From Bloomington to the Tennessee Mountains to the Lockerbie Square, Murder By Death is on the road (almost non-stop) touring in support of their latest effort “Good Morning, Magpie.”  This included a stop last Saturday at Indy’s Earth House along with mewithoutYou and Buried Beds.

Before the show began, I got the chance to sit down with frontman Adam Turla to discuss their new album, the state of indie rock, camping and more:

Did I just see you guys unloading your van about an hour ago (before the show began)?

Not even (laughs).  We got in really late.  It was just one delay after another.

Was it just traffic or something?

Yeah and the GPS routed us through, like a busy part of Indy instead of just having us on the highway, and then it was like, lunch just for some reason took almost two hours, ’cause the place was the slowest ever.  It was just a dumb, dumb day, but it doesn’t matter.  I mean, we’re here it’ll be fine.  The show will go on.

How does it feel to be back in Indiana?

Always nice.  We’re actually gonna go home tonight after the gig, and, you know we live in Bloomington.  Our friend is having a bonfire party tonight so we’re gonna surprise them.  Show up around 12:30 and get to hang out with their friends for a night before we hit the road tomorrow morning.

You just got on this tour a few days didn’t you?

Yeah it’s a really really short tour.  It’s just like 10 days.

How has it been so far?

Good.  Fun, you know?  A lot of places we often play, although Indy we don’t play as much.  So that’s cool.  I was happy when I saw that on the list.

You’re still on tour after this?

Yeah.  We take a couple weeks off and then we’re doing a month-long, like it’s a headliner, and the idea is small towns and/or small clubs.  The idea being that in the larger cities that we’re playing, which there’s only a few, like Milwaukee or Washington D.C., we’re doing a club.  A lot smaller than we normally would.  Just to make it like a dirty bar show, like rock n’ roll, in your face kind of show, and I think that’ll be really cool.  Just for something different, and then we’re also…we were actually gonna do Radio Radio on that tour but then this show got announced so we decided we’ll do Radio Radio in the winter or something.  We haven’t played there for like eight years or something.  It’ll be fun to get back.

You just released a new album a few months ago?

Yup.

And you went to the mountains to write this?

Yeah for a couple weeks.  With like a notebook.  With the idea being, I just wanted to…focus on just writing and not have any activities, like…I didn’t want to be distracted by friends or family and…just every day life.  For example, I didn’t want to have to deal with, like band stuff, whether it was money or accounting or interviews.  I just wanted to totally focus on song writing, and fishing (laughs).  Yeah, it was great, you know?  It was a really nice experience, but by the end I was very stir crazy and I was very lonely and I was ready to definitely come home.

So it was mostly to just get away from distractions?

Yeah…I thought it would be a great way to write an album, you know?  Just like, it would have such…I hoped and I definitely did have the characters that I thought might come out of it, which was that the album sort of, even though the songs aren’t like about being in the woods or anything.  It ends up having all these images of the woods sort of evoked so naturally.  Lyrics that I didn’t even realize came from being there until months later when I reflected on it.  Just like…mentions of nature of moss…trees, just all these themes came up that might not have entered the lexicon of the lyrics of this record if I hadn’t been in the woods for so long.

Like a more natural feel?

Yeah this album is, it’s interesting.  It’s a little more relaxed.  It’s a…little lighter than our past material, and that was a conscious effort.  I wanted to try doing some songs that had less of a brutally dark tone, and so that was fun, doing something a little different than usual.  It’s for the sake of trying to keep things interesting for ourselves as well as people who listen to us.

What goes into your writing process?

I always start the songs off then bring them to the band, and then we really work on the music, but I always start with a melody and a line, and then I expand on that line and just keep moving outward until there’s a story.  If it’s an album that’s like a whole long-form narrative like one of our albums “Who Will Survive…” and “Red of Tooth and Claw,” they’re just sort of like one long story.  Then you expand outward from the story within the song to the story within the album.

Do you mean to write like that or does it just happen?

I guess…it just happened that way the first time and then I learned that’s one of the ways I like to write, and not everything’s been done that way but I have enjoyed doing it that way.  So I’ve stuck with it for a little bit.  I do like the storytelling style of lyrics.  Lyrics that have a purpose.  Not just expressing a feeling.  I’m very against sort of, feeling oriented lyrics that are just about “oh my heart” this, “i feel this way,” you know, “it’s a bad day” (laughs).  You’d be surprised how many songs, really that’s all it is.  Even if it’s like a little more artistic than that.  I like to try and tell a story and make up characters that have like some sort of personality.  That’s what I’m trying to do at least (laughs).

