DT probes… Real Estate - an interview with Martin Courtney
Real Estate are Martin Courtney, Matthew Mondanile, Etienne Duguay and Alex Bleeker of New Jersey. Think about surf’s most reverb drenched, ambient moments and you begin to come close to the Real Estate sound - it’s like they’ve just emerged from an underwater grotto to play a beach party in the misty twilight of dusk. There’s no sign of Dick Dale here, but there are definite signs of Mondanile’s solo project Ducktails. Real Estate released their debut self-titled record in Autumn 2009 on Woodsist, followed up by the Reality EP a month later on Mexican Summer. For a band that have such a dream-like sound, their choice of Reality for the name of their EP is interesting - their songs are about real and very normal things.
Ducked Tapes caught up with lead singer Martin Courtney of Real Estate at their show at the magnificent Nation of Shopkeepers in Leeds, UK. They were really swell chaps - we gave them a 6 Piece Percussion Set that they promised to use on upcoming songs.
Anyhow…
Here’s DT’s interview with Real Estate.
DT: So where did the name Real Estate come from? Are you big fans of the mortgage market?
MC: Let’s start from the beginning. We all grew up together, we all went to high school together; at least me, Bleeker and Matt did, and we all kind of like went off to college for a couple of years and then kind of moved home. I was just trying to look for a job or whatever and I was going to real estate school at the time. We started a band and had to give it a name and didn’t know what to call it - I thought it was a good name, ‘coz it didn’t really bring too much to mind really, it’s just kind of like a pretty generic sounding term. Then immediately afterward there’s like a housing crisis, mortgage bubble, all this shit happens and it’s kind of funny. It was actually Etienne that came up with the idea. It’s just a name.
DT: You’ve all done work with other bands and solo - obviously Matt did Ducktails - how was it coming together? Did it make it easier to work together?
MC: It was easy to start everything because we had all played together so much in the past, and then we all kind of went our separate ways for a little bit and came back - we’d always stayed in touch and everything, so it was the most natural thing to start a band. We know each other’s styles pretty well. Not only have we played with each other so much but we’ve done our own thing separately and stayed on top of that. It’s definitely pretty natural for us to play together.
DT: From the album and from the EP I get the sense that it’s a bunch of friends coming together and partying. Is that the kind of vibe when your playing together?
MC: Like I said it’s just the most natural thing for us to start a band - it’s just kind of what we did to hang out, you know play music because it’s the most fun thing that we all do together and it makes us happy.
DT: I read that you record at home. From the Reality EP especially you certainly get that sense. You can hear it in Atlas Sound’s latest record - it’s got this vibe to it that’s really relaxed and homely. Do you think recording it at home has affected the sound at all?
MC: Yeh, definitely. I guess that’s why people would call it lo-fi or whatever because we don’t have nice shit to record with. We just use like a cassette eight track and stuff. I think that there’s a lot less pressure when you record at home - you’re not spending money on a studio and you have as much time as you want to work on it. That EP is just like songs that were recorded over the course of a long time. It’s not like we sat down and decided to record it. That plays into the sound I guess. Maybe it’s laid back because we weren’t really thinking about it too much or something.
DT: You mention lo-fi. There’s obviously quite a strong scene on the East Coast. I find Real Estate really stands out from the crowd; it’s got a different kind of sound. Do you think that’s to do with you guys being from New Jersey - obviously people like Yo La Tengo are from there, did that heritage have much influence?
MC: I can’t speculate what we would’ve sounded like if we’d gone somewhere else, but I definitely think we didn’t try to make it sound lo-fi. We want it to sound as good as we can. Some bands it’s a way of recording, or it’s part of the sound, which is cool - it’s an aesthetic or something - but for us, if I could afford to have a really nice recording system I’d go for it. We like to keep it analogue and we all really like the way that cassette sounds. It makes it seems like a little worn in almost, like it’s almost old. If we tried recording digital it’d end up sounding shit ‘coz we don’t know how to do that. It’s just like what we know how to do.
DT: Your songs have this whole kind of haziness to them - I can really pick up the sense of a coast or beach in them. How do you feel playing them throughout Europe during the coldest and darkest part of the year? Does it make them feel different when you play them?
