Nurses' Aaron Chapman talks debut album, GarageBand

With their buzzed debut Apple’s Acre, Portland-based Nurses just embarked on an ambitious three-month tour of the United States. The band is coming to the Duke Coffeehouse this Saturday with the Brunettes and Throw Me The Statue. Before they embarked on the tour, recess’ Andrew Hibbard caught up with vocalist Aaron Chapman. You made Apple’s Acre in your attic. Do you think that affected the sound and making of the album, or is it a sort of mythology that people have played up? It influenced what we’re doing. Most of the songs were already written, but the way we chose to record definitely was inspired by our surroundings. It was an attic in an old Victorian house we kind of converted into this crazy magical tent universe. I think that being there definitely got us into a certain head space, so in a sense it definitely influenced the record. But like I said, the songs themselves were already written, but the way we played them was definitely influenced by our surroundings. Did you ever get claustrophobic? We ended up moving out because the house was kind of crazy. There were 12 people living there. It was a party house. We definitely did retreat to the attic. At the time we were doing it, it was awesome. I think it was perfect. But we did reach a threshold. You couldn’t really stand up except for at the very center of the attic. So everywhere else, you just kind of had to crouch down or crawl at certain points, so there’s only so long you can live like that. But it was awesome. I loved it. You recorded the album with GarageBand. What was it like having all the creative control? Anything we had recorded prior had been with someone who was an engineer or inside the studio. I had never recorded anything before, so that was a lot of the creative process through the necessity of figuring things. But it allowed us to be really spontaneous and record things really quickly. Whenever we had an idea, we could record whenever we wanted to, pretty much. It’s very portable. It just gave us a lot of freedom. I think between having the freedom to just be spontaneous with ideas and just record instantly and, like I said, the limitations or lack of expertise in recording, kind of, I think forced us to be creative in how we record the song. But it ended up being a really awesome catalyst for creativity. Do you think GarageBand has opened doors for other bands? Yeah, I hope so. I hope people would be encouraged to do that rather than saving up money forever to make a record. There are so many things that go into it. In my mind, working with GarageBand sort of seemed like—it’s the software that comes with the computer, so I kind of assumed it wasn’t an acceptable way to make a record at first. Then when we started messing around with it and we were like, wait a second, we like this as much as anything else. So I would hope people know that they can and would be encouraged to do things themselves. With music being free and people downloading so much stuff, it makes sense to forget about huge budgets and make a record themselves instead of waiting around saving up money, expecting that they have to make a proper studio album or whatever. A lot of the stuff that we really like is kind of more do-it-yourself, lo-fi stuff. It sounds awesome. I hope that people do [it themselves] instead of just not making a record. Will you continue with the DIY approach or turn to engineers and producers for future recordings? We have been recording more ourselves in the meantime, and I think we’re kind of open to either way. We’re really happy being able to do it ourselves though. Unless something really awesome comes along, I’m sure we’ll just keep doing it that way for the immediate future. Nurses are playing at the Duke Coffeehouse Saturday, Sept. 5. Tickets are $10 (free to Duke students). Doors open at 8:30 p.m., and the show starts at 9 p.m.