Features | Interviews
The Minus Story
By David Greenwald | 1 November 2005
Only in the Midwest would it have occurred to an indie-rock band to write an album about the undead. Minus Story, who hail from Lawrence, Kansas, are on a national tour with fellow Lawrence band The Appleseed Cast to promote their third full length, No Rest For Ghosts. The album is a semi-concept record that merges comforting pop melodies with ghost story lyrics and horror film undertones.
After some difficulties with cell phone reception in the Midwest, guitarist Andy Byers was able to spend a few minutes talking with CMG’s David Greenwald about the Kansas-based Move The Music charity, how to record “ghost vocals,” and the band’s rigorous muffin-eating schedule.
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CMG: How’re you doing?
Andy Byers (AB): We’re doing pretty well, we’re getting attacked by bees right now.
CMG: Yesterday I was talking to Jordan (Geiger, the band’s lead singer) about the Move The Music charity you guys are working with. Can you tell me a little about that? Is that something that you guys helped found?
AB: We didn’t actually help found it, but a friend of ours who lives sort of next to Lawrence has always really been into helping independent musicians, just trying to do different things to help get them on their feet. It was another idea he’d had. He’d started a small club before, just lots of little things like that. He’s the person who booked the first tour we ever did. He’s just been someone who’s always tried to help us out with stuff, so we ended up just being the first guinea pigs (doing benefit shows) for the Move The Music thing.
CMG: I looked in the show you’re playing in Los Angeles at the Echo, and you’re playing with like four other bands. Is that the kind of tour you’ve been on right now, or has it been you and Appleseed Cast?
It’s been about half and half. We’ve only played about three so far. Two of them have had two other bands, one of them had just a single other band. One of them was really good, a drummer, bass player, cello and violin. Unfortunately, I forget their name, but they were great.
CMG: In terms of finances, if you just play with Appleseed Cast, are you guys going to do better than if you play with a few other bands?
AB: Oh yeah, definitely, that always just works out better if you can get on with someone who’s a little more well-known. We’ve gone out before on our own and it’s always just pretty piss poor, you know what I mean? It also helps to have a booking agent who takes care of things as well, but would we rather play to a small group of people and make $200 or play to a huge room and make $75? We’d much rather play to a whole bunch of kids and make less money. That’s a definite benefit of going on tour with Appleseed Cast, and Okkervil (River), as well.
CMG: The first thing you notice when you look at the album is this hand-sewn pink skull. Where did the idea for that come from?
AB: The skull came from – Jordan’s girlfriend is pretty into fabrics and making clothing and stuff like that, and I kind of am too. She usually just makes Jordan all these little tee shirts and one of them happened to be that skull, and we all just really seemed to enjoy it because it was kind of eerie like a skull always is, but kind of playful and childish enough to be something that fit with what we were doing. I’m also just into stitching stuff so that’s what we decided to do with it. We wanted something that was kind of childish and grandma-y and sort of on the brink of death and on the brink of birth, if that makes any sense. We chose very bright pretty colors, things that also might talk about being old like a grandma, stitching, stuff like that.
CMG: That’s something about the album that I think is really interesting, you have these songs which are about ghosts and death but you’re doing them in a really playful, musical way. Is that your goal, basically?
AB: Oh absolutely. The places that were a lot brighter and happier, we often find ourselves trying to get those happy spots, to find some sort of dark area, and songs that were really dark, we wanted some of them to be a lot more playful. Between the two of them, we would usually work really hard to go back and forth.
CMG: A lot of bands just go for one – they're just really happy and poppy or really depressed or whatever. Do you think putting the two together makes your songs stronger or more interesting?
AB: I don’t know, I mean I hope so. We used to be a grindcore band, so, we were doing a kind of harder music, and it was a lot darker. We’re all into The Beach Boys and really poppy, fun stuff like that, but it just seemed better to put the two together. It made more sense, just with the kinds of things we’re into – like childish books that kind of have dark undertones to them, and horror movies that are really playfully done.
CMG: It seems like the whole album is about ghosts or is from the perspective of ghosts. Why that central motif?
AB: Of ghosts?
CMG: Yeah.
