Synth City

It’s no secret that Omaha has birthed some incredible indie bands in recent memory, with the Faint being one of the more notable acts to to have success in the thriving local music scene. Comprised of singer Todd Fink (formerly Baechle), drummer Clark Baechle, bassist Joel Peterson and keyboardist Jacob Thiele, the Faint has evolved into an electronically charged, synth-heavy collective capable of sonic genius. After releasing 1999’s “Blank-Wave Arcade” on Saddle Creek Records, the Faint was catapulted to an entirely new level of success and was, consequently, granted the artistic freedom to experiment with its electronic evolution.

The recently released “Fasciinatiion” is the band’s first official debut on their own Blank.Wave record label and also the first major project recorded at the freshly erected Enamel Studios, the Faint’s own professional recording mecca. In support of the current album, the Faint will be in Omaha Saturday as part of a nation-wide tour. Todd Fink sat down with the City Weekly a few weeks ago to discuss Enamel Studios, Blank.Wave Records, the upcoming tour, marriage to another musician and growing up on junk food.

How did Commander Venus evolve into the synth-heavy sound of the Faint?

They happened at the same. Norman Bailer was the name of the band that became the Faint. It had three out of the five of us. It started at the end of 1994. Conor (Oberst) was in Norman Bailer when we started and then we formed Commander Venus, which included Tim Kasher, Matt Bowen, Rob Nansel and Conor. There were other members, too. I guess I joined it when it was ending in 1997.

So it was a short-lived project for you?

I’m not sure when exactly the Faint formed unless it was in December, 1994, but that was still Norman Bailer. At one point, Norman Bailer just changed its name to the Faint. That’s more how it happened. By the time we were finally ready to release a whole album, we decided to change it. We never really liked the name Norman Bailer, it was just sort of assigned to us by somebody else. I don’t think we even discussed that.

Would you consider “Blank-Wave Arcade” your breakthrough album?

I would. To be honest, it’s the first album where we really had something we felt was worth offering to the rest of the world. We were trying to do music before and we tried a bunch of different things on our first CD, “Media,” but we just didn’t feel like we found the sound of what it should be. So when we started writing “Blank-Wave Arcade,” it was kind of a new thing in a way. We had keyboards before but this felt different. We had written a few songs for “Blank-Wave Arcade” and then Jacob joined. We needed a keyboard player who only played keyboards. We were trying to get away from guitar.

What do you think about the whole ‘80s revival thing that’s going on right now? Do you feel like you’ve contributed to it in any sense?

Those were my formative years, you know, listening to records or cassettes in the ‘80s, from the supermarket, even. They used to sell vinyl at Albertson’s and T-shirts in the same shape as the records. It was because the only music we ever listened to that had keyboards was from the ‘80s – kind of like Aphex Twin – but you have no idea how to make that music. Nobody really does. That’s the trick of it, really.

So when we switched to keyboards, we had no idea what we were going to play we just knew it was the right instrument to use. What came out of us naturally were a lot of melodic lines and those were the same things that happened 20 years earlier or whenever keyboards were invented and musicians were like, “whoa, what do we do with this?” We recognized it as an ‘80s thing but if it seemed like we were playing ‘80s music, we’d interrupt ourselves on a song and do something opposite to make sure it wouldn’t be mistaken for that kind of thing.

Who are some of your main influences from that era?

I feel like to say influences is to overstate our intention of what we were trying to do. None of the influences that I’ve had from the ‘80s are as important as the ones I’ve had from the ‘90s. I like Fugazi, Sonic Youth and Bad Brains. Bands like that.

How do you account for the long wait between studio albums?

Each time we do a record, there’s more touring to do. That’s my best answer. Maybe that’s not a good answer, but there’s a lot of places in the world and some you have to go to more than once to build any sort of momentum.

What is your favorite place to play?

Some of my favorite places to play have been Tokyo and Mexico. It’s like going to another planet. There are lot of similar things that we as Americans are accustomed to, but you can’t read what anything says and they all seem to be invented separately from what we have. That’s the way I see it.

Your upcoming record is self-released. Why the departure from Saddle Creek Records?

The record label is called Blank.Wave. It’s not so much about leaving Saddle Creek, it’s about taking the rest of responsibility of the band. We’ve always tried to do everything we can ourselves. Sometimes to a fault. There could be someone else better doing the job, but at this point it just makes the most sense to put out our own record. Nothing against Saddle Creek.

Were you influenced at all by Radiohead or Trent Reznor’s move to put out their own stuff rather than use a major label?

It’s good to see big bands doing it like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails. We don’t so much look to them and think, “Oh, let’s do that.” I feel like we’d be doing to exact same thing anyway but it’s really cool to see somebody that really matters doing something so significant – they’re showing the rest of the world that it’s alright and I think some people will maybe rethink the system I think the whole music system is changing very fast.

Do you think that’s the future of the recording industry?

I think so. It seems to be that that’s going to play into it. Whenever anybody is resourceful enough not to pay somebody else to do it, they’ve cut that corner, although all of our old records will be on Saddle Creek.

Are you interested in signing other artists?

It’d be cool someday. We’ve got a lot on the line right now, actually. We used all the money we’ve ever made, put it all together, took out some loans and bought a building a few ago to have a professional recording studio built (Enamel Studios). We still owe some money from doing that and to start your own record label is quite an investment. Even though it’s putting out one band at this point, there’s still a lot to be done.

We knew it was going to be tough and we knew it was going to be expensive, but it’s … wow. We just hope for the best. We don’t know if it’s going to work or if people are going to buy the records. We’ve taken a loan out to put out the record for a whole lot of money and we’ve all had to sign basically everything that any of us own against this loan. If nobody buys the record, it won’t be the worst thing in the world, but I guess we’d all have to move into the studio. But to answer your question, we would love to put out other artists at some point. If this works out and everything is fine, we may put out our side projects first then ease into something else.

