Pitchfork

What do young people do, stuck all the way out in quaint, remote Sunderland, England? If you're David Brewis, one-third of Memphis Industries trio Field Music, you make music with your family and friends, you kick back and watch Trapped in the Closet with the Futureheads, you rework Thompson Twins classics...and you start Doors and Aerosmith cover bands??

"I was really trying to avoid getting involved," David told Pitchfork yesterday via phone, "but I ended up being Robby Krieger in a friend's Doors tribute." Bandmates Andy Moore and Peter Brewis (David's brother) joined him for this anomaly at a sort-of "Sunderland Stars" night this past December. "And it was quite fun."

"Unfortunately, on that night we were billed as blooming Field Music, which would have been a disappointment for anyone expecting 'If Only the Moon Were Up'-- and we turn[ed] up and actually did probably an eight or nine minute version of 'The End' instead. It was confrontational, which I liked."

David's cover band aspirations are hardly limited to the Doors. "I'm having an Aerosmith phase at the moment, so maybe I'll end up in an Aerosmith covers band." For a list of potential Aerosmith cover band names, including "PharaohSmith" ("This will involve Egyptian headgear"), "Hair-O-Smith" ("This will involve wearing wigs, and the singer can rename himself Steve [Hair] Styler"), and "Aeroschmitt" ("Krautrock"), skip to the end of this story. It's worth it, believe us.

The Doors and Aerosmith aren't exactly the first bands to come to mind when listening to the succinct, rhythmically precise music of Field Music, whose sophomore LP Tones of Town, out now in the UK, hits U.S. shelves February 20 via Memphis.

Fans who turn out for Field Music's UK dates this month and North American dates with Menomena and Land of Talk in March probably needn't worry about any such classic rock-covering confrontations, however. "We'll probably end up playing quite a lot of stuff from the new record," David said. "The biggest surprise for anyone who hasn't seen us live is what we manage to do between the three of us. People watch and say, 'How the hell are they doing that?'"

After the tour, however-- and the release of single "She Can Do What She Wants" on April 9 (coupled with a "radical reworking" of Tones' "Sit Tight" titled "Sit Tighter")-- the men of Field Music plan to go on a sort-of hiatus.

"The general plan for Field Music is that after that tour in North America, we're going to take a break for a while," David told Pitchfork. "Our money runs out then."

Money isn't the whole story, however. Brewis also wants to keep the spark of creativity alive, and some of the more routine aspects of being in a band have stifled it. Touring and other matters "get in the way of being able to be creative on a regular basis," David explained. "Even rehearsing for us is not a particularly creative experience-- it's an interesting problem-solving challenge. We make good music, and it's quite enjoyable for performance, but it's not usually creative. When all of that time goes out, we realized that we don't get a lot of time to spend writing new music or having ideas percolate.

"So the ambition for all of us for the months after March is to find ways to get into the habit of being creative...All three of us have got quite a bit of stuff which is just not Field Music. So we're going to have to find other ways to do it."

For David, these other ideas have an outlet in School of Language-- but don't call it a band in any conventional sense. "People think of a band as being a set of people, and I'd prefer to think of a band as being an idea-- like a set of rules or a concept that works in one way. That can change over time, but it's not entirely dependent on the people who are doing it."

Brewis hopes to get a School of Language record together soon and already has some collaborators in mind. "The people whose talents I'm going to abuse are-- I really want to do something which has the same kind of feel as 'Sweet Emotion' by Aerosmith. So Peter's going to help me with that one. [And] I've already asked Dave Hyde, the drummer in Futureheads, if he'll do some drums for me on a song or two. I've got some plans and I just need to get him in a room when we're both free and start."

Furthermore, Brewis hopes to "abuse the talents" of Futureheads bassist David "Jaff" Craig and his girlfriend, ex-Kenickie lead guitarist Marie du Santiago. "I'm going to get them to do some singing for us, because Marie’s got a really beautiful voice, and Jaff is really good at harmonies, and I just want to get some other voices on there."

Making music with one another has been standard practice for this close-knit group of Sunderland players. "That's always the way it's been for us. We still share a practice room with the Futureheads, and they are basically our best friends and the best musicians I know outside of my band, so we always do stuff together. I think there's a pool of skills there, and there's just an unwritten agreement that we'd always help each other out if we could, if that's ever needed."

Brewis happily returned the favor. As previously mentioned, he recently recorded a few demos for his best friends, the Futureheads. "I just went down with my computer, and all of our mics are there, and recorded a few things. It gave them a chance to listen to them and be shocked that one of their songs was five minutes long!" he reported. "So we did a bit of editing on that one."

While there are no immediate plans for a new Futureheads record, "I think they're planning to get three or four more together before we sit down and start doing that again. But recording the Futureheads is the easiest thing in the world for me. It's not like a production job or anything."

Once Field Music goes on hiatus, apart from recording his friends, and spearheading his idea-band, David should have ample time to brush up on some rather unique covers.

"I'm actually sitting at home, when I've had the time, working on a cover of an Architecture in Helsinki song from their new record," he revealed. "I [also] kind of want to do 'Hold Me Now' by the Thompson Twins at some point, because it's quite a good song, but their version of it is just terrible! It has all the worst bits about 80s music, but as a song it's kind of quite sweet."

Aerosmith cover band names:

Aerospoof
PharaohSmith ("This will involve Egyptian headgear")
Aeroriff
Big Ones ("Maybe too straightforward and dependent on knowledge of Aerosmith greatest hits collections")
Hair-O-Smith ("This will involve wearing wigs, and the singer can rename himself Steve [Hair] Styler")
Beware-O-Smith
Aerospit (punk)
Aeroschmitt (Krautrock - "I've been amusing everyone with Teutonic renditions of 'Dude Looks Like a Lady'")
Aerospliff (stoner)

Field Music dates:

02-13 Newcastle, England - The Cluny
02-18 Amsterdam, The Netherlands - Paradiso
02-19 Hamburg, Germany - Molotov
02-20 Berlin, Germany - Mudd Club
02-23 London, England - ICA
02-25 Dublin, Ireland - Whelan's
02-26 Leeds, England - Cockpit
02-27 Birmingham, England - Glee Club
02-28 Glasgow, Scotland - The Admiral Bar
03-17 Austin, TX - The Beauty Bar (Memphis Industries SXSW showcase)
03-20 Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle *#
03-21 Cleveland, OH - Beachland Ballroom *#
03-22 Pittsburgh, PA - Garfield Artworks *#
03-23 Toronto, Ontario - El Mocambo *#
03-24 Ottawa, Ontario - Zaphod Beeblebrox *#
03-25 Montreal, Quebec - Main Hall *#
03-27 Allston, MA - Great Scott *#
03-28 New York, NY - Bowery Ballroom *#
03-30 Philadelphia, PA - Johnny Brenda's *#
03-31 Washington, DC - Rock & Roll Hotel *#

* with Menomena
# with Land of Talk