June of '44 Interview by Michelle Frazer

i hope this works i dont know if its going to work. [refering to the tape recorder]

Sean: I'll stand closer to you. can i read your notes?

yeah definitely. this is stuff that other people wanted me to ask you guys about. i dont know if you can read my handwriting.

Sean: no, i can read some of it.

theres this guy he's from Sweden he wanted me to tell you he said hi. he went all the way to Germany to see you guys and i guess he hung out with you there.

Sean: Stephan? from ootz-ah-bourg?

maybe i don't know, hes from somewhere in Scandinavia and he wanted me to ask you guys if you were going to go back, if you were going to go to Scandinavia in the fall.

Sean: we kind of have a tentative tour planned there now but I'm not exactly sure if its going to work out. like the tour could work out but I'm not sure that's what we want to do right now. we may cancel it just because we dont think, well, some of the camps are like, lets go lets play as much as we can it would be great; the other camp is like, we dont want to tour too much on the record we just did. whereas we would actually like to make a record where we took our time making a record so we might take that time that we would have been touring to make that record.

well then what was the deal with four great points?

Sean: what do you mean what was the deal?

if you didnt take your time...

Sean: that record was made in like, ten to twelve days. like we wrote it in ten to twelve days.

but you wrote it all together though.

Sean: yeah.

so its not like you guys write pieces and then bring them together.

Sean: not that record. some of the earlier records were like that.

do you do the lyrics that you sing and does Jeff write the lyrics that he sings? how does that work?

Sean: it works that what he sings he writes and the lyrics that i sing i write. some times when we sing together one or the other will write them.

ok so the one who sings the most thats like your song?

Sean: exactly.

the fact that you all live in different cities does that affect the way your music comes out?

Sean: sure because in between the times that we play together, were influenced by so many things. i think a lot of bands that stay together all the time, they get really incestuous, and they just constantly keep regurgitating the same ideas. whereas we play together for awhile, really feed off of each other, and then we go to these really sometimes far away places from each other and gather a bunch of other ideas that we would have never gotten had we stayed together all the time.

so then do you think that all the other bands that everybody plays in, like lungfish or the shipping news or Rex, do you think they affect the music that goes into June of 44?

Sean: i think it would be silly to say that they didnt. like, the people I've played with its kind of like a love affair I'm in, and theyre with me all the time. and if they make a huge impact on me, it comes out in a lot of different ways. not only in music but in the way i practice my life. so yeah, they definitely have an effect.

Doug: the bulls are up by sixteen.

hi Doug.

Sean: this is Michelle.

Doug: we've met.

i was going to ask you: the music that you play outside of this band, Rex and directions in music and HiM, is so different than this, do you look at this as a change of pace?

Doug: yeah, i mean its a change of pace because its not the same thing. both directions in music and the him stuff, theyre not really bands. theyre at this point recording projects and the whole approach to making those records is totally different from the way we make music.

so its not a constant?

Doug: no, its not a constant. at all. i mean, we might make another directions in music record, but i dont know if we will. I'm going to continue to make HiM records, but thats something i just do when I'm home. it keeps me busy when I'm home and thats just more of a means of getting a lot of different friends together who are around and want to contribute and just having fun sitting down and recording music. directions in music was the same way, bundy and James asked me to contribute on a few songs which ended up turning into the whole record and it was like we practice today and then we went into the studio and did it so its not a band and we probably will never tour well never do a live show with that. the him stuff might tour, but yeah June of 44 is a change of pace only because of the approach to making the music.

do you think that you would ever bring HiM or maybe even Rex on tour with June of 44, the way Fred did with the boom?

Doug: Rex already toured with June of 44 once about a year and a half ago. we did a whole states tour together.

oh. every time I've seen Rex I've seen you with the rachels, actually.

Doug: i would never do it again, though. its too much. its just physically too much. and plus i got a really terrible flu on that trip. it just wiped me out made me never want to tour again.

I'm glad you got over it.

