Altered Zones

[From left to right: Omar Ahsanuddin, Nash Whalen, Dusty Jermier, and Ripley Johnson of Wooden Shjips; photo by Ripley Johnson]

By Andy French

MP3: Wooden Shjips: "Lazy Bones"

Since their inception in 2006, Wooden Shjips have focused psychedelic experimentation into tightly wound bundles of rhythmic furry. Their early days were marked by a strident DIY attitude, from recording their own albums to releasing singles compilations on their own label, Sick Thirst. I recently phoned guitarist Ripley Johnson, bass player Dusty Jermier, drummer Omar Ahsanuddin, and organ player Nash Whalen to talk about collaborating with Sonic Boom and producer Phil Manley on their forthcoming LP on Thrill Jockey, life as a "San Francisco band," and the mythology of the American West.

AZ: Early on, I heard a story that the "j" in your name is an homage to Swedish psych.

Ripley: Yeah, that's true. It really comes from Pärson Sound and Träd Gräs och Stenar. When I discovered those records, I think Subliminal Sounds released those on CD, and I got really into those. The first pressings were really small, and so that was the first time they were really available. I was talking with a friend who was half-Swedish, and we were joking about the spelling, so that's how it came about. It was one of those things that happened really off the cuff, and you end up explaining it for the rest of your life [Laughs]. I still like the fact that we have it but we're not like Swede-o-philes or anything like that.

AZ: I wanted to talk about the new album, West, a bit. I noticed that for this album you moved into the studio, whereas in the past, you've been very adamant about doing things yourselves.

Ripley: Well, I think we wanted to change it up and try something new. We'd started recording the record ourselves the year before, but things came up, and we couldn't really get it together. So we wanted to go in and do it really quickly and we realized that we needed help to do that. Also, we wanted to go in and play around with recording the drums differently and using different mics and things like that.

AZ: And how did you hook up with Phil Manley of San Francisco's Lucky Cat Recording? Was that a previous connection or did that come out of working with Thrill Jockey?

Ripley: We'd actually known him for a while, since when he played with The Fucking Champs.

Omar: We shared a rehearsal space with them.

Ripley: Yeah, we'd shared a rehearsal room with them and we'd known the Champs since their Santa Cruz days. Omar and Nash and I all lived in Santa Cruz, so we've known The Champs forever.

AZ: Well it's a much bigger-sounding album. Do you think Phil played a role in bringing that out?

Dusty: Yeah, I think he really had a lot to do with that. I mean, we were really all involved in trying to get the sound we wanted and he was helpful in getting us there. He had a lot of ideas. Also we were in a more proper room [than our practice studio], so we got more of the room sound. Also we had a lot more tracks to work with. We recorded 16 tracks. A nice 1/2 inch [tape]. A nice room, decent gear, and a good engineer with good ideas really added to that larger sound that you're talking about.

AZ: Sonic Boom was also a part of the mastering team. You've been compared to Spacemen 3 in the past but have mentioned in interviews that you don't consider them to be an influence. How did you link up with Peter Kember?

Ripley: Yeah, the Spacemen comparison came very early on for us. It was never a really big influence for us but after getting compared to bands for so long you feel the need to go investigate. That happened with Spacemen 3 and with Loop and The Doors actually. I bought some Doors records after people kept comparing us to them so much.  How did we meet him?

Omar: We played with Spectrum.

Ripley: That's right. We played with Spectrum but did a split 7" with Spacemen. It was the idea of the label in the UK [The Great Pop Supplement]. We never met him but that was sort of the beginning of the relationship, I guess. Then we played a show in Louisville, KY where we actually played together because one of his synths broke and he needed someone to back him up. So, it was sort of born out of there.

AZ: He has a pretty distinct sound. Do you think he added his own touch to the record?

Ripley: That's one of the interesting things about recording. You start with your sound and your songs and it gets changed more and more during each part of the process. I think he definitely added something to it, but its mostly just little tweaking. He was only in on the mastering so it's not him going in to add effects or anything. Ha, as far as I know.

