Arbogast discussed his latest record, There’s No Love In This War (QRO review), why he made a record based on his grandfather’s war letters, how his family felt, the difference between solo and full-band touring, while he feels like an old man sometimes, and more…
QRO: How has this tour been going?
Matt Arbogast: It’s been good. I did a couple weeks down south, and then I was off for a week. I got a cold at the end of the last tour, and got rid of it the day before this tour.
QRO: Do you tour with a backing band of any sort?
MA: It all kind of depends on situations, where we go, what’s going on. This is just me, but that tour down in February, a band from Denver toured with me, and they also played with me, the Mustangs.
QRO: How has this northeastern leg with Joe Anderl (QRO photos) compared with the Midwest/southern tour you just completed with Mustangs?
MA: I get a little more ‘love’ down south?… It’s always nice when there’s two hundred people at a show, a little nicer down there.
The Denver kids are definitely ‘the ultimate partiers’. When you’re rollin’ in a van, in a fifteen-passenger van with six guys that don’t like to slow down – it’s kind of a carnival all the time. This is much more relaxed, calm and quiet, a nice little contrast to that.
QRO: How was the Insomniac Fest in Athens, Georgia on March 7th?
MA: It was good. Actually, there was a blizzard, so the drive took forever, so it was a little stressful getting there. But it was really good, really nice.
QRO: You said you prefer art spaces and house parties to regular ‘clubs’. Have you been able to play at many of those art spaces or house parties on this tour?
MA: I will be at a few shows – there’s actually more bar shows on this leg, which is okay. There was a few down south, DIY, ‘collective’ kinda shows, which were nice.
It always seems to be a little bit, especially solo shows… There are a few appropriate bars around the country, but if you’re playing solo, especially, you get a little more ‘respect’, I guess, than if you play a place that’s also a bar.
QRO: You’ve been touring cross-country for like five years now. How have things changed, since you started?
MA: Overall, the whole ‘wide-eyed’, ambitious, character, when you’re just getting going…
I did a seven-week tour, the first time I left for tour; I had never gone any farther west than Pittsburgh – I was living at Lancaster [Pennsylvania] at the time, and I hadn’t been anywhere at all, so the whole ‘Wow, there’s this world out here! This is great!’
Now, it kinda becomes more of ‘something that your do’. But it’s great, the whole fulfillment out of it, to do what you do, and survive doing what you do, somehow manage to get by and get through it. It’s become less of a ‘vacation’, and more of a ‘get it done’, ‘I’ve been here, I know these places, I know these streets, I know what I’m doing…’
QRO: How do you prevent touring ‘burn out’?
MA: Doing it this way has been great, actually, switching between full band and solo tours. Being in a car is a lot different than being in a van.
But you can’t prevent it – I mean, it happens. You’ve gotta take a break. I’m excited now, I’m going home next week, start recording again, keeping that going, have more– Some bands, they make a record and tour for years and years, and you get so sick of it.
And I can play songs a little different, solo vs. a full band tour.
QRO: How did making There’s No Love In This War compare with making your previous records?
MA: It was a lot more challenging because it was a lot less self-referential. I kinda set out, when I decided to take it on and really do it, force myself to not just get halfway through and put it off for later. I set out in the beginning, to write a song for a letter, and would not left myself go on to another song until I was finished with this one.
I wrote the songs chronologically, too. I would write them and record them, demos of them. It was a much different– usually, I start with a group of five or six songs, put them together, kinda see where it’s all going and what it’s all about, and try to make some sort of cohesive record out of that.
But with this, it was like, ‘okay, I’m not going to sit here and this is going the apocalyptic ending song on the record.’ There was a story to be told, referencing back to previous songs and letters. I wanted to make sure it didn’t end up just being written songs that were about letters; ultimately, put them all together, it’s meant to not just be like, ‘Oh, I like what happened in that one.’ They’re supposed to be a whole piece.
QRO: Where did the idea of making an album based on your grandfather’s war letters come from?
MA: Not knowing that they existed before I found them.
I don’t really know what happened. I made three records before that, similarly ‘woe is me, life sucks’ – songs that you write by yourself. I was kind of burned out on that angle; I wanted to try something else. I wanted to see if I should keep making records, ‘If I can do this, if I can take on this kind of a challenge and come out of it with something that I can deal with, it’s awesome.’ Then I’ll know, ‘Okay, I can do this.’ It’s freeing.
I’m 28. It’s kind of like, ‘Okay, do I proceed and go?’ Now, I know I can make more records.
QRO: Did the current war, that has now lasted longer than America’s involvement in WWII, at all lay behind this idea?
MA: A little bit, not obviously. If anything, I made a conscious decision to try to not use this example. It was much more personal.
