In April of 2009 I was lucky enough to catch The Dead three times in a single night as they made their way through New York to promote an upcoming reunion tour. Since I was in the Lower East Side anyway—and slightly ADD by nature—between two of those underplays, I decided to pop into the Mercury Lounge to see a indie band called Wavves, who at the time were making something of a name for themselves thanks to their punk rock energy and Phish-like affinity for puny names. At the time I was working on an article about closet jam-fans in the indie world and was recounting the article’s nut graph to a co-worker the um-teenth time when a 22-year old named Alex Bleeker sheepishly turned around and said, “Indie rock and the Grateful—that’s what we are all about?” As it turns out, the “we” he was referring to was Real Estate, a lo-fo indie pop band with jamband-groove tendencies that he’d formed a few months earlier with two of his high school pals (guitarists Martin Courtney and Mathew Mondanile) and another buddy (drummer Etienne Pierre Duguay).
Since they were the first band on the bill, I’d missed them that night but that conversation piqued my interest enough to check them out a few weeks later a few blocks away at Pianos. Though the number of people in the audience only outweighed the number of musicians onstage by a 2:1 ratio, they already felt like a fully formed band complete with its own lineage and divergent personalities, the culmination—as I’d later learn—of several months of hard work and many years of friendship. During the course of the past few years, I’ve been lucky enough to watch Real Estate moved through the club ranks, ink a deal with Domino records and even lose their equipment while playing my birthday party, fully forming, as we stated in the December issue of Relix, a Scene of their Own on the edge of the new psychedelic frontier.
While that Relix feature focused on the band’s history and new studio album Days, I also talked to them about a number of other topics, including Real Estate’ precursor bands, the band’s roots in the Brooklyn underground music scene and some of Courtney’s most prominent lyrical themes. We also discussed the band’s “alter ego” projects like Ducktails and Alex Bleeker & the Freaks, as well as new drummer Jackson Pollis. Below, Bleeker, Country and Mondanile catch Relix/Jambands.com up on all those topics as well as why their new album’s title was almost named after a street light.
Though Real Estate formed in 2008 shortly after you graduated from college, the three of you have performed together since middle school. How did you come up with the initial idea for Real Estate?
Martin: I wrote songs in college and so did Alex and Matt. We’d always send our stuff to each other and then—my senior year of college—I went to France for a couple of months. While I was over there I was G-Chatting with Matt a lot, saying things like, “I’m gonna be home soon, and you’re gonna be out of school, let’s start a band.” We were both excited about that idea. I sent him some songs while I was writing there over there: I had brought my little acoustic guitar and laptop and was just making demos. I was pretty new to the guitar—I had always played bass in high school. I wrote “Green River” [off the first Real Estate album] and two or three others songs. At the time I was doing this folkier thing on the acoustic guitar—sometimes I would add drums but there weren’t many effects or delay loops and not as much in the Real Estate-style. Matt said, “Let’s take these songs and make them sound like Pink Floyd or something.” It’s not like I moved to Brooklyn and was like, “I need to find a band” or “I need to go work at a bar and meet some people.” We were lucky in that way because we grew up in that area and all that stuff. It’s lucky when you’re high school friends and you’ve known each other for a long time.
Alex: Matt and I actually had the same guitar teacher growing up, along with our friend Julian Lynch [who now records as a solo artist]. He taught us all on the same day because we were all friends. Afterwards I would always go over to Matt’s house and he’d teach me how to play Pixies songs. It just made sense for us to have a band. And Real Estate came out of the jam sessions that we would have that summer [after graduation]. It was me, Matt, Martin and Etienne, and we were hanging out at Martin’s parents’ house a lot in Ridgewood, NJ. We set up all our gear in the basement, and I remember one night Martin’s parents went away. He has a pool in his backyard, and we were just drinking a lot—drinking vodkas in the pool—that may be where the very chill sound came from. Martin was actually playing bass at that [jam session]—he is a really good bass player and used to play in our high school jazz band. He started playing the bassline to “Suburban Beverage” just as a jam. And that’s how that song got written. Then I moved to Philly. I didn’t have any plans after college but my friend had a cheap room in Philly, so I was like, “I don’t want to live with my parents anyone—I’ll just move to Philly.” And Martin, Matt and Etienne kept working on Real Estate. I was sort of unhappy in Philly—I missed them and missed the band and so I called and was like, “Dude, if I came back to New York, could I be in the band?” and that’s sort of how it started. I didn’t move back to New York immediately, but I made the band a priority and was always back and forth.
