LONGWAVE
The SiS Interview by Miriam Lamey

Ironically, one of Longwave’s biggest hits is the lonely, evocative track, “No Direction,” replete with echo-y vocals and hauntingly full guitars. The irony comes from the tune’s title for at present, guitarist Shannon Ferguson feels Longwave have more direction and drive than ever as they wrap up their fourth studio album. Ferguson took a moment with Stranded in Stereo to discuss Longwave’s career post RCA, their new material and hearing a Longwave track featured in a Veronica Mars episode.

SIS: So tell me about the newer material? That’s the music up on your MySpace page, correct?

SF: That’s right. What’s on our MySpace now is the new record.

SIS: Right and what have you changed sonically and composition-wise with your new songs? How’s it going to be different, if it is going to be different?

SF: It’s definitely going to be different. It’s a little, you know, less spacey sounding: definitely more than the last record and the records before that. We still went off this sound. There’s a song on the record called “Life is Wrong,” and we demoed it with Dave Fridmann and we kind of went off with this bashing drums, heavy guitar, but really soft vocals thing, with a little bit of ambiance coming through -- from me at least and we used that song as the template for the entire new record. That’s just because we wanted to do that. We did this one thing with Dave, we really liked it and he mixed and it sounded amazing. Dave did things and he contributed to the sound and we really just fell in love with it. Some people think it’s just noise, you know, but we love it. We think it’s great and that’s just what we used as a template for the new record. I don’t know how to describe it sonically, there’s a bashing kind of thing…and the vocals, [are] a beautiful thing over this noisy kind of backdrop.

SIS: What was your inspiration writing this new music, or did working with Dave just sort of bring it out from all of you?

SF: With the song “Life is Wrong,” the three of us got together – me, Jason and Steve – in our rehearsal space and quite literally, Jason kind of directed me and said, “Alright, one, two, three, four” and just launched into it. And Jason was just bashing away and I was just playing these bass chords and Steve - Steve really took it to the next level he did this melody and the melodic thing over it. And then a couple of weeks later, we took it to Dave…and he mixed it and brought it back in, and I was like “holy shit!” it sounded great. That moment is something that I’ve been searching for, for so long. Like, when you work with the right producer and you record it and then you come in and you’re like “Oh my God, that’s my band.” And that’s the first time that’s ever happened – that’s what I’ve always wanted to do.

SIS: That’s amazing. So you split from your record label, has that helped or hindered you as a band?

SF: Well, the deal with RCA was that it was very structured, but this was a natural break. Like, it was a two album deal and they basically chose not to continue working with us. Um, it helped us creatively a lot, and I wouldn’t have thought this when we were on RCA – they were kind of cool with us and definitely laid off us being really involved with our record….the second record they were real involved with. There are so many little trivial things involved with a record and just the slightest influence can do something differently. There’s one song that had to be specifically on the record, and it had to be early on the record and we were ok with that, I get it, but what I didn’t realize is how much it kind of fucked with us.

SIS: Well, how so?

SF: Because with this [newer] record, it was a total free-for-all. No one was waiting for it, no one was expecting it, and it was easier to take the songs – we still had about twenty five songs as Steve’s a very prolific songwriter. It’s not all like “one two three four,” we definitely put the work into it and it’s, you know, we sat down, filtered it through and it was nice – it was just the three of us. There was no outside influence there…I’m so, so proud that we did it. I think any of us will feel the same way, this is just our record.

SIS: That’s great. I wasn’t sure if it was more of a non-conformist, break with the “mainstream” decision to leave RCA and leave all the connotations with that because I was going to ask that, well, “No Direction” was featured on Veronica Mars and I was wondering how you felt about that – on sort of being more of an indie band being placed on a mainstream TV show.

SF: Well, the Veronica Mars thing, what happened with that was we were sort of in the middle of our second record, um, tanking (laughs) and someone emailed me and we were on the front page of the Yahoo website, and it was from the star of Veronica Mars [Kristen Bell]. Because basically what she’d done was at the Superman premiere – this was years ago – someone asked her what music she was listening to and she was like, “Longwave,” and it was totally welcomed – I was like “oh yes!” And so I got in contact with her agent, manager, somebody and I just sent out like a T-shirt and CD and so what’s on Veronica Mars was the demo version of “No Direction” that we just kind of sent off. I don’t have any contact with her…[having the song on the show] was not the worst thing. I mean, I downloaded the episode with the song and it’s so fun to hear in the background…when we needed money, it was definitely welcome!

SIS: Yeah, I was just wondering how you felt about having your music on a popular primetime show…like, The Republic Tigers were just featured on Grey’s Anatomy!

SF: Yeah, I guess it would be cool…I guess we don’t have a lot of control over it. Like, the songs we did for RCA – people paid for us to do them. We kind of signed a lot of shit away – I don’t want to get too technical on this – but you just kind of accept that you might walk into something like that. Um, but I feel like in that case [with Veronica Mars] especially, since she mentioned the band, and we became a hip band, I think that she just really likes us as a band! And it’s kind of cool.

SIS: So you just got back from touring Europe fairly recently?

SF: yeah, it was like two weeks ago or something.

SIS: Oh wow. Well, how did the tour go overall?

SF: It went great. Honestly, being there was a little weird, but it was good to be back in the UK. We haven’t been back in five years. Which is really kind of crazy because some of our fans were teenagers and are now totally adults. And it’s good to see them again, you know? I did remember most of the people from before…we’re definitely not in the same spot as we were five years ago.

SIS: Do your prefer audiences over there or in America? Where do you feel that you get the best reception or the reception that you can best relate to?

SF: I like American audiences a lot – I definitely like the South and the Midwest most. They’re the most excited to see the band. I do like playing in New York – I’ve actually gotten better about that. A few years ago, I would have said I liked playing in New York, but I’m a bit older now and well, this would happen with our managers in like, London – they’d said “Ok guys, this is London, you’d better step it up,” and in New York has that thing, LA has that thing, and this time, I just said to the manager, “Come on, man, every show we play in London’s the most important show.” (laughs) And we played places like Brixton Academy – we played “real” shows, you know? I think in general, as a band, we’ve relaxed a lot. We like all the places – in Chicago, in Seattle for KEXP they have always been really, really nice to us.