Dover, New Hampshire
On Thursday, July 30, 2009, I met with Jake Mehrmann, songwriter and lead singer of seacoast New Hampshire favorite, Tan Vampires. We ducked into the air conditioning of Adelle’s Coffeehouse in downtown Dover and chatted over a few freshly brewed iced teas. Neil Young, The Velvet Underground, The Steve Miller Band, and the whirring espresso machine provided us with some musical accompaniment.
*Remember, this interview is available to you in audio form at the conclusion of the transcript.*
Spitting Image: Hello and welcome to.....welcome back to Spitting Image Interviews. Today, I’m sitting with Jake Merhmann, the lead signer and songwriter of the group the Tan Vampires. Today he joins me at Adelle’s Coffee Shop in downtown Dover and both of us are enjoying a nice little iced tea on this brutally hot day. So, Jake, thanks for joining me today.
Jake Mehrmann: No problem. A pleasure. SI: So, as I said, Jake is in a well established group in the area, has a good reputation both as a solo performer and with his group the Tan Vampires. Jake, the first thing I’d like to know is, sort of, what the genesis of the Tan Vampires was as a project? JK: Well, I had been in a band called Data for....I think it was probably four of five years in that band in slightly different incarnations existed. And that band, kind of, fell apart for various reasons and I decided that, instead of being bummed out about that, because I had been pretty invested in it for a long period of time, I was just gonna lock myself in my apartment and record a record. And it was right around the time that the RPM Challenge was happening so I figured it was a good opportunity to do that. So I.... SI: Sure JM: I had a couple of ideas for songs that had....I had had for a while that didn’t feel like they’d fit in with the sound of Data, so.... or at least not the sound that everybody thought of in the band, so. SI: So you were one or the only songwriter for that group? JM: It was a little different. It was a little more collaborative than what Tan Vampires has been, which has been sort of like a solo thing for a long time and more recently I have put together a regular band. But it was more a situation where, generally, I would bring in an idea, whether it be a guitar part or something, or someone else might bring in an idea, and then we would play, just play around that idea, and just kind of jam around that idea, record what we did and then myself and usually Mike Filitis, who is the bass player in Tan Vampires now - he was the bass player in that band as well - would take that and turn it into a song or we would try to work it out as a group into some....you know, it was a little....It was a very different process from the way that I write songs now, but. SI: So when you began the Tan Vampires as a project, did you have....intitially have intentions to, you know, present the music initially, or was it more sort of a little closet project of your own? JM: It was sort of a....just a little self indulgent thing [laughs] that I decided to do. I felt like I needed to do something so I, you know....it seemed like an opportunity to do some things that I had felt the freedom to do and an opportunity to work out, like, a way to do things on my own and not have to rely on, like, a band to, like, complete songs and things like that, ‘cause I think that I had, sort of, allowed myself to rely on....or I felt, at least, like I had allowed myself to rely too much on other people in the band instead of just finishing something on my own. If I, if I hit a point in a song where I felt like I wasn’t sure what to do next, or something like that, I would just bring it in to the band, which works out well sometimes and sometimes, like....you know, when you have other people’s input you get ideas you normally wouldn’t have, but I felt like I relied on that in a way; that I didn’t feel like I could be self sufficient with what I was doing and I wanted to be. It didn’t really have anything to do with the other guys in the band, not working with them. I....so I decided that I was just going to do that, so I had, you know, some ideas, a few ideas that hadn’t really worked out and so I started with those and wrote those, like, ten songs or whatever, recorded them in three weeks [laughs]. Had a little digital eight track and then played it for some people and they heard it and told me I should play. SI: Did any of those songs ever find its way in to Data material at all? JM: No, ‘cause Data was....we had tried to use a couple of them but by the time, and I think I may have, like, probably ripped off a couple ideas from that band on some of those things, but there was....the band was, like, basically done before I started working on that. SI: I see. JM: And a lot of the material was, like, I wrote during that period, not like [inaudible]. SI: So, when you were writing a lot of that initial Tan Vampires material was there any emulation involved as far as the style of music you were writing or had it, sort of been, just, sort of the end of a natural progression in your own songwriting without really paying much attention to any particular songwriters? JM: It’s funny, I mean, I’m a few years removed from it at this point; that record at least. But I guess I had started to feel for a while, like, a little out of touch with what we had been doing as a band, Data. I felt like I wanted to do something a little more subtle because we were kind of a loud, over-the-top rock band and I had been feeling for a while like I wanted to do something a little....I don’t know how to....I don’t like to use the word mellow because I have negative connotations with that word. [laughs] SI: Sure. JM: But a little less ‘in your face‘ and maybe, like, a little more nuanced, you know. SI: Sure. JM: And....