A Conversation with The Submarines’ John Dragonetti & Blake Hazard – HuffPost 3.15.11
Mike Ragogna: Your latest album Love Notes/Letter Bombs features the single “Birds” which sounds a lot like The Beatles. What groups and musicians influenced the band? What’s your favorite era for music?
John Dragonetti: Hmmm…. Must be the backwards guitar. No doubt they’re a part of our acquired musical DNA, but so is Kraftwerk and Joni Mitchell. In fact, B.O.B. is mutating my musical DNA as I write. I don’t know…every era has had something great but for me it’s the ’60s and ’70s. Anything from Piper At The Gates Of Dawn to Black Market Clash.
Blake Hazard: At the time, we felt the song was a bit more doo-wop meets Gary Numan–with maybe a bit of Revolver-influenced guitar. But, yeah, we both have pretty wide-ranging influences. When we listen to music at home, it’s usually old school dub or reggae.
MR: This album is like watching the movie War Of The Roses. What is up with the John Dragonetti/Blake Hazard relationship? Can’t we all just get along?
JD: I haven’t seen that movie. I hope it’s good. The English civl wars were brutal, so I hope we’re not headed in that direction……….
BH: Haha. A lot of that came out of the tensions we had working together on the record. But no worthwhile endeavor ever came without some struggle, I suppose, so maybe it’s just part of the process. There were a lot of proverbial plates thrown against the wall.
MR: And yet it sounds like you’re having a lot of fun together musically. What went into the creation of the songs? The production of the album?
JD: Glad to hear it! It’s funny that so much conflict and struggle can go into making something sound fun. This record did take a long time to make. We knew we wanted to push ourselves sonically, but still keep it close to the heart. While Blake was writing, I was monkeying around in the studio. We recorded most everything at our place, but I did go down to Austin for a week to work with Jim Eno on the tracks while the songs were still in their infancy. He really helped bring a live element to the recordings. Once Blake and I finished the writing and recording–many months later–we asked John O’Mahony to mix it for us. We loved what he had done with Metric. He really helped focus the songs and give the recording more punch than we were used to. We’re proud of the album.
BH: I second that. We really did manage to have some good times with this record. Lying out in the garden, listening to mixes drift out of the studio at the end of the day as the sun went down was pretty sublime. I don’t think we’d do most of it at home again–we need more referees.
MR: How did you get Spoon’s Jim Eno involved in the blissful madness?
JD: We’ve been fans for a long time. He has a great ear and is a super guy. We met Jim a couple of years ago and talked about how we’d love to work on something together. He’s a busy fellow, and we were too at the time, so it was hard to line up. Eventually, we both had a small window to try some stuff out. It’s just too bad that we couldn’t have worked on more of the record together. Next one hopefully!
MR: “Shoelaces” is one of my favorites, real honest. I think on many levels, what you’re communicating about relationships in all your songs is more honest than most people express. Are relationships even worth it?
JD: We try to keep it honest, but some of it is just imagination. I do worry that we say too much sometimes. I detect some relationship cynicism in this question. I suppose if someone wants to be single, then a relationship might not be worth the work that coexists with all of the pleasure and joy. Being single probably is a lot of fun. Otherwise, take a chance.
BH: I think we made a decision at the beginning of this record to just bluster into it all with our real feelings and not filter ourselves with each other too much–maybe it’s just part of being open in the writing process. I’d like to be more sophisticated about it and find some way to veil things a bit–but, that’s not very “us.” I’d hate to see us trying to get too clever. We don’t mean to, really, but we sort of go for broke in the what we say in our songs. When I listen back, at times, I can’t imagine how two people could sit in a room and say some of these things to each other.
MR: “Fire,” as well as so many of the other tracks, evoke many musical entities including St. Etienne and even Matthew Sweet. If I had to, I would classify you as Smart Pop, do you think that variation might be making a comeback?
JD: I’m not very smart, so I have no idea.
BH: Very cheeky, Johnny. Maybe Smart Pop and Indie Pop are interchangeable terms. I don’t really know, but I’d venture that if a band plays Smart Pop, this means the band has the facility to play straight pop music but chooses to change it, to play with it–to subvert some of the conventions of pop so that it isn’t all sweetness and sameness. I think we’d be happy to be considered part of that fine tradition. I do think more mindful songwriting is making a comeback, which is great.
MR: How did you meet and what’s the origin of your moniker?
JD: We met in Boston and had lots of mutual friends in the music scene there. I had done a remix for Blake and eventually helped her make her first record. We didn’t start making Submarines records until we moved to Los Angeles. There’s no real story behind the name. It’s simple and we liked the sound of it…and it has nothing to do with Yellow Submarine.
BH: John’s record, Aviating had just come out when I was starting to look for someone to produce my first record. I knew I wanted to work with him, but, never dreamed he’d be up for it. And here we are.
MR: Have you seen any of the uses your songs have had, such as in Gossip Girl and Grey’s Anatomy? Were you excited by your song being featured in iPhone ads? What about Nick & Nora’s Infinite Playlist? Did you ever meet Michael Cera and did you tell him how much he represents everything good about American culture?
JD: We only watch PBS. Have you seen Downton Abbey? Amazing. I did really enjoy Nick & Norah. Peter Sollet (director) and Myron Kerstein (editor) are awesome. We met Kat Denning at one of the Nick and Nora premier party we played. Stunning, but no Michael Cera, sadly. I did see him on his bicycle in Los Feliz recently. I’m going to say hello next time.
BH: We’re thrilled to have our music in shows and films. Licensing has kind of kept us afloat as a band (please forgive the pun), but, it’s also exciting to look around and realize your music is part of current popular culture, to feel like you’re a part of this larger imagination of film and television. As for the iPhone ads, that was truly a giant gift for the band. Really, it was an extraordinary thing for us and we’re grateful.
MR: What’s the future for the band?
JD: To the top of course.
BH: Haha. We both have certain dream outings for the band–shows we’d love to play, songs we’d like to write. In the meantime, we’re headed to SXSW to play a slightly insane number of shows, and then we’re off on a North American tour this April and May. We hope to go to Japan, Europe and the U.K. before the year is out. Our fingers are crossed.
MR: Any advice for new artists?
JD: Whatever I might say – do the opposite.
BH: Keep your publishing. Seriously, it’s a good idea not to sign it away unless you have a great relationship with a publisher. Other than that, I don’t really know–we’re sort of figuring it out as we go.