Originally published in Verbicide issue #6

Every so often, I am introduced to the music of a band that makes me think, why have I never heard of these guys before? Where have I been? How long have I been missing out? This is how I felt when I first heard Angels In The Architecture. A band that has been around longer than you think, AITA released their first-ever full-length album on Law Of Inertia last winter, and have plans to record again this summer. But don’t hold your breath — you won’t be seeing this band play live any time soon. You’ll either hear them on a record or not at all. Why? Read on…

First of all, please tell me who is in the Angels In The Architecture lineup, and how long you all have been friends?
Well, I’m Scott, you know that, and I play guitar. Andy [vocals/guitar] and I became friends in elementary school, so we’ve known each other for years, and we both started to play guitar at the same time. When we learned a couple of chords we decided to find a drummer — and this is going to get a little crazy — who was Chris, who is now the bass player. He played drums for a little while, when we were about 16. Then, we got Dave, who was an amazing drummer at the time — and he still is pretty good! — and we hoodwinked him into the band! Right now, he lives in Los Angeles and works for X-Large, which is the Beastie Boys’ clothing company.

To give you some history, we’ve been playing in bands since we were 16, starting off with a crappy hardcore band. Then we played in this girl-fronted pop-punk band, before Dave moved off to California. So we got a new drummer, named John, and that started Angels In The Architecture.

I’ve heard that the original Angels drummer, John, was quite the character!
A character to say the least, let’s put it that way! (laughter) The thing was, he was from Long Island, and I don’t know if you know anybody from Long Island…

Actually, I just finished going to school in Connecticut, so I know a lot of them.
They’re crazy, absolutely crazy! (laughter) But, to a point, some of them are really cool to hang out with, and John was really cool, and a pretty good drummer, too. But then he got into a bad car accident, and broke every bone in his face. For some reason, he decided not to go see a neurologist, and from that day forward, the kid just changed, one hundred percent. He was just weird, he was forgetful, and then he started taking on the rest of us with verbal assaults. It was just bad news; we ended up breaking up because of it. We pretty much gave up on the idea of music, until one Christmas, Dave flew home to Buffalo and we recorded a couple of songs with him. It sounded pretty good, so we sent it off to a couple people, and Ross [Siegel, Law of Inertia] agreed to put our record out for us.

So your record deal with Ross started with you soliciting him?
Yeah. We actually did a song for him that was included on the Pocket Bombs compilation CD, which was the first Law of Inertia release. He was really cool; when we were still originally together, he actually offered to put a record out, but then we broke up. But Ross is a cool guy, and I’d remained friends with him, so he was one of the only people I sent the demo to that included the new stuff we recorded with Dave, and he agreed to put it out.

Our biggest problem was that, at the time, three of us were in Buffalo, and Dave was out in LA! How the hell are you going to make a record when your drummer is out in LA? It took us about eight months to record the whole thing, off and on, and we only had a couple weeks at a time to write and record! That’s pretty ridiculous, but hey, we did it, and it turned out decently so we’re happy with it.

I think it turned out great; there are a few specific songs that blew me away when I first heard them: tracks three [“Sweeter Than Winning”], four [“Fly Home”], seven [“A Few Things For You”], and ten [“Rare Visions”], the last track.
Well thanks! The last track, huh? We were a little nervous about that song because it’s got a viola on it and we didn’t know how people would react to it. We had “a friend who had a friend” who played viola for the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra, so we decided, “Hey, let’s get him into the studio and see what he can do.” We liked it, so we kept it.

It’s nice! I put that song on a mix-tape for my mom.
Did you really? (laughter) I have to tell everybody that!

Yeah, I always make tapes to play at work. And I put that song with the chorus of female background vocals [“A Few Things For You”] on a tape for my brother.
You know what that is? That’s not a chorus; it’s actually our singer, Andy! In order to come up with that effect, we recorded his vocals for those parts 32 separate times. Our engineer, Tom Robinson, is crazy; he’s so knowledgeable about all the little tricks you can do to make a song sound better. So, he just said, “Okay, this is what we’re going to do: we’re going to record you singing that line 32 times, and then we’re going to put it all together. Wait till you hear what it sounds like.”

