Atlanta’s rock group the Selmanaires has a weapon, and with it, they are stepping up to make infectious and creative sounds that are at once known and new. They’re stepping up onstage only to make their fans get down on the floor. They’re stepping up to the endless difficulty of touring, so far the South, East Coast, and the Midwest. Here they come, stepping up to give us a captivatingly impressive debut album, a classic 45 rpm single, and a live show laced with energy, rhythm, and if the crowd is paying any attention, unavoidable dance.

Three years into the band and no sign of stopping, the Selmanaires are relentless in the pursuit of making music, but no average flavor of it, it’s the kind of music that can make the most sour of nights sweet, the kind of music that puts a grin even on the grim, it can make the most drab of spectators throw hesitation to the wind and themselves on the dance floor and it can make the most eager of spectators dance and walk all the way home, completely satisfied. What kind of music do they play? It’s the kind that would be folly to try to summarize, the kind that you must simply hear.

Writer Tony Chackal spoke to the band about the process of constructing music, compositional theory and the group’s ideal situation.

Tony Chackal: You list Fela Kuti and Africa 70 as an influence, and in 1981 he said “Music Is The Weapon." Do you think that music is the weapon, and if so what is the your objective with it? What is music’s inherent value?

Herb Harris: I don’t believe that music is inherently political, but that music is a part of culture; something that resides in an area of peoples lives, but it becomes political when political situations encroach upon culture; in that sense its always going to be an expression of the people, and that can be threatening to some political systems. For me, music’s value is its shared cultural expression of what’s going on; and culture is a much higher thing than politics, it’s the people. The reason that I want to play music is that I’ve had experiences in my life where music has been life affirming; it makes you feel good about living. And if I can create that feeling for someone else, then that’s awesome.

Jason Harris: I don’t think that music is a weapon, so much as a survival skill that is necessary for a healthy society. The thing that makes music special and beautiful in its own right is that it takes everyday life and elevates it with rhythm.

Tommy Chung: Music is a weapon because it’s a statement against normal society. It’s my way of trying to do things my way; it’s saying ‘fuck you’ to the regular workings of capitalist society.


T. Chackal: What is the nature of your ideal relationship with the audience? Is the ideal live show more a giving or a taking or a back and forth?

HH: I always judge a show by how many people we can get dancing; the more people dancing, the better the show, because we’re three guys up there playing music, but there are so many more people in the audience that it seems it be selfish if it were all for us. People dancing are almost like a percussion section [making it] an interactive experience.

JH: I think people moving amplifies our experience, because sometimes you can play to an empty room and it feels like you’re fighting against a weight that’s hard to beat, but if the room’s buzzing, its easy to pick up on. As a band, we try to be very conscious of our audience, because people are coming to hear our music, and so we want them to enjoy themselves. We don’t want to assault the audience or be too confrontational, we want them to enjoy themselves and have a good time.

T. Chung: I think it’s a bit of everything: reception, reciprocation: this energy that is created: it is like a give and take with the audience: if we have good energy and the audience has good energy, its like this nice symbiotic thing. We can play a good show, but if there is no one there, then there’s not any energy, because there is not anyone there to create it. We could play a good show to two people, but… well, even then if we really reached out to those two people and the dig what we’re doing, then that’s cool, it’s worth it.


T. Chackal: Herb, what is the idea behind the "Direction of Yes?" Why is “Yes” a direction rather than a location?

HH: The idea behind "In the Direction of Yes" was inspired by an Martin Luther King Jr. quote, “I have been to the mountain top, and I have seen the light…” and I always felt that he was a good example of someone who mixed thought, speech, and action very well; you could tell he meant what he said when he said it and he did what he said. The point taken from this quote is [the idea of] not quite yet being there; knowing what you want and having ideals that you want to aspire to but not yet being there, being in a transitional stage toward them; that’s where its more of a direction rather than location: you’re heading in the way that you want to live your life, but you’re not quite there yet.

T. Chackal: Are you suggesting a sense of striving? For example: the metaphor of trying to reach the horizon: the more you move, the more the sun moves and so the emphasis is on the experience rather then just the goal or end.

HH: Yeah that’s pretty much it, because as you grow, your goals grow with you, so its always going to be striving for that indefinable thing; its constant striving, but in a positive way; it doesn’t have to be a toiling strife.


T. Chackal: What’s the story behind "Devil’s Note?"

JH: The devil’s note is a flatted fifth. It was a note that was [at one time] banned by the church; they didn’t want you to play it because they thought it was the devil’s note, that it sounded evil. The melody for "Devil’s Note" is based on this flatted fifth and the song sounds kind of evil.

