A Black Mile To the Surface, a new concept album from Manchester Orchestra, feels like a reset for the band. It’s the long-running Atlanta rock outfit’s first since principal songwriters Andy Hull and Robert McDowell used just their voices to score Daniel Radcliffe’s 2016 Oscar-nominated film Swiss Army Man. A Black Mile happens in a real place — Lead, South Dakota — and finds Hull metaphorically placing himself into the 3,000-person town as the album’s characters explore the themes of family. The narrative echoes the growth that Hull, 30, has experienced in his almost-15-year career. We chatted with him about that LP and how his family changed his life.
We even talked about his appreciation for The Bachelorette. Read our conversation and get more information on the band's September 6 show at The Ritz in Ybor City via local.cltampa.com.
Stream the record at the bottom of this interview. Download it via Spotify.
Hey, how's it going? Good sorry about your last phone call.
Oh it's okay. I'm actually at the studio. We had a big shipment come inso we had to bring a bunch of vinyl in.
Okay. Do you know how long you think we can talk?
Like 20 minutes, 25 minutes.
Perfect, sweet. I know you have a new album coming out out now, but let's talk about The Bachelorette. You were pretty upset about Dean going home after that episode.
I was upset.
What's up with that?
You know what's funny? I ask my wife to wait to watch that show with me, and she never does, so I only get to catch it in rare moments, and I attach myself really quickly. I don't even remember what I was upset about I just remembered it was bullshit, and it needed to be called out (laughs).
There was a lot of pain in the Tweet. I think you were upset because Dean didn't like his dad's food or something like that.It was a pretty messed-up episode because she told him she loved him.
Yeah, there was a lot going on there. We just started Bachelor in Paradise.
Oh no.
It's a lot lighter on the emotions.
That's the only one I can walk away from I feel like I can watch an episode and be like okay. I don't need to see it like next Monday.
So you're a really big fan of all of it. You've got to come back to it.
I think I'm in the same boat as you, I'm assuming, where if I see one, then I get hooked, but if I can stay away…
(laughs) Exactly.
Does that does that anthropological analysis ever show up does anywhere on A Black Mile?
No (laughs), I can't say it does.
Does Young Thug inspired lyricism show up anywhere as well? I've read, I don't know if it was a joke, but I've read that you are strangely influenced by some of the things he does.
What I mean yeah, I’m influenced by everyone that does something that's interesting and new, so I think I was just referring to him as sort of an example of, like, you know, something the first time you hear it, it's something new and like creative and pushing — they take a minute for me to understand how and why it's it's brilliant, and I really love that idea. The idea of three, or four, or five times listening to something, and then all the sudden you're really like understanding the genius of somebody. I've always loved artists like that.
That's kind of how your albums have been. They hit you on like the fourth or fifth listening, almost on a passive listen, then you're like, 'Whoa — crazy.'Cool. Like A Virgin came out ,I think, like,10 years ago, and I was just wondering what that's like for you to hear all this positive stuff about A Black Mile, and then think about those 10 years and all that past work and effort that it takes to get to this point? I know you're proud of, you know, the really honest songwriting that you've done, but and how do you feel about the last decade and still being able to put out work that people still are attracted to and care about?
It's an amazing gift, and it's something that I continue to tell myself to be grateful for you know, but also it’s, you know. I'm also even more focused and interested in what's next. And how in a lot of ways this record, to me, felt like my first record in a way. Like, I know what I know at least what I want to go for I've now accumulated the skills through trial and error of just making a bunch of music over the last 10 years. There's awesome feelings like, 'It's easy to make a record,' but it's also harder to make records now because I think there's a level I want to create at that takes time for us to to cultivate and find. So it's amazing, but I very much feel like I'm still, not in the beginning stages, but I feel like we're just getting started to tap into what we feel like we can make now.
Yeah, it's pretty cool. Swiss Army Man was kind of like this big Etch-A-Sketch, like a violent shaking where you kind of get to reset who you are kind of over again. At least from the outside, that's kind of the the perception. You mentioned something just now about kind of being at a crossroads not knowing what you can make, how you going to make it, and I wanted to ask you about Catherine marks, and John who worked on A Black Mile and what they brought to the record that you or Dan maybe couldn't do yourself.
Well, I mean, I don't know. I'm just having other people in the studio. The reason we decided not to go with Dan was strictly because we wanted to do something different, like we owed it to the band and the experience of doing it, you know, with someone we didn't know. A lot of that stuff because Catherine worked on it so much the beginning and John only really worked towards the end.
