Drill For Absentee, Strand of a Lake, Vol. 1 Interview
By Jimmy of Brushing My Teeth To Merzbow
It was August of 2022. I had just driven Anchorage to McCarthy to hike Bonanza Mine with my friend (who I picked up at 6 am), hiked that hike in about 5 hours even though it was supposed to take 6-8, and was now leaving McCarthy at 10 pm. I say all of that only to emphasize I was absolutely physically and mentally exhausted.
Anyone who has driven to McCarthy knows that it’s an unpaved mess of potholes and narrow passes. As I drove into the dark, swerving around ditches and getting blinded by people’s high beams even though mine barely seemed able to light my own way, I was using what little brain power I had left to get us to our camping destination for the night, blasting music to stay awake.
My road trip driving playlists are always filled with music I haven’t listened to, which in this case had a lot of highlights and lot of lowlights. However, at this particular moment, driving on this windy, sketchy road in the middle of the night, a two-song, self-titled single by Drill For Absentee with an unassuming cardboard album cover came on. And it blew me away. The music had intricate performances, complex rhythms that stood out without sounding too janky, and feelings that were equal parts tense and intense. Right after that, their five-song EP Circle Music came on and I continued to be amazed for every one. It was, in that moment, exactly the music and energy I needed to dodge potholes that I could barely see.
I will admit, however, that my car (98’ Subaru Legacy) is not the best music-listening experience. When I got home, I listened to their music properly on my headphones, and sure enough, they still rocked. I also did some research into Drill For Absentee, and found… not much, other than that they were a Philly trio active in the late 90’s. There was very little info on the band, and the songs they had on Spotify—seven at the time—each had less than 1000 plays. I was starting to doubt myself; how could such a good band have such little exposure? I had to confirm it with my friends, and the consensus was that Drill For Absentee does indeed rock.
To me, it seemed like a fluke that a band as talented as this did not gotten more attention. If we’re talking a strictly by-the-numbers analysis, they may be the most underrated bands of that era. As I later found out, they even performed with music giants Blonde Redhead, Faraquet, and American Football! Of course, it didn’t help that they only had a couple songs to their name. But Drill For Absentee are back to fix that. Reassembled with a new drummer, they recently released a new EP titled Strand of a Lake, Vol 1. This EP continues to bring a similar energy as their first two releases, but with better recording quality and a slightly more modern sound. Of course, even though they released new music, there still was not much info about them. So I decided to reach out the to band with some questions via email. Michael Nace, guitarist and singer for the band, graciously responded, and the resulting interview is below. Also check out this review by Fecking Bahamas as well as Drill For Absentee’s Bandcamp page. Of course they’re also on other streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. If you want a quick look into their sound, my favorite songs are “The Bad Days of Blonde, Black Nails” from their new EP and “Circle” from their old stuff.
1. Who's in the band right now? Are you all the original members? How did you meet?
The band’s current lineup is Michael Nace (guitar, vocals), Kevin Kelly (bass, vocals) and Ken Kuniyoshi (drums). Ken is a new addition to the lineup — when we started talking about reforming to work on new music, the band’s original drummer, Bryan Sargent, said that he hadn’t played drums in over 8 years. Math rock is certainly not the easiest genre to jump back into with drums, so we went looking for a new drummer. We connected with Ken because he’s become kind of famous for doing 100% accurate drum covers of some deep 1990s math rock cuts on YouTube. I came across him doing drums for June of 44’s “Mindel” and the Crownhate Ruin’s “Stretched Too Thin,” and the performances were perfect. I was like, “well, if he can play that stuff, he can play our stuff.” I reached out to him and he was excited to get involved. Now he’s the DFA drummer.
Picture of the band members taken from their Twitter @dfa_mathrock
2. I have to ask the obvious question: what inspired DFA to come back after 25 years? Were you guys still making music during that time?
