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It’s a common experience, one that we’ve all been through: your band of the moment, so stunning on record, show up in town for a show and you’re super excited and full of bubbling anticipation and then slump, stifle, shrug… nothing to back up the boisterously engrossing fanfare that comprised the album in question. The live set is a formulaic run-through of LP cuts, seemingly in no real order, utterly devoid of soul. Not so with Russian Circles, who left the expectant DiSsers at their South By Southwest show dribbling with delight (review). Sadly, quite literally...
The dynamic instrumental trio – Colin DeKuiper (bass), Mike Sullivan (guitar) and Dave Turncrantz (drums) – formed in 2004; Sullivan and DeKuiper had previously served in the critically revered but commercially nowhere outfit Dakota/Dakota, while Turncratz joined following a spell in indie-rockers Riddle Of Steel (DiScover piece here). Based in Chicago, the three-piece’s debut album, Enter, was released via said city's indie label of choice Flameshovel to a stunning reception in 2006; DiS called it “instantly remarkable” when we covered it here. Finally, the album is to receive an official UK release this summer via Black Records and, more crucially, the band are landing in Britain for their first ever shows on this side of the Atlantic.
After a few shows supporting none other than Tool, Russian Circles hit the road for a series of headline dates – click here for all confirmed shows. The band’s headline London date – on August 31, at the Monto Water Rats – is a DrownedinSound.com organised affair with some super-special guests playing supporting roles (although, if we’re being fair, they’re quite a big deal given the venue), and runs right through ‘til 2am. That’s a Friday night, too. You should come, really – click here for further information and to buy tickets.
Ahead of their debut UK jaunt, DiS caught up with DeKuiper at his home, somewhere in a land of dialling codes that the DiSopolis phones struggle to understand.
Hey Colin, hope I haven’t woken your whole house up here…
No, no… it’s about 11am here now. You’re fine.
So, these UK dates: your first-ever UK dates are three huge shows supporting Tool. Nervous, just a little?
We’re finally coming! After two failed trips…
Yeah, what was up with the botched attempts to tour here before now?
It was down to money, basically. It’s always down to finances.
So have these Tool dates provided you with the finances to tour here properly?
You know, we’ve no idea so far as what we’re going to get for the Tool shows. At the end of the day we were just like: Fuck it, who cares?!
But still, you must be a little daunted by the venues you’re playing first? Brixton Academy isn’t exactly intimate…
We’re very daunted. Thanks for bringing that up! As if I hadn’t thought about it yet. We’ve played to some large crowds before, but probably only 2,000 people at most. The Brixton show’s going to have 5,000 people there, and I’m aware of how many legendary acts have played there. What was I watching the other day? Oh yeah, the Pavement DVD, Slow Century. There’s footage of them playing there on it.
Well playing these large shows first is going to set you up nicely for your own headline shows…
We’re obviously elated to be touring! I know that there’s people over there who are excited about us coming – you guys have been really good to us – and that’s something I like.
I get the feeling there’s a lot of love elsewhere, too. But quickly back to the Tool dates: just how did those come about?
The first time Tool sort of came into the view of Russian Circles was when they contacted Flower Booking, our booking agency in the US, looking for a support band for a tour. They were after either Pelican or Isis or These Arms Are Snakes. So our agent was like: If you like those bands, check out this band, too. Isis toured with Tool prior to that, but they weren’t available… In fact they were just in the UK, right? Yeah. Basically, all those bands were on tour, ad while we didn’t get those Tool dates, it became obvious that such a tour wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility. The UK release of Enter is coming out through Black Records, and the guy there, Jim Chancellor, is the brother of Justin Chancellor who plays bass in Tool. So Tool were able to hear about us again through that connection.
You must be really pleased that Enter is finally coming out ‘properly’ in the UK given all the wonderful reviews it picked up last year?