You know there's a lot of, like, trusting people, and, you know, we're trying to figure out if she knows what she's talking about. She's trying to figure out if we know what we're talking about, and finally when both sides are started to understand the workflow of how we did trust each other, you know, and everybody was actually in it for the right things, and it's just like learning how to communicate again with new people and especially an intimate setting like making a record for instance. You’ve never met somebody, you talk on the phone a couple times, and then you do talk for three days, then you're starting the record, so that's that's a whole other kind of experience, but really I mean they were so talented in so many ways.
Really, I think the biggest benefit we got from it was the trust of them for me and Robert to go and work on it for like two to three months by ourselves. Just like deconstructing it and taking things away. You know starting at the very seat of the song adding and all these things that were on it, and do the messing around with the "Gold" thing, you know, we had to do some kind of remix for it. The amount of tracks that aren't featured on it. It's crazy. We just did so much to it, and there's so much editing and really trying to place all the noises exactly where they needed to be placed.
So yeah, them having trust in us doing that than all of us being able to get together at the end of it and really finish it. It's just different because they're different people and have different skill sets. And then Catherine on the mixing side is just like an unbelievable talent, and the record sounds so great, you know, on headphones or wherever you listen to it. She did a really incredible job.
That's awesome. Yeah, it's really interesting it kind of hear you talk to you Celebration Rock about the shaker that you're obsessing about and then finally just kind of leaning on a few people to kind of just tell you, 'Dude that sounds great — don't worry about it.' Yup. Totally.So you and Rob, after you kind of wrote the bulk of the album, my understanding is that you went to the band and ask him to kind of get out of their comfort zones. Is that an easy process for them? Do you feel like they're able to do that in a big way or…
That also involved Rob as well. I'd written basically the songs that, you know the sketch of the songs, and then yeah I brought it to those guys and essentially said, and even to myself, like, 'How do we just not make anything basic sounding, you know?' Everything needs to be exciting and had how do we do that? And that's a lot of, like failures, and, you know,failing forward, really. Coming up with more stuff that you're into, and then you start to get really excited about ideas and starting to work through it, and everybody's musical knowledge — the three dudes with Rob and Andy and Tim; we can write really fast on the fly, like, I can stop and go, 'Let's do that six times instead of four, and we're going to cut out this thing and do this,' and everybody retains that. So that's a special, helpful thing in writing, too. Everybody's really on top of it, super engaged, focused so we can get through structural stuff and really start focusing on how to make it special a lot sooner.
Yeah it's cool because Manchester Orchestra, even with all the personnel changes has always been a band that was kind of built to be a band forever, like you know what I mean, like you're not just in a band for an album. You're always just kind of like Manchester Orchestra, the band, this this entity…
That's certainly how we look at it, for sure, and, you know we've been really fortunate that anytime somebody's left the band, you know, the person that is come in and filled that position as just brought a whole 'nother level you know of technicality or different way of playing. We've been really fortunate that way, and it's always sort of helped inspire and move forward and on the records.
You talked about having a really good kind of head on your shoulders these days…
Hopefully.
Well better than before…
That's fair.
I kind of like your comments about feeling more stable — it's so crazy that you're only 30 — but did the people leaving the band ever fuck with your head?
Sure, yeah, I mean, I think that's a natural feeling you know, but it's always been civil and kind, and there's not been like some outbreak ever and it helps, you know, when you remain friends with people. But yeah, of course, your pride or anything when somebody's like, 'I don't like I don’t want to do this anymore.' There's going to be at least a part of my brain that goes, 'Oh that's because I'm terrible, and the band's terrible and they figured something else out' and really it's just, you know, about understanding that people don't want to do this forever, and that's totally okay. In fact, it's probably healthy.
Like I always say to any young band asking, if you can do anything else, then, you know, you should probably try and do it. But if this is like calling to you, and you can't do anything else and it's what you feel complete doing, then you’ve got to keep doing it. It has never never offended me when somebody's left, but certainly it can mess with your head.
And how does Nate from The Format end up on the record?
Well Nate's a good, long friend. I've known him since 2009, and I've just…we just talked several times a year, and he has always just been, um, undeniably supportive of the records that I've made and is like, just this kind guy, you know? He'll just send a text that says, 'I literally spent the weekend trying to find a bad song that you wrote and I can't find one, and it's driving me crazy.' You know, just a sweetheart. Really good, kind dude — secure guy.
It's like, 'Why are you being so nice to me man?'
