Paper Route deliver the synths

Electro-rockers prove there's more to Nashville than country and Paramore

By Kirk Miller

Metromix

“The rock scene out of Nashville is finally getting some recognition,” says Chad Howat, the bassist/programmer for Tennessee’s up-and-coming alt-rockers Paper Route. “Bands like Paramore, Kings of Leon, and us. But we’re still kind of an anomaly—there’s still not a lot of electronic elements coming out of that city.”

Earlier this year, Howat and his bandmates (J.T. Daly, Andy Smith and Gavin McDonald) released “Absence,” Paper Route’s first full-length album and major label debut. And like the man said, it’s not a record you’d associate with the capital of country music—the record is an atmospheric, brooding piece of keyboard-drenched indie pop, coming off like an amped-up Postal Service.

After touring with indie darlings Passion Pit earlier this year, the guys in Paper Route have once again hooked up with Paramore for their fall tour. We asked Howat about landing gigs with super buzzy bands, creating synth-pop in Tennessee, and why the band does everything—from recording to album artwork—themselves.

A few months ago, after a show you did in New York, there were photos of all you guys in the hospital on your MySpace page. What happened?
At some point during that day, half of the band ate something wrong. Shortly before the show, J.T., one of our singers, got really sick; he barely made it through the set. We had a garbage can on stage just in case anything happened. Our other singer, Andy, just dropped like a fly after the show. Then the tour manager got sick on the way out of town. We figured then we should go to the ER. Now Andy says every time he looks at a black and white cookie, he has a gag reflex, because that’s the last thing he remembers eating.

You’re from Nashville, an area I don’t associate with keyboard-flavored indie-rock. Is there an audience there for you guys?
It is getting a lot better there for rock bands, like us and Paramore and Kings of Leon, obviously. But yeah, we were an anomaly at first; just to have a band using a sampler and laptops was different.

Speaking of Paramore, you’ve toured a lot with them [both last year and now]. They also come out sometimes and play with you guys on stage. How did that relationship form?
There are several tiny little origins to that story. We’re all from Nashville, and we share a lot of acquaintances. And we kind of officially met when they were scouting for a house to shoot a music video, and they found ours. Our drummer Gavin and I live and record in this 100-year old house with three other roommates. They also practiced down the hall from us in the same public storage space.

It’s interesting how your live show is so much more aggressive than your record—why do you think that is?
It’s not a conscious thing on our part. I think we’re just trying to maintain people’s attention when we play live. And there’s something about being in a room with a really loud sound system. Plus, Gavin, our drummer, really shines on stage; he’s incredibly energetic. He’ll be more prominent on our next album, which we want to record live.

You’ve also toured with Passion Pit earlier in the year; was that a good fit?
It wasn’t our best tour. It didn’t flop, though. I think it was one of Passion Pit’s first tours; they were so brand new, they could only play like six songs live! I thought the crowd was going to be all indie kids, but it was mainly college dudes who wanted to dance and drink. They didn’t care who was on stage. When we played our upbeat songs, we did well. Our moodier songs…may have alienated the crowd. But we didn’t care. The guys in Passion Pit were supportive.

Bios tend to exaggerate—did you really record the initial songs on the album on an iBook in your room?
Actually, I graduated to a desktop for the last record—got a little more RAM and hard drive space. [Laughs] But yeah, we record everything ourselves, and at least 70 percent of it was done at my house in Nashville. We pretty much borrowed all the equipment and instruments from our friends, too. I recorded and mixed it, and J.T. did our artwork and videos. I guess we’re control freaks.

After some shows recently, you’ve been playing outside the venue.
Very often after a show, we invite the crowd in our trailer, cram it full and perform an acoustic set until cops are called. Sometimes, it’s one song, sometimes it’s five. We can get up to 40 people in there. Now we’re actually inviting fans to bring their own instruments—if someone brings an accordion or bagpipes or pots and pans, we’ll somehow make it work into the songs.

So you’re multi-instrumentalists? What can you all play?
I guess it depends on what your definition of “play” is. We can fake our way around a lot of things. Our songs are fairly simple to perform, which helps. And there won’t be any shredding on the tuba.

There are a lot of different sounds on your record—what was your interest growing up?
Well, we really liked the ‘90s, and growing up in that time and falling in love and get our hearts broken, all that music really stuck. Radiohead, Smashing Pumpkins, Massive Attack, Björk…but also things like old Elton John records, too.

So, I gotta ask: Did you all have paper routes as kids?
We all did! It was easy to pick a name—we all shared that in common. And the name reminded us of what it was like being a kid, being alone, being a wide-eyed dreamer. That said, I’m not a morning person, and I’m still not. I may have lasted a day delivering papers.