Doug: yeah, but, it affected my outlook on touring. i did it for the reasons that i wanted to be home more, i thought well if i we tour at one time maybe it will work and i can stay home longer. i did stay home longer and it sucked.

how much does your home in general, just as a geographical place, because it seems like your music makes so many references to places and ambiences and where you are in song titles and in art and in everything, do you think that the fact that youre all from really different kinds of cities influences your music? do you write with that in mind?

Sean: i think place absolutely affects me in every aspect of the things that i make. whether its music or art. wherever i am i usually just facilitate that, i usually try to give back to that because thats what i take in. if I'm in California or new york, it doesnt matter where, I'm taking in those types of stimuli. you take them in, and you receive them and then you transmit em and then you put them back out. and sometimes you try to convey places that youre not at. but for me most successfully is trying to make things which are in the same landscape as wherever you are. i know that the music weve written in this band, in Brooklyn for instance, greatly varies from stuff weve done in Kentucky. and that just seems pretty obvious why that is. were getting different stimuli.

you think its a matter of where you are when youre writing it, not necessarily that the four of you are from different places.

Sean: i dont think its an either or. i think theyre both right.

Doug: for sure. what he said is right, and also that were from different places, we come from different backgrounds, we grew up in different places, and were four very different people and yeah that makes a big difference. generally we have similarities in the music we listen to, but we listen to different things, were coming from different places so we all bring an element to the band. and over the three and a half years of the existence of this band were learning how those four elements work together more and more every time we play. especially over the last four months i think the music is greatly changed and evolved from where its ever been before and i think were beginning to realize where were at, you know? weve talked about this a lot, Sean and i , we think this is just the beginning really. thats the cool thing about June of 44. we didnt know each other before we started playing together, and our only way of knowing each other has been by the times weve gotten together to write music and go on tour. thats how weve gotten to know each other; by playing music.

how did you guys get together to form this band to begin with?

Doug: from touring with other people. i knew Jeff, I'd met Jeff in Louisville. Sean and Jeff had met. Fred and Jeff had met separately. i guess Jeff really initiated it in the beginning because he had some songs he wanted to do, and he wanted to express some more things with music and when rodan broke up he had been impressed with us three as individuals. he initially made the calls.

so its all your fault?

Jeff: what did i do?

Doug: you fucked up man, you fucked up ok?

you formed this band.

Sean: its all your fault man.

Doug: i met you. we all met you separately. you called us.

Jeff: oh, it was the informative what brought June of 44 together question?

it was that I've never ever read an interview with you guys, I've never read any interviews with you and Jason, and i know i should have but i didnt.

Sean: no, you shouldnt have. its so exciting that you havent.

so i have no idea what other people have asked you. or what anyone is interested in knowing, but me.

Jeff: that's nice.

so I'm going to ask you something that I've always always wanted to ask you: sanctioned in a birdcage. what does it mean to you? because i know what it means to me, and i don't know what it means to you.

Jeff: well the music or lyric?

i guess the lyric.

Jeff: because musically it was a very immediate song to work on. a riff happened, and we all started playing it out.

whose riff?

Jeff: all of ours. it was a junction of four different people being freaky and it turned into this thing. but then the nature of the way the song itself developed, which was never really a song, in its entirety. the words for the song had been written two years before the song was composed.

you wrote them?

Jeff: yes. and the nature of the way the song developed, it being the first song that we ever composed that way, just like bam heres this sudden like crazy piece of music, the words seemed very, i was like, wow these words would work really well with this song. and what the words are about are kind of like destroying things and having them be reinvented and then people not having respect or ominence for the source of things or where they came from. trying to protect themselves. people trying to protect themselves from becoming extinct. do you know what I'm trying to say?

yeah, i think i do.

Jeff: like technology and relationships with people and the way a modern person may evolve. were kind of de-sensitized to things that have happened in the past.

so thats a negative thing, to try to protect yourself?