So when, how, did Enamel Studios come about?

I’m not that good with time but I’d say we got the building about three years ago and we moved out of the place we were renting on 24th and Leavenworth near the old Cog Factory. Because we had recorded “Wet From Birth” there, we knew we’d have a lot of trouble with the sound due to high ceilings and we couldn’t control any of our sound. We thought about building a little recording area inside there but it didn’t really make much sense because we were renting.

It would have cost a bunch of money so we moved into this other building and two years later, we started deconstructing the bottom half. We just got our sledgehammers and axes and went to it. We discovered it wasn’t a great building for it. The designer didn’t want to do it at first because it wasn’t going to be a big enough studio, it was going to be a lot of work and we had to fly him back and forth into town. It was the same guys that did the Bright Eyes studio. But we finally got it together.

Do you feel the Omaha music scene has peaked or is losing momentum in any way?

No. Maybe I don’t feel like that and other people do. If I bought into everything that was written at one point, it probably would seem like that. I didn’t take any of that speculation seriously. There are a handful of really great songwriters and musicians in town and that handful are just better than a lot of cities. For whatever reason, I don’t know. There aren’t any other cities very close that are all that attractive. We’re at least seven hours away from Chicago, Denver or Minneapolis so I think people naturally just make their band here and give it what they have to give.

Are you vegan or vegetarian?

Joel and Jacob are as close to vegan as possible. I’m trying to eat mostly veggies. That’s my new thing. I’ve grown up on junk food. It’s caused me some problems. I like to blame them on junk food – if you think about it, it explains a lot. It’s made it easier to change coming to the realization that it’s only in the last generation or two that people have eaten such garbage. If you go back a 1,000 years, that’s not very far in the scope of how long humans have been around. Based on what we can eat, we’ve kind of adapted to those things. But none of it should have anything to do with Laffy Taffy.

Are you looking forward to going back on tour?

It’s coming up really quick. We’re planning on what it will be like. We’ve been making movies and putting them behind us that are synched with the music. We’ve wanted to change that up so we’re working on a plan to present it in a fresh way. We’ll see if that pans out. We’ve got a lot of ideas to pull together and we’re not set designers. We don’t know the mechanics of lighting boards, etc. so we need someone to help us pull all of these concepts together. I think we’ve might of found somebody. He’s the same guy that does Daft Punk.

Is it tough balancing marriage with a music career, especially when you’re married to Orenda Fink, another musician?

Sometimes it is. But I think my personality works well with being away in chunks. I think I deal with it a little better than most people and Orenda included. I don’t really get bored. I’m grateful for it. I get anxious to make things but otherwise I’m not the person who wants to leave the party to see if another party is better. I’m happy where I am most of the time.

Why did you decide to take Fink as your last name?

Azure Ray had gone on hiatus and Orenda had already finished a new record under the name, Orenda Fink. It didn’t really make sense for her to take my name at the time. If we didn’t take each other’s names at all, we didn’t know what we’d do once we had kids. We wanted them to have the same last name so we took hers instead. I think I’ve also always had a little feminist in me. I’m sure with me saying that, someone will have a memory that doesn’t go with that. It’s also easier to spell.

The track “Take Me To The Hospital” is very different from other things you’ve done in the past. Where did that idea come from?

It was the first song we did when we weren’t busy making an album. We did it for a Saddle Creek compilation. It was an attempt to find a refreshing type of sound and try something that would seem like a terrible idea and see if we could turn it into something we’d like. I hear it as a cross between like a rap/rock thing (laughs) and maybe Violent Femmes.

Do you ever get tired of performing the same songs over and over?

I think we got to a point gradually where most of the songs after “Blank-Wave Arcade,” we feel good about playing still. When we hear them on a record, sometimes we wish we would have done them a bit differently because we might have made some discoveries when playing them live that we didn’t know needed to be fixed. The songs we change on each tour. As far as actually playing the same songs over and over again, we have enough songs now that we could not play any of those songs. We’re kind of now just getting to that point with this record. Now we can just play the ones we feel like playing.

How do you preserve your voice? Do you try to stay quiet all day?

If I paid attention to how I sounded, I’d probably get really particular about wearing out my voice or when I spoke. But I’m not wise enough to even worry about that. I’m not a great singer, but mostly what I’m trying to do is remember the words. I’m also trying to sing the right notes. The faster ones are harder and the long ones, well, I just can’t hold them so a lot of my songs tend to be staccato the whole time.

How did you meet Orenda?

I think she was in town before Bright Eyes was going on tour, just as a musician. The night before the Bright Eyes crew left, I thought there was some sort of connection and I wanted to meet up with her again. When she finally did come back, there was a party at Joe Knapp’s house. I believe and I asked her out. She was like, “yeah, maybe I’ll see you there.” I knew she knew what I was asking and I felt that she wasn’t into it so I didn’t go. Then, since we have the same booking agent, he put us on the same tour. I was kind of excited that she was going to be on the tour, but I thought it was going to be more frustrating than anything so I decided I was just going to pretend she’s not there. And that worked. It’s what “Desperate Guys” is about.

Are you guys going to settle in Omaha?

Ideally, I’d like to see the world and have a home base in Omaha. I would like to live somewhere else and learn other languages. We’ll see what happens. Right now, I’m really happy living here. I love where I live with Orenda and our dog, Wilson. Orenda seems to think the house is haunted, but I’m not convinced. Part of why I’m not convinced is it doesn’t help me to be scared. She’s bummed she doesn’t have a partner to be scared with and wishes I was scared, too.