Spotlight: the Albrights
Singer, guitarist, and piano player Joe Donohue III of the Albrights sits at his Korg keyboard in engineer Jay Zubricky’s office studio, which is tucked inside the GCR studio on North Street. Zubricky hits record.
Donohue steps on his sustain pedal and his fingers walk across the keys of his electronic keyboard. The first notes from the Albrights’ next single plays through the studio monitors.
Photo by Cory Perla
The song is called “Thriller Killer,” which sounds more like the title of an ultra-gory video game than an Albrights song.
“It’s like a buzz-kill,” explains Donohue, who wrote the song. “It’s like when you’re in such a good mood and you see this person and you’re like ‘Ugh.’ It’s a Debbie Downer that just takes the wind out of your sails.”
Donohue finishes his take and Zubricky suggests he turn down the panning effect on his keyboard for the next take. Though Donohue is clearly a phenomenal piano player, he wasn’t happy with the take anyhow.
He tries it again, this time nailing a bouncing section of the song that sort of recalls the 1979 pop song “Cruel to Be Kind” by Nick Lowe. It’s just for those few seconds of the song, however, that they dip into 1970s pop rock. The intro is as epic as something Robert Fripp would have written in the late 1960s, and Albrights bassist Matthew Crane jokes, “It was very ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’ there at the end.” Donohue laughs and rolls his eyes. “Shhh,” he says.
There are also theatrical flourishes on the song that the band has brought with them from their previous record, 2014’s Albrights—sounds that fall between baroque pop, 1950s rock, and ragtime. But here they’ve taken all of these influences and inspirations and coalesced them into one song. They wrote the song about a year ago, though they’ve been recording it over the last few nights.
“You start to see the painting come together, the meal come together from your recipe,” says Donohue.
The night before, drummer Dustin Herzberger tracked out his drum parts, after, with Zubricky’s help, meticulously adjusting his drum tones.
“[Zubricky] brought out like 15 snare drums. Thousand-dollar snare drums. He’s got this all-brass drum that weights like 100 pounds. It’s what Dave Grohl used on Nevermind. It was so loud. We tried out snare after snare until we found the right one.”
At the same time, if the band has learned one lesson after recording a couple of full-length albums—including their latest, which was released in July of 2014—it is not to waste any time. This is all on their own dime, and time is money in a recording studio.
“Unless you have someone backing you, it’s tough to do a full-length album,” says Zubricky.
“We try to be as efficient as possible,” says Herzberger. That doesn’t mean they don’t put their all into every recording. Bassist Matt Crane recites his mantra, which is a quote from Beethoven: “To play a wrong note is insignificant, to play without passion is inexcuseable.” The band also likes to quote John C. Reilly as his Johnny Cash parody, Dewey Cox: “I need 10,000 didgeridoos!” Donohue shouts. “50,000 didgeridoos!” demands Crane.
Photo by Cory Perla
The Albrights have recorded two full-length albums. Today, they’re trying to stay focused on perfecting and recording this single, which they intend to release within the next month or so. But it’s hard not to be at least a little distracted. They have what they consider to be their biggest show ever coming up.
On Thursday, September 24, the band will perform a handful of of their songs with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra for an event titled “Soundwave” (named after the band’s first single from The Albrights) at Kleinhans Music Hall. The Buffalo gypsy jazz band Babik will reunite to perfrom at this show as well. The show, which will be conducted by Stefan Sanders, will also include pieces by rock-inspired composers and songwriters Mason Bates, Adam Schoenberg, and Sufjan Stevens.
“[The BPO has] done this with Babik in the past and they wanted to do it again with us,” Crane says. “We were recommended by a friend, Ben Siegel, and he went to bat for us.” They also credit their friend and manager Chris Kelly for helping them get to this point in their careers.
For the Albrights, the four-piece band that formed in Buffalo in 2009, this is a dream come true.
“If I could fucking play with a world-renowned orchestra, that would be like the cherry on top of whatever has happened with this band,” says singer, songwriter, and guitarist Brandon Barry as we sit in the courtyard of GCR studio.This specific scenario has been a vision of Barry’s for years, though it’s a challenge to evoke this kind of response from this band of rather modest guys.
“This has never seemed attainable. I would have never imagined in a million years that [the BPO] would have reached out to us to do this,” says Barry.
“There have been so many times, while we’re writing our songs, that we’ll say, ‘Oh, it would be so awesome to have a string section here or a brass section.’”
Weeks ago, the band met with composer Bradley Thachuk, who took their songs and composed a score for the orchestra. The band gave Thachuk the basic chord sheets for their songs, which he will interpret for the BPO.
Some of the Albrights’ songs, like “Virgin” and “Soundwave,” have horns, which Thachuk will expand for a whole orchestra. For others he’ll have to get creative.
“Then there’s something like ‘Zion Man’ that has maybe a synth sound,” Donohue points out. ”He’s going to have to assign an instrument to that to play it. So that’s where I’m curious, where he’s going to take some liberties.”
Which brings up the biggest challenge for the Albrights: Though the orchestra has been in possesion of their sheet music for several weeks, the band won’t get to run through their set with the entire ensemble until the day of the show. And they’ll only have time to practice it once before their big performance.
“It’s exciting. It’s crazy,” says Herzberger. “As tough as it is that we have to show up on Thursday and practice this one time, it also says, ‘You guys are professionals and this is your music. There is no reason we need to practice this more than one time. We all speak the same language.’”
“Whatever happens, it’s going to sound cool,” says Donohue. “We just have no idea what it’ll sound like yet.”
Clearly, this performance with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra will be way more than just a fun experience for this band, who are now all in their 30s, some with wives and children now they didn’t have when they started the band six years ago.
“It’s a huge career highlight no matter how successful you are. At this stage in our game it’s a huge, huge step forward. It’s an honor that [the BPO] is willing to share their talents. It’s a big deal that they’re making this attempt to cross the crowds,” says Donohue.
This recognition goes beyond their fanbase, Herzberger says. It comes from some of the most talented musicians in the world.
“It’s validating,” says Crane. “We’ve been doing this because we have to and we enjoy it. It’s a way of life, but this is the pinnacle of my creative life, for sure.”
The Albrights — Website
Soundwave with the BPO
Sept 24 / 8PM
Kleinhan’s Music Hall