sounds of the youthful underground

by Lounge Lizard

Photos by Bay Millin, Chloe Borkett and Eastbound Downers

In 2001, a pair of brothers Dino Tarasin (vocals, guitar, keyboards) and Toppy Tarasin (drums, vocals, acoustic guitar) with expatriates Stirling Silliphant (bass, vocals) and Jan Apanich (guitar, harmonica) formed The Eastbound Downers (http://www.eastbound-downers.com/). Their madcap fusion of emo-punk rock with lo-fi sensibilities of American groups Pavement and Dinosaur Jr. allows the quartet to stand out among the current crop of run-of-the-mill emo-punk bands. Infusing harmonica and keyboards into their tunes, the band breaks away from convention and exhibits a child-like excitement and willingness to experiment with its sound.

The band had just played a couple of shows in Singapore in August. Aging Youth shot them a couple of questions and grilled them on ladyboys, the traffic nightmare in Bangkok and their sophomore effort and concept album, Broken Hearts & Paper Cuts.

The band started back in 2001. In the official biography, you guys stated: "The project would involve grit, rice gruel, late-night kebabs, fights with 6-foot-tall ladyboys, public incomprehensibility and over a hundred gigs on barely functioning backlines." Seriously guys? 6-foot-tall ladyboys?

Stirling : As serious as the concussion I would have had from the 20-pound candelabra their ringleader chucked at my head. Good thing Jan knocked it out of his/her hand. As we battled this enveloping wall of HUGE transvestites, their queen-bee extolled them, "Get them girls, KILL them!!!" This was only our second or third time hanging out as friends and here we were, brawling with crazed drag queens intent on re-assigning OUR gender. Dino and Jan - hardly the most physically imposing dudes - were remarkably collected and calm, all things considered, and we escaped unharmed.

Top : Out of these issues, I have only experienced three with the guys; late night kebabs, barely functioning backlines, and public incomprehensibility on a frequent basis. I just have to say that the first two are good. The last is very bad. I'm sure a ladyboy brawl is not much better.

So what's the real story?

Stirling : When we started the band, we were a little...bored isn’t the right word: we were having a LOT of fun. But it wasn't really fun for any sort of higher purpose as we, as music lovers, saw it. We were always sort of gate-crashing our way through the nights and talking about how great it would be for Bangkok to have some sort of coherent music scene.

Back then in 2001, the only thing even vaguely close to HQ for Bangkok's scene was the Immortal Bar at Khao San Road, where all the punks, headbangers and assorted rock fiends would cluster every Saturday night. That's where we made most of the friends who would become our core supporters in the early days. With the help of these friends, we launched the 'Noise Pop' showcase in March 2002. We found this dirty after-hours bar, Paradise Disco that was - architecturally at least - a carbon copy of CBGBs (shotgun layout, 20ft by 20ft floor in front of a 2ft-high stage and long bar) and booked punk, hardcore, metal and underground rock bands.

The owner sold the place after our fourth show and we've been homeless ever since. We've had 'our places' like Asoke Bar and Code Bar since then. But the story always ends the same way with the owner selling and what we'd hoped would germinate into 'the place' for the scene becoming a pool hall/restaurant/hip-hop club. I reckon this drifting has been one of our biggest determining factors as a band, and the reason why we've been able to meet and befriend so many other people making music here in Bangkok.

Dino : Jan was going out with one of my old friends from New York. We were introduced and I found out he liked punk rock and Telecasters. I met Stirling soon afterwards over a Bloody Mary. The rest is history.

Top : I was present at this initial meeting between Dino and Jan when I was in Bangkok on holiday from my studies. Later, I found out that the guys had formed a band and I was like, "Hey, cool." When I moved back to Bangkok, I joined the Eastbound Downers as the second guitarist so that Dino could jump around and cause a little more havoc. Not long after that, I was appointed "rock drummer extraordinaire", a time when we started writing the songs for Broken Hearts & Paper Cuts.

You guys released a debut album Deleted under Bama Records. There seems to be a strong hatred against that album within the band. Why are the Eastbound Downers so against being mistaken as a 'punk-rock band'?

