TLOBF Interview :: Department of Eagles

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Fred Nicolaus, with Grizzly Bear’s Daniel Rossen, is one half of the beautiful collaboration that is Department of Eagles. Following the recent release of second album In Ear Park, we had the opportunity to pitch some questions to him, telling us about the band’s inspirations, how the two members work together, and the artistic concept behind their name. If you’ve not already done so, read our review of the album here.

You met while sharing a room at college. What did you both study, and how do you think your studies or time at University impacted on your music / creativity (if at all)?
I studied Art History and Daniel studied linguistics. It’s hard to say in general how all of that affected our music, but we did get our band name out of one of my art history classes, so our shiny liberal arts degrees weren’t a complete waste.

What non-music jobs have you done?
Well, I’ve had steady day jobs for about four years. For a while I was a writer at the world’s most boring magazine: “Industrial Equipment News.” I seriously challenge you to find a more boring magazine. Can’t be done.

I can hear all sorts of amazing stuff in In Ear Park – everything from a bit of 10cc to Walt Disney movie music. Are your own musical tastes pretty eclectic? What do you enjoy listening to?
Like many people of our generation, we both listen to a lot of different kinds of music. To say that you have eclectic taste now is almost like saying you like the Beatles: it kind of goes without saying. That being said, yeah, we do like a lot of different kinds of music, including Walt Disney movie music. And the Beatles too, of course.

Do you share the same “taste in music” or do you both bring different influences and ideas to the band?
Generally speaking I tend to bring sappier, simpler poppier music to the group. Dan’s music is usually darker and more complex. “Herringbone” is a pretty representational Fred song. “Around the Bay” is a pretty representational Dan song.

How do you divide the creative process (who writes lyrics, who writes music, how does that work etc)?
We write on our own and make a ton of demos. Once the basic chords, melody and lyrics of the song are in place, it usually falls into Dan’s hands to flesh out the arrangement.

What instruments do you play?
We both play a lot of different instruments. Dan plays guitar, piano banjo, percussion, and isn’t bad on the cello. I play guitars and percussion and occasional piano. Dan is the main singer but I sing occasionally too. We’re very much a songwriting project and there’s something of a “whatever works” approach to who plays what.

Obviously, Daniel is in Grizzly Bear as well as Department of Eagles, but what other bands or artists would you consider to be your “peers”. Do you see yourselves as part of any particular genre or movement in current music?
Randy Newman talks about this little group of musicians in the late 60–himself, Van Dyke Parks, and Harry Nilsson–who were making this kind of pop music that was informed by what I guess you would call classic americana. He talks about how that particular branch of rock music sort of died out, kind of like neanderthal man. There are a lot of people revisiting that and tapping into that vein right now. I don’t think it’s anything as coherent as a movement or a genre, but it’s a fun aesthetic to play around with.

What’s next for both of you – more collaboration soon, or are you working on other bands/projects next?
Daniel is working on the new Grizzly Bear album, which sounds pretty fantastic so far. I’ll probably still send songs to him if I manage to write any new ones.

Are you coming to tour in the UK? (Please do! and if so – are you coming to Cambridge?). How does your sound work live?
I hope we can make it over! Our live sound is still somewhat undefined. We played one show with a full band and one show with just the two of us. We’re playing around with it still.

Do you read your own reviews? Do you generally read music magazines / websites etc (and if so, which?)
When it comes to reading about music in general, I do it a lot. I read Pitchfork, which I think is pretty much the paper of record when it comes to contemporary music, also some blogs, especially Gorilla Vs Bear, that guy is usually right about what’s interesting and what’s not. I read the music section of the New York Times, Spin, whatever. It’s all interesting on some level. I do sometimes read our reviews, I think you’re either a saint or a liar if you say you don’t, but it can get depressing pretty fast. I try to limit it.

Finally – could you explain, in a couple of sentences perhaps – the concept of Marcel Broodthaers’ Musée d’Art Moderne, Départment des Aigles which (if Wikipedia is correct) inspired your band name?
In very broad terms, I’ll give it a shot. In the late sixties, Broodthaers constructed a fake museum in a house, cataloging and displaying various pictorial depictions of eagles from throughout history. There’s a lot of ways to interpret the piece, but it’s probably most commonly understood as a critique of museums as institutions, especially the way they tend to group artists together in sometimes arbitrary ways. His point being: doesn’t it make just as much sense to group together pictures of eagles as it does to group together every artist who painted pictures in the 1920s? But aside from that it’s just a fun piece of absurdism.