Audioholic Media

Nashville is considered one of the America’s music meccas. Although the city is known primarily for country music, it is actually a breeding ground for an array of different styles. Enter Paper Route — a band who see the artistic potential in everything and fuse that inspiration into music. With a number of EPs under their belt, this group of friends has fused pop, rock, and electronic sounds with thoughtful lyrics and created Absence, Paper Route’s debut album on Universal Motown. We had a chance to talk to JT Daly of Paper Route and found out more than what propels the band’s music.

Audioholic Media: From what I’ve read, it seems like Paper Route came about pretty organically. You were friends who loved to jam, and then you turned that into a career. Can you talk a bit about that?

JT Daly: We kind of all came from another band that kind of ended because of a drought of inspiration. And I went on to — and took — a whole other medium. I went on to do some film stuff. Andy [Smith] left and went to finish up his degree in the study of people. And Chad [Howat] went on to finesse the art of recording and finish his degree in that. We all just gravitated back towards each other. Very naturally, Chad was recording on his laptop, and I was writing at home. And I think it was much more healthy because the songs were writing themselves again. That’s something we always made a point to do in this band. We serve the song and are just along for the ride.

AM: So, before. you guys were forcing it and now it’s just coming out?

JD: Absolutely. If you feel like you’re forcing something, I feel like that’s just a sign with art that you need to call it quits.

AM: I got your Are We All Forgotten EP last year, and I’ve always thought your sound had this ethereal and haunting quality to it, which is something you don’t normally hear from Nashville. So was that initially what you guys were going for or was it something that just happened?

JD: Yeah, it just kind of made itself. We’ve always just loved a lot of those ethereal groups like My Bloody Valentine. We’re all huge daydreamers, and we all come from a history of all having sleep disorders. And all of those groups are things you can listen to you when you’re in that stage between consciousness of being asleep and being awake. I think we wanted to try to make music like that again or make music like that for the first time. It just sort of happens. We fell in love with the instrumental kind of ambiance music because it said something with our lyrics. Moving to Nashville, I’m not sure if we really got it, but we respected it. And now we get it, and we’ve fallen in love with the songwriter perspective where it’s just an intimate song with just vocal and guitar. And it puts more emphasis on the lyrics where the artist is forced to say something. I feel like it just all came together for Paper Route for the first time because it just became what we wanted to try and do.

AM: So do you think it took a while for the instrumentation and lyrics to fit together and become what it is now?

JD: Absolutely. It was again a very accidental process.

AM: I noticed when you play live, there are interesting instruments like the toy keyboards and samplers. Bringing that into the sound and adding a kind of nuance to rock music, was that something you guys wanted to play around with?

JD: I mean being in Nashville influenced in that regard as well. There are just a lot of different types of musicians and a lot of incredible musicians as well. We are people and artists that love electronic music. I mean we have four or five samplers onstage all playing at the same time at some points in our set. But in Nashville, when my neighbor is the guy who thinks that anything that has to be plugged in isn’t an instrument, it definitely forces you to take a different perspective on our live show performance because we are musicians that respect the craft of forming an acoustic instrument. And that’s incorporated in the way we create our songs and in the way we record these acoustic instruments and put them into these machines and manipulate the songs that way. I think it’s a challenge in the way we play our live shows. At the same time, it’s something we enjoy and something that we love is to recreate those songs on the instruments that they were originally recorded on.

AM: That’s actually one of my other questions. I mean I’ve heard other albums where you hear all these different layers in the sound, and then when you hear them live, it’s a completely different band. But with you guys, the transition is so seamless. It’s like I’m back home listening to Paper Route through my headphones but I’m really watching you guys live onstage.

JD: Thank you.

AM: How do you guys manage to do that?

JD: Hours and hours of rehearsal. We are perfectionists to a fault. That’s probably our greatest strength and also our greatest weakness. We’ve thought of every possible way of playing that song. And a lot of times we’ll switch it up in every tour. It’s something we like to take back to the people who have seen us multiple times.

AM: Going back to the songwriting process, how does the Paper Route songwriting process work? Do you guys have a specific way of going about it? Do you lay the track first then put the words later or is it the other way around?

