Feature

Everybody Knows You're Not from Here

Hiram

I met Cord and Jack of Wow & Flutter in 2000 when a band I was in was touring the west coast. We've traded shows since then and have stayed in touch until I moved here and we contact each other more often. The newest incarnation of the band--Cord on guitar and vocals, Jack on drums, and Ryan on bass and keyboards--play rock and/or roll with an underlying current of lyrical moodiness and on-stage shenanigans. They're kind of an exception to the rule of "Everybody Knows You're Not from Here," because Cord is actually from the area. As the song says, two out of three ain't bad, though. It should also be noted that, in full disclosure, I played saxophone and sang and my wife, Melissa, sang on their newest album Golden Touch on Jealous Butcher, in case there are any cries of foul. Oh, and I blew up Cord's amp at their album release show in December. The one thing I will say about conversing with the band to you, as a reader, is that you should believe about half of what's said. The other half you can do with what you like. Oh, and one final note, they weren't named after the Stereolab song.

HL: So you have to introduce yourselves.

Jack: I'm Carol.

Cord: Cord Jason Amato.

Ryan: Ryan.

Jack: What do you want to talk about?

HL: I don't know. How long have you been in Portland is my first
question. Are you from here, Cord?

Jack: Lake Oswego.

Cord: Yes, I'm from here. Corvallis, Hillsboro, L.O., Milwaukie. I lived in Portland for a little bit. I like to stay outside of Portland.

HL: I think this is the first time I've been in Milwaukie when the sun was out and I saw there was water across the way.

Cord: The sun's always out in Milwaukie.

HL: How long have you been here?

Jack: 16 years.

HL: So, awhile.

Jack: It's been awhile. I'm pretty acclimated.

HL: And Ryan, you've been here awhile.

Ryan: I moved up from Eugene 11 years ago.

Cord: So, when you were 5 years old?

Ryan: Yeah.

HL: Talk about playing shows outside of Portland, or in Portland?

Jack: We can play shows anywhere.

Cord: We'll play anything that moves.

Jack: We can play anywhere you want.

HL: Is there a difference in crowds.

Jack: Sure.

HL: Do people seem to get into more when you're "on the road"? Does it matter anymore?

Cord: I notice in Seattle that it doesn't matter how packed it is, there will always be a 5 to 10 yard radius no matter how many people. No matter how much they're enjoying it.

Jack: They just don't want to get spit on. They've seen those Nirvana videos with lots of spitting at people.

Cord: I've thrown a kick into someone's face before. Shit you not.

HL: Cord is a badass.

Ryan: Tell us about that.

Cord: It happened to be my mom. She was at the front of the stage and I told her I'm gonna throw some kicks.

Ryan: Maintain a five to 10 foot radius around the stage. It's the Seattle ring.

HL: I thought you told [Adam] Bartell you were going to try not to jump around as much.

Cord: Why would you ever listen to anything Bartell ever said?

HL: Because he doesn't lie. He lives in Milwaukee [WI] now and people don't lie from Milwaukee.

Jack: No one lies in Milwaukee.

HL: It's hard to be ironic or lie in Milwaukee.

Jack: 'Cuz you know what happens?

HL: You freeze to death?

Jack: You'll get your ass kicked. You lie to someone in Milwaukee and they find out about it they don't get mad, they just punch you
in the face.

Ryan: We decided to move toward focusing on our music craft rather than hijinks.

Cord: No, the truth is I one time jumped off of Ryan's amp and never returned.
I got stuck in the rafters.

HL: They were half way home before they realized you were gone.

Cord: Yeah.

Jack: All of our shows have been good. Since we've been playing with Ryan, all of our shows have been great according to our eight fans.

Cord: Lazer Flutter, that's all I gotta say. We didn't even need the lazers, it was that good. The lazers were better in practice, though.

Ryan: Dress rehearsal was off the chain. [long pause] So, we did > that. That's another thing we did. And before that we did "Three's Company" night.

Cord: We played this show at Slabtown one time and Jack got hammered and we tore apart the set list. That was when we decided we were going to tighten up our act and not do that as much.

Ryan: Was it Slabtown? Oh yeah, everything was strewn all over the stage.

