 "It's all about the chorus," says Elkland frontman Jon Pierce when asked about his songwriting technique. "I love a great pop song. I'm obsessed with great melodies, great hooks, huge hooks. I think it's evident on our record."
He's referring
to Golden, the debut album from Elkland, a strikingly original and irresistibly tuneful pop quartet hailing from the unlikely upstate hamlet of Horseheads, New York.
With Golden, the members of Elkland have taken the group's collective deep love, and passionate understanding, of classic post-punk synthpop and Britpop--from Joy Division and the Smiths to New Order and Bjork--to create a hook-dappled blueprint for a harmonious shimmering synthpop of tomorrow.
"We wanted Golden to sound classic in every sense," Jon reveals. "That's what we were going for: a classic-sounding recordwith a few twists. We used vintage analog synthesizers and drum machines for all the electric parts, but we tried to use them in new ways. Our chord changes are very simple. There are no tricky key changes and no show-off guitar solos. We want our music to be a new 'new wave,' a new 'synthpop.' Using authentic old school synthesizers that we have collected over the years, we took the sounds of yesterday and threw them into the future."
At the age of 12, Jon bought the album, Melody, by Joy Electric, a synthpop ensemble from Orange County, California. "That album totally changed my life," says Jon of this, his first watershed musical influence. "The music was about love and sadness and real life. The most exciting things to me were the choruses, the hooks, the huge beautiful melodies. Studying that band basically was how I learned to write songs for myself."
While both Jon and Jesse were cutting their chops in "a bunch of high school bands," Jon realized that they needed to form their own ensemble. With their best friend, Joel Tarpin, joining in on keyboards, they formed "Goat Explosion," an early incarnation of Elkland. With gear and luggage and personnel crammed into a 1991 Chrysler Town & Country minivan, Goat Explosion traversed the country, making the trek from New York to Los Angeles several times.
The members of Elkland have honed and polished 12 pop music diamonds for Golden, including a definitive version of "Put Your Hand Over Mine," the first complete song Jon Pierce ever wrote, and the stunningly gorgeous "Every Time You Tell Me That You Love Me," Jon's favorite song on the album.
The group recorded all the album's electronics, using vintage gear exclusively, at New York's Sony Studios with producer John Hill. "It was cool using all the old synths I'd collected over the years on our first album," Jon says. "That includes my Korg MS-10, a Sequential 6-Trak, a Seil DK-80, a Mini-Moog, and, of course, the synth my dad gave me 10 years ago." Guitars, drums, etc. were recorded in Los Angeles at Kingsize Sound Labs with producer/mixer Dave Trumfio, of Chicago's Pulsars, at the boards.
"Our goal," says Jon, "was to make an entire album with no filler. Everything is always leaning towards the chorus. We hope that people buy the record and that people enjoy it and that people have fun and we hope that 10 years down the road that we've put out a bunch of records that are all really great and that they all bring something new to the table. Most of all, we'd like people to come away from Golden wearing a smile."
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