once more with feeling

I’ve known Dear Reader mainly because of their hit “Dearheart”, to which I listened excessively when their debut album “Replace Why With Funny” was released in 2009. Since then, many things changed. Cherilyn MacNeil moved from Johannesburg to Berlin and continued her musical work there without her former colleague Darryl Torr.
The new record, “Idealistic Animals”, is the result of hard work and the help of friends. With profound, intimate and highly emotional lyrics the singer/songwriter deals with her fundamentalist Christian past and her fresh start far away from home.
This is the protocol of the most honest, most open and yet incredibly funny and entertaining interview.

You’ve moved to Berlin a while ago. Can you tell us about why you moved? Was it more professionally or personally motivated?

Lots of levels. It made a lot more sense workwise, I think I travelled to Germany 5 times in 2009. And then – I really wanted to just get out of Johannesburg. I was ready to leave. Then I had the opportunity to get a visa. Johannesburg is not the kind of place that suited me, it’s a frenetic, fast and stressful place. Johannesburg is called “Egoli”, the place of gold. It’s a city built on money, a place that is about making and spending money. And that’s just not the right place for me.
And Berlin is the opposite – very slow, very sleepy. Well – daytime sleepy, nighttime a vibrant place. People are very simple; it’s not about getting a big car or a big house. It’s about having a good quality of life. I love riding my bike here and walking around, I love walking home at 4 in the morning and being safe.

How is it for you to live in Berlin now? Do you still feel as a stranger, or do you already see Germany as „home”?

Well, I think I fit in really quickly. Maybe because here, there are so many other aliens. You don’t feel like you stick out. I never felt like Johannesburg was really “home” either – I feel this sense of alienness in general. I always had the feeling that I was born here, but my ancestors came to South Africa and colonized it, they suppressed the people and took from them. So I had the feeling I shouldn’t be there, but there was nowhere I belonged either.
It’s a good thing as a musician to make home wherever you are, because I have to do that a lot. So yes – Berlin is home now.

When you moved to Berlin, this meant the end of you working together with Darryl Torr. When you look back, how do you feel about it? How has it affected or even changed you personally?

This was something that I wanted and that was necessary. It’s already been a real experience to make the record without him. Before, he was always taking care of the technical part, and I paid little attention to it because I didn’t need to. And for this record it was totally different – it was so much more lo-fi, we weren’t using that good equipment in the studio. And I did a lot of it – I did a lot of recording, I did a lot of editing. I went through manuals for hours to figure out how to use synths and things like that.
Darryl and me are still good friends and he’s really supportive. We speak often and he’s doing well, he’s actually getting married next year. So yeah – it’s for the best! Sometimes I think “Oh, I had a partner in crime, someone who was in this with me – and now it’s just me”. But I have so many friends who are involved – who were involved in making the record and who are now on stage with me.

Let’s talk about your latest record, “Idealistic Animal”. Even though the songs on it seem quite upbeat – when listening closer to the lyrics, they seem pretty dark, melancholic, self-reflective and maybe even society-reflective. Where does this come from?

I was pretty sad when I wrote the songs. The songs are definitely much darker. I’ve always been very serious and self-reflective, but I’ve also always been quite child-like and silly, I laugh a lot and am kind of goofy. So the music is just both things as well. This is just the way it comes out. I don’t know if I’d listen to it if I didn’t make the music, if I was an outsider listening to me. But that is just the music I make – honest, theatrical, melodramatic alternative pop.

When you released your first record we learned that you grew up in a very religious way and at one point broke up with that religion. Now in the song “Man”, we hear lines like “We like to feel like we are free, we make up something to believe. Not that it has to be the truth.”/ “There’s no such thing as paradise.” Are you still dealing with the topic religion on this record?

I think this record is the aftermath of the surgical removal of religion. I’m testing different ideas, different ways of looking at the world and humanness. I’m trying new frameworks, althoug I feel that I will never ever have this strong, solid framework again. I’m too untrusting now.

So do you still believe in anything at all?

I don’t know. I’m trying to search, looking at different ideas and discharding the ones where I feel they definitely don’t make sense. But in the end, I have this feeling of mystery. They only thing that you can really know is that you don’t know.

How is it to suddenly not have anything anymore you believe in? No higher power that tells you what’s right or wrong, not having the security that everything happens because it’s God’s plan?

It was terrifying. I miss a lot of things. I do miss that feeling that no matter what happens, it happens for a reason, that God is in control. I miss the feeling of working towards a greater good, of being part of something big. Or the feeling that somebody is bigger than it all. But the more I tried to find the essence of all of that, the more I realized that it just doesn’t exist. I wanted to believe, but I didn’t get any kind of sign after really trying and waiting and asking. I was just tired of trying.

Always again we see that people can fall for a political leader the same way they can fall for a religious leader. How do you feel about politics – especially since you come from a continent where we see democratic countries next to dictatorships and regimes?