Wow, I thought you guys went to church or something to record that part!
Well, that’s the effect we were going for. But that song almost didn’t make it on to the record…it sounds like nothing else on the album, but apparently there are some radio stations over in Europe who got our album and chose to play that song. And the lyrics actually came from an email that Dave, our drummer, sent to Andy! In the letter, he said, “I have a few things for you, they’re all here swimming inside my head,” and so on. So the lyrics are actually just an email sent from Dave! (laughter)

And all this time I thought it was something so profound!
I have to tell you, most of our lyrics are pretty “thrown together.” One of us would come up with some lyrics that we’d try out on a song, and then we’d cut words out or add words on, and make sure it fits the song. Sometimes we’d get to the point where we say, “Shit, we need another line for this song,” and we would just write it right there in the studio. Whatever we liked we kept; if we didn’t like it, we didn’t keep it.

You can never tell when you listen to an album if the lyrics are intensely labored over, or if they were just thrown together or even improvised.
Yeah, look at someone like Alanis Morrisette! It’s funny, she’s really serious about her lyrics, and they all “mean” something. When we put our lyrics together it’s just whatever sounds good! People have asked us before, “What do your lyrics mean?” and we just say, “Well, what do you want them to mean?” They don’t have much meaning [to us]; we’re all pretty decent guys, and our lives are pretty much in order, so we don’t have to cry about much.

To change subjects, I would like to tell you a story. Once upon a time, there was this band called “Ounce Of Kind…”
Oh, Jesus…

Tell me about that band. What happened to it? Did the breakup of that band lead to the formation of Angels In The Architecture?
That band has a lot to do with the history of Angels In The Architecture, because Dave was in that band with us, and so were Chris and Andy, but we had a female lead singer. What actually happened was that I ended up dating that girl — of course, the first rule of rock is when you have a girl in your band, you’re not supposed to date her, but I did anyway. Everything was happy and great until she kind of lost it and broke up with me for no apparent reason, but we were still in a band together and it just sucked. Eventually we decided we didn’t like her vocals too much, and of course, for me, it was like, “Yeah, let’s kick her out!” (laughter) It wasn’t too hard to tell me to get rid of her! So we ended up kicking her out, and then I broke my arm skating — learning how to do the hockey stop! My feet came out from under me, and…you know the humerus bone, between your elbow and shoulder?

Yes I do.
Well, I broke that right in half! It sucked. Obviously, I couldn’t play guitar for months, so in the meantime we searched for a new lead singer, and around that time Dave decided to move off to California. So off to California he went, and the three of us — Andy, me, and Chris — were going to try to keep Ounce Of Kind together. We couldn’t find a drummer for a while, but eventually found John and decided to throw out everything we had written and start fresh. And that’s how Angels In The Architecture got started. I don’t know what would have happened if Dave had stayed here, or if we’d found another female singer…

Where did you guys get the name, “Angels In The Architecture?”
Ahh…that’s a decent question. That name came from a Paul Simon song; you know the song, “You Call Me Al?” (sings) “You can call me Al…”

I don’t really like Paul Simon, to tell you the truth.
Oh, you don’t like Paul Simon? Well, I don’t really either, but he has some catchy stuff! That one song we all kind of liked, and one of the lyrics in the song included the phrase “angels in the architecture.”

So what was your second choice for a band name? “Diamonds On The Soles Of Her Shoes?”
(laughter) No, we actually had a really lame name at first, “Paddington.”

Like the bear?
Yeah, like the bear! That only lasted about two weeks, when we went through our “emo” phase, when we really wanted to be the next Sunny Day Real Estate, or whatever. We thought “Paddington” would sound all emo and cute.

I’ve heard that guys in emo bands are only in it to get into girls’ pants.
Yeah, totally. And they do a great job at it. Look at that guy from Dashboard Confessional. He’s got little girls hanging all over him.

