The Battle of the Bullshit

For the past hour or so, drummer John Stanier has been feeding me with info on his new group, Battles. But at this stage in the phone call my recorder is already stuffed with more than enough raw quotage for my story. So I ask him one of those end-of-the-interview, not terribly relevant, possibly problematic types of questions, a question that happened to pop into my life about three years back when I was still living in New York.

One night in Brooklyn (or was it morning?) my friend Mr. X and I consumed about a case of beer and several teeny-tiny Ziploc baggies of pitifully low-grade cocaine (i.e. baking soda that makes you feel "like kinda fucked-up, man"). We were yackety-yaking about all kinds of extremely inconsequential matters including this needlessly volatile debate: Who is more influential on modern mainstream metal, Helmet or Metallica? Now, being way, way more into such lighter fare during my high school years as Toad the Wet Sprocket and Spin Doctors, I really knew next to nothing about either heavy hitter so I logically argued in favor of the band who earned more platinum records and that band is Metallica. Mr. X, a devout Helmet fan and harsh critic of Metallica, disagreed, and he especially did not want to hear my "It's whoever sold more records" argument.

"Listen, douche bag," Mr. X snarled. "All you gotta to do is turn on the goddamn radio and listen to one of these 24-hour rap-n-rage-n-metal stations. Every shit band you'll hear steals their rhythms from Helmet. Their influence is so beyond huge that I can't believe we are even arguing about this."

I'm now selfishly dragging Stanier into this ancient Metallica vs. Helmet debate because this dude was the drummer for Helmet, which means he is, in large part, responsible for busting out those hugely influential rhythms.

"I am blown away by that [Mr. X's] statement," Stanier cordially answers while also revealing a slight chill. "I am so flattered. I am so very, very proud of what [Helmet] did, but I'm really not into talking about Helmet all that much."

Stanier's nonresponse to my question is not at all surprising. Indeed, I expect it and not solely because musicians generally abhor interviews wherein writers exhume long-dead projects for critical examination. My expectation is more the product of this theory about Battles, a notion I developed during the course of my background research for this interview. In a nutshell, it goes something like this: Battles appear to be manipulating their image by employing certain techniques that allow them to get their music quietly released and distributed while avoiding the very debilitating side effects of the commercial mass media -- overexposure, instant "genre-fication," and hypercategorization until the members and their music would feel like nothing more than the sum total of a brief bio, discography, style map, and a dozen hyperlinks to like-sounding groups, all found in the All Music Guide. What Battles are trying to operate like is a kind of "phantom," which Merriam-Websterdefines as "something (as a specter) apparent to sense but with no substantial existence." Sure, that sounds a bit "out there," but go ahead and chew on that definition for a few minutes. It captures the essence of what every musician (and artist) with an ounce of integrity craves -- to be heard ("sensed") but not commercially pegged ("no substantial existence"). And Battles most definitely possess sundry reasons for wanting not to be pegged than just Stanier's notable past.

If you fancy yourself a fairly astute follower of indie rock, but have not yet heard (or heard of) the metronomic, methodically structured, almost austere post-rock pulse of Battles, then you are not alone. Most music nerds I queried had no idea who the hell Battles were either, despite the fact they are from big-time New York, have been touring almost nonstop since last fall, and "in the extreme indie world [are] considered a supergroup," Stanier soberly admits.

Each member of this quartet is an accomplished and fairly renowned indie musician in his own right. In addition to Stanier, Battles is David Konopka on bass; he also plucked those four strings for Lynx, a Chicago-based, instrumental math-rock outfit from the late '90s. Ian Williams jams guitar and synth. He was the virtuoso axeman for the now legendary math-rock troupe Don Caballero, which pretty much invented the genre if I'm not mistaken. And also playing guitar and synth, as well as tape loops and human beat box, is Tyondai Braxton, who lives a second life as an avant-garde indie-loner constructing "orchestrated loops" from voice, guitar, found objects, and pedals, and regularly collaborates with a diverse collection of modern composers and free jazzbos. He is also the son of Anthony Braxton, a visionary reedman, prolific composer, professor, and monolithic presence in the development of 20th-century free jazz and modern composition.

Now I recently read on one of these Yahoo Group discussion boards for total indie groupies (like myself) that Braxton does not particularly enjoy answering questions from strangers about his distinguished pops, which I would wager happens on a fairly regular basis considering just how garrulous a fan with a few pints in the belly can get. I ask Stanier to confirm this nugget of cybergossip. "I can sort of see that," he says, adding "but that is some personal stuff." Fair enough.