Pelican became locally popular about ten years ago—they were the band that would crank it to 11 and play djun djun djun djun over and over again. Though their earth-shaking, monumentally minimalist instrumental metal was undoubtedly awesome, sometimes it could feel like a gimmick—but by their second full-length, 2005’s The Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw, they’d added relatively sophisticated dynamics, a wider range of textures, and progressive, sprawling arrangements to their sound, silencing critics who complained that the band knew only one trick. Pelican has been touring several continents ever since.
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Interviewing de Brauw for this week’s Artist on Artist is Noah Leger, who replaced Dylan Posa in Anatomy of Habit this winter and also plays in Electric Hawk. Not only is he the best rock drummer in Chicago, he’s also been in a ton of bands you probably used to love, including Milemarker, Challenger, and Taking Pictures. —Luca Cimarusti
Ten years ago I knew a ton of people with vans, and now I don’t know anybody—well, maybe Bobby Burg [from Love of Everything and Joan of Arc]. I think most people opted out of it because of the gas prices.
You sold them a cursed van. Basically, the van was like, “If I’m not going to be with Pelican, I’m not going to be.”
That’s great. I’m so glad it’s an EP. I’m actually a gigantic fan of the format of the EP. It’s literally our fourth EP, so we’ve matched our rate of albums with EPs. We’re fans of EPs too, and for some bands that’s where they really excel. A band like Slowdive—the EPs are arguably better than the full-lengths.
Oh, we’re nerds. Because I know Dallas Thomas studied under Robert Fripp, and there’s a little bit of King Crimson to their work as well.
But is Target then also the Internet? Because it has plenty of bad ideas. Exactly. You see, you can get cool shit from the Internet, but because everyone has to submit to it, it’s all watered down. That’s the great leveler: you have to dig for really great culture on the Internet, but most people can’t get past the first wave of crap. And I feel like that’s where so many people are getting their ideas now.
