“Isaac, you’re hat looks really good,” Derby vocals/guitarist Nat Johnson quips into my Pearlcorder S710.
“I love the people that, um, when speaking publicly, have to talk into whatever device is picking up sound,” drummer Isaac Frost retorts, mouth close enough to the mic to create a buzz in the recording. We’re sitting in a pub in Portland, Oregon, discussing the new album over a few drinks, and Derby certainly is creating a buzz. With the release of their debut album “This Is The New You,” the band has achieved something special. Sunny guitar licks reminiscent of The Beatles and Elliot Smith, cascading rhythms, and sweeping, wistful vocal harmonies, this is the type of music that you would feel fresh starting the morning to. Which makes sense, seeing as how guitarist Dave Gullick is a self-acclaimed “morning person.”
“I would wake up in the morning, and I’d work on different songs before heading off to work. I’m definitely a morning person, for sure. I make coffee and just get geeked out on that and Nat would come in at night and just go make stuff, change things up and say ‘Hey try this out.’ I don’t really like working at night.”
Derby, comprised of Dave Gullick (vocals/guitar/Rhodes/organ), Nat Johnson (lead vocals/guitar), Isaac Frost (drums), and recently acquired bassist Wayne Miller (who could not make the interview), have an easy going camaraderie integral to the cohesiveness of their sound, which seems rare for a band. Their manager Barbara Mitchell (who’s worked with such bands as The Posies and Death Cab For Cutie) had this to say: “[This band] has a way of integrating things that a lot of bands never figure out how to do. They write these absolutely great pop songs that have weighty lyrical vocals, but there’s no whiplash involved. They have it figured out in a way that I’ve rarely seen in other artists, in terms of internal dynamics and how everything flows together. They’re just so grounded. With the combination of talent and personality colliding where they trust each other enough and not feel threatened or competitive, it makes my job easier. I’ve been working in music for, well, way too long, and I’ve never been as excited about working with a band, even in the early Death Cab days. I think they’re more grounded and have a better sense of what they want to do, what they want to accomplish, and how they want to communicate things. I really feel so lucky, and I’m not just saying that because the tape is rolling.” Naturally, I was curious, as to how they met and when they formed.
Nat: Dave and I started this as an acoustic act about three years ago. When we say we started, it was Dave and I with a bunch of our songs, playing a few coffee shops and little shows here and there. I consider our first show as our actual start date, because it wasn’t something that happened as an accident, we were like “this is what we want to do, but we’ve got to start somewhere.” Really, as we know it, as it appears on an album, Derby has been alive for two years.
It [started] as a three piece. We didn’t have a bass player or anything like that. We would just do our thing, whether it was a regular rock show, or a glorified acoustic version. Legitimate Derby began at the beginning of this year. January 1st Wayne joined us, and we released the album in February. It’s funny when people come up to the stage and say “Oh you guys are this, that, I really enjoyed the show, how long have you guys been playing for?” and that seems to be one of the most common questions we field at the end of a show, and I like saying “Oh, what’s the date? It’s June? Oh, well, six months and twenty-six days.”
Dave: I actually met Nat freshman year in the dorms. We just became friends with similar tastes in music. Actually, after college, we finally started playing seriously.
Isaac: I was going to Oregon State, and I was playing with a band down there, and (Nat and Dave) did a show down there and I thought “Man, these guys fucking rock.” Then they came back, and we did another show with them, and they had a drummer, and they were playing electric.
Was that the first time you guys ever played electric on stage?
Nat: Yeah, that was the first time, and I was like “Holy shit, volume!”
Isaac: I was like “Oh sweet, they got a drummer,” and I started talking to them after the show and they were like “Oh, he’s not actually our drummer, he’s our bassist.”
Nat: Bruce never actually played bass with us, that’s the funny thing.
Isaac: Yeah, I had just graduated and moved up here, and started playing with them. It just felt right. It wasn’t like it was an audition; it just evolved into “Do you want to do a show with us?” And I was like “Yeah, I’d love to play with you guys,” So we kept playing shows, and well, I think I’m the integral drummer.
