The mix of sweetly duelling guitars and the conversational style of vocals which Ryan and his bandmate Kenneth Pattengale have developed began early on in their career, which has only just tipped the two-year mark. “When there’s only four things happening on the stage, between the two guitars and the two voices, each thing has to be paid careful attention to,” Ryan says. “[Harmony pitches] switch often; back and forth in one song. We don’t really treat either of the parts as a harmony. A harmony part that’s merely supportive of a melody is rarely enough to hold one’s attention for more than a couple bars at a time. So we take the opportunity to arrange the band more like a quartet, with four independent parts.”
Pattengale has said that being a part of the band has helped him grow as a musician and writer as well as a listener, and Ryan interprets that comment as central to their ‘quartet’ approach. “Our performance together is very … improvisational between us, and that requires listening and reacting, and taking into account what the other person is doing. I definitely think that’s part of the process of learning to be in a duo, as opposed to being a solo artist or the frontman for a band. It’s an intensely collaborative process which requires as much push as pull from both of us.”
The band’s gorgeous new album The Ash & Clay demands repeated spins and rewards you with each listen, when extra little tendrils of guitar or lyric become apparent. There are also a few one-shot clips out which follow the theme of characters getting into their cars and driving for the duration of the song, a wonderfully contemplative idea (also, watch out for some big name cameos). The band’s previous two albums are titled Retrospect and Prologue, which both pertain to a notion of the past; Ryan and Pattengale feel strongly about concerning themselves with the balance of employing a traditional style but creating something new.
“I think the instrumentation we’ve chosen is so referential of a tradition, it’s so ingrained in our minds, it’s a particularly American sound … and it’s a very nostalgic and memorable and meaningful aesthetic, I think,” says Ryan. “Then it becomes our job as writers, mostly lyrically, to make sure that we only concern ourselves with themes that are very contemporary and very true to the lives that we’ve led as 31-year-olds in 2013, in Los Angeles, California. [We] make sure that the material sits squarely in the present and also, you know, deals with the future: deals with what we ought to do or what we can do, because of the way the world is.”
The guys have been playing in many beautiful venues around the world on The Ash & Clay tour including several converted churches. Despite the fact that they don’t wear freaky costumes or do a lot of weird stuff on stage, they’re being touted as a band to see live. “That’s funny, it’s true, we don’t do anything on stage. We hold eerily still,” Ryan deadpans. “And still people want to see the show. Actually Kenneth moves around a bit like an epileptic. We’ve taken great care and been very deliberate about the places we play. Especially for a band like us, that we feel like we kind of have a fragile sound, it’s important to perform in the right setting. Not just to protect it, in the way that it’s fragile, but also to give people the feeling that they really had an experience that’s worth having.”
In Melbourne, Milk Carton Kids will be playing at the MeMo Theatre in St Kilda – a venue which I had no idea existed despite my being a denizen of that suburb. It’s a palatial art deco space which has been recently done up and so far hosted a few events. “That’s great to hear that it’s a beautiful building,” Ryan says. “We like to treat each [show] like a very special occasion because even though we’re doing 40, 50, 100, 200 in a row, for everybody that comes that night, hopefully it will be a memorable occasion.”
BY ZOË RADAS