After all my experiences, I can’t really commit to anything. Some things are more right to me than others, but none of them are great. I’m not gonna be in the front with a flag. There are things that I think about and which are important to me, but I don’t want to be a poster girl. It’s not because I couldn’t – I probably could get really behind something. It’s a sense of jadedness – the part of me that really wants to believe in something is gone.
I’m mistrustful. And I think that’s true for our whole generation. We find it naïve and stupid to believe in something. Because we are mistrustful.

Back to the album: the songtitles on “Idealistic Animals” are all kinds of animals – and there’s the Man. So are you saying humans are also just animals?

This is one of the ideas I was putting my toe into. When I was brought up Christian, you have this whole set of ideas that people are made in God’s image and that they have souls, and animals don’t. People are the center of everything, we are special. Animals and all that are just temporary and valueless in a way.
Then I was thinking how people have needs and desires, and we spend our time to still them. If that’s to eat or drink, to shelter ourselves from the cold or even way more evolved needs, more abstract and intangible needs. So basically we’re just the same as animals, we’re part of it all and now above or below it.
It’s interesting – what is consciousness even? If you don’t believe in a spirit or even in God then it’s all just chemicals.

And what does “idealistic” mean to you?

This is referring to all the evolved ones. This higher thinking that we have. We are different, but not that different. That’s what it means.

Is the song “Camel” about a past love of yours?

It’s about bumping into an ex. It starts with the truth and then exaggerates a bit. But it’s about that feeling that you have when you meet the person that you were so close and intimate with, and somehow after you broke up you see the person and it feels like you meet a complete stranger.

You have a choir on some of the tracks and there are other voices on several songs – can you tell us something about who you’ve been working with on this record?

There were so many people involved in this record. Brent Knopf (Menomena) was producing it again, and we had people playing clarinet, horn, harp and accordion. Friends from Sweden, who will also be with me live, played drums and guitar. And then there was the Shape Note Chorus which is something I’m totally in love with. I did some shape note singing in Portland – it’s this really old American music. It’s actually Christian church music. It’s a strange music, they sing really loud and nasal. (sings some notes to show us the kind of sound)
I’ve even been learning it with a woman now in Berlin. So you can hear them on “Camel” and “Whale” and “Kite”. Jacob, the drummer, actually said “What are those weird people in ‘Camel’? I don’t like that!” It’s like Marmite – either you like it, or you don’t.

I heard that you’ve been taking German classes. How’s that going?

Gut! Viele Leute reden natürlich auf Englisch mit mir und meine Freunde sind auch alle Englisch, aber mein Freund ist Deutscher und ich versuche auch Deutsch zu reden. Ich kann mich nicht immer so gut ausdrücken – bei einem Interview geht das gar nicht. Aber ich verstehe fast alles. Aber die meisten Menschen sind beeindruckt weil in Berlin braucht man es eigentlich nicht. Viele wohnen seit sieben Jahren hier und können nicht mehr als „Danke“ und „Bitte“ und „Tschüss“, aber mir macht es Spaß. Ich habe vorher auch ein bisschen Afrikaans gelernt, das kommt aus dem Niederländischen und hilft wahrscheinlich auch viel. Ich liebe Deutsch, und für mich ist das auch Kultur. Ich verstehe so die Leute besser.

Well, thank you for the interview and your time!

Gerne, danke! Thank you and see you soon back in Austria!

“Idealistic Animals” was released on September 2nd (City Slang). Dear Reader will be back live in Austria for the Blue Bird Festival at Porgy & Bess (Vienna) on November 25, 2011.
Check FM5 for the German version of this interview. Pictures by Christoph Liebentritt, all rights reserved.

I remember sitting in my car with my friend, driving home from Vienna. The sun is shining, we’re putting our sunglasses on and light a cigarette. “Now We Can See” is sounding from the CD player, we sing along to “Oh Way Oh A Whoa” and nod our head to the rhythm of the drums.
I have a special connection with this record, that’s why I was nervous like a school girl that’s just being asked out by her first big crush when I was asked to interview The Thermals for the magazine of the Poolbar Festival. However, the band was incredibly sweet and funny and the result could be worse, right?
So here it is, in full length and original version. If you get the chance to, go see them at the Festival in Vorarlberg where they play on August 13. Other highly recommended bands to watch: Portugal. The Man, The Weakerthans, Ok Go, Get Well Soon and FM Belfast.

First of all, welcome to Vienna!

Thank you!

So, you’re now pretty much in the middle of your European tour. How has it been going so far? Where have you been already?

Hutch: It’s been really good.
Kathy: Yeah, we started in the UK, played three shows there, then came over to Brussels. We were in France, did a show in Barcelona, then Switzerland and Germany.

Vienna probably has the worst weather of all of them?

Westin: Yeah, totally. We had summer already! It’s quite like Portland though. A little bit colder, but Portland is quite grey and rainy.

You’ve already been in Austria before. How do you feel about coming back?

K: Good, we always have really fun shows here. People are really wild here.

Since you released your last record “Personal Life”, you did some massive touring. How does this actually affect your personal life?

W: It makes it pretty impossible to have one. It makes your boyfriend or girlfriend mad at you because you’re never home.

Don’t you ever feel like you just need a break?

H: We do have breaks in between. And when we have a break, it’s a real break, and we have nothing else to do.

