Anchor & Braille Interview

Mere days before the release of his debut solo album, Felt, Stephen Christian appears a child in the body of an experienced musician- a wise and learned performer, with an unbridled spirit.  Under the name Anchor & Braille, Christian is on tour with Copeland for the summer, trying to create a personal fanbase to match this personal album.  Sitting on a dingy couch in Covington, KY (with Felt producer Aaron Marsh munching on fried chicken nearby) the Anberlin frontman chats with Tastemakers about his latest project and the future.

TM: So, what spurred the decision to break off from Anberlin and do your own thing?

Stephan Christian: Well, I hate them.

TM:… Really?

Stephen Christian:  No!!  Basically, when I sit down to write songs, I just write.  I don’t think of Anberlin, Anchor & Braille or anyone else.  I just write whatever’s there and that’s why I have circles of songs that I just could never do anything with.  So I called Aaron (Marsh, of Copeland) and asked if he wanted to record a couple songs.   Not a big deal.  Not a record.  Just three, four songs.  Then that started going, and I was like, ‘€˜I have more!  We should do more!’  So we did do more.  And years later, here we have a record coming out.  I didn’t want to put it out unless I could tour.  Because I think that’s kind of dumb.  Like, if nobody can come see you… Anybody can just record a record, sit at their house, and put it online.  But I didn’t want that.  I wanted to meet people and get their reactions.

TM: Did you have the drive to make this more rootsy kind of sound while you were playing with Anberlin?

SC: Yea, definitely.  It’s more along the lines of what I’m listening to.  I really love Ryan Adams,  Mogwai, and Sigor Ros and all of that instrumentation.  It’s a lot more along the lines of bands I really listen to.

TM: What was it like to work, more or less, alone as opposed to with a group?

SC:  It makes for a lot less fights.  You don’t have to argue with anybody.  No ones says, ‘€˜Hey, I think there should be a trumpet there’ while another goes ‘€˜No, that’s stupid!’

TM: At the same time, you’re your own critic then.

SC: That is true.  And I’m not saying that’s better way to go because I mean, there are clearly better musicians out there than me.  You know, your musical knowledge goes to here, while someone else’s is way over here or here.  So you take from everybody.  It’s cool.  I really like the fact that Aaron brought in this guy who plays for an Americana band called Gasoline Heart to play bass.  He came in and his bass lines were totally different than anything I would’ve come up with.  So, it’s very uppy, not country, but at moments it sways a little bit and you’re just like, I would have never thought of that.  So it is cool to bring in other people and get their opinions in on stuff.  But, definitely a lot more communist than democratic, because you just decide, not vote.

TM:  I read in Spin that this album is being called a Christmas album.  Can you elaborate on that a bit?

SC: Of course.  It’s not that the songs have anything to do with Christmas time.  It’s the fact that we only recorded in the month of December because that’s the only time we had off.  Usually I’m touring 9 or 10 months out the of year and he’s out on the road.  So basically, when I would come home for Christmas in Florida, we would record it during the month of December.  So, we would call it our Christmas album.

TM:  I’ve heard you and Aaron be compared to Ben Gibbard and Jimmy when they produced Postal Service.  How do you feel about that?

SC:  I mean, they’re pretty much genius.  But more or less, that’s not really true, because what they would do is Jimmy would write a song musically and then Ben would push play in a studio and sing over it.  We never did that.  I was always with Aaron when I sang or played.  So, I can see where they’re coming from, but we didn’t do it like that.  I used Aaron’s studio.

TM:  Are you hoping to get a new crowd with this project?  I mean, back four or five years ago I was into pop punk and listened to Anberlin and now my musical taste is almost growing up and transitioning to more rootsy, adult sound, where Anchor & Braille is.  And I see that sound as the way a lot of artists are going.  How do you feel about the new audience?

SC:  I love it.  I love it a lot.  I never wanted Anberlin and Anchor & Braille to be the same thing.  I wanted to keep them far apart as possible.  Even in terms of the artwork and layout to the lyrics to the songs to the melodies.  I didn’t want anyone to go ‘€˜Oh, sounds like a slow Anberlin song.’  I don’t want that.  One thing I love about this compared to that is the fact that it feels like people that come to the show are tangible.  I can talk and hang out with them as opposed to an Anberlin show where it’s just large, large groups of people.  It just feels so overwhelming.  Like, where do I begin?  All I can say is ‘€˜hi.’  You can’t have an actually conversation with them.  It’s not that I don’t want to talk to people.  It’s just kind of hard when you have 3,000 people coming at you.  But this, this feels tangible.  My goal is not to sell a million records.  I just want to come out and feel like I’m playing in front of good friends and family.  And a lot of these shows have felt like that.  It’s been a highlight.

TM:  It seems like that audience is something you want to progress towards.  Do you see Anchor & Braille as something that you’re interested in continuing after Anberlin?

SC:  Absolutely, but I’m not going to cut Anberlin short.  I’m not going to call and say that I can’t do it one day.  I would never do that.  Basically, if one day Anberlin calls it a day, I would love to keep putting these records out.  Even if I stop touring and go into humanitarian work ,which is what I hope to do, it would still be cool to put out a record once a year.  That’d be a lot of fun.

TM:  Can you tell us a bit about your humanitarian work?

SC: Well, my big project right now is that I co-founded this organization called Faceless International and we basically fight human trafficking.  We take trips to Ukraine and Guatemala and this December, India.  So that’s in my focus to get it out there and get people involved.  Anybody can go on these trips and help build houses or teach guitar and painting or anything like that to help out the kids in orphanages, which are a prime target for people to come and take them to sell them.

TM: One last question, how did you come up with the album title, ‘€œFelt’€?

SC: Actually, I didn’t come up with it.  I can’t tell you.  Basically, when I put out my vinyl, there’s like a felt board on there.  And Aaron called me up one day and said, ‘€˜Why don’t you just call it felt.’  So not only is it homage to the vinyl, but also the emotions- how you felt.  (Aaron looks up from his fried chicken and Stephen notices) Really I hate it but I’m trying to appease you.  Just kidding…  Basically, it’s perfect.