Stirling : There's no "strong hatred" for Deleted. The production value is sac-on-tonsils suck, but we still love the songs and play them on occasion.

I realize our statements must sound like we're slagging punk rock, which I wouldn't want to do. Punk rock changed my life. It's the reason I picked up a guitar and realized that 'politics' wasn’t about who you voted for but about who you were, how you choose to live and how you treated others. That said, my musical education (and I think I speak for the whole band here) could not possibly be swept up under the rubric of 'punk'.

In Thailand, the term 'punk means Casualties patches, drinking and spiked Mohawks. You get no political philosophy or DIY sensibilities: Thai punks are not about to start up a Food Not Bombs or do anything more productive than start a Rancid covers band. That's probably why we all got a little ruffled finding ourselves classified as a punk band.

We definitely tagged ourselves that way in our early days when were all about rocking it out fast, fucked and furious. People wouldn't forget our live shows, but neither would they remember a single note of what we'd just played. When we started to care, when we started to realize and respect our songwriting abilities more is when we sought to work ourselves out of that association.

Another thing is few people here have ever heard the early American underground stuff (the 'classics' like Dinosaur Jr., Mission of Burma, The Wipers and mid '90s stuff like Unwound, Slint and Pavement) I was weaned on, or even newer bands (like Built To Spill, Granddaddy or Modest Mouse). Once in a blue moon, you'd meet a punk kid who knew At The Drive In, or some art rocker who'd heard of Mogwai. So instead, people wrote on web boards that we 'sound like a Thai Sum 41' (thanks, but no thanks!) and really missed what we were going for.

International School kids even asked us to play a Good Charlotte cover once. So, I guess the resistance to the 'punk' label is a resistance to any sort of labeling, mixed in with our not fitting into the particularly narrow definitions of 'punk' existent in Thailand. That said, I really admire Thai bands like Brand New Sunset, who aren't really 'punk' musically, but still brandish the label with pride.

Top : The Eastbound Downers, it seems to me, have always been associated with "punk" because of the mentalities and philosophies of the individuals in the band. Do we play "punk-music"? I don't think we can be defined as such as we continually dabble with all sorts of genres. We enjoy challenging the expectations of the listener as well as ourselves. Who knows, maybe it’s time for an Eastbound "country" album, in which case you define us as "punks playing country music".

I ran through the new album Broken Hearts & Paper Cuts. I noticed there are very strong emo-punk leanings on this outing. Is this a clearer representation of the band's current musical direction?

Stirling : Personally, I'd like to sound more like Explosions In The Sky or Pelican. Jan would probably want us to sound more like Atomic Bitchwax with a dash of Elvis Costello and Sam Cooke. Top and Dino might want us to sound like something completely different. We never set out with an agenda to record a certain genre-specific sound: we just set out to create the sum total of our collective musical passions.

'Emo-punk' is itself a pretty broad term that can be just as reductive as any other. Are we talking about the early Dischord stuff like Hoover or Rites Of Spring? Are Unwound and Drive Like Jehu (two of my all time favorite bands and probably the ones I'd most want Eastbound Downers to be compared to) 'Emo-punk'? Is At The Drive In Emo? To any of these, I'd say 'yes', these do represent respected referents and our current direction. But, if you're talking about the type of 'Emo' that’s listed in the music section of 15-year-olds' myspace profile, then we digress.

Top : Everything's emo these days. I think that consciously trying to block out any influence of a genre would be cheating as we are all inspired by our environment, surroundings, as well as personal tastes. There is more folk and Baroque on this album.

Despite the emo leanings, I notice there are shades of lo-fi legends Pavement in the Eastbound Downers in 'Girls Are Alright'. I felt for that tune that Dino has a Stephen Malkmus-esque vocal quality.

Stirling : That's actually me singing (unless you mean Dino's vocals on the outro chorus). To the extent that I have any 'indie-rock heroes', Stephen Malkmus - along with Lou Barlow, Jon Spencer, Steve Albini, PJ Harvey and Frank Black - is one of them. All of these artists have had a tremendous influence on my songwriting, but I'd also cite Bryan Ferry, Brian Wilson, Stephin Merriitt from The Magnetic Fields and, of course, Jonathan Richman as influences.