‘cause a lot of the music I think I had been listening to at the time was more like that and not, like, loud rock stuff. SI: Well, one thing I....what really sticks out is, I’ve heard a number of your....those initial recordings you’re talking about and, at least compared to what you’re saying about the Data songs you’d written, they’re very sparse and it’s very limited in instrumentation; generally acoustic guitar and vocals and some....there is some electric guitar and some very minor percussion. JM: Yeah, and there’s horns and stuff on some too. SI: Sure. But certainly compared to what you’re describing as Data’s material, it’s much more maybe focused and, sort of, minimalistic I guess you could say. JM: Yeah, I mean, part of that was....I mean, a lot of that was aesthetic but part of it was fairly by necessity with the materials that I was using. You know, I only had those instruments and I had eight tracks to do what I wanted to do. Which....it was kind of liberating, you how: having limited options and, at least for me, is a good thing for creativity ‘cause otherwise I have a tendency to try every....take....take an idea in every possible direction I can take it in which can be self defeating sometimes because you can always think of another way to do something and originally just make it a judgement [laughs] call and decide, ‘ok, this is going to be this,‘ and move on. SI: Right. JM: I get caught up in that sometimes, I think, and it takes me a long time to finish things. Having the constraints on that allowed me to just do it; the time constraints and the physical limitations of how I recorded it. SI: Yeah. Okay. I can absolutely see that. What’s interesting, too, is that when you listen to those first recordings that you did for the RPM challenge, which, by the way is a regional Seacoast recording challenge.... JM: It’s become international.... SI: That’s true! It is international. JM: It started, it’s based out of Portsmouth, but.... SI: Which, sort of, challenges people to record an album during the month of February and then send it in to The Wire magazine to....and they will have a listen and then have a big party, essentially, later on for all the people that completed the assignment. But, listening to the recordings that you did for the RPM Challenge and then listening to you perform with your full band today - the same material but sort of the....the sound, I would say, in some respects is dramatically different.... JM: Oh, yeah. I would have to agree. SI: ....as far as, just talking about, too, how sparse some of your other material was and minimalistic. When you listen to your band perform today - much more, you know, ambient sounding at times and, sort of, airy and atmospheric from a lot of your other members. Was that a decision that you wanted to make when you brought these other guys in or was that something that they contributed when they came in [inaudible]? JM: I guess that, I mean, I had gotta kind of bored playing by myself. It limits what you can do sometimes, you know. Having another set of hands and another musical brain involved allows you to do other things. I feel....for me, personally, like, when I go see music I generally....there....it’s not always the case, but I generally prefer to see a band than a solo performer. It might just be because there are a lot of solo performers that I am underwhelmed by [laughs], but there are a lot of bands like that, too, unfortunately. SI: [laughs] JM: But my....yeah, i guess I was imagining other things that I wanted to do and it, in my mind, I felt like I needed to have a band and I had been talking to a few of these guys, you know, sort of speculatively for a while about working together and I played a few shows with Mike Effenberger. SI: Who is your keyboard player. JM: Yep. Who I had sort of known for a long time and I’ve known most of those guys since high school or shortly after. And we’d played a couple shows together and I really liked what he brought to it. He’s pretty phenomenal; sort of a Seacoast music legend [laughs] even though he’s only been around here for a few years I think. But he....I really liked what he brought to the table in terms of the atmosphere and things like that and then I thought, ‘Hey, let’s try some....to try to bring a few other people in’, you know. I wanted drums because I didn’t....that was the one thing on that recording that I had made that I had felt was missing and I wanted because I had no way of....I didn’t have a drumset and I had no way of recording drums so I asked Jim Rudolf, who I’ve known....I....we played together in a jazz group in high school actually. I was like seventeen or eighteen. And I’ve always loved his drumming and he’s just a great guy in general so then I figured it would be cool to have him involved. So then Mike Filitis, who I had worked with already and who I....we have always had a a very good repoir in terms of, like, our....like, our aesthetic taste tends to be similar and, you know, we tend to work very well together working on material. And then Nick and Chris, as well, I have known for a while and liked, you know....mostly just liked the way all those guys play as a....played and I figured we’d try it out to see what would happen. Things have kind of developed from there. SI: Yeah. JM: Long story short. [laughs] SI: Right, yeah. Well, and they are....I mean, individually, it is obvious that they’re, in their our right, talented instrumentalists. JM: Oh, yeah. SI: And what I understand is most of them are involved in other projects, too, aside from the Tan Vampires. JM: Yeah. SI: And, but what you mentioned, which is kind of interesting is that your musical background isn’t solely based in rock music. JM: Oh, yeah. SI: So, prior to even playing guitar you were involved in, sort of....were you studying music in college at one point? JM: I did for a couple years. I was a jazz performance major on the saxophone and then when the reality of what that meant kicked in, I think I panicked a little bit, realized it wasn’t really what I wanted to do. I mean, just not....I didn’t see it providing me the opportunities to do what I wanted to do, personally, with music. I think I had....that was around the time that I started to play guitar and try to write songs and I felt a lot more affinity from