JD: It really is all forms for us. All of us are writers individually, and all of us pitch in songs. But the end result is always the group sort of shuffling through it together — pulling apart the song and piecing it back together. We’re definitely a group where the song is greater than the individual parts. It would sound completely different if one of the members was removed.

AM: I was looking at your MySpace page, and your influences include Jurassic Park, magic tricks, Alice in Wonderland and the Titanic soundtrack — very varied choices there. So what else influences you guys?

JD: We read a lot. We’re always reading. I mean we always have the time to read. So we’re always passing around books. We watch a lot of movies as well, and we listen to a lot of soundtracks. We’re a visual band, and a lot of our songs are written around a visual that we all kind of have like a scene from a movie or something that we want to communicate with sound and what we’re seeing. And that’s why we love soundtracks and why we love film.

AM: What was the last book you read?

JD: I just finished The Devil in the White City [by Erik Larson], which is about “The White City,” which is a brilliant World’s Fair in Chicago. And it’s a true story and is this remarkable group of artists that got together and crafted the World’s Fair, which, at one point, Chicago was the center of the world’s attention. It’s where the Ferris wheel was invented, and at the same time, this was where one of the greatest or worst serial killers of all time lived. The book pretty much opens up with this quote like, “Some men are born with genius inside of them. I was born with the devil inside of me.” It’s just on another level.

AM: So there might be a song that’s inspired by that book really soon?

JD: Well, Chad’s from Chicago and the musician that travels with us and helps us create these songs live was architect and creating buildings.

AM: Well, hopefully the next album or even at your next live show, I’ll be waiting for that.

JD: All right. I’ll find you and let you know ahead of time.

AM: About your debut album, Absence, I read that you guys said that the songs are more hopeful compared to the songs on the EPs. How are they more hopeful now compared to the old stuff?

JD: Honestly, I think the only reason the album as a whole is saying that is because we have more songs to say something with. Also it was the time in our lives. Things were sort of being wrapped up; some loose ends were finally being taken care of. And we had more time, and we have more of the listeners attention to say exactly what we wanted to say. You know, an EP is more of what people have more patience for these days, and blogs are taking over the music scene. We only have the people’s attention for so long, and I think the EP really serves that purpose. But it’s really a shame. As a music writer, you really just need an album to communicate and instill exactly what you’re trying to say.

AM: As far as other people saying, “You sound like this. You’re synth-pop, electro-pop…” — all these different categories are thrown at you guys. How do you describe your music?

JD: I would say electronic alternative. I’m not really into combining these really long descriptions — saying what our music is.

AM: You mentioned the whole idea of blogs, and I’ve seen your music circulating around. Aside from the fact that you guys have been touring a lot, how have you seen the Internet helping bands? Has it even been helping you get your music out there to as many people as possible, the way it’s supposed to be doing?

JD: Well in the beginning, it was amazing. We weren’t even a touring band, and yet we had a lot of people’s attention. Our music had a life. Its heartbeat was the World Wide Web. We’re connecting with the music, and I think it forced us to play live because we realized that people were connecting with it. And that gave the songs more of a life. Now, I don’t really know. I think honestly we’re really trying to figure out exactly what the Internet is doing for us, and we’re trying to figure out what kind of band we want to be. As the era of the rock star is dying because of the World Wide Web, we’re trying to figure out how to embrace it and how to evolve but still how to keep our integrity.

AM: There are so many bands that come out every day, every second. How do you separate yourselves from the rest of the pack?

JD: That’s a really good question. [pause] You know, I think one thing that we’re particular on is that what we’re saying in the songs we’re presenting is always us because I think that the listener can tell. They can tell between what is a front and what truly comes from inside the artist. I feel like when you’re moved by a certain song and when you’re moved by a show, that is beyond us just performing. It’s on another level – spiritual even. And that starts with a seed of truth in that artist; they have a choice on whether they’re going to be honest or whether they’re just going to craft the song for the sake of melody or even craft the song just for the listener because they know it will get them anything from radio play to a specific tour. I think that’s something we want to stay true to.

AM: And what is Paper Route’s ultimate goal for music?

JD: To keep making albums.

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Absence is currently available in physical and digital formats.
For more information on Paper Route, visit paperrouteonline.com.