Martin: I always thought that the best bands had a certain style or genre, but we really didn’t have that—I still don’t really think that we have that. All of the lyrical content was obviously reflecting the fact that I moved home. I had a job for a while working at a greeting card company, selling greeting cards on the phone. The lyrics to “Fake Blues” are about that. It took us a while to take off but as soon as we started we were playing a lot—sometimes two shows a week—that was the main thing that kept us motivated.
Alex: Martin made all these demos, and we were really impressed by them. And I think we initially formed because we were like, “Wow, these songs are great, and we could really do something with them.” So those were always pretty central to the project. I think he was always sort of the lead songwriter. Especially early on, I think Matt contributed a good deal of what our early sound was. He was really immersed in his [solo project] Ducktails and his guitar sound is pretty unique but he really brings that to Real Estate.
Martin: Most of our songs were sort of written about my immediate surroundings and my immediate circumstances and then there were songs that were kind of like fake stories—“Beach Comber” or “Snow Days” or something where it’s kind of like sort of just trying to invoke a vibe to go along with the music, the vibe of the music.
You are all from white collar families. Martin’s family actually owns a prominent real estate company. Were your families supportive of your decision to make music for a living?
Alex: We didn’t have a direct career path out of college. At the outset, I know we had goals, but I don’t think we imagined that we could come so far so quickly. So when stuff started taking off, I felt nothing but excitement and support coming from my family. They always knew that I was going to be doing something artistic, and I don’t think I’m shattering anyone’s stockbroker expectations. I think they’re happy that I’ve been able to pay my rent through music [Laughter.]. I couldn’t really ask for anything more. I’m doing something that I like to do.
Matt, how did Ducktails first form and were you at all apprehensive about joining a band after achieving some success on your own?
Matt: Ducktails has been my solo project since I was 22. I have been recording music forever under different names—playing in a lot of different bands. I started performing as Ducktails in Western Massachusetts while I was living in Northampton and studying at Hampshire College before Real Estate started. [Even though my solo project was taking off] I wasn’t apprehensive to joining the band at all—I was excited! Martin, Bleeker and I have played together in different formations forever so it just made sense.
Martin: Earlier on, we were trying to get on every show that we could, opening for any bands that we could. We did that for 10 months or so until we went to SXSW [in 2009], which we booked ourselves.
Alex: At first we didn’t have enough songs so we would play other things, some of which became part of Ducktails or Alex Bleeker & the Freaks, which is my Crazy Horse-inspired jamband.
Martin: We were really inspired by some of our friends like Titus Andronicus—they kind of blew up right around that time and got their first Pitchfork review. My junior and senior year of high school I was in a band with Patrick from Titus Andronicus and he’s been putting out stuff under his own name ever since. That’s how I met Kevin, who recorded our sophomore album [Days]. He recorded us in high school and we helped out at his studio, which is where The Walkmen used to record. So really took that high school band seriously—we made a record and played a couple shows in New York. But it was still a high school-style band we didn’t really know what we were doing. Then in college we had a band which featured everyone from Real Estate—we were Julian Lynch’s backing band and we had a band called Les Majesty. We went up to my uncle’s house in Maine and recorded an album. They did a full US tour but I couldn’t go for some reason, though I did six or seven shows with them. But when Titus got signed to XL, we were like, “They’re really doing it, maybe we can too.” Same thing with Vivian Girls. Our goal was just to play a Todd P show.
