Cock-Now: The Offering captures this real outdoors kind of feeling, despite entirely electric instrumentation. It feels to me sort of like a wild forest thing, an openness, at times driving (running), at times Ewok villages preparing for war. (Versus perhaps a feeling of claustrophobia coming out of the city.) How do you think nature and Virginia in general affect your music (or do you think it does)?
Andrew: I like your second description. It goes back to Charles City.
Charles: We did a lot of initial writing on a soy farm in Charles City, Virginia, about 30 minutes from Richmond. It was a very open, very natural setting, and completely inspirational. Maybe this has effected our music a little in the way you're describing.
CN: Every time I hear ‘Like The Day You Stole The Color From Our Eyes’ I hear the chorus vocals as saying ‘Judy Garland, Judy Garland,’ even though I know that’s not what you’re saying. So, what are you saying and, was the Judy Garland subliminal reference intentional, or am I projecting again?
Charles: The song has absolutely nothing to do with Judy Garland. But if that's what you take from it, ok cool.
Chris: Then again, Judy Garland might be quite subliminal. I'm sure a case study exists somewhere.
CN: You guys aren’t afraid to lay out a chord and drone on it (which I think is fantastic, and all to lost on a lot of todays parts for parts sakes post-punk bands). What do you think the power of repetition is and, is it a conscious move to use this power in The Offering, or is this just what comes out naturally?
Andrew: Naturally. Repetition is kind of important because it emphasizes the theme, giving the song a little more meaning, rounding it off or shaping it, whatever you want to call it. Giving it a strict shape.
Billy: Have you ever seen the movie "The Natural"? I thought so.
Chris: Repetition has a certain beauty to it, a certain way of pushing home a point that might otherwise be lost on the listener and us both.
CN: The keyboards lend textures to it all but its hard to hear specifics: What are your thoughts on keyboards providing atmosphere? Do you think these atmospheres subconsciously effect listeners without them even being aware of it?
Andrew: Definitely.
Charles: I think it's really important that keyboards establish atmosphere, and that's definitely an approach we've taken, I think.
Billy: As long as he hits the high A in Real Time, then I'm fine.
Chris: And that is what I'm here for... keeping Billy happy. Seriously, though, it was quite an eye opening experience to hear the CD and get an idea of how others hear us. With myself positioned somewhat behind the others on stage, I'm usually worrying that I am somehow too loud and then come to find from the crowd later that it's just right. I suppose I add some grounding, along with Charles, to the sonic waves Andrew and Billy send out.
CN: The guitar leads or solos don’t feel like solos (which is great): they feel like just extensions of the journeys. How do you work out the guitar interplay in The Offering, and what do you think instrumental interludes are able to paint that solos aren’t?
Andrew: I think that solos can be very pretentious. Every note in every song has meaning, and is specific. I think that solos take away from that.
CN: You guys have great breakdowns in the midst of songs (~I’m thinking specifically of ‘Real Time,’ but most of your songs seem to have them): what do you think these types of dynamics and devastating explosions are capable of expressing that traditional song-writing or folk music can’t? What feelings do you think this reflects internally?
Billy: Terrorism.
Charles: Yeah, I think that "devastating explosions", well put by the way, are much more urgent than anything traditionally written. Although I have heard a lot of traditional song-writers that I feel like capture those sorts of dynamics really well in other ways.
CN: It’s kind of dark music but it’s still pop: how do you resolve the contradiction of feel good pop & melancholy? Do you think the pop is that much more sweet because its wrapped in melancholy? (like in Keat’s ‘Ode to Melancholy’ where he says "Ay, in very temple of Delight Veil’d Melancholy has her sovran shrine, Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue Can burst Joy’s grape against his palate fine; His soul shall taste the sadness of her might, And be among her cloudy trophies hung." The grape tasting that much sweeter because of the awareness that its pleasures are transient [death] and soon it will be gone...)
Andrew: It just happens to be. If you feel bad it's going to sound like you feel bad. But "cheerful pop" isn't necessarily "bad pop" either. A lot of early 50s stuff is like that. Sometimes it had something darker to it, and sometimes it's almost cynicism.
Chris: I think it might very well find it's own resolution, much like yin and yang, order and chaos....