Go beyond normal songwriting and venture into storytelling?

It’s fiction, you know?  It’s like…there are characters that I hope you can…if you wanna get into the lyrics, I want you to be able to dig if that’s what you’re into.  If you just like the song, and like you know a couple of words here and there, that’s cool too, but like, you know I try to make the songs be able to be listened to on a level where it’s just simple and complex, if possible.

What’s next for Murder By Death?

Well that tour.  The small clubs tour.  We’re playing all sorts of weird places like, we’re playing up in Maine.  We’re doing like Dubuque, Iowa.  Nobody plays Dubuque, Iowa.  We’re doing like a couple of…going up to Canada a little bit.  We’re also doing a tour, we’re working on a long U.S. tour for the winter, and we’re hoping to go to Australia this winter too, so got my fingers crossed on that.

Just trying to go all over the place?

That’s what we do.  We’ve been touring for, we’ve been a band for 10 years now.  Our tenth anniversary of our first show is in October, and it’s at the Collins Coffeehouse in Bloomington, and we’ve just always played a ton of shows and so this album and this year are no exception.

So you’re one of those bands that basically lives in their van?

Yeah, my buddy…he calls us “blue collar bands” where it’s just instead of being like a rich indie/pop band where you just go out once or twice a year and just blow out the shows.  There’s certain bands that people, you know we’re not advertised as much.  We’re much more underground.  We’re more of like a cult band, and we win fans by playing a lot of shows and having new people see us and get to know us and that’s how, slowly the fans base just grows and grows that way, and so really it’s a nice way to do things.  I mean, you really get to, when people find out about you just because they heard you in a tattoo shop or whatever, and they’re like “wow this is really different.”  Those people tend to actually listen to you for a long time and be able to support you over many albums as opposed to like if you have a big single and it’s really catchy and, you know, then people don’t like your second album or it doesn’t get as much press and then you’re done.  That happens all of the time.  Especially right now.  It’s almost like the 80′s again.  It’s like really, pop culture has totally taken over.  Indie rock is like, not even a thing anymore.  Nobody’s independent, or everyone’s independent but doing things just like a major used to.

So it’s independent but it’s not?

Well it’s not independent, it’s like…who are the indie bands today?  Like…I don’t know like…MGMT or something.  All these bands have huge staffs full of, like…they have like 50 people working for them.  Designed to make them as popular as possible.  It’s not very independent, you know?  It’s like, they have multiple managers, booking agents for each continent.  They have tons of people doing every facet the band.  Doing artwork, the layout, like they’re not really, it’s just not what it (used to be).  Indie rock kind of meant something else back in the day.  Not to say I’m like a f@#king old grandpa, but I think there’s just a different thing.  What’s happening now in what’s called indie rock is more pop culture, and there’s nothing wrong with that.  It’s just a funny ruse.

Like an oxymoron?

Yeah exactly…I think you’re diluting yourself if you think this stuff isn’t manufactured too, and I’m not excluding us.  I mean we have plenty of people working for us too, but it’s like we’re particularly self-involved.  Like I put out all our vinyl and I do the mail-order myself, but like, we still have like a bunch of people working for us and…everyone’s trying to make a living.  I’m not trying to like dog these bands just for being pop bands, but it’s interesting to observe.

What do you like to do when you’re not touring/writing/performing?

Yeah I like to read a lot.  I finished this Sam Shepard play today that was pretty brutal (laughs).  I watch a lot of movies.  I love going to the theater.  I still have that like feeling like of being a kid and like, movie magic.  I go to the movie theater and I’ll watch anything.  Any crappy movie.  Any foreign film.  I’ll watch the dumbest comedy out in the moment to some heady foreign thing.  It’s just like, I don’t really care what it is.

Any favorite movies at the moment?

I thought “Inception” was really good, but in the same way I loved “Predators.”  I thought it was like, I love the old Schwarzenneger films so I thought it was a good homage, but that’s the thing.  I guess I like media.  I’m a reader and a movie lover, but I also like being outside.  I like building things, like I built a cabin in my backyard.  That was really fun.  I like camping when I can but we’re gone a lot so I don’t always get to do that.

What do you like to listen to?

I don’t listen to a ton of modern music.  I listen to a lot of older stuff, and that’s the same way I read.  I kind of, I go with the classics.  I’ve been listening to Thin Lizzy a lot.  I didn’t realize how much I like that band.  They are awesome, like the guitarmonies.  It’s so awesome…I like a lot of soul music, too.