OFFICE - The Ritz: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Hey y’all, sorry for my AWOL-ness the latter part of last week - hopefully the little surprise that’s been keeping me busy will be ready for announcement this week. It’s preeeeeetty cool! Until then, let’s dig through the vaults a bit. I did this really fun interview for the A.V. Club with Tom Smith from OFFICE last fall, just before they left on their first major national tour (with Earlimart). They’re ostensibly the kings (and queens) of the Chicago indie scene, and with an invitation to this year’s Lollapalooza already in their back pocket, this should be a big 2008 for ‘em.

Five years ago, the band that would become OFFICE was a concept kicking around the mind and apartment of Scott Masson. What started as a group of hired hands designed to give stage life to Masson’s new-wave pop songs has since become a working, collaborative band that’s on the brink of turning the national spotlight on Chicago for the first time in more than a decade. With a new album, A Night at the Ritz, out September 25th on James Iha’s Scratchie/New Line Records imprint and a national tour underway, this tightly-knit unit of pop rockers is finally cashing in on the promise they’ve displayed since 2004’s Q & A. The AVC caught up with guitarist and newly-anointed songwriter Tom Smith to find out more about the process of making the album, how the band plans to handle its newfound national status, and why Smith and Masson find it imperative to embrace their feminine sides.

A.V. Club: A Night At The Ritz has both older material and new songs. What was the songwriting process like for this album?

Tom Smith: It’s Scott bringing arrangements and us adding our parts, pretty much. We recorded new tracks over the old masters, so it’s kind of new.

AVC: Do you feel comfortable putting the older songs out there for a new audience, or would you have preferred to release an entire album of new material?

TS: I think it’s always better to move forward, but I also think we’re happy to get these songs out for a broader audience to hear since we didn’t press that many copies of our last album [2004’s Q&A]. The label really wanted us to get those songs out there, and we think the songs still have some life too.

AVC: What do you think the association with James Iha, who is most often connected to Chicago’s best-loved alternative band, will do for OFFICE’s image outside of Chicago?

TS: I don’t think we position ourselves that way, but I think everyone else will take that and run with it. It’s cool, he’s been really supportive and a good pal, he’s been right in our corner since we met. When we were going through last summer and we were talking to a few labels, he told us, “whatever happens is cool, it’s business but we’re friends,” which was great, because the only people we’d met with up to that point had been assholes – real music industry caricatures – and when he came around, he told us that it was a no-pressure thing and he wanted to get the record out there…it’s an interesting story for people to hear, I think, because we’re from the same hometown and he sees some of what he’s been involved with in us. He’s never said this, but I think it’s sort of like we’re his kids.

AVC: In Chicago, you’re used to playing for a fairly large and receptive crowd. Are you planning on making any adjustments to the live show now that you’re going on tour and playing for people who have never seen OFFICE before?

TS: I think it’s easier for us to play in front of crowds that don’t know us, because our friends are our biggest critics. They’ve seen us a million times or even played in bands with us, and they know exactly when we’re on our game and when we’re not.

AVC: Your guys used to have a very close association with the “office” theme – sexy typists on stage, press photos in front of copy machines, etc. It seems like you’ve left that behind in marketing the new album – has the concept of the band changed too?

TS: Well, I married one of [the typists]! I think when we started in this city, it was kind of a weird time or a fallow moment there, in 2004 and 2005. We were kind of tired of the bored indie rock posing, the “I’m so fucking cool, I can’t breathe,” so we wanted to put something fun out there and be different…Around our Schubas residency [in May of 2006], we had one last “secretary blowout,” and all those girls dressed as secretaries and were on stage for the last song. It was a total nightmare, and after that we said “game over, it’s time to let the songs stand on their own.” It was a ploy all along, something to get people talking about us…now you look back and say yeah, it was kind of dumb, but it worked (laughs)!

AVC: Do you think now that you’ve left that behind in Chicago, you’ll have to face all of the puns on a national scale?

TS: It’s faded noticeably. I think maybe the record title, A Night at the Ritz, is part of the reason…It’s kind of joke because this record wasn’t made in a night, it was made over 5 years. It’s not just an overnight stay.

AVC: The record has been really well received thus far, but what will have to happen for you to say “We’ve made it?”

TS: Headlining a national tour would be solid, but I mean…a Moonman, man – the VMAs! Wait til we get our treadmill video out there, it’s gonna be huge (laughs). Playing Conan would be great, too – once I’ve given his little tuft of hair a toss, then I’ll know we’ve made it.

AVC: The band has always played up its male-female dynamics, which has proven very successful for bands like Broken Social Scene and Rilo Kiley. What part do you think it plays in the overall image of the band?

TS: I think it’s actually less about image and more about what works. It’s a lot easier to work in a co-ed band than an all-male band…when it’s all dudes, it can be like a volume war or just testosterone overload. And it’s funny, you know, because the women [in OFFICE] provide some of the testosterone, and Scott and I provide some of the estrogen! Plus, I don’t have to be quite as pretty when they’re so hot.

AVC: It seems like it’s been a couple of years since a rock band has broken out of Chicago. Do you guys feel any sort of pressure to be a torchbearer? Is there any pressure from the city’s music community to break down any doors?

TS: I don’t think so…I think it would be great if we could be that band, but we’re not putting any extra pressure on ourselves to that end. I would love to be the Nirvana of Chicago, but you have to be realistic…I wish we could take all of the bands that we love in the city – like The Narrator and Mannequin Men – on tour with us.

AVC: When you guys get, you know, all big and famous, do you think you’ll maintain Chicago as part of the OFFICE identity?

TS: I don’t think anyone has plans on leaving…there was talk of moving to New York a while ago, but the more we’ve been there, the less we want to do that because we see our friends struggling to make their art…I don’t think I’d necessarily want to be he biggest fish in this pond, but I think if you’re able to support yourself with your art more easily – all the better. We really just want to make Chicago an awesome pond.

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