The Boats Interview

Louisa: The Boats began some years ago in Savannah. I know lots of people, myself included, were pretty disappointed when you all broke up. Before reuniting in Philly you were kind of spread out across the country. Tell me about the current line-up and how you came to get back together.

Micah: Yeah. Nate, our drummer, and Geoff, our bass player both moved to Philly by coincidence. Jonathan, the guitar player, moved to Portland and I moved to southern California. I visited Nate and Geoff here and decided Philly pretty much ruled so my wife let me talk her into moving here. We called Jonathan to see if he’d move out but he has his own band, Mira Flores, that are doing well. So he’ll stay in Portland but in the mean time we became friends with Beto who plays bass with Walker Lundee. He switched to guitar for The Boats and you’d think he played guitar his whole life. That’s our line up.



L: I'm excited about a new album. When is it expected to be released and what can we expect?

M: We don’t have a hard date yet but it’s being mixed right now so it shouldn’t be too much longer. I think you’ll like it. Some of the themes will be familiar to Boats fans. Like, a lot of songs deal with relationships but also a lot about growing up and what it means to be an adult.

Musically, I like to think the writing has been honed a little bit, the playing is a little tighter and the recording is better and punchier.


L: You just got back from playing a show at the Black Cat in DC. That spot is pretty integral in the DC indie scene. Had you played there before? How was it?

M: We loved playing there. I’d never been there before. The food was great. The room sounded good and we love playing with our Savannah friends, Circle Takes the Square.


L: How do you like the Philly music scene? Any favorite local bands right now?

M: Yeah , it’s pretty good. Nate introduced me to Dr. Dog’s music while I still lived in California and I thought it was terrific. When we moved out here to our first apartment, Toby from Dr. Dog was our downstairs neighbor. That was exciting. They’re my favorite philly band along with Spinto band. I also like Buried Beds and some others . I suck at remembering names.


L: What other projects do you all have going on at the moment?

M: Geoff is always busy at his job at NFL Films doing sound design. Nate has a pet portrait business. He makes luminious oil paintings of peoples pets. Beto plays in Walker Lundee, like I said, and he also does a lot of illustrations. I like painting signs, and fixing up curbside finds.


L: Where are your favorite places to play?

M: We like The Tritone, The Khyber, The Church. I want to play at the Northstar just ‘cause I think it’s a cool venue but we haven’t played there yet. The very best though is peoples houses. House shows are the most fun.


L: Favorite hangout places in Philly?

M: If we’re all together we usually go to Tritone. We like their drink specials and they’ve always got something weird on the menu like fried pickles or alligator. I thought they were an endangered species but I guess they’re not. I asked the waitress, “ what is alligator?” She said, “like… alligator.”

Nate and I live in west Philly so we usually hang out at the Green Line Café or the Satelite Café. Geoff and Beto always go to a bar called Atlantis after practice.


L: If you could play a show with anyone/band past or present who would you choose?

M: The first thing that comes to mind is the Pixies because they’re my favorite band but I suppose it’d be a better fantasy to give myself more musical ability, go back in time to the 50’s (not unlike Back to the Future) and go on tour with Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry. Ok, throw in Elvis and Roy Orbison and call it even.


L: What do you all do in your free time?

M: I like car shows-even though I feel that cars are evil polluters I still like looking at them. Geoff loves football and fantasy football. Nate likes reading, learning everything about anything and bicycle touring and Beto likes golfing and going to shows.


L: Give me some good/funny Philly stories/memories/experiences.

M: I walked down into the 19th and market trolley stop and there were a bunch of kids laughing. I was trying to see what they were laughing at and there was this poor crazy woman with her pants around her ankles but with a long shirt so she was covered. She was yelling, but kind of singing,”I wanna know WHO’s!…the mother fucker that’s been callin’ the cops on me….every time I pull my drawls down to take a piss. I wanna know WHO’s!...”and so on like that over and over. Is that funny or sad? I thought it was funny.


L: Many of your lyrics are quite bittersweet and personal, a quality which allows people to identify with them easily. What inspires you to write songs?

M: What happens usually is I’ll just be working or walking down the street and I just talk to myself, like you do, and a couple words will strike me as kind of musical or they have a ring to them or whatever. Then I start singing them to myself. It’s easier if I’m upset for some reason.

Another way is, I’ll hear something and it sets off a trigger. For instance one of my friends was sleeping with a really cute girl and another one of my friends was like, ”Oh, she doesn’t really even like him, she’s just fucking with him.” and I thought, “oh, that kind of sucks.” So I tried to write what it might be like to be him and that’s where Don’t Fuck With Me Baby came from.

Sometimes I’m not really inspired at all and Nate or someone will just kind of force me to write something. Like, my wife said, “lets write a song about my friend Rose.” I didn’t want to and she drug me through it and ended up with I’m Your Ghost which turned out to be one of my favorites.


L: Favorite song of all time? (that's actually pretty hard)

M: My favorite song is Leader of the Pack by the Shangri-Las. It’s like a little movie with its great dialog and sound effects. It’s just a magical combination of totally beautiful and totally stupid at the same time. My favorite part is when they do their spooky and sad outro at the end that I think is actually chilling and then they play these dopey tire skid noises over the top of it that makes it funny. I don’t think it’s the most important song in the world; it’s just my favorite.

The Boats play this Saturday, November 10th at Johnny Brendas. Come see.
And check out their myspace, www.myspace.com/theboats.


Written by Louisa. Flyer provided by artist.