Very few bands make their prime-time debut on David Letterman, or learn about touring from a group like the Civil Wars. Equal parts luck and a stunning self-titled debut have made Milo Greene the indie folk upstarts that stealthily ruled 2012.
But like every fledgling outfit, they have little in the way of trappings to reflect their success. The L.A.-based five piece rolls up outside the Media Club in Vancouver, B.C., one of the city’s smaller venues, in a nondescript white van, and the band members and crew spill out like clowns from a car.
This is how Milo Greene has toured North America a couple times now, but only in Vancouver does the band arrive fresh from an intro to sword fighting class. This brave agility is reflected onstage as well, with everyone except drummer Curtis Marrero sharing vocals and swapping instruments throughout sets. Luckily, the bandmates divide and conquer for interviews.
Robbie Arnett and Andrew Heringer sat down with CBC Music to talk about being blindsided by the Civil Wars’ recent cryptic tour cancellation, the myth of overnight success and keeping the peace.
You’ve already been on David Letterman. How surreal have the last six months been?
Robbie Arnett: It’s been a crazy past year. We started playing live March last year and haven’t stopped since. We’ve either been on the road touring or recording, so it’s been pretty non-stop from March 2012 'til now and it will continue through the new year, I think.
How has the reality matched up to what you thought would happen when you decided, ‘Hey, let’s be in a band’?
Arnett: We’ve been playing music for a long time individually, so we’ve all been through the ropes and have done our individual coffee shop gigs —
Andrew Heringer: Street corners, weddings.
Arnett: Gigs to five people. Milo is a fairly new project to the outside perspective, but we’ve all been working for the last five, 10 years trying to get to a place where people are actually interested and listening.... We have a lot of supportive people behind us who have enabled opportunities likeDavid Letterman and things of that nature. So it’s just now playing shows and meeting people and getting our music out. We’re still very much on the notion of person-by-person, spreading the word rather than relying on a blog or a television show.
The good gospel, as it were?
Heringer:The coolest thing about this band is we’ve all been working for years to do music and nothing’s really changed about how we’ve put it out in the world, but people have caught on to this music in a way that never happened with our other music. There’s something about working really hard and just taking your time and making sure you love it that’s paid off for us.
Does the myth of the overnight success bother you?
Arnett: [Sighs] Yeah, I mean, what is the overnight success?
Heringer:We’ve all been doing this for like 10 years.
Arnett: It’s nice to be acknowledged and if that’s overnight or over the course of 10 years, the most important thing is that the music and the stuff we release is of good quality and that we’re proud of. If that happens right away, awesome. If it happens in a couple months or a couple years, we’ll keep working towards it.
Arriving at a sound that seems to have appeased all of you and your musical sensibilities, how much negotiation is involved in that?
Heringer:Every song is a different collaboration and sometimes it’s easy and sometimes there’s more head butting. The coolest thing about this band is that we’ve found this really perfect balance with our voices, to some degree, and we found this place where we all push each other enough but accept each other’s opinions and thoughts enough to where everybody feels ownership of the music. It’s a really fine balance.
I love the idea of switching between instruments, but as you refine a stage performance, how does working within a loose structure benefit you?
Arnett: We have to decide certain setlists and things of that nature to coordinate the whole movement and everything.
Heringer:If we don’t, it’s such a clusterf--k of, like, "I don’t know what’s going on!" [Laughs]
Arnett: There’s a lot of thought going into setlists and the placements of things onstage. That, in turn, benefits us because a lot of thought goes into our live show. A lot of bands just go up there and just do their live show, which is awesome and that’s great, but since we do switch, mics are switched and we have to carefully think, "OK, how are we going to handle this?" It’s kind of a nightmare for any sound guy. There’s a very soft girl voice and then a very loud man voice. It’s tough to find, because we’re very much a harmony-based band, so you want to get the vocal blend perfect. It’s a lot of thinking onstage, rather than being.
You toured with the Civil Wars and it sounds like it was an amazing experience. What were some of the takeaways informing what you do now?
Arnett: We were like babies!
Heringer:Their professionalism is unparalleled. It was amazing. Like, they just kill it every night, no matter how bad they’re feeling, they just nail it.
Arnett: We had played a few local shows at that point, so they taught us immediately how to tour and be prompt and be on time and how their whole crew works and the respects of being on the road. Those were amazing lessons to learn from the very beginning. Their fanbase is very loyal and supportive.... They were selling out most of their venues, so when we started, it was like we were playing sold-out gigs. The people there watching and then in turn supporting us has helped us immensely, touring in places we’ve never been and having them show up, saying, "I heard you from the Civil Wars."
Heringer:We were a band for like, three or four months when we were told we’re going on a Civil Wars tour. Like the stars aligned. You couldn’t ask for a better first opportunity to get a little recognition and start a fanbase.
A few weeks ago, the Civil Wars made this big bomb of an announcement, which was oddly candid yet kind of mysterious.
Heringer:Yeah, we were all going, "What the hell? We just played a show with them three weeks ago." [Laughs]
Arnett: Yeah, we didn’t really know what to take from it. Still kind of don’t.
Are there any tricks to keeping everyone in harmony?
Heringer:Keeping everyone sane?
Arnett: It’s tough, because you give up your privacy. You’re in a small van, in our case, and five of us in the band and a few crew. There’s not a lot of room to stretch anything. But I think we’re all very dedicated, hardworking and passionate about this music.
Heringer: We really have nothing else but this band. Our lives are all in this spot. Both the Civil Wars have families, it’s different for them. We’re mid-20s, let’s just fucking do this.
Arnett: Yeah, we’re just going for it. You have your good and bad days, but at the end of the line, everybody in the band wants the same thing.
Related:
The Civil Wars, Gillian Welch shine at the 2012 Americana Music Awards