CN: How does the song-writing process in The Offering work? Do the beats come first?
Charles: A lot of times the beats are first, but sometimes the music is. It really just depends on how we wrote something at the given time. We all pretty much collaborate on it.
CN: Can you talk a little bit about who writes the beats and on what type of machine they write them? How do you think electronic beats shape a rock band?
Charles: I write most of the beats, but Andrew has helped me considerably, especially in conceptualizing where we want the song to go. I use a Boss Dr. Rhythm Drum Machine. It's a lot of fun to use. I think that electronic beats allow for a kind of syntheticism over all that you can't get with a live drummer, obviously. We just try to use that syntheticism in a way that works.
CN: ‘Real Time’ is my favorite track, starting off with just a jungle beat and vocals, then showering you with a wall of noise, then just breaking into this devastatingly catchy part...the use of space within the song (on the verses specifically) is really fabulous and just makes the choruses that much more powerful: are dynamics something you guys think about after the song is already written, or are these things worked out as the song is being worked out?
Andrew: That one was, that's how we wrote it. It just started with drum beat and vocals, and then we decided to build it up and eventually came to that.
Billy: Yeah, well that's the way I wanted it to sound. That's how I saw it.
Chris: So far, it just seems to come out that way as it's being written. A natural process.
CN: The Offering kind of points sound-wise to a John Hughes feeling from the ‘80s, summoning the ghosts of Joy Division, Echo & The Bunnymen, Psychedelic Furs, New Order, but, it doesn’t feel like nostalgia. The songs themselves sound new & fresh, and come off as very now. It reminds me of the way NY-poets recontextualize already existing text and turn it into something new through cut-up, and in the process create new meanings out of it. So in the case of The Offering, the sound of 1980's Thatcher-era England is now re-contextualized in Fredericksburg, Virginia, 2006: So, do you think of yourself as honoring some of that era in the actual sounds that you use (~not the songwriting, which appears to me very new and fresh: I’m purely speaking about the sound), and, how do yo-u think using these sounds in Virginia in 2006 changes their original meaning or, do you think these feelings are universal and you’re just tapping into an emotional world more than an era?
Billy: It doesn't sound like Joy Division, but it does, but do we think it does? Yes. I grew up in the 90s, our generation is different. We came to adulthood in the 90s, not the 80s. I think that everyone is associating music today with the 80s because we are living in a culture much like the Cold War, a culture of fear.
Andrew: I think emotion has a lot to do with it, and wouldn't deny that any of those bands you listed are influences.
Billy: I actually read in the news today that Russia is inventing a new nuclear war system designed to reach America. This is the first time this has happened since the 80s.
Charles: I'm not really a huge fan of the John Hughes 80s. I feel like they were vacant and Hollywood invented cliches for what the time really meant for a lot of people. I think Billy touched upon that really well. Personally, I'm much more influenced by the Bret Easton Ellis vision of that generation, even down to the lyrics I write. I also think that a lot of bands of that era defined the lines in which the others could not cross, in terms of going from punk to new wave. I think that we, much like some of the bands of that era, are ignoring those lines. I also think this inherently changes the meaning, like you asked. We're coming from a different place, but with the same emotions that some of those song-writers were writing from. Billy: Especially the ones that are dead.
Chris: My two cents? It seems the 80's Hollywood, while not as bad as today, dumbed down the meaning of a lot of things including music. I still wish I'd been older to appreciate the times much more while they were happening.
CN: Tell us a bit about each member of the band and what they do?
Charles: I play bass and split vocal duties, including lyrics, with Andrew. Andrew: Guitar. Billy: Guitar. Chris: Keyboards
CN: A lot of your songs have this anthemic quality to it: what are some of your favorite anthem songs of all time?
Charles: I don't really listen to anthem songs, but I have been told that songs like 'Something you can't hold' have a very anthem-like quality. One friend described it as "regal".
CN: Who is the ‘they’ in ‘To Die At the Foot of The Koto Drum’? (When you say ‘They got the money to hold us down,’ etc.)
Andrew: It's not so much the meaning or definition of a "they" as much as it is a reality of a situation. It could be anybody, those who have power over other people. Everyone would be like that if they had the chance, and they don't even realize it.