T. Chackal: What is “G.M.A.F.B” and what does it represent about daily life?

HH: I got the title and the concept of "G.M.A.F.B." from a good friend, Tim, it was a slogan that he used. That song is about being frustrated, so “G. M .A. F. B.” that’s what you say when your just lost, and sometimes with modern living: you just want to say “fuck it." It expresses a frustration [one experiences] when you’re born into a situation that you don’t feel either part of or have any control of, and being influenced by a society that you’re not necessarily proud of or want to be a part of, but being born and raised in the culture: modern life U.S.A. -- being part of something you don’t exactly agree with. It’s the frustration of feeling powerless or uninvolved in this situation.

T. Chackal: Why not include lyrics in your album?

HH: We try to make the lyrics understandable when recording because sometimes, when printed, lyrics to songs… its different than [something like] poetry. A lot of times you’ll have a favorite song, and the lyrics make so much sense when you’re singing it, but then when you read it, it seems really ridiculous, because they’re two different forms of communication. So, ultimately we’d like for them to be part of the song, and we want the lyrics to be [discernable] in how they’re presented.

T. Chackal: Within the last couple of years especially, it seems Atlanta’s music scene has experienced a vital burgeon; bands like the Black Lips, Gringo Star, Anna Kramer and the small independent label Rob’s House seem to be quite active and in fact doing pretty well. What is you’re current assessment of the scene? Is it cohesive? Is it supportive?

T. Chung: I think the scene is pretty good, but I think where it is now is a result of how it has been for the past several years; its cohesive, there is band member crossover, people go to each other’s shows, but its kind of ironic because I feel like the bigger it getting it becomes less that way; its kind of a Catch-22. When the scene is small and doesn’t call itself a scene yet, that’s when it’s the coolest, and then once this hype starts building around it… it automatically becomes less cohesive. It entropies.

JH: Yeah, you never want to say that a “scene” is arising because once it becomes conscious, it just goes crazy. So, I definitely feel like there’s things going on, but I’d rather just keep trying to make things happen instead of thinking about whether or not its a movement or a scene or whatever. But there’s definitely camaraderie. I think ATL has eluded the spotlight for rock music, we’ve got hip:hop and its pretty big right now, but no one has had their eye on ATL, so it gives people a chance to screw up, hone their craft, and grow as a band having the spotlight immediately shone on you, so it’s a good place to start.

T. Chung: I think part of what is really cool about ATL is the variety of bands, but not just the variety (because it wouldn’t be any good if we had a shitty garage punk band, a shitty post punk band, etc.) we have quality songwriters and performers.


T. Chackal: How do the two process of recording and playing live differ?

HH: The recorded and live experiences are completely different. I used to get upset when I saw band and they didn’t do what they did on the record, but that’s not realizing that the two process are different; sitting at home listening to a record player is completely different in that you’re isolated, listening to a sound, coming from a machine as opposed to the live experience where people are playing the music. When you record something, it’s automatically not live, and so its fake and so even to try to sound live on a recording seems like a lie in a way. The live show should have its own feel, in what we can do as performers, and we view recordings as an experience that someone has by themselves. And just as we’re working to make our recordings better, we’re working on making our lives shows better, because the live experience is a communal experience, with a crowd of people and music going on.

T. Chung: Our goal with playing live is to get that energy, to get people dancing, but I think that our goal is different with recording (though we still would like people to dance to our records) As record collectors and avid music fans, we know the experience of sitting around and listening to a record [and what works best for records]; we tend to make our songs more lush sounding on the record than they are live, and it kind of should be, because people are going to be sitting around their houses, listening to our records, so its like two different goals, it’s a little more high energy live.


T. Chackal:  What is your preference on the analog versus digital debate? Can you achieve the sound you’re attempting to with digital? Is analogue a cause worth fighting for, or is it becoming too costly and antiquated?

JH: In the band, all of our favorite records are recorded to analogue, so naturally that’s sort of the sound we have in mind. At the same time, we’re trying to realize that there could be benefits to digital if it’s used properly. Ideally, as a band, we would like to find some integration of the two: because there’s nothing like analogue, but we’re also trying to be of our time; we want to use the past (analogue) not just because it’s the past [we’re not just trying to sound retro] but because its effective.

HH: I think analogue definitely is a cause worth fighting for because you just cannot get the same sound with digital as you can analogue. But like Jason was saying, you can have a good mixture of the two, and that’s what you’re going to have to do to keep analogue going.


T. Chackal: Often it is a precarious bridge that bands cross when they move from an independent label to a major. What are a few things the Selmanaires would be cautious and/or intolerable of should such a situation present itself?

