Interview #599: Maps & Atlases

Chicago’s Maps & Atlases have made a name for themselves in recent years by combining technically ambitious musicianship with an ear for a good tune. Two sold-out EPs and six years down the line they’ve finally got around to releasing their debut album; the adventurous and engaging Perch Patchwork.

I Like Music chatted to lead guitarist/singer Dave Davison about the long wait for the debut LP, the band’s influences, music as cultural interaction and future plans.

"I Like Music because…it’s fun!" Dave Davison

ILM: How did the UK dates go?

Dave: They went really well! We had a lot of fun and we’re definitely eager to come back. I feel like we got to see quite a bit more this time, but that we’ve still got the desire to really explore, especially in London. Everyone was really hospitable.

ILM: You’ve had a new album out – Perch Patchwork – prior to this trip to England; how’s it been received?

Dave: Positively, it seems. I think that there are a lot of people who just know the album, and don’t know our EPs, which cool with us.

ILM: The EPs and the album are quite different-sounding. How do you integrate everything in the live context?

Dave: We try to do it a little bit differently every night, but we generally do a good mix of the EPs and the new record.

ILM: You’ve been together as a band for six years. How come it’s taken this long to get the debut album out?

Dave: We didn’t necessarily have any major pressure one way or another. There wasn’t anybody expecting us to deliver an LP, or do this or that. We’ve been lucky in that sense; we’ve been able to take our time to develop as a band and release things as we please. The EPs were both more appropriate as shorter works. Certain bands find it positive to produce an album immediately, but for us it made more sense to take a bit more time.

ILM: What was it that made now seem like the right time to go for an LP as opposed to another EP?

Dave: We had a good perspective on what we wanted out of an LP. The time and the situation was right for us. With the EPs it was a matter of just doing things piecemeal; recording something and releasing it immediately. This time around we were lucky to have the time to be a bit more patient and decide what we wanted to do and how we want to do it.

ILM: Was the song-writing process different as a result of that more planned approach?

Dave: It was kind of similar to the approach to You & Me & The Mountain as far as the structures were concerned. On the first EP we relied a lot upon jamming and stumbling upon ideas. That was how we were able to get a better perspective on the relationships between the instruments in the band and create the overall sound and dynamic of the band. After that we wanted to concentrate on using the relationships we’d established in the context of really focussed songs. That was the basis of the song-writing for the second EP and now Perch Patchwork.

ILM: I can pick up quite a range of sounds in the album, from Yeasayer and Grizzly Bear to Paul Simon and The Beatles. What were the influences behind the album?

Dave: We definitely like and listen to all those bands. We were listening to all kinds of things whilst making the album. I think it has this natural but eclectic mixture of different influences. For our EPs we’d already been doing the songs live when we came to record, but with the album we had time during the recording process to explore lots of different avenues. We just tried whatever seemed fun and natural. Through that a lot of influences all across the board came out.

ILM: Do you all have similar musical tastes?

Dave: Our tastes were very different at the beginning, because we met at such a formative age at college. But now that we’ve been a band for such a long time we’ve essentially spent six years seeing all the exact same bands live and hearing all the exact same albums, so we’ve ended up with a lot of the same musical reference points!

ILM: Have you started thinking about new material, or is the album still too fresh to be moving on yet?

Dave: We’re always writing stuff, but in terms of getting together and figuring out what’s next for us I think it’s healthy for us to get this out of our system. That way it can really feel like it's the next thing rather than a continuation of this process.

ILM: Is Maps & Atlases your first foray into music or have you always been doing this?

Dave: I was in bands in high school but we didn’t tour or anything. At the point when I met these guys I really wasn’t doing anything musically. It was weird, I feel like I spent all those years as a young teenager being like “I’ve gotta get a band together,” and then as soon as I was like “you know what, let’s just chill out with that,” it just fell into my lap!

ILM: So do you come from a musical background then?

Dave: My family was definitely very encouraging. My parents weren’t particularly musical, but my older sister decided to start taking guitar lessons and then later would be the source of many records that I would get into. I guess she showed me a couple of chords, and then I started by playing on her guitar when I was about seven or eight. I guess I was just copying her really!

ILM: I take it you didn’t know from day one that it was what you wanted to do with your life?

Dave: No, I mean it was just fun. The initial goal was just to figure out the basics, you know. You don’t have any reference points at that age, but the fact that I could play the various chords and so on by the time that I did discover that music could be culturally significant made it an obvious leap for me to think “oh, this could be my thing.”

ILM: You use the phrase ‘culturally significant’; is that notion of cultural interaction the capacity in which music means the most to you?

Dave: That’s definitely what draws me to it. There’s a basic fun element to it, you know: it’s fun to play music! But the thing that draws me to it the most is that it’s this unique form of communication that has inexplicable qualities to it. I did cultural studies at school and a Masters course in history, and I like looking at music in a historical context and investigating what it has represented in different time-periods. It’s an interesting way of exploring history and culture.

ILM: What are the future plans for the band?

Dave: I think we’re just best to focus on what we’re doing now. We’ll try to continue writing without getting overwhelmed by everything. There are so many different elements in the schedule when you’re in a band, and they take up huge chunks of time, so it’s best just to keep focussed on whatever it is your doing at present.