2008 Woodie Awards
Animal Collective's Avey Tare to capture Cat's Cradle
By: Stefanija Giric
Issue date: 9/27/07 Section: Recess
Last update: 9/28/07 at 10:05 AM EST
Last update: 9/28/07 at 10:05 AM EST
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New York City experimental quartet Animal Collective has ripped apart and stitched back together the concept of modern pop music. recess recently sat down with Dave Portner, aka Avey Tare, to talk about the release of their new album, Strawberry Jam and their U.S. tour.
Cat's Cradle is a relatively small venue. Do you like playing small clubs or does the audience react better to the music at a bigger location?
I think the set that we're playing right now, which is more electronic is a little tougher because we use these six speakers behind us just so we can monitor ourselves. I think just because of the setup and the way some of the sounds are it's been going well at a bigger venue, about 1000 capacity or so. But it's really fun to play more intimate shows. Sometimes we end up at smaller clubs and are still able to get a connection with the crowd, and sometimes really big shows can still seem awkward, in terms of trying to reach everybody, but it usually works out these days.
So where does the name Avey Tare and all of the other nicknames come from?
Ah yeah, it's just something that we adapted to when we were younger cause we didn't really have any set name growing up. High school and college is really where the names came from. We just thought we would use the individual names that we recorded and worked with each other under and never really have a band name. So one by one we started making music and calling ourselves by the nicknames. And my name. Avey Tare, is my name Dave, Davey without the D and Tare, like you tear your name apart. I just came up with it, outside, once in high school and thought it would work for what we were doing.
What's the evolution been like from album to album? The contrasts between earlier albums like Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They're Vanished to Strawberry Jam are pretty stark. How do you get to that point?
I think it's just taking into consideration where we are at a certain time and a conscious decision to move to a different location when we record each record, but I think it's a matter of wanting to try something different each time and hoping that each record can have a sound or a world of its own. All the records we liked when we were growing up were all different and we like a lot of bands whose records would sound different which is something that's influenced us as well.
Cat's Cradle is a relatively small venue. Do you like playing small clubs or does the audience react better to the music at a bigger location?
I think the set that we're playing right now, which is more electronic is a little tougher because we use these six speakers behind us just so we can monitor ourselves. I think just because of the setup and the way some of the sounds are it's been going well at a bigger venue, about 1000 capacity or so. But it's really fun to play more intimate shows. Sometimes we end up at smaller clubs and are still able to get a connection with the crowd, and sometimes really big shows can still seem awkward, in terms of trying to reach everybody, but it usually works out these days.
So where does the name Avey Tare and all of the other nicknames come from?
Ah yeah, it's just something that we adapted to when we were younger cause we didn't really have any set name growing up. High school and college is really where the names came from. We just thought we would use the individual names that we recorded and worked with each other under and never really have a band name. So one by one we started making music and calling ourselves by the nicknames. And my name. Avey Tare, is my name Dave, Davey without the D and Tare, like you tear your name apart. I just came up with it, outside, once in high school and thought it would work for what we were doing.
What's the evolution been like from album to album? The contrasts between earlier albums like Spirit They're Gone, Spirit They're Vanished to Strawberry Jam are pretty stark. How do you get to that point?
I think it's just taking into consideration where we are at a certain time and a conscious decision to move to a different location when we record each record, but I think it's a matter of wanting to try something different each time and hoping that each record can have a sound or a world of its own. All the records we liked when we were growing up were all different and we like a lot of bands whose records would sound different which is something that's influenced us as well.
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