REPUBLIC OF LETTERS: I NEED SOMETHING REAL
By Orin Louis
Ohhhh dammit. After Wiki-ing “Indie rock,” I can say that, from this genre, I enjoy and regularly listen to Elliott Smith, Interpol, Arcade Fire, and MGMT – but have only heard pieces of others, including The Killers, Modest Mouse, and The Get Up Kids. Yes, I am one pathetic loser, because these bands are huge. They sell out shows to tens of thousands of screaming little bastards; they are crucial links in our musical zeitgeist – indelible landmarks on our cultural landscape...blah blah...I know, and am hesitant to reveal this ignorance to you. But I suck at lying.
So why is my opinion here worth a turd? I’m rational, skeptical, and most importantly: fucking hard to please musically. There’s a solid reason I’ve avoided this style so long – it’s often sappily two- dimensional. I can’t ever tolerate country music because my dog hasn’t screwed my wife in the old Chevy pickup on the farm; likewise, I simply don’t relate to most Indie/Alternative tunes. It just doesn’t speak to me. I was raised on classical, classic rock, and a tinge of electronic. Truth be told, I rarely enjoy music with any words at all, especially anything current. High quality instrumentals plus meaningful prose is common as hetero unicorns. Lo, WTF – suddenly, my car’s been blasting an Indie rock album on repeat for weeks?! Republic of Letters’ new EP, Painted Hour, packs the emotion of Arcade Fire, the wisdom of E. Smith, and the punchy pulse of MGMT. Think: The Who, Editors, U2, Bruce Springsteen and The Police. The resulting sound floats past those less desirable, but all too familiar, Indie rock traits, while staying true to the genre. Artists of any medium who consciously work toward stretching a cluttered style in new directions – and are successful at it – are the only ones worth experiencing. RoL’s
music addresses common themes – love, hope, loss, desire, frustration, but from new angles. Profound lyrics over meaty, hungry instrumentals take me somewhere else, somewhere I want to be.
In my favorite track, “Running From,” a reverby piano accompanies lead singer Chris Venti’s mellifluous voice so perfectly. Picture “November Rain” vs. anything Radiohead. “Running From” never loses energy as it effortlessly builds and breaks, hitting me deep in the gut. Lyrics like, “Cause the writing on the walls today / yeah I don’t know just what they say / was stolen from a haunted past,” do not entirely make sense to me, but jeez, I don’t want to understand immediately. Robert Frost said: “Poetry is what gets lost in translation.” I say the most valuable art is not that which is immediately accessible, but that which reveals clear intention, while leaving room for discovery. Every track on Painted Hour has this effect. The music is intelligent – it holds back the right amount to keep me engaged yet, with each play, I hear something new.
I meet the band at The Red Fox Room in North Park. I’d expected lanky, drugged-out assholes; yet, to my relief, they are sharp witted and genuinely personable (but still lanky). They’re also snappy dressers. I ask them to start at the beginning. Guitarist Adrian tells of when he was a kid, watching his parents’ band: “She dressed up in cheetah print...they played so loudly, I’d go up the stairs and try to play along with them on keyboard. But I really wanted to be a drummer, and began by playing bells.” I asked if that was helpful experience. “Hell no!” He retorts. “Carrying around a bell kit, you’re a target. I got beat up a couple times. But I used the bells on the last record for one tiny part. Nick gave me shit, but it worked, ya know? Now I practice guitar usually around eight hours each day.” An aspiring, yet busy, guitarist myself, I can’t help but envy
the guy – perks of being a professional.
Bassist Martin began on the recorder “‘Hot Cross Buns,’ dude,” he tells me (now regretfully). “I played trumpet, then got good at baritone horn. Even got to play in a Charger halftime show. One day, my dad told me, ‘Get good at bass and you can be in any band you want.’ I started going to shows, even if I didn’t know which bands were playing. I spent all my money on CDs.” I ask if playing for a pro football stadium was difficult. “It’s much scarier playing for friends intimately. That’s the nice thing about touring—you can be whatever you want in front of people you don’t know.” I imagine meeting RoL in a few years to see if they’re still pretending, or if they will have become these alter egos.
The Venti brothers’ (singer and drummer) mother is a classically trained pianist and vocalist. Nick recalls, “Music was always around. We were always in a creative environment.” I ask about how/when he knew he wanted to be a musician. He tells me of a night in his teen years, at a Bad Religion show: “Riding the mosh pit, I got thrown into that space between the stage and the crowd. Security was walking me out when they became distracted by two punks climbing the rafters. Everyone rushed over there and I had a moment to decide...I jumped up on stage while they were playing. My friends were like, what the fuuuu?! Was just one of those moments.” He reminisces on RoL’s early days: “We were a 3- peice for a year, until Adrian came in to raise up the musicianship, and we finally found that sound. All our music now is about creating a mood. If we all like that mood, we’ll continue with it.”
