The Quilters
Photo courtesy of Amanda Roosa
There's something refreshing about what The Quilters are doing.
Clearly cut from the same cloth as their previous single "Gravedigger", "San Diego" threads the needle through the band's influences and aesthetic to further illustrate their capabilities.
Anchored once again by their impeccable horns section, this new tune feels sincere and self aware without taking itself too seriously. What has been taken seriously is the attention to detail in the production - from the organ sounds to the background chatter, the song is lush, warm, and well engineered. Culminating in a full blown sing along, "San Diego" delivers on it's final message - "It Feels Like Home".
I was able to catch up with the Porter Bros. recently on the dunes of Ocean Beach, and we got to discuss the new single, the forthcoming EP, and life in general.
Photo courtesy of Amanda Roosa
On Staying Inspired Mid-Pandemic
Justin: Staying creative is the challenge, when you don't have access to your usual wells of inspiration.
Jerome: Kinda hard to stay inspired when you can only talk to three people and you can't leave your neighborhood. Ive been pretty impressed with how much artists have tried to take their presence to the internet - it's not all the same to me, I don't think it compares to a live show - but it is cool that people jumped on that right away, posting live shows, hosting more music, more video.
Justin: I think that live acts are a different story, because theres something to be said for getting seven people on stage together, all playing at once - that's very lost in this new streaming environment.
Ray: And you can't even try to recreate that, just trying to mic more than three people, or try to mic a drumset and translate that online is impossible.
The Forthcoming EP
Jerome: The EP, we've got four songs for it - and they're all fully recorded. Yeah, this is the second one, and I'm getting to work on the next one right now.
Justin: Nice! The mixing, it all sounds really good. I really love all the chatter you've been layering into the background - I eat that kinda shit up. That, and just the warmth of it all - it's really coming together. Great job.
Jerome: Thanks, it's my first like, public effort into mixing. All that chatter and the adlibs and stuff - it's hard to get right, it's kinda easy to be a little heavy handed and I feel like I've really learned a lot on this project. But, it really like adds a vibe that I feel like, you know - if you listen to hip-hop or rap music, the way they use ad-libs just elevates the music so far, and I feel like that can be incorporated into any genre - people love to hear other human voices.
Justin: It's almost like, its like a fuck up - but it's not. I feel like the first time I ever heard that in a song it was like a remnant that was left in because it sounded cool, and I think theres something to be said for imperfections that people really dig into. Because, you curated it specifically right - it's not imperfect, it's not a fuck up, but - it comes off in that way, maybe it makes it feel a little more sincere.
Ray: I think also - what I love about the adlibs so much when they're done well, is that - producers talk about putting instruments into the same space, creating the same space - and ad-libs are a great way to make you imagine that theres people occupying a space.
"San Diego"
Justin: So, what's "San Diego” about, and what is the inspiration behind the track?
Jerome: I think thats kind’ve a scenario in which, I wrote the song and then started thinking about what it meant. I wrote almost all of it actually during one surf session on the ride home, and then just tweaked and tweaked to get it to what it is today. It's a little hard for me to pin down - I think I just have this, I've had this feeling of like, looking for somewhere that feels like where Im supposed to be - Like "Home", as it were. And I think that this song is kind’ve acknowledging that there isn’t a concrete place where that is, and I think it’s an appreciation of the idea of that. Like, it’s something to pursue.
Justin: Or that it’s like a moving target, too.
Jerome: Yeah, Yeah.
Justin: That definitely comes across. How many different versions or compositions did you go through before you ended up with the like, peaks and valleys in this one? Because you guys have a nice - and on "Gravedigger" too - you’ve got these like, nice bits of negative space where you guys all drop out, or you’ve got the horns or the guitar - I really dig that aspect, it keeps people engaged. But does that just happen, or did you guys come back to it and say - "No, this needs more space, or, let’s throw a singalong on the end, or", how do you guys go about that?
Jerome: I think, in some of our music Ray or I will have a very complete vision of what it should be like, and we'll bring that to the band and be like - "this is how it should go", whereas with "San Diego" I kinda had a basic structure, just verses and chorus and really brought it to the band and let them do what they heard. So the whole structure of the song happened really organically, like having the little trumpet interludes, I was just playing the lick and our trumpeter just heard the space and played there. The whole outro happened really organically, the slower section - we kinda just got to the end once and, thought it would be fun to slow it down and groove on it some more.
