Real Estate is an American independent rock band from New Jersey. Their 2014 album "Atlas" has received widespread acclaim, including being named one of The 100 Best Albums of the Decade so far. Reporter Josh Polikov chatted with the band recently in anticipation of their concert at Cat's Cradle on Friday, Sep. 19.
The Chronicle: So I watched Real Estate’s cover of the Grateful Dead’s He’s Gone and it gave me the chills. What did it feel like to play that song in San Francisco on Jerry [Garcia]’s birthday?
Matt Mondanile: It was pretty cool because I guess [the Filmore] is like a legendary venue that Jerry Garcia played at, and it was his birthday, and we had never done a Grateful Dead cover before, so it was exciting to at least learn that and play it really quickly. So it was kind of spontaneous, but it was fun.
TC: Is the Grateful Dead a big influence on you guys?
MM: It’s a big influence on some of the bandmates, for sure. But not me particularly. I like the Dead but I don’t know that much about them.
TC: They played the same kind of honest guitar music that a lot of people feel like you guys do. Why do you think that kind of music just doesn’t get old?
MM: I think it’s because people are hugely into them. And I think it’s kind of like timeless music. I don’t think that it’s dated from a specific time. I don’t think you can hear the Grateful Dead and be like “oh, that’s from this certain time."
TC: I know a lot of the trend recently has been sort of straying away from simple guitar music, but you guys continue to play it. Why is that?
MM: Well, I think it’s just what we know best, and I think we have this kind of rhythm that we’ve gotten into where we just do what we’re comfortable with, and, you know, that’s basically what we want to do. I think it would be ridiculous if all of a sudden we were like, “we’re making a record with just keyboards!” It’s like, I think we know our limits and stuff—what we can do.
TC: What were some of the other influences on the new album in general?
MM: A bunch of stuff. I think we were really into a lot of British guitar music, like the Jesus and Mary Chain. A lot of stuff like that. We were also into a lot of Steely Dan and kind of softer ‘70s-type kind of things.
TC: Your 2011 album Days, as I’m sure you know, was recently listed by Pitchfork as the 13th best album of the decade so far. How important is receiving recognition like that to you guys?
MM: It’s not very important, to tell you the truth. Because it’s nice when it happens, but we’re not like hoping for it or something like that. I was surprised at that. But it was cool. Definitely cool.
TC: What’s your 13th favorite album of the decade so far?
MM: [Laughs] I don’t know. Uh, Days! No — Days is my number one. Um, I don’t know…
TC: Alright, how about number one?
MM: My number one? Of the decade so far? Let me think, I’m looking it up…I don’t even know. Like I don’t even have that much music on my computer… Oh! I like this record by Chris Cohen. His name is Chris Cohen, and his record is called Overgrown Path. I think it’s a really good record.
TC: A couple of days back I interviewed Mish Way of White Lung and she was telling me about how vulnerability is hugely important in her music. What would you say is the role that vulnerability plays in your music?
MM: Lyrically, I think that our music is emotional and kind of brings you in and is personal. So I think that there’s vulnerability in the lyrics of our music for sure.
TC: Are you trying to connect with your listeners that way—through your lyrics?
MM: I think, yeah. I think that it’s relatable to other people.
TC: Your music really seems to strike an emotional chord with a lot of people. Why do you think that is?
MM: I think it’s because it’s very simple. It’s not trying to be too much of something crazy, and I think that it reminds people a lot of older eras of rock music, like the Beatles, or like indie rock from the ‘90s, or just rock music from the ‘90s, or music from the ‘80s. I think that it has this specific sound that’s kind of universal, in a way.
TC: One of my favorite songs of all time is “Green Aisles.” What is it about?
MM: “Green Aisles” is about just driving through New Jersey where we grew up. It’s just all these kind of grassy green aisle places, you know? And it’s about kind of being careless and then also being like… “This careless lifestyle/It was not so unwise.” It’s kind of about how we didn’t give a s**t. We didn’t care about anything. We didn’t go to school. We were just really f*****g around. But it was not stupid to do that because it helped us grow as people in our own way, but we didn’t realize it at the time, you know?
TC: So how are things different now?
MM: I guess things are different now because now we’re in a band, and we have three records out, and we live off of it, and we have to sustain that, you know? There’s a lot of questions about that, but it’s cool.
TC: Last question — if you were to teach a class at Duke, what would it be called?
MM: Hmm… Let me think… "Let’s Make a Song." It would be called "Let’s Make a Song 101."
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