold/Jigsaw/Lame.