Martin Courtney of Real Estate

Claire: Hey, this is Claire from The New Montreal. How’s it going?

Martin: I’m good, how are you?

Claire: I’m good, is this a good time for you to talk?

Martin: Yeah, sure.

Claire: Ok, we just have a couple of questions for you. So you grew up in Ridgewood, and it’s obvious from your LP that growing up in New Jersey had an influence on your music. Are you still living in Jersey?

Martin: Yeah, I live in Jersey City now, which is just over the Hudson from Manhattan. And Matt lives in Ridgewood still, and Alex the bass player lives right next to Ridgewood.

Claire: That’s pretty cool, I’m from Philly so I’ve spent many a summer at the Jersey Shore.

Martin: That’s cool.

Claire: Yeah. So you went to college in Washington state, right?

Martin: Yeah.

Claire: First off, where did you go?

Martin: I went to The Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.

Claire: Really? I’ve heard so many good things about that school.

Martin: (laughs) yeah it’s pretty cool, I liked it.

Claire: That’s awesome, so do you think that there’s a little bit of a West Coast influence on your music as well?

Martin: Um, I don’t know, I don’t think so.

Claire: No?

Martin: I mean, I don’t even know if there’s an East Coast influence, it’s just whatever we’re listening to, or like whatever music we like. Maybe just the experiences of having lived there or here have an effect.

Claire: Ok. Well your music has been described as everything from like surf-pop to indie rock to psychedelic, how would you describe it?

Martin: Psychedelic pop is what we’ve been saying, ’cause it’s just pop music. There’s a little bit of weirdness to it, but it’s not really that weird, it’s just pretty much pop music.

Claire: Well if you want to call it pop music, I would definitely say that it’s a lot better than most of the pop music out there today.

Martin: Well I mean, you can call anything pop music. You know, just the idea of pretty generic stuff. All the structures and all the melodies definitely makes it pop music.

Claire: Yeah. So you’re currently on a pretty long tour, how’s life on the road?

Martin: It’s alright (laughs) well we’re not actually on tour right now, I’m at home, we’re leaving next week. But I don’t know, it’s cool, it gets kind of tiring and I end up getting bored and drinking and stuff, but who knows, it’s definitely fun. It’s definitely what we’ve always wanted to do, so it’s cool to be able to do it.

Claire: Are you excited to tour with Woods?

Martin: Definitely, they’re our friends so it’s going to be really cool being able to go on tour with them. They’re one of our favorite bands too so it should be a good tour.

Claire: That’s great, so do you any writing or recording while you’re on tour or is it mainly when you’re at home?

Martin: Definitely not recording, and rarely do we get to have any time to write anything. Just like playing around on the guitar and things and coming up with little ideas, I guess we do that. We usually will bring a guitar and play it in the van, but as far as seriously sitting down and writing a song, we can’t really do that on the road, there’s not really time.

Claire: Well that’s understandable. I heard somewhere that you guys used to play a lot of house parties when you were just starting out, do you miss all of that or do you prefer the bigger venues you’ve been playing at now?

Martin: It’s just different. We still like to play house parties if we can but it’s not as easy ’cause we have a booking agent and they book us, and it’s not really their job to book house parties. So we don’t really get to do that, ’cause if we’re gonna go out on tour, it’s better to play places that more people can show up to. But if there’s an opportunity to play a house show, and especially if it’s a show that we’re playing our age, like 21 and up, and a lot of people can come. You know, it happens rarely, but we enjoy it. It’s fun to play house parties ’cause it’s a totally different thing. But I think it’s probably more fun ’cause people are starting to get more into it because it’s more intimate and you’re in a smaller room and stuff. We’re actually playing in an apartment and it’s not really a house party, but it’s an apartment party (laughs). One of our friends is having a party and we’re gonna do that so we still do it if we can.

Claire: That’s really cool. So you guys had two great releases in 2009, the self-titled and then the Reality EP, so what’s next for 2010?

Martin: We have a lot of touring lined up, so it’s kind of a bummer cause there’s not really that much time to write music. I think we’re gonna try and take the fall off. I mean, we still write music, we have a couple of new songs since before we left for Europe, so we’re still kind of working but I think maybe in the fall we’re gonna try, and I can’t say for sure, but we’re gonna try and set the time aside to be at home and record music and hopefully make a new record or something. But, we were also thinking we might do a 7” in the near future. So we just have to decide what songs we want to use, we have a couple songs we might do.

Claire: That would be awesome. Alright so I just have a couple of a bit less serious questions that we always ask. If you could collaborate with anyone alive or dead who would it be?

Martin: Maybe John Lennon or something, I think he’s like my favorite dude. I don’t know, that’s a really blind answer but it was the first thing that popped into my head.

Claire: That’s cool, that’s a good answer. Next question, what’s your current ringtone?

Martin: Well my phone’s almost always on vibrate, but when it’s not it’s that telephone ring. Pretty normal. For the longest time it was still standard, it was drums or something, it’s pretty boring stuff. It’s pretty much always on vibrate ’cause I just keep my phone in my pocket.

Claire: What was the last awesome concert that you saw?

Martin: That’s a good question. I haven’t even really been able to see that many shows ’cause we just are playing all the time, so it’s different. I know what it was, I saw Woods play at this place Monkeytown in Brooklyn, I think they closed down but it was one of the last shows they ever had. Monkeytown is like a pretty small room, people sit on all sides of the room and then the band plays in the middle; and all four of the walls are like huge screens, so they have projections going. It just feels really crazy ’cause it’s super intimate, it can fit 15 people in there tops and Woods played for like an hour and a half. They just like jammed, they didn’t really play songs, it was just kind of improvisational. It was really, really cool. That’s probably the best show I’ve seen in a while.

Claire: Yeah, that sounds amazing.

Martin: Yeah, it was really awesome.

Claire: So last question, what are your three favorite albums of the moment?

Martin: I’ve been listening to the Happy Birthday album. I don’t even know if I should say I have it, ’cause my friend downloaded it illegally (laughs). It’s not out yet, but my friend gave it to me and it’s really good, I like that. We’re actually playing with them next week. We’re just talking about current favorites at the moment right?

Claire: Yeah, mainly…

Martin: Well what else, my friend Julian Lynch sent me his new album and I’ve been listening to that and it’s incredible. That’s another one that I’ve been listening to a lot recently that I really like. And another one of my friends, his band Big Trouble, they don’t really have an album yet but they send me all of their songs, so I kind of think of it as an album. It’s like 20 songs that I’ve been listening to a lot. I think they actually have an album coming out in the not too distant future on Olde English Spelling Bee, which is the same label that did Julian’s record. So those are probably my three favorite of the moment, mostly my friends stuff.

Claire: Alright well that’s awesome. Ok thanks so much for taking the time out to talk to us, I really appreciate it.

Martin: Yeah no problem, thanks for doing it.

Claire: And hopefully I’ll see you when you guys come to Montreal!

Martin: Cool yeah, looking forward it.

Claire: Cya then!

Martin: Bye.