Green Room is crashing back into our lives in July with a line up that includes New York punk funk originators The Rapture, plus German fidget master D.I.M., a special live show from LapSappers Blink and Xu, and a tag-team from Arabyrd and Tenderfist. Plus the whole kit and kaboodle will be kicked off by that little jumped up punk Jee Hoe.

We’ll have plenty more on Green Room over the coming weeks but we thought we’d share our recent chat with The Rapture’s minister in chief Gabe Andruzzi and get everyone up to speed with what the band’s been up to since the last album came out in 2006.

What has the band been up to since Pieces of the People We Love came out?

We toured the album for about a year and a half. That was until the middle of 2008. We built a little studio for us to work in our studio right around then and I thought things were going good [laughs] but then somebody in the band was unhappy and left for a few months and then came back and we wrote an album. And then Matty Safer left, and that was a little more than a year ago. So for the past year we’ve written and recorded an album. We just finished about two months ago. We’re mixing. We have about two more songs to mix and we remastered a few. That’s about the short of it.

How did you end up working with Cassius’ Philippe Zdar on the new record?

By the end of last summer we were in a really good place. Me and Vito [Roccoforte, drums & percussion] were really happy, we had a ton of demos. We had 15 or 20 songs demoed. Some more complete than others. We went on tour in Australia on a five or six-date festival there and there were a lot of friends – musicians and DJs – who were on that tour. At that point we didn’t really know who to work with [on the record]. Luke [Jenner, vocals & guitar] kept asking around for producers people thought we should work with. He was talking to Pedro [Busy P] from Ed Banger Records. Pedro’s fantastic, he knows everybody. He’s a great A&R guy – he’s great at putting people together and he understands how people can work together. He suggested we should work with Philippe.

You didn’t want to use multiple producers, like you did on Pieces of the People We Love?

Philippe was someone we considered working with for Pieces of the People when we were throwing out names. We talked to a couple of other people and then Luke called him and asked ‘are you interested in working with us?’ He said: “I’m not really producing right now. I’ve just done the Phoenix record and there’s some stuff of my own I want to work on right now. But send me some stuff and I’ll listen to it over the weekend.” So Luke sent him three songs and Philippe called back 20 minutes later having loved the songs. He said, ‘this is great, send me more’. And when someone’s super-excited to work with us that’s pretty much the #1 requirement.

Were you big fans of his work as Cassius or was it more the production work he’d done for bands like Phoenix [which won a Grammy this year]?

His music sounds really different from what DFA or Ewan Pearson [who have also produced The Rapture] but everyone we’ve worked with has always been really excited and they’ve been a really big champion. And that gives us a lot more confidence. I wasn’t really sure because I hadn’t fallen in love with anything Philippe had done. I’d liked it but I hadn’t fallen in love completely. But I talked to him on the phone and I fell in love. We totally got along, talked the same language. Very organic. It felt right. He’s one of my best friends now and I love him to death.

What did he bring to the recording sessions? What kind of Parisian influence filtered into the songs?

Well most of the songs were written before we got to Paris. We did some of the tracking in Brooklyn. So we went to Paris to do the vocals and add some more guitars and I added some synths and other things. There’s a few things that I’m not sure will make it onto the record – they’re weird kind of abstract, droney, spacey things. But I don’t know if Paris had a big impact on the music we were making other than filling it with a new attitude. Paris is more relaxed than New York in some aspects. It’s a little slower; people stop to take long meals. So I think that might have affected it. More of a sense of ease on some of the songs.

How would you describe the new songs?

Even on a Rapture record do we have just one sound? Listen to Echoes and there are songs on there that sound like Big Star and others that sound like Chicago House. So I would say that there’s a similar thing in the songwriting. There are some songs that you could hear in a club and some songs that sound like ‘60s psych-rock. But at the same time I think it’s more congealed than anything else before. The sound is more solid. Overall I think it’s less edited and perfected. The rhythm tracks are played live for the most part so there’s a very live feel to the record, and a light heart. A lot of the songs are more uplifting than The Rapture songs have been in the past.

What influences went into the new material – what were you all listening to at the time?

I think Luke had been listening to a lot of 50s and 60s American gospel music and I think that affected a lot of his vocals and how he was singing. And I think that became really comfortable for him.

Is that where that more upbeat, light-hearted energy you mentioned comes from?

I think from that influence but also from where he is with his life right now. He found the music that makes sense for his life at the moment. And I think he has a more uplifting life than he has in the past. And being the singer that’s going to really affect the feeling of a lot of the songs: that’s what most people’s ears are drawn to.

What’s your current favourite track from the new material?

There’s a song called Children – it’s a favourite because listening to Luke do the vocals I was feeling crazy emotions. Julien, who’s one of the studio technicians, looked at me and said, ‘This song’s making me cry’. And I thought he was screwing with me – it was maybe the 4^th day we were recording in Paris and I didn’t know him well enough yet. I thought he was being sarcastic, that’s me being the New Yorker, thinking everyone’s being sarcastic and it made me listen to the song deeper, and listen to the lyrics and how Luke was singing it. It added all these other layers to the song. It’s a super simple song but with the big chord changes and because what he’s singing about is very strange, the process of making it was really positive for me.