Jack: Those things happen.

Cord: It's better if we play first or second, but when we're last on a four band bill and we're there at 7...

Jack: They want you to get there four hours before the show.

Cord: So what else are gonna do? You're gonna start drinking.

Jack: Why are all clubs like that?

HL: I've wondered that myself. Why do they want you there before the soundperson?

Ryan: How much do you trust rock bands to show up on time?

HL: That's what I've figured. It's because they have to deal with musicians.

Jack: "If we tell these guys 8, maybe they'll get here by 11."

HL: Except for when you live in town and they tell you to be there by 7 and the soundperson isn't there until 9.

Jack: No one's there. I decided I was going to be prompt with all this stuff and half the time you're banging on doors trying to get in. But that poses the problem of what Cord was talking about. What do you do in a bar for all that time?

HL: The worst is when you're on tour.
Jack: You visit the stuff around the city you're in.

Cord: Right. There's only so much coffee you can drink.

Jack: Before you start cutting that edge with something.

HL: Enough Bob Seger stuff. Are you recording anything soon?

Cord: We actually just booked time.

HL: Same place?

Cord: No, at uh...

Jack: Justin Higgins. He recorded The Hunches, he recorded The Ax.

Cord: He's a hard hitter and he hears our hard hits and he wants to bring that to the forefront. Dave Grohl sounded like Beat Happening before he was produced right. And he's $15 an hour.
Jack: He's giving us a break because he wants to record at least
one of our songs.

Cord: We're the most expensive band he's ever recorded.

Ryan: We're doing that in July.

Cord: Full meal deal.

HL: Nice.

Cord: It's funny because it feels like we just finished an album.

Ryan: We finished that a long time ago.

Cord: Yeah, two years ago.

Jack: We recoded it in 2007. You were there.

HL: Yeah, was it 2007?

Ryan: Yeah. There was a lot of mixing and editing and sequencing. If you listen carefully to that record, it is so sequenced. We don't want to sequence the life out of the next one.

Cord: The hard thing is we lost our lead singer during recording and we had to kind of redo everything.

HL: Who was your lead singer?

Ryan: Jesse Amato.

Jack: Jesse.

Ryan: Cord's twin brother.

HL: What happened to him?

Jack: Brain hemorrhage.

Cord: I'd rather not talk about it.

Ryan: Some bad blood?

Cord: Throat hemorrhage.

Ryan: It had to do with Cord kicking their mom in the face.

HL: How did you feel the last album worked out?

Cord: You were with us.

HL: You can't ask me, I'm the interviewer.

Cord: You've heard it, what do you think?

HL: I thought it was great.

Cord: Turned out good, I think.

Jack: It turned out really good.

Ryan: You don't want to hear the stuff we left off of it, though.

Jack: That's not true, either. There were songs...

Ryan: The stuff I edited out? Garbage.

Jack: There were songs that were garbage and there was stuff that was good that didn't work on the record. It's just the disadvantage of recording too much stuff, I guess.

HL: Did you guys just record a whole shit load of stuff then?

Ryan: We started about two dozen songs and then we finished most of
them.

Jack: There's at least six songs that were recorded that didn't
make it.

Ryan: Is Wow & Flutter gonna put out the next record on vinyl?

Jack: I hope so.

Cord: Well, we've got a lot that... can you record over vinyl?

Ryan: We can record over some of those.

Cord: Because we have a lot. We can turn the covers inside ourt.

HL: So are you saying the records didn't sell as well as your CDs?

Cord: The records don't get distributed.

HL: Really?

Cord: So I've got a lot. That's why we're actually out of CDs, so
I give away vinyl.

HL: I think you gave me a record.

Ryan: We were not going to give people who played on the record
free copies on vinyl.

HL: But then you wanted me to play with you and I had to learn the
songs.

Ryan: Yeah, we thougt if you give him the vinyl, he can slow it down and learn the complicated parts.

Jack: Since you blew up an amp.

Cord: Yeah, let's talk about that.

[We talked about it. It was boring.]

HL: So how did they ask you to be in the band, Ryan?

Cord: We actually haven't yet.

Ryan: It's unofficial.

