Strike Up the Band
nobody else but adam green
The Rat Pack and jazz-pop eras are long gone. While vocalists and arrangers may have once been able to belt out a song and watch it climb the charts, the current music industry is a bit tougher on the crooners of the world.
Adam Green hearkens back to these singers by way of Calvin Johnson, combining sophisticated instrumentation and his signature velvety voice with slightly off-kilter lyrics. He and his friends, including Julian Casablancas of the Strokes, and Carl Barat, formerly of the Libertines (with whom he made a hilarious German video), are a sort of rock ’n’ roll Rat Pack, with Green providing the sophisticated vocal and instrumental tracks.
Green constantly surprises with unusual instrumentation, which separates him from usual singer-songwriter fare, particularly in anti-folk circles. For example, “Morning After Midnight,” the lead single on Green’s recently released album Sixes and Sevens, features a horn section and gospel singers. “I’m going to the next round, sinking huge amounts of money into ambitious recording projects that have no commercial potential,” Green says. “That’s what gives me a kick, you know?” The track immediately following features a string section accompanying lyrics about underwear. Here, indie rock irreverence overrides a potentially meaningful moment.
“I identify with Wes Anderson in this way,” he says about these seemingly over-the-top flairs. “Like, he can make a shit movie, he can spend as much money as he wants—like on the scale of Titanic—and then make The Life Aquatic. It’s beautiful.”
When Green’s first album Garfield was released, Rolling Stone objected to its overly explicit and often ludicrously obscene lyrics. After toning the humor down a bit and growing up a lot, Green has moved far past his former role as Kimya Dawson’s 18-year-old partner-in-crime in the now defunct-but-increasingly popular Moldy Peaches.
While his song “Anyone Else But You” made it into the rock ’n’ roll lexicon of a new generation after its inclusion on the Juno soundtrack, Green claims nothing has changed since the film was released. “Nobody’s requested ‘Anyone Else But You’ at a concert or anything ... Me and Kimya don’t play Moldy Peaches songs without each other anyway.” However, he can’t quite escape the song that put the Moldy Peaches into America’s collective mouth. His new album features a duet with his girlfriend that is continuously drawing comparisons to the slacker romance anthem.
America may not be completely ready for Adam Green—the string section and spaghetti-Western feel of much of Sixes and Sevens doesn’t exactly seem poised to take over the airwaves—but Europe has been far more receptive. Green is currently in Germany and has been touring Europe for four weeks. “I’m not trying to be obnoxious, but I think I’ve been on about 80 European tours,” Greens says. “And that’s not an exaggeration.” He attributes this to signing with Elektra Records, a London-based record label, at the tender age of 18. “My professional career was based off of London,” Green says. “America’s always been an outpost for them.”
Green, who signed to Elektra with the Moldy Peaches, elaborates on the tenuous relationship between business and music. “Every time I release a record I get ripped for not producing a big pop hit because I’ve chosen to submit myself to a professional circumstance. But that’s all there is to say about it. Beyond that, my music comes from love.” The moments of pure love on Sixes and Sevens are easily recognizable. In “Exp. 1,” Green employs a blues guitar over spoken, nonsensical poetry, creating a surprisingly multi-layered and charming song.
This European connection seems a bit uncharacteristic for Green, who grew up in New York City and whose father is a professor of neurology at Columbia. However, he has built a considerable following, particularly in France, where he notably hitchhiked in his pajamas across part of the country after overdosing on sleeping pills and alcohol. On this tour, he has ostensibly fared better health-wise and even managed to pick up some musicians on the way. “I picked up some gospel girls—two East London gospel girls. They’re part of the band now. I think they’re having fun. They’ve never been on tour before.”
Green calls his music “Adam music,” which is a sweet phrase for a man who “can’t really remember [his] life before playing music.” Green, who claims he “never had another hobby,” is remarkably genre-defying and somehow able to navigate from a full orchestra to an acoustic guitar with remarkable ease. “I think the people that buy my records appreciate [my use of full instrumentation]. It’s not every day that people get a whole orchestra to do things that are not, you know, Celine Dion.”
Like other artists breaking the mainstream in the past 10 years, Green got his start through home recording and claims that the techniques he used in home recording have helped him better sculpt his solo records. He has never worked with a producer, and he recorded the new album at a “school for autistic children in New Jersey.” He expounds upon his former use of a four-track before saying that now it’s “a sense of self-parody using a four-track when you have garage band on your laptop.”
The new album, while only partially home-recorded, took over a year to complete. Green claims that this album was the most alcohol-drenched and re-recorded, mostly because he had so much time. “I think I developed a nice artistic relationship with the record. I think I could best describe it as tears squeezed from a leather belt,” he says. “I feel a little bit like Clint Eastwood. I think it’s probably my most macho record.”
Macho or not, the Western theme pervades Sixes and Sevens, and Green’s songs, most notably “Broadcast Beach,” feature an almost “Rhinestone Cowboy” feeling that is listenable and fun with its gospel background and lead-in piano parts.
Like a good lounge singer, Green can hook a listener through a melding of the upbeat show-stoppers and the torch-songs. His lyrics remain vaguely subversive, and his voice makes it easy to picture him singing the orchestrated numbers while swinging a microphone in a velour sport coat. He may not ever reach Rat Pack status, but he and his friends have reinvented indie-rock, at least for a little while.