Designing a new consciousness

The Anniversary shakes off the past and starts anew

Wednesday, October 15, 2003

Photo by Phil Cauthon

The Anniversary is (L to R) Justin Roelofs, Adrianne Verhoeven, Christian Jankowski, James David, Josh Berwanger

Listening to Justin Roelof's latest home recording, one can't help wonder if Isaac Hayes didn't run off to be a Buddhist monk, resurface as a Zen-inspired soul singer and hire Roelof's band to perform his new material. Halfway into the song, a Shaft-like voice cuts through a blissful bed of wah-guitar and dub-inspired bass to ask:

"Baby have you heard?"

"Heard what?" replies the female chorus.

"There is no you and me. There is no me or I. There is no self."

"Can you feel it?"

"I can feel it," replies the female chorus.

"I can feel something dying in me. It's the death of the self."

And as the self dies, the song explodes in a psychedelic swirl of wailing guitars and Santana-esque percussion. But that's not all. Bookending the song are dub-reggae segments and the voice of a monk expounding on radical changes in consciousness.

"It's my first experiment with sampling," proclaims Roelofs, singer and guitarist of The Anniversary. "I did two takes of the vocals, making up the lyrics on the spot and then kind of reworked it just a little bit just to make sense out of it. It's my favorite thing I've done so far."

For the last few months, Roelofs has been relaxing at his Oread Neighborhood home -- waking up early, meditating a lot and seeking the right inspiration for The Anniversary's next record. His sabbatical is partly due to necessity -- the band recently parted ways with its label and ended what had already been a year's worth of promoting its last record. And partly due to self-imposed exile.

"I've just decided that I must fill every afternoon with recording or writing," he says. "Usually what it takes is me getting in this room all by myself, shutting out all distractions, turning off the ringer on the phone and having no expectations and no ambition whatsoever."

"When I do that it's just so fulfilling. It feels great."

Ch-ch-ch-changes

To a record label trying to market a band, The Anniversary -- Roelofs, singer/guitarist Josh Berwanger, singer/keyboardist Adrianne Verhoeven, bassist James David and drummer Christian Jankowsi -- has got to be a nightmare. As soon as the band develops a recognizable sound, it's already onto something else. In the course of only two records -- "Designing A Nervous Breakdown" (2000) and "Your Majesty" (2002) - already The Anniversary has shifted paradigms: from synth-happy emo rockers to swaggering '70s guitar-rock revivalists.

Audio interviews

Highlights from the interview...

"The illusion that's draped over everyone's eyes is that there is time.

"That sounds so weird to say, but what I'm saying is: I truthfully believe that there is no time. There is no past or future.

"And how that becomes a giant transformation is that every thought that you have in your brain is based in time. Every time your brain is thinking, you're thinking about your experiences that you've had so far ...

"And then take into consideration the fact that we know absolutely nothing about outer space -- literally, we know nothing. We know a little bit about our own solar system ... and we still don't even know if there's life on Jupiter or life on Saturn or, beyond Pluto we have no idea what going on. But we're one of 400 million billion stars in our galaxy ... which is one of like one million billion galaxies in the entire universe.

"That shows you right there that we have no clue really what's happening in the universe. So as human beings we walk around all the time acting as if we know what's going on, when it's so obvious that as a species we know so very little. So what we do is wrap our brains up in time ... We think about the future all the time.

"That's what I would always get trapped up in, thinking about the future of the band and where I'll be a few years from now."

According to Roelofs, the band's chameleon-like tendencies have only begun.

"The difference between the last album and this (coming) album is going to be twice, three, ten times the difference between the first two albums," he says.

"I could play you a recording that we did two months ago compared to a recording that I did two weeks ago and the evolution, the progress, is astounding. I'm not saying it's better necessarily. I'm just saying the way it's changing -- the way it's evolving -- is definitely progressing in a dramatic way."

In many ways, Roelofs' proclivity for change has stemmed just as much from personal growth as musical growth. The last year has been a test of endurance for him and the rest of the band, featuring a much-publicized split with Vagrant Records (the bands' label home of three years) and rumors of a fallout with longtime friends and touring buds The Get Up Kids.

Vagrant even went to so far as to post a message on its site that read: "You will NEVER see this band 1) on tour with other Vagrant bands, The Get Up Kids or anyone else 2) being promoted on this Web site."

