The Ginger Envelope
Athens’ Alt-Country Whisper Rockers Head Back to the Basement

By Deirdre Sayre
Photo by Justin Evans

Rock ‘n’ roll tradition is rife with bands composed by childhood friends, with close connections providing the foundation for stimulating collaboration. Athens-based band The Ginger Envelope follows this pattern, composed of two distinct cadres of friends whose musical partnership originated over a decade ago in high school.

Ginger Envelope's primary bond was forged at Walton High School in the Atlanta suburb of Marietta. Then high school senior Patrick Carey was calloused by four different moves in as many years and "didn't plan on making friends or staying long," dropping out of school soon after the year began. Before his premature exit, though, he had the fortune of meeting Ginger Envelope's future pedal steel player, Matt Stoessel. They became fast friends, Carey began writing songs, and "we even started playing out a little bit," Stoessel (Lake City, South San Gabriel, and Don Chambers and Goat) recalls. "I'd play guitar with him at this little coffee shop down the way."

Stoessel and Carey moved to Athens after high school. For a while, Carey "was writing and performing alone, trying not to rely on anybody." Catalyzed in part by Stoessel's purchase of a pedal steel, the two began playing together.

After Carey opened for the Urbosleeks in 2003, Jason Robira (Dark Meat, One Man Machine) approached him and said, "Dude, I'm gonna be your drummer." Initially Carey didn't believe Robira. "Everybody says stuff like that," he says, “but within two days he was at my house recording."

Robira came as a package deal, bringing two long-time accomplices - Steven Miller on bass and Jason Trahan on guitar - who, in their various projects over the past fifteen years, have played everything in the rock 'n' roll spectrum. The trio came of age three states over in Lafayette, La. "We started playing together in the Urbosleeks," Trahan recollects, "and had a good little following in Lafayette. We decided in 2000 to move to Athens and see what was going on."

Once the Louisiana faction allied themselves with Casey and Stoessel, The Ginger Envelope became a cohesive unit. "All in all the process of getting together with those guys was effortless and immediate," Carey remembers. The new band recorded five songs, which they released as a self-titled EP in 2004, which was sold or given away at shows. "When people offered what they had, we accepted it and put it toward the cause, but we gave a lot of them away."

In November 2007, their patience bore some delectable fruit: the release of Ginger Envelope's first full-length, Edible Orchids. "We recorded and then sat on it for two years, because we didn't have any money to put it out," says Carey.

"After we started recording more songs," Carey recalls, "we were approached by one percent press," a small Vermont label representing another of Miller's projects, Venice Is Sinking. The label eventually put the recording out for them. The record delivers a dreamy dose of subdued indie pop, nuanced by the eerily distorted guitar leads and gleaming gusts of keyboard and trumpet. The album features striking imagery - in "Dirty Penny," Carey sings "And the guns have been grounded and I wish to alleve / All the barrels left smoking / The blood on the leaves" in a husky voice backed periodically by Venice Is Sinking's Caroline Troupe. Stoessel's pedal steel shades the entire endeavor in an alt-country hue.

Carey, who claims his greatest influences are poets like Rimbaud, Baudelaire, and Thomas and admittedly spends more time working on the lyrics than the music, says that the writing was tough. "Generally it's about fallen relationships between people. Many of the songs are specifically about a relationship. I tried not to exploit it." Despite the sometimes somber subject matter, Carey says, "I like to think that it is a hopeful record, that it retains a sense of well-being."

"When recording, we sought to make the whole album clear, pure and timeless," he continues, "not the product of a political or cultural climate." Given that Carey has been writing since high school, one might imagine him frustrated that it took so long to put an album out, but he is sanguine, "I'm glad that I waited to put out a record until I was older, when I was less naïve and malleable. I didn't want to be persuaded by current trends."

When the group writes songs, "Patrick comes up with all the chord changes. Then he brings them into rehearsals and we arrange it as a band," says Stoessel. "It really never takes that long because we all lock in pretty well together."

Currently the band is in the midst of recording a follow-up to Edible Orchids.
"Jason, Patrick Bozeman from Quiet Hooves and I set up in [Bozeman's] basement," Stoessel says. We had a really good tape machine and did everything analog, all live, staying in the basement for two and a half days and then doing some mixing afterwards."

The band plans to head back into the studio in December but is taking its time because Carey says "comfort during recording is very important to us. For this next record in particular, we very much don't want to be on a clock. All of us have come to the same conclusion about our craft and our writing. For our collaboration to work, it's best for us to hang out and let the moment hit us."

Now that they have a label to release their albums, the band is focused on acquiring some sort of transportation. "Hopefully by next spring we'll do some touring," says Stoessel. "Right now we're just working on getting a van. Can't tour without a van."
Trahan longs for the life of a touring musician, a continuation of a family tradition, revamped to pursue his passion. "My dad worked offshore," he says. "He would go out for seven days and come home for seven days. We called it working a seven and seven. I'd like to work a seven and seven shift eventually."

However, Carey's visions of touring transcend traveling the U.S. "My main drive is to get overseas. I want to travel to places that I would want to see like Holland, Belgium, Spain." He continues, "Matt toured Europe with South San Gabriel. He says that in Europe, it's not like here, the audiences actually pay attention to you when you play. He said at first they were so quiet that he felt uncomfortable. At any point in the performance the place was dead silent and everyone was intently watching," Carey pauses for a moment, contemplating the loud and loaded crowds that fill American bars on any given night before continuing, "If I was able to travel to Europe and play, I'd be satisfied with my efforts. It would make me feel complete."

www.myspace.com/thegingerenvelope