doing that, you know....just....I don’t know. It’s kind of cooler in a certain way, I guess. [laughter] I don’t know. Maybe that was all that it was, but. But, I don’t know, yeah, it just felt, it just felt more natural to me. SI: Yeah, but interesting you actually met some of the people you play rock and roll music with today.... JM: Oh, yeah. SI: ....you know, in more formal training. JM: Yeah, pretty much, that’s how I know all of them except Mike Filitis, who is a high school friend of mine, you know. We also were, you know, you know, involved in various bands and things together, but less structured sorts of things previously, or, at least, like, you know, we were in bands with friends and then, like, I was in a band with some people that Mike was in a band with at another point; things like that. And then we met up again a year....like a few years later to do Data. You know, that kind of worked out well, but the other guys I’ve known more through the formal background for, like, the school oriented music stuff and....but just stuff that did.... We all, except for Chris Klaxton, went to school in Manchester [New Hampshire]. Mike and I went to Manchester Central and Jim Rudolf, Mike Effenberger, Nick Phaneuf all went to West High School in Manchester, and Chris went to Pinkerton, I think. I could have been, Timberlane. Sorry. [chuckle] Timberlane it is. But we were all in various music things together with....on and off. SI: Well, I mean, it has worked out well. It was just this year that you were awarded the Seacoast Spotlight Award for - I’m not sure if I’ll have the right term right - was it best alternative band? JM: Yeah, yeah. Something like that. SI: Well, congratulations on that. JM: Thanks. Yeah, yeah. It was pretty nice to get that. I was pretty surprised with that....it turned out like that. [chuckle] I wasn’t really expecting to win. SI: Now do you have any interest in....you know, I mean, that may have been an unexpected award, but clearly you’re getting a lot of recognition in the area and your do perform very regularly in the area, including a residency at the Barley Pub in Dover. Do you have any interest, ambitions in performing outside of this region and to, sort of, maybe touring at all in this country? JM: Yeah. I mean, I think we all want to do that. We’re....We’ve been trying to work on recording something that rep....like, captures what we sound like as a band more than the recording that I have that I just recorded by myself. And... It’s been a little hard to schedule things to have everybody in the same place at one time. You know, six guys who all have a lot of different projects going on, a lot of.....you know, personal lives, things like that. [inaudible] And I’m pretty bad at logistical sorts of things like scheduling and organizing and that sort of thing, so. I’m hoping that we can get some sort of recording done in the next couple months and then once we have that I think it will allow us to get out of the area a lot more because, you know, a lot of venues and things like that they won’t just take your reputation, they want to hear what you sound like. Even if....even if we have friends in bands who say, ‘oh, we want this band to play with us’.... SI: They need the cold, hard proof. JM: Yeah, won’t take your word for it. SI: Sure, sure. I just wanted to ask you a little bit about, sort of, some of the lyrical content that you write. Not to pigeonhole or....because I haven’t actually heard, like, the entire, your entire catalogue but much of what you write seems to be about love and longing and even nostalgia in some ways. JM: Yeah. SI: Oftentimes, heavy subject matters to some degree. Is....are these topics that you sort of go out of your way to write about or are they, sort of most comfortable, come to you most easily? JM: It’s funny. I like that you said the nostalgia thing actually ‘cause I’ve never had anybody pick that, say that and I feel like....I’ve always felt like that was an aspect of it. But I guess when I sit down to write a song I tend to....my approach tends to be pretty exploratory, you know. I don’t...... And I don’t generally have, like, an idea about what I want to say or anything like that. And I’m not one of those people who, like, has a statement I wanna make and, like, writes a song about that. And for some reason it always seems to come out with that sort of thing, you know, whether it be, like, you know, a relationship type things or, I don’t know, I guess heavier kind of stuff but.... But I never really intend for it to be that way and it’s funny because sometimes I get frustrated with myself for writing stuff like that all the time because I feel like it....a lot of it can, you know....it kind of borders on the morose sometimes and I don’t feel like a morose person at all. I think I’m pretty lighthearted and pretty even keeled most of the time and.... And, I don’t know, maybe that’s just, like, the way that I let go of that sort of thing, you know. I mean, that’s how....just how I look to even express those things. But it’s always fun for me when people assume that the things that I’m singing about are, like, personal things that I’ve, like, been through or, like, based on personal experiences because they’re generally not. You know, I.... My perspective made to some of the, like....if, like, insights I may have had and had on the songs may be based on my personal experience, like, you know, to an extent, but I generally try to avoid writing very personal songs and they seem to come off that way, though, you know. There are certainly, probably details in some of them that are based on personal experiences that I’ve had. I would think that’s probably unavoidable. But, yeah, for the most part, i guess, I’m just trying to write stories or something along those lines. SI: Sure, sure. Well, Jake I appreciate you taking the time to meet with me today. It’s been a pleasure, informative and I wish you and the Tan Vampires the best of luck. JM: Thanks, man. SI: Thanks a lot.
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