Quilt is amorphous. When you think it impossible for their music to be any more like the slow-drip honey of a lava lamp, they somehow manage to do just that. Their warm, reverb-laden flavor of neo-psychedelia is irresistible and just aloof enough to make you hunt each second for the secret to its charm.
This week, the band is releasing their third album, Plaza, and are celebrating its release with a show at The Museum of Fine Arts. With the similarly nostalgia-minded (but orchestrated Italian pop) stylings of Tredici Bacci opening, you have to wonder if the museum will be installing shag carpeting wall to wall and taking tours on VW Microbusses.
Friday’s performance is looking to be a very special performance for the band. They’ll be augmented by a string quartet conducted by Simon ‘Luxardo’ Hanes, the mad but ever-suave frontman for Tredici Bacci.
Allston Pudding caught up with Quilt’s singer/songwriter/guitarist Shane Butler over the phone for a few questions before the album’s release.
Allston Pudding: First of all, congrats on the third album! A lot of bands don’t even make it that far.
Shane Butler: Yeah it’s crazy. It’s something that’s a bit of a surprise, but it’s also a blessing, you know?
AP: How are you feeling with Plaza so close to release?
SB: Well, I’m really ready to make another record already. We finished this one about a year ago, so all that I can think about right now is how I want to write new music. And that’s kind of the main thing. I love the record. I love Plaza. I feel like we got a lot of things done on it that we needed to get done, and I just want to make another record.
I’m feeling very psyched right now. I want to go explore the studio a bit, which is funny because we’re about to leave on tour and go play these songs forever. Yeah, right now I’m having the ache to make some new music.
AP: That’s interesting. A lot of the ideas for Plaza were demoed or recorded on the last tour, right?
SB: Kind of on tours, kind of in between tours. A couple of songs were actually written even before the last record was released. So things come and go. There are two songs that specifically came to me while I was on the road, on tour [with] whatever tools around I could use to plan. So that’s something I’m excited about for this upcoming tour—to bring a few little things with me, because when you’re on tour you have so many limitations, but I think limitations make really great art. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens with the turnaround.
AP: The new album’s title, Plaza, represents a coming together. Can you speak about that concept?
SB: Don’t ever trust press releases, because somebody words them in strange ways [laughs]. But I will say it’s a coming together in terms of a bunch of different types of songwriting approaches. Because we have multiple songwriters in our band, and then we also write all together… We started to do it a little on Held in Splendor, but this one is more like me and John [Andrews] and Anna [Fox Rochinski] all wrote at home, and then we also all wrote together in the studio. The final product is kind of like a mix match of all of those things.
AP: You mentioned you’re blending the writing styles of separation and being together. This is the first Quilt album to feature four members, correct?
SB: Yeah, it is.
AP: Is the songwriting different now that that’s a factor?
SB: I think the difference is that the rhythm section is really, really solid. You know, we record, but we track live so that’s the whole band that you hear. The bass of the recording is all live and then we layer on top of that usually when we’re in the studio. So this time around just in the songwriting and then in the actual recording it’s just a lot bouncier.
Which is great, because beforehand, I would have to hold down a lot of the bass and play rhythm/lead guitar. We have a lot more freedom now, which is great. Keven [Lareau] is such a great bass player. It’s put a whole fresh spin on things.
AP: You chose Simon Hanes [once of former Boston band Guerilla Toss and currently of also former Boston band Tredici Bacci] to arrange strings for the album. How did that collaboration come about?
SB: I think Anna and him were just talking for awhile. We go back with Simon for a while, when he was in Guerilla Toss, and being Boston, well, homies.
And so Anna and him were talking and then the idea of him arranging strings came up and we were all really excited about it. So he came into the studio and we sang him some ideas, told him some ideas we had in mind, and he went and wrote out some amazing arrangements for the strings on the album.
AP: Is that how Tredici Bacci got booked for the MFA show?
SB: Well, Tredici Bacci is a pretty awesome band. I think if we were playing the MFA and Simon wouldn’t have arranged strings, we may still have had them.
AP: What made you choose the MFA as the location for your album release show?
SB: It’s something that we’ve been talking about for awhile, wanting to do a show there. Some of my favorite concerts I ever saw in Boston were at the MFA when I was younger, a long time ago. When I first moved to Boston I remember there was a guy who would curate the music there named Dan Hirsch, and he put on a lot of great shows at the MFA.
It’s a really special place. I like it a lot. Too bad we can’t do it in the courtyard, because that’s where they used to do shows. It’s just incredible because you have this big swinging tree, and the architecture is incredible. But, we’ll be doing it in the auditorium.
How did it come about? Anna talking and figuring it out. It’s funny because me and Anna both started the band when we were both at the Museum of Fine Arts School. I always had this feeling like ‘oh, this band was like a thing I did on the side while I was in school,’ because I’m pretty serious about my fine arts practice too, and it’s funny that now we’re performing at the MFA but it’s for the thing we did on the side while we were in school [laughs]. I kind of like that idea.
AP: You talk about that history you’ve had in Boston, whether in school or just being out around town. Do you feel like Quilt’s dynamic has changed now that the band isn’t based directly out of the city?
SB: Well I mean, I’m sure you know if you live in Boston now that the scene is always changing. It’s never really one thing. I lived in Boston for seven years, and the scene switched over so many times when I was there that a lot of people who were my closest friends just didn’t even really live in the city anymore by the time that I took off.
I really love Boston, it’s one of my favorite cities. But I did reach a point with the city where I felt like I needed to go and I think that the rest of the band did as well. I’m not originally from Boston… I’m from New York. And I moved back to New York, which feels really good to me for a lot of reasons.
And for our music it’s a good place to be around right now just because our record label is there and a lot of our close friends’ bands are there. But we still have a lot of close friends in Boston. In terms of dynamics of the band, we’ve always kind of done our own thing… I think we have a great dynamic in that way [laughs]. We all live in different places, and we spend a lot of time communicating, we spend a lot of time with each other, we play together a lot. But at the same time, we have the freedom to kind of explore our own thing.
The fact that we all live in different places, it’s really great because we’re really dedicated to the band and we tour a ton, we write a ton, we go into the studio a lot. But then also, by living a little bit removed from each other, we can have our own lives and be our own people away from the band as well. It’s a really healthy balance, I think.
AP: Well, I’m glad you chose such a great spot to open the tour.
SB: Boston definitely feels like our home city in terms of our band. I don’t think that’ll ever change. You know, we really came up in Boston. We still have a lot of heart for Boston. Always.
Quilt will be performing at the Museum of Fine Arts on Friday, February 26. Tickets can be found on the museum’s website ($16 for museum members, $20 for nonmembers). Plaza will be released on the February 26 via Mexican Summer.