And what’s that little dork in Bright Eyes…
(laughter) And it all sucks! Right now the state of music is pretty bland anyway, but this whole emo-onslaught just blows. Music has gotten watered-down, where a lot of it sounds alike. And you have all these bands that we’ve seen in basements suddenly getting signed to majors — and I don’t blame them, because they’re all getting up there in years. Like Sensefield, those guys are getting old! They need to do that; they’re at a stage where music is their life and they can’t look back. And I don’t blame them at all.

I often wonder if we were put in that situation, would we do that? Obviously, when you sign to a major, they want a single to put on the radio. Jimmy Eat World made a whole album of those — all their record is is single after single. Which is fine for them, but I can’t get into it. Their older stuff is good—

Static Prevails?
Yeah, that’s a great record. Straight up rock, they don’t give a shit about anything—

Even that’s on a major label though!
I know, but nobody knew they were on a major because they got no backing. They were more or less an indie-rock band on a major, rather than an indie-rock band-turned-major label band. That’s what a lot of bands do, they change their sound. Especially now because of the state of music and the record companies. They say they’re not making any money, so the pressure is really on when you get signed to have a very formulated sound.

I’m on the fence about it — I’m happy for musicians that have been slumming around in basements for so long being able to make a few bucks, but I’m against major labels telling them they need a single, or how they need to sound. If it was us in that situation, I’d say, “Yeah, let’s definitely do it.” I would try to at least get some artistic control out of it — yeah, I guess I’d write you your single. It’s a catch-22. You’re going to piss off the indie-rock kids who’ve listened to you for so long and supported you and never want you to be a major label band, but then you get to reach bigger audiences.

It doesn’t matter who it is, I’d support a band just as long as they didn’t begin to suck.
You’re right, that’s what it boils down to; if they suck, I won’t listen to it! That’s definitely what I think, too.

So, at this point, how would you categorize your band? Would you say you’re still an emo band?
Good question. I don’t like to say we’re an emo band because that word has a negative connotation these days. Basically, when we go into the studio, we write music that we would want to listen to 10 years from now. Whatever it gets categorized as, that’s just what happens. If we go into the studio one day and decide we want to write some hardcore tunes and put them out, that’s what we’re gonna do.

Are you listening to a lot of that these days, or drawing influences from different genres in your songwriting?
Refused…Slayer — most people would laugh if they knew we were influenced by Slayer! They were a hair-metal band who did it right!(laughter)

Do you ever play Guns N’ Roses cover songs?
Nope! The only cover song we ever played was “Peace, Love, and Understanding” by Elvis Costello. That was a lot of fun to play. We’re going to record this summer, and I think we’re gonna do a Johnny Cash song, and maybe a Radiohead song.

Are you releasing another record on Law of Inertia?
Actually, I don’t know if it’s going to be on anything. We’ve talked to a few labels, but the problem is, we need favors from labels, because we don’t play shows! Who really wants to put our album out if we don’t play shows? That’s how you sell records; we totally understand that. So what we’re looking to do is a split with a bigger band on a decent label. It’s more or less a favor, because we’re not going to sell records on our own — unless word-of-mouth gets around.

How many songs do you imagine would be on that split?
Probably only two or three.

So are you guys only going to record two or three songs, or are you going to record a bunch of songs that never get heard?
That may actually be what happens from all this!

That’s kind of depressing.
Yeah, we actually just decided to go into the studio in July since we’re all going to be back home in Buffalo for a few days.

So, why exactly are you guys still a band? You don’t play shows, you live in different cities…why do you still stick to it?
Well, for one, we’re really good friends; we have been since we were little. It’s just natural for us to make music together, and we like making music with each other. We’re going to hopefully do this till the day we die, and if people want to listen to it, cool; if not, it’s something we’ll have for ourselves. We’re not in music to make money or to play a million shows all over the place. We all have pretty good careers right now, so it would be tough to give that up. We’re in it just for fun — really, that’s what music should be.