Behind the partnership of Ideal Soul Mart

More and more two-people bands are forming, proving that it doesn’t take an entire lineup to form a wall of sound (as cliche as it sounds). Perfect examples of this are The White Stripes (RIP), The Black Keys, Matt and Kim, and our own hometown heroes, Ghostland Observatory.

But here in the small local level of Austin, we have Ideal Soul Mart. While this interview may be about the two-man band, the story is really behind the guys that make up this band, Clay Fain and Adam Luikart, as they have played together for over eight years.

Introduce yourself and what do you play.

Clay: I'm Clay, and I play drums and guitar.

Adam: That's not all Clay.

Clay: Let's not get carried away.

Adam: I'm Adam, and I play drums and guitar also.

Is that's all that's in the band, just drums and guitar?

Clay: There's a keyboard set-up that these days we use it minimally.

Adam: Yeah, we use it less these days.

Clay: It comes out on a song or two.

Adam: Well, it's hard. If we're going to use the keyboards, we have to really plan, because we'll be doing something else at the same time. We get to work out where we're going to have an arm free to play other another part. So it's harder to work that in.

Clay: Take a lot of practice.

So how did you translate the music from the record to the live setting?

Adam: It was actually almost the other way around right?

Clay: The live show is actually how the songs started. When we went into the recording studio, all we knew how to do was play the songs the way we do live. So I think maybe that's what (Adam) meant by the other way around. What we do live is actually the only way we knew how to do them. Then we went into the studio, laid down exactly what we do live, and then embellished it with overdubs. So we recorded as a two-piece in the studio every song, and then overdubbed on top of those recordings. If he laid down the rhythm track on guitar, it was on top of that that we said, “Oh, it would sound cool maybe a keyboard part.” Then we played that into our set later, like he said, if we had enough hands.

Adam: It was weird. They started just like you would expect them to. Then there’s another small layer added, and then we took what we could.

I read in your bio that you booked shows before the songs were written so you went on the fly. How did that happen?

Adam: Well, that's how we had to do it because we forgot how to do everything. Our old band died off, but we still had friends that play. We still had a lot of contacts. So we still get show offers, and we knew we wanted to work this project up. We just said yes to those shows before we knew exactly what the band was going to be, what the name was going to be even. And so yeah, just sort of happened naturally.

And how long have you been playing together?

Clay: Since 2001? 2002?

Adam: Yeah, we met in 2001 maybe.

Clay: Yes, we've probably been playing together like eight years.

How many bands since then?

Adam: Let's see Friends of Lizzy, Crawling with Kings, The Ashes. That's really it right?

Clay: This is the fourth.

Adam: Yeah, Ideal Soul Mart would be the fourth.

What do you think it is that you keep coming back together to play musically?

Clay: I don't know really.

Adam: We like a lot of the same music. Our roots have been the same for a long time, and we're good friends. Once you know what it's like to work with somebody, it makes it easier to keep working with people. Because we've done a bunch of stuff not together, there's a lot of stuff that Clay brings I wouldn't think of or I'll have an approach that's different. So it's good to have that that other voice, but it's with someone I trust really well so makes it easier I think.

Clay: I think it's a trust thing. It started because we were both, I think, willing to help each other out with the projects we were doing but it all started on having the same touchstones as bands we like. Whether or not we still draw from them as influences, we both have been big fans of Weezer and at the time, Jimmy Eat World.

Adam: Jimmy Eat World, Superdrag, Nadasurf, The Beatles, Elliot Smith.

Clay: Yes, all these bands that we don't necessarily listen to anymore or want to sound like or whatever. But there's something about being a fan of a band with that you can speak the same language as someone else. Even if it's talking about music, it's totally unrelated to any of those bands. Using the same vocabulary and the same reference points and just talking about music. I think there's something to that. Then the other part is just being friends, and being civil, and having being in bands that have broken up, and your personalities clashing with some people in the band.

Do you and Adam ever fight?

Clay: We disagree about music pretty often, but it's always very NRP and intellectualize it and disagree. Then we'll go to dinner with our wives.

Adam: We know how to disagree, and we don't take it personally. Some people, it's really hard to work, because they take everything personally, and you can't disagree with something like an idea they have without them thinking you're criticizing them. Makes it really difficult, and we're at a point where it's just pretty easy for us to disagree, because it doesn't have anything to do with how we feel about each other or whatever.

Clay: Yeah, let's argue about this but we're going to get back together tomorrow and write a song. Part of it's intentional too, because I like the fact that he does not go along with everything I say or what to do musically. I think that sometimes when you get everyone within a band, when you get that group thought and every one's just agreeing with each other and patting each other on the back and “Oh that's great. Oh, your bass part's great, the guitar's great” and there's no friction, I think musicians tend to get complacent. There's no one to be like “hey, you could be better.” Doesn't have to be that it's terrible, but just “Hey this could be better.” Adam and I do that stuff all the time. It's like “I like your idea but it could be better,” and then we work on it, and it gets better. That only comes about because of those little disagreements, differences of opinions.

You prefer the two person band thing?

Adam: Yeah.

