Interview: Precious Fathers
Precious Fathers' debut self-titled LP made an impact on the IW end-of-year lists and won widespread acclaim for its canny use of… shh, keep it quiet… melodies! In Post-Rock! Amazing. But then their drummer broke his arm, other members started touring with Destroyer among others, and it all went quiet. What the hell's been going on? Paul Goertzen from the band gives us a few clues.
You are a mysterious band. Your website doesn't exist as such. You very rarely play live. Why? Do you like the anonymity you've constructed?
PG: Ryder of the Whale (from White Whale records) won't like this question ‘cause he works hard for all the bands on his label. If we've constructed anonymity, that's fine. It's a time-tested approach to worldwide success. Any major dude will tell you. We have a Myspace page what else do we need? I don't know, we have a way we do things and right now playing shows isn't happening too much. It'll pick up in January.
How do you compose your songs? Is there a tried and tested process to it?
PG: One of us, usually Tim (Loewen) or Jaret (Penner), comes to practice with a riff or most of a song and the rest of us fill it in. I wish I could say we just whip them off but we tend to take a long time with each song. It's fun though, I always look forward to our practices, hashing out songs.
Was it an insular experience to record the album? Did you shut yourselves off from any other musical intrusions or were you open to other influences?
PG: I don't think we were aware of any influences, I'm sure they were there but we never said ‘let's make this part more like this band or that band'. We do what comes naturally. When we're playing it feels to me like genres don't exist. It's music.
Does the Vancouver climate play a part in your sound?
PG: I was asked a very similar question just the other day. Do other bands get this question a lot too? Vancouver is a beautiful city. We get a lot of sun and a lot of rain at times.
How is Josh's arm?
PG: Getting better. It's going to take some time to get all the feeling back though.
Is there any new material to speak of? Your MySpace speaks of a new album in the works…
PG: We just finished recording. Tim's mixing the new songs right now actually. It should be done by the end of November. Check our myspace or whitewhale.ca for more info on release and tour dates. We'll post when we know.
Could you tell us about the numerous side-projects/other bands you are involved with? Is Precious Fathers a side-project in itself?
PG: Yeah, we're spread pretty thin these days. Josh is drumming for The Awkward Stage, Jaret's playing guitar for The Battles, and Tim's doing bass duties for Dan Bejar in Destroyer. This is another reason we've constructed such anonymity.
Precious Fathers were around before all of these involvements with other bands. People just keep stealing us.
The artwork on your album is cool. Tell us about it.
PG: Thanks! Jaret does a lot of visual art. He's hooked up with a collective called The Human Five here in Vancouver who are doing really well, getting shows all over the world. The art on the CD itself was something he did and we all just liked. The nuns cracked us up.
How do you think Precious Fathers fit in to the musical climate around you? Things like the White Wale roster, the current penchant for more melodic Post-Rock etc…
PG: We don't really pay attention to that. We work hard to write good songs and people seem to like what we do so that's good enough for us right now.
www.myspace.com/preciousfathers
- Daniel Ross | 2006-10-05