Because he loves it! We were we were in L.A. finishing the record, Robert and I, we did like a week with John Congleton and then we had a week alone at the studio and we were just finishing it all up and putting the final vocals on everything and Nate came in. We're friends with Christian and Hannah from Grouplove, and we've been seeing them every now and then, so Nate came in and we played him the first, well I think we played him the record front to back, and he was just freaking out like, 'Yeah, I have to sing on it,' and I was like, 'Sweet, I didn't even have to ask you.'
You never want to like force anything like that. That's always, like, if he's feeling it, awesome. He's like, 'I gotta do it — get me on there.' And his vocal now on the first track, when it hits,we were able to combine all these vocals to make, you know, three white dudes sound like a massive gospel chorus — it was good.
'Nah, you guys have always been good at that. I think people have talked about the subtle production elements of Manchester Orchestra records, stuff like that. I wanted to kind of get back to South Dakota. Is (Lead) "led" or "leed"?
It's "leed" (like bleed).
Has anyone form the tourism bureau reached out? I mean, there is a place called Andy's Trail Rides there.
Yeah, I know a lot about that town, but no — nobody has reached out. I don't think it's hit them yet. There's only about 3,000 people living there.
I'm gonna pitch this story to their tourism people then.
Good. Do it. No, we hope to go there and and do some performances and do some cool stuff around there.
And how much research did you have to do? I know there's some mining references in…
"Gold"?
No, in "Lead, SD"
Oh.
Yeah, I read that there was one photograph in particular that really got you going. Do you remember what photograph that was?
Yeah, yeah, it was awesome. It was a photo…I had written a song called "Lost South Dakota," and I saw this picture and then I clicked it and it said "Lead," and in one quick Wikipedia of it made me realize that there was so much stuff going on in that town that I hadn't heard of. Then I started doing more of a deep dive, you know into articles and stuff that had been written about it, and like what life was like, and then I had a couple of cool, weird, moments where I was able to speak to the people that were from there. People that were born there and had some really cool stories that were shared with me.
So yeah, for a minute you never really get started, just sort of started planting myself and characters around in this town that I knew were all sort of extensions of of me that was kind of helping me put it all together, kind of figure out what it ultimately led me to, you know what the record was really about, which is family and generational family.
So it sounds like there a deep dive of research. Was this before you started writing the record of does the record change as you're doing research?
As I'm writing it. As I'm going deeper into you know the lyrics. The songs stop being like a verse and a chorus you know, where the initial kind of things. There a couple songs that were pretty well finished and thought out that took a lot of changes to them, but yeah, it was like basically right during we are making it, not making it, when we are writing it.
Right on. So you mentioned something at the very beginning of this call about you know being so excited about the future of the band stuff like that. The process, sounds like it's pretty, it was pretty new to you. Definitely something new for your fans. How much does that actual process of diving in and researching an album, like that, getting so outside of yourself at the same time like kind of you know figure yourself out? How much is that make you want to start kind of skipped tour and write another record?
Well, I think my records are always about experience and, like, you know,a lot of it. You know I used to really freak myself out about getting writer's block. After I'm Like A Virgin I didn't write anything for like a year, and I was really worried, and then I was able to say write the next record, and then it continued to just tap. That's when I realized that I have to live my life and and gain experiences and have, you know ups and downs — life's ups and downs.
I basically have to, like, grow again. And once I've grown or am in the process of growing or learning and how to kind of take the next step as a human to be a better…
Better version of yourself.
Yeah, exactly. So yes, you know the artistic side is really exciting about that, but then I also know, you know, without me really caring about every lyric and work that's in there. I’ve really got to make sure I'm motivated. That not I'm not interested in releasing anything that I would consider being subpar.
Mediocre.
Exactly.
Yeah, I feel like you fans are heavily invested in your band at this point. and wouldn't expect anything like that.
Yeah, I feel like that would be a bummer. If I phoned it in.
So would you say that what you are hungry for now, now that A Black Mile is out is just for more life and more experience and things like that?
I mean musically, I think, you know, we we started to tap into some places that we hadn't really visit before on this record, and that's just more interesting to me and Rob and, you know, the guys to go like, 'Alight how weird can we get here? and 'How do we…I don't want to say anything can be quoted.
It's alright, you can tell me something not for the record.
It's more, 'How do we keep evolving?' You know, 'How does it get more interesting?' Taking stock in bands who've been able to do that, and 'How they do that?' You know I'm wanting to kind of created our own pass.
