Uncles:The Interview

I once spent an hour driving around Queens with Uncles. An interview ensued:
How did Uncles form?
Dan: Uncles first started out as Will and I’s songwriting project in High School. We recorded at home, and it wasn’t really a band at first. It was just the songs and those were the centerpoint, at first the people playing on the recordings were just adding background sounds.
And with the new record, m4w, the band now plays a much bigger part.
Will: Our new record is really lush, there’s synthesizers and guitars and things, and we really just wanted to develop the songs this time in the studio, because the whole idea on our first record was to strip everything back where it was just the songs with very light backing arrangements, and we really didn’t want to do that again. But at first, we were pretty reluctant to add electric guitars and drums into the mix.
So would you say the production and arrangements are the main differences between the first and second record?
Will: The songwriting is also much more developed this time around, because we got more interested in writing choruses with real hooks on this record. There’s tighter songwriting and tighter composition on this record, it definitely has more of a pop feel to it.
I listened to “Turkey Water” on headphones for the first time recently and I started hearing all these things I hadn’t heard on speakers.
Will: I think it’s definitely a headphone record.
What strikes me most in the new record is this conflicted relationship with the idea of the hometown, of returning home. There’s a lot of bitterness towards the hometown, but there’s also a lot of pride, I was struck by the line “it’s the kind of town you don’t mind coming from” on “Ballad of Lehigh Valley.”
Will: That’s a dual line, because you come from there, you don’t stay, you’ve definitely left home for a reason, but you don’t mind coming from there. Living in New York, most people here aren’t from here, and I think it’s a city of homesickness in a lot of ways, and that definitely found its way onto the record.
Dan: A lot of the characters are all sort of homesick in one way or another, but that’s also a reflection of Will and I being together; we grew up together, so when we write songs together it’s always sort of a reflection of turning back to where we grew up in some sense.
In my mind m4w takes places at a sort of crossroads between the city and the country, in a way. It’s a very geographic record.
Will: Definitely, and I think American music is often very geographic music. People like to stress where they come from.
Dan: There’s a Midwestern feel to a lot of the song I wrote, I spent a lot of time there growing up.
I think both of your songwriting styles really complement each other, but the’re also very distinct. You can always tell who wrote which song. But you do both share a lot. For one, you both pay a ton of attention to detail. Danny, I think one thing you’re great is getting at little specifics, especially with proper nouns and brand names. There aren’t too many folk songs about Gristedes.
Dan: That vernacular isn’t really part of the folk tradition, but it’s a huge part of the hip hop tradition. It’s a big part of all of our lives, so I relate to it, and I think singing about it is a way to get people to lift up their ears and listen.
Will: The everyday references, the local references, Danny does that all really well. There’s so much room for new stuff in folk songwriting, still.
Danny: You have to try to reinvigorate the old way of doing things in a modern way. That’s a huge part of what we try to do, all of our songs are set somewhere that’s very relatable to the present moment.
You’re not trying to sing about the Dust Bowl.
Will: No, not at all!
Dan: Maybe the Dust Bowl of the future.
WIll: The songs are all focused on the now, definitely.
I think that comes across. I don’ think anyone could listen to this record and say this is a bunch of folk revivalists.
Dan: To some degree we are, we are working with traditional forms, but we’re trying to do something new.
Will: Right, we disappoint folk and country fans for not being traditional enough, and we disappoint indie rock fans for being too traditional.