Jeff: not necessarily to try to protect yourself, but to not have respect. not to have respect for the things that have happened. in your life or like years before you were around. another way, a lot of my artwork, the things that i make on my own time, they are built and sculpted out of things that have long since been forgotten, old-school things, rhetoric and old trash. so i think thats what its all about. and the whole birdcage thing, thats just a metaphor for that exactly. like putting yourself in an isolated position to try and keep you from experiencing things to a lesser or greater degree. its like ok i can contain myself in here, i cant expound, i cant levitate.

Doug: what's it mean to you?

sanctioned in a birdcage?

Doug: yeah.

oh it means so many things to me. especially the birdcage metaphor, which i guess is one about protection but how much you can miss if you do shut yourself away. i thought about it in terms of other people, if you dont let yourself open up to anybody else, youll be missing out, youll just be by yourself. you might be safer, but youll never experience any heightened sort of...love.

Jeff: to never let yourself go too far up or go too far down with anyone, your experience with that person will be minimal. exactly.

thank you. I've always wanted to ask that. other people had questions for you too. i asked a bunch of people what i should ask you guys. somebody wanted to know if other people are critical of your other side projects and other bands. they used the words in your scene but it seems that youre all from different scenes, i consider that where youre from, so are there other people that are like, why are you doing so much? what is the purpose of doing so much?

Jeff: its interesting because June of 44 started out as a side-project. its pretty full on these days but it was never intended to be a full time project. all the other things that we were doing at the time, had not necessarily taken precedence but those were the things that we did when we were by ourselves, at home.

were you involved in another project?

Jeff: not at the time, no. no i wasnt, but Doug was doing Rex, and Sean was doing the Sonora pine.

hey, you dont play with them anymore, with her anymore, i don't know what to call it anymore. do you?

Sean: no, not right now.

then its not a final separation?

Sean: i dont think so. we talked about making more music together. i think it probably will happen at some point. for the most part, most of my relationships, musical or otherwise are pretty much ambiguous and theyre best left open-ended. i have a problem with finalizing things.

do you like the second album? its really different.

Sean: i thats a hard question. its hard for me to be objective.

i understand. i like it, though, its quite pretty.

Sean: thats good.

i was going to ask you when the shipping news started.

Jeff: it started i guess in...

[i miss Jeff's answer because Sean and Doug leave and say good bye and hug me]

youre not going to run away now, are you?

Jeff: oh no, I'm here. sorry it took me so long to get back. we had a hard time finding places to eat dinner.

that's ok. i figured that.

Jeff: its so busy in this neighborhood.

thats what south st.s all about.

Jeff: I'm moving here you know.

thats what i was going to ask you! i heard youre moving here. i dont know how i heard but i did.

Jeff: at the end of June.

where exactly are you moving to, do you know yet?

Jeff: probably the Italian market.

for any reason?

Jeff: my beloved girlfriend is going to school at the university of the arts and I'm following her.

i love Philadelphia. I've lived here my whole life. i grew up about four blocks that way and half a block over. now i go to school in the suburbs, but i love this city. good show scene too. and good local stuff, too.

Jeff: it seems like a bunch of people are moving here these days. three or four years ago it seemed de-evolutionized, or something like that, but not any more. it seems theres a bunch of good stuff coming. I'm excited to live here.

thats good. do you have a day job?

Jeff: i did. i was working at a printing press in Chicago, we printed all the June of 44 stuff there.

yeah. thank you for reminding me of my other question which i cant read, which was why is four great points in a jewel box?

Jeff: because after we recorded the record, even before we recorded the record, we thought that the music sounded radically different from any of the other records that we made in the past. so we didnt want to present it in the traditional June of 44 format, we wanted to make it secular and different from anything else weve ever done in the past. and also, not by my right, necessarily, but our aesthetic on our first three records was sort of wearing thin on other people in the band, like this whole ship thing that I'm infatuated with, and working at fireproof press and wanting to always incorporate fireproof press into the making of the artwork and stuff like that.

but the shipping news was also in a jewel case. that really shocked me too.

Jeff: it kind of just seemed natural to some extent. for some reason. its funny, as much work went into the artwork of that record as went into any of the other albums, rachels or ours.

i mean, its pretty, i was really excited. i remember Bob Weston had a copy and was playing it over the p.a . when the rachels played the knitting factory, right before it came out, in the middle of November, and i was standing right behind him, he was sitting and he took it out and i was like oh my god! and then he played it over the loud speaker and we could hear freds bass.

