Real Estate

The suburbs conjure many images; manicured lawns, white picket fences, and the idyllic haze of long, winding summer days. For some, a straight jacket to rebel against, for others – like New Jersey’s Real Estate – a rich source of inspiration and fond nostalgia. But don’t be fooled; beneath the chiming guitars and intricate songs lies a steely confidence, both for who they are and what they want to do. For them, suburban dreams are nothing to be ashamed of.

 

Interview by Derek Robertson

 

“It’s like brothers, like family. You always love your family,
but you don’t always like them…”

 

//www.youtube.com/embed/MgsdblVq8wo

 

How do you feel you’ve developed from the last album to this one, musically – what’s changed and what’s stayed the same?

Alex Bleeker: Basically, what we’re interested in doing is the same. There’s a line through all three records in that it’s still very melodic, guitar-driven pop. Ultimately, we’re trying to make something pleasing to the ear, but there have been subtle changes, and they’ve been done organically – not conscious decisions to change the way we sound, just things that happen as we get older.

 

There seems to be a lot of pressure on bands these days to come up with something new.

Matt Mondanile: We don’t feel that pressure.

Alex: That happens though, for sure. You could accredit it to a lot of things; people say it’s the Internet and the speed at which music gets covered, or chasing certain trends that happened to be cool at one time or another. There are some bands that have done that to great effect, like Animal Collective; they’ve really set a precedent to say we’re going to do something different and push down some new artistic barrier on every record. But not everybody is capable of doing that, and that’s what makes them special.

 

Does it take quite a lot of self-confidence to say, “We’ve found our sound, we’re happy with it, and we’re not going to change”?

Matt: We don’t even think about that, because there’s not even a sound; the way we think about it is in terms of song writing, and that’s the way we’ve always thought about the band.

Alex: We’re just interested in trying to write and record the best songs possible, and I don’t really see us drifting from the song form any time soon; I can’t see us saying: “Let’s make a minimal house album”. Even though a bunch of bands do that.

 

“I can’t see us saying, ‘Let’s make a minimal house album’.
Even though a bunch of bands do that”

 

//www.youtube.com/embed/-gSE2NK8SDQ

 

Is it quite hard being in a band with five people and keeping everyone happy while you’re touring, and maintaining democracy in a band?

Matt: There’s a lot of decision making and compromising in our band when it comes to the really important stuff, like the track list of a record, how many songs get on it, album titles…

Alex: And even just day-to-day stuff.

Matt: Yeah, living on the road and dealing with people’s space. We’ve all done it for such a long period of time that we’re pretty good at it.

Alex: Everyone is going to get frustrated pretty much with everyone else at some point, so there’s an awareness that it’s going to happen. It used to be that if we ever got mad at each other, we’d be like: “Why is this happening? We’re supposed to be friends!” But now we say: “OK, we just have to deal with this.”

 

Do you have one person who’s anointed as the peacekeeper?

Matt: There is no peacekeeper, because that person would be the enemy of everyone else!

Alex: It’s good to have someone else on the road who’s not in the band, and who has some outside perspective. Rick, our tour manager, is good at saying “Shut the fuck up and get in the car!” That’s his job.

Matt: It’s guys hanging out and trying to make it work. But we’re in a band.

Alex: It’s like brothers, like family. You always love your family, but you don’t always like them…

 

But then they say you can’t choose your family, but you can choose your friends.

Matt: That’s true, you’re right.

Alex: We’ve chosen this friendship group and this band as one thing, but also you can’t choose to be away from them if you want to be alone on a certain day on tour. You can’t make that choice, which is like family. I can’t sleep alone, in a hotel room, without at least one of these guys tonight – it’s just not possible.

 

That’s gotta be cool though, that you’re like a brotherhood.

Alex: Totally! It’s great. But it’s like family in that way.

Matt: You just don’t think about it. The more intense stuff is basically making the record, and making important decisions – even if someone is going to get pissed off. You just have to take the requisite time to make something, because then it’ll be better in the end.

Alex: At the end of the day it’s art, and you can’t be too worried about deadlines and everything. You have to be aware of that stuff, but once something is done, it’s there forever – we’re creating something and we need to feel good about it.

 

//www.youtube.com/embed/qTrL8UyTYRA?list=UU98Kd6oO2SrXP3XlNRVi5Pg

 

Real Estate’s first Domino record in three years, Atlas, is out now. They just played Paradiso a week ago, but they’ll be back in Europe come festival season. Check out their website for more info.