Alex: It was totally tangible—Titus weren’t strangers who got lucky. I’d be lying if I said that when we booked some of our early shows that we weren’t like, “We’re friends with and Vivian Girls.” Getting your first Todd P show is an honor of sorts. It’s sort of like a formula: play out a bunch on your own and show that you can do it without him, and then he’ll be interested in working with you guys. Even though we play bigger venues now we want to keep a connection with him and do special shows. We played [his venue] 285 Kent in Brooklyn on New Year’s with Titus. And that was a milestone too, mostly because of my Phish fandom Everybody was down, but it was me pushing that we all learn “Auld Lang Syne” just in case we were on at midnight. We ended up being on at the countdown and we broke out into “Auld Lang Syne” and that was a huge moment for me.
For readers who are unfamiliar with Todd P, can you talk a bit about his shows?
Martin: He started doing his thing 10 years ago when I was probably 16 or 17. I was in high school. I think that was a huge help for us being able to do those shows as it is for any band that plays his shows because so many people go to those shows. He’s a real promoter yet he’s DIY about it. I remember when I first started going to those shows when I was really young and thinking, “This is insane, what am I doing here? I’m in someone’s apartment in Williamsburg and they’re serving beer out of their kitchen. And I’m extremely underage right now and this is really illegal. And this is fuckin’ awesome.” One of our first big shows or one of the ones that just sticks out in my mind was opening for Crew of Violent Girls at Monster Island in 2009. That was probably our coolest NY show ever. So that helped us solidify maybe in the scene a little.
Alex: His shows are just totally different than all of the “surcharge” concert experiences. I think that that’s what he’s really interested in doing—presenting all age, concert alternative shows, which is cool. Now there are a lot more people doing it in New York but he’s been the forefather and shown people, like “Hey, you can find a warehouse space and be the liaison between some weird landlord and you can make this happen.” He has so many people work for him over the years, and then they frequently go off and do their own thing. I have yet to see something like that, and you know we’ve toured all over the country and I have yet to find a show that feels like a Todd P show. There’s nobody else, especially on that successful of a level.
Martin: We were talking to our agent and were asking, “Why can’t we book Irving Plaza instead of Bowery Ballroom? We used to see all these great shows at Irving.” And he was like, “Dude it’s just because they have new management and they don’t pay you well.”
The only original member of Real Estate who didn’t grow up with you is Etienne. How did he enter your extended family?
Matt: He lived in Northampton where I went to school. Etienne and Ben Daly and I played in a band called Predator Vision that I started in my basement. I took acid with all of my housemates and recorded in the basement onto a handheld cassette machine. I hid the machine in the rafters, we took the acid right when we started playing and were excited about the possibility of ‘coming up on acid while jamming.” Afterwards when we were coming down we listened to the cassette while watching the movie Predator. Things came together and we decided to call the band Predator Vision. We released two tapes on Future Sound Recordings and a split 12 inch with Sun Araw on Not Not Fun. Since then the band has ceased to play shows for a while but we are looking to reunite in 2012 with more releases and hopefully tour.
Martin: One summer during college our [high school friend] Julian Velard used us as his band for an album and tour he was putting together and Matt brought in Etienne. I was playing Fender Rhodes piano, Matt was playing bass, Bleeker was playing guitar, and Etienne was playing drums. Julian was also playing guitar and singing. So that’s actually how Etienne came into my world—musically. We wanted that project to work but we were still and college and didn’t have to freedom to really tour around. I had to go back to Washington.
It is interesting that you were all on different instruments in that band.
