Editorial Department

written by Derrick Taruc, photographed by Alex Aristei

Awesome New Republic recently played Dim Mak's ultra-Hollywood-hipster night at Cinespace, opening up the night which included DJ sets by Them Jeans and Fischerspooner. They got the growing crowd moving, playing songs from their latest release, Hearts (Honor Roll Music). Also in attendance were Whitney Port, Rachel Bilson, and The Cobrasnake. Interview with Michael John Hancock (vocals + guitar), Brian Robertson (synths), and Jorge Rubiera (drums) below.

What's it like in Miami?
MICHAEL JOHN HANCOCK: It's a lot less populated, especially the scene. The scene is pretty small. It's basically like a small town within a metropolis. Everyone kind of knows each other and is working together which has helped Miami, all of a sudden, develop a legitimate scene, in South Florida, in general.

JORGE RUBIERA: There's a lot more tension. It's like a tense place. Like an angry, mean—

MJH: Foreboding place

JR: It's hot all the time, everybody's always on edge. It's libido oriented.

Somewhere I heard that you got “Best New Music?”
MJH: [from the] Miami city paper

JR: That's the cool thing. The media down there is really supportive. Any magazine, any newspaper, any publication. They're really supportive of the music scene. Pick up any rag and find one of your friends there. The media is supportive. It's a new thing. Miami used to be a dead end as far as the scene was concerned. It was four or five places to play. Things have heated up lately in the last five years. Actually, Honor Roll [Their record label] has had a lot to do with that and so has this other place, Sweat Records. It's kind of the only independent record store down there. And they've really been focusing on live music, bringing bands down, putting on big shows, getting the media involved, getting television involved—going, thriving.

It sounds as if you're very much about community and inclusiveness—how do you feel about playing Dim Mak events which, at times, can be very exclusive?
MJH: I feel like the most punk rock thing you can do is just show up to every party and do your best no matter where you're at. Whether you're playing for the tween audience or playing the hipster crowd or playing for more of an adult crowd or playing at a noise show or punk rock show. We've actually struggled more playing those kind of shows, obviously. As much as that attitude amongst some people within these different communities is very open minded, a lot of indie culture and punk rock culture—whatever you want to call it, whatever it's become at this point—is as exclusive as VIP club in South Beach. We're just happy to play anywhere. Whether people like it or not, we'll have fun and we'll notice the people that do have fun and we'll be giving it to them.

Weren't you more a guitar based band before?
MJH: We've been through a lot of different phases. For a while I was playing drums and singing and he (Brian Robertson) was playing just keyboards. The keyboards sounds were sort of guitar and bass sounds. Distorted Rhodes and synth-bass. But as far as the tenseness, the anxiety combined with the sunny aspects—that's how I feel about our music is, it's really anxious pop music: The radio having a panic attack.

I watched that Liars video which you have called a “collective favorite.” What's the connection there?
JR: Liars is one of our favorite bands. If this band had one mind, it would be that mind's favorite band.

MJH: Right before we started the band, he [Brian] was really into [The Liar's] They Threw Us All in a Trench and Stuck a Monument on Top, and I drove up to Baltimore and saw them play They Were Wrong, So We Drowned stuff right before it came out. There was something about the energy in the performance, and their attitude was very—for the kind of music that they were making—very loving. Very like, “C'mon, let's have this spiritual witch trial experience together.” I see the hooks and the pop and the fat beats in Liars.

BRIAN ROBERTSON: I think we all do.

JR: You know what it is? They come out of this era: a lot of successful bands came out of that neighborhood, at that period of time, but what they were doing was a hell of a lot uglier, a hell of a lot noisier, a hell of a lot crazier, and a hell of a lot nastier but—

MJH: catchy

JR: —but they're doing the same stuff. They're just doing it in a really makeshift way. And I love their recording methods, and all of us agree that they're just—they have a fascinating approach. If you take one of their songs, it's a pop song.

BR: If you covered one of their songs, it would sound like a pop song.

MJH: We've played on the beach, just playing hotel gigs to make money, playing covers. We played, “There's always room on the broom,” is that the one?

JR: [mimics the song in a grating, high-pitched voice]

MJH: We play it like a dance song. Same notes, same everything, and it gets 30-40 somethings on vacation dancing. It's really funny. That band and a lot of other groups no matter where they sit in the spectrum of the music industry, they themselves have packaged themselves into a whole unit of music, aesthetics, style, and concept. The way that a pop group is. Pop to me is not just music, but an entire package, and a universe that a potential fan can engross themselves in and enjoy themselves with. That's what really draws us to that band and any band or artist that's like that.

I feel as if ANR is going against the grain in a lot of ways. In an indie scene populated by noisy garage pop and psychedelic freak folk stuff, where do you see yourselves?
MJH: We're sitting on a fence. On one side of the fence is grass roots culture, whatever that's become. There's as much calculation within there as was in the major music industry ten, twenty years ago. On the other side of the fence is super epic major music for the masses. We're operating on a grass roots level, and we're operating on an independent level with our peers the same way at the beginning of a lot of these smaller labels that are doing well, and how they were doing it.
The reason we're this awkward little beast right now is that we're not trying to make music to fit in with that culture at all. We're trying to make big music. We're trying to make the best sounding music that can get the most people inspired and the most people out the door to do their own thing. And people get confused because we're on the level and operating within the indie world but we're not making music that is trying to fit in with that world.

Catch them on tour:

Nov 14 2009 8:00P
@The Door
Plano, Texas

Nov 15 2009 8:00P
@Mohawk
Austin, Texas

Nov 16 2009 8:00P
@Alabama Music Box
Mobile, Alabama

Nov 17 2009 8:00P
@Crowbar
Tampa, Florida

Nov 18 2009 8:00P
@Cock N Bull
Sarasota, Florida

Nov 21 2009 8:00P
@Studio 1415
Miami, Florida

(l to r): Brian Robertson, Michael John Hancock, and Jorge Rubiera