Murder By Death are the nicest band I ever cooked vegetarian chili for. They said please and thank you. And they used the napkins I had provided. Which was nice of them. The first and only time I met the band was when I was promoting a show for Against Me!, literally mere seconds before they exploded into a band that could pack more than a 200 capacity club and could negotiate a higher door price than $10. Murder By Death opened the show, along with Nyet to the Neins before I joined that group, and tore the roof off. Must have been all the secret spices in that chili.
Two days later I get an email from the band. Apparently Murder By Death's roadie slept with some girl and left his passport behind in her bed before slipping away to never see her again. Epic fail. So, apparently as my duty as the promoter, I had to meet with the broad - who was near tears when she gave me the passport - and then mail it to a sheepish American who was otherwise trapped in Canada.
I can assure you that I giggled ferociously.
The following interview was conducted with Adam Turla, vocalist and guitarist of Murder By Death.
What has changed for the band since the move to Vagrant Records?
It’s funny because not much has changed in a way. We have been headlining more but that was just inevitable since we had been playing so much. Right now labels are teetering on the edge and they don’t have the same impact they once did. Bands have to take things into their own hands these days.
Have your audiences been more receptive with your latest album Red of Tooth and Claw?
It’s been a good year and we’ve been busy. Our shows are packed and people are singing along, which makes me happy. It’s our fourth album and we definitely have new fans and old fans that stuck with us. Things have generally been positive and we haven’t caught too much shit for anything, which is always nice. We’ve been around long enough that inevitably you get people saying things like ‘I liked their first album more’ or whatever. But we’ve been lucky enough to have fans that genuinely support us.
Murder By Death has always maintained a dark western influence – has this been harder to do as your career progresses?
We never had that conscious idea to make that sound. But lyrically and thematically I was very careful to try to maintain a storytelling element to our songs. But I don’t I ever set out to make a ‘western’. As for the dark material that’s just what I write. For whatever reason I don’t write happy songs. But we’ve always been a band that’s done what felt the most satisfying to do. We’ve never had any motivation other than trying to write material that felt strong.
So then what influenced you that you produced this sort of sound naturally?
I am a bigger fan of books and film than I am music, given that I spend more time reading and watching movies than I spend listening to other bands. So there is a storytelling influence that comes from that, especially with my lyrics.
The death country theme has become more popular in the mainstream with movies such as No Country for Old Men and There Will Be Blood – has this translated into more popularity for this style of music and particularly for Murder By Death?
We haven’t seen a giant leap in popularity. And I always tend to do the opposite of what is popular anyway. To me it’s a signal to try something different. I don’t like oversaturation of trends. I am starting to write songs for the next record. This tour is going to be our last one for a while. I’m going to take the summer off. I plan on going into the woods with a fishing pole, a tent and a guitar and just do a bunch of writing in complete isolation.
What kind of response have you gotten from your song being in the ad for Harley Davidson motorcycles?
It actually just happened. We put something up on our site to make a joke about it. Five years ago we would have been stressed about it. Back then people would have thought of it as being a symbol of what the band was about. I remember that people would have called it a sellout to have your music backing a product. Now every indie band is becoming commercialized. But that’s just how things are now. No one is buying CDs so as a musician you can no longer afford to pay your rent that way. So something else has to take its place. And to me that could be publishing, licensing music out to commercials and films. As a band we’re poor and they offered us some money. And we also think motorcycles are cool. And our music is pretty subtle, just a background instrumental with no lyrics. We felt like it was the right choice and we didn’t need to compromise anything doing this.
In terms of fans, we had about 30 or 40 people congratulating us. And then we had one person say something like ‘that was your first stumble.’ But whatever, right? Because in six months it’s not going to matter and I will be able to eat this summer. When we aren’t on tour we’re living in the poorhouse so it was an easy decision. And it’s not going to win us any new fans because you can barely hear the song anyway.
Did you get free motorcycles?
I wish.
How does it feel to be playing your 1000th show tomorrow?
It’s interesting because our first show was mid-April, 2000 so it synced up nicely. But if someone had told me that I was still going to be in this band nine years later and still not making money I’m sure I would have gotten a real job. But I mean I have to say that I love it so much. Nothing beats being creative for a living. Getting to write these songs and create these worlds in my lyrics is so satisfying. We love going on tour and seeing in the world. When we were in school we were studying for pretty serious jobs and then the band started to get some opportunities we couldn’t pass up. It’s been so fun over the past nine years that we couldn’t stop.
But this show is going to be fun but its also going to be a little bewildering as well.
I hope there will be cake.
There is going to be some cake and balloons. And embarrassing photos.
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