Justin: Is anyone vying for more space than anyone else?
Ray: No, it's crazy - we've been so lucky to have the egos, or lack thereof in our band. Like, Tim I think on that track is such a great example of that. He, was like "Yeah, my trombone should not be at the forefront of this song". But then there are like two spots in the outro where he hits a lick between the two group vocal lines, and it just pops out so sick because you haven’t really heard trombone that much throughout the whole song. And he just rips those two licks - he's more than happy to take on that role, of not really being at the forefront until a specific moment. I feel like that attitude really makes songs good. It's all serving the song, it's not serving the individual.
Photo courtesy of Amanda Roosa
Listening To? Influences?
Justin: What are you listening to, what are your influences? What'd you guys grow up listening to?
Ray: Our parents put us in the San Francisco Boy's Chorus at a really early age - I think I started when I was six, Jerome started when he was like, eight. So we were around classical and choral music a lot. Our parents, in the house would play Patsy Cline, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Neil Young.
Jerome: Our Dad especially was really unbiased against music. I’d say he had a vibe that he liked, but he was listening some songs by The Killers and Houndsmouth.
Ray: (Laughs) I came home one day, and he had this piece of paper where he had written a name of a song he'd heard on the radio and was like, "You've gotta look this up for me on the internet - This is such a good song!" - and it was a Rihanna song. (laughs)
Justin: That's Fantastic. (laughs) What are you guys listening to right now?
Jerome: I've been listening to a bunch of The California Honeydrops. Also Snarky Puppy recently - that We Like It Here - "Lingus" video just blows my mind every time.
Ray: I listen to like, drastically different things than you. Ive been listening to a lot of Phosphorescent. A lot of, I don’t know - my discover weekly has just been fire recently for no reason at all, it's just been so good.
Jerome: That Dan Auerbach stuff you showed me is super good - “Malibu Man”.
Ray: Oh, Yeah.
Justin: I dig all of his solo stuff. Have you guys ever heard of Blakroc? Its a hip-hop project that they did in their studio in New York in like, 2009 I think? Its essentially ten tracks they made with a bunch of hip-hop artists in New York, it didn't get a lot of traction - I feel like no one really talks about it.
Ray: Is it just Dan?
Justin: No, it's both of them actually. Some of it is really soulful, some of it is just weird. It's definitely more beat driven, but you get all those nice Auerbach licks in there.
Ray: He's so sick. His arrangements are so inspiring. It just seems like he has no qualms with just pulling the most random instrument out and doing something cool with it.
Justin: Theres a documentary/ webisode series on YouTube that coincides with the Blakroc project and a lot of it is just footage from inside their studio. You guys would eat that shit up - it's really cool.
Jerome: Also Tiny Desk Concerts.
Justin: Have you guys ever submitted to them?
Ray: No.
Justin: I mean, I feel like thats right up your alley. Drop the EP and submit a video to them. Seriously - please do it!
Any Conflicts?
Justin: Do you all have the same influences across the band? Is there a member of the band where you're just like "How the hell do you like that?"
Ray: (Laughs) Yeah. Like I don't get Devin's taste in music, but I totally understand it. Devin grew up listening to a lot of ska, his Dad was a super serious ska musician, and thank god he picked that style up because his bass lines are nasty. His melody on bass is so sick, and it really shows.
Jerome: Yeah, it’s interesting - often I’ll listen to the music that our band members really like, and it isn’t necessarily what I like, it’s certainly often been things that I haven’t listened to. But I can see how the elements that they take from that and bring to our music really take our music to a cool place that I could never take it on my own. Like Ray said, having ska-esque basslines in our style of music, whatever that is.
Justin: Well maybe thats part of what contributes to your guys’ like, surfy sound.
Ray: I struggle with understanding what surf music is so much - because when I hear people talk -
Justin: I feel like it’s just like, a guitar tone. Thats all that is! (Laughs) But it’s also, maybe context too?
Ray: Yeah? Because when I hear surf rock, it might be one of my least favorite genres of music. But Ive had people be like, Oh yeah, you guys are like kinda surf rocky. And, I don’t know what that is (laughs)
Justin: Funny, maybe it’s the lyrics that we're all grafting onto your aesthetic in some way. Maybe your coastal nature and existence does inform that in some way. You guys are clearly surfers, it’s a lifestyle, it comes across. That’s definitely part of your identity. But maybe you're not surf rock you're just surfers.. who rock. (Laughs)