Chavez: Happy Days Again
from Magnet (Jan. 1997)

by Jason Ferguson
photos by Bob Berg

Usually, a band's second record is one that's made under considerably more comfortable circumstances than their first. They've become more acclimated to the recording studio; they've had more gigs under their belt; they've spent enough time together to relate more easily with one another; they know what they want and, probably, it's a lot easier for them to get it.

And this is why a lot of bands' sophomore records suck. The nervous, scattered energy of being in the studio for the first time and the reckless enthusiasm of getting a live show on tape more often than not translate into debut albums that, though probably lacking in forethought and clarity, are certainly exciting. And when the comfort level increases and the freshness wears off, second records usually wind up sounding like pale imitations of the first.

Of course, sometimes between first and second records, some bands--like Guns N' Roses and Chavez--wind up dispersed around the country, pursuing extra-band interests. In this instance, finding the time to squeeze in band work can be a little difficult. And when it does come time to get in the studio, a multitude of problems can set in that delay the process even further. In the case of Guns N' Roses, the result was disaster in the form of two overblown concept-rock albums. In the case of Chavez, it was success in the form of the brusque and enervating Ride the Fader.

Too fuckin' bad for Guns N' Roses, huh?

"The thing was, we barely toured at all after the last record," says Chavez guitarist/vocalist Matt Sweeney. "After Gone Glimmering came out (in 1995), we did 10 shows with Guided By Voices and 10 shows with Bardo Pond, and then we did three weeks in Europe with GBV. And that was it--we just stopped cold. When we got back from Europe, we didn't have a booking agent because nobody would take us, so we couldn't tour and just wound up doing shows here and there. Then Scott (Marshall, bassist) fucked off to L.A. and just disappeared to work on movies, so Chavez has never played west of the Mississippi. I mean, we play New York a lot, so you'd get the impression that we're a happening band."

Although Marshall's absence from Chavez wouldn't have been as essential an issue a year and a half ago--after all, this is a band that practiced and wrote songs for eight months without a bassist or a drummer--the increasingly collaborative aspects of Chavez' songwriting necessitated that Marshall be present for at least part of the proceedings. So, while he was off in Hollywood, Chavez basically came to a standstill.

"While Scotty was gone, we didn't do jack-fucking-shit," laughs Sweeny. "We recorded here and there when we could, just for a couple of days at a time without him, but it really wasn't amounting to much, other than just getting some songs written. Scott got back sometime around April ('96) and we started doing more, but really the bulk of the album got done in August.

"We were so polarized this time," he continues, explaining the effect that it had on Ride the Fader. "Before the last record, we would play together and hang out all the time. But for this record, Scott was gone and everybody was doing different things and we didn't play at all. I mean, as of October, we'd only played four shows in 1996. So this was actually kind of a scarier record to do because it was a series of really ridiculous scheduling things that led up to getting this record done. There were literally times when Scott's cab to the airport was waiting outside while we were playing a song and when he would finish the song, he would put down his bass and leave for months."

Since Chavez is the sort of band that likes to record its albums live, it was necessary for all four members to be present in the studio. "I think we're one of the more 'bandular' bands," says Sweeny. "We're really ultra-democratic when it comes to writing songs. I mean, I was writing drum beats and James (Lo, drummer) was writing melodies and we all just sorta switched around stuff. James actually wrote that piano song ("Ever Overpsyched"), and Clay (Tarver, guitar) wrote the words for it. Everybody played their own instruments on the record, but as far as the writing process went, it was pretty much anything goes. It was pretty much the same way last time; it was just more extreme for this album because things were pretty scattered."

Which isn't to say Ride the Fader is any less successful than Chavez' debut. To be sure, when the semi-supergroup first appeared in 1994, they demolished the skepticism that would naturally accompany a band featuring former members of Live Skull (Lo), Bullet LaVolta (Tarver), Skunk (Sweeny) and Wider (Sweeny and Lo) with a potent blend of angular, heavy rock. Although some people seemed stunned by the shape-shifting drama of Chavez (thus dubbing it "math rock" in total disregard for the sheer organic power of the music), the band's first album was certainly one of the most powerfully engaging, dramatic and downright rocking debuts in quite some time.

Ride the Fader ups the ante. With Sweeney's vocals mixed louder and with an all-around more confident approach--although one might question how much more confident the band could get after the bombast of Gone Glimmering's "Pentagram Ring"--to the record, Ride the Fader is denser ("Tight Around the Jaws"), poppier ("Our Boys Will Shine Tonight"), angrier ("The Guard Attacks") and even prettier (the aforementioned "Ever Overpsyched"). It demonstrates a considerable growth in both the band's collective songwriting abilities, and a stronger conviction in Chavez's own sound. Naturally, recording the album was a pain in the ass. Lengthy sessions with producer Bryce Goggin (who recorded three tracks on Gone Glimmering and offered to produce the follow up) wound up being aborted, resulting in only two album tracks ("Unreal Is Here" and "Memorize This Face"). The band sought the last-minute production assistance of John Agnello, who had produced two tracks on Chavez's debut.

"It was the worst experience of my entire life and I wasn't expecting that at all," says Sweeney, managing a laugh. "I mean, [Goggin] had said that he really wanted to do the record with us, and for whatever reason he had a really hard time with it. I think he's been really busy and we're just these idiots that know exactly what we want, but at the same time we're totally open to suggestion. So, I guess we didn't like his ideas and he didn't like our ideas. It was really bad and he just wound up bailing. He said, 'Oh, I have to go do this Bettie Serveert record. Oh, I have to go do this Lemonheads record. I'm sorry. Bye.' And this was after wasting a lot of time on dumb mixes of songs. I think he's a totally great and amazing producer, but it just wasn't happening."

Given that Chavez wasn't the most stable musical ensemble in Manhattan, the situation was only exacerbated. "That's the thing," says Sweeney. "The four of us were having a hard enough time getting out shit together just to be in the same room. And then we'd go in to record and Bryce would want to try something and it would take hours and we wouldn't like it and he would get bummed out, and it just wound up being a tremendous waste of money... And John was just this savior. We called him up at the last minute and were like, 'Bryce bailed on us and we spent all our money on nothing. What can you do for us?' So, on short notice, we wound up pretty much recording the whole record in a really short period of time, because we were really under the gun. So we actually spent 10 days making the record and what seemed like a year on a few songs with Bryce."

Nonetheless Ride the Fader managed to get recorded somehow, and the results are amazing. However, as Sweeney concludes, they're not quite as amazing as Chavez would have liked. "I'd really like to see what would happen if we really tried," he says. "I mean, we tried and we're totally serious about it and we put a lot of effort into it, but it's just all been in short spurts. I wonder what would happen if we functioned like a real band and just weren't so retarded about everything."

-- Magnet Magazine, 1218 Chestnut, Ste 208, Philadelphia, PA 19107.