Nat: (laughing) Yeah, we haven’t given him the gold stamp yet. The first show you played with us was awful. Not that you were awful, but we were just, well it was just great to have a drummer, who’s a really good guy, which is important to us, because, from the beginning, Dave and I were playing rock and roll with just total assholes, and like, wow, a guy that was pretty straight up, and he liked what we were doing. It’s not like he was all (Nat affects his best too-cool hipster sneer) “I play drums. What do you play?” He was really interested in our music.
How would you describe your songwriting process?
Nat: That involves, in a positive sense, defined individual roles, in every facet, like business, music, whatever. But I think the initial conception, 90% of the time, comes from Dave.
So Dave’s the man, huh?
Dave: No, no, no. The cool thing is that we come up with songs or ideas that have completely different vibes, and Nat just helps me hash out songs. It’s truly at a point where I can bring something to the table, and Nat just helps me mold it.
Nat: We have a little Derby music pressing factory. It goes: Dave starts with a loosely created idea, and brings it to me. My mind works in a more analytical sense of thinking big about how we could put 8000 parts together and structure it. Which is nice, because we don’t try to step on each other’s toes, I just try to do my job and he does his. So he pushes this idea through me, I process it, and spit it out and say “Alright, band. Let’s see what we can do with it.” Isaac usually steps in around Phase 3 of the process, and we start hashing out the drums together. It’s not like one person has the right idea. We want to make the song that sounds the best to all of us.
So it’s more of a democracy?
Nat: It is. Everyone has veto power.
Isaac: Yeah, we’ll get together as a group, and start playing, and maybe Wayne or I will say “Hey why don’t we try it this way, maybe it’ll sound better.” So it’s not like we’re sitting there having to do what they tell us we have to do.
Nat: Yeah, I can play drums, but I’m not a drummer. I can perceive what it’s supposed to sound like, and its close, but when Isaac actually does it, we’re like “That’s it.”
Dave: The cool thing is that we’re coming together and the dynamic’s getting tighter. It’s really positive.
I was going to note on that. You guys have these sunny melodies that stand in stark contrast to this overcast, rain-filled city Bush Sr. once tagged as “Little Beirut.” I guess it seems to me it would be easier to be negative and pessimistic living in this environment. What keeps you guys grounded?
Nat: I think when we play music, it’s really fun, and that fuels itself. Even if we’re sitting alone and depressed and writing something with more of a somber topic, well, we’ve yet to write the ultimate heartbroken “I just got shit on destroyed” song, but it’s really about the music for us. I think the music itself allows things to be a little bit sunnier.
We set it up in a situation where we live in a house together, and it wasn’t “Alright, boys, pressure’s on, you got twenty hours in the studio to be creative, now, be creative.” We, together, felt, “wait, I feel something, I’m going to go down in the studio now and work on something. It was something very organic and cohesive with us. It was a vision we all created together.
I think it’s a good one. It’s optimistic, almost a wide-eyed, wake-up feel-good sound, but not in a naïve way and I think that’s refreshing.
Nat: Yeah, part of it is, none of these songs, and hopefully never, will we write a song because it’s what we think someone else wants to hear. In that sense it keeps that sense of honesty where we’re not pretending to be something we’re not. I mean, I write the songs I want to hear, and play the songs we want to hear, and I think if we stick with that, we’ll be fine. A lot of people, as we’ve learned over the last couple of years, obviously don’t realize that they just need to be themselves, and it will be okay. It would come out the way it should.
What do you guys think of the Portland scene in general?
Dave: There’s so much going on. We know a lot of the bands in Portland, but there’s so many out there where people are like “Have you heard of so-and-so?” and it’s like “No, we’ve never heard of them.” I think that’s great.
Nat: But the quality is insane. We go out, and we play other towns, and we get good shows, hear about the bigger bands, and its like “Alright.” Maybe it’s because we live here and have access, but there’s so much good music in this town. And it’s not a joke that every single person plays guitar in Portland, or some instrument. Everybody, everybody plays music. It’s like, you go over on the East Side, and it’s like “Oh, which band are you in?”
Everyone plays music, and therefore, you’re going to see some good stuff. This town accepts music, and the crowds are cool. I don’t know, I think we all feel it. We haven’t moved. It feels right here.
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