Neon Musical Insight

For Neon Musical Insight’s first exclusive interview, I recently caught up with Martin Courtney — lead singer of the 2009 sensation band Real Estate — to discuss their well received debut album, various other projects that are, and have been in the works for quite some time now, and truly how much of an inspiration fellow Jersey acts like Yo La Tengo have been on their music. Real Estate just dropped a new EP entitled Reality via Mexican Summer, and will be embarking on a European tour at the end of January 2010.

Neon: How has life on the road been treating you?

MC: It was good. We got back like a week ago and it was really awesome. It was my first tour across the country. This was actually a lot more chiller because we didn’t have to actually drive everyday. There wasn’t a schedule that we had to abide by, which was pretty intense. There were a lot of really long rides and stuff, but it was good. I was really ready to get home.

Neon: You’re gonna be home for the holidays and everything then?

MC: Yeah, we’re gonna be home until late January. We have a tour in Europe starting then. Yeah, but between now and then we don’t really have too much planned. We have a show in Philly on January 9, and we’ll probably end up playing some shows in New York.

Neon: Your debut album has been pretty standout, and the critics have also been obviously agreeing. Has the acclaim reached an overwhelming status just yet?

MC: Yeah, it’s kinda overwhelming (chuckles).  Just for the fact that we’ve been hearing nice things from places that I’d never expect to hear from. It’s cool getting attention from bigger places like Pitchfork and stuff… really anywhere is exciting. It’s great that people are taking time to write about it. I remember a time when we first started this band thinking how cool it would be for someone to write about our music, anything really, so it’s been pretty crazy. I usually try to avoid reading that shit, but my mom will e-mail me because she has our band set as a Google Alert (laughs). She’ll read all the reviews and I’ll end up getting them and read through. It’s definitely cool and exciting.

Neon: I mean it’s a really good album. You guys do deserve all the attention that you’re getting…

MC: Thanks man. I mean for me, when I listen to it, it’s almost like a mixtape of songs that we recorded over the past year. I mean it doesn’t really sound to me like it’s that cohesive, but that’s just because I’ve heard those songs so much in different context. It wasn’t like we went to a studio and recorded for a month. It was the opposite of that. We spent six months recording straight. There’s multiple versions of nearly every song, but we left a few out which were originally fast.

Neon: The overall feel of your self-titled album possesses a very summery element, with its chimy jangles on guitar, mellow vocal approach, and blue-skied album artwork. Fittingly, the last song is entitled “Snow days”. Was the album meant to encapsulate this sort of influence of weather?

MC: Yeah, most of the songs on the record were recorded over the summer of ’08. It was an interesting point of my life because I had just graduated from college and was living home at my parents’ house and just soaking in those feelings of nostalgia. It was sort of a conscious decision to absorb the summery, laid back vibe. I started to realize that a lot of the songs were about water and swimming. That was just a weird thing that just sort of happened. The artwork I guess goes along with the record, but that was just something that I found in a book that we all thought was really kind of cool.

Neon: With song titles like “Beach Comber”, “Suburban Dogs”, and “Atlantic city” it’s clear that your songs are represented as products of your environment, being from New Jersey. Do you think that this is an important element to your music?

MC: For me, the hardest part about writing songs is writing the lyrics. I don’t find that it comes super easy to me, so I usually end up writing about where I grew up and things that I know. I’m not gonna pretend like I’m from anywhere other than the suburbs. People need to latch on to something when writing I feel like. After a while, I guess our aesthetic is suburban life. It’s a choice to stay true to what we know.

Neon To clear the way, the material featured on your new Reality EP, are they extra songs that were recorded around the same time of your self-titled effort? Or is it all new material?

MC: Mostly recorded around the same time as the debut, but it’s not like the songs are just throwaways. After we had the songs that we knew we wanted for the full-length, I kept writing songs, which now became the Reailty EP. Some have a different vibe. The last song, “Dumb Luck” is actually really old. I was like a sophomore in college when I wrote that.

Neon: What made you guys decide to also form the side-project Alex Bleeker and his freaks? Is it meant to sort of step away from the more familiar sound of Real Estate?

MC: Well it’s like Real Estate is my outlet for writing my songs. Matt has been doing Ducktails for a while now, even before Real Estate, and Bleeker has been writing forever. He played guitar before I did. He had a thing for a while called “Dinosaur Barbeque”, which consisted of his garage band recordings where I’d collaborate with him sometimes. Bleeker just decided last summer why not start a band? Since he had all these songs lying around and everything. He wanted it to sound sort of like Crazy Horse or something. A little more 70’s classic rock style.

Neon: Have you found other past Jersey bands such as the Feelies and Yo La Tengo to be influences on your music?

MC: I remember in high school first listening to that song “Moscow Nights” by the Feelies, and I really liked that song, but I hadn’t really heard Crazy Rhythms until maybe two years ago. I remember in high school Bleeker would be like “Oh you gotta listen to this band the Feelies. Weezer ripped off their album cover!” Which is like apparently true. Later, we found out that they were from Haledon, NJ, which was crazy. That’s like twenty minutes from where we’re from. But I think the bigger influence, at least on me in my songwriting, is Yo La Tengo. They’re like my favorite band… I really love them. During early Real Estate, when we were really trying to figure out what our sound was, I was listening to a lot of early Yo La Tengo. That shit is just incredible. They really kind of spanned different genres. You can do a lot only being influenced by Yo La Tengo… you can still do really well. Our friends in Titus Andronicus played with them (Yo La Tengo) last summer in Brooklyn at McCarren Park, and they both came on stage together and played a Misfits cover of “Where Eagles Dare”… That shit is insane! I was so jealous of them. I was like “I can’t believe you were on stage with Yo La Tengo!” It would definitely be really awesome to play with Yo La Tengo someday. That would be like a dream come true.

Neon: Yeah, Titus Andronicus is a Jersey band also. Is that how you guys hooked up?

MC: Yeah. I’ve been friends with all of them for a while. I was actually in a band with Patrick Stickles (of Titus Andronicus) before Real Estate called “Seizing Elian” in reference to Elian Gonzalez (laughs). Patrick and I grew up together and have been buddies for a long time. A lot of people seem to think that I’m like an ex-member of Titus Andronicus, but that’s totally not true. I played one show with them, but I was never like officially in the band.

Neon: Any other contemporary bands that you’ve been really digging lately?

MC: Well aside from all of my friends’ music, I really like Woods and Kurt Vile. They’re both really fucking amazing. I’m really into Kurt Vile. The cool thing about touring is that we get to play with bands that are really fucking cool. We toured with Girls, who are really awesome and really nice people too. We also played with the Smith Westerns who are cool too. They’re like kind of snotty, obnoxious kids (chuckles), but it’s cool. I love them. They’re a really great band.

Neon: Any other future plans for 2010? You guys seem to have a lot going on as it is…

MC: Just trying to write new songs and practice. I’m sure we’ll tour the U.S. again. We’re gonna do a 7” with True Panther and then after that we’re just totally gonna focus and writing and recording the next Real Estate album.