When will get to hear the new songs? Is there a release date yet?

We are label free and we’re not choosing a label until our record is done. So, it may take a little time. It’s very possible that it will be out this Fall. I really want the world to hear it. But we’ll be playing some of the new songs in Malaysia.

What’s the connection between the group and Throne of Blood Records?

We love dance music – playing clubs is important to us and as we had the vinyl rights [to our own music] we started a label and we get to put out our friends music. We had the vinyl rights for [the] Pieces of the People [record] so we put out the album vinyl, we put out the singles and remixes [on vinyl] on Throne of Blood. Recently we’ve been doing some releases we’re really excited about: the Populette record that came out very recently – some friends of mine who’ve been DJing and producing for a long time. We just put out an AKA JK record – he was the engineer on the last record. So far it’s mainly been documenting New York City but we’re also putting out a Mugwump record soon and a few other things.

Who updates the Rapture Randomness blog [www.therapturemusic.com]?

All three of us do – I haven’t for a while. Luke, Vito and I all take turns. Usually there are tags at the bottom that tell you who write what.

It’s very different from the usual and quite anonymous record company band site. Was that a deliberate decision?

I though we should have a blog, something that represents us. We all write very different kinds of entries and we all have a different proficiency in writing blogs, if there can be such a thing [laughs]. I’m not even sure that 99% of our fans would even be interested in half the things that we post or even in the sense of humour that we show.

Is it essential for bands to get to grips with that social media side of things?

It seems like a lot of people use that and a lot of people abuse that and it gets boring. I think The Rapture come from a very DIY culture, we grew up in a period when there was a big DIY scene, the post-punk scene, the post-hardcore-scene. People made fanzines, people made mixtapes and they sold whatever at your merchandise table. When those cultural mediums are used more in that mode of being creative and putting something out there that’s honest rather than trying to be cool then that’s something we appreciate. So when we do our blog we appreciate that and we’ve had websites that were promo tools in the past and I think it just made us feel uncomfortable. It seemed ridiculous – it wasn’t the culture that we came from. It wasn’t about being fun, or being goofy or being honest or being beautiful. We like it when MySpace and Facebook are used like that. I think for bands and artists it’s an incredible tool and a way of getting you and what you do out there.

What do you think of some of the other changes you’ve seen over the course of your career: moving from vinyl to cassettes to CD to MP3 and the whole downloading phenomenon?

It’s kind of hard to see what the future is, so my take is that it’s great and I think it’s great that certain people have been screwed by it and it’s great that it’s opened up a lot of doors for other people. There’s a lot of change and I think we’ve yet to see what that means as far as what that means for the future of music. Music is a beautiful thing, I think it’s great when people share their music and I when the playing field is evened out. You can find a lot of really shitty music but you can also find a lot of great new music a lot easier. If I was a kid now and I had YouTube I could go find entire records that took me forever to find as a kid or that were really expensive. It’s great – it makes things less of a fetish and makes them less precious. But if you have a lot of heart and you love stuff then you’re gonna find a lot of stuff to love. I think the negative thing is that people lose that sense of identity when so much culture starts to become flat. And I think the idea of what is meaningful you have to think about in a different and possibly more profound way.

Is your passion for music still the same as it was when the band started?

No. I don’t think my passion is the same. I think music is in my life everyday in a very important way and I think maybe I take that for granted in some ways. When I was younger it really was my identity, it was everything about who I was. I learned everything through music. I think music brings me more peace now and I’m really happy with where I am in music and in the music that I hear. I am music, if that makes any sense. It’s not about what records I own or what instruments I play. I listen to music all the time, I play a zillion different instruments. I go to practise and play with my friends, I write music at home. It’s kind of always there. So maybe the passion is still there but the fire isn’t as bright or as big: it’s not out of control, it’s more like a warm hearth keeping my house warm instead of blazing out of control.

What track should we download today?

I don’t why but the first thing that came into my mind was Most Precious Love [by Blaze] and there’s a Dennis Ferrer mix of it. It’s a super big positive track. I chose dance because you said track – everything else I think of as a song.

Pre-sale tickets will go on sale on June 28^th priced at RM48 for existing and new Heineken Members. For details on how to purchase them or to become a Heineken Member visit www.greenroom.com.my.

Event Information

Heineken Green Room

Date: Saturday July 31^st 2010.

Time: 9.00pm – 2.00am

Venue: KL Live, 20 Jalan Sultan Ismail, 50250 KL

Web: www.greenroom.com.my

Tickets: Pre-Sale – RM48 (Heineken Members), RM58 (non-members)

Door: RM68 (Heineken Members), RM78 (non-members)

Line Up:

The Rapture www.myspace.com/therapture and www.therapturemusic.com

D.I.M. www.myspace.com/dimhh

Litterall (LapSap Live Show) www.wearelapsap.com

Tenderfist with Arabyrd www.myspace.com/tenderfist