1,2,3 -- that's the number of years since we heard from this Pittsburgh indie band that became critical darlings upon releasing 2011's "New Heaven" on Frenchkiss and playing SXSW as well as European dates.
1,2,3 returns now with a sprawling 20-song, two-hour sophomore double album, "Big Weather," that almost didn't happen.
The title and concept took shape after a rare tornado ripped through frontman Nic Snyder aunt's house in Pennsylvania, followed by the Japanese tsunami two weeks later. The band took to recording storms, listening to local oldies radio stations and recording on primitive gear.
The singer-guitarist, one of two former members of power-pop band Takeover UK in 1,2,3, notes that he was also obsessing over 1970s dystopian movies like "Soylent Green," "Eraserhead" and "Dawn of the Dead."
The whole project almost collapsed in late 2012 when Mr. Snyder quit the band in frustration over the making of one song, "The Shapes of Wrath."
"It was a really long process developing that song," he says. "It started out as several different songs that I wrote in a strange tuning and had strung together 'Happiness is a Warm Gun' style. It had no melody and no words yet. When it came down to the recording process, we just couldn't get it right (or so we thought). For about a week and a half, we tried adding drums to the song. The song we recorded before that had stalled out halfway, too, and the one before that. So morale was pretty low. It just got maddening and other non-musical events were stressing me out. We worked a few songs out the old-fashioned way, live, but, that was the end of the recording for almost a year. A few months later I called the band and said I was done, didn't want to be in a band anymore."
He writes in the press notes that he became "sick of writing about weather" and apocalypse but claims he didn't feel limited by it.
"It allowed for so much imagination and scope. I just didn't want to beat a dead horse. Not to mention, like I said in the press release, the bulk of this was written in 2012. It was Mayan calender this and zombie invasion that. Not to mention that John Cusack movie. I was more interested in what humor or love would still exist if regular people got trapped in a house or on a boat while the world was burning down around them. Then to inject that into a narrative avant-garage song, but, I was afraid that with all the other 2012 garbage happening that it would be just another apocalypse thing. I didn't want that perception or association."
Toward the end of last summer the singer found himself going back and sneaking listens to the mixes again while also coming up with fresh ideas. With the help of alcohol, he coaxed the band back, and they finished recording at a cabin in Punxsutawney.
"Big Weather" is a departure from the debut, more of a lo-fi, off-kilter collection of back-porch Appalachian meets avant-garage meets country-psych Stones.
Mr. Snyder allows that this one is more lo-fi partly due to this being the first time he is acting as engineer.
"Thing is, the concept allowed for that to be alright. A song like 'Bus to Babylon' is about hiding out in basements and living in dank dark spaces. If that's the way the song sounded, then great. Plus, I always like an old sound. There's perfect imperfection in a song like 'Sea of Love' or even 'Sister Ray.' It's no secret, but, people are too hung up with perfection these days, because you can make a song sound perfect with technology. Like it was made in a vacuum. I wanted to leave the life in. I had to leave the life in."
That included shying away from keyboards and synths. "Synths are so prevalent in modern music. I just wanted to avoid that. Not that I dislike synths or even modern music. I just didn't want this album to sound like anything happening now or even in the past. Plus, I wanted to make a classic guitar album."
When they revisited the fateful song, "The Shapes of Wrath," they realized it wasn't that bad after all.
"We all remembered it being such a mess, but when I listened to it, it sounded great," Mr. Snyder says. "I don't know what our problem was. I wrote and sang the lyrics in one night. That was really all it needed."
Frenchkiss, the New York label known for such bands as The Hold Steady, Local Natives and Passion Pit, didn't respond well to early mixes and dropped the band in the process, forcing 1,2,3 to release it independently.
"They were swinging for the fences, shelling out big advances to established bands," Mr. Snyder says. "I guess they wanted a hit. Not that I blame them. I just wasn't in that mind frame. That and they wanted us on the road slugging it out nonstop, playing for crowds of 30 in Muncie. Don't get me wrong, Muncie is a great town, but, I've been down that road -- literally. You come home with a pocket full of pennies and picks and that's it.
"That model doesn't work anymore," he adds. "People rarely go out to see bands they're unaware of just for the experience. And even if they do they walk up to you at the merch table and go, 'That was amazing. Are you guys on Spotify?' "
First Published: May 29, 2014, 4:00 a.m.
