Q&A: Suckers

Brooklyn-based art-rock band Suckers isn’t your typical rock band, and the band members are very well aware of that. The quartet has been playing music together for a few years, turned heads with the release of its debut, self-titled EP in 2009, signed with Frenchkiss Records after its previous label folded, released its first full-length album Wild Smile in June and is currently touring the world.

Suckers plays intelligent rock music, combining dancey grooves, impressive whistling, beautiful harmonies and awe-inspiring falsetto vocals by Quinn Walker to create something completely original, which is what the guys strive for. The band uses any instrument it can get its hands on, and somehow finds a way to fit them into each song. Suckers is currently touring the U.S. with Menomena for a month-long tour before heading to Europe for two weeks to tour with Yeasayer.

The band sat down with FILTER in Salt Lake City after playing an energetic, well-received show at Kilby Court to talk about the baboon face that dons the bands’ album cover, getting Bronchitis with Local Natives and its quest to not be your typical rock band.

How long has Suckers been playing music together?

Austin Fisher: It’s hard to say. I don’t remember when the official start date was. We’ve been really slow forming.

Pan: I have some really old demos from like January of 2006. But that was when we were a three piece.

Austin: We really sort of got together in…

Pan: 2007?

Austin: We decided to record our EP in 2008.

Pan: But Suckers has been around for at least four or five years in one respect or another.

Austin: We didn’t really get it together until 2008.

Pan: It’s been a slow progression.

 

What’s with the baboon on the cover of Wild Smile?

Austin: I had found an image a while ago that I liked, a few years ago and I just kept it in some stock pile of random images I keep for visual stuff, and then when we were trying to come up with an album cover I just found it and we all liked it. It fit the music…I just think we thought if you saw it on a shelf next to another album cover you would probably remember it.

 

What about the name Suckers? How did you come up with that? Is there any significance behind it or is it just random?

Pan: We were just kind of shouting out names one day at our practice and we couldn’t quite agree on one name and Quinn [Walker] said "Suckers" and we were all kind of like, “Yeah I like that.” Then a week later we still liked it so it stuck.

Austin: There’s no real in depth story behind it, as is the case for many bands.

Pan: We just liked the way it sounds.

 

And what about the album title Wild Smile? Same thing?

Austin: Yeah, similar thing.

 

How does the songwriting process go? One of the most interesting things about tonight’s show was that each of you seemed to play multiple instruments or play instruments in a unique way, whether it be rubbing the guitar strings with a drum stick or getting on the ground and beating the side of the drum set or playing the drums with a drumstick in one hand and a maraca in another. How do you go about compiling songs with so many instruments?

Pan: Just together in the studio we come in and by studio I mean our rehearsal space. We kind of just have a bunch of equipment lying around and one person will just start playing something and then somebody will be like, "Oh this sounds cool" and start banging on something. Or playing the melody along.

Austin: It’s usually because we try to veer away from typical rock band arrangements. The easiest way to do that is to have different instrumentation other than just drums, guitar and bass. Simple too. It’s also not very complicated. That’s something we were interested in from the get-go, not just being the typical rock band.

 

How does it feel to have your debut full-length album out? What type of satisfaction do you feel having it out and having it be so well received?

Austin: We’re just busy.

Pan: The day our record came out was a really good day for me. It was really exciting. But it’s been a long time building up to it. Like, finally, we can release an album. And it came out and it was a joyous occasion. We went to Las Vegas to celebrate.

 

What are your least favorite things about touring?

Austin: I guess in general for the band I think what everyone says [is their least favorite thing] is food and sitting in the van all day. The funny thing on tour is you get excited about nice gas stations or when you crash at people’s houses that have carpet; it’s really exciting.

Pan: People who have a lot of couches that don’t smell.

Austin: The other thing I don’t like is – I really like the fact that we get to visit so many different cities but you’re only there for one night so you’re like, “This place is cool. I’m going to check it out” and it’s like, “Oh we gotta get in the van the next day and go to the next city.” Every time you go you get to see a little. You don’t really get to see anyplace, unless you’re there for a day or two, which is nice and if you have a friend there that can take you around. But also when you’re on tour you don’t really get to work on anything new.

