It’s been a while since the New York-based Fil-Am band Versus have released new music. A lot has happened since 2000’s “Hurrah,” an almost last hurrah in which the band seemed older, wiser, more mature than their indie contemporaries; then they broke up, or at least drifted apart, after putting out an EP of solo tracks from each band member — à la Kiss — called “Drawn and Quartered.”
I have to say I’ve always considered Versus to be what a real indie band should be, with or without any aspersions cast on the word “indie.” I first saw them opening for Sebadoh in Boston (a friend informed me before the show that they were “half-Filipino”), then later opening for Superchunk at New York’s Trammps. In a sense, Versus was always the bridesmaid of the indie scene, or maybe the midwife, helping usher in a time in which emotion could fuse with non-compromising music without sounding wimpy or emo. Baluyut brothers Richard (vocals, guitars) and Ed (drums) joined with singer/bassist Fontaine Toups and, later, younger brother James and friend Patrick Ramos to forge the closest thing to a Fil-Am punk collective. They had great idols, too, like Boston’s crushing Mission of Burma (Versus named themselves after Burma’s second album).
My wife was an instant fan, too; her sister Marie helped coax Richard and James’s band Plus/Minus to play live in Manila a few years back. (The weird part is the Baluyuts’ parents knew Therese’s parents here before settling in the US Midwest. Who knows, maybe they even played together as kids. Small planet, isn’t it?)
The new album, “On the Ones and Threes,” is available online through Merge Records (sadly, record stores are a fading memory) and it’s kind of a merger between “Secret Swingers” and “Hurrah”’s evolving folk leanings (Richard and Fontaine’s vocal trade-offs are particularly tasty here) mixed with the multi-instrumental ambitions of “Whysall Lane,” Richard’s solo album (which is excellent, by the way). Once again, guitar riffs circle and spiral, and Richard’s lyrics chart doomed
relationships, desperate measures, betrayals and urgent pleas, like the soundtrack to an imaginary noir classic. The films of Nicholas Ray and Powell/Pressburger are a touchstone (the latter particularly on Gone to Earth and Pink Valhalla). Throughout, Margaret White’s violin adds counterpoint or an extra wall of sound.
I sent Richard some questions about the latest Versus release, and here’s what he had to say.
PHILIPPINE STAR: It’s been a decade since the last Versus release (“Hurrah” and “Drawn and Quartered” in 2000). Though I know a bit about your other projects since then, what took so long? And why a new Versus release now?
RICHARD BALUYUT: It took so long mostly because I lived in San Francisco for six years, and Versus can only exist in New York (where Fontaine and Ed live). But as soon as I moved back, Fontaine, Ed and I started writing songs. We worked on this album two years all told, and finally released it this year. So if you subtract the California years, it’s like we never stopped!
What was it like working with the original lineup after all these years? How have the live shows been?
It’s been great playing with Ed again. His drumming is pretty unique, yet in a restrained sort of way. We were going for a more subtle style on this record. The previous lineup with James and Patrick was more rock-oriented. So playing the new songs live has been a similar adjustment, because for the most part they’re quieter. We’ve been playing with a violinist (Margaret White) who brings some additional beauty.
Where does “On the Ones and Threes” fit, musically, in relation to previous Versus releases?
I think it fits quite nicely at the top of the heap! But because of Ed’s presence, maybe it’s the follow-up to “Secret Swingers” (1996). It would be cool to have it live in a parallel universe, Lost-style, with “Two Cents Plus Tax” (1998).
Seriously though, I hear it more as a combination of our other projects in recent years (Whysall Lane, The Fontaine Toups, Pacific Ocean) than as a progression from our last full-length album, “Hurrah” (2000). But as long as Fontaine and I are singing together, those distinctions fall away.
You once described the outro chorus in a number of your songs, such as Gone to Earth, as “the love.” Can you elaborate?
I guess “the love” just means the sweet part of the song. Usually lots of vocals and harmonies. We have always written the music jamming together (sometimes we’ll play a song for months!) at the rehearsal space, then refine the vocals and overdubs in the recording studio. That’s when “the love” usually happens!
There seems to be a strong film influence — particularly noir — in your writing. Why the attraction? What does it help you to express about the “human condition”?
I like movies. They tell stories that I’m not equipped to tell. I think musicians’ artistic impulses are more amorphous and vague, so it makes perfect sense to me to latch onto those stories. In my mind the songs are mini-soundtracks to the films.
What Nicholas Ray film inspired (bonus track) Death Ray?
Death Ray was actually inspired by Wim Wenders’ Lightning Over Water, a film about the making of Nicholas Ray’s last (never completed) film. He made many films in many genres, but what I like best about them is a sort of transformative desperation, best evidenced in Bigger Than Life, Rebel Without a Cause and my favorite, In a Lonely Place. Plus I’m a big fan of the ’50s in general.
I also have two brothers, and I only wish we could manage to continue a project — music or otherwise — together. How do you manage to keep working with Ed and James without killing each other?
It used to be harder, but now that we’re all older and have kids, we get along pretty well. Plus we don’t tour much anymore; when you put a group of people together for weeks at a time, you’re going to want to kill each other almost daily. But the trade-off (being
able to play together unconsciously versus brotherly hatred) has always been worth it to me.
Will Whysall Lane (Richard’s solo alter-ego) continue as a playing/recording project? Or are the other members located in San Francisco?
I’m not sure. Originally Whysall Lane started here in New York, just me playing solo. Though it eventually became a rock band, I might still use the name if I’m playing by myself. I performed a couple of the songs earlier this year, and am very proud of the record we did.
The marketing slogan for Whysall Lane’s debut album was “Indie Rock for people who hate indie rock.” Do you stand by that?
No, I don’t stand by that motto nowadays. For a while indie rock was so uncool and sort of fey, and Whysall Lane had more of a classic rock sound in comparison. But I’ve come to like the term. To me it means “independent rock,” which I think in these days of hearing Nick Drake on car commercials, or myriad current bands selling iPods, is a rare commodity.
Have you caught the reformed Mission of Burma on their recent tours, and if so, how do you think they sound?
Yes, I’ve had the pleasure of opening for them many times in either band, and they are always inspiring. They’re older gentlemen, but in person they rock harder than pretty much any new band; it’s amazing to see.
You have a dedicated core following in the Philippines, as you know. What, if anything, is Filipino about your music?
That has always been a tough question for me to answer. I was born in the USA, and we didn’t speak Tagalog as kids. I grew up in a typical American suburb, where anyone not white would get some prejudice, fear, ridicule. That was normal for me. So obviously that shaped who I am, and who knows, maybe drove me to music? To me it seemed like the only way to express that alienation.
So, I’d say that our music is “Filipino-American” because of that assimilation/alienation dynamic.
It was really strange for me to finally play in Manila where I was part of the “majority,” but looking back, it was a beautiful feeling, and I hope to experience that again someday.