Top : It isn't supposed to be lo-fi! It's supposed to be epic!

There's mention of Hopewell revival in 'Girls Are Alright' and the track 'Hopewell Catastrophe'. What's a Hopewell?

Stirling : Bangkok is full of semi-completed buildings (called TuukRaang, or 'Ghost Buildings') and public works projects, abandoned after the Asian crash of '97 (which Lee Kuan Yew famously referred to as 'Tom Yum Goong' disease). The Hopewell Elevated train was one of these projects, although the reasons for its abandonment were internal and not directly caused by the economic meltdown.

The Hopewell meant well: Bangkok is one of the world's few metropolises where trains lumber through busy thoroughfares, worsening an already unfathomable traffic problem. Even Jakarta has its trains off its streets. So, they built hundreds of kilometers of support pillars to run the trains across so that they wouldn't obstruct traffic. When the project folded due to corruptions and fiscal mismanagement, the pillars stayed on and they continue to perplex Thais and foreigners alike. They're a sort of Siamese Stonehenge, leading those who notice to wonder who built them and why. To me, they represent opportunities squandered by small-mindedness and avarice, which typifies much of what's wrong in Thailand and perhaps most of Southeast Asia - if not the entire world!

But they simultaneously tease out the reasons why life in Bangkok is so unique. Nothing works, but somehow everything ends up working out...the paradox of modern life in the Asian city. I personally can't get enough of it.

I'm assuming Dino will be in-charge of the primary songwriting. Your lyrics are often rather oblique in their references. What inspires the lyric-writing aspect of the songs?

Stirling : Yes, that's true, although he collaborates with his brother, Top and helps me arrange my songs. He'd best answer that. For me, it's simple: all my songs are about girls, with some sort of nod to political economy. 'Girls Are Alright' uses the Hopewell Project [see above] as a metaphor for an abandoned relationship. 'Broken Hearts & Paper Cuts' is about building a rickety foundry to clone a lost love, and 'Monolith' is about a young woman so depressed that she can't see there's a war raging outside her window. I've been kicking these songs around - writing and rearranging them in my head and on my acoustic bass - for years.

Dino : The inspiration for the lyrics came pretty easy with this album since it's a concept album. I wrote most of it while having breakfast in McDonalds waiting to do the vocal tracks. The hardest part was sticking to the story line.

Top : We all bring our individual ideas and visions for scrutiny by the other band members. In terms of music, Jan, Dino, Stirling and I all have some hand in guiding it to its existing state. On the topic of words, it's interesting for me as a drummer who doesn't write lyrics to see the two singers in the band work up their respective lines. Comparing the two, Dino and Stirling have blatantly contradictory writing styles which I think is best suited for this ever-shifting, contradictory band.

Obviously, Broken Hearts & Paper Cuts is a concept album with 4 different movements reflected in 4 separate chapters. What is the whole theme of the album?

Dino : It's basically about a deteriorating relationship which ends in a bank robbery and a shoot out, and our protagonist being killed. The whole story is told in a flashback after his girlfriend shoots him in the first song. The album is this guy's dying thoughts.

Top : There are several prominent themes here; Death, Love, Girls Being Bad to Boys, Boys Being Bad to Girls, Goodbyes, and Bangkok.

Why does the album start with Chapter 1: End? What does the rest of the chapters, The Chase, Begin and The Plan signify?

Dino : We usually like to leave the interpretations of our songs to the listener, but here's a rough guideline: Chapter 1 is when shit starts happening: the shootout in the woods after the bank robbery. Chapter 2 is the actually robbery and chase scene. Chapter 3 is when our protagonist first meets his love in high school and Chapter 4 is when the relationship starts going bad, and she’s making him do all these things he doesn't want to do like robbing banks. We decided not to order the Chapters chronologically since we wanted the songs to develop a sort of crescendo, like the big intro which summarizes the rest of the album, then a false calm, then orchestrated shit-storm from the bowels of Satan.

Top : Endings are easy. I guess it's because they end. Going through the events that lead to the ending is always more intense. We wanted to capture that moment in limbo. This album ends when the shit is almost over...but doesn't end, since the end is in the beginning...which is easy. Dig?

