Facts About Funerals

By William Cremin; photo by Kyle Johnson

With such an abundance of bands striving for the proverbial brass ring, a fair amount of jostling takes place within the Seattle city limits. Americana-soaked dream-pop outfit Facts About Funerals, however, manage to operate largely outside of this local scrum. “It’s just about the songs. If we write good enough songs, we’ll get shows,” says frontman Rob Sharp on the topic of gaining traction in the Seattle scene. The rest of the band’s five members — Max Keene (guitar), Doran Bastin (bass), Mat Mathews (drums), Pete Colclasure (piano/keys) and Jay Kardong (pedal steel) — share Sharp’s strong determination to keep their heads down and focus on what’s most important, letting their relationships with those in the local music community grow organically.

Sharp and company further extricated themselves from the Northwest hustle by traveling all the way to Little Nestor, England to record their debut, Love Songs & Funeral Homes, at the world-class APE Studios in December 2006. “We escaped

from everything else and spent eight or nine days — whatever it was — holed up,” says Sharp. “We literally recorded around the clock. When I was sleeping, other people were up recording all night long.” This excursion was a deliberate move to capture the live feel and rich sonic palette that a spacious, high-end analog studio like APE can offer. “There’s a lot of lo-fi aesthetic, but I think the songs deserved a little bit higher quality treatment,” says Mathews.

The trek was one that the band did not take lightly, as a large portion of the recording costs were funded with Sharp’s inheritance after the loss of both of his parents. Sharp felt strongly about the effect that the English countryside would have, even though he runs his own studio right at home in Seattle. “I just liked the idea of going somewhere and living there,” he says. “So making the record wasn’t like a job — it was almost like an escape.”

While this recording process offered the freedom and fidelity that the band wanted, the addition of new members helped shape a new direction for the music. Says Sharp, “As each person added in, it kind of influenced everybody else who was already there.”

This was especially true for Sharp himself, who maintains that he always tries to write to the strengths of the people that he is playing with. Formerly known as New West Motels, the reworked sound and moniker came along with a new, already well-oiled

rhythm section. (Mathews and Bastin have logged over a decade playing together in other bands.) As Bastin recalls, “When I first heard Rob’s demo tapes, I loved them. I didn’t really expect us to evolve to what we sound like now, but I like it. There were times I’d leave and not hear anything for two weeks, and I’d come back and it sounded different. It was always exciting, always fresh.” Now, with a relatively large lineup entirely comprised of working musicians, the challenge lies in coordinating shows. The band has had to work within a stripped-down context on occasion, depending on who is available. (Kardong, for example, is often occupied with his pedal steel duties for Sub Pop’s Sera Cahoone.) One noteworthy performance at Seattle’s Nectar saw only half of the band present, with no bass or piano. This ability to adapt and continue pushing the project forward has served the band well.

Facts About Funerals are now prepping for the August 5 release of Love Songs & Funeral Homes on San Francisco-based Evangeline Records. The result of a chance meeting with label owner John Murry during a mixing session with Tim Mooney

(American Music Club, Mark Kozelek) at his Closer Recording studio in San Francisco, Facts About Funerals fit right in on the indie-folk imprint alongside acts like Jeffrey Luck Lucas and Birdgang.

Underlining the importance of persistence in their activities, Sharp attributes the band’s recent headway to an interminable drive toward improving their craft. “It might take me ‘till I’m 70 or 80, but I’m just going to keep trying to write better and better and better songs until people can’t ignore it.”

www.factsaboutfunerals.com