AB: Ghosts were a trampoline to get everything else going. That’s some kind of question for Jordan to talk about so I couldn’t necessarily answer for him because he writes most of the lyrics. But I know that in the same way that ghosts are dark and scary, they’re also very playful and kind of colorful.
CMG: I noticed on the song, “Knocking On Your Head,” you’re credited with “ghost vocals.”
AB: That was because we record on a little digital recorder, and right as we were finishing the album, some of the information got lost. And so my vocals got cut out and a whole lot of clapping got cut out and some drums got cut out, so he had to actually go back in and try to mimic the way I sing.
CMG: You guys put out an EP earlier this year, and you’re already talking about working on the next record. It seems like a lot of indie bands are on this very rigorous schedule of putting out an album every year and touring and the whole thing. Do you guys feel a lot of pressure to just keep doing more material?
AB: Yeah, I mean, that gets our goat kind of a lot. This last one we kind of – not really forced, but the very end of it was pretty quick on getting stuff out and getting it together, when I think all of us would’ve been ok with having a little more time with it. I know with this one, our next effort of music-making, we’re going to spend quite a bit more time waiting to – it’s not going to be like a fucking Radiohead record where nothing comes out for five years, we’ll keep putting stuff out pretty often, but I don’t we’re like, ok, go tour, ok, go record, ok, eat some more muffins, ok, go record some more music, ok, let’s go eat some thai food, ok… y’know? We’re not like that at all.
CMG: In general, is stuff like that because bands need money or the label wants you to put things out?
AB: The label is not really forceful about it, but they do want us to keep throwing stuff out. We’ve gotten a little bit of press and people are sorta kinda catching on to us, and they don’t want us to fall by the wayside because we’re recording this opus in the studio. They want us to try to keep putting stuff out, but at the same time, we don’t want to shorthand ourselves by putting out a whole bunch of shit. We do have a lot of shit to get off our chest, but it’s not like we’re going to keep throwing it out and throwing it out just because we need to keep making albums.
It’s not really anything having to do with the money because they’ll give us the money. Chris and Darius, they’re a money bank, they’re going to give us as much as we ask for. We just called them yesterday and were like, “Dude, we need like $5000 right now. We’re in the desert, all of us, our truck is gone, all of our equipment got stolen, Mark’s been raped, we’re stuck inside the mountain somewhere, we need all this money so we can blow up this mountain to get out of this place.”
After some difficulties with cell phone reception in the Midwest, guitarist Andy Byers was able to spend a few minutes talking with CMG’s David Greenwald about the Kansas-based Move The Music charity, how to record “ghost vocals,” and the band’s rigorous muffin-eating schedule.
==
CMG: How’re you doing?
Andy Byers (AB): We’re doing pretty well, we’re getting attacked by bees right now.
CMG: Yesterday I was talking to Jordan (Geiger, the band’s lead singer) about the Move The Music charity you guys are working with. Can you tell me a little about that? Is that something that you guys helped found?
AB: We didn’t actually help found it, but a friend of ours who lives sort of next to Lawrence has always really been into helping independent musicians, just trying to do different things to help get them on their feet. It was another idea he’d had. He’d started a small club before, just lots of little things like that. He’s the person who booked the first tour we ever did. He’s just been someone who’s always tried to help us out with stuff, so we ended up just being the first guinea pigs (doing benefit shows) for the Move The Music thing.
CMG: I looked in the show you’re playing in Los Angeles at the Echo, and you’re playing with like four other bands. Is that the kind of tour you’ve been on right now, or has it been you and Appleseed Cast?
It’s been about half and half. We’ve only played about three so far. Two of them have had two other bands, one of them had just a single other band. One of them was really good, a drummer, bass player, cello and violin. Unfortunately, I forget their name, but they were great.
CMG: In terms of finances, if you just play with Appleseed Cast, are you guys going to do better than if you play with a few other bands?
AB: Oh yeah, definitely, that always just works out better if you can get on with someone who’s a little more well-known. We’ve gone out before on our own and it’s always just pretty piss poor, you know what I mean? It also helps to have a booking agent who takes care of things as well, but would we rather play to a small group of people and make $200 or play to a huge room and make $75? We’d much rather play to a whole bunch of kids and make less money. That’s a definite benefit of going on tour with Appleseed Cast, and Okkervil (River), as well.