But I like to think that I’m quite ‘politically minded’, and I do know what’s going on, and it is an opportunity to illustrate how… everything’s pretty fucked up. Personally,
I kinda wanted to not ‘preach’ to anybody, but just maybe make people think about how the very basic nature of people can get really freed from stupid desires…
QRO: How did your family, especially your father and grandmother, react to the idea?
MA: They didn’t know it was an idea until it was done. It kind of fucked with me a bit; I was going through some stuff. And I was nervous that I wasn’t going to finish it, so I didn’t want to tell them I was doing it while I was working on it.
So on my dad’s 60th birthday, I gave it to him. It was pretty hard, but it was good, it was definitely positive. I sent a copy to my grandmother, and she loved it. I actually just went to see her the other day, and she has a poster on her wall in her apartment.
Actually, her health was failing, before. And my aunt called, and she said she’s been playing the record all the time – and her health is much better. It was a huge surprise. I was worried that she’d be offended, taking her most private things, and putting them on the record.
QRO: Did you feel an extra level of pressure making this record, as opposed to other ones, considering the inspiration, the idea?
MA: Just a lot of self-inflicted pressure, to not suck. I figured if I could do that, then I was okay, I would know I could make more records.
QRO: Why did you read “November 14, 1944” out loud, as opposed to using it for a song like the rest of the pieces?
MA: I wanted to bring it all, the actual, original dialogue in the letter. I wanted some attachment. I wanted it to be, ‘Okay, I’m doing this, I’m interpreting these things – but I’m not making shit up.’
QRO: Do you have any material you’ve written since No Love?
MA: I’m trying. I’ve got many different pieces of songs, getting some ideas out.
QRO: Are there any songs you really like playing live?
MA: There’s quite a few, from different records, especially with different tours. On a full-band tour, we played certain songs, and on a solo tour, I play certain songs.
From the new record, there are a few I really like to play – I don’t know all the names.
QRO: Are there any songs you don’t like playing live, don’t play anymore, or can’t play live, because of the arrangement on a solo tour?
MA: There’s the first song on the new record (“May 14, 1943: The Khaki-Whacky Girls”). I like to kind of experiment with recording a little bit, so things will end up sounding a certain way on recordings, with samplings, but on guitar, it can sound a little weird. There are some I don’t do, or don’t do very often. I’m okay with that, too – I think there are enough songs that I do play live.
There’s quite a few I don’t even know how to play. Some songs on the first record – actually, the majority of the first record, I don’t even know how to play. I wrote them a long time ago – I have to re-teach myself those songs.
QRO: What cities or venues have you really liked playing in?
MA: I got a lot of friends in Wichita, Kansas – one great place to play. Small city, but very nice crowd – actually, the touring bass player with us is from there.
There’s quite a few others: St. Louis, there’s a place called ‘Lemp Arts’ in St. Louis. There’s a lot of nice places, just because of the people I know in the towns, which makes it fun.
I’ve toured something like 26 different tours – I gauge my favorite places to play less on whether or not there’s a million people there, and more on, ‘Yeah, I get to hang out with so-and-so today…’
QRO: Do you have a favorite tour story?
MA: Actually, I have a million stories from the tour we just did.
Almost got arrested in Gainesville, Florida. One guy decided to shoplift some cold medicine, got caught. We went by a grocery store, ran in all scared, ended up shaving all his facial hair, changing his clothes in the bathroom. There was like eight cop cars swirling around – but in the end, though, we got out.
Then later, up north, we ended up driving through a blizzard in Missouri. Came an inch-and-a-half away from jackknifing the trailer on an uphill climb. Stopped to get gas on the hill, and the van started to slide backward onto the trailer. Had to get out, we had a tomahawk in the van – someone brought a tomahawk for some reason – took the tomahawk, chopping away at the ice on the van. We ended up surviving, but…
There’s enough where… I’m not even thirty, and I feel like an old man sometimes, sitting around, ‘Oh, yeah, this happened!’ A lot of crazy, crazy shit goes down when you’re just roaming around, playing songs.
I mean, one of the last times I was here, I had the band tour, and the van wouldn’t start, right in front of the Mercury Lounge (QRO venue review). Cops came up, ‘What’s going on?’ ‘Nah, we just need to leave – give us a jump and we’ll be moving on.’ ‘We can’t do that.’ They left us there. So we had to wait another hour for AAA to come.
QRO: Do you ever think you’d make an album of just tour stories?…
MA: I don’t think it would be very appropriate…
There’s a lot of tour stories that don’t end up coming out until late, four in the morning, when you’re drunk enough to tell them, kind of embarrassing ones. I don’t know if I would want that to be my main representation…
The Gunshy playing “July 3 1944, I Shot a Man” live @ The Cake Shop, New York, NY:
