For many songwriters, musical change can be the result of a lack of focus or commercial market pandering. But for some artists, change stands to showcase the ever-evolving talents of creative minds.
The latter is true for Abe Vigoda, a Los Angeles-based indie rock group that truly fits no consistent genre label. The four-piece will display its creative breadth of work tomorrow night at the Rock N Roll Hotel in Washington.
Released in 2008, the band’s breakout album, Skeleton, was the culmination of years of teenage creativity coalescing into a finely tuned batch of oddball songs. Abe Vigoda made its name on jittery, tropical punk.
In September, the band released Crush, its fourth full-length album and a dramatic departure from the LPs preceding it. Completing a transition the band had begun on its 2009 EP, Reviver, Crush featured Abe Vigoda’s new sound, which incorporates elements of coldwave, goth and synthpop.
On previous efforts, vocalist-guitarist Michael Vidal would scream and yelp as guitars strutted on top of playful rhythms. With Crush and Reviver, Vidal unearthed a low singing voice, reminiscent of Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart, and the band prominently featured synthesizers and new wave beats.
“Skeleton was about a certain pace,” Vidal said of Abe Vigoda’s contrasting sound on record. Crush is the product of “just a lot of changes, like personal lives. We have a new drummer now, Dane [Chadwick] — when we started writing songs with him, it just went in a different direction. It happened really naturally. Over the course of the years, with Skeleton, even with Reviver, there’s a different direction, I feel, in a way. I feel a lot of personal growth has happened.
“I think we’re really happy with the sound now,” Vidal added. “Change of habit, I guess. We’re older, I guess. Music shouldn’t be static; it should always be pushing one way or another, for better or for worse. If we had made Skeleton again, I would be really disappointed in myself.”
Lyrically, Vidal is much more direct on Crush, as opposed to some of the more abstract lyricism of Skeleton. On songs such as “Dream of My Love (Chasing After You),” Vidal explores what seems to be a sadomasochistic relationship. “I make movements as a dare/ My power over you/ Cruelty is what we share/ Going blind in your love,” he intones.
“I was thinking more of ballads in a way,” Vidal said of his approach to Crush‘s lyrics. “I thought of writing in a more traditional sense. … The lyrics have to come naturally. It’s always been the result of many writings choked down. Lyrics are kind of a difficult thing for me to talk about because it’s so abstract to me still. Once I write it, it just is there. It’s hard to say where it comes from, really, or what it is that I put down.”
The loss of a drummer and the acquisition of a new one also contributed to Abe Vigoda’s change over the past two years.
Drummer Gerardo “Reggie” Guerrero left the group after touring behind Skeleton and was replaced by Chadwick.
Guerrero “wanted to focus on school,” Vidal said. “He just wanted to focus his energy on other things, which I understand. It’s really not for everybody. Touring all the time … it’s just different personalities [that work. Being in a band is] not a thing certain people can do all the time.”
The band met its current drummer after playing multiple concerts with Chadwick’s other bands in Phoenix.
“We just started talking and got along really well right off the bat,” Vidal said. “He could play drums pretty well, and we just really got along with him on a base level, which is one of the most important things. And it’s been about over a year, almost two years [since Chadwick joined the band].”
One of the things Vidal and his bandmates are most looking forward to on their current North American tour is a return to smaller venues. The last time Abe Vigoda went on tour, it opened for Vampire Weekend in Europe, which hit larger venues than Abe Vigoda typically plays.
“Not that it was bad, but it was different than what we’re used to,” Vidal said of the European tour. “We’re used to playing medium size, all ages or kind of bar venues. Now I’m excited to come back and play a smaller room. It’s kind of more our speed. … There’s something missing there when the audience is like 50 feet away from you. There’s a certain intimacy that’s not there.
“It was fun playing for [Vampire Weekend’s] audience because it was probably for kids who would never go to a show of ours in the first place,” Vidal added. “It’s cool to see, to try to expose some people to something different that they maybe wouldn’t have thought of.”
Abe Vigoda will play at the Rock N Roll Hotel tomorrow. Doors are 8:30 p.m. Tickets cost $12 in advance and $15 at the door.
rhiggins@umdbk.com