CMG: The first thing you notice when you look at the album is this hand-sewn pink skull. Where did the idea for that come from?
AB: The skull came from – Jordan’s girlfriend is pretty into fabrics and making clothing and stuff like that, and I kind of am too. She usually just makes Jordan all these little tee shirts and one of them happened to be that skull, and we all just really seemed to enjoy it because it was kind of eerie like a skull always is, but kind of playful and childish enough to be something that fit with what we were doing. I’m also just into stitching stuff so that’s what we decided to do with it. We wanted something that was kind of childish and grandma-y and sort of on the brink of death and on the brink of birth, if that makes any sense. We chose very bright pretty colors, things that also might talk about being old like a grandma, stitching, stuff like that.
CMG: That’s something about the album that I think is really interesting, you have these songs which are about ghosts and death but you’re doing them in a really playful, musical way. Is that your goal, basically?
AB: Oh absolutely. The places that were a lot brighter and happier, we often find ourselves trying to get those happy spots, to find some sort of dark area, and songs that were really dark, we wanted some of them to be a lot more playful. Between the two of them, we would usually work really hard to go back and forth.
CMG: A lot of bands just go for one – they're just really happy and poppy or really depressed or whatever. Do you think putting the two together makes your songs stronger or more interesting?
AB: I don’t know, I mean I hope so. We used to be a grindcore band, so, we were doing a kind of harder music, and it was a lot darker. We’re all into The Beach Boys and really poppy, fun stuff like that, but it just seemed better to put the two together. It made more sense, just with the kinds of things we’re into – like childish books that kind of have dark undertones to them, and horror movies that are really playfully done.
CMG: It seems like the whole album is about ghosts or is from the perspective of ghosts. Why that central motif?
AB: Of ghosts?
CMG: Yeah.
AB: Ghosts were a trampoline to get everything else going. That’s some kind of question for Jordan to talk about so I couldn’t necessarily answer for him because he writes most of the lyrics. But I know that in the same way that ghosts are dark and scary, they’re also very playful and kind of colorful.
CMG: I noticed on the song, “Knocking On Your Head,” you’re credited with “ghost vocals.”
AB: That was because we record on a little digital recorder, and right as we were finishing the album, some of the information got lost. And so my vocals got cut out and a whole lot of clapping got cut out and some drums got cut out, so he had to actually go back in and try to mimic the way I sing.
CMG: You guys put out an EP earlier this year, and you’re already talking about working on the next record. It seems like a lot of indie bands are on this very rigorous schedule of putting out an album every year and touring and the whole thing. Do you guys feel a lot of pressure to just keep doing more material?
AB: Yeah, I mean, that gets our goat kind of a lot. This last one we kind of – not really forced, but the very end of it was pretty quick on getting stuff out and getting it together, when I think all of us would’ve been ok with having a little more time with it. I know with this one, our next effort of music-making, we’re going to spend quite a bit more time waiting to – it’s not going to be like a fucking Radiohead record where nothing comes out for five years, we’ll keep putting stuff out pretty often, but I don’t we’re like, ok, go tour, ok, go record, ok, eat some more muffins, ok, go record some more music, ok, let’s go eat some thai food, ok… y’know? We’re not like that at all.
CMG: In general, is stuff like that because bands need money or the label wants you to put things out?
AB: The label is not really forceful about it, but they do want us to keep throwing stuff out. We’ve gotten a little bit of press and people are sorta kinda catching on to us, and they don’t want us to fall by the wayside because we’re recording this opus in the studio. They want us to try to keep putting stuff out, but at the same time, we don’t want to shorthand ourselves by putting out a whole bunch of shit. We do have a lot of shit to get off our chest, but it’s not like we’re going to keep throwing it out and throwing it out just because we need to keep making albums.
It’s not really anything having to do with the money because they’ll give us the money. Chris and Darius, they’re a money bank, they’re going to give us as much as we ask for. We just called them yesterday and were like, “Dude, we need like $5000 right now. We’re in the desert, all of us, our truck is gone, all of our equipment got stolen, Mark’s been raped, we’re stuck inside the mountain somewhere, we need all this money so we can blow up this mountain to get out of this place.”