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Music

Do Not Call Woods a Bunch of Smelly, Gross Hippies

We talk extensively with the band and are happy to premiere their newest single, "With Light And With Love."

Photo by Matt Rubin

It’s a recent Friday evening, and I’m sitting in a dive bar on Bedford Avenue called Rosemary’s with Jeremy Earl and Jarvis Taveniere, two members of the indie rock band Woods. We're here to talk about their upcoming record With Light And With Love, out April 15, but we can't stop talking about yoga. Jarvis is an expert. Jeremy is just learning (he can only do one pose). And my mom is a yoga instructor.

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If you're familiar at all with the entire music world, this conversation probably couldn't sound more cliche. A band that's publicly praised the Grateful Dead multiple times and is often labeled as a bunch of "hippies," of course these dudes love talking about yoga. But funny enough, that's one of the biggest misconceptions surrounding their music and who Earl and Taveniere are as people. Their new record, which is the group's eighth and the first time they've worked in a proper studio (With Light was recorded in Greenpoint, Brooklyn), is the band's poppiest yet and helps put these jammy assumptions down. A swirling blend of guitars and indie rock, they've crafted and endlessly beautiful sound, one that challenges you at times with its DIY-tinge, but encourages you to sing along. Below, Noisey is happy to premiere the group title track from the record.

Throughout our hourlong conversation, during which we're also joined by my fellow editor Lauren Nostro (who's also a yoga fan), we talk extensively about the band's perception, what they're trying to accomplish, what DIY is, and the fact that Phish concerts are actually kind of amazing.

Eight records. That’s a lot of records.
Jeremy: Looking back, and listening to our work, it sounds like we made eight records. It’s coming, I don’t know, a little more naturally, a little more easily.

Jarvis: The first couple weren’t really made to be records, either, they were just recording projects, basically. And so now that we’re making records and enjoying being in a band, it’s a whole different experience.

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How’s that reflected?
Jarvis: There’s a little more attention to detail. A little more care. Pushing as far as we can go. With the first bunch records, one of the ideas was to just write and record quickly, and make weird records of something we would hear and be excited, you know? But honestly, I just got bored of that.

Bored of the weirdness?
Jeremy: Well, not the weirdness, but just being super spontaneous with everything. Writing a song really fast, instantly recording it, and overdubbing and the record being done. This record was more thought-out, songs were written beforehand, rehearsed, and then we spent a lot more time recording and we got the exact sounds we wanted to get.

Absolutely. I mean, you listen to a song like “Moving to the Left,” and it sounds like a pop song.
Jarvis: Yeah. That’s the most extreme version of what we’re saying, and we knew that when we were doing it. We were like, whoa, here we go. Which is fun! With the first bunch of records, it was almost like we didn’t want to be in a real band. When we were here in New York ten years ago, trying to be a band, trying to make it, playing in different bands, trying to be a New York band, trying to do it, and after a year of that it was like, this fucking sucks. It was like, I don’t like any of these bands. All the records I’m listening to are annoying and boring. It wasn’t even really things we were listening to—it was just New York. Everyone was listening to dance-punk. Everyone asking us about our music was like, “Is it dance-punk?” Everything had to be dancey. Everyone I knew who was listening to Bright Eyes a year earlier or some singersongwriter shit was asking me, “Is your music dancey? Is it dancey?” And it was like, ugh. So we holed up and started separating ourselves from the rat race a bit—not thinking about how things would be perceived or whatever. We just made a cool record in our bedroom.

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Jeremy: In the living room, we’d go into this crazy fucking jam. Tie it together. And then it’s like, this is it.

What was that time period like for you creatively? I always wanted to move to New York and had a certain expectation of what it was going to be. Was it like that for you when you arrived?
Jarvis: Growing up so close to the city, it’s weird because you always feel like an outsider. I’m sure a lot of people feel that way, and that’s kind of how I felt when I first moved here. Like, for example, seeing things, like Todd P shows. He did a show in Williamsburg and it was like, Liars and all these bands of that time, playing this outdoor show in a parking lot, just hanging out outside. I could list off a handful of bands that were playing, but it probably wouldn’t be correct—like, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were playing! TV on the Radio! [Laughs.] But being around something and seeing a group of people having so much fun was exciting. Everyone you saw was doing something interesting.