It started with me beginning to discover what “math rock” has become over the past 10-15 years. I was on YouTube one day and watching all of these guitarists playing what they called “math rock,” but I couldn’t really relate to it. They were all playing Strats through super-clean amps and doing all of this tapping. To me, it sounded more like jazz fusion than math rock — kind of like Stanley Jordan. Definitely impressive guitar playing — don’t get me wrong — but nothing like the math rock scene we played in during the 90s. Anyway, that became the impetus for me to start playing electric guitar again (I had played acoustic exclusively for about 20 years), and I came up with a couple of parts that just really sounded like Drill For Absentee, circa 1996. I sent the idea to Kevin and asked if he wanted to work on it, and he said yes. The rest is history — the reunion concept just grew from there.
Prior to 2021, we were all making music, but in different projects and with varying degrees of seriousness. I was probably the least engaged — just playing guitar at home. Kevin has been much more active over the last 20 years. He has a great project with his wife Sara called Homesick Elephant. He also plays in a very well-known anti-folk group with Sara called Cheese On Bread. Ken is in an emo band called Rustus and, in addition to his videos, he also plays washboard and drums with a cool zydeco band in Okinawa called Alkasilka.
3. Was it hard to get back in the groove of being a "band" again? I put "band" in quotes because on Bandcamp it looks like you were all recording your parts in different places.... so maybe I should ask if you guys have gotten to play the new material together live yet?
It seemed completely impossible to me to ever make the kind of music that we made in the 90s again. It just seemed like I’d never be able to tap into that energy again. But once I came up with those few guitar parts, the ideas began to flow. It literally took just one little part (the B section in “Hums,” actually). I think the same was true for Kevin. As for our recording process, it was surprisingly easy. I credit Ken’s ability to play with a tremendous amount of feel even when overdubbing drums and playing to a click track. He’s got an amazing ear and is able to find that sweet spot between being a highly technical drummer who still plays like a human. And Kevin Kelly is an absolute music professional. He has his PhD in music composition and teaches college out in LA. So, the rhythm section of the band is pretty exceptional, and they do incredible things — particularly with polyrhythms. You’ll find sections in every song where we’re playing in overlapping time signatures.
It also helps that Kevin and I have experience in recording at home. We were able to get pretty good recorded sounds and Kevin did a fantastic job of mixing. The drums, however, were recorded professionally in a studio.
We haven’t played live yet, but we’re looking to do some very limited touring in 2023, and we might also record in the new year at a studio. I’d really like to record with Steve Albini in Chicago for a few days.
4. Do you remember any contemporaries that you played/toured with back in the day?
Yes, we were fortunate to have played with some of the most important post-hardcore and math rock bands of the 90s. Our fried Arief went on to be the drummer in Regulator Watts, which was Alex Dunham of Hoover’s new band after Hoover broke up. He got us on a lot of shows with them in the northeast and mid-Atlantic. And because Reg Watts was playing a lot of shows with the Crownhate Ruin and The Sorts, we played with them a lot as well. That’s how we met Vin Novara, who went on to play vibraphone on our Circle Music EP and drums on my solo projects.
Here are some of the bands we played with in the 90s:
Chisel
For Carnation
Aerial M
Blonde Redhead
The Crownhate Ruin
The Sorts
Regulator Watts
Les Savy Fav
Jawbreaker
The Warmers
The Make*Up
Ethyl Meserve
The Jazz June
Sam Prekop
American Football
Faraquet
Mid Carson July
Paris, Texas
90 Day Men
A Minor Forest
Picture of the band from the 90’s https://feckingbahamas.com/new-music-whispers-of-a-new-drill-for-absentee-ep-finally-reach-our-ears
5. I noticed a song called "This Process Will Make Chicago Wave Its Little Hand". Did you guys have a rivalry with Chicago?
Not at all — we loved Chicago and its scene. That song idea was just a weird title that Bryan Sargent came up with. We were really into Dan Caballero and loved their quirky song titles. I think that we were just channeling that.