T. Chung: I think a few of the things that would be intolerable would be any giving up of creative control, pretty much across the board: I don’t think we want anyone fucking with our songs, or even stuff like artwork. Another thing we’d be weary of is not being able to put out other records, like vinyl only singles, with other labels.

HH: There is a difference between people who are interested in culture and people who are interested in commerce, and there is always going to be an intermingling of the two, because you can’t do music without money; so there’s going to be commerce involved, but you want to keep it as much on the culture side as you can. So anyone who is more interested in commerce, we’d rather not work with, and we want to keep the focus more on culture than commerce.

T. Chackal: What is the Selmanaire Cerulean Sky? What would be the ideal situation for the band in terms of, making records, touring, and general creative control?

JH: I think for us the goal is to be able to earn a modest living and to do music as an occupation.

HH: Its always hard to say the ideal situation, because sometimes you don’t know it until you have it, but right now I feel that if we were just able to focus on music: writing good songs, making good music: that would make us all really happy, and to do that by making enough money through touring and making records.

T. Chung: I don’t think it’s important to any of us to lead these lavish rock star lifestyles. But, it’d be nice to keep playing, and I think having fun is a really, really important part of it, and I think if I didn’t a lot of fun doing it, it wouldn’t be worth it. I’m pretty happy with the way things are now, on the smaller scale…it would be nice if it was on the bigger scale and not have to work in coffee shops and restaurants, and to be able to play music all the time instead.

T. Chackal: So much of your music consists of texturing very simple instrument parts (often the bass and guitar strum a single note for the majority of the track), and then placing harmonic vocal layers on top. Generally what is the starting point for writing a song? What compositional techniques follow?

HH: We have a lot of different ways of writing songs. Sometimes we’ll just be playing and we’ll come up with something that we like and we’ll tape it, and someone will go and work on that and turn it into a song, shape it, or someone will bring a song into practice and we’ll work it out within the group.  Being a three piece, we keep a lot of the parts simple [in order to] keep it rhythmic, therefore, with the vocals we try to bring in melody and harmony to compensate for lack of orchestra.


T. Chackal: "Here Come The Selmanaires" is a sparse record. What will the following album have in store?

JH: "Here Come The Selmanaires," even down to the artwork, seems to be a pretty black and white sparse record and I think our goal for the second record is to add a little more color…make it a lot to listen to…

T. Chackal: What does adding more color entail?

JH: When we went to make the first record, none of us had even been in a real studio before, and since we’ve made that record, we’ve had opportunities to get more experience in the studio and recording, and a lot of the color will come from blossoming as songwriters and being more comfortable in the studio, having a little more experience with arrangement, and just having a clear idea of what we want and how we want things to sound.

HH: Being that "Here Come The Selmanaires" was our first experience in the studio, I think we hadn’t yet conceived it as being more than just a presentation of our live show, so it is like a set we would play live, with embellishments here and there. With the second record, we’d like to take it farther than just a presentation of our live songs into more of an experience unto itself.

T. Chung: I think form a song standpoint, we’ll probably still have a few dancy numbers, but we’re starting to get a little more experimental with the kinds of songs we write; the songs on the first record are in somewhat more of a pop structure.


T. Chackal: Do think ‘Here Come The Selmanaires’ is derivative?

JH: As derivative as a young band can be!

T. Chung: Well, we definitively have our influences on the first one and I’m sure they’ll show on the second.

HH: It seems a lot have great bands have started out kind of being derivative of other music; The Rolling Stones and The Beatles were all playing R&B covers, and they progressed from that into making music that sounded different and it was more their contribution to the chain of music influence. And so you can hear our influences, and we where them proudly, because good music is good music. Ultimately, you try to take your influences and learn from them and grow and contribute to the chain of influence.

T. Chackal: All I Really Want To Know: Is When It Calls “Oh," Will You Go?

HH: The inspiration for that song was that one day I was walking to work and my mind got to wandering I thought about if my best friend was right next to me and they just got jumped by four dudes, kicking the shit out of him, Would I jump into save him? Would I run to get help? Would I just run in fear? What would your reaction be? It’s not something that you think about, it’s something that you do without much [internal] intellectual dialogue about it; it’s a gut instinct. Relating [this idea to one’s] poetic voice: When your poetic voice calls, will you follow it? And I think by being in a band and doing what we’re doing, touring and trying to make our music happen, that is: When it calls oh will you go? This is our opportunity to do it, and we’re trying. 

JH: I’ll be there, but I’ll be ten minutes late!

T. Chung: I think us going out on tour… it’s that question and us making a decision… are we going to be just another local band, or are we going to fucking do it?  We’re trying to do it. It looks like the three of us are making a decision to try to jump in and help the friend, instead of high tailing it out of there.