Brian Young: The Art Of Simplicity
Lyrically-driven with perfectly encapsulated mini narratives that unfold like origami puzzles revealing entire worlds in polished, pop-perfect three-minute form, worlds inhabited by an eclectic cast of characters to whom we feel intimately attached despite having only the briefest chance encounter — this is the Simon & Garfunkel-like magic of Fountains Of Wayne.
Musically swerving from synthed-out, ’80s dance floor anthems like “Someone To Love” to the ’70s arena rock of “92 Subaru” to the jangly ’60s pop of “Traffic And Weather” — FOW span the decades on the new disc Traffic And Weather while retaining that deceptively simple, stripped-down, pure-pop-meets-folk-acoustic signature sound.
Mastering the art of simplicity. It could easily be the slogan for Fountains Of Wayne. And for drummer Brian Young who, along with his bandmates, frequently channels The Beatles, occasionally throwing in a little bit of Bonham too.
“It’s interesting when everybody’s playing less, how much better everyone sounds,” Young says, speaking from his Studio City apartment where he’s gearing up for the FOW tour. “With me it’s always song first. When we mix there’s a lot of care taken to make sure the lyrics are clear so the storyline doesn’t get lost. Otherwise, it really gets away from what Fountains Of Wayne is all about.”
Less is more — it’s a philosophy that’s served Young well since his earliest days, flying by the seat of his pants as a green kit player, subbing for his drum teacher at a string of local club dates in a little town called Prescott, Arizona. A town where, as Young puts it, he picked up drumming as a teenager because it looked fun, he was into rock, prog, and metal, and well, there was nothing much else to do. Nothing except, thank God, play music.
“Where I lived there was an area called Whisky Row — many, many bars with music all the time, every night, and so basically from the minute I started playing, I was gigging.”
Filling in for a drum teacher who seemed to be perennially overbooked, sick, or otherwise engaged, Young got off to a running start, even if it was a bit rocky at times. “He’d be like, ’What are you doing Friday night? I’ve got this country gig. Do you think you can cover it for me?’ And I’d be like, ’I don’t know. Do you think I can?’ So I’d show up at the gig and they’d be like, ’Where’s Pete?’ And I’d be like, ’He’s not coming. You’ve got me all weekend. And they were like, [groans] ’Oh my God!’”
Talk about trial by fire. Though he could scarcely hold his sticks, Young was suddenly behind the kit playing a medley of country, R&B, and pop hits, many of which he’d never heard before. “Even though I had this background of metal and prog and rock music that was hard to play, practically I was really just learning how to make a song happen and how to keep people on the dance floor.”
And it was the best schooling he could have hoped for. “These guys were very seasoned older cats and they would certainly let you know if that was inappropriate. You’d get the look from the bass player like, ’What the hell are you doing? Look at my hands and listen to what I’m doing!’ So it was really great practical training, and I made the best of it. I learned a lot from that.”
What he learned was to listen intently and master the basics — from that classic country train beat to the staple shuffle to a solid four-on-the-floor rock beat. His makeshift mentors also gave him a few other tips — like using memory-jogging phrases to remember rhythmic patterns: a straight-ahead military beat became “stepped in a bucket of s**t”, a jazz waltz: “wash the car and wax it.” But above all, Young learned to adapt in a heartbeat and to always, always keep the pulse.
“You kind of learn by the seat of your pants. It’s the most incredible experience just to get tossed in like that. You take advantage of the lowest common denominator of what’s going to make the song happen. If you’re not sure where a break’s coming, you can play kind of a fill-ish thing and even if everybody else stops you’re implying that maybe you meant to stop, maybe just adding a little extra. You kind of learn how to cover your tracks I guess,” he laughs.
On his off hours, Young was rocking out to Led Zeppelin and Genesis and digging into the repertoires of crazy, complex prog masters like Rush and Yes. It was a passion that fit perfectly into the strange noise-pop, punk, art-rock landscape of the rain-soaked Pacific Northwest in the ’90s — a time when the beautiful, brutal, bruised sounds of Nirvana blew speakers and minds open across America. And suddenly, Young jokes, “labels had no idea what was going on with music.” As the longtime drummer for power pop outfit The Posies, Young got a chance to channel his inner Neil Peart — tearing through shape-shifting melodies and swerving rhythms.
“The Posies were an odd pop band, more progressive with odd tunings and odd sections, Neil Young tunings and strange drum grooves,” he says. Then half-joking adds: “I got to play way, way too much drums in that band!”
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But by the mid ’90s The Posies were winding down. Around the same time, on the other side of the country, a pair of Beatles-loving singer-songwriters were handcrafting little lyrically driven vignettes into one-of-a-kind, frill-free, odd but sweet pop gems. Having tentatively named their demo and their band after a semi-legendary statue shop in New Jersey, it was just a matter of time before Adam Schlesinger and Chris Collingwood began looking to fill out their ranks.
It’s easy to see what led them to Brain Young. But what attracted a noisy, drum-crazy rocker to the classic pop confections of FOW? Answer: timing, a friend at Atlantic, a good CD, and a shared love of Steve Miller and The Beatles.
“When I heard ’Radiation Vibe’ I knew that it was special,” Young says of the first FOW song he ever encountered. “It wasn’t just 1-2-3-4 drum groove, bass, and everyone in, even though it was just a three-minute pop song.” At the audition, playing Miller’s “Swing Time,” bonding over The White Album got him a thumbs-up, and his mastery of steady, simple grooves sealed the deal.
The K.I.S.S. principle (Keep It Simple Stupid) he’d learned back on Whisky Row was going to come in handy, really handy. This and Young’s artful control of subtle dynamics, his ability to drive the songs without overpowering them and to work out what works quickly and ditch what doesn’t, has served him well over the past decade in FOW, a band known for kamikaze songwriting.
“We don’t really go and rehearse and then get a studio. We’ll learn it with acoustic guitar sitting in the control room and go record it,” Young says, adding this record was done in several short sessions at different locations. “We’ll do a couple of takes and get one that feels good and we’re done. [As a drummer] your part is captured very early on. Everyone else spends weeks and months overdubbing perfect parts and fine-tuning everything, but I call that feel.”
That spontaneous nature can lead to some interesting musical scenarios too. Things like, say, tossing a tambourine on the floor and playing it with your foot, grabbing bongos and a 2" tape box then reaching for a nearby ashtray and tapping it with a pen, using sugar packets as shakers, and a Bic lighter on the slots of a Neve recording console [all of which Young did for “Hey Julie” on Welcome Interstate Managers]. “It’s cool what you can come up with when you have to, when you make it happen right away and get inspired by all the parts going on,” he says.
Simple? Yes. Boring? Never. These spicy little percussive flourishes, the sprinkles on top that give the rhythms and in turn the songs that little something extra, are what Young relishes and excels at above all. And on Traffic And Weather those moments abound — from a big band break with horns on “Yolanda Hayes” to the Bonham-style crazy kick and power hits with the butt of the stick on the ’70s rocker “’92 Subaru” to the grooving brushes on “Fire In The Canyon.” But in the end, it’s still all about enhancing the simple beauty of each individual pop song.
“At first all the heavier, harder-to-play stuff sounds really attractive,” Young says. “But when you really get into an instrument you really start to see the beauty in the little things, as far as just a groove or a beat that can really make a song happen or a drum arrangement that can really make a song happen.
“There’s a Steve Gadd quote that goes something like, ’Some of my favorite moments are when people don’t even realize there are drums on it. The song really elevates and shines.’ I think about that; I try to pattern myself after that. It’s about how the song sits, not about me or my drums. But it is fun to kick ass too — it’s not completely subservient!”