Building their wings mid-flight
Wherever there are great bands, there are great unknown bands. It’s a full-time hobby, keeping track of all the sounds being generated between Detroit and Ann Arbor, and it’s easiest to let whoever bubbles to the top stake a claim on your must-check-out list. But sometimes the ones you don’t hear about are the ones making the most noise.
About a year ago, Ypsilanti-based Skeleton Birds released their second album, “The Silver Age,” from its cage. It was the first album that brothers Jonathan and Jeremy Edwards recorded with their full lineup, which was formed after the release of 2008’s “The Owl.” Deftly polished and full of brooding intensity, it wasn’t the type of album you’d expect to pry out from deep within the cracks of the local music scene. But maybe that’s where this band needs to be for now: evolving in the shadows, ensuring there’ll be a prize at the bottom of the bag for those who are willing to dig.
As singer/guitarist Jonathan Edwards describes it, Skeleton Birds was originally a nameless vessel for creative output. He and his brother Jeremy had just parted ways with Detroit-based indie rock act The Silent Years and were looking to take a more personal direction with their songwriting. Breaking from the intensity of four years in a touring band and devoting more time to things like family and school, their musical output took a more natural and comfortable pace.
“Initially it wasn’t really much of anything grandiose,” says Edwards. “The idea was, after getting out of The Silent Years, I had a batch of songs I didn’t really know what to do with, so my brother and I figured we’d record some. But not with intent of starting a band, just to have some fun.” Those recordings became the entirety of “The Owl” and a building ground for Skeleton Birds, which at the time was still more of a loose idea than a band.
Four years later the project has a more definitive shape and eclectic style derived from the different backgrounds of the five band members. Edwards’ influences make up a hefty chunk of the backbone. Raised to love the Beatles and forming a musical identity around mid-nineties rock, his songwriting melds disciplined structure with Radiohead-like experimentation and consistent, accessible grooves. The songs themselves, atmospheric and meticulously layered, hint at a slow-burning creative process.
“We don’t really construct our songs from start to finish,” Edwards explains. “It’s a little bit more scattered. I’ll always have something around to record with, and if I get even a little snippet of something I like, then I’ll record it and go back to it later and piece old ideas into new ideas. But in the end, we manage the process of refining it and making it flow, giving it form.”
But, like their progressive sound, Skeleton Birds’ songwriting process is in continual development. Lately, they’ve been playing and writing more as a band rather than on an individual basis, which Edwards believes allows for more spontaneous things to happen. The results will be revealed in a set of new songs that you’ll be able to hear when they perform on the iSPY stage at the Ann Arbor Art Fair, which takes place July 18 – 21.
“We definitely want to start playing more than we have,” says Edwards. “And because we do have a lot of new songs, we’d like to record them in some way, whether it be in an EP or a new album. We’d like to record it fast and support it with a bunch of shows.”
With Edwards getting married this summer and another band member expecting a new little addition to his family, their performance in July will be a rare one. But come fall, Edwards says the above goals will be set in motion. And I, for one, am looking forward to seeing a great unknown band become a great known band.
