Longwave - Complete Control
So much has happened to Longwave in the last year that they're having to pinch themselves. Rock Sound catches up with them in Brooklyn and Philadelphia to get the skinny.
It's cabaret time at the Southpaw club in Brooklyn. Nine o'clock in the evening and Longwave are running through a quick medley of requests, old favourites, covers and indie club standards. First we get the Stone Roses' 'I Wanna BE Adored', The Cure's 'Love Song' and then a short burst of The Vines' 'Get Free'. Ok, it's actually just the sound check for tonight's gig, but this is Longwave al over: even though they're just arsing around they're note perfect and more entertaining than a lot of bands' proper shows; and, even though they're arsing around you can see that their perfectionist front man Steve Schiltz is disappointed with himself that he can't get the flat, Ian Brown drawl quite right. Last time rock sound met the band - Steve, drummer Mike James, bassist Dave Marchese, and guitarist Shannon Ferguson - the phrase 'control freak' often came to mind for the virtuoso frontman, and the nothing's happened in the meantime to change that view.
A lot of other things have changes, though. They've supported The Strokes and then The Vines, and they've just finished recording a fantastic second album, 'The Strangest Things' with celebrated producer Dave Fridmann (Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev and too many others to mention) and people are starting to take to notice. In the UK they may be still only known, if at all, as 'The Strokes' mates, but that's all about to change. In the meantime Steve is trying to fight a mad and impossible battle to have a direct control over every aspect of the band, from the videos to the artwork - up to, and including, how they're reported in the press.
The band themselves are still in shock at how fast things have happened. Less than a year ago they still had jobs shifting boxes at a bank. By the time we do the interview, in a club in Philadelphia the night before the Brooklyn show, they already look like they've been a full time rock band for years. "I was talking to someone recently'" says Steve, "and they said something like, 'Oh, when you played the Reading Festival…' and I was like, 'Yeah, holy shit we played the 'Reading Festival'. I felt like I had to keep pinching myself like, I'm here, I'm really doing this shit."
So what have you learned in the last year? "Well, Shannon learned a good lesson last time we were in London, at the Crobar," Steve laughs. He's referring to an incident after their show at the Monarch in London where the likeable Shannon implausibly almost got into a fight with Filter's front man Richard Patrick.
"I learned not to talk a lot of shit around that guy!" Shannon grins. "I said, a little sarcastically, 'Cool shirt, man,' and he got right in my face. I tried to lay it to him so that he wouldn't know I was making fun of him, but he was a little too quick. It was a nasty shirt. It was a regular blue shirt like a factory worker would wear, but on the back it and this terrible picture of a girl." "He was also in the middle of hitting on our friend's girlfriend," Dave points out. "He was fucking asking for it and Shannon gave him what he was asking for." "He's a lot bigger than me," says the guitarist apologetically. "It was kind of fraternity shit, frat boy stuff when people get chest to chest with you. And I was looking over his shoulder going, 'Oh God, this guy's really gonna hit me!"
If it's extremely hard to image Longwave as Brooklyn brawlers, maybe that's because only Dave actually grew up in New York City. You can tell, too. Every time he speaks you can see Steve having palpitations about how the bassist's up-front Noo Yawkisms are going to look in print.
"The interesting thing about New York," Dave says at one point, "is that when you're growing up you didn't ride a school bus. In New York City they gave you a subway pass, this was at a time when people where afraid to ride the subway!
Trevor Baker Rock Sound Issue 46 March 2003