When you’re constantly on the road, how do you stay entertained?

K: Just make fart jokes.
W: We read, and we listen to music a lot.
H: Yeah, I always get to read more on tour than at home.

Anything you’d recommend?

H: I only read rock biographies. I just read “Scar Tissue” which is from Anthony Kiedis from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. There’s also a good one of David Bowie and Dr. Dre, but I’d read pretty much any musician’s biography. Auto-biographies especially, because when someone else writes biographies, it feels like a text book a lot of times, there’s no emotion. But when it’s different when they write it on their own. You know that a lot of it is fake, because they’re just making stuff up to show off, but it’s interesting.
K: I just finished Patty Smith’s book “Just Kids”, that was really good.
W: I just read that Smith book too. It’s about her relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe, the photographer. It’s a really good book.

You’re now touring with The Coathangers from Atlanta, and in summer you’re gonna tour with Matt & Kim in the U.S. How did that come about? Did you know the bands before?

K: We know The Coathangers, we’ve toured with them a couple of times in the U.S. Matt & Kim asked us to tour with them, but we haven’t met them before. We’re having a long tour with them, it’s almost six weeks.
H: We tour the whole country twice. First we go up, then all the way to the East coast, then we go back to the West, then we go back to the East coast and then we drive home.

How are you touring? With a bus?

W: It’s somewhere between a van and a bus.
H: There’s only four of us travelling, so we don’t need anything big. We try to have as little people around as possible.

Since you’ve released “The Body, The Blood, The Machine” you always had some sort of a theme for your records. How was it with your new record, who came up with the concept?

H: We never decide on that first. I just start writing then lyrics, and then I see if it seems like there’s a direction to go, if I feel like there’s more to be said about. This time we wanted to make a record that wasn’t so heavy and serious. It still came out very serious though. But we tried to touch more down-to-earth topics. It’s just about love and people being in love and it going wrong, as opposed to the end of the world and dying. We tried to make something more… normal.

So your new record is about love and relationships, but it still seem really dark. Is it about you dealing with experiences you had?

H: It also is. But it’s about friends too, not only about love relationships. It’s about people not trusting each other, people lying to each other, people fighting. When you’re in love with someone or with someone, you’re fighting more than with anyone else that you know. The person you like the most, you fight the most with.

But I hope it’s not that you’ve all given up on love now?

H: No, never!

Since your formation, we saw a couple of changes in your list of members. Now with Westin on the drums, do you feel like you found your final lineup?

K: Yes, he’s the number one drummer!
H: Yeah, Westin has been with us now for three years, that’s longer than any other drummer. Also, we all get along personally really well. We see each other all the time, even when we’re not playing shows.

But you don’t live together?

H: No, we don’t want to go that far. I haven’t lived with anyone for ten years. It’s too annoying. I mean – I literally am.

Westin, How was it for you to join the band after they already released a couple of records?

W: It was very easy to get in. It was all very natural and fun. I loved the music, I loved all the records. Everything they do is what I’d do anyway, it’s just like an awesome opportunity for me.
K: When he played with us for the first time, we asked him to learn four or five songs, but he had already learned twelve songs. He’s proactive.

“Personal Life” is the first album where all three of you contributed. How was working together like?

K: It was really easy, from the first day on we just clicked. We all have similar taste in music and how we like to play music. And since we had already been playing together for a year and a half before we started writing, we had already gotten used to each other. So it went pretty smoothly. We collaborated a lot. We wrote half the record throughout the year before we recorded, on tour and between touring. And then, for the month before we went to the studio, we wrote the rest of the songs.

How long did it take you to record it?

K: It was probably like two weeks. And then we mixed it with Chris Walla from Death Cab For Cutie over the next few months when he had time.

So, what music do you personally listen to?

K: It’s all over the place. We all go through phases. On this tour, we’ve mostly been listening to top 40 pop club jams.
H: Like Usher, Rihanna, Britney Spears, Mariah Carey, Ke$ha, Snoop Dogg… But no, we listened to the Descendents yesterday, and we like the Red Hot Chili Pepers. We like stuff from the 90s a lot. Weezer, Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana….

Do you already have plans for a sixt record?

H: No, we never plan that. We don’t want to force it, it’s better to just let it come naturally. We talk about what we want the record to sound like – just like a real loud, heavy, smashing record. I consider the first two albums that there’s a thread that goes through all the songs that unifies them. So maybe we can make a record like that, where we’re not going to announce the theme. Since we’ve had records with themes three times in a row, people will just expect that whatever we do, we’ll have a theme. You know, we don’t have to spell it out for the people. We could just write the songs and let someone else tell everyone what it’s about. Unless they get it wrong, then I’ll have to step in.

When will you be finished with touring this year?

H: Now we’re done at the end of August, since we’ll be back for the festivals. But it’s like a Catch 22 – everytime you see and end, you get 22 more shows.

Well, thank you very much for your time, have a good show!

Thank you!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Km0m2-HGqK8

I’m gonna change your life
I’m gonna turn you around
I can lift you up
You could hold me down

I’m gonna change your life
I’m gonna leave my mark
We can lie in the light
We can wander in the dark