I Spoke To LET'S ACTIVE While In The Deep South

It’s beautiful down in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where Let’s Active live. Maybe it influences the gentle dynamism and meticulous construction of their ingenious pop sounds that they live in a place where you can hear yourself think. It’s green and country and quiet down there. When you drive down a back road with Mitch Easter, the Let’s Active main man (singer, songwriter, plays most of the instruments on the new record himself) and Angie Carlson (keyboards, guitar), you might see the local crazy woman, ambling down the side of the road waving a big stick and talking to herself, doing a lot better than any New York bag lady could ever hope. You might wander into the local record store or gas station and get a nice friendly hello.

You might stop off for breakfast at Mr. Waffle, which is right across the street from Mr. Barbeque and just down the road from Mr. Omelot. Mr. Waffle was where Mitch, Angie and I recorded a lot of the following interview, while we ate grits and greens and lima beans and corn bread. Mr. Barbeque is where, later that day, we ate “Lexington style” chopped barbeque. Lexington, another town just down the road, is know as “the Mecca of barbeque.” If you’re ever down that way, you have to try it—and don’t forget the Texas Pete’s Hot Sauce, which is made right there in Winston-Salem. As are lots of cigarettes. And Haines stockings.

And lots of records. Which brings us to the other place where we did this interview—the kitchen of Mitch’s parents’ house. It’s a typical suburban American kitchen, a great place to sit and eat cheese and crackers and drink soda and talk. A normal house in every respect—cars in the driveway, dogs in the yard— except that the garage happens to have been remodelled into a recording studio. Mitch’s Drive-In Studio. The only one in town.

“Well,” Mitch admits, “I did hear about a gospel studio someplace around here, and there’s supposed io be a studio in a chicken shack that I can’t wait to go see.”

Don’t people think it’s weird for you to be pursuing the life of a pop artist and producer in an out-of-the-way place like this?

“People from other places think it’s weird. People around here, I don’t even think they know that what I do exists. If I tell them what I do, they say, ‘Oh, that’s interesting.’ I don’t think they ever quite know what it is.”

What Easter has been doing is two things. He’s been making Let’s Active records. First there was Afoot, an EP that starred a catchy little number called “Every Word Means No.” Then there was Cypress, a moody, brooding and not quite convincing first album. And now there is Big Plans For Everybody, a record that, like its creator, at first seems kind of quiet and unassuming, but that then tickles your ear, gets into your brain, makes you come back to it again and again, and finally convinces you that you’re in love with it.

The other thing Easter has been doing is producing records for other groups. R.E.M. have recorded most of their records at Mitch’s Drive-In. Other folks to record there include the Bongos, Beat Rodeo, the Individuals, and more southern guitarpop bands than anyone would care to list. Easter has garnered quite a reputation as a producer of guitar-based American melodic pop. But he dislikes the pigeonhole.

“For some reason,” he says, “most of the bands that have recorded with me have been bands with guitars. People think that Soft Cell could come in here and I would send them out sounding like R.E.M. Which is just not the case.”

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In fact, Easter can rightfully claim a great musical range and depth, and Big Plans For Everybody proves it. “In Little Ways,” the first track and the single, mixes its chiming, ethereal guitars with beautiful piano figures for a gorgeous effect. “Talking To Myself” and “Writing The Book Of Last Pages” exemplify meticulous popcraft, with lots of early British Invasion echoes. “Last Chance Town” is Slade/T Rex glam rock, but done right, so that the beat never stomps on the bright melody. “Badger” is an acoustic ballad, pretty, wistful, piquant stuff. In fact, the first side of this album is a shining example of how to put together a collection of varied, intriguing songs.

But what kind of band is Let’s Active?

“I just think that we’re a slightly oddball band that needs to be listened to for what it is,” Mitch says. “We’ve been at the ‘introducing Let’s Active’ stage for three years now, and I really hope we’ve gotten past that.”

They deserve to get way past that. “In Little Ways”—with its beautifully textured sound and ability to insinuate itself into your head and not go away—should be a hit.

“You think so?” Easter is genuinely pleased at the suggestion. Sometimes he takes the word unassuming to new heights. “That would be swell. I just worry that the slam-bang factor that you have to have in your production these days is everything. And in some ways, our record is kind of oldtime sounding.

“I think our reputation is that we’re sort of humble, straightahead and all that. I mean, I don’t want us to be too humble. I’d like to be sort of semi-epic, so we can at least get a new car someday. But we’re not that fire-breathing sort of act.”

What Let’s Active are, above all, is a songwriting act. Easter has a talent for turning out clever pop songs that have a little spin on them, that extra something that sets them off from the pack. I see him in the tradition of the eccentric pop craftsmen, people like Alex Chilton in his Big Star period, or Robyn Hitchcock.

“Well, that’s high praise.” Mitch is genuinely pleased again. “Those are the good guys. There’s a lot of mainstream rock that I appreciate. I really like something like Paul Revere & The Raiders or Tommy James & The Shondells, that perfect craftsman-like pop music. But the stuff I can listen to over and over again are those wacky eccentrics.

“Sometimes I get through writing a song that I think is so normal I’m almost embarrassed, and I play it for people and they still don’t get it for a few listens. But I think that’s good, because those are the songs that last. Of course, ultra-hep cats think we’re just a regular rock band.”

Making this type of music also means swimming against the commercial tide.

“I don’t think we’re in any sort of a songwriting era,” Mitch says. “We’re in a presentation era. Present it just right. And a weird little oddball song that comes from nowhere without much of a budget behind it doesn’t stand a chance.”

“There are too many of those groove songs,” adds Angie, “that don’t have a melody. I mean, nothing against Simple Minds, but just try to hum one of their songs. They’re just grooves.

“I feel sorry for young kids who are growing up on MTV. If they heard a song like ‘Rain On The Roof,’ say, or one of those