AZ: Ripley, you are the frontman for two bands. Are there ever songs that start as Moon Duo songs and become Shjips songs, or vice versa?

Ripley: Usually, I just try to focus on whatever project is at hand. If there's a song that I write for one band and it turns out it doesn't fit, I might set it aside for the other [band], but that's really only happened a couple of times. For the most part, whenever the Shjips can work, then we work only on Shjips stuff.

AZ: You've said that the theme of this album is the American West. Could you elaborate more on that?

Ripley: Well, it's difficult to explain. I guess it was something that was on my mind when I was writing the songs, because I was in the process of moving to Colorado. Which is funny, because I actually moved East, but [Colorado] feels more Western in a mythical, "American West" sense. It was just on my mind a lot: the West and what it means to me, because we all grew up East of the Mississippi.

Dusty: More or less.

Ripley: Yeah, more or less. So, just the idea of the Manifest Destiny-- that you can reinvent yourself-- is sort of a loose theme for the record. And of course, we're kind of identified as a San Francisco band. It's not something we set out to do, but it's always a focus in interviews and articles. It seems to be very important to other people-- the fact that we're from San Francisco. So that's just become part of the band's identity, now even for us. More so than I think we really expected, and it comes into the music.

AZ: The San Fransciso scene seems so disparate, with all the garage bands and the various psych factions. Do you really think there is a San Francisco sound, or is it just something that gets tacked onto you?

Ripley: I don't think there's a particular sound per se. I think you can focus on particular periods of time with a given sound-- like the late '70s punk scene or the '60s scene obviously-- but no, I don't think so. I think if we were from Milwaukee we would still make the same type of music. I think for listeners it's different. In the pre-internet days, you had a record, and maybe some photos and liner notes, and that all contributed to the listening experience, where you imagine where this music comes from and how it was written and recorded. You might see the name of the studio and it says "Wally Heider" or something, and you can imagine all kinds of things from that. I think the fact that we're positioned as a San Francisco band brings all these associations into the music for listeners, maybe more so than for us as musicians.

AZ: So you don't feel that there's a sense of community? I know many of the San Francisco garage bands have said they feel the bands and labels form a kind of family.

Ripley: We actually seem to see people from San Francisco bands more when we're playing festivals in Europe or something like that, oddly enough. So yeah, I don't personally feel like we're that much a part of a particular scene here.

Omar: I think it just kind of happens. There are a lot of bands that have a lot of different sounds, and only a few places to play here. I don't think there's a really set, defined scene. There's a really diverse set of bands there and depending on what you like, it's available.

AZ: After the album and your upcoming European and North American tours, what's next? Is there a Volume 3 in the works for your singles compilation series?

Ripley: Yeah, I think we're about due for another one. I guess we've got an LP's worth of those now.

Dusty: Maybe next year.

AZ: You put out Vol. 2 on your own label, Sick Thirst. Is that something you'd do yourself again?

Ripley: We haven't discussed it, but it's nice to do that. Self-releases are just fun. We love to do the compilations because we don't want things to be hard to find, or out of print, because that's kind of lame. We like to do vinyl, so when we come up with enough tracks to sit on a piece of vinyl, that's usually when we do it.

AZ: Any thoughts on using Sick Thirst in the future to release music by other bands, or is it strictly the house label?

Ripley: Yeah, it's just kinda for us because none of us really want to be in the label business at this point, I don't think…

Dusty: More and more, I'm learning to leave the business on the business side of music. It's too many boring logistics and details that just aren't that great.

Ripley: It makes you appreciate small labels-- labels that are putting out music by bands they really love. It's not an easy job. So it does make you appreciate the work they do when you've tried to do it yourself.

West is available now in Europe and the UK, and is set to drop September 13th in North America via Thrill Jockey. Visit the label for upcoming tour dates