Alex: Martin was the bass player. I never played bass in the band until Real Estate. It just made sense for him to play guitar because he was writing songs for guitar. And actually—when I was living in Philly [and had not committed to the band]—Martin was going to play bass, Matt was going to play guitar and Etienne was going to play drums. And then when I came back they were like, “You know what, could you play bass? It would be easier for Martin to sing the songs,” and stuff like that. But he’s starting to be a really good guitar player, which is awesome. I think he’s the most versed in music theory of all of us. He can play upright bass too in an orchestra, so he was able to translate what he knew about bass into chords and stuff. He has no formal guitar training, so he kept doing these weird chord progressions that I would never think to do. Everyone wants to play electric guitar in high school, not electric bass. But he played electric bass, so every band was like, “We need a bass player – Martin.” You know? But he’s an awesome bass player. If you ever see him play, he’ll shred. It’s definitely his home base instrument.
Let’s move from the band’s formation to your songwriting. When I first interviewed you a few years ago, you said one of the initial goals was to update the sound some “cheesier sounding” ‘70s bands. “Out of Tune” [off Days definitely has a Fleetwood Mac vibe to it. Is that still a primary goal for the band?
Martin: I think we gave settled into our own things, and the songs come out however they come out. I think maybe that still manifests itself in our guitar tone and on our new album we really tried to increase our production value—especially with the drums, which tried to make sound really tight like Fleetwood Mac. We would put a rag over the snare while we recorded it and compressed it to create this Steely Dan-style drumming. We didn’t want it to be shiny and digital sounding. So I guess in a way that’s true and, with “Out of Tune,” the arrangement leans toward Fleetwood Mac with the rhythm. But we aren’t trying to sound a certain way.
In terms of your lyrics, your first album captures that nostalgic, somewhat nervous feeling of returning home after college. Do you feel as if Days has any thematic undercurrents?
Martin: I actually think this record reflects on an earlier time, when I was younger and in high school—a lot of it is written about a certain time period. I haven’t lived in our hometown for like three years so all I can do really is reflect on that time [instead of the experience of living at home]. But at the same time, that’s all I can ever can think to write about for some reason. Lyrics have always been hard for me to write and never my favorite part of the process. Even now, especially because a lot of these songs are new, I was really self conscious when I was recording them in the studio—especially knowing that people are going to listen to the lyrics because people listened to the lyrics on the first record. But you can’t think about that—it took me a while to realize like, what the fuck else am I gonna do? I’m not gonna just not sing. I need to just sing the words. But I always write the songs first and with a lot of the songs I didn’t write the lyrics until we were in the studio—probably like half the songs we were in the studio. And I was like hearing it and I was like “shit it’s almost time to do vocals and lyrics.”
Alex: He’s more shy and private about them. It’s funny because when you play a song live for so long, you might not even hear the lyrics that clearly and you make up what they are. It was an interesting experience for me in the studio to hear [Martin] sing them through a really clear microphone for the first time. It was like, “Oh, that’s what he’s talking about in that song.” I’m pretty sure it wasn’t a conscious thing—and he might deny it— but a lot of the songs on this record have to do with touring and being in the band. It makes sense because they were written at a time when that was dominating a lot of our lives. So even when they’re not directly related to it, there are a lot of traveling motifs and changing of seasons, being away from home, longing and missing, nostalgia, which ties in nicely with the sort of style of ‘way back when’ which is always present in the music. But I think we are definitely writing from a different perspective now that the band is a big part of what’s happening in our lives rather than our musical hobby.
Martin: I like it when people sort of put their own meaning on my words more so than me trying to explain them. So it like it that the new record’s almost a combination [of fictional stories and real experiences] where nothing’s really made up or fake but it’s sort of like just trying to invoke certain feelings to go along with our sound. I never know if what I am writing is good or not and always get self-conscious.
Alex: Martin has always had this fascination with streetlights as long as I’ve known him, and there’s definitely a streetlight line on this record [“Green Aisles”]. Even going back to his old demos when we were in high school and college, he wrote about the image of sneaking out late at night and being in the street on a summer night with the cicadas and everything. I know that had a really big effect on him. And it’s funny because a lot of times it was me, Martin and Matt doing stuff when we were in high school. Those were really formative experience for him, I’m sure, because he always continues to write about them. Those are some of the more personal moments that he’ll let you have.
