Much of the “music press” characterizes Oliver Ackermann as some obsessively experimental Mad Scientist type.
“A lot of my close friends are growing up and securing their future,” the guitarist/vocalist/producer of A Place To Bury Strangers says during this Sunday interview, having worked all day on a new record, while further-building up his home studio. “And, I’m still here dabbling with electronics, trying to figure out what music even is.”
This noisy band with a quieting name started ten years ago in Brooklyn and has, ever since, empowered its signature (surging) sound with the might of Ackermann’s meticulous experimentations in audio engineering, particularly through specialized effects pedals. Ackermann operates the revered customized pedal production company Death By Audio—and keeps the choicest distortion pedals at his own disposal. This modern “music press” also characterizes their rocket-roaring, fire-storming, fuzz-quaked noise-rock with cryptic categories like: “shoegaze.”
The City Paper picked Ackermann’s brain on the knottier issues of a post-blog music world’s inherently mal-focused listenership, why his band (with Dion Lunadon, Robi Gonzalez) loves playing Toledo, and the experience of music and “what [it] even is.”
Everyone walks away from APTBS shows with tinnitus, but the lights are out, the smoke-machine’s churning, it’s an experience. The albums are heavy on effects, making them experiences-unto-themselves as well.
We are creating the environment for a show that doesn’t happen that much but we feel should. We are there to scare people and to escape into the subconscious/creative mind by making things bewildering.
Scared music journalists like to whittle down what you’re doing to “shoegaze” or “noise-rock.”
I guess we’re all f**ked, because it is really hard to sort through the mass amounts of music and everything out there. It is creating this really neat and unique throw on music today where a lot of it is created with less and less talent. In general, there is less concern for virtuosity in art and it is more about creating what you can and as much as you can.
You recently recorded with Emil Nikolaisen (of contemporary noise-rock Norwegians Serena Maneesh) and last year played Norway’s Oya Festival with another icon of that “shoegaze” stuff, My Bloody Valentine. Any kindred spirit-vibe between you, Nikolaisen and/or MBV’s
Kevin Shields? Finding any more Norwegian fans than U.S. fans these days?
I’m really impressed both with their works and the ideas both gentlemen have towards expression in music. I’ve had the most interesting conversations with Emil about music and sound and it’s good to have someone to talk to about these things. There are more fans in some areas than others but it goes that way in the U.S. as well. People who are more open minded or come from a lot more extreme backgrounds (often from other countries) generally find it easier to like (APTBS)’s kind of music.
How was the Austin Psych-Fest and how’d it compare to other such Fests you play for fans of psych or just heavy-music?
It is really super cool that they’ve quickly turned Psych-Fest into a great festival. It’s all music to trip out on and that is what I like. I like to be taken someplace with music. Lots of music can do this, but I feel like psych-music tries to freak you out and that’s what I want: a surprise.
What keeps you guys coming back to our neck of the woods?
Toledo is a great city with a lot of crazy motherf**kers. Let’s party.
A Place To Bury Strangers play Sunday, May 26 at 8pm at Frankie’s Inner City, 308 Main St.
419-691-7464. www.frankiesinnercity.com.
