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Interview: Kyle Minton [9/25/2011]

A string of impressive EP releases, strange tumblr activity, and a plethora of tales of drunken travels and house shows seem to be the making of the band The World Is A Beautiful Place & I am No Longer Afraid To Die. Derrick Shanholtzer, guitarist and vocalist of the band, entertained Nothing Sounds Better with a few questions concerning his band’s recent split with Deer Leap, Derrick’s view on downloading, what lies beyond the horizon for the band, and more. Read on for the full interview.

Kyle Minton: So where did the idea for a split with Deer Leap begin? The pairing and aural relationship between your sound and Dear Leap’s is spot-on.

Derrick Shanholtzer: Once upon a time there was an incredible band called Maudslay from MA/NH or something. They played their last show at the first show at my house, The Handsome Woman. At the time Chet and Dusty were in Maudslay. Chet then started 2 bands, Deer Leap and Best Man. They might have played their first shows at my house also. They might have played most of their shows at my house. We played shows together regionally for about year before going on our band’s first tours together in August of 2010. We ate like shit and drank a lot on this tour and named it “Shart Week”. Dusty didn’t have a mustache yet so we thought “These dudes are pretty alright dudes”. The split has actually been talked about since spring of 2010. We went through 2 lineup changes before getting around to it.

KM: So you’ve been heavily involved with the local music scene around you, are there any other bands that you’d feel motivated about grabbing from that area of your life and doing another split with? 

DS: There was vague talk a long time ago about doing a split with the band Saintseneca from Ohio. They’re incredible.

KM: Everything seems to be moving pretty fast for The World Is A Beautiful Place. You debuted in 2010 and have subsequently been coming up with bite-sized releases and tour dates ever since. Was this push through last year until now a planned thing, or did the positive reception to your releases spur it?

DS: We didn’t really plan anything. We’ve had a few lineup changes since we started and after each one we began working on something new. We planned on doing a bunch of splits but haven’t gotten around to any of them. We’re sort of just working on whatever we as a whole agree we want to do.

KM: Can you mention any of the splits that you planned to do or is that information saved for later?

DS: We are going to record a song for a split with Joie De Vivre really soon. I’m pretty sure it’s going to be a 7” and will be released by Count Your Lucky Stars.

KM: I mentioned the small releases before—is there a chance we’ll hear a larger release from you in the future? I’d suggest compiling your EPs into a full-length, but the production and quality of your part of Deer Leap + The World is a Beautiful Place & I am No Longer Afraid to Die Are Here to Help You has grown a lot since Formlessness. It seems like you’ve been constantly evolving over the past year in terms of focus and sound.

DS: We writing for a full length record now. We hope to have it finished by Spring 2012. I believe there are plans to do a collection LP sometime around the full length if the first two 7”s are out of print. No re-recordings though. I hate when bands do that.

KM: Yeah, it’s great to hear that it’ll just be original recordings—less time wasted. What motivated you to finally start writing a full record? Does the latest EP make for a good idea of what the CD will sound like?

DS: It seemed like the next logical step. We’ll see what we are getting ourselves in for. Most of the members had never worked on a full length album in a band before. It’s an exciting and terrifying project. 

KM: The genre you’re involved in (or near) can be a heavy-handed one, but you guys seem to avoid being uptight or rigid in your emotional approach. Obviously the name of the band isn’t to be taken too seriously, considering everyone’s absurd reactions to it. Are the lyrics to be taken with the same amount of jest?

DS: The lyrics are whatever you take them as. I don’t think they are silly but was once told that someone thought of us “live journal poetry”. He must think we are pretty silly.

KM: I’m pretty sure most people don’t think of “live journal poetry” when they hear you, but I think it’s easy to feel the band’s easy-going spirit within the words. You recently decided to encourage fans to download the new split with Deer Leap—was this planned? It seemed like a spur of a moment when I first saw you all spreading the mediafire links of the album.

DS: My intentions have always been to make sure that our music is available for free to anyone who wants to hear it. I don’t buy mp3s, I probably won’t buy your band’s mp3s, so why make someone to pay for something intangible? The process of record an album can be expensive but if no one liked my bands I would still want to record my songs and will probably pay to do so. Recouping expenses isn’t a goal. 

KM: So the real goal has always been to spread your music as far and as wide as possible? You must have a pretty positive view on the world of piracy. 

DS: The real goal is to make sure anyone who is interested in what we do as a band be able to hear / have anything that we do.

KM: Well I’ll admit it, I personally felt compelled to buy the record immediately after seeing you release the record. Do you feel as though being proactive in that way will encourage sales or pre-orders?

DS: It’s cool that people buy the record but I don’t think we’re trying to “move units” or something. The pre-order for the record is Topshelf’s thing. It’s a record they are paying to put out. It’s a record we’re proud and we’re mostly concerned with it being heard by people who really want to hear it.

“I don’t buy mp3s, I probably won’t buy your band’s mp3s, so why make someone to pay for something intangible?”

KM: Are you ever afraid of your actions harming Topshelf’s sales? They’re not focused on making bank off split EPs obviously, but do you ever fear that you’re going to harm their ability to produce physical content?

DS: I don’t think that free downloads have a negative effect on [Topshelf’s] operation. I definitely feel that it has increased their sale of records. Had our EP “Formlessness” not been available for free to anyone the 7” probably wouldn’t have done as well for them.

KM: Your band seemed to have appeared out of absolutely nowhere for a lot of people; the name The World Is A Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid To Die just started appearing frequently last year. Could you shed the light on how Formlessness came about, how the band began, and how you got involved with Topshelf?

DS: The band started in fall 2009. Tom Diaz and I had been playing shows together with our solo projects for about a year and decided to start a loud band together after drinking a lot of whiskey and listening to some embarrassing records we loved when we were much younger. In that lineup I played drums and we had one guitarist. We briefly had a second guitarist before I decided I no longer wanted to be a drummer in this band. We actually started recording Formlessness as a 6 song EP with that lineup. The lineup change came about during those sessions and before we planned our first tour. When we finished recording the EP I posted it for free on some message boards and got a great response. A small label asked to put out the 7” but for some reason just stopped responding to my e-mails. I had heard that Kevin (Topshelf Records) was into the EP and would probably put it out. So, I got in touch with him.

KM: How’d it feel to get involved with Topshelf? They’re pretty much the ideal home for a band like you. 

DS: No one had ever offered to put out vinyl records for any of my bands before, so I was pretty stoked.

“I don’t think that free downloads have a negative effect on [Topshelf’s] operation. I definitely feel that it has increased their sale of records. ”

KM: How do you feel about being able to encourage sales of cassettes and vinyl? Do you feel as though they’ll always remain important mediums for music or do you just enjoy supporting the niche that still thrive off of them?

DS: Dorks will do dork shit. I’ve collected records and cassettes for years and will hopefully continue to release records and cassettes for years. Maybe that inspires other dorks to do the same.