The Life & Times of Manchester Orchestra - Part I

April 2011

Presented in footnotes* by Chris Shaban

I think I talk to you best when I write…

Hailing from the area surrounding Atlanta, Georgia and weighing in at a combined weight of 5 dudes, Manchester Orchestra is the kind of band that doesn’t wear their heart on the sleeve, it actually removes it from their collective chest and places it directly in front of the listener.I don’t need to clarify that I’m speaking figuratively right?  Or warn of the health risks that would come with actually removing your own heart?  Okay good, as long as we’re on the same page.

Now granted, that’s not everyone’s cup of tea…

or even…

etc…

However, more often than not you develop a loyal following in the mold of the Hebrews that hightailed it out of Egypt behind that Moses guy.No Sacrilege intended – PS: has anyone ever really read Exodus 7-12 and understood Pharaoh’s deal?  I know God hardened his heart, and I’ve never been the king of Egypt, but as soon as that water became blood, I’da been like “Okay, so the best way to get out of town is to take a left at Caleb’s Camels and keep walking till you can’t see us anymore.” Go anywhere online or in print to read about these guys and I double dog dare you to find a place without the words “authentic”, “honest” or “real” at least once.Or some emo-ish/angst-ish version of those words.

Manchester is fronted by Andy Hull. Born in Georgia, he took a decade long break up north in Canada,While his dad was the pastor of the iconic ‘People’s Church’… and has been back down in the ATL for just over 10 years now. All roads for MO go through Andy as he handles the direction and focus of the group.And his quantity of written material is rivaled only by Tupac or Philip M Parker While he is the songwriter from a lyrical perspective, it’s the duty of the whole band to develop and shape the joints around the thoughts that are inside his words.Being such close and genuine friends is something that makes this process much easier for the band, but I’d go so far as to say it’s something that helps to add to the honesty and sincerity of the tracks themselves. Peep his influences to help you understand the man a little better. Oh, he also is the lead singer and plays a mean guitar.

Next up is Chris Freeman. Chris is one of the coolest guys you’d ever want to meet in this business.He grew up without the aid of secular music.  It wasn’t introduced until high school.  Imagine not being brainwashed by radio?  No wonder he’s in a band. Working the keys, vocals and percussion,If you ever hear or read that Manchester has ‘two drummers’, this is why. seeing Chris on stage is like watching fluid music. Church folk have heard of Speaking in Tongues; your boy Freeman is ‘movement in tongues’.

FYI – I know there are a lot of fans that wonder what that multi-dash, Jay-Z Blueprint 3 looking tattoo that both Andy and Chris have on their finger is about. Stick around; we’ll talk about it later.

On lead guitar is Robert McDowell. He is the youngest member of a young group, and is also arguably the most musically sound from a technical point of view.Why do they always say that about the guitar players?  Who’s ever heard of Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, George Harrison or Slash?  I mean, seriously. His riffsAlso known as ‘rifts’ – okay, no that’s not true… are sharp and clear. He’s also the, well, everything behind Gobotron. See, Robert and Andy met in high school. They got along so well because, while having to wear uniforms, Robert managed to rock a pink Ramones T-shirt underneath his sports coat,Think of a rock version of the Fresh Prince @ Bel Air Prep and his folks had a recording studio in the crib. The two would roll home after class and record tracks instead of cracking the books.

Bass guitar is handled by Jonathan Corley. Jay, is not just a band member, he’s also like the documentarian of the group.For the record, in the early days he was behind the camera a lot, he does know a lot of quirky facts about the band and he does ask a lot of questions so…. A dry and witty sense of humor is accented by being either quiet and shy at times or intelligent and confident at others. Fact remains, while he may not be the most comfortable on stage, when he has his bass strapped to his person doing his thing, he’s just fine.

On drums… well, that’s not that simple. Right now, and for what looks to be the distant future, they are beaten by the talented Tim Very. Tim recently replaced Ben Homola. BenBen’s staying with the label and still plays in a selection of their bands. replaced Jeremiah Edmond who was the group’s original drummer. Jeremiah is still the man behind their label ‘Favorite Gentlemen’ and runs all the day-to-day ops for the whole rosterMore on that later….

