Ra Ra Riot singer Wes Miles on John Ryan Pike, new album "The Orchard" and playing house parties in upstate New York
Ra Ra Riot singer Wes Miles spoke with contributor Benjamin Opipari before the band's performance at Rams Head Live Thursday.
The musical genre known as chamber pop is characterized by instruments we wouldn't associate with house parties. That changed with Ra Ra Riot. The six piece band got their start five years ago playing house parties near Syracuse University. Despite including a violinist and a cellist, they had to play loudly to be heard. That energy is reflected in their first album, "The Rhumb Line," and also their most recent, "The Orchard." Singer/songwriter Wes Miles spoke about the band's first dummer, recording the new album, and what's like for cellists and violinists to play house parties.
Midnight Sun: It’s been almost four years since John Ryan Pike, Ra Ra Riot’s first drummer, died. How did you address that in your songwriting? Our first album had pretty much already been written when he died. On the second record, we wanted to keep playing music that we had made with him. I’m still always guessing what John would do in a lot of situations, what his contributions were, and what would they still be. I still think about everything I learned from him because he was such a good musician. Working with him on lyrics and melodies, I learned so much. I always take that with me.
MS: Was there a conscious effort to address his loss when you wrote "The Orchard"? Not really. There’s no good way to go about moving forward after losing a close friend. We didn’t feel that we had to write about him after it happened. That would have been silly and would have made our friendship meaningless if we felt like we had to write about it. The things I felt afterwards certainly made their way into our songs, but that’s inevitable. It’s not a conscious thing. The songs I write happen because of feelings that naturally manifest themselves.
MS: When I caught you last month in San Francisco, it was your second show with new drummer Kenny Bernard. How's that going? Drumming is not an easy task in your band, given your complex arrangements and time signature changes. Kenny knew someone at Barsuk [ed. the band's label] and came recommended. He flew in for an audition in December and played great. He’s been doing great so far.
MS: How much time did he have to rehearse? We told him at the end of December that he had the job, so he had a couple of weeks to practice, then played with us for four days before the tour started and just nailed it.
MS: The band started at Syracuse University. Having lived in that area for a time, I know how miserable the winters are and how it can affect one’s psyche. Does environment affect your songwriting process? It always plays a role. Our first record was certainly influenced by being in Syracuse, but not just in terms of climate. The band started by playing house parties, and our first record was influenced by playing those shows. If we played quiet songs, we wouldn’t have attracted as much attention. We had to play loud songs that everyone wanted to dance to. That’s the only thing you can do in a loud, raging, house party. So that affected how we wrote, since we wanted to get everyone’s attention, literally, in that physical space.
MS: How did environment affect the writing of The Orchard? With that album, we didn’t have the constraints of writing for one setting. We had a lot more experience playing shows, so we wrote at a peach farm in upstate New York. There were not as many noises to compete with, so we could bring it down a notch. The sonic environment definitely affected the music we wrote. It was just the six of us and our producer, with not much else to do except play music. So in the late afternoon, for example, we’d want to play something loud, but in the morning maybe something quieter.
MS: How much writing do you do on tour? Not that much. It’s not because I set it aside, but because it’s frustrating to find the time and place to do it. Touring is hectic. I could be better at finding times in the margins, but when I have down time, I usually want to relax.
MS: So you need solitude? Yeah, to let my feelings come out, I need that alone time.
MS: With as much as you tour, are you ever able to slow down enough to realize that it’s a pretty unique way to see all of the United States in a way that most of us will never be able to do? There are days when I wake up before sunrise, it’s cold, and I have to drive all day. Then there are days when I have the morning off, or even the night off. We try to get to cool places. We made it to Lake Shasta in California on the last tour when we had an afternoon off. We were going from Sonoma to Eugene. We had maybe one hour, but that’s one of the places that sticks out in my mind, that one hour of outdoor solitude walking in the woods.
Ra Ra Riot performs Thursday at Rams Head Live, 20 Market Place. Anamanaguchi will open. Doors open at 7 p.m. $18.
Ben Opipari interviews writers and songwriters on his blog, Songwriters on Process. He has written for the Washington Post and academic journals. He last interviewed the Love Language for this blog. Erik Maza edited this post.
Photo: Ra Ra Riot Myspace
Erik Maza is a features reporter at the Baltimore Sun. He writes for several sections of the Sun paper and contributes weekly columns on music and nightlife. He also writes and edits the Midnight Sun blog. He often covers entertainment, business, and the business of entertainment. Occasionally, he writes about Four Loko, The Block, the liquor board, and those who practice "
