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Bubba Kadane

You’re not with your brother. You’re in Texas.
Yeah,  I’m in Dallas.

Do you both still live in Dallas?
No, these days he lives in Ithaca, New York because he teaches at a college in Geneva just nearby.

Is it tough for you guys to keep writing?
No, people always ask that, but really we’ve been doing it for a longtime. We haven’t lived in the same city since 94. Basically every record we’ve ever released has been under the same scenario.  We work on music separately up until a point and then we get together on it. At some point we’re always in a room together, recording a demo or something. Things happen in stages, sometimes the initial spark of a song or of a part, I think it usually happens with one of us separately. But I think it's really good. Compared to say, coming up with things together, it works in  that when I show something to him, for example, he comes at it with a fresh perspective and vice verce. I think that’s pretty helpful because we’re able to really register an opinion of something that’s not affected by our participation in it, if that makes any sense. Doing it separately, it seems like we’re able to be good judges on what the immediate impact of something is. There are definitely times when I wish we were together so we could hammer something out, whether its problem, an issue or to better something. Being in the same room is very useful, but being separate has its own uses, too.

It seems as though so many people that play music together would probably just scrap the project and seek out someone new to play with in a case like that. You guys have a special kind of songwriting bond…
Yeah, I can see that and why some people might do that and others don’t. I guess we just forged this musical bond and never considered changing it or moving away from one another musically. It works for us and I think we work well together. What one of us misses, the other one catches. If one of us can’t finish something, the other one can. It works pretty well on a lot of different levels.

How far apart are you guys in age?
Two and a half years.

Who’s the eldest?
I am.

How well did you guys get along as kids? Did you beat up on him a bit?
We got along pretty well. We had fights and still argue about things, but overall, I’d say we get along pretty well.

There are so many bands with brothers out there that are totally volatile.
It’s true. We definitely don’t fit in that category even though I think any arguments or disagreements we’ve had are just between us and not in the public sphere. They’re definitely not knock-down-drag-out, anyway.

Would you say that the four years it took to get this new record out is a product of that long-distance relationship though?
The one thing about that’s a bit misleading when talking about in that time frame is that there weren’t really any finished songs. It really took place for the most part in the past two years, given the fact that we had some stuff sitting around that we finished. There were songs on this record whose kernels were done a while back. We just didn’t have ways to finish them to our satisfaction. It really wasn’t four years of constant work. They were definitely busy times.

Hi Matt. Just talked to your brother.
You’ll probably get more of the same from me.

You think?
No, I don’t know. Just kidding.

I asked him if he beat on you at all when you were kids.
Really? What did he say?

He said no, that you got along really well, but I don’t know if I buy it.
No, that’s actually true. But he’s older than me so he may remember beating on me and I don’t remember it because I’ve internalized it.

Weird. My brother whines and moans all the time now about how much I used to hit him, but see, I don’t remember it that way at all.
I can remember us getting into a fight when I was maybe ten and he was 12 or 13. It was totally pathetic; neither one of us knew how to fight. We were equally matched so we kind of torn each other a little bit. We basically made an open decision never to fight again, like ‘that was absolutely pointless. Let’s never do that again.” He may have done some fucked up stuff to me when I was super young, but I don’t think he did. It’s not really in his character. Although maybe he got it out of his system.

So you just ran out of steam?
Yeah, we got all tuckered out. It’s so much easier to be pacifists.
I didn’t realize you’ve been working long-distance for so long.
Yeah, since 94. We’ve always gotten along well. But you know, distance creates affection and it might be the case that we get along because we don’t see each other that much.

Do you think that distance has had sonic effects on your work?
Working long-distance hasn’t had any sonic effect that I can think of. But for me, working in the kinds of spaces that I’ve been forced to live in, like cities with higher costs of living than Dallas, definitely has had an effect sonically. When songs originate on drums, they originate for me and I’ve lived in places where that has not been an option because I had no room to play drums. That would explain some of the quietest records we’ve ever made, like the second Bedhead record or for that matter, the second New Year record. Those kinds of conditions have a sonic outcome, but I don’t think the distance does.

Are you guys still surprised by one another?
Yeah, I think so. Well, no. Yes. One of things we have worked out is the ability to just say no. If I send him something that he doesn’t like, he doesn’t hesitate to say he doesn’t like it. If I send him something and he does apart on it that I don’t like, I just say I don’t like it. What that forces us to do is try and be surprising or innovative. It’s the ulimate veto power that forces us to do things that would impress one another. One of the great things about collaboration is that you have this other version of yourself who doesn’t hesitate to be critical and who, because its this external voice, has the authority to back up that assessment. If that voice is inside you, you can smother it. We can’t smother each other. Well, I guess we could, but we live long-distance!

Sounds Like: Bedhead, Low, Galaxie 500

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