Black Helicopter: Interview

There’s a little motto I’ve adapted ever since digging knee deep into Ecstatic Peace Records and Tapes: If it’s good enough for Thurston Moore, it’s good enough for me.

Enter Black Helicopter, the label’s latest who released perhaps the most underappreciated rock ‘n’ roll album of 2006, Invisible Jet. I recently spoke to lead singer and guitarist Tim Shea about his shitty day job and his ties to Mission of Burma.

Austin in Austin: How did you transform from Green Magnet School into Black Helicopter?
Tim Shea: After the last tour we had a lot of personnel changes and the music just started changing. After a couple of years we decided it was something else entirely.

AIA: How did you originally cross paths with Mission of Burma?
TS: We got word that Mission of Burma was going to be doing some shows and our guitar player Jeff decided that he wanted to shoot a documentary about it. Somehow he got a hold of them and pitched them the idea. In the meantime, they needed a rehearsal space and they really didn’t have any gear so we lent them our gear and our space and got to know them threw that. We were all there for a lot of the filming, and went to the first batch of shows. We got to know them pretty well over the course of that time.

AIA: Where is your practice space?
TS: At that time we were underneath a real estate building in Boston. We’ve since moved but we still share a space and some gear with them.

AIA: How is it that Mission of Burma doesn’t have their own gear?
TS: They do now. Roger’s amp, I don’t think he owns his amp. He sold it years ago and now the original one is kind of on a permanent loan back to him. For those first few shows back they used by cabinet and Jeff’s Marshall head. Clint still doesn’t have his own bass rig; he uses ours and Peter’s on his third drum set. He’s been on a gear buying frenzy. He’s got three kits at our rehearsal space and it’s cluttering up the damn thing. He should sell one of them, or take it home or something.

AIA: Tell me then how about you ended up coming in contact with Ecstatic Peace.
TS: Our whole association with Mission of Burma hasn’t hurt us in the least. We did a show with them at the Iron Horse near where Thurston lives and he saw us there. It just seems like he’s such a fan of music that when he’s sees a band he likes he just puts out their music. We actually finished our album over a year ago, and they postponed it for the Universal deal.

AIA: What do you think of the Universal distribution deal?
TS: That’s really the best part, being able to type our name in on Google and see it for sale everywhere. Our first album we put out with Tractor Seven, they did their best to promote it, but they didn’t really have distribution. This way it’s at least out there. I’ve been playing music for years and haven’t really made any money yet so that doesn’t really even matter.

AIA: Tell me about the writing process for Invisible Jet.
TS: It was recorded over about a year and a half, two-inch 24 track analog gear. Some were done on a 16-track in our old space. It was all done really casually.

AIA: How does some of that equipment influence the heaviness of the new record?
TS: During this whole period I was recording other bands and that helped out a lot. They didn’t sound anything like us, but it was all a learning experience. There’s mistakes on it and quarks, but I’m pretty happy with it. The studio gave us the time. If we couldn’t have demoed as much as we did some of it would have been forgotten. It just allowed us to continually develop it all.

It’s all about laying down a good groove and doing something intelligent over it. We’re trying to be heavy without just turning the amps all the way up and blasting you over the head with it.

AIA: Black Helicopter hasn’t toured much to date? Are you looking to get out more in future?
TS: We’re older guys; we’ve all got jobs. It’s not as easy when you’re young and you’ve got some crappy convenient store job, but yeah, of course. We’ll see how it all works it out.