London five-piece Absentee are Dan Michaelson (vocals/guitar), Melinda Bronstein (vocals, keyboards, melodica, glochenspiel), Babak Ganjei (guitar/lap steel), Laurie Earle (bass) and Jon Chandler (drums).
It's fair to say that Absentee have quietly gone about their business over the past couple of years, growing a fanbase, gaining much praise from the music press, and supporting house-hold names like Magic Numbers and the Go! Team, whilst managing to avoid that unwanted burden of being over hyped. With their latest album 'Schmotime' now out and a handful of festival appointments over the coming weeks, Absentee are a band you really should be taking notice of.
Ahead of their performance at the Electric Gardens Festival this weekend, and Green Man later in the month, Room Thirteen caught up with Dan and Babak outside a pub in the London sunshine to find out more about the band. Babak by the way is Iranian via Ilford and it's not just a cool guitarist name.
Like many on the Electric Gardens line-up, Absentee were part of this April's
Camden Crawl
A night that showcases some of the most exciting up and coming talent in alternative music. Absentee themselves headlined one of the gigs, playing above current media darlings Fratellis in what the band claim was "an admin error".
At the time I described Absentee as "one of the many stars of the night, which included one of the most striking vocal performances of the evening. Their mellow, acoustic based music was topped off by something which sounded like a combination of Jarvis Cocker, Jason Lytle from Grandaddy, Mark Knopfler and Barry White!"
It turns out that for many who have seen them live, the vocal performance is something of a water cooler moment, however Dan himself is unsurprisingly more laid back about it.
"I only started writing songs about three years ago, and I had a go at singing but wasn't very good at it. So I went and listened to some of the people I like, people like Lu Reed and Bob Dylan and I realized that they weren't really singing but just talking through songs, so I had a go at that and it seemed to work much better. Not being the world's greatest singer shouldn't stop you knocking off a few songs and playing them to people."
He continued: "We don't really write to suit the vocals. I guess I write in a kind of country style and then it get straightened out by the rest of the band."
The NME listed the band's 2005 mini album 'Donkey Stock' as one of their top thirty of the year, but although there has been a lot of favourable coverage for the band, they seem to be something of a slow burner, that said their new record is picking up some momentum.
"There's always a fear that when you're with an indy label noone realizes it's out and so nobody buys it. People have bought the record, it's not threatening the charts but week by week more people are finding out about us which is good." (Dan)
For a band like Absentee it's probably better to build slowly rather than finding themselves at number ten in the chart without realizing where they are, and they seem very content with the way things are going.
Babak: "It gives you time to develop without the pressure to do more of the same. I mean we don't really know what the next stage is yet do we?"
Camden Crawl had many of the acts who are really exciting the music press right now, Automatic, Fratellis, Young Knives, Dirty Pretty Things and Wolf Mother all appeared, yet aside from Dirty Pretty Things, from that list Absentee were higher up the pecking order in their venue than all the others listed were for theirs. Something they richly deserve but were quite nervous about at the time.
"It was better than I expected. I felt that most of the bands on were really hyped and I think we've done well to work outside of that, just doing gigs on the fringes." (Dan)
Since then the band have played Latitude on the Mogwai and Mercury Rev day, and as well as the Electric Gardens, are returning to Wales for Green Man, an event they played in 2005.
Babak: "It was really good, really uncorporate and you could really mix in with the fans."
As Dan continued, bands are no less likely to have those festival camping disaster moments.
"We took a tent but no tent pegs, so we had this amazingly wide thing that only went about two foot off the ground. There were five of us sleeping in what was like a slightly inflated pancake."
Babak: "That's the thing with tents, you only need them once or twice a year. The festivals are coming back and I know there's no pegs but nothing's been done about it and we'll end up going back with the same sheet from last year and have to try and figure out how to stick it up somewhere."
Dan: "It looks like a flying saucer."
Babak: "We found a brown banana from the previous year, so there was this rotting banana smell all weekend. That said Green Man was good."
The band's website is an interesting read, with Dan's habit of fantasizing about Sunday roast being one of the more accurate facts on there.
"Yeah I like to dream about a nice sizzling joint of beef. Basically anything that used to live is good."
As for Babak and his novelty cereal box collection:
"I've got two, I don't think I had the heart to throw them away. I think one has the Simpsons, and one has this 3D Incredible Hulk thing going on. You know I wouldn't call it a collection as such. I think my girlfriend wrote it because she thought it would be funny and it keeps coming up. I don't like to let people down with my lack of knowledge on the subject."
On his nickname of the bearded toddler Babak blames his fellow band mates as apparently "I haven't properly grown up, yet I do have a beard, I guess that pretty much sums it up."
It seems that the word about Absentee, with or without their love of beef and cardboard, is spreading across Europe, even if like in the UK it's something of a slow burn situation.
Babak: "We've played in Paris, Germany, Holland and somewhere else...Barcelona. The European thing's kind of new to us, it's building slowly."
That said what Dan describes as "The Italian equivalent of Radio 1" has picked up on them. As for the UK, aside from Mark and Lard, it seems there music has been somewhat over looked by Radio 1. However they're no strangers to other parts of the BBC, and are becoming more experienced in the art of the session appearance.
"Yeah we've done a few, but they always seem to be for the same radio station 6Music, I'm gonna send them a gold disc when we get one. Tom Robinson's played us a lot. Mark Radcliffe when he was on Radio 1 and they still had a certain amount of freedom was the first to play us, then it was Tom Robinson. He's been great, pushed and pushed and kept playing us and got our last two singles on the playlist at 6Music. Even Jonathan Ross has been playing us.
"It's nicer when it catches you by surprise. The first few times it happened I'd be listening to the radio for like three hours and I'd feel excited about hearing it but essentially let down by the fact I'd been sitting on the sofa waiting for it. It's really nice on the odd occasion when you stick the radio on and you're getting into the bath and you're song comes on, that's pretty exciting." (Dan)
"It's nicer when it catches your parents by surprise on the radio 'cos that's when they start to think you're famous. Even though it's had no impact at all financially my parents do now seem to think it's fine to be doing it." (Babak)
So when they're not listening out for their own stuff, be it by accident in the bath or otherwise, it seems Absentee listen to the kind of stuff that is similar to what they make.
Dan: "I've spent a bit of time listening to the Spinto Band and the Mystery Jets, but mainly I listen to older stuff like Lou Reed, Velvet Underground, Bob Dylan and Neil Young, and a bit of Motown as it makes me happy."
Babak: "Recently I'm still listening to the Semi Finalists album, Flaming Lips too. I buy a lot of music but then seem to listen to it a couple of times and then it becomes old, but the Flaming Lips one has managed to stay in that CD player for about a month."
Doing this job we meet and interview artists of all different shapes and sizes, and that's just the egos!
Not an ego in sight here. Talking to Absentee it reminded me of why most music writers enter into this field, because they ultimately wanted to be in a band but have no talent or never made it, and so have to make do with writing about it. Whether in the future they get snapped up by a major label remains to be seen, they certainly have the songs to justify that kind of promotion, but right now the band seems to be going places in a way which they are comfortable with.
In the mean time if you're off to Electric Gardens or Green Man, or see a poster or flier round your way advertising an Absentee gig, be sure to check them out.
You'll be greeted by a performance that is as laid back as the people behind it. A show that will be as intimate as it's surroundings:
"We bring lamps to try and make it a bit homey," Babak explained.
I interviewed them on a warm, sunny afternoon in central London, the kind of weather that will suit them perfectly in the outdoor environment of festivals.