Cymbals Eat Guitars

BRM has done it again. We've hunted down, captured and documented the most innovative and exciting artists to recently emerge on a number of different scenes. All month long we’ll be running q&as with our discoveries to help get you ready for what’s to come in 2010. But to get a complete look at our full list of emerging artists, check out our current winter issue.

If rock beats paper then cymbals eat guitars, but that’s only true if you’re listening to Why There Are Mountains.

The band, established from the results of Craigslist, almost sound like they really did just plug in and search until something felt right. While that might sound a bit risky, it proved successful, as their album is one of the few hits worth considering.

Running with its fast pace, tripping into intermittently delicate melodramatic trances, Cymbals Eat Guitars incorporates elements of traditional rock with experimental noise, which upon the last track’s end exemplifies cohesion. Despite their band member shifts and questionable tour mishaps, Why There Are Mountains might actually be an imperative rather than an inquisition.

BRM: So where’d you all come in from today?

Matt Miller: I drove in from Jersey today. Where in Jersey? South Jersey. Long Beach Island.

Are you from LBI as well?

Joe D'Agostino: I live on Staten Island, that’s where I came from this morning. It sucks.

Does it suck to live on Staten Island?

Joe: No, it doesn’t suck to live on Staten Island it just sucks to live as far south as I do because I have to drive for so long, anywhere.

Where do you live?

Brian Hamilton: I live like 5 minutes from here, in the Navy Yards. You can’t tell? I have a mullet.

Are you from Brooklyn?

Matt: I’m from New Jersey.

Joe: You should tell people you’re from Coney Island, born and raised.

Brian: Coney Island born and raised. Yeah, I could do that.

Did you guys go to high school together?

Matt: Joe and I did.

Brian: It’s coincidental that I’m from New Jersey.

Were you guys in a band in high school?

Matt: Yeah, several bands.

What were your band names?

Joe: (Laughs) Blueprint was one, particularly an idiotic one. The other was Joseph Ferocious. People ask me, “Oh, should I call him Joseph Ferocious?”

Brian: You should have been like, “Yeah, call me Sir Ferocious.”

Joe: It’s sort of a joke, but yeah, those were Matt and I’s band. And, we played for a while.

Did you sound the same as you do now, or was it different?

Matt: Yeah, it was the beginnings of what it evolved into what it is now. We definitely have the same mindset I would say, but the musicality wasn’t mature.

Joe: We got a lot better in a very short span.

So after high school, you went to school for music, or did you decide…

Joe: No, in fact our first year we didn’t even play at all.

Matt: I went to Penn State for a while and ended up transferring back to Manhattan to Hunter [College] to do this. And, so how did you, join, Brian.

Brian: Well, do you want the whole story? Yeah, I need it!

Joe: So we were recording these demos, and after we wanted to play live and everything. It was only Matt and I and we needed a bassist and guitarist and keyboardist. So we pulled the first three people with ads off Craigslist and we played like that till like April of 2008 for whatever and then…Neil joined the band when the bassist quit. Neil is our bassist now. He played on our record when we recorded in 2008. Ugh, the keyboardist who played on the record and played with us until April, he needed a heart valve transplant and, it was right before we were supposed to play this huge gig at Webster Hall opening for xx and Beach House. A particularly painful blow and not because the gig was awesome, but because he was in the hospital for along time and so we had to get a replacement because we had commitments that we had to fulfill. Now [Brian] is no longer a replacement. He is our keyboardist.

Were you, Brian, found on Craigslist too?

Brian: No, I was recommended from a friend of mine who plays in [another] band.

Did Brian fit in right away?

Matt: Totally, yea every instrument is from a different genre. Just the way it feels, very funky. The way he plays, its soulful, atmospheric, ambient.

Joe: A lot of cloudy bullshit

Matt: Brian is a lyrical gangster, no keyboardist.

How was the process of making the album?

Joe: We got hooked up with really amazing producers with access to a really great studio. Joe Blaney’s studio, called Joe Music, lots of people work there. Three days before us, Modest Mouse worked there. We did three days in there and we recorded all our basic bass and drums. We did probably like two months of mixing and overdubbing at Monster Land.

Are you all happy with it?

Joe: About the record? I’m really proud of it. I’m happy people are enjoying it and were getting longevity out of it. People are like, I got it back in, you know, January when you released it…I still listen to it a lot. So, it’s really gratifying.

Matt: After the album was made, we didn’t have much of a live show because you know we pulled a lot of stuff for four people… We’ve improved a lot since then and I think how we’ve planned out stuff.

Joe: People say we play better live than on record. So, that’s something to think about when we’re making the next record.

Have you started working on the next record?

Joe: We’re going to track it live.

Matt: I think it’ll be a lot more effective.

Joe: That’s how we did a record [it] came out in the UK [recorded at] Pure Groove. It’s a 7” single. It was live and over dubbed…There was a little too much going on, on that record. That’s my only one regret.

Matt: Now we’ve evolved.

Do you still play local shows in Jersey?

Matt: We played one…the first incarnates of Cymbals Eat Guitars, with the original Craigslist people. We played at Stone Pony, Asbury Park.

Joe: We played there throughout high school. Super shitty. The people like us here [in New York]. There they were terrible to us. I love playing New York…Webster Hall…I was excited about that one. I’m excited about Le Poisson Rouge. I’ve heard good things. We’ve been around the world … and several nations.

Brian: But, really just this country. (laughs)

Matt: There’s no place like New York.

Was that one of the worst experiences on tour?

Brian: The first thing that sucked was when I fractured my arm. I fractured my…elbow in Boise, which was a pretty shitty venue, anyway. Neil and I were playing pool and this guy came over and he really wanted to play and he was really hassling us. We thought he was gonna shark us for all our money, but then we heard that he just got out of prison, so he was desperate to play. I was like I’m gonna leave. So then I had two drinks immediately, and then I walked out the door and was like, “Oh sweet, a skateboard.”

Matt: So I’m packing up the van.

Brian: And I’m not a skateboarder...I rolled and hit a rock and just went over right on my ass and on my elbow and I was like just like, “Okay guys.” And I stood up [and] was like “I just broke my arm. Let’s go.”

Is that collectively the worst experience?

Brian: Some bad mishaps you know some smashing into things, or people smashing into us.

Matt: We were in Canada or I mean a mysterious land and we stopped in front of a llama farm because it was there. It was awesome and these two llamas jumped on this rock and started battling each other.

How do llamas battle?

Matt: They just butt heads.

Brian: You don’t believe us, but it was pretty epic man.

Joe: We have pictures..We’re gonna upload them on MySpace.

You were imitating the llamas?

Matt: No. We were with our merch guy and we stayed with his friend in Atlanta and his friend had this epic Mega Man poster so we got some good photos.

Brian: That’s why I’m so photogenic, because I put myself in these epic situations. We found this epic rest stop in the middle of Wyoming and there were all these epic masks, like wolf masks, bear masks. There were all these great hats. So I got this wolf hat and our merch guy got this fox hat, they were sweet. And they had this amazing wolf poncho.

Have you ever thought of playing in outfits?

Matt: I don’t know what I’m wearing but it’s gonna be epic.

Joe: You should be a llama. Some body put the wolf hat on my head in Nebraska and I played with it, before it fell off.

Brian: I bought some masks in New Orleans, but I’m sure I left them there.

Joe: I fear it would limit my vision.

Words and photos by Naqeeb Stevens

myspace.com/cymbalseatguitars