6. Are there any other bands in the math rock/emo/hardcore world that you guys are listening to and enjoying right now?
As I mentioned, it’s been tough to get behind a lot of the bands that these days are considered to be “math rock.” Back in the 90s, “math rock” was a pejorative term — a diss. Specifically, it was a diss for any emo or post-hardcore band that was injecting anything too innovative when it came to time signature. It was like, “oh, you’re one of those math rock bands. Should I bring my calculator to the show so that I can listen to your music?” Really, math rock was a scene — or a few different scenes. East coast math rock was very emo and post-hardcore influenced. Midwest math rock was more artsy. And west coast math rock was more noise rock-influenced. But it was all post punk; it was played by punks who probably liked prog rock but didn’t want to play it. In reality, 90s math rock is probably just a form of “post rock,” with the idea of post rock being an attempt to throw out the conventions of rock music. When you’re playing in odd time signatures, you’re really turning rock on its head, since rock is predicated on that persistent backbeat.
So yeah, I’m not finding a lot of the 90s math rock now, but I do like Battles a lot.
7. What are some differences between being a recording/touring artist in the 90s vs today in the streaming era? Any similarities?
What really blows me away is the ability to distribute your music with little effort. It only took a few clicks to get our new music up on all of the major streaming services. Essentially, we have the same digital distribution as Taylor Swift. It’s amazing how streamlined the process is from 20-30 years ago, when it was nearly impossible to get your music distribution to match your exposure. DFA never toured extensively, and we worked with a very small label that had limited resources. So, we never had major or even indie distribution to get our music into record stores. Now, it’s not really an issue.
The downside is that music consumers are not in the habit of purchasing music. At most, they pay for monthly streaming subscriptions, and that’s about it. Touring musicians have to make all of their money on live shows. I think this is why you see bands like Quicksand, Unwound, June of 44, etc. getting back together and touring. These bands are making more money today with 1 show than they did with 10 shows back in the 90s. As an example: Unwound is playing the Union Transfer in March. Tickets are like $40-50 bucks. I saw them play at the Khyber in Philly in 1996 to maybe about 75 people, and it was $5 bucks to get in. This is a big difference.
Fortunately for DFA, we don’t really need the money, which lets us make the music and distribute it for free. We’ll be working with some labels to release a vinyl version of the new music, but having to pay will never be a barrier to hearing our music again.
8. I noticed on Discogs there's a 3x CD compilation that hasn't made it to the internet yet. Is there any chance of that getting uploaded? I know you guys have some rarities on your Youtube channel too.
You are referring to the famed Drill For Absentee “Box Set.” This was a 3 CD set that I put together in the early 2000s that included a bunch of stuff that was never otherwise released:
· The first 4 songs we recorded in the studio
· The other 2 songs from the same session that produced the 7”
· A bunch of 4-track demos that were never recorded in the studio
· Some live recordings and improvisations
· Some quirky bits of recordings we worked on in our practice space
I’ve put most of the choice cuts up on our YouTube channel so that you can hear a lot of songs we had in our setlists back in the day. We might re-record a couple of these someday as well. “Drown in Words” was a big song for us and probably should have been on side B of the 7” instead of “Detunist.” “Kubrick” and “Antarctica” were later songs that really exemplified our sound.
The Box Set was sold by me directly, and I just burned the CDs myself. I think I sold fewer than 10 box sets to people worldwide. For people who have them, they are extremely rare.
9. Any side projects by the band members that you guys want to mention?
My solo stuff as well as “Michael Nace and the Nace Family” comprises the music I worked on from the end of DFA until 2004-05. Kevin Kelly is extensively involved in all of my solo work, and Geoff Turner recorded all of those albums (in addition to the Circle Music EP). In addition to Vin Novarra playing drums on those records, Joe McRedmond of Hoover and Crownhate played bass, which was really cool. Also, Adam Wade, drummer of Shudder To Think, played drums on my first record, The Voyage Out, as did DFA drummer Bryan Sargent.