Your first album pegged you as a summer band but this album has a darker tone. Do you think that just has to do with being older and living on your own?
Martin: I’ve never been able to write towards a certain style. And I do agree that I feel like the album kind of has more of a serious tone—I don’t know what it is but it’s autumnal, like everybody says “Whoa, that’s great for fall, it’s coming out in October, perfect”. There’s a lot of tree references [on Days ]. We were trying to name the album and kept coming up with names that had to do with trees or leaves or whatever. And Bleeker was just like, “No, enough, it’s already too much”.
As you mentioned before, in addition to Real Estate there are a number of projects in your extended family like Ducktails and Alex Bleeker & the Freaks. Do you write for a specific project at this point?
Martin: I think that’s a better question for Matt and Alex because Real Estate is my outlet. It is hard for me to write for a specific genre. Sometimes I will write a three-minute punk song and I’ll think it might make for a cool side-project that is nothing like Real Estate. But I don’t really have the ability to write a different style. This is my style and the new album reflects that. Even Bleeker’s song on the new album [“Wonder Years”] is a Bleeker-Real Estate song.
Matt: I do not write for a specific project. It is really hard to be like, “Ok I am going to write a song for this band now.” Sometimes I try to do this but it is almost impossible. Everything happens a little bit more naturally, for example “Art Vandelay” was a song I wrote and recorded. We played the song in Real Estate a lot on tour and then I used the recording on the last Ducktails album. Things like this happen all the time. “Atlantic City” first appeared on a tape I released called Parasailing in demo form and then I brought it to Real Estate and we recorded it.
Do you feel like you each have a defined role in the band?
Martin: I don’t feel like we really play roles to be honest besides the actual obvious roles like I write songs, and we play them and Matt plays guitar, and writes his parts and all that shit. At least in the beginning, we all helped out with everything. Matt helped us get shows and was the whole manager promoter guy. And Bleeker always been helpful. But honestly it’s not as cut and dry as that. We all do our own thing. Matt put together our Facebook page and is pretty big in the internet world.
Alex: That’s the thing that bands struggle with—people make it seem like the lead singer is the band, and we’re like, “Well, am I just your hired gun?” I definitely don’t feel just like Martin’s bass player. There are definitely better bass players than me in the world he could have in the band but we are a band. We’d definitely have a more straight Indie-pop sort of sound, like the Shins—stuff like that, which is great, but I think that’s definitely his main influence—like Yo La Tengo, and the Feelies. And I think Matt brings this sort of wafty, psychedelic, warm, relaxed, low-fi guitar sound. And I bring my own influences to it, too, so it is collaboration. It’s like taking Martin’s songs most of the time as the show and then fusing them with all of our personalities.
Martin: Somebody was asking about our guitar interplay, and I just feel like we understand each other’s styles pretty well and it is because we’ve known each other. Even if we played in bands together and all that stuff and we’ve also grown up listening to the same music, everything ever since it started to count—ever since I was a freshman in high school and started listening to music that I would actually still listen to, we were all sharing that, you know. Me and Matt and Alex always listened to kind of the same music so we have a lot of reference points that go back a really long ways. So yeah I mean I think that definitely helped for it to feel really comfortable right off the bat.
Alex, in addition to playing with Real Estate, you also perform as Alex Bleeker & the Freaks. That project’s lineup has changed a bit over the years but has included all the members of Real Estate at different points. How do you feel like that project relates to Real Estate?
Alex: I had this whole batch of songs sitting around. A bunch of the songs on the first Freaks record I’d written in college, but I never had a full band to play them with. It was always more of a side pursuit for me—I was really into theater and acting in college. The original Freaks band was Martin and Matt and our friend Julian on lead guitar. And I was like, “Hey, would you guys help me play these songs?” And it just turned into this really raucous, Crazy Horse thing—the songs finally took on the life that I had imagined them taking. That was about six months after Real Estate formed and we decided to make a record and sort of took it from there. I’m hoping to get a Freaks album out this year. I have a bunch of songs written and demoed out for a new album, but the Real Estate album was the focus until it was done.