Oh totally. It looks great, too – we’ve been able to do the artwork again, sort of. It’s kind of repacked, and it has ‘Re-Enter’ added to it, from the seven-inch we put out on Suicide Squeeze.
A lot of people at these UK dates won’t have seen you before – what should they be expecting?
I mean, we are really excited – the best thing is that it’s almost like starting over again, only with really awesome shows to begin with. First we were going out to play little towns in Midwestern states to fifty people tops, and now we’ve these huge shows. But it is exciting, and we’re very aware that we’ll be playing to people who have never seen us before. That’s nice, as we can revisit some of the Enter material that we don’t play so much in the US now. We don’t necessarily change our setlist around much, as we find we have a few that have a natural cohesion and a certain dynamic, but it’ll be nice to settle, almost, into a set that’s really strong and powerful without worrying that the crowd might have seen it a few times.
That cohesion of your lives sets, though, is very much reflected in Enter. It flows really well…
Yeah, and that’s how we started. Now, with another US tour looming, we’re having to look at flipping things and incorporating the new material in a good way. The new stuff isn’t a great departure from Enter, but it is more immediate, and features more open space…
Pelican said that they wanted their last album, City Of Echoes, to be more direct, too…
Yeah, and we’ve not gone down that route because of Pelican, of course… it’s just manifesting itself in that way. We’re not totally there yet, and we could yet come up with a couple of 14- or 15-minute epics. Although I don’t think that’ll be the case!
But these UK shows are going to concentrate on Enter…
Definitely. I think we’ll end up playing all the songs from the record.
And how is album number two progressing?
We’re looking at hopefully getting back to the UK again after these dates, and touring always gets in the way of recording. But once we’re coming up on winter – and winter in Chicago really isn’t any fun – I think we’ll look to get into the studio. We’ll definitely buckle down at that point, and push on through. We’ll hopefully have everything written by the end of the fall, and maybe have it out in the spring. Enter came out in the US last May, and it felt like a nice time to release it as we were able to catch the end of a few spring tours, and run through the summer with plenty of dates. We ploughed right through to the fall.
Checking your MySpace as I do fairly regularly, I saw that you were on quite a lot of tours last year, and through into this year…
Yeah, we went for it last year, for sure. We don’t ever really hit the point where we’re tired of touring – the touring aspect of being in a band like ours, it comes from an indie and punk-rock background. We know that we need to go out there and play shows to get people listening to us (the band sold out of their demos through touring, prior to Enter’s release) – I think there are a lot of people who don’t fully get us until they’ve seen us live. That’s the easiest way to turn people on who, usually, wouldn’t have a taste for anything instrumental, or heavy, or whatever.
I suppose some people must read that you’re an instrumental trio and then leap to the conclusion that you’re a slow-moving post-rock act, which really isn’t the case…
Yep, that’s right. We’re lucky that we can go on so many different tours, playing the sort of music we do. We get to play in front of lots of people who wouldn’t usually invest a lot of their attention in a band like Russian Circles. For example, we toured with Minus The Bear in the US last fall – there, we were playing for people who wouldn’t read a Russian Circles review and think it was something they had to have. But on the tour we found that a lot of people were interested.
So you’re looking to convert a lot of UK sorts to your cause…
Sure thing. Hopefully we won’t get the bottle treatment at Tool!
I’m sure that won’t be the case. And I’ll see you there, anyway, for a drink or something…
Sure, we need someone to show us around the sights of Brixton.
Oh, there’s a lot of stuff to see. Lovely part of town…
We’re hoping to get the 65daysofstatic boys down, too… at South By Southwest they were all a bit smashed. I think only Paul could talk properly…
Sounds about right. Catch Russian Circles at London's Monto Water Rats, headlining a very special end-of-summer DiS party, on August 31; tickets are £12, and doors open at 7pm and close at 2am. After the bands there will be a selection of DJs to keep revellers dancing ‘til close. Nice, nice. For all other Russian Circles dates click HERE, and point yourself HERE for the band’s MySpace site.