How have you seen the scene shift and adjust over the past ten years?
Jeremy: I mean, right now I feel no connection to a scene. Or anything. If there is one, I just don’t know about it—besides some of our friends’ bands, like Real Estate or something. But I guess once there was something, like when we were all getting started it felt like there was something going on—we were all playing a couple times a week. There just seems like there was a lot going on—more DIY spaces, different venues, and it almost seems dead now.

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RIP 285 Kent.
Jarvis: That’s the thing too. I appreciate the fact that we’re older and maybe it’s a different crew of younger people who are moving here, so they’re DIY in their communities much different than ours was, and that’s cool. So when 285 Kent closed, I was like, “Oh, that room that sounded bad?” [Laughs.]

So many people were very sad.
Jarvis: I know. And I respect the fact that to younger people, that place meant something. That’s awesome. And to be honest, I’m glad I’m not involved in it the same way. It’s nice. Change is nice.

Have you felt like this culture shift has been reflected in your music?
Jeremy: No, not really. I think we’re pretty outside of it and in our own zone.

Jarvis: Growing up outside of the city, I’d come to the city every weekend and skate and smoke joints or whatever. I feel like I still have that same relationship with Manhattan. I’ll go in there—not just to skate and smoke joints—but I’ll go there on the weekends, and I’m always feeling outside of it. I never feel like I’m apart of it. It’s always this thing that’s going on. It’s hard to even really comment on how it’s changed because it’s always evolving, and so I’ve never really felt too protective over it.

This was your first time recording an album in a proper studio. What was that like?
Jarvis: I feel like we made a better record because of it, especially because we didn’t have to be engineers and do everything involved with making a record. There’s a frustration to recording records yourself—just the two of us in a room slamming our heads being like, “Why doesn’t it sound better?!”—but there’s also a bit of satisfaction when you do that successfully. The last record we did, I was impressed with how far we’d come.

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This is cheesy, but like, for example, when we’re on stage in Spain at Primavera, playing for a lot of people, I’m just thinking, we recorded this record in Jeremy’s living room. And then we self-released it [through Woodsist, Jeremy’s label]. Who else does that? I mean, I’m sure there’s a few, but still, that’s pretty rad.

That has to be almost a surreal feeling.
Jarvis: Yeah. That is so outweighed by waking up at 5 AM in a hotel in the middle of nowhere in a panic, like, “Whoa, what am I doing with my life?” You feel like you’re in hell a lot.

Jeremy: Right. It’s like, you’re in the middle of the country and the van breaks down and there’s 30 people at the show and you’re just like, what the fuck am I doing.

Jarvis: Waking up with panic attacks at 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning isn’t really fun. It’s like, why? What the fuck am I doing? It’s kind of the flip side. [Laughs.]

Is there anything that as a band you feel misunderstood about?
Jeremy: A little bit. [Laughs.] A lot of people will say we’re a jam band. At first, I sort of embraced that. Or they called us hippies. Or whatever. Sure. I don’t know. We just sound nothing like a jam band, you know? Would you call Sonic Youth a jam band? Or Fugazi? Those are the kind of things we grew up listening to. But just because we stretch out a little bit—sure, you can call that jamming, but some people I feel are cut off by that by assuming we’re a jam band. Like we’re Leftover Salmon or something. I don’t even know what that band sounds like! Or Phish. I don’t relate to Phish at all.

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I went to a Phish show for the first time this past December. It was weird. I still don’t really get it.
Jarvis: I hate Phish, but I might’ve been on mushrooms as a teenager at a Phish show and had a great time. I was probably talking about Sonic Youth with my friends, like saying, “Man, fucking Goo. So awesome.” And then I stood up and listened to Phish and actually enjoyed it. I was high as hell.

