North Carolina's folk / rock trio Megafaun may look the part of the genre's rugged and freely bounding ethos with their thick long beards and tendency to be pictured on horses, but they're on a journey not just to take from the past but use it and shape its future.
The band has continually searched for its identity for some time, with a story that has roots in Eau Claire. The band's members -- Brad Cook, Joe Westerlund and Phil Cook -- were part of a band with Bon Iver's Justin Vernon called DeYarmond Edison. To make a long story short, the band grew as big as it could in the Badger State and moved to North Carolina with ambition to get to the next level.
Following the move, the Cook brothers and Westerlund started to feel a tug towards a different direction in folk than Vernon. So Vernon went back to Wisconsin to form Bon Iver and the others stayed to form Megafaun.
When it comes to the world of Megafaun, it's all about pushing the limits of where they can take folk music and one upping themselves. Last year the band released, to critical acclaim, their first full length "Gather, Form and Fly," which featured a strong muscular blend of traditional folk and experimentalism. The band looks to continue its growth with the mini-album "Heretofore," to be released Sept. 14.
"We're just trying to write better songs," says singer Brad Cook. "We've never been fully satisfied with anything we've done since we were kids. Every album we get really excited because it's an opportunity to grow and get better with whatever we're doing.
"I think when we finish something like an album we all have a psychological detachment like an emotional attachment almost immediately because we're done with it. It feels complete and now we feel like we can do something new already. You get done with an album and you think you could do it better now that you're done with it."
Before Megafaun brings its evolving folk / rock sound to Club Garibaldi Tuesday, OnMilwaukee got a chance to talk with Cook about the band's search for who they are and exploring what they can do with their music.
OnMilwaukee.com: Could you talk about the beginnings of Megafaun? What convinced you guys that you should form a band together?
Brad Cook: We had moved to North Carolina with our old band DeYarmond Edison. After a year ... we were all doing different things. I think Phil, Joe and I were finding more common interest ... and it was a good time to stop doing that band but we didn't want to stop making music. So we decided to start over and write songs and learn how to sing.
OMC: The band seems to have a more straightforward folk-Americana-roots side and more experimental side.
BC: We're trying to learn. The improvising feels comfortable to us. We're still learning how to write songs and that's the part that feels like more of a challenge so the last album we tried to spend time writing better songs as compared to putting a ton of experimental stuff on it.
OMC: How do you balance going more traditional or more experimental?
BC: I think for us it's figuring out where the windows for experimentation are. We try to build a door into every song we can leave out if we need and kind of explore that song more in a live setting. But there are certain songs, like "The Longest Day," that we weren't ever experimental with, just because it doesn't really need that to exist. I think for songs like "The Fade" and even "Kaufman's Ballad," the more traditional songs, we just try to keep the songs we have. We can improvise at the end of the songs or out of the songs. But it's just about whether a song needs it. I suppose we're not always sure we're doing it at the right times. That'll probably be something we'll learn over the course of our lifetime when it's ultimately appropriate.
OMC: How would you describe your music?
BC: It's funny, I don't really think of us as a folk band really and I know a lot of people do. But generally when I'm talking to someone I say we play folk / rock or experimental folk or high-energy folk. We sing a lot and use a lot of acoustic instruments but we just did our last tour in Europe and barely played any acoustic guitar and banjo. It was almost all electric guitar and bass, just because we feel more like playing electric instruments. We don't have a huge insecurity about people labeling us or identify us because I think it changes for everyone based on their own reference points.
OMC: It sounds like the band's influences are pretty wide stretching and sounds classic and modern at the same time. What musical influences really helped push you and the band in this direction?
BC: I would say the Grateful Dead, The Band, a lot of jazz -- Albert Ayler and Anthony Braxton -- and kind of the old '60s improvisers. There's a lot of '60s experimental electronics stuff. We love current bands like Bon Iver and try to stay up with what's going on now. Generally speaking, our strongest collective reference point would be '60s rock.
OMC: How have the North Carolina and Wisconsin culture and music scenes influenced the band?
BC: I think growing up in Eau Claire it definitely felt like a vacuum in terms of influence. We weren't influenced directly by people we knew in Eau Claire. I think we found in more of the music we listened to from bands we liked and enjoyed. I think in South Carolina their musician network is so strong; there's so many bands playing and touring that's its really easy to feel more inspired by just by people you know around town and in conversations. I think in North Carolina that's the one state where we're not tied to Bon Iver's success. I think in a lot places people check us out because they know we played with Justin. I think in North Carolina people don't really care.
