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Less Fizz More Pop
John Schmersal of Enon has shown esteemed dedication to the realm of electrically skewed, minimalist pop music for more than ten years.
The Toledo-born singer/guitarist has been agitating an indie/disco crunch-groove style in his Brooklyn/Philly band through four LPs, a handful of singles and seemingly endless touring. Essentially, for his tenure in the celebrated lightning-freak-rock outfit of Brainiac in the mid-'90s (which flirted with prominence back in those truly underground, zine documented, fuzzed indie rock days), he’s a legend, or at least an indie legend, in an unfathomably sincere, pre-Pitchfork sense.
Schmersal started Enon in 2000 (originally with Rick Lee and Steve Calhoon), releasing a dynamic debut, the head swimming, electronic, sample-muddled pop of Believo! The trio finalized in time for 2002's more rock-inflected High Society with bassist Toko Yasuda (from Blonde Redhead) and drummer Matt Schulz.
With four years between their latest, Grass Geysers ... Carbon Clouds, and ‘03’s Hocus Pocus, Schmersal and RDW took time to talk about life, basements and seeding plants ... on the dashboard.
What’s new in life?
Last year we got really into gardening. It was a bit of a quieter year, so I’ve been actually just waiting to plant things. I have the itch. I’m kinda obsessed with it at this point. I’m seeding a bunch of stuff and bringing it with me on tour. We’ll kinda just leave it on the dashboard and hope that the jostling around isn’t too much.
How did you approach Geysers? It seems to be a more simple rock sound.
We wanted to make a record a bit more consistent, like a band playing songs, more like a document kind of thing, but not being held in by that, mind you. Moving [to Philadelphia, from New York] I do a lot of freelance [recording, in the basement], so we kinda upped the ante on what we can do. We wanted to do something a little more straightforward where Toko and I both sang, and we can present anywhere.
The sound is always in flux between rock, sample-heavy dance and electro indie-rock …
I think we’ve always been trying to make "pop music with an edge," so to speak. I don’t think we’re making music that is obtuse at all. More often than not, people describe our music as being weird or unusual, and I think our music is pretty listenable, really. I want to make music that people think is interesting but is still pop music — not just popular music.
I’ve still been sitting with Geysers and find it to be a strong listen.
[It being] four years since we’ve put out a record I forgot about the processes of stuff, like interviews and other such things, but things have changed a lot People freak out about records leaking, so I started thinking, "Everybody’s gonna be really familiar with our record."
But, surprisingly, it took a while for John to hear substantive feedback — despite Radiohead and The Raconteurs, some of us are still taking time with our records.
People are gobbling up music fast; I’m laid back about it. There’s probably a lot of good music happening right now and if it takes me a year or two to find out about it ... there’s nothing wrong with that. If it’s good music then it will stand the test of time. | RDW
Enon • 4/28 • The Crofoot
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