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RS: Do you have any interesting or scandalous anecdotes about your time with Sire Records? With that roster, it just seems like there would always be something interesting going on at the label offices.
Ted Ottaviano: You know, it's the music business, so of course. But I wouldn't say it's any different anywhere else. If anything, I know for a fact we got treated way more respectfully than a lot of artists today, just because there wasn't this hatchet over everyone's head.
Money was floating freer, so as a result everything was a little bit more relaxed and they gave everyone more of the benefit of the doubt. I'm not really trying to sidestep anything that's kind of titillating and gossipy, but I don't really see that there was anything happening there that was any different than any other folks I know who've worked in music. And I do stand by the fact that I think it was a better era for new artists, you know, I mean we were given the ability to develop. I can't imagine for a band like Book of Love to have four albums and a Greatest Hits compilation, I can't imagine in this day and age like that happening unless you were able to move a ridiculous amount of units.
RS: What was it like the first time you ever heard one of your songs in a club?
Ted Ottaviano: Thrilling. It still is. I was walking the dog on my street and there's a little lounge that's basically in the basement of this building and it's a cool little space. And I was walking by and it was like 4:30 in the afternoon and it was light out, and I heard our tunes blasting out of there, and I was thrilled.
And I actually went downstairs and I was hanging out with the bartender who was setting up for the night and, you know, that stuff never gets old.
People always used to say to me "were you surprised that you guys did as well as you did?" And I used to always say back "oh, I thought we were going to be like three thousand times huger than we were." You know what I mean, you have to be incredibly full of yourself to get anywhere in this business.
RS: You mentioned before that you were working with Dangerous Muse, and right now there's this whole synth pop revival coming over from the UK with LaRoux and Little Boots and Empire of the Sun. What do you think of this whole synth-pop comeback in 2009?
Ted Ottaviano: I love it. I'm totally down with it. I mean some of it works better than others, but it made me check out some Missing Persons YouTube videos recently. It's just nice to be part of a genre of music that has been dead-bolted into the sound of music for many years now. But it's nice to see it getting some creative legitimacy, because there have always been people who consider it a bit of a throwaway genre. So it's great, I love it.
RS: Aside from Dangerous Muse, what else are you working on these days?
Ted Ottaviano: I just finished scoring a project for the photographer Owen Kline, a film short. I've been doing a lot of studio work, not really writing but I've been recording The Ones and a lot of other dance acts, local dance acts. And I'm also teaching audio as well now, so I actually have students that I teach my process to.
RS: What would you like to say to all your fans out there?
Ted Ottaviano: I want to say that it's always been so unbelievably moving, the people who still hold a candle for what we've done. Also, it's amazing how people go really deep with the catalog, it isn't just specifically well-known tracks, but they'll really kind of take it to task. I mean, people have really run the gamut on what they think our best material is, and that really means a lot to me because I know some of the tracks hold up better than others. But we always put a hundred and ten percent into everything we did from the good to the bad to the ugly. So I appreciate when I hear that people are still checking it out.
RS: Is there a MySpace or FaceBook for Book of Love?
Ted Ottaviano: No, we're not terribly up on this stuff. But because of the fact that it looks like we're going to get ourselves out there to do this live show in New York, as well as possibly a series of small dates, maybe for the holiday, like the winter months into next summer, it looks like we're going to try to get a little bit up to speed with that. I mean, we have our website, bookoflovemusic.com, which is like a little homebase on how to get in touch with us if you wanted to, but we don't take advantage of all the social network sites, so we really probably should.
RS: One last question for you. The remix that you and Bill Coleman did for The Heads' "Damage I've Done" is one of the finest mixes of the 90s, especially considering how dreary most of the pounding dubby X-beat stuff coming out of New York at this time was. Am I wrong in finding a throughline between that mix and some of the industrial sounds you were working with on the "Alice Everyday" remixes (specifically, the Sam The Butcher Mix), and do you have any anecdotes about doing that mix?
Ted Ottaviano: Oh that was a cool one. Bill and I both believe that built into that mix, more than even the process of the remix, is an absolute respect for the song. And I've always felt that a remix should be something that basically takes the song to the next level. So we tried to do that as opposed to a lot of remixes, they basically take an a cappella and then just chop it up on top of their sound which, you know, works and there's been some amazing tracks that have come from that philosophy as well, but that's not what I'm about. And the one thing that Bill and I have always had to think about is that we just really, really have this major respect for the songwriting process. So that's what it was, I mean that mix is cool but if it works, it's because of the fact that that track and the song is really still present in the actual reworking of it.
The remastered Book of Love catalog is now available on Noble Rot Records, part of Warner Music's Rhino Entertainment division. The special Book of Love reunion show will be at New York City's Highline Ballroom on September 27th, 2009.