MC: We’ve played the songs a lot, we’ve done a lot of touring recently. The actual structures of some of the songs - we’re pretty used to playing them, not to say that I’m bored by it or anything. I don’t think it’s too much about where we are that much, but then at the same time it’s kind of like interesting being… I guess the other times we’ve toured the weather’s been a little bit nicer, a bit warmer, so it is a little different. I don’t know, I think for us it’s not really about the season or whatever. I know a lot of people associate it with summer, a summery vibe, but there’s room for that in the winter time too, even more so. People want to feel that kind of vibe.
DT: Yeh, it takes you somewhere else this time of year.
MC: That’s good to hear!
DT: I noticed a lot of the kind of subject matter is normal life. The whole sound of the album is quite free wheeling, but it’s got this restraint in the heart of it, holding back from being overdone or anything. Do you think that comes from the subject matter you’re writing about?
MC: It’s just our way of arranging the songs. I didn’t want, on the album, to have too much that wasn’t already there. I didn’t want to add too many layers of different things, except maybe to have like multiple guitar tracks to maybe fill it out a little bit. We tried to keep each track kind of simple. The subject matter of the lyrics, that’s just what we read about - I don’t know what else to write about, just everyday life I guess. I does fit with the music in that they’re both kind of simple I guess.
DT: Do you have any particularly favorite artists that that you’d recommend our readers checking out?
MC: That’s funny - right now they’re playing Kurt Vile [on the Nation of Shopkeeper stereo. Ed] - we all really like him a lot. His solo stuff is really awesome. He’s on a kind of similar circuit to us, we’ve played with him a couple of times. He’s definitely on a really good label and stuff - it’s cool that we got to play with him. Also this band Woods - we go on tour with them next month, and we played at SXSW with them. We also all really like them. We feel a kinship with them ‘coz they’re our friends and stuff. Our sound’s different but sort of similar. We all like to jam and like improvise.
DT: Do any of you guys have day jobs or is it music full time? Do you have any recommendations about how people starting out split their time?
MC: None of us can afford to do music full time. That’s the short answer. I have a job. I work at a real estate office and kind of do bookkeeping sort of stuff and boring shit there - it’s the way to pay my rent. Two other people in the band live at home with their parents just kind of doing music and stuff but don’t have jobs. Etienne lives in Brooklyn and he makes money putting on shows and stuff - he’s sort of like a promoter I guess. None of us make enough money to pay our rent. Hopefully that’ll happen at some point - not yet!
DT: Yeh, I heard Deerhunter could only quit their jobs after Microcastle.
MC: You always hear about bands that you think are like…you know… everyone I know that’s in a band has a job - you have to be doing really really well to make money off of it. It’s kind of depressing to think about [laughs]. There’s really not that much money to be made, but at the same time we all feel so lucky to be able to be over here in Europe touring and stuff - that’s amazing and we’re not paying for it out of our own pockets. It’s a free trip pretty much - I mean we’re not gonna make very much money off the tour, we’re basically paying for our plane tickets and all the stuff through the shows - but it’s worth it. For sure.
DT: Do you have a favorite children’s character?
MC: Probably Little Pete from Pete and Pete, I don’t know if you guys have that show over here.
DT: It’s ok - High Places listed like 7 and we didn’t recognise any.
MC: [laughs] It’s this awesome show that was on Nickelodeon. It’s this live action show about the suburbs. It’s kind of funny, I feel like the aesthetic of Pete and Pete fits a little bit with our music. It’s pretty weird. Plus the band that did all the music for the shows was this band called Polaris. This guy Mark Mulcahy kind of like had a solo thing going on too. That band is really awesome too, you should check them out. They made one album, which is like the soundtrack to this show. It’s funny ‘coz it’s like really solid, really good music. It’s pretty much a kids tv show but you can still watch it today and be super amused by it. Steve Buscemi’s in it, and… I can’t believe I can’t remember this dude’s name…. “I wanna be your dog”…
DT: Iggy Pop?
MC: Iggy Pop’s in it. He plays one of the girls’ fathers. There’s a lot of kind of indie… Michael Stipe was in it. It’s a really good show. That’s Little Pete. He’s a prankster.