I dig 'Sailboats, A Cutter Rig, And Gollywobbler Schooner Model' for its contemplative feel. But what the hell is a Gollywobbler Schooner Model?

Dino : http://www.seadercraft.com/sailboats.html

Top : I want to know what it has to do with girls shooting guys who are nice to them.

Stirling : Do you realize how hard it is for ANYBODY, let alone a native Thai speaker to pronounce this?!?! Sometimes I think we're a bit harsh on our audience.

Judging from the outro of 'Sailboats, A Cutter Rig, And Gollywobbler Schooner Model', is the band huge fans of honky-tonk and country music? Or is it a piss-take on the genre?

Stirling : I think Jan and I gotta answer this one. We're both kids of Asian immigrants, raised in the USA, and adore old-school Country, Bluegrass, Oldies and of course, Rock'n'Roll. We certainly wouldn't 'piss-take' on some of our greatest sources musical inspiration. Hell, our band name is taken from a country song - Jerry Reed's 'Eastbound and Down' from the Smokey and the Bandit soundtrack.

That outro is one of Jan's few songwriting contributions to this album, and, for me it's a breath of fresh air as the song's a bit too post-rock to me. It's more like a Battle of the Bands tribute to 'Young Team', to be less charitable. So when Jan busts out with this three-bar blues, harmonica-wailing outro after this plodding, repetitive number, I lost my shit. It's perfect.

Top : Like I said, it's just a lead-up to our next "country" album.

I'm rather unfamiliar with the Bangkok underground scene. Stirling, you commute between Singapore and Thailand pretty often. What's your take on the differences between the Singaporean and Thai underground music scene?

Stirling : Most of my Singaporean friends say the Thai scene is like Singapore's a decade ago. That assessment is telling: Singapore's scene has more history, more bands, labels, promoters, more frequent shows and more scene politics. That's both a good and bad thing.

Pound for pound, the Singapore scene is more prolific. Bands have more confidence and engage their music with an esprit de corps that's exhibited by only a handful of Thai bands. Thais are well-known for their modesty, and this extends to the bands, who get complacent about the way things are (no money, no gigs, no recordings) and get stuck in this, "who would want to hear our music anyway" rut. Well, if you think like that, nobody will ever hear your music. I get incensed at it, but I'm not Thai, so it's not my place to push an agenda.

But, every once in awhile, you find a band that's different and your faith in the whole scene is revivified. That's why we still do it: we couldn't be in a band unless we were able to play shows with, and be inspired by our friends in the scene here.

What I love best about the Thai scene is the novelty and freshness of it. There's a wide-eyed wonderment to which people approach going to shows which I don't see that much in Singapore. Maybe that's because we drink a lot more. But, with so few shows and bands, I reckon we just don't have the luxury of being choosey, so the support and enthusiasm creates a euphoric high. But, then you look at how much bands have to put in (their time, money, energy, etc) to get so little back and then you crash big time.

It's my understanding that some music-related events in Singapore are subsidized by public funds (shows at The Esplanade, for example) which I think is great. Asia just doesn't have the ease of access to independent, creative and experimental music that Westerners take for granted. In Thailand, we got Simple Plan and Good Charlotte TWICE and even Marilyn Manson was cancelled, due to low ticket sales. The Esplanade, on the other hand, brought Tortoise last year and is apparently bringing in Mogwai next year. It's great that government money is going to support good music and I wish something like that could happen in Thailand...

Bangkok is infamous for its traffic jams. Have the Eastbound Downers ever been late for any gigs due to you being stuck in a jam?

Top : Never for gigs, always for practice.

broken hearts and paper cuts

1. Chapter 1: End
Dino : Jan was flicking through some Thai radio in the middle of the night. This is what we got from it.

Top : We were intending to put a whole Thai country song in this intro but due to our insufficient knowledge on copyright right laws concerning seemingly ancient songs, we decided against it.

Stirling : Thai Copyright laws??? Bahahahahahaha!

2. The Blade of Czar Qavi
Dino : Protagonist gets shot, sets the stage for the rest of the album.

Top : This song was written as a 1 minute album-opener. It ended up being the longest, most strenuous Eastbound Downers song. The song name was a practice-session working title which we never got 'round to renaming. The classical guitar line in the bridge-thing was a joke I never thought those guys would take seriously.

