An Interview with French Horn Rebellion
When French Horn Rebellion takes the stage, busting out live french horn solos in the midst of overheated electro–infusing cool notes of jazz into drops of electric synth pop, the crowd at the São Paulo club “Hot Hot” goes a bit crazy and a vibrant dance party awakens. But it’s their new tune “Beaches and Friends” that really gets the crowd going. “Beaches and Friends,” a collaboration with São Paulo DJ’s “Database” has everyone from The Guardian to Seventeen Magazine buzzing about Milwaukee-born brothers, Robert and David Perlick-Molinari, also known as French Horn Rebellion. Robert and David, who are actually strikingly similar to the characters they play in their hilarious music videos, talk about giving up traditional French Horn for Sex, Drugs, & Rock ‘n roll–revealing eclectic influences ranging from The Beatles and Miles Davis to Donald Duck in Bahia and faraway galaxies.
Ines: Your music videos are really amazingly creative. The video for “Up All Night” is so simple but really hilarious and just brilliant. How did the video come about?
David: Thanks! We owe Dax the director of the “Up All Night” and “Broken Heart two-part epic” for the initial ideas behind the video. To me, “Up All Night” is about people becoming conformable with themselves. In the video we aimed to make fun of ourselves, and the way others might perceive us, and the way we were perceiving others around us, by creating an idealistic story of a romantic encounter. It’s about what may happen if you forget about being chill and hip and just beeeeeeeeee yourself… like in Disney’s Aladdin you will get the princess. It’s also a bit of a reaction to hipster culture in Brooklyn and Manhattan circa 2007.
Robert: I think the idea for the video is basically about having fun. A lot of kids in New York City these days take themselves pretty seriously, and we just wanted to say “Hey! Lighten up!”
Ines: The Williamsburg brick wall comes back a lot, as you have the same back drop in the video for “Broken Heart.” What’s the story behind that?
Robert: Well I think the brick wall is just a representation of Williamsburg. It sets the backdrop for the mini-play we’ve created. Basically “Broken Heart” is really supposed to go first, then “Up All Night” happens second. Like we’re two guys on the street that just do this– that’s what we do, hop around and do funny dances. Sometimes girls walk by and it turns into West Side Story meets a Middle School dance party.
David: Also we had no money and used the same location to do both videos which we did on the same day.
Ines: Robert, you’ve talked about how you founded the band when you were on a French Horn scholarship at Northwestern because you found playing 6 hours a day of French horn to be a bit limiting. Was there a particular experience which really made you decide to form the band?
Robert: When I went to university, I came in knowing that I would try to score films, write songs, and record music, all three of which I did at school. Up until I graduated I was giving horn 100% of my effort. During my last year at university I was accepted into the Chicago Civic Orchestra as an associate- certainly the most prestigious group I’ve been a part of. The idea for French Horn Rebellion came from the spark of one song I recorded while doing a post-production internship in New York City with David. The whole summer that I was working, I was practicing horn one hour before work, and one hour after work every day to keep my skills up. At the same time, in the post-production studio, we were composing music for various commercial projects, and not once during the whole summer did we ever call in a live musician. The engineers there would compose, perform, and record the music in the studio by themselves. If a live instrument was needed, a digital sound library would be called up. This was a really frustrating experience. So I wrote a song where the lyrics basically describe a conversation between a horn player, and the engineer that used to hire him for music sessions. Interestingly, it actually sounds a lot like a romantic relationship breaking up. So, French Horn Rebellion became a way for me to funnel all of my creative frustrations from playing horn into new music.
Ines: You’ve been collaborating with São Paulo DJ’s “Database.” Your shows at Hot Hot and Bar Secreto a couple of weeks ago were really great. What are your impressions of São Paulo?
Robert: São Paulo is an amazing city! It’s a really fun place because everything seems a bit more renegade in Sao Paulo- like parties until 8AM with the afterparty until 1PM the next day. I think that’s really cool. We’re definitely inspired by Brazil. In fact, we have a song on our upcoming album called “Brasilia Girl.” It’s about running through the jungle, stumbling across the city of Brasilia, and trying to find your muse.
David: And while you’re there you realize that you are a true foreigner. Like an alien from another world. Not too distant of a world, but far enough to create a totally unexpected dynamic.
Ines: Speaking of Brazil… David, you told me that you’ve been having dreams of Bahia?
David: Well, recently my favorite cartoon character has become Donald Duck. And he takes a very interesting trip to Bahia in one of his various adventures in the movie “Saludos Amigos.” I’ve never been to Bahia but I would really love to go sometime.
Ines: I’m intrigued by the way your myspace reads “Don’t let Da post-Holden world get you down…”
David: Robert added the “Da” but it refers to Holden Caulfield in “The Catcher in the Rye.” For the first three-fourths of the book it seemed he was always going around talking about how everybody is “phony.” The statement on our profile is kind of a sarcastic response intended to make me, and hopefully others, feel better about how big the world really is, and how no one person has the ability to put their finger on the pulse of reality.
Ines: Robert, you cite Miles Davis as a big influence. I was really struck by your French Horn solos at your show. The warm infusion of jazz music in the midst of all the electro sounded beautiful and innovative. Could you talk about creating the eclectic musical blend which is FHR?
Robert: Yes Miles Davis is a big influence– partially because his music is very beautiful, but also very simple. He’s really able to express how he’s feeling through his instrument, but doesn’t overstate it. The way he makes a phrase is almost perfection. Also, his cool jazz phase, the albums “Kind of Blue,” and “The Birth of Cool,” are big harmonic influences in the way I write. His stuff is very modal- where you go from mode to mode during the song. In the album, the last half is made up of completely chromatic compositions, and the way some of them are structured is through modes– giving it that jazzy sound.