Pan: But I like touring in general.

 

So are you guys touring all over the U.S. right now?

Pan: We’re going to meet up with Menomena in Seattle [on September 10] and then we’re going to be touring with them for the next month. That’s why we’re up here, kind of making our way across the county and then we’re going to be with them for a month and then we’ll go to New York for a week and then go to Europe with Yeasayer for two weeks.

 

Is there anyone you would really like to play with?

Pan: It would be bands that don’t even have opening bands like David Bowie or David Byrne or something like that. But I think it would be cool to play with Radiohead.

Austin: Metallica?

 

What’s your favorite thing about where you are musically or career wise?

Austin: It seems like it’s a place where we still don’t really know what to expect.

Pan: It’s still very exciting. I feel like you get to a certain point where it might not be as exciting anymore. But we’re still in like a big, we’re still playing shows and are like, “Oh cool, people are actually coming to see us.”

Austin: We’re still spreading; people don’t know us too well. People are still finding out about us and stuff, evening though we’ve been touring on and off for the past two years.

 

What are you guys up to tonight?

Austin: What day is today? Wednesday? Tuesday?

 

Tuesday.

Austin: All I need is a shower. Eat some Mexican food and shower.

Pan: We have to go to Boise tomorrow.

Austin: We were in Denver last night so we had to play our show and we had to drive after the show for a couple hours and then get up this morning and drive all day to get here so it’s been a long couple of days. Tomorrow it’s like five hours so it’s easy, pretty short drive. Our night? TBD. We’re staying at the Radisson tonight.

 

Oh, very nice!

Austin: Yeah Priceline, it was like $40. So whatever’s close to that. Last time we were here we went to Urban Lounge.

Pan: And there was like a Goth rave going on. It was us and Local Natives and we all walked in and went, "What is this? This is bizarre; this is 1995." We felt like these people are definitely hacking computers…Our tour manager didn’t even get a drink. He like went inside and was like, “I gotta get out of here.”

 

How did Suckers end up on Frenchkiss?

Austin: We were on another record label and we recorded our full-length album and then the record label folded right after we finished it, but they were very gracious and let us just take the record and they also were buddies with the Frenchkiss guys so the Frenchkiss guys were probably the first to find out and contacted us so we weren’t left hanging very long.

Pan: We had already talked with Frenchkiss before we had even signed with this other label so we knew those guys.

 

I’ve always wanted to know this. You guys play shows every night. Do you have to take anything to make sure you don’t lose your voices?

Both: We should!

 

What about Quinn? He sure goes pretty high on his vocals…

Pan: Nothing. He smokes, he drinks. He doesn’t do anything. We toured with Local Natives and they were like honey, tea, really taking care of their voices, but they would lose their voices a lot faster.

Austin: We should. But a little vocal warm up helps. It depends on how long you go for. We’ve only been on tour for a week but by the end of the month I will definitely be tired. I remember we did a tour and then we went to record and I was struggling. Just the usual stuff. Last time when we were on tour with Local Natives I got Bronchitis; Brian [Aiken] our drummer got Bronchitis and two of the Local Natives got Bronchitis.

 

You guys have already achieved a lot of success as a band, but what are some future goals you guys have?

Austin: I just look for the recordings. That’s just what I look forward to.

Pan: Producing more, writing new songs. And of course playing bigger venues and playing for more people. Try to do as many interesting…

Austin: Riding jets.

Pan: Try to do as many interesting things as possible.

Austin: Getting jet skis.

Pan: We all just made our own videos for this one song.

 

You each did individual music videos for the same song right? So there will be four different ones?

Pan: Yeah. We were like, “Alright what should we do for the video?” “Oh we should do this.” “We should do this.” “We should do this,” and then somebody was like, “Maybe we should just all make our own videos and do that.” “Yeah let’s do that.” So it’ll be an interesting thing to do.

Austin: Four people who don’t know how to make videos with no money. It was fun though.

 

What song was that again that you made those videos for?

Austin: “A Mind I Knew.”  F