BC: No, the only big change is that we haven't had to work jobs when not on tour for the past year. But that means we've taken on a lot more projects. We recorded a new album and have this new band, Gayngs, that we've been active with. Also we got a commission by Duke University to do an entirely new performance of original music in September so for us it just means that we're more on the band. I think it's great that people have taken notice and affords us the chance to play more. This is where we've always wanted to be and now that we're here we're just trying not to waste that time.
OMC: Were there any special meanings to any of the songs from "Gather, Form and Fly"?
BC: We wrote four of the songs about grandfather who died. Some songs are less sentimental. Kaufman's Ballad is written about Gram Parsons. Some stuff was more introspective for the three of us. The title is more for us as our first album felt really reactionary. It just felt like we're trying to separate ourselves from our past experiences and loaded with a lot of intense soundscape and was really reactionary. It was really a realignment for us. We threw a lot of the things in the air and picked it up and put it together for the first album. We're trying to move forward with a more collective vision and kind of what that title means to us.
OMC: What was it like recording "Gather, Form and Fly" for last year and how did it compare to recording this new one?
BC: It was awesome. It just took forever because, when we were recording, we were still working full-time jobs between tours and so we had to work a lot at night and give up all our weekends for a full month just to have enough time to do an album. The first thing we noticed when we did our new one was that we did it in about a month. But we could work every day. That was a lot more efficient. It felt more hectic making "Gather Form and Fly," while the new one was more casual, like we could put all of our energy into what we were doing.
OMC: Could you talk what people can expect from the new album, which is a bit of a mini-album?
BC: Yeah, it's as long as a traditional album but it's only six songs. We have a 13-minute instrumental piece on there and a six-minute song and eight-minute songs with a couple straightforward three-minute tunes. We didn't know how to market it but didn't want to tour behind it like a regular record. We wanted it to come out as a stop-gap between full-length albums. So we have another full-length album coming out in like April of next year. We're planning to record that one in Wisconsin in November so it'll be exciting to come home and do something in the environment we grew up and try to get some of our old friends and family to play on it.
OMC: What's the songwriting and chemistry like with your brother and Joe?
BC: It's very shared and thoughtful. We talk about it a lot with each other and work really hard with each other to make sure if someone's writing a song and needs feedback we try to give good feedback and thoughtful feedback. Our group dynamic is remarkable but we've been playing music together for 15 years so we have a way of talking about it that's really effective for the three of us. They're my two favorite musicians in the world, who I like and trust more than anything.
OMC: Over the past year you've gotten to work with some big nationally touring acts. What are some of the things you've learned from them?
BC: I think we learned a lot touring with Akron/Family. When we started out we were pretty shy and I think they really pushed us to get comfortable with ourselves and believe in what we're doing. It changes from band to band and I think we've learned a lot about ourselves and learn for what makes a good tour. It was fun playing with Bon Iver because we got to play these huge rooms and kind of have an idea of where things go from where we're at now, assuming it gets that big or that far. You just have to jump up and see what it'd be like if things would be like if things continue to progress. If we never get to that point on our own. It was fun to experience it.
OMC: What challenges or learning moments really impacted the band in how they go about things?
BC: We had our gear stolen on our first trip. That was the first moment that I knew that we were going to continue to do this because even though we had all this stuff stolen it didn't faze us. It didn't take out any momentum or anything. We just knew what we need to do to get back to that point that we were at.
Another one would be from this last tour was our first headlining tour and each day was a giant learning curve or lesson. We didn't feel great about a lot of the shows we played because we've never been a headlining band. It's a very different position to be in; you play later and to people that know your music and you're trying to satisfy people seeing you the first time and several times and how you're presenting in a different way so you're not going through the motions every time.
In general we've had a lot of good moments and feel pretty lucky that we haven't had many bad moments.
OMC: What's a Megafaun show like and how do you hope people go away from it?
BC: I think our sense of humor comes through more in our live show. We're pretty light-hearted dudes. We take our music pretty seriously but don't take ourselves very serious. When people see us people, they have commented that they didn't think we'd be as zany as we can be. In general I'd say it's fun -- we never get tired of playing live.