Though both bands prefer not to talk about the rift, suffice it to say the conflict was a personal matter that only became a matter of public concern due to the visible relationship between the two bands.

"Had it just stuck to the personal lives, there would certainly be conflict but it would have resolved itself so much quicker than had it suddenly turned into this band thing," Roelofs says. "Our two bands have had amazing, hilarious, true experiences together. Unfortunately, some things went down in personal lives that affected this relationship."

Rather than letting the drama drag him down, Roelofs looked inward and turned the bad vibes into positive change. He began practicing meditation regularly, spurring what he describes as a complete transformation of self.

"I realized that my mind was totally out of control," he says. "There were times in the last few months where I've thought completely about, like, who cares about Lawrence, who cares about a band, who cares about anything? I need to go to India or I need to go somewhere and just meditate for months at a time, because what I'm gaining from this is way more valuable than artistically anything I've learned so far."

Free beats

Thankfully for fans of his band, Roelofs chose to stay in Lawrence and invest his newfound energy into making music. His approach to writing, however, changed drastically. Rather than spending days on end forcing himself to finish songs, he instead developed a much more relaxed and spontaneous approach.

Phil Cauthon / lawrence.com

"What I've realized is that every gain I've made -- anything that's even had a shred of respectability that I've made musically -- has come from moments when I was totally not paying attention," he says. "Every time I tried to write a song ... it would be so difficult. And then, like say later in the night, maybe I've had a beer, maybe I've like smoked a little pot, or maybe it had nothing to do with a substance, maybe I'm just in a mood, maybe there's a movie on or another record on and I pick up the guitar and I'm just kind of fooling around, and then suddenly the song comes."

For inspiration, he has looked to reggae, hip-hop and free jazz (which he hears constantly thanks to the "Free All Beats" combo that rehearses in his basement).

"The only rule I am working by is that everything should make you move," he says. "I will only be writing things that are danceable, because they're the most fun to play live."

Judging by the bands' most recent performance (a show at the Tap Room last August), Roelofs is making good on his word. At that show, he split time between guitar and timbales, reveling in extended percussion breaks and recharged versions of old songs.

"To have all your heart and soul in a performance usually means you're having to reinvent it all the time," he says. "I relate to the idea of, 'Ok, you make the fans happy; they're the people that support you.' But the thing I believe way more than that is that the fans will be totally way more fulfilled at a show if what you're playing at that moment you truly believe in."

Phil Cauthon / lawrence.com

Though the band's priorities are to write and rehearse new material, all four members will hit the road again next week for a short tour that includes a date at the CMJ Music Marathon in New York City.

"The only reason is because we're broke," Roelofs says. "And we need to get a record deal."

The future is now

In the meantime, the band is spending time rehearsing in a friend's barn north of Lawrence. It's a dimly lit attic space wafting with incense, sounds sometimes rockin' sometimes haunting, and an easy but earnest work ethic vibe among the five.

"Even if we got a record deal, say, tomorrow, I don't feel like we'd be ready to record," Roelofs says. "I still feel like we're six to eight months away."

With uncertainty comes lots of soul searching, which Roelofs has had plenty of time for.

The Anniversary / Danny Pound Band / Monarques

When: Saturday, Oct. 18, 2003, 10 p.m.
Where: The Bottleneck, 737 N.H., Lawrence
Cost: $8 - $10
Age limit: All ages

Full event details

"What am I looking for?" he asks. "Am I looking for my band to get really successful and sell a million records and then I'm going to be happy? As soon as you sell a million records you want to sell either nine million records or you're totally like depressed off your ass and on drugs and fucked up.

"The truth is that you do not get happy through success; you do not get happy through material goods. Happiness only comes through not thinking and the now."

Even if The Anniversary ended tomorrow, it's a good bet Roelofs could find a second career as a self-help guru.

"I challenge you: start examining your thoughts tonight when you're at home, before you go to sleep," he says. "You'll find that your thoughts are always thinking about the past or the future. They're never just experiencing the now of lying in your bed, and feeling great, and hearing the crickets outside."

Phil Cauthon / lawrence.com

Archetype / Fourth of July (late show) :: Besides the obvious novelty of Fourth of July performing on the Fourth of July, tonight's twin-bill doubleheader offers a chance to celebrate our nation's birth with two Lawrence bands whose colors don't run ... More info

More of today's events

< Previous month | Next month >