There was this certain appeal of the concert, because there was absolutely no judgment—everyone was having a great time, and you could do whatever the hell you want, and no one would mock you.
Jarvis: The show I saw ended with a firework show that went on for 15 minutes. And I was so high, I was like, this is a gift. Everything I went through in my life to be here right now was worth it, so I can just watch this.

Jeremy: That’s one thing I do love about that world, and have experienced that with Grateful Dead shows. The audience is so accepting of each other and the music and just don’t give a shit. They’re just like, I don’t give a fuck. I’m having a great time. I just want to dance. No one is standing there with their arms folded, judging the band, and feeling like they can’t do anything because they’ll be uncool. It’s just like, everyone is there to have a good time. This music is moving me. And I’m going for it. And I don’t care what anyone else thinks. Why can’t other genres of music do that? It’s strange. Is it drugs? I don’t know. [Laughs.]

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Jarvis: It’s interesting. When something is considered by so many to be so uncool, people can go to it and it’s like a clean slate. They can go there and be like, this sucks. Or they can go there, pop some molly or something, and have the best time. You can just project whatever you want onto it, and there are no thoughts of whether or not you’re supposed to like it, what anyone else is thinking. Am I supposed to dance? Am I supposed to look cool?

When we first started and someone mentioned jam bands to us, we were like, fuck yeah. We’ll infiltrate the jam band culture. And then the more we investigated, we were like cavemen compared to other jam bands. When we jam, it’s more like Sonic Youth or the Stooges or something, stuff that’s repetitive. We aren’t music school dorks and we don’t have the chops to jam forever. The jam band scene we thought we could infiltrate or find acceptance in doesn’t exist.

Jeremy: Right. [Jam band culture] hears our stuff and they’re like, this is crazy. This is like a high school band.

So you’re not hippies? Because when you google you, other websites immediately call you guys hippies.
Jeremy: And that’s some of that bullshit. They mention some jam shit and it’s like, man, if you think this is jamming, I don’t know. There’s no jam element. Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t know.

Jarvis: “Moving to the Left” is probably the poppiest song we’ve ever done, and for people to mention jamming when they talk about that song, it’s almost a joke.

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Jeremy: Do people actually think we’re hippies? If you listen to a Woods record, is your immediate response, these guys are a bunch of hippies? There’s no way. I don’t know. It’s funny.

How have you seen the internet and fast-consuming culture play a role in the way your music is received? I feel like this hippy stuff is a product of that.
Jarvis: I was almost going to say the majority of people still favor total bullshit over anything with substance. Usually. Most people will look back over the past five years and remember “Gangnam Style,” versus like, Foxygen. You know what I mean? But that’s been going on forever. Looking back a hundred years from now, will they say that “Gangnam Style” did more for society than any indie rock band? I don’t know. Probably.

Since you’re hippies, do you guys do a lot of drugs?
Jarvis: You wanna talk about drugs? Let’s talk about drugs. [Laughs.] We don’t do that many drugs. We both did a lot of drugs when we were younger, and I don’t know if I need them as much as I did.

Jeremy: Right. I don’t need them at all. They’re fun to do every once and awhile. The last time I did a drug was molly at a show on my birthday, and I had a great fucking time. I danced my ass off. It was great. I haven’t done anything else since—I smoke weed every once and awhile, but I probably have smoked in, like, six months.

Jarvis: I think you’d be surprised—like some of the early records with like 10-minute jam songs, they were recorded in the afternoon completely sober. I don’t know if it has to do with drugs, but when you first do drugs and you have that shift in perception for something, it’s kind of always there. Once you realize it’s not goofy or it’s not a joke and you tap into some shit, you realize it’s always there.

Jeremy: I mean, we used to party a lot on tour, but now when we’re out there, I’m thinking, I can’t get sick. This is what we do. Let’s go to bed early and let’s wake up early, get to the show, eat something healthy, and play the show. You get to a certain point and you’re like, I’m not here to party. I’m here to work. You know what I mean? I’d rather have a good show. That’s a way better high.

Eric Sundermann would always rather have a good show. He's on Twitter@ericsundy