CN: Tell us a bit about where you recorded the new album and how long it took...there’s a real ghost of Martin Hannett (Joy Divisions producer) sound flying around here (and I mean that in the best possible way, the atmospherics are just fantastic)...
Charles: Well thanks a lot, that's really cool of you to say. We actually recorded the album at our friend John Fedowitz's place, who is luckily someone that has a good understanding of what we were looking for. It took a while, a lot of trial and error, but we finally found a method or formula that worked really well for us.
CN: Are you guys fish out of waters in Fredericksburg, or, is there a scene there that gets this type of music and this type of sound there?
Billy: I think this is the most lifeless and conservative region in the world. It's not very conducive to art. I think this is really why and how we write the songs that we write, to surround this entire region with a thermonuclear blast. Every living being, including trees and plant-life. I was once banned from a venue in Fredericksburg because I made a comment about pictures of Confederate generals being on the walls, on Martin Luther King Day. The place used to be pretty cool a long time ago, it used to have art and paintings where the Confederates now hang.
Charles: In terms of Fredericksburg, there is really only one other band that is even remotely interesting or inspirational. Luckily it's a really awesome one, but I wouldn't generalize the region as having such great music. The band Ceremony is from Fredericksburg, and they're not only a great band but very inspirational, and Alcian Blue is only an hour away as well as a few other bands that are worthy of praise, so I don't know. Andrew: There are people that do other things that are pretty interesting. Billy's only been here for 8 months. Billy: Every living being.
Chris: I see something on the rise, something good.... not sure what yet. I'm hopeful.
CN: Where did the name The Offering come from and what does it mean to you?
Charles: I think that a lot of times, people associate something religious or spiritual to the name, but it's not religious in any way. The name itself comes from a very sacrificial place for Andrew and I. That's really all I can say about it.
CN: What are your thoughts about effects on vocals? What do you think they’re capable of expressing that dry vocals aren’t? (Or what appeals to you about them.)
Andrew: Reverb has a lot of depth to it. Adding reverb to vocals is much like prayer in the newly built domes of ancient cultures. They would pray and sing inside of these places which carried a natural reverberation and made a much more moving tone. While Bards gather information and spread it by playing on their little lute it doesn't have as much depth, because it's just dry information.
Billy: Fucking Bards man.
Chris: Effects can enhance what one can do with their voice, might even jog the creativity with what to try. Works for me, anyways.
CN: What do you guys do for a living, besides music? How much of a focal point is music to your existence?
Billy: Andrew and I work in the death fields.
Andrew: Focal point of our existence: just enough to keep us alive. I've learned a lot of things from all of my jobs, it doesn't really matter what job I'm in, it's about absorbing and learning and learning from your resources.
Billy: And get us through working...in the death fields.
Charles: I work at a pretty cool restaurant in downtown Fredericksburg, but ultimately I feel like it's pretty foolish to allow yourself to be defined by a job. I think that "career" is a stupid word. Your job shouldn't be your personality. This is where music comes in, for me. Music and art and things like that are what I'm interested in, not my job.
Chris: Charles has a point there. A job shouldn't define one's personality to the extent that many seem to place. I happen to be both a grill cook and a booker/DJ with an entertainment company. I much more identify with the latter, but by no means do I see myself as a cook.
CN: The sounds coming out of The Offering come across as very other worldly to me. Do you guys believe in ghosts and spirits and, do you think they have any effect on the music you perform?
Charles: I think that's an interesting way of hearing the songs. But I don't think that we're necessarily trying to acheive that with our music.
Billy: I think there's a lot of soul-less beings in the world. Sometimes I am one of them, and sometimes you are.
Chris: For me, I would say spirits moreso than ghosts, if that makes sense. I do feel I draw on spirits and what I perceive they were trying to accomplish in their art, drawing inspiration and "the spirit" of them and past days.
CN: Thank you.
The Offering: In case you need it again: Andrew Cooke: Vocals, Guitar Charles Pinto: Vocals, Bass, Drum Machine Christopher Critzer: Keyboards Billy Gunst: Guitar See ya Saturday
To learn more about The Offering or purchase their music please visit:
http://www.myspace.com/theoffering
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