Ines: What was it like transitioning from Milwaukee to NYC and did it influence your sound?
Robert: Well we grew up in Milwaukee-then went to school elsewhere. We say we’re from Milwaukee because that’s where we grew up, and being brothers, it really has influenced our music. For me, Milwaukee helped cultivate a lot of my basic musicianship skills. When I was in high school, I was playing in a ton of bands and orchestras- the Milwaukee Youth Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Summer Orchestra, and the University of Wisconsin- Milwaukee Symphonic Band, to name a few. All the teachers I had in those groups were extremely influential. Also, my first real French horn teacher, Bill Barnewitz, Principal horn of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, was a big supporter and gave me a lot of the tools I needed to succeed. He’s the one who first introduced me to Frank Zappa, one of my favorite composers. I owe a lot to Mr. Barnewitz.
David: Yeah, I feel like after going through the gauntlet in NYC I proved to myself that I could trust my own thoughts and opinions and it gave me the confidence to produce music that truly inspired me . I know now when I’m being phony to myself.
Ines: Your mother accidentally played a big role in the formation of FHR, buying you a version of the computer program Logic when you were just little kids. Of course, she intended for you to play classical music or compose Broadway hits. So what does she think about the music you actually ended up playing?
David: Our mom definitely thinks we’re wasting our time. She periodically sends us articles from the Wall Street Journal saying the music industry is dead. I’m not really sure what she actually thinks of the music.
Ines: 2010 has been been quite a year for you so far. You’ve been receiving critical acclaim from BBC Radio, The Guardian, Les Inrockuptibles, and even Seventeen Magazine. You recently played a party at The Louvre for celebrities like Lindsay Lohan, Spike Jonze, and Christina Ricci. Not to mention your show at Jean-Charles de Castelbajac’s Castle during Paris Fashion Week. Given these recent experiences what has the most surreal moment been so far?
Robert: I think the most surreal moment so far was during the afterparty of the Castelbajac fashion show. I played our remix of “Sleepy Lion” by Magic Magic, and the entire place erupted. I later found out that the place was littered with celebrities. It’s pretty neat to have that kind of response.
David: I’d definitely say it was when the car pulled up to the Louvre and our manager said, “This is where we’re playing.”
Ines: You both went to great Universities, Northwestern and NYU. Robert, you were known for throwing some great parties at Northwestern, which is pretty akin to the party atmosphere you bring to your shows now. What’s the most valuable skill you both learned in college?
Robert: I learned that the best way to spell Wisconsin is Wiscon SIN…[laughs]… well our parties were pretty good– we used to have a Jazz-fusion version of French Horn Rebellion play from behind a cage in the basement. I learned how to tap a keg and use duct tape as decoration.
David: Wow you’re teachers were right Robert — remember when Mr. Barnewitz said, “You’ve given up horn for sex, drugs, and rock & roll.” Funny thing is, now it seems french horn rebellion and everything we did outside of school has taken us to places I have only dreamed of going… like Brazil.
Ines: You also cite The Beatles as a big inspiration. David, In a recent interview you said, “We’re trying to explore and go on Journeys, and trying to make sense of it all…The Beatles were trying to seek out things that were important to them and then derive some kind of greater meaning.” Could you speak more about the relationship between this idea of journeys and your music?
Robert and David: Really glad you picked up on this, as the album will be coming out soon, it will be even more apparent of what we mean by all of this. We’ve decided for the upcoming album to make a full non-stop 52 minute audio movie that chronicles a journey of a person just like you or me. As you travel, one discovers many new things. The music is composed to take on these new experiences and the frustration of trying to understand them in order to reach the next step and get closer to trying to find some greater clarity… very little steps at a time in maybe a greater journey altogether. A lot of people go on these kind of spiritual journeys, or pilgrimages it seems. We’ve been studying a lot of these kinds of stories, and how artists that we like have gone out on their own to discover what makes them tick. These and our own experiences have all gone into the album, and with them we’ve tried to create an arch for the listener to put together some sort of a story giving meaning to the individual parts and maybe inspiring others to go on some sort of journey of their own… ultimately finding some sort of peace in their own life.
Ines: You talk about outer space a lot. In a recent interview Robert stated, “It was a really exciting and cool time, growing up in the ’80s, dreaming of going to Mars and stuff like that…the future that was so bright when we were kids—turned out not to happen. So we try to make music that can fulfill those dreams.” Could you talk more specifically about the relationship between space and your sound?
David: I think a lot of these ideas are a product of our environment. Growing up in Midwestern America, I feel like there was a lot of this optimistic, futurist, ideology about space exploration and scientific research to give us the means to make a better world. I feel like our music is heavily inspired by all that. Now it seems that as we’ve grown older, the world doesn’t really want to work together to improve things. Rather it needs to be individuals who lead us to value things like: peace on earth, the golden rule, and inspiring others to search outside themselves. Right now, looking way out into the universe and learning about faraway galaxies inspires me to keep learning more about all the many facets of existence. I guess that’s where the relationship to space and our sound is…in its awe and ability to seize my imagination and create an unending resource of wonderment, so that I will keep searching and never be completely satisfied with where I am. It pushes me to learn more and spread positive ideas. Hopefully in the process, making the world a better place. Wow, I sound like Michael Jackson or something. You know … “heal the world make it a better place — for you and for me and the entire human race.”