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When a professional
football player decides to start up a record label, one might
assume that it would be a metal or hip-hop label. But when Denver
Broncos defensive fullback Trevor Pryce stumbled upon some MP3s
by a North Carolina band called Roman Candle, he was so smitten
by what he heard that he immediately signed them to his just-launched
Outlook Music label.
Comprised of brothers Logan and Skip Matheny, Roman Candle is
decidedly not hip-hop or metal. If you were in a pinch and absolutely
had to tag the band with a genre, you could loosely brand it
as "power-pop."
That term may describe what the band does musically; after all,
Roman Candle has all the catchy hooks and volume of vintage
Cheap Trick, but the power-pop tag doesn't really describe Roman
Candle's heartfelt lyrics or its soulful delivery, which is
much closer to Ryan Adams than to the Knack.
Combine the power-pop chops and the singer-songwriter delivery
and you have a sound that is not only ready made for college
radio, but also helped Roman Candle find a place for itself
within the legendary Chapel Hill music scene.
"The Chapel Hill music scene, as we've experienced it,
is in a stage where it's not really defined by one particular
thing or type of music," says Skip. "When we started
playing in Chapel Hill, we'd play anywhere that would take us
- from the clubs full of hipsters to the bars full of frat boys.
We seemed to get a good reaction everywhere and I think we were
accepted because of our songwriting."
"Our dad was a band director and his father was a choir
director in a Southern Baptist church," explains Logan
when asked what first inspired him and his brother to write
songs.
"Our mom's side of the family would make pilgrimages to
the Grand Ole Opry every Sunday in a flatbed truck. Music has
been in our family for years-and-years."
"Another thing that inspires us is good songs," adds
Skip. "When a person reaches 16, they discover what they
think is a good song - whether it's Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen,
Smokey Robinson or even Britney Spears. Hearing great music
while we where growing up really inspired us."
Although being exposed to a steady diet of Dylan and Smokey
at an early age can do wonders for the artistic development
of a person, the Matheny brothers were influenced by more than
just music.
The two are fans of literature. This love has filtered through
to the confessional tone of the lyrics on Roman Candle's debut
album, Says Pop.
"We are big fans of writers like Flannery O'Connor and
Walker Percy," offers Skip. "Anything that can get
a story across just by details kind of puts you in the moment.
A pop song is a really limited format.
Traditionally, songwriters have just three-and-half-minutes
and a limited amount of words that they can fit into that time,
so details are very important. O'Connor was a master of using
detail."
Old Southern texts may have taught the brothers a lesson in
lyrical thrift and attention to detail, but it also taught them
something even more important: It taught them how to be good
storytellers.
The art of storytelling seems to be a lost art in the realm
of 21st Century pop music, but it's one Roman Candle takes seriously.
"None of the stories in our songs are autobiographical,"
says Skip. "Stories are more interesting when they don't
come from somebody delving into their own psyche. Parts of all
our songs come from our own personal experience, but those parts
are only sections added to created characters.
I try to put things in our songs to let listeners know that
it's not something that has happened to me in particular. The
most blatant line on the record is, 'I'm an old man now.' I'm
24 years old and that's not something that somebody my age would
say.
In addition to being proficient songwriters, the members of
Roman Candle are also competent producers. The tracks on the
album were recorded in a basement studio. During the recording
process, the brothers listened to as many producers as they
listened to artists.
"We really like the idea of writing a song on acoustic
guitar or piano and taking it into the studio and making it
into a recording," explains Skip.
The band gathers a lot of ideas from the great producers of
the past, as well as the trip-hop producers of today. "Brian
Wilson, Phil Spector and Jimmy Page were all great," says
Logan.
"And so are DJ Shadow, Massive Attack, even Groove Armada.
They are really good at bringing out subtleties." Despite
the impact that current electronic producers has on Roman Candle,
the band will always aim to keep things organic with an old
analog warmth.
"On the album, we have guitar sounds that we were getting
in the basement that we were trying to get to sound like samples,
because some samples have the warmth and crackle of old recordings,"
explains Skip.
"So it sounds electronic, but it is real." From the
lyrics to the guitar chords to the organic production, "real"
is exactly what Roman Candle is.
by: Brad Filicky
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