Blitzen Trapper
By Bob Ham
Photo by Jade Harris

Starting a band, like starting a romantic relationship, can often be a leap of faith. Whether it involves two people or six people, everyone has to be able to trust their bandmates’ musical visions.

Thankfully for Portland’s Blitzen Trapper, they are able to hitch their wagon to the visionary and ridiculously talented Eric Early, who is the creative force behind almost all of the songs the band has released to date. “I’ve always been delighted by the songs Eric writes,” says keyboardist Drew Laughery. “I’m highly interested in writing songs, but I’m also realistic about my abilities.”

Guitarist/keyboardist Marty Marquis agrees, “We all love the music. I mean, if we have an idea that makes a song better, we’ll bring it to the table, but otherwise, why mess with a good thing?”

When it comes to the work that Early has done, it would be hard to try and better the well-hewn, cohesive songs that he pumps out at an alarming rate (“I’m already working on our next record. There’s already about 18 songs ready.”) As evidenced on the band’s latest album, Wild Mountain Nation, self-released this month, Early is able to pull in a massive amount of influences — from folk to bluegrass to electronica to psychedelia. He melds them together into an unrestrained hybrid that at times crackles with a warm campfire glow and at other times stomps and rolls like airtight classic rock.
When asked about the title of the album though, Early is very clear about the specific message he wants to bring out in Nation‘s 13 tracks. “The record is about the end of a lot of things,” Early says. “It looks to a future that will bring about the end of oil and the end of automobiles and the end of civilization as we know it now. None of us want to admit that it could happen, but to me that’s a very beautiful thing.”

This isn’t to say that the album is dark and foreboding. Instead, it looks joyfully upon the possibility of a return to a more rustic lifestyle (most blatantly on the giddy, slide guitar-laden title track). For all the imagery of nature and romance spun by Early, the songs tend to be wide open to interpretation, a hallmark of the band according to guitarist Erik Menteer. “Things have always seemed pretty ambiguous with Eric’s songs,” says Menteer. “They point towards this general direction or to a general theme without getting too specific. There aren’t any songs like, ‘Oh, I love this girl and she left me.’”

The open-ended nature of Blitzen Trapper’s songs has not seemed to alienate any of the band’s growing legions of fans though. They might not have had the chance to be blown away by the group’s rollicking live show, but they have certainly gotten to know the band through the three full-lengths it has put out to date, as well as the bevy of outtakes and demos made available on Blitzen Trapper’s MySpace page and various music blogs.

Another aspect of the trust that the members of Blitzen Trapper share with one another is apparent in the fact that they record most everything themselves and release their records independently. “It seems so doable these days,” says Marquis. “Its easier when you’re handling everything yourselves. Plus, Eric has so much experience recording. It seems redundant to pay someone else to help us out.”
Early also points to the fact that “we ended up getting really great people working for us. We basically have everything that a label has. And I’m glad because it means that [the album] will always be ours.”

And after taking that leap of faith with five friends, it’s good to know that, even if it ends tomorrow, they’ll always have a piece of work as brilliant and far-reaching as Wild Mountain Nation to call their own.

www.blitzentrapper.net