Erase Errata call themselves a weird and quirky pop-band. Since 1999 they have released a bunch of records in all sizes, shapes and printings. After At Crystal Palace three years ago up to their recent album Nightlife in their way the band is dealing with the issues of living day to day in the United States: Night....Life. Forget about real life. Their former guitarist Sara has left the band now being reduced to a three-piece. But nevertheless, the musical skills of Ellie Erickson (Bass), Bianca Sparta (Drums) and Jenny Hoyston (Trumpet, Guitar) are quite remarkable and particularly live they go straight for full blast, and tonight they show up at Festsaal Kreuzberg, Berlin. It`s October 21st, 2006.
You are dealing to a great extent with certain disharmonies in songstructure. Did that emerge from No Wave bands like Mars, Delta 5 or DNA?
Bianca: I think these bands came way, way, way back before our band. Because we`re one of these weird pop-bands, we are associated with them. But even if we appreciate on that, Jenny and me started before we were compared to them. We just thought of ourselves as this weird, quirky pop-band.
What was the original idea to start a band?
Jenny: ...for a joke, really. Bianca and I lived together in a warehouse in Oakland. A mutual roommate just left, he was gone out of town, and we were like: ha, ha, ha! This guy is out of town, let´s push his bed against a wall because he had drums and things like that in his room. The other girls were living around the corner, so we called them and said: hey, come over, spread the message, we have a party while this guy is outta town. While in other bands I had usually been the guitar- or bassplayer, so I said: I wanna be the singer! But this was more like a joke because I hadn´t done that before. But it was fun, and we said, let´s do it again next week. But let´s do it in a practise space because this would do much better.
Before that Bianca and me played in a art-punk band. We liked a lot the weird music that came before No Wave, like Captain Beefheart and the stuff. Some really old music, the kind of distorted things, and me as a trumpet player listened a lot to Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Miles Davis and things like that, a kind of more free music. So, we had that background to work together. We are making pop-music but throw in these elements. I think our band is pop music, it´s just made by weirdos (smiles).
On your recent seven inch Riders you rant about the way people live in Texas. What`s wrong with being Texan?
Bianca: Oh no, I think it´s quite good there (shyly).
Jenny: I think with Riders, it`s more of a picture of the moment. And it´s not editorial, because I think there is some sort of homeostasis relationship...where it could potentially be a culture with a lot of violence because everyone is heavily armed, but the reality is that it´s not. And that is something that is....you know, I don´t like the idea of guns in the cities and stuff like that, but I don´t think I really mind the way it is there, it´s just kind of odd. It´s just the situation that I am describing.
If you play shows in Texas, is there a different audience than say in San Francisco?
Jenny: No, because we just play in the cities. Where I grew up, these rural farms and swamps and stuff, that´s more what I am writing about. Actually, I was thinking more about Arizona than on Texas. More the deserts, the old west, and even further west. Because thats where I am from, up in the swamps, very close to Louisiana and the Gulf of Mexico. The people in cities are more alike, but down at the farm you are gonna come to be attacked by a bear or something (laughs)...
.....or by a squirrel - you`ll never know...
(laughs) yea, you know. You gotta eat. You can´t catch them by hand. You ever tried a squirrel full of bullets? You gotta pull the bullets out of their mouth and eat the bullets first. I`ve eaten squirrel.
..no kidding?
....Yeh, squirrel, possum, rattlesnake....
Sounds good.
Yeah, a little gamy, there is a little kind of weird taste to it, but....a bit like frog or turtle. When I was growing up my family is really rural on my dads side, they didn´t have any electricity or indoor plumbing, they all ate whatever they could kill or catch. we were a poor family, so yeah, i tried it all....
So, where are you excactly from?
Bridport, Texas. But really close to New Orleans.
And you, Bianca?
I`m from the West Coast California. Edison. Between San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Have you tried possum before?
I havn´t. But I would try.
Jenny: Meat is meat! If you are hungry it is....
So you guys aren´t into vegetarian or vegan food.....?
Jenny: I was eating vegetarian for a long time, but i got too skinny and then the doctor said: you need to eat some meat!
...And it did help?
Yeah, it helped, the more or not. I couldn´t keep any weight on those... but as vegetarian, because when you are on the road all the time, or on vegan, you don´t get enough vitamins, you don´t eat properly on the road. The other way would be a strict diet, you always need to be at home all the time to make sure to prepare the things....while on tour in the states they don´t get you a dinner, we don´t come to eat a lot, we get some chips and salsa and a few beers, that´s all. When we get home from tour, we just sleep (laughs). No work!
Where has Sara been, your former guitar player?
Jenny: Two and a half years ago she decided to leave the band. She went to grad-school for creative writing, she wants to be a writer. She is in Massachusetts now, whenever we come to town in Massachusetts, she comes on stage to play with us, old songs and stuff.
Bianca: The band has been really busy. She had enough. She had to choose.
Jenny: Yeah, really. It occupies all the time. We work full time when we are home, but be had to find jobs that allow us to go away for a time to be on road. You know, it´s really hard to....
Bianca: I work in a place where everybody plays music and is touring, so it´s pretty flexible with the people. They are really supportive, it is never really an issue.
Jenny: The place where i work, I`m the head of a sounddepartment of a club. So, I just schedule the people while I`m gone, I just schedule all the other sound engineers for month in advance. The Club is called El Rio. The music is a lot about Salsa, Brazilian, Brazilian bands, stuff like that. A lot of Big Bands, a lot of 15-piece bands. And on some days it´s just a dance club, the clientel is very mixed, on day a week it´s straight gay, latin, latino, white....it´s very mixed right down the middle. Old people, young people, on the Salsa-Nights it´s live Salsa-Music but it´s mostly gay men that come to dance. Kinda random, but cool. It´s not a big money making space. The girl, the owner, runs a few non-profit community spaces, so if one of the stacks doesn´t pay off she doesn´t care. See, we don´t make money with our records at all. We usually not go in dept while on tour, we usually manage to break even. But there is never any money from the records or anything.
Erase Errata : Nightlife - now available on Kill Rock Stars/Cargo.
www.eraseerrata.com
www.killrockstars.com
Images: Erase Errata live in Berlin (by Hair E).
