INTERVIEW: VOYEUR

GIMMIE INDIE ROCK!

Over the Halloween weekend, I went to a mansion in Bed-Stuy to see Voyeur play their third show. 

In the parlor-level living room, surrounded by kids in costumes, I posted up at the edge of the pit and watched the new NYC band perform a grip of good songs. Voyeur sounded noisy, to a point; their vocals, hard-boiled in the ReedGordonMoore mode, carried hooks that rang out beyond any damage. And there was a little damage. At one moment, singer and guitarist Jakob Lazovick charged at the crowd. At another, heavy-duty drummer Max Freedberg rocked a full-on solo. The band only has one single out, the moody, driving “Ugly," which they played that night. The chorus goes like this: “I’m ugly in an ugly world."

No doubt, Voyeur is a New York City band. Lazovick is a filmmaker who used to make music under the name Sitcom, and Freedberg also plays in Porches. Singer and clarinetist Sharleen Chidiac is a choreographer and one of the founders of the East Williamsburg performance space Pageant. Bassist Joe Kerwin is known for both booking shows and writing about them. 

It’s hard to say all that much about a band that has only played a handful of shows and hasn’t even released an EP. Judging from what I saw and heard that night, though, Voyeur seem ready to pick up the ball and run with it. Hell, they might even spin it on their fingertips a little bit. Rock and roll needs more of that. Ball is life. Last week, I met up with the band at their practice space in Brooklyn.

With college shows, you’re really just playing for the one kid who booked you. They don’t care that there’s four people there.

Joe: I saw Porches play in a fucking Starbucks, before I knew Max.

Jakob: I’ve played that Starbucks.

What Starbucks was it?

Jakob: At Northeastern.

Joe: Jake played there with his band, opening for Indigo De Souza. And it was lit—I drove with them and we got stuck in so much traffic. That was fun. But it’s a fucked up venue to watch people play. I saw Been Stellar play there, too. It’s cool to see people take the empty room plunge and shred it.

Was there a fireplace?

Jakob: No fireplace, it’s like a big room, that in the corner, there’s a Starbucks. A similar kind of Starbucks that you would find at a rest stop.

You know the Astor Place Starbucks used to do shows? 

Joe: Really?

They did an early Fischerspooner show there, when Andrew W.K. was one of their backup dancers.

Jakob: This was 20 years ago?

This was probably more than 20 years ago, or something.

Jakob: I’m just thinking about Andrew W.K.

For sure. He was around, in the electroclash era. Anyway. I think this is the first time I’ve interviewed a band that only has one song out. I feel like I’m an NME reporter. Should I do this in a British accent?

Joe: Probably.

Jakob: If you can do it.

Was that your second show, last Saturday?

Joe: We’ve done a bunch of lower key ones.

Jakob: I would say it was the third show. We were playing around with a bunch of different names last spring, and we did a couple bar shows.

Joe: An arcade show.

Jakob: Arcade at a bar. The show at The Hancock was our third show.

So, you were kind of testing out some ideas.

Jakob: Last spring, yeah.

Did your style morph in that time?

Jakob: Very slightly. Maybe to us, but not outwardly.

From the start of the band you had a pretty intentional idea of what you wanted to do?

Jakob: Yeah.

Joe: I mean, you were writing poppier shit for a while.

Jakob: My old band was a little poppier, it was kind of sample-based, like kind of alternative pop rock music. And I got to a point where I stopped wanting to do samples and stopped wanting to make beats, and I wanted to put a band together. So, I think there was a transitional period where I got Joe and Max on board, but I was still bringing the same songwriting from the old band. We’ve been playing together for maybe a year, even though we just started playing shows. We jammed for a while and I think realizing the sound that we could make as a three piece, now four piece, changed the songwriting.

So it’s pretty focused now?

Jakob: I think so.

Joe: Adding Sharleen and the clarinet changes the mission statement kind of significantly in a way that is cool. And we did that right before we went to record. So, even recording, I felt like I was figuring stuff out.

Sharleen: Yeah.

Joe: “Ugly” hits so much harder for me, post having recorded it.

So, you did a full EP?

Jakob: We have an EP that will come out in the winter. And we’re kind of going a single at a time.

Joe: But we recorded eight songs or something.

Jakob: Eight songs, but the EP will be more like five.

It was refreshing to see a band perform that wasn’t afraid to lean into certain tropes of New York rock and roll songwriting. 

Jakob: What do you think is New York songwriting?

I can’t recount any of the lyrics that I heard that night, but it felt like you weren’t afraid to speak within certain idioms. 

Jakob: Is there a lyric that did stick out?

No, but there’s a language and a history of rock lyrics within New York, and I think there was a generation that was afraid to fuck with that, because they thought it was too loaded, or the history was too much for them to engage with. But it seems like you’re leaning into it, and you’re not afraid of it, and you’re having fun with it. Does that make sense?

Joe: When you think about the people who pushed away from it, are you thinking about tweeness? 

I think about twee, and I think about a generation of indie rock that’s a little more chilled out, or a little bit more aloof in a certain way. But there’s a directness that I felt when I saw you play that was refreshing. But then again, I’m old and I don’t go out much, so maybe this is normal.

Joe: I do feel like, coming to New York, seeing bands not being afraid to bring rock star energy, or, I don’t know, not being afraid to be ambitious, because DIY—or some of the circles I was in—was hella anti-ambitious with putting out music. And it’s been fun seeing people who are just trying to put on a show.

Jakob: I just want people to dance. 

That show last week was good, people were responding to it in a way that felt exciting. What’s your favorite Sonic Youth record?

