School of Seven Bells

A conversation with Benjamin Curtis

(June 2009)

Interview by Joe Cortez

Interpol played matchmaker for School of Seven Bells; it was during an Interpol tour that Benjamin Curtis (then of Secret Machines) met Claudia and Alejandra Deheza (then of On!Air!Library!). Rather than forming yet another side project, the trio soon turned their new gig into their main gig. Since then, they've toured with Bat for Lashes, M83 and Blonde Redhead, and released a well-received debut (last year's Alpinisms).

The Red Alert's Joe Cortez had a chance to speak with Curtis following his band's recent headline set at LA's Troubadour.

So first and foremost, congratulations on a great set tonight. I had seen some footage on YouTube of earlier performances and the stage design, the lighting, it was much more low key. Now it seems as though you just went for it, with the visuals. Can you talk to me about that?

I think that our intentions are always just to have this total experience, you know? It's just about time and means and also just letting ideas come naturally. I think we wanted to do something bigger and we still want to do something bigger but we just want to do it as the ideas come.

Everything we've done in this band has been really... We haven't forced anything, I mean the songs, the sound, just the way it's come about has been really natural.  We're in this place now where we met somebody and are collaborating on these visuals, it's just been really natural and cool and hopefully it's just going to keep growing.

Can you mention who that person is?

Tim Saccenti. Probably what he's best known for is some videos, he did the Battles video where they're in a cube and he did that "Peacebone" video for Animal Collective. He does a lot of commercial stuff, too, but he's a really radically strange photographer. We've been talking about working with him for awhile and he did these images that he shot from some kind of source, stuff that we talked about and kind of ran through this really rare and expensive machine called a flame machine. It takes 30 hours to print.

Is it an editor?

Yeah, it just composites real images. It's a way of manipulating things where the images interact with each other, as far as I understand.

So it's not random?

It's completely sculpted.

There's some engineering or design to it.

Yeah. So, he and the flame machine tech... We went and hung out and watched what they had done and we were like, "Okay, yeah that looks cool." (laughs)

Now what about the lighting because that was pretty dynamic as well. From the first song you had almost transformed the Troubadour.

Making records and playing live are two different things. I just think that... that's what it's all about. You're going to pay some money to come and lose yourself in an immersive environment, you know? I love shows where I just forget my body. I've been to shows where I was holding a drink and dropped it because I forget I'm holding it. It's not like you're escaping, necessarily...

It's like you're drawn in.

Yeah, you're almost drawn in to that moment so minutely where you're just completely experiencing it as an overwhelming sensation and that's what I want to do.

Do you have any ambitions to use your music to tell a story, maybe through a concept album or show? It seems like you're almost on the verge of doing so.

I think so. We talk about stuff a lot I can really see that happening. But, like I said before, it would be something that happens naturally. I mean, I think I can totally imagine us suddenly arriving at this space where we have fifteen songs that just work in a certain way.

We almost did it unintentionally with Alpinisms.  We wrote all this music and then you go back later and you realize there are a lot of reoccurring themes. We didn't consciously do it but it happened. I think it can happen if you realize you're writing about your life and you're inspired by your life. A record can be a document of a year in your life and I think maybe if we had a particularly epic year... (laughs) Maybe that would be a concept album.

So what's on the horizon for the band?

We just put out this new 12". I hope people listen to it, I feel like it's a pretty important companion to our album. We have a song called "My Cabal" and there's an answer to that song called "My Camarilla" that we just couldn't fit on out record.

Are you planning another video for the companion song, to go along with the clip for "My Cabal?"

No, we'll leave that for your ears. You can make a better video in your head.