Posted September 1, 2009
RS: Do you have any interesting or scandalous anecdotes about your time with Sire Records? With that roster, it just seems like there would always be something interesting going on at the label offices.
Ted Ottaviano: You know, it's the music business, so of course. But I wouldn't say it's any different anywhere else. If anything, I know for a fact we got treated way more respectfully than a lot of artists today, just because there wasn't this hatchet over everyone's head.
Money was floating freer, so as a result everything was a little bit more relaxed and they gave everyone more of the benefit of the doubt. I'm not really trying to sidestep anything that's kind of titillating and gossipy, but I don't really see that there was anything happening there that was any different than any other folks I know who've worked in music. And I do stand by the fact that I think it was a better era for new artists, you know, I mean we were given the ability to develop. I can't imagine for a band like Book of Love to have four albums and a Greatest Hits compilation, I can't imagine in this day and age like that happening unless you were able to move a ridiculous amount of units.
RS: What was it like the first time you ever heard one of your songs in a club?
Ted Ottaviano: Thrilling. It still is. I was walking the dog on my street and there's a little lounge that's basically in the basement of this building and it's a cool little space. And I was walking by and it was like 4:30 in the afternoon and it was light out, and I heard our tunes blasting out of there, and I was thrilled.
And I actually went downstairs and I was hanging out with the bartender who was setting up for the night and, you know, that stuff never gets old.
People always used to say to me "were you surprised that you guys did as well as you did?" And I used to always say back "oh, I thought we were going to be like three thousand times huger than we were." You know what I mean, you have to be incredibly full of yourself to get anywhere in this business.
RS: You mentioned before that you were working with Dangerous Muse, and right now there's this whole synth pop revival coming over from the UK with LaRoux and Little Boots and Empire of the Sun. What do you think of this whole synth-pop comeback in 2009?
Ted Ottaviano: I love it. I'm totally down with it. I mean some of it works better than others, but it made me check out some Missing Persons YouTube videos recently. It's just nice to be part of a genre of music that has been dead-bolted into the sound of music for many years now. But it's nice to see it getting some creative legitimacy, because there have always been people who consider it a bit of a throwaway genre. So it's great, I love it.
RS: Aside from Dangerous Muse, what else are you working on these days?
Ted Ottaviano: I just finished scoring a project for the photographer Owen Kline, a film short. I've been doing a lot of studio work, not really writing but I've been recording The Ones and a lot of other dance acts, local dance acts. And I'm also teaching audio as well now, so I actually have students that I teach my process to.
RS: What would you like to say to all your fans out there?
Ted Ottaviano: I want to say that it's always been so unbelievably moving, the people who still hold a candle for what we've done. Also, it's amazing how people go really deep with the catalog, it isn't just specifically well-known tracks, but they'll really kind of take it to task. I mean, people have really run the gamut on what they think our best material is, and that really means a lot to me because I know some of the tracks hold up better than others. But we always put a hundred and ten percent into everything we did from the good to the bad to the ugly. So I appreciate when I hear that people are still checking it out.
RS: Is there a MySpace or FaceBook for Book of Love?
Ted Ottaviano: No, we're not terribly up on this stuff. But because of the fact that it looks like we're going to get ourselves out there to do this live show in New York, as well as possibly a series of small dates, maybe for the holiday, like the winter months into next summer, it looks like we're going to try to get a little bit up to speed with that. I mean, we have our website, bookoflovemusic.com, which is like a little homebase on how to get in touch with us if you wanted to, but we don't take advantage of all the social network sites, so we really probably should.
RS: One last question for you. The remix that you and Bill Coleman did for The Heads' "Damage I've Done" is one of the finest mixes of the 90s, especially considering how dreary most of the pounding dubby X-beat stuff coming out of New York at this time was. Am I wrong in finding a throughline between that mix and some of the industrial sounds you were working with on the "Alice Everyday" remixes (specifically, the Sam The Butcher Mix), and do you have any anecdotes about doing that mix?
Ted Ottaviano: Oh that was a cool one. Bill and I both believe that built into that mix, more than even the process of the remix, is an absolute respect for the song. And I've always felt that a remix should be something that basically takes the song to the next level. So we tried to do that as opposed to a lot of remixes, they basically take an a cappella and then just chop it up on top of their sound which, you know, works and there's been some amazing tracks that have come from that philosophy as well, but that's not what I'm about. And the one thing that Bill and I have always had to think about is that we just really, really have this major respect for the songwriting process. So that's what it was, I mean that mix is cool but if it works, it's because of the fact that that track and the song is really still present in the actual reworking of it.
The remastered Book of Love catalog is now available on Noble Rot Records, part of Warner Music's Rhino Entertainment division. The special Book of Love reunion show will be at New York City's Highline Ballroom on September 27th, 2009.
Posted September 1, 2009