Jakob: It changes.

Sharleen: Experimental Jet Set.

Jakob: You say Experimental Jet Set? We just bought Experimental Jet Set on vinyl, as well as Daydream Nation. And I think that I’m feeling Daydream Nation right now, for the fall.

Joe: I fuck with “Bull In The Heather” heavy.

Jakob, it’s interesting that you used to write pop songs, because there was definitely a thing when I watched your set—every song, I was like, Oh, this is a good song. 

Jakob: I try to write a lot of songs, and I think songs should be a really simple thing that cut right to an emotion, and I think the only way to get a lot of songs that effectively have that directness is to write a lot of songs, because the majority of the ones you write will not do that. So, I just write and write and write, and the very simple things, the ones that stick, end up being what you call “good songs.”

Are any of these songs coming from improvisation or jamming?

Jakob: Yeah, we wrote two songs today. 

Sharleen: True.

Jakob: We want to play them tomorrow. There’s no words, we just jammed.

Joe: You just said “yeah,” that kind of works.

Jakob: The chorus was just “hey.”

It can be a nice thing, balancing improvisation and tighter pop songwriting.

Jakob: For songwriting, I think about stand-up comedy a lot. In stand-up, it kind of takes ten years, and I’ve been writing songs for most of my life at this point. But I relate to this idea in stand-up where it takes years to just to be able to feel like you can get up on stage and make a joke about anything, and kind of be walking down the street and be like, That’s a joke. And now I feel like, when I play guitar, I don’t need to think about what’s a song and what’s not a song—I can play a riff and immediately think, that’s three minutes of a song right there. 

Joe: It’s been cool, mobbing in here together, doing it as a team.

Sharleen: A lot of jamming.

Joe: It feels good to jam—pretty productive exercise. Max likes it.

Max: I like jamming.

Joe: Did you catch his fucking drum solo? 

Yeah. Max—how do you feel about drum solos? Is that something that’s going to be an important part of this band?

Max: It better be.

Joe: I feel like letting each instrument have a voice is an important part of this band to me, and definitely Max has a voice as a drummer, and that’s a pretty exciting thing.

Some of those songs reminded me of a few of my favorite Sonic Youth songs, where there’s almost breakbeats happening. Is that an influence?

Max: That’s kind of a newer addition. Jakob, you’ve talked about breakbeats a lot.

Jakob: Because it relates to dance, yeah.

Max: But there’s a new song we’ve been playing, that was the first thing I played. I’ve been listening to Daft Punk because I served them at my restaurant. I didn’t even tell you guys. 

John’s Music Blog exclusive.

Jakob: How did you know it was them?

Max: Two guys came in with helmets. No, it was on their sheet. So, I’ve been diving back into that.

Did they tip well?

Max: Yeah, I think 25 percent. 

Jakob: They’re European, right? So there’s no expectation that they should even tip.

Max: Any time you hear an accent, you’re like, Oh god.

They’ve been in America for a long time.

Joe: Where do they live?

I think they’re in LA.

Max: I heard them talking about, his partner had a real issue with their house because the waves were lapping on the bottom of it too loud.

Jakob: That sounds like a nice problem.

Malibu problems.

Joe: Someday, brother.

Sharleen: Some people put machines on for that, I have one of them.

Yeah, you put a wave machine on to counteract the effect of the actual waves. How has the clarinet—how has it been finding your place in this band?

Sharleen: Well, I also sing, and I definitely feel more strong in that instrument. I think I’m still finding the voice of the clarinet in the mix of it all. We’ve talked about it being a noise or a frequency that adds to the whole mix, and I think we’re still trying to play with what that sounds like, and how to arrive at that, so I think there’s still a lot of potential there that’s been undiscovered.

Jakob: First of all, we’ve been dating for two years, and I didn’t know she played clarinet. And then one time she just brought it out of the closet, and I was like, Oh, you have to play that in the band. But, the immediate thing I thought about was how I always heard a mono synth or some sort of thing that just oscillates during certain parts of the song, and to me clarinet was this perfect substitute for a mono synthesizer, because I think the ethos of the band is to not have anything that’s electronic or samples or even synthesizers, and the clarinet is this OG mono synth to me.

Sharleen: I actually play keys, so it would be easier if I was just playing the synth. 

Jakob: But it would be against the ethos.

Sharleen: It would be against the ethos, yeah.

Does it feel good holding a clarinet on stage surrounded by a rock band?

Sharleen: Yeah.

Joe: Is that vibey? I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to experience that, what the hell.

Jakob: You’ll have to trade instruments tomorrow.

Sharleen: I get winded in a different way, and it feels good. 

Jakob: Is that a pun?

That’s like one of those aughts Urban Outfitters shirts, it would say, like, Get Winded, and it would have a clarinet on it. Anyway. What’s the next six months like?

Sharleen: More singles, EP.

Joe: Booking some heaters, we’re going to do a free show at Baby’s as the next single release. It fell into place that we had three shows that I felt really good about, but it was also cool to do a string, because nobody knows who we are.

This is a fun part of being a band, it’s your first six months and you just play whatever you feel like and don’t think about it too much.

Jakob: We’re trying to not overthink it and just enjoy the actual playing.

Sharleen: Yeah, just enjoy being in the early stages of it.

Jakob: And practice a lot of… I feel like after every show, I go to bed thinking I need to be more devoted to the guitar and to my voice. Last week, we had two shows, and both times I went to bed being like, I need to come in here and practice every day. I really have been burnt out on anything that’s outside of the actual playing.

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