Paper Airplane goes to 11
Band plugs politics into pop-rock on second album
By Travis Hoewischer |
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Even the back-story for Paper Airplane's new album flows like lyrics on a legal pad. Couldn't you see this on a long-lost Dylan record sleeve?
"Newspaper man/writes a song for the dying/pop-rock tapestry/woven from political thread"
What started as a song request from front man Ryan Horns' dying uncle - about "the space between being alive and being dead" - unfurled into an entire album about America in 2008 and those in this country like his uncle: killing themselves to stay alive.
"He was going broke just trying to pay his bills, and it was around the same time the election was happening," Horns said. "I just thought of how many people who are going broke all over the country because they can't afford to go to the doctor."
Sadly, Horns' uncle died two weeks before the song debuted at the Toledo Pop Festival, but what's left is somewhat of a pop epitaph - not for him alone, but for the political regime dying out with the exit of the Bush administration.
A reporter by day, Horns said the material kept coming via the stream of national media coverage on the country's changing landscape. The songs that would comprise the band's second LP, White Elephants, just kept coming.
Although covered in pretty pop skin, tracks like "It's Almost Over" and "Until It's Gone" deliver a kick in the ass to old politics and stale rhetoric. It was new territory for Horns. "I've always been smack-dab in the middle, but since the Bush era, I turned into kind of a Democratic spokesman," he said.
The album, which will be released Aug. 21 at Ruby Tuesday (1978 Summit St.), is packed full at 16 songs - the rest of the disc balancing politically-charged anthems with lyrically lighter pieces.
"All the rest of the songs are almost overly inspirational to make up for it," Horns laughs.
Like any good reporter, Horns observes and documents on White Elephants, focused keenly on life in his adopted hometown of Marysville.
"That's another theme - small towns," he said. "Dylan songs all have lyrics that are always pointing to something that's about to happen. I tried to do that with Marysville."
The fact that nothing really does happen is irrelevant, Horns said.
"I tried to mesh all the ideas until they didn't make any sense," he says with a laugh. "That's the beauty of pop music: it can give you a feeling, but it doesn't necessarily have to say anything."
And in small towns, there is bound to be the occasional quirky happening that would work perfectly as a lyric. Especially in the police blotter.
"It was the middle of winter and there was a report about some woman, naked in the backseat of her car, outside a bar. I just thought that was funny," he said.
The band, which includes Horns' wife, Teresa Kent-Horns, on keyboards, Antonio Garza on drums, and Caleb Bandy on bass, is already at work on the next album.
Paper Airplane live at Circus
Photo: Christopher Atwood
"We're all on the same page, so it goes pretty quick," Horns said. "When I started the band, I had about 100 or so songs - I haven't even gotten to most of those. Antonio writes stuff and so does Teresa, so we will always have as many songs as we want to learn."
And the new songs fit with the band's new sound. Although their 2007 debut LP, Middlemarch, was highly acclaimed - it helped them to score opening slots for national acts like The Walkmen, Rogue Wave, and Mates of State - Horns admits the band's first recorded offering was somewhat unsatisfying.
"The first one was supposed to be arty chamber-pop - that's what I was going for," he said. "It didn't come out that way, though."
He didn't really have to go back to the drawing board, though. Just the guitar store. "Honestly, the most significant change was just going with using a louder amp," he said simply. "It just gave it that different vibe."
Horns hopes that terms like "jangly" that seemed to litter the band's early reviews might make way for heavier adjectives. He's even decided to take out the guesswork by stenciling listening instructions - PLAY LOUD - on White Elephants' inside cover.
"I always liked how David Bowie would put on his albums, 'Play really loud. Turn it up loud,' ... I just want everyone to hear everything," he said.
"We've sort of progressed from an artsy pop beginning. This album is more of an epic, with huge songs," he said. "On the first album, I tried to layer everything - sometimes successfully, sometimes unsuccessfully. Now, this is what we've been sounding like. It was like, let's just go in there and make it loud and as simple as possible."
The new record reflects what the band delivers on a live stage, said Garza.
"Everything was a lot cleaner [on the first record] than when we played it live," he said. "Now, we're going for something a little crunchier."
The band also has a little harder edge for their harder-edged themes. Still, even a more political Paper Airplane doesn't stray too far from the pop porch.
"I've just always liked that dichotomy," Horns said. "A mean song that says 'YAY!'"
Originally Published: August 1, 2009