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UPDATE: Manchester Orchestra announces tour, September 6 show at The Ritz Ybor
Are there any bands in particular you can think of that just did a really good job of that? A band you would love to have a similar career path to?
Well the career path side is impossible because everybody has a different career path. More like, you know, an artistic place. It could be something as easy as a guy like Damien Jurado who continues to try and make different records and has pushed himself, you know, further and then the obvious stuff. You know bands like Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead, Sigur Ros. You know people that aren't comfortable doing the same thing again. There's a million of them. Well there's not a million of them, there's a handful of them.
I think maybe it feels that way since they're so huge to us.
Yeah.
Is your family coming out for Disneyworld? I know they come and visit you. I was wondering if you thought that was one of the swings if they're going to come down for.
We're hoping we'll go over to the park. That's day one a one of the tour. I might be a little hectic because of soundcheck and all that shit.
Going back to the you know being a more stable person at 30. Is is that really, for you, just kind of having the kid and really realizing that the world kind of doesn't, never really did, and never will revolve around Andy Hull? I don't know if you ever thought that way in general, but I feel like, you know…
Nah, I was always taught…I never thought that. My parents always taught me that really wasn't true very early on. I think I started to really turn myself around at like 24 or 25. That's when I started to put together the pieces of living for someone else. You know, things as easy as like, you know, emptying the dishes keeping the house clean because I know that it makes my wife happy if the house is cleaned — little just life things that you like…
Sweeping and mopping.
Yeah, exactly, sure. If you're in the right mood. Not that I do that all the time. I wish I did. I think Mayzie was just the next game changing thing that forced myself to not be about myself. You know, the other ones were sort of like self-inspired motivations to be a better person than I think with her I just realized I had to be you know. I had to show up and be there for her. You know that's a whole other level of depth and that's what most of the records is about. Family and generational family. So there's a ton to it.
And how does your wife react to a song after she hears a song like "The Parts?" I don't know if you play them before…
That's funny. So, I wasn't playing her anything for a long time, and I, like, wrote the song for her and I took and I sent her a demo of the song like a year before we started working on the record, and she was like, 'That's really sweet,' but it's like a demo. It was fine. She was like, 'It's lovely.'
So we hadn't added the cinematic, ominous part of the song. So I'm playing it for people after that and people kept texting her, and it was funny because they were like, 'I just spent like three minutes weeping to this song,' like, 'You're gonna just die." So we finally mixed and mastered the record and she took it in her car went to go work out and sat in the parking lot. Yeah, she said she sobbed, so that's how she reacted. Ultimately, it's a love song, you know.
You mentioned realizing through Mayzie, this idea of living for somebody else. Is it at 24? Was that the period when you split up and that you kind of you know realize that there wasn't anybody else for you, and you were just going to make this whole being in a band thing work? Like how do you balance doing those things, like, you know, being a good husband and and still being in a band and being yourself?
Uh, it was actually a lot earlier than 24, and I got married 21, so really when we were kids. And it's all I think about — we were two kids. And then, none of that's easy. Deciding to be a good husband and put somebody else in front of you. But ultimately for me, and I felt like the person that I am because of her and with her and the person that she kind makes me want to be and and challenges me to be, especially in this kind of lifestyle, in this career that I chose. It was just so unbelievably worth it. You have to have someone that you can trust and love and who loves you. You know it's been really great last several years and kids just made it even better.
Just nice to have a home. I was going to ask you about the Braves 'cause I think your fan, but I go to spend my last question on on this one. There's like the dark part of A Black Mile, and you mentioned something about looking at your daughter, and thinking how a darkness in the world and how it's eventually going to affect her life in some way. Is that some you think about that when you think about growing your family or do you ever have feelings that make you feel bad about bringing somebody in and into the world?
I don't ever feel bad about bringing somebody in the world because there's a whole lot of love and that I want her to experience. All the beauty that there is in life, you know, but as a parent and just as the knowledge that I have that things are rough and that no one gets out of it squeaky-clean, you know, and she's going to have hard stuff happen — and that's just life. And I've never really looked at it like that before. When you're really only responsible for yourself the freedom to it, a liberty, where you can be like, 'Ah, okay. It's my life,' and you can do whatever you want with it. Even hard stuff that happens to you. You'd be like, 'Alright, moving on, moving on.' You just don't want that stuff to happen, but it will. So my job is to be a constant for my family to make sure they feel safe when I'm there.
Thanks for the call, travel safely. We'll see you in Tampa.
Thanks man.
This article appears in Aug 31 – Sep 7, 2017.