To truly explain Manchester Orchestra in footnotes* is quite an undertaking, so it will be presented to you in four weekly postings, wrapping up with a review of the group’s brand new album ‘Simple Math’, in stores and online May 10th.

So, where’d it all begin?

Back in 2003, this young and nameless band started out doing worship music for chapel at Providence Christian Academy with just Corley, Andy and Harrison Hudson.The dude, not the band…. But the dude is in the band… it’s just named after him, follow?  He’s also a Tennessee Titans fan, but don’t hold that against him. The secular version of the group had those three fellas plus Chris Freeman, in a collection called ‘East on AutrySo named for the development that the Hull’s lived in called ‘Autry Falls’. ’. It would dissolve after a couple of years and Chris moved with his mom and brother out to Ohio. As the story has come to be told, Andy decided it was time to go solo. He would complete his junior year and then in September he’d be home schooled for 12th gradeOr what we in Canada call Grade 12 eh… so that he could focus full time on his music.And not distract the other kids in class…. J

Enter Manchester Orchestra

As you may well have guessed, the name was taken, not from the storied English football club, but from the city in which it resides. Giving props to the copious amounts of ultra talented rock bandsLike Joy Division, Morrissey, The Stone Roses, Oasis and Simply Red… Okay, so I don’t think the last one was part of the influence, but man, ‘Holding Back the Years’…?  Come On… that came out of England’s 7th largest city, it seemed a fitting name for a group led by a suburban lad from Alpharetta, GA. The idea for the Orchestra part came from the original concept of Manchester being a solo project for Andy, intending to select different musicians, friends and family to be on his records compromising his, well, orchestra.So, in essence, this was his Plastic Ono Band, cept he was skipping The Beatles part. Side note: If Andy had a rough go with his parents like John Lennon did, don’t you see him writing ‘Mother’? That joint is right in his wheel house. We should do a Twitter TT on songs you think Manchester should have done… Leave it with me…

Using that as the backdrop, the first anything that came out with the ‘Manchester Orchestra’ name was somewhat of a solo project by Andy called ‘5 Stories’ that was recorded just before he left school.He actually got kicked out of class for playing his newly recorded music for the other students.  Then again, in the teacher’s defense, I could see how that would happen, with the first song on the album being about a girl that kills herself - Maybe rubbing the Christian school educator the wrong way... #ImJustSaying Only 200 copies were ever printed and if you can get your hands on one, keep it,Then again, if you have your hands on one, it’s probably a safe bet that Andy sold it to you. they’re as valuable as a shirt torn off by Hulk Hogan and thrown into the crowd.Hey, don’t make that face, people keep those shirts man…

Riding solo was good and all, but it was time to get the band back together…

Andy reached out to Jonathan and Jeremiah to get the party started. Freeman came on board next, moving back to the Peach State. Thing was, Chris played drums, and Jeremiah sat in that seat now. That didn’t matter to Andy, he just wanted him back in the band and he knew he’d figure the rest out later.“the rest” turned out to be Freeman tickling the keys. The last to join was Robert, who was working as an intern at the studio at the time they were recording ‘I’m Like A Virgin Losing A Child’.

And that’s how Manchester OrchestraNow that the original idea for the ‘Orchestra’ part was gone, you may think that made it harder to justify the name.  Hold tight, maybe the ‘Simple Math’ LP will help you understand. became a group…

As most die-hard MO fans know, during the next year, as the band was still morphing, they recorded an album that was to be called ‘Nobody Sings Anymore’, but it was never released. The band had some additional morphing to do. On the real, this is as important as knowing Pearl Jam’s original name was ‘Mookie BlaylockThank God they changed that… Plus, being that he is a real person that played in the NBA at the time made for a weird sort of dichotomy ’ so why even bring it up…

…Unless of course:

A. You have a Twitter battle to decide the fate of the cover

or

B. You take 3 songs from that record and place them on your first official EP

Well, if you clicked the link in ‘A’, we don’t need to go further into that, however for ‘B’, we do. The aforementioned EP became known under the very Death Cab for Cutie style title,Namely, ‘We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes’ ‘I Brainstorm, You Brainstorm, but Brilliance Needs a Good Editor’. While still about a year from elbowing their way onto the Indie Rock scene, this EP was important, if not for any other reason, than that they released in on their own label,Which, of course, is so Hip-Hop. Favorite Gentlemen. As the band grew in stature and record companies started chiming in, this ‘little label’ would play a ‘major’ role.Can’t you just feel the foreshadowing?

The EP was well received by those who heard it, but did not do much to position Manchester as a player in the game just yet. They went back to the lab and started cooking up something new. In the meantime, they did what all respectable and soon to be successful bands do, they hit the road….

Their first taste of big stage experience came at the 2006 Lollapalooza3 short years later, they were at the same iconic festival, just this time kicking off the whole shebang on the main stage.  Lesson: Dream big, shoot for the stars, and bust that ass. weekend after a showcase at SXSW.South by Southwest is a yearly talent showcasing music festival in Austin, Texas.  Its counterpart is the North by Northeast joint held in the lovely city of Toronto, Ontario Canada every summer. If you ask them today, they say they don’t know how it happened. The old wives tale has a lady at BMIWhich is a performing rights society that pays out dough to artists and their publishers whenever a song owned by that combo is played on radio, TV, live show etc.  ASCAP is it’s American ‘Competitor’.  In Canada it’s just SOCAN and our English friends collect their quid from PRS. courting the band, so she helped grease the wheels and pull back the red tape for the boys.It also didn’t hurt that they were on the ‘BMI Stage’… It is good to have friends in all the right places… #ImJustSaying

So ya, they played a lot of gigs and ya, they got busy on stage, but the truth is that they really cut their teeth when they hit the road as the opening act for Brand New. Now listen, this is Brand New we’re talking about; you don’t just all of a sudden tour with them. How did that happen to such a new group?

Here’s how it all went down…

Back in the good old days, Andy was selling merch for the band Colour Revolt. At that time Brand New was looking for tour support and asked the boys from Oxford, Mississippi if they’d be so inclined. By CR accepting, Andy, not yet 20, would be hocking Tee’s and CD’s across America, Rock & Roll style.“Rock & Roll Style?” Really Shabby?  That sounds like something Milhouse would say to Bart just before embarrassing himself. :-( Now, you need to know there are two things that are very certain about life on the road; new acquaintances become fast friends and friends become family.Of course, if no one gets figuratively killed in the process. Although it wouldn’t be seen till months later, Jesse and the band built a bond with Andy that would transform into a mutual musical admiration the likes of which no one would have predicted.

In the summer of 2006, Andy headed to Colour Revolt’s hometown to do a solo joint with the Jesse’sLacey from Brand New and Coppenbarger from Colour Revolt. The Manchester boys had just finished recording ‘I’m Like a Virgin…’ and Lacey’s group had just wrapped up the non-leaked version of ‘The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me.’ Before the show, the fellas went outside for a smoke and sitting in Andy’s Toyota Solara,Which was the same place that I heard ‘Simple Math’ for the first time last August.  I told Andy that that car is better than a label office for album listening sessions. these two rockers listened to each other’s demos.Manchester’s would be released independently at first while for Brand New, this was to be their initial major label release on Interscope.

For both, it was love at first listen.

There is no way that either one of them knew how important that impromptu listening session was, but before the year was out, the unsigned band from Atlanta had agreed to an opening slot on Brand New’s North American tour and a fresh audience of fans was about to fall in love with Manchester’s music the same way that Lacey did just a few months earlier.

You can’t keep a good band down, eh? And hey, you know what they say about talented folks, right? Don’t open the door even a little for them, cause they’ll get their way in.

In 2007, the door was about to come off its hinges...

To read part 2 click here.
To read part 3 click here.
To read part 4 click here.