Events

[INDIE] You could call El Ten Eleven a post-rock band, but they don’t fully fit the typical mold. The band is actually a duo, drummer Tim Fogarty and guitarist Kristian Dunn but their music is not nearly that simple. Dunn is known for his live use of a double-neck guitar, which he loops and twists as Fogarty does the same with his various acoustic and electronic drum pads. The band is an impressive sight to see live and have been since they formed in Los Angeles in 2002. El Ten Eleven comes to Mohawk Place this Friday, February 26, and in anticipation we spoke with Dunn about where he found his famous double neck guitar, his thoughts on the new Star Wars soundtrack, his own soundtrack work, and the band’s new record, Fast Forward.

Tell me about the first time you picked up a double necked guitar.
It’s funny because I’m really not a guitar player, I’m a bass player, but I’m probably most well known for the double neck. I’d never played one before we started the band. I was just playing bass. I also had a guitar so I’d loop a bass line, unplug the bass and set it down, pick up the guitar plug that in, play the guitar part, unplug that… it just took so long it was ridiculous. So I saw one on TV—I was watching an old Genesis video and the guy had a double neck. I went on eBay and bought one—the one I still play all these years later. When that came in, that was the first time I’d ever played the double neck. It really did a lot for the band. People were really curious about that.

There’s a special significance to songs like “Scott Township” “Point Breeze” from your new record Fast Forward. I understand they’re named after places in Pittsburgh. 
It’s a place that Tim, our drummer would hang out when he was young, and the other was where his dad would hang out when he was young, so it was sort of a passing of the torch kind of thing. The theme of this record is family and the connections that you have with family even when they’re not around. It’s also a dedication to Tim’s dad because he passed on while we were making that record.

I noticed the family theme after I heard “Peter and Jack,” which I learned is a reference to Peter Hook of New Order and his son Jack. Obviously that sticks with the theme of the record—and the album sounds like it has some New Order influence.
Yeah, it does have the father/son theme, which goes along with what we were talking about, but it’s also a dedication to those two guys because we’ve played with them a bunch of times and they both play bass, they both play this old school-style six string bass, which actually has two higher strings, and they suggested that I play one too. They thought it would be perfect for El Ten Eleven, and I agreed because when Peter Hook says “jump” I say “how high?” So I got one of those six strings and it’s all over this new record and it really changed the direction of the band. Peter Hook really likes it, but if it wasn’t an homage and he just heard it and didn’t know me, I wonder if he’d be like “oh ok, what are you doing here kid? You’re ripping me off.”

Then there are also songs like “Fast Forward and “Be Kind Rewind,” which allude to this sense of time travel or more like scrolling through memories.
Yeah, it’s that. You know with the whole family thing. I’m old enough to remember having to rent VHS tapes to watch movies, we didn’t have the internet when I was a kid. It used to say on the video tapes “be kind rewind.” If you returned the tape and you didn’t rewind it, the next person who rented it had to rewind it and they considered that to be rude. I guess I should explain that when people ask me about that song. Young people won’t know what the hell that means.

You’ve said that the soundtrack to Star Wars has been a big influence on you. How do you feel about the soundtrack to the latest film?
I have. I’ve actually listened to it a bit. I think it’s brilliant. There are a lot of brilliant moments, but it’s surprising to me how few scenes there are in it. Scores from the earlier films like Empire Strikes Back and New Hope and all that, there were more themes. Themes for each character, themes for different parts that are kind of ingrained in our culture now because we’ve heard them so much, and there really aren’t, I don’t think in this new movie… I mean there’s Rey’s Theme and really that’s about it. I’m surprised Kylo Ren didn’t have his own theme. But it is really good. And you’ve got to remember when you’re listening to the score by itself. not while you’re watching the movie, you’re not really hearing it how it was intended to heard. It was intended to be heard while you’re watching the film. While I was watching the film I thought it was great, I thought it was perfect. When I listen to it by itself, it’s not maybe as catchy as some of [John Williams’] other work. I’m a Star Wars nerd so I love it.

You’ve contributed music to a few films, specifically to films by Gary Hustwit—Helvetica, Objectified, Urbanized. How did that come about? What’s your relationship to him as a director?
He is an old friend of mine. He really just hit me up and said “I love your band and I’m doing this documentary about a font.” And I thought, wow that sounds really boring, and it ended up, I don’t know if you’ve seen it, but it’s a really fascinating movie. He recently just wanted to license some El Ten Eleven songs, which he did, but ultimately I ended up doing an original score for him for his subsequent movies.

I remember seeing Helvetica and it kind of reintroduced me to the band again—and it is a great film. But it is a strange subject. Helvetica is a utilitarian font. Do you see your music having a utilitarian use? Maybe utilitarian isn’t the right word…
That’s actually a really interesting question. I never thought of it that way. I think people may use it that way because we get a lot of people who talk to us after our shows who say they love listening to our music while they’re working or while they’re studying, so in that sense I guess you could consider it utilitarian because we’re helping people do some sort of work, but it’s definitely not written with that intention.

Your music is so uplifting or easy going feel. It feels like the music rarely goes to a dark place. I think maybe as close as you get on Fast Forward is “Battle Aves,” which has an ominous vibe. Then songs like “Dax Pierson” which is on a previous record, has a darker feel—but these are really kind of outliers. Is that by design or kind of just how it comes out of you?
It’s just what comes out. It’s interesting because I think that’s how a lot of people would probably describe me but they have no idea that I’m hiding this gigantic ball of anxiety inside and I’m freaking out that I’m not getting all these things done. So it’s interesting the way that presents itself in the songs. But I think that is a fair description and I think it’s just natural. It’s not calculated at all, and I think maybe that’s why our music is resonating with different people because it’s honest in a day and age when there’s not a lot of honesty in music.