As a horrible guitarist, how does one write and record a record where they play guitar?
You just gotta use your weaknesses as your strengths. You can only play certain things and you just play them the best you can, you know? If you’re gonna mess something up, then laugh at it instead of having it bum you out and ruin your set.
Even though some of the songs are a few years old do they still feel relevant to you?
Yeah it’s weird. I felt like a long time ago when I started writing stories and poetry and words it wasn’t important to harp on clarity. Ever. I felt like the more specific you got about something, the less relevant it was going to be over time. But I think with a lot of these songs, because of the fact that they’re so obvious and so specific, that it actually makes it broader for me. I can deconstruct their meanings into a million different things. It definitely opened it up. I still feel like they’re all very relevant. I can also remember what they’re initially about so it’s cool to see them change.
When you play them now do you relive those old emotions?
Yeah. Sometimes I’ll just be standing there singing those words and metaphorically staring at what it was and what it is and having them both be totally different but both be really important to me still. I can’t imagine how people go for five or six years playing songs that they just wrote to sell records. It seems like it would be torture. There’s a couple things that when I sing them I feel amazing. They make me feel good to sing. Even if I’m angry with my wife and we’re fighting or something, every time I play ‘She Loves Me So’ I’m in love. I feel awesome. I feel confident and happy. There’s been times on this tour where I’ve been in a different mind frame, I’ll be stressed out or something, and I’ll play that song at soundcheck and I’ll feel fucking fine. It puts things in perspective.
When is Circa planning to start recording a new record?
As soon as we get home we’re planning to start. Literally the day we get home we’re gonna start rehearsing for a little tour that we’re gonna do in September. I think we’re playing at the Knitting Factory in New York. We’re just gonna do a couple little shows for fun since we haven’t played in a while. And then immediately following those shows we start writing and rehearsing for the record.
Do you guys already have stuff written?
Yeah. Everybody does. I had this idea that maybe for this record, that maybe we would each write three songs, each member of the band, completely architect three songs. It would be the same type of writing that we would usually do except that whomever was in charge of the song we were working on would have direction. You’d still try and add as much of your own personal flair to it as you could. Everybody would have to work on everybody’s shit just as hard. It’s just a weird concept that I’ve been thinking about. I think we all want to put out a record where every song sounds like it could be on a different record.
Do you have a plan as to when it might come out?
It would be ridiculous to say that I think it will come out early next year. I hope that it can come out early next year, but I’m not going to put that limitation on it now just in case something comes up. I don’t want to jinx it. I’d love to be able to say that though.
Avalon is available now. Anthony Green will be playing the Highline Ballroom on Sept. 9. For more info visit myspace.com/anthonygreen
