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Noise Reduction Nashville singer-songwriters tastefully interpret holiday classics on their second collection

 

 

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Editor's Note

Love-Hate Mail

Rush to the Rescue Limbaugh praises Thompson, but can anything save his campaign?

Words of the Week

Monied Protest Lee Beaman finances ‘Bredesen’s Bunker’ opposition

Short Takes This week in local theaters

Suspect Behavior

Inquiries From the Brevity-Challenged Special long-question edition

 

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by Chris Parker

After several 7-inches and a couple of EPs, the Lakewood, Fla., singer-songwriter (a local contemporary of Dashboard Confessional’s Chris Carrabba) secured a major-label deal in 2002 with an MCA subsidiary for Legends’ full-length debut, A Thousand Friday Nights. But MCA soon folded, and for over a year the band was legally prevented from touring and recording. Unwilling to be bottled up, Ralston recorded a solo album, Needle Bed, whose well-crafted, loping indie-pop sensibility recalls XTC with a dash of dispirited Ben Folds.

“[Legends] had actually still been demo-ing and had about 60 songs that we were really excited about, and then that got held over our heads. It was a lot of hard work for a lot of frustration in the end after getting involved with the wrong people,” Ralston says. “Every band has a story like that. It just so happened around that same time I recorded Needle Bed and started touring on it, and that was kind of the direction things went.”

Even before Needle Bed was released, Ralston had begun work on his new album, though he didn’t realize it at the time. He’d gone up to Chicago to work with ex-Wilco member Jay Bennett and classic-rock revivalist David Vandervelde. Bennett was a fan of Legends of Rodeo, and when Ralston sent a rough mix of Needle Bed, he offered to do some overdubs. Ralston and drummer Jeff Snow—who’ve been playing together since they were 16—spent a week on sessions that would become the 12-song recording There’s Always an Ambulance Around the Bend, which Ralston intends to release next year. That was the beginning of a two-and-a-half-year odyssey spanning eight different recording sessions and numerous different musicians culminating in Sorry Vampire.

Culled from many sessions and takes, the album is like a puzzle—a luxuriantly textured mesh of orchestrated keyboard, tight vocal harmonies and dynamic, hook-lined arrangements that balance new wave, power- and baroque pop. (Mixing took three months.) Yet despite songs comprised of as many 120 separate tracks, the sound is rarely cluttered or precocious. Unlike Carrabba’s histrionic delivery, Ralston’s understated vocals let the music key the dynamics.

“I wanted the music on this one to be able to speak for itself,” Ralston says. “Sometimes vocals can intrude. You get into the mixing situation and all you can hear is the kick, the snare and the vocal. I’m bored with that. I wanted to make something that sounded beautiful, and different. Something you could listen to over and over again and hear something new each time. Music seems so disposable these days. Half the time you listen to it, bands will just throw 12 songs together and call it a record.”

While Ralston succeeds in fashioning a richly engrossing album, he’s not wedded to Vampire’s long gestation period. (It was released on Vagrant in October). He recently finished another album with Vampire producer Michael Seamon tentatively titled Sea Garden Blues, with a release date in March. As with Needle Bed, which Vagrant re-released last year, recording only took five days, and necessarily features an impromptu vibe.

“Michael tricked me into making the record. He called and says, ‘Come up and spend five days with us hanging out,’ and we end up making a record. He had musicians and the studio ready, so I feel like I’ve been set up,” Ralston jokes. “I don’t know if it’s a reaction to [Vampire] or a breath of fresh air for me, but it’s much more raw. I didn’t obsess at all with it.”