The Apples in stereo

Robert Schneider likes to chat.

ClashMusic catches up with The Apples in stereo singer fresh from bed, a cup of coffee in his hand. Yet despite the effects of a sleepless night the baroque pop maverick manages to chew out ear off and spit it out again.

With new collection '#1 Hits Explosion' fresh from our stereo there was a lot to talk about. Robert Schneider was fresh from the studio, cancelling our interview several times in order to properly focus on his new album.

The pleasure was all ours. Using the wait to pursue more questions, to trace down more leads we were met with a stunning torrent of enthusiasm, the kind of barely contained excitement that a true original would need to pursue a career in glorious psych-pop that now stretches back some 20 years.

Ladies and gentlemen, prepare to enter the strange world of Robert Schneider...

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‘#1 Hits Explosion’

Basically our contract ended, and at the same time the label closed down anyway. So our records went out of print, but we had the license to give them to someone else. We’re gonna re-release, all of our old albums but it’s kind of taking second place to our new album. We’re doing a new album right now, which is kind of a really big production. Putting out any sort of a record release – even if it’s a re-issue – is a production as well. Even then it’s not something you’ve turned in and someone else can take care of it. The masters still come back to us and we have to figure out how it’s going to be released again. That takes some effort and all of our effort right now is going into the new record. The point being that the last record…

I don’t know our manager and label brought up the idea of putting out a ‘Best Of’. The idea being, I guess, that some people who have heard songs of our last album – such as ‘Energy’ – might like some of our other best stuff. It would a shame if somebody didn’t know ‘Strawberryfire’ or ‘Go’ or something. That was sort of what prompted it. The back catalogue went out of print for about a year and a half – you can still get it in record stores but those are pressings. It’s not currently in print so if they were all bought up then there’s none left to replenish them. I guess that’s the main thing – just making sure that the music is available for people to buy in a physical form. It’s not like we thought we were hot shit or something and were desperate to put out a greatest hits album. But there is some sort of a body of our songs like a mixtape or something that we would recommend if someone was into our band and that’s sort of what I did. It leans towards the poppier stuff. Even our poppy stuff is still quite experimental, still quite psychedelic, but even then we’re leaning more towards the singles or were popular in some other way. Usually ones that we thought were poppy.

The beginning of The Apples in stereo
When I started the Apples in the early 90s, like in my teens in the late 80s and into the 90s me and my friends were just making music. You would have to be the most unrealistic person in the world to think that you could ever hope to make a living in the climate which was in the air at the time. There was no way that the sort of music we wanted to make was going to be something other than just some songs that you would record and then trade off with other people. Which is sort of what we were into. We started this little label Elephant 6 to put out the first Apples seven inch, and then a few more releases. A bunch of cassettes our friends were making, like a little mail order thing. But the main thing was that we didn’t charge much more than it actually cost to send the music out. We just wanted to start a community with other people. It’s hard to look at it as a career because it’s not as though our band has become huge like U2 or something. It’s like we were kind of doing it for art’s sake. It’s a continuation of what I did with friends when I was young and I’m still kind of striving towards a certain unrealistic goal. I really believed in my friend’s music and also in my own music – I had a ton of songs and I really believed that I was the best producer in the world on my little four track recorder.

The evolution of a style...
My ear kind of leans two different ways. Because on the production side ever since I started recording on the four track I’ve been constantly learning things and developing things so when that happens your ear gradually becomes used to slightly more polished sounds. So if you’re recording on a four track and then you get a four track reel to reel the first time you hear it it just blows you away. Basically it becomes just normal. Then you get an eight track and the first time you play that it blows you away and eventually it becomes normal and has limitations until you’re recording on Pro Tools or something. Something as hi-tech as I can imagine. So the first time I heard digital recording my ear was revolted, it as repulsive. On the engineering side your ear gradually gets used to the more polished stuff. So with the newer stuff it’s like there’s a side of me that’s thrilled, that enjoys getting close to the fire. By doing stuff that’s super hi-fi. Something like ‘Energy’ or ‘Same Old Drag’. The new Apples stuff is probably twenty times more hi-tech than that. But I am still influenced by lo-fi sounds. The point is I like both directions because they’re both really satisfying. It’s like left brain and right brain or something.

Losing faith...
Around 2000 or so I went through a period where I became disillusioned with big production and the baroque, psychedelic stuff that I had always kind of worshipped since I was an early teenager. I don’t remember what prompted it at the time, I mean my life was shifting at the time – I dropped out of Elephant 6, I got divorced and other things too. Anyway I had always been chasing this other element that was in my head and eventually I thought it was just unobtainable. If you split music in half and focus on one vocal and one backing track then really I had just focussed on the backing track. I don’t know I just became dis-illusioned with that other half. If you could do it in your garage with a mono set up and a microphone then why do it? I just went through a period of rebellion.

Finding inspiration in Brian Wilson
With my band Ulysses we recorded it in my garage, but with full studio gear. When you’ve pulled something like that off once you’ve no need to do it again. For a while it was my thing, for about the two weeks I was doing it. I became frustrated with the normal chords, which I had loved. I started using open chords, different tunings and things. It cleared my head of all my musical prejudices. I cleared out my habits, that’s the main thing. Then around that time – what was it that happened? Oh I remember. I did a solo album and I mixed it with Mark Lenet – Brian Wilson’s engineer. The label were pleased with what I did so they let me record in the room ‘Pet Sounds’ was recorded in and use Mark Lenet. So anyway I got to work with him, so I mixed my solo album with him. He got the vinyl reference lacquer for ‘Smile’ when I was there – he had to approve the test pressing. To make sure there’s no pops or crackles. So I got to listen to ‘Smile’ on the same speakers he presumably mixed it with. It just blew my mind. It was like a religious experience or something. It made me realise that the perfect production was still possible. It’s so psychedelic, and so ornate and so inter-twined that it’s just perfect. It’s the most perfect production I’ve ever heard. It just blew my mind and made me realise that I still had some way to go. Me and my band mates talked about it and we decided to make the essential Apples album of what The Apples had set out to be. Where were we headed? What was the full list of everything we ever wanted to pull off? And then try to put it down into one album. It wouldn’t rival ‘Smile’ but it would still be adequate.

The new album
It’s really different. It’s different from the last album – maybe one toe is planted in ‘Same Old Drag’. It’s so much more baroque and so much more pop than the last record. It’s so much more baroque pop than the last record that it has the same relationship that ‘New Magnetic Wonder’ has to ‘Velocity Of Sound’. Maybe not as drastic as that but similar, anyway. Although this record hasn’t been fully assembled yet the use of link tracks on this record is of a slightly less psychedelic nature than on the last record. The musical kind of palette on the new record is futuristic. We’re trying to make an overtly futuristic record – it’s like pop futurism. A little bit soul songs, through a kind of ELO filter. A retro futuristic pop R&B record. I’m pretty happy with it. I originally wanted it to sound like a UFO coming down at the end of ‘Close Encounters Of The Third Kind’ when they’re playing music only the music they’re playing will be retro-futuristic pop music.

The Apples in stereo's new collection '#1 Hits Explosion' is out now