Stirling : I dunno what this song is about but I came up with the name after I got a tattoo that didn’t quite go as planned. It ended up looking like the logo of the Islamic Extremist groups who were beheading hostages in Iraq. A friend of mine said something like, 'Dude, is that the blade of Zarqawi?' and the name stuck. The bit that's now the instrumental interlude used to have me singing this horrible bit like "Oh, won't you save me from the Blade of Zarqawi?" which I thankfully canned upon hearing how great it sounded without vocals during this recording.

This song also marks the first time I started using a plectrum to play on this recording, because I wanted the bass to have that booming, stadium-filling Ampeg SVT sound that just didn't come across with finger-playing. Well, it still doesn't have that quality on the recording, but it does live!

3. Downers Grove, Il.
Dino : This is the shootout in the cabin in the woods. Protagonist still loves her, even though she went crazy and served him a bullet sandwich.

Top : One of the first songs we wrote for the album with some of my personal favourite discordant notes in it. The first time I heard Jan's solo was in the studio, recording the track!

Stirling : I much prefer the faster version we recorded a few months earlier for the Panda Scream compilation. What cheeses me off the most is that when I laid down the smoking bass track for the earlier version I was in a state (I hadn't slept after a big night out) and played directly into the board which I refused to do for the album recording. Here, I'm well-rested, sober and playing through a brand new cab and tube head and it STILL don't rock as hard as the old track.

4. Chapter 2: The Chase
Dino : We needed a suitable interlude for the next song, so Jan recorded some birds chirping in the wee hours of the morning.

Top : Dictaphone art.

5. Girls Are Alright
Top : A song we molested with keyboards, timpani's, and various experimentations with the Casio-tone (later completely discarded). Initially quite bity and brash, we decided to replace Stirling's original growls and yells with his hidden crooning abilities, made known to the world ever since that recording session.

Stirling : I've said a lot about this song already. I'm still not happy with my vocals on it, which Top and Dino refused to let me do another take after the first two. But I do love the bass. I think it was the first track I laid down and I was just starting to get comfortable with my new rig and reeling from the sweet, fat tones I was getting out of it. I still do...

6. Hopewell Catastrophe
Dino : This is the chase. I hate my vocals on this one.

Top : Some crazy guitar-riffing brainstorm sessions went into this one, as well as copious amounts of tweaking of guitar pedals.

Stirling : It's a fun song to play live but boring as hell to record. It's simultaneously my most and least favourite song on the album. Why? I don’t like the English version but I just luuuuuuuuuuuuuurrrrve the Thai version! Dino actually asked P' June (co-owner of our label and singer for Bear Garden) to write Thai lyrics for the song which she did, at her own pace. That is when we'd finished recording everything and were ready to mix down. Dino was too knackered to do any more vocal tracks so P' June went in on her own and layed down the Thai vocal track.

7. Chapter 3: Begin
Dino : Another interlude, we were mixing down the final tracks and it was POURING outside. Our producer got his old organ to work so he started hitting spooky notes Phantom of the Opera style to go with the rain while Toppy and I were using an acoustic guitar as percussion.

Top : This interlude is not the result of a drunken night of assorted tomfooleries. We actually planned this thing! What we couldn't control however was our producer's ugly-as-sin, albeit intentional chording.

8. Love At The Bluelight Disco
Dino : This is when our protagonist first meets his future lover/murderer...at the Bluelight Disco.

Top : Another exercise in zealous guitar-effects tweaking. I don't know what the other guys were doing but I was working with our producer to get enough feedback out of Jan's Custom Telecaster to blow up the studio monitors by simply skimming your fingers over the strings. Aided by an Electro-Harmonix Big Muff, a Boss (I think) distortion pedal, and some magic amps. The Casio-tone finally made a guest appearance on this one. Our dance-metal effort.

9. Sailboats, A Cutter Rig, And Gollywobbler Schooner Model
Dino : She agrees to meet him outside the dance, but she never shows up. He thinks she found someone else because she is the most popular girl in school.