Martin: The Freaks are a little jammier or a little more Jackson Browne ‘70s style, which sometimes we play into that a little bit like on “Out of Tune.” But the first song Alex wrote for Real Estate was “Wonder Years” off our new album. He came up with the bass line during a Real Estate sound check jam. We were like, “That was sick, let’s turn that into a song one day.” So that’s kind of how that song started. It really did start as a Real Estate thing. And with Matt, for whatever reason, all the songs he’s written that have ended up on a Real Estate album have been instrumental. He wrote “Kinder Blumenr” on our new album. He’s especially had added to our songs’ arrangements. When we started the band he said, “Let’s do your songs but make them sound like Pink Floyd or something and really spacey” and I was like, “Yeah that sounds awesome.” so I came back and started playing with him and Etienne. They moved in together in Bushwick and like I would go to their apartment a lot and like practice in Matt’s bedroom with practice amps and like a little kid drum set.
Alex: We’re trying hard not to make definitions, even though we do know that it will sort of be. I think Matt could definitely continue to be more of a creative force to whatever degree he wants in the future.
Woods has also become something of a brother band to Real Estate. They put out your first album on Woodsist, you have toured together and collaborated both on stage and in the studio. How has that relationship developed?
Matt: I met Jeremy Earl and Woods in Brattleboro, VT when they were on tour with Religious Knives. At least that’s when I first talked to them. I knew about Woodsist and was a fan of Woods in college. I think Jeremy became interested in my band Predator Vision… at the time I just started recording with Real Estate and thought it would be really cool to put that out with him. He became interested soon after that and we started putting out records through him. I put out a shit load of music as Ducktails before Real Estate began. I put my first tape out on my imaginary tape label “Future Sound Recordings” you can find some of those releases on the Tomentosa distribution website. I also released my first 7” on Breaking World Records, many tapes, cassettes, and vinyl followed.
Martin: Matt was the one who really pushed that since I didn’t know Jeremy personally and it was almost like he was this big label guy. We at first we were like, “does he even like us or does he just want to work with us because we got a Pitchfork review.” We thought about stupid shit like that. But it evolved into something much more personal and really great. I always loved bands on his label like Woods and Kurt Vile but I didn’t really see Real Estate fitting the Woods’ aesthetic. In a way I think we kind of represented a departure for him, and I was really glad that he was okay with working with us. We got along really well and played some shows together in New York and then we toured together in early 2010. We got along really well and became good friends.
Jeremy records like a lot of bands at his house—he recorded “Beach Comber” on our first album. So we worked with him pretty soon after Jeremy “signed” us. There was no contract. There was eventually but so he worked with us and he was the first person I kind of became friends with, so yeah, it’s kind of like we’re just happy to play with each other because I do think our audiences sort of overlap but also we bring different people to the table for each band. We just don’t ever want to lose that connection now that we are on Domino. I always wanna play their festival not only because it’s fun but because it’s cool to be able to be associated with that and all those bands are so awesome.
Given your close friendship, was it hard to leave Woodsist?
Martin: It was scary and weird. We all thought, “This is like a pretty different and big step for us, but at the same time it was like we’re not gonna say no to this.” As long as they’re not ripping us off, which they’re not. They’re fair, they’re an indie label, they’re not out there to fuck people over. Of course we want some more exposure, that’s what anybody wants. It is cool to think that this could be our career label. When we made the first record we were just hoping someone would hear it and it was a complete surprise that it got good reviews.
Do you plan to record again in the near future?
Martin: We are trying to write and record an EP post-album and have that be the first shit that Jackson plays on as a drummer. I can’t wait for the new stuff and have him on there and have him be- ause right now- I mean he’s definitely a permanent band member or whatever, like he’s full on in the band, but it’s not gonna feel real until we start putting some stuff out, you know, with him on it.
