The Antlers
The Singing Lamb: I’m just going slide you this sheet of questions and you can just say your answers aloud… I’m just kidding!
Everyone: [Laughs]
Michael Lerner: What’s with you guys? [Laughs]
[Laughs] I’m actually just going to throw a bunch of questions at you guys!
Michael: Okay!
Peter Silberman: Sure!
I know that The Antlers started off as a solo project with you Peter, where does the inspiration for the name “The Antlers” come from?
Peter: You know I’m honestly not really sure. I think I was performing under my own name for a little while and I wanted to move away from a singer/songwriter kind of thing. Around that time “antlers” seemed really appealing to me and I sort of wanted to quickly come up with a band name. So, I think that’s where it came from!
Having said that, how did you guys all meet and how did the band form?
Michael: Peter was doing a singer/songwriter/solo work for awhile, then when he decided to expand to a full band I had known I was very specific for it and was a fan. We got in touch and I stared playing then Darby came in…
Darby Cicci: I was friends with the bass player at the time and I saw the first couple Antlers shows as a band. Peter knew I played trumpet and asked if I wanted to come play trumpet for him and so I joined playing trumpet and banjo. Then the bass player left and sort of evolved into what you’ll see tonight; totally different!
The band’s album “Hospice” is coming out soon, I was wondering what the idea/story behind it was and was it something that came from personal experience?
Peter: Yes, it’s definitely a record coming from personal experience: the falling apart of a relationship that’s very dysfunctional. It’s kind of telling a story through this, the story that is the record of a hospice worker caring for a terminally ill patient.
You guys have just came from Detroit and you’ve been with Frightened Rabbit, how is it like touring with them?
Michael: It’s been great!
Darby: Their super nice! They’re great musicians and they had a great show last night!
Michael: They have a lot of good energy, you’ll see, they are a really great band.
Peter: Great songwriting and lyrics, it’s been really exciting to have been playing with them.
Is this your first time in Toronto/Canada?
Michael: As a band, yeah.
Oh but you have been here before?
Michael: I’ve played here before with other bands.
What do you think of our city? I’m sure you’ve seen all the garbage!
Michael: It’s awesome, yeah we’ve talked about the garbage!
Darby: Compared to New York, it’s alright!
Michael: Yeah, it doesn’t seem dirty to us at all, actually.
Our workers are on strike right now.
Michael: Yeah we heard about that! We didn’t notice at all, if no one had told us we wouldn’t have known. Kidding!
How does our music scene compare to the one in Brooklkyn?
Peter: Is this where Broken Social Scene based out of? I guess in a way it’s similar where there is one main band and everyone has their own side-projects or play in other bands and people are just kind of hyper/have a lot of energy and need to do something with it and keep producing stuff. I guess in that way there kind of similar.
And are you guys a fan of Broken Social Scene?
Michael: Yeah, absolutely. I saw them play a few years ago. Great show!
They played a free show here last Saturday!
Peter: I think I saw a video of that, and all three girls were there.
I know as a band you must receieve criticism from the general media, how do you take both the positive and negative feedback?
Peter: The postive is super encouraging and it’s a nice way to be told to keep up what your doing and work hard. It is a lot of work and it helps to have people appreciating what your doing and encouraging you. As far as the negative stuff goes, it is inevitable that people are going to dislike it or find fault. Everyone is entitled to do that you just try not to take it personal and it’s hard not to take it personal.
Darby: It’s really important to just stay grounded with what your goals are as musicician/as a band and really do things because you feel they need to be done a certain way/sound a certain way rather than you thinking people will like it or hate it. It’s really important on working not to think of what people are going to say or think.
So Peter, you write the lyrics to all the songs?
Peter: Yep.
Because I was wondering if you had any prior writing experience because I know a lot of people can agree that your lyrics are very profound.
Peter: I think I wrote a lot when I was younger, creative writing kind of things, but never a ton of it. I think maybe I couldn’t really find a focus as far as creative/narrative writing went. With lyrics it feels a little more free/there’s a lot more freedom. You can surprisingly do a lot with lyrics I think, it’s fun! I don’t have a huge background in it, I like to read but I’m not necessarily reading 20 books a year. I know people who blaze through a million books and are constantly reading and I’m usually constantly reading but very slowly over a course of a long period of time.
Do you guys prefer any kind of venues?
Michael: It depends. There isn’t one specific place, just speaking for myself, that we don’t like but we played a couple of outdoor venues recently that are just very fun and exciting. It just kind of changes it up. Outdoors is fun because there are a lot of unexpected intangibles. It could be beautiful sunshine, it could be rain, it could be night. A club is still always going to be a club. It’s going to be the same when the lights go out. So outdoors is fun.
Darby: Venues that have a lot of history that I’ve either seen shows at or just existed for a really long time. Like in New York we have the Bowery Ballroom; it’s been around forever. It’s really cool to play places like that.
If you were a singing animal what would you be?
Peter: I’d be a singing dog!
Michael: I know someone who has a singing dog!
Darby: I would say… That’s a complicated question!
No pressure!
Peter: Tapir?
Darby: Not a tapir, Peter, thank you.
[Laughs]
Darby: Nevermind…
Michael: I’d be a porcupine, watch out! and a Scorpion!
Darby: I really like snakes, so I’m going to say cobra; deadly, horrible.
For more of the Antlers,
MySpace: www.myspace.com/theantlers
By Ralph Baldo
