Truly independent bands that are in it for the long haul, the musical career, the lasting impact are hard to find. Superchunk, Low and Spoon are the scarce few that come to mind. Basically, these bands have stood for ten-plus years as everything that is hipster rock. Their piéce de résistance may have already passed, but they continue to produce a prolific stream of noteworthy music. In the long run, these will be the ones included in the rock ’n’ roll lexicon.
Formed in the late ‘80s, The Wrens, from Secaucus, New Jersey, fall into the above category except maybe for the fact that their watershed moment may be forthcoming. Over the years, these intrepid shoegazers—who sound like a quirkier Nada Surf with Pixies and Grandaddy overtones—have released three albums to nearly universal acclaim.
The indie rockers’ latest album, Meadowlands made several best-of lists in publications ranging from The Village Voice to The New Yorker and Rolling Stone. It was also awarded the best album of the year award by hipster bible Magnet Magazine.
The unanimous success that Meadowlands would symbolize as The Wrens guitarist/vocalist Charles Bissel remembered wasn’t as clear during the seven-year lull in between albums. After refusing to compromise their musical values to become more radio-friendly, the band was dropped from their long-term home of Grass Records—which would later become Wind-Up, home to Creed and Evanescence—and happened upon several intermittent years of record-label limbo.
“Some people boil it down to the music industry versus the little-band-that-could,” Bissel said. “And part of that was the problem, but it’s also true that we had played ourselves into a corner.”
After recording the album straight through in their basement and then proceeding later to fix what was wrong with it, Meadowlands began to sprawl.
“The drums that you hear on some tracks of that album often go to songs that don’t exist anymore,” he said.
This time around, as the band contemplates a new album—there’s been six-months of pre-planning thus far—Bissel promises a departure, but not a total left turn just yet, from the last LP and a new way of going about the band's business: music.
“This time we’re getting the songs exactly the way we want them before we record,” he said, adding that “in our experience, the melodies and chords come easier. But they count as much as what you choose to do with them.”
What The Wrens won’t be doing with the new material is trying to jump ship to a major label, Bissel said, living up to the underlying premise behind so-called indie rock.
“Record labels do not sell to music lovers but to people who just casually listen—basically the lowest common denominator.” He cites the more polished strains of country music, American Idol and middle-of-the-road rock bands as examples.
And when it comes to the kind of music The Wrens perform, Bissel remarked, perhaps echoing the sentiments of his band and many other hipster rock stalwarts, “[Record labels] don’t even want to sign the band. They listen to the tape and hear if there’s something there they can pick out and sell.”
Bissel and his other band members—some still punching the clock—also don’t take themselves that seriously.
Sing-alongs are allowed and appreciated at their concerts. Bissel doesn’t worry about coming off as “emo”—in fact, he’s not even sure that’s a genre—but instead is more concerned about “doing a Springsteen or Billy Joel.”
And as for the pervasive moniker “indie rock,” he’s also fine with that, as he described it succinctly: “When I think of indie rock, I think of four white guys. At least two of them are wearing glasses, and they’re all sporting sloppy hair and playing old-fashioned guitar.”
The Wrens will be performing at the Duke Coffeehouse Saturday, February 12 at 9 p.m.
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.