Top : I think the other guys will agree with me here. We totally objected to Dino's idea to use the Vocoder (the voice effect) on his vocal-lines. I thought it was too tacky and kitschy. It may be suitable for a trance club track. Then Dino locked himself in the studios for about 10 days and let me listen to this track WITH the Vocoder. I am now happy that we couldn't stop him.

Stirling : The first time Dino did that Vocoder thing live, some wise-ass friend of ours started calling him "Electro-Frodo".

10. Broken Hearts & Paper Cuts
Top : Dino and I successfully snuck handclaps and bongos into this track to Stirling's dismay. I believe this was one of the first songs we had written on keyboards. Casio-tone too!

Stirling : I dug the handclaps but those bongos were not funny. And we lost them early on! Anyway, this is the point in the recording where I’m all busted up over a girl. This is a real life story, not the album’s storyboard. It didn’t help that I’d had it in my head this song was going to be about her and I still hadn't finished the lyrics when my time came up to do the vocal tracks.

The funny thing about this song is how the words were changed a lot, in reflection of the moods that I sunk in and out of in the days when I was penning the lyrics. It was initially a lyrical downer which didn't suit the music at all. Some people say it sounds like Pavement...fuck that! Sparks, man! Sparks!!! But the words just didn't flow, so I said screw it and started putting in all these nonsensical words phrases like 'jacked-up fatalist' and 'love-hungry cosmonaut', and it got a lot sillier and more fun.

Ultimately, I wanted it to be something that we could all have a good laugh at. Toppy, who was with me the whole time, helped a lot: not knowing what the words were about, he identified the bits that just didn't fit and these turned out to be the most angst-y and self-indulgent parts. The mournful refrain is more than compensated for by the stupid-ass power-pop outro chorus (which Top and Dino helped me write) in which the heartbroken narrator successfully clones his departed love with 'cells' scraped from an 'earring, scarf, and love of hair' and, presto, "she is like a photo"!

11. Chapter 4: The Plan

12. Haircuts Anonymous
Dino : This is a pretty straightforward love song.

Top : One of the early Broken Hearts & Paper Cuts songs. Many of the vocal harmonies were worked out in the studio while we were recording. As the organ was too large to fit into the sound-proofed recording room, we needed to stretch a microphone out to the studio’s living area without sound-proofing. If you strain, you can hear birds chirping outside.

13. Intentions To Deface A Monolith
Stirling : I actually like my vocals on this. But the bass just DIDN'T have that swaying, hypnotic Vern Rumsey (Unwound) quality I wanted. I get it right live now because I found the right overdrive pedal for the job (Fulltone Bass Driver) which I didn't have for this recording.

Enough of me though, what REALLY makes this song come to life is Jan, who - with the help of our producer, P' Pok - came up with the hauntingly simple guitar track he plays on the slow refrain and the outro. You've just got to love it when the people you play music with know what you want more than you do.

This is a dark song about a depressed young woman who cuts herself. The question posed is: what if this woman had grown up under the shadows of falling bombs and artillery fire. Would the duress of living under the peril of death have changed her perspective, inspired her to rise up and overcome her personal quagmire? The answer seems to be no. Instead of fighting, resisting or turning to herself, she "sang fire to the jets" and welcomes the "cherished harm" brought down by her "sister sky".

14. The Remainder Is Divisible By 2
Dino : She's making plans for the bank robbery. Our protagonist knows this is a bad idea, but he goes along with it anyway knowing it’s gonna end in bloodshed...Rinse, repeat.

Top : I think this could be our most intense song. It took an awful long time to complete as we always left it as the final track to work on in each session. An arsenal of keyboards was used in this track as was an immense amount of vocal work (the only track featuring vocals by all of us). Those overseeing the songs' keyboard tremolos and guitar agitation were given free reign. Stirling's bass went through various mutations resulting in that eerie whatnot you can hear during Dino's solo. (It was) a truly enjoyable recording experience.

Stirling : All I got to say is that there's THREE bass tracks on the all-hell-breaks-loose bit towards the end: one straight, three-chord progression, one distorted progression an octave up and one distorted muted, plectrum-picked E-chord. Wish I could do that live. There just aren't enough hands on the human body, are there?