Jeff: oh you mean June of 44.

yeah, he was playing four great points. and we were like 'but its a jewel case, it cant be them,' but it was definitely you.

Jeff: wow thats cool that he was playing it there. bob is amazing. I'm a big fan of Bob Weston.

yeah,i can tell.

Jeff: hes a really good guy to work with, and hes just such a friendly person.

hes done all of your albums, hasnt he?

Jeff: except for the first one. our friend James Murphy recorded our first record.

do you have a favorite?

Jeff: its interesting, i think i like the first one and the last one the most. the oldest and the newest one. i think the ones in between we were at a kind of weird morphing period of our musical life span. it was kind of like this weird tension and i think the second two records have this weird tension in them because we done the first record which was this experiment which was somewhat successful because we were doing it again. but we just didnt know where to take it the second time. whereas on the latest recording we have kind of put things in a specific group perspective and have an understanding of how we play music with each other.

Doug was saying that he looks at this, at four great points, and i guess what you guys have reached now after playing and touring together, as some sort of beginning.

Jeff: exactly. again, like the first record we wrote and recorded in two weeks. none of us had met each other really, like he was saying before, I'd met all of them touring and things but in fact before we practiced we'd never had an opportunity to sit down and say hey whats up. five minutes after we were all in the same room for the first time we were playing music with each other.

so was this everyone you had in mind? did it work out the way you wanted it to?

Jeff: i wanted to play with Fred, and i wanted to play with Sean and i didn't really know who was going to play drums. but i was psyched about doug's drumming and i didnt know if he would be able to do it or if he would have any interest in doing it. and it worked out. i think on our first record worked out really really well, i think it retains a little of that new eginess, like wow these people dont really have a clue what theyre doing.

that's my favorite one. i really love engine. is your moving away from Louisville going to affect the shipping news at all?

Jeff: actually i live in Chicago. and Jason and Kyle live in Louisville.

so its not going to make a difference.

Jeff: no its probably going to be portrayed as the same, just as June of 44 will be the same. and it has been from the beginning, just scheduling time to work with each other things like that. we're going to get together in the fall, probably write another record.

you and Jason and Kyle?

Jeff: yeah. do a little bit of touring and recording.

so you're not going to go to Scandinavia in the fall with June of 44?

Jeff: well we might go to Scandinavia. the thing is that things in Europe are really good for us right now. and like we had a great time and we were just there. but we were just there pretty much all of February and the beginning of march. and it just doesnt seem necessary for us to go back right away. so rather than go back and basically be playing the same exact songs we played there the first time, we thought it might be a better idea for us to concentrate more heavily on writing a really good record.

do you think that record will be a lot like four great points? or do you think you're going to make another sort of leap.

Jeff: it just depends on where we are at the time. it could be a gigantic kick-in-the ass backwards you know. who knows. who knows whats going to happen. the excitement about things with us is we never really know what were getting into. we didnt know what we were getting into with four great points til we mixed it down and heard it sequenced. we were like 'oh so that's what we just did.'

i hope you write something Philadelphia inspired.

Jeff: well i guess since I'll be living here, I'm sure i will. i will personally, lyrically. I'm really excited about living here. this is part of Philadelphia that I've never seen before.

really? [I'm surprised because south street is the obvious place people from out of town visit in Philadelphia besides independence hall]

Jeff: we've always played at that asshole place, nicks roast beef.

let me tell you, i want to thank you guys so much. this is the first time that I've been able to see you in this city.

Jeff: i know. I've apologized to three or four people for never playing an all-ages show in Philadelphia. I'm sorry it took so long.

m: thats ok. it was worth the trips to the black cat in February and i saw you at the knitting factory last summer.

Jeff: that knitting factory show was so fun.

that was a good show. i was standing right up front. well i think I'm done.

�2000 Co-Production & Michelle Frazer

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