HL: How did you manage to get in the band, then?

Ryan: I told a mutual friend, "I think it'd be fun to play with
those guys."

Jack: I think I asked a mutual friend and mutual friend talked to
you or something.

HL: Sounds like a junior high kind of thing.

Ryan: It was kinda like that.

Jack: OK, it was Rob Jones.

Ryan: Oh, I talked to Mike Hogan.

Jack: Oh, OK. Because I think I mentioned to Hogan if it would be
OK to ask you.

Ryan: Well, he played it smooth because I thought I asked him the
same thing.

HL: Do you like me? Do you like like me?

Jack: Here, give him this letter and have him check the box.

HL: I had no idea you guys were so into passing notes.

Jack: We pass a lot of notes.

Ryan: It's kind of complicated when you have a three piece band and you're passing notes to each other because one always suspects the other two are writing notes about him. I'll give Cord a note that says, "I think Jack's drumming is fantastic tonight."

Cord: We do a lot of compliments.

Ryan: Sometimes we don't want to actually tell the person we're
complimenting.

Cord: We tell the other person and two people win. It's like a double for Jack. Hey, Jack, Ryan said he thinks you're an awesome
drummer.

Jack: Really?

Cord: I didn't say that, but I said it as Ryan. See how it works?

Jack: Well, tell Ryan that I think his bass playing is amazing.

Cord: Cool. What about Cord?

Jack: I'll talk to Ryan about that.

Ryan: I think Cord's vocals sound a lot better now.

Cord: Yeah, thanks to you guys' backup vocals.

Ryan: Have there been backup vocals in past Wow & Flutter incarnations? What's the history of background vocals in Wow &
Flutter?

Jack: They're nonexistent.

HL: Also, have you had more members than The Fall?

Cord: How many have they had?

Ryan: No. They've had about 50.

Jack: No. [Jack and Cord count] We've had six ex-members. Oh wait,
seven. Four of those were drummers.

Ryan: Are you counting yourself when you switched to a different
instrument?

Jack: No, that would take it up to about 40.

Cord: Well, we haven't been around as long as they have. Give us
a couple more years. We have a big radio show coming up.

HL: Where's your radio show?

Jack: At KEXP [June 6th; KEXP is out of Seattle]

HL: You'll be on KEXP then?

Jack: On and interviewed. A lot like this I would imagine.

Cord: Hopefully not as long. Maybe we should try out the Trailblazers song we were going to try?

Ryan: Wrong market.

Jack: It would make Seattle feel weird because they just lost
their team.

Cord: Should we try a song then?

HL: You can, but this isn't a podcast.

Cord: Let's do "A Fine Line" [all sing guitar parts]. Ha, Bobby McFerrin goes lame.

HL: Anything you want to add?

Cord: Yes, we just signed with a super hot new record company here in Milwaukie, OR, called Funky Fresh Records. You can download
that from...

HL: So Jealous Butcher got tired of carrying you?

Cord: Well, it is Jealous Butcher, but he didn't want us to use his name. He thought it'd be better to use a different one.

Jack: Yeah, 'cause now that he does the Matt Ward and Decemberists stuff, he didn't want that association... with us... on that label.

Ryan: He's trying a different brand.

Jack: You know, Sonic Youth wasn't on Geffen, they were on DGC.

Ryan: Branding. It's an imprint of Jealous Butcher.

HL: So keep an eye out for the Funky Fresh album?

Jack: Yeah, this is where the heavy duty stuff goes down out in Milwaukie... so this is a podcast?

HL: No.

Cord: This isn't a podcast?

Jack: What are we doing here?

Ryan: We only sit down for podcasts.

Cord: Is this what you get off on at home? Is that why you do this?

And with that they left for better spaces to practice in, looking something like Athos, Porthos, and Aramis (or Larry, Moe, and Curly) and in search of someone who does a podcast. Check out their newest album Golden Touch on Jealous Butcher. To get a taste of the full-on rock and knob twiddling experience that is W&F, check out this clip of "Car Crash" from March 09, shot at Kelly's Olympian during their "Three's Company" show. Or, for better sound, check out this video for the tune "Red Face".

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