Scenestar

BY CHERYL CHENG

Blake Hazard and John Dragonetti, also known as The Submarines, have a cute way of finishing each other’s thoughts and sentences, reflecting their harmonious relationship as well as music. After the success of debut album Declare a New State, a document of their break-up before their eventual marriage, The Submarines have turned to somewhat happier subjects with new album Honeysuckle Weeks. Blake and John chatted with The Scenestar before their most recent Los Angeles show at the Echo, proving to be just as warm and accessible as their infectious pop music.

SS: Congratulations on the new album! For the first album, Declare a New State, I could figure out the title, but I was wondering where the name Honeysuckle Weeks came from.
Blake: We used to watch a lot of Mystery on PBS. And there was a British actress who was on a series called Foyle’s War, and we saw the credits one day.
John: Yeah, she’s the driver. Her name is Honeysuckle Weeks.
Blake: We thought her name was so amazing, and that was some time ago, and as we were working on this record, we felt like there was kind of this garden theme, plants and flowers and summertime and everything. So we hit on the name again, Honeysuckle Weeks, and we felt like it described the time of the summer and the garden flourishing and everything that came into the record, so it felt like it fit.
John: So we asked her and she said…
Blake: Cool.
John: It’s not like it’s a tribute to someone. It’s just like, you have a really cool name.

SS: I think that summer feel really comes across for this album, with the butterfly cover art and the overall look and sound.
Blake: Yeah, our friend Cole Gerst did the artwork. He also goes by the name Option-G, and he does a lot of great illustration and animation work. And we’re working with him on a video right now actually.

SS: Oh, for what song?
Blake: “You, Me and the Bourgeoisie.”

SS: I love that song! What’s the theme of the video?
Blake: Well, that sort of remains to be seen. It’s all in the works.
John: We’re hashing it out. But I think, hopefully, it will reflect the lyrics strongly enough.

SS: Yeah, I think “You, Me” is different from most other Submarines songs because of its political commentary.
Blake: It definitely is, but at the end of the day, it’s really just a love song. You know, it’s very political and it’s very much about environmental consciousness and not being wasteful and all those kinds of things, but I think that we really tried to escape being preachy. Hopefully that comes through, because the message to me of the whole thing is, love fills your heart enough so you feel you don’t need all these things.

SS: Like the lyric.
Blake: “When our hearts are full, we need much less.”
John: Blake wrote those lyrics, I can only interpret them, but it’s interesting also, being in a place like Silverlake, which in a way is sort of like the Silverlake bourgeoisie. I mean, we’re kind of making fun of ourselves as well…

SS: In terms of songwriting, for the first album, the tracks were written separately, so for Honeysuckle Weeks was it more collaborative?
Blake: It was much more collaborative. A few of the songs, we wrote separately. For the most part, it was things like John giving me tracks, and I would write music and lyrics over that, or I’d come in with a song that was partly finished or ideas, and we would finish them together…
John: There’s not necessarily a pattern.

SS: I also felt that Honeysuckle explored new genres, like with “1940.”
Blake: A little bit. I think we’re both really big fans of old-school dub. And I think maybe for the first time that came out in the Submarines context. Although John already plays with that in his previous work. Yeah, but I think in “1940” that came through.
John: Yeah, it was cool. I mean hopefully we weren’t being too conscious of trying out a style or anything. But just the stuff you love kind of comes out in the right way.

SS: If I were to take a look at your record collection, is there any artist whom I would definitely know you’re a fan of? Someone whose catalog you own all of?
John: We have quiiite a few full catalogs… [Laughs]
Blake: If I could say anyone’s whole catalog, they’d have to be deceased, so Django Reinhardt, I have the whole catalog.
John: And The Beatles.
Blake: Probably Miles Davis, although I’m sure there are a lot of rarities we don’t have.

SS: And in terms of influence?
John: There hasn’t been one thing. It’s been everything from The Beatles to Public Enemy at a certain time in my life.
Blake: And Goldfrapp and Aphex Twin, some singer/songwriters. We’re kind of all over the place.

SS: For Honeysuckle, the album was released on iTunes a month earlier than the CD. Why did you decide to release it digitally first?
John: It was the label’s suggestion.
Blake: And they’re far more savvy than we about digital stuff.
John: I don’t really quite understand why, but I feel like it hasn’t hurt us in any way.
Blake: We trusted their kind of take on it.
John: I think our sales are pretty equal with digital and maybe even more digitally.

SS: I really wanted to hear the new album, but I waited the extra month to buy the CD.
John: It’s weird. You think it might take a little out of the impact if everything doesn’t come out at the same time.
Blake: But I think that kind of old-school thinking that you have to have this really flashy launch of the record has kind of gone out the window, because there’s so many different ways for people to be exposed to music over time. It doesn’t have to be this drastic, flashy start, so I think in some ways, just getting it out digitally is a good thing.
John: It’s a slow growth thing for us. I don’t think necessarily there’s an immediate effect.
Blake: Well, hopefully there’s some immediate effect. [Laughs]

SS: Your music has been featured on several TV shows, so with record sales going down, do you find TV a new source of revenue?
Blake: Definitely. As record sales go down, and it becomes more and more difficult to make a living selling records—although that has always been a challenge—[TV] does present a new way to make a living. For us, it has been great. It has meant that I can play music full time. John composes for film and TV so he has been a musician full time for quite a while.
John: The licensing stuff has been really helpful for us. If there was something that were to bother us, we would say no.
Blake: There have been a few things that we weren’t comfortable with for whatever reason, maybe politically or we just felt weird.
John: There’s no perfect answer for that. Nothing is going to be an absolute perfect TV show that represents all of our views.

SS: After having your music featured in Grey’s Anatomy and Nip/Tuck, have you considered composing specifically for a project?
Blake: John just scored a film called Surfwise, a documentary about surf legend Doc Paskowitz.
John: It’s directed by Doug Pray, who did Scratch, which is a documentary about the whole San Francisco turntable scene. Surfwise was the first film that I did. [For TV,] I worked on the first season of Weeds and also Big Ideas for a Small Planet.

SS: Oh, Big Ideas is a great show.
John: Yeah, I do all the music for that. It’s kind of draining. [Laughs]
Blake: It’s a lot of music!
John: Just before we finished our record, I finished that second season, and I was like, ‘OK, we’re taking a break from this.’ So going on this tour has been kind of, in a weird way, a vacation, even though it has been pretty exhausting. It’s nice to keep that stuff separate. I do commercial work and even though the band has its commercial elements as far as licensing, it’s nice to know you can kind of have that and have this kind of day job.

SS: For this tour, you brought along drummer Jason Stare. How did that come about?
Blake: Well, we knew that we wanted to have a different approach this time around. Last time when we toured, a lot of the songs really worked well in an intimate setting with just the two of us playing, but we knew this one was kind of more fun and expansive. And we were ready to have more energy up on stage. We met J. at the Sundance Festival. We were there playing, and he was there playing with another band. So we were lucky enough to stumble upon him playing with a band that we really liked. And he was free to tour with us.
John: He has made it so much more fun to play.

SS: Would you consider adding other members?
Blake: As we can afford them, we’ll add more people. There will be 25 people on stage when we’re huuuge. [Laughs]
John: The touring economics as a band is working for us right now, but yeah, it’d be great to expand.

SS: This Echo show is the last date of this tour, so what’s next?
Blake: We have a number of shows coming up that are sort of event things. But we’re hoping to do more touring in the summer.
John: Yeah, we’ll be touring again in the summer.

SS: So non-stop touring for the Submarines?
Blake: Well, I don’t know about non-stop. [Laughs] We’re going to take a little breather. We have some recording to do for a few different projects that friends have asked us to work on. We’ll be doing that for a little while and hopefully get back on the road before too long.

The Submarines have an in-store performance scheduled for July 15 at Fingerprints Records in Long Beach as well as a few U.S. shows with Aimee Mann, but also look out for more tour dates from the duo, whose Honeysuckle Weeks will be the perfect soundtrack for these summer months.