Clay: This is something we've talked about recently.

Adam: It definitely started that way, but I think we were always been on the fence. When it started out, we were really charged about it. So much easier to make decisions. We were moving way faster than we've ever moved before with things that we would argue about or that would have taken a committee to resolve. Bands work like committees all the time, and nothing's worse than being in a room with a bunch of people that all have the different ideas about something, and nobody wants to be in charge, make the decision. It's really draining, so really charged up. We just didn't have to spend four hours talking about...

Clay: ...T-shirt design or something. Something not important.

Adam: Stupid stuff. I like it can be difficult to just be two people also, because especially since we know each other so well, we've worked together for so long, if we're not really feeling like working one day, then it's real easy to be like “Well, we'll just come back to it some other time.” There's not necessarily that other party to come in and energize things.

Clay: We could use the accountability that comes from having a bigger band. Earlier when I said we've been talking about it, we've been talking about the fact that we're open to growing if someone makes sense. The thing we want to avoid is saying “Oh, we just need somebody, anybody to play bass because bass would sound cool.” If we can find another partner that we want to write with and be a real teammate, then that could be cool. Someone like-minded that we get along with. But we're trying to avoid going out and getting a drummer or whatever, because again, we're going to make sure that extra person would really bring something to the table, more than just the ability to play another part. Some people have said it, but it's not often that people have said “Oh, you guys would be great if your band was bigger.” A lot of people really like the small band thing.

Adam: And it makes us look cooler too, because people are always “Oh my god, you guys are doing so much stuff.” At least for me, I'm not doing anything. I'm not playing anything particularly well, but the fact that I'm playing different things makes me look cool.

Because I look at the live band photos and you're in different positions in all the photos. You don't sit still. You're not behind a guitar the whole time. There's Adam on drums in one photo and there's Adam behind the guitar in another photo.

Adam: It's definitely challenging. I love the challenge of that and trying to make it work.

Clay: I think some people have the misconception though that we play all these instruments. I'm playing the drums. Maybe I'm just really into the song. Maybe I'll just reach over and pull off a keyboard riff like we're improvising or something. “Oh how'd did you do that?” It's like well, practice a bunch. You'd probably do it too, but I'm not gonna lie. I do enjoy the fact that people are entertained by that. It's a little gimmicky and that makes me feel weird, but if people are enjoying themselves because of it, fine by me.

I saw your music video for “Wrk.” Can you tell me how that idea came about and what was it like filming it?

Clay: We were having lunch.

Adam: Eating Pho.

Clay: Eating Pho. Yeah. Still don't know how to say it. Pha? Pho? I usually default to Vietnamese soup. We're eating Vietnamese soup.

Adam: Whenever we have a tough decision to make, it's let's eat some soup. Our friends were doing this thing, and it sounded like the worst thing in the world to have this happen and have nobody not have camera on it. We rode that. Fell into our laps. That's what it felt like. Holy shit, this is perfect. We should totally just do it.

Clay: So we were sitting there. We were having lunch with our friend Bobby. We were actively trying to think of a concept for a music video. We wanted to make a video. Trying to think of a good idea and we went to lunch with our friend Bobby. He's a close friend of both of ours, and he's always got crazy ideas. We just wanted to pick his brain, like what would make a funny video, and we were at an impact. We couldn't think of any good ideas.

Adam: Or they were all really hard and well ok, this is gonna be the best video ever, but we have to find 12 cars with no engine block and then if it's raining... Like all this stuff was going to have to come together and it'll be really expensive. It seemed like there were elaborate ideas.

Clay: The way I remember it, we sorta gave up. Then just moving on from the music video thing, he was like “Oh so we're going tubing this weekend in business suits, you guys should come. It'll be totally fun.” We're like “Oh it'll be fun.” Then about five minutes pass, and we're like “Why don't we just bring a camera and there's our video. That's perfect.” And we thought ding ding ding and that's the funny thing about the video. Everyone thinks that we came up with “Oh you know what would be a great video idea, go tubing in suits.” No, that was just what our friends were doing and we just brought a camera. I tell everybody this. Our friends are just that dumb. Fun.

Adam: Yeah, it's one of the things that they've done. We need to take cameras and follow them around more.

Clay: Yeah, but it was fun. My favorite part of that video is still Adam at the end answering that guy's question. He's say “So I got to know. What are the suits all about?” And Adam goes “Michael Jackson,” and guy's like “Oh yeah. Yeah sorry.”

Adam: I totally understand. Sorry for your lost.

Clay: I know this is hard for you. It's like come on man, that made no sense. You went along with that.

Adam: Have you as much to drink as we have?

Clay: Yeah. That was a lot of fun though. They did it again (last) year.

I saw that. I actually thought they stole it from you.

Clay: We stole it from them. We were invited to go as friends, just to go, but we used one of those Flip cams and we bought a waterproof bag and took it. I edited it, and it was free.

Adam: But our next great idea, our legion of fans would adopt it and make it a yearly thing. I'm totally confident about that. Ideas at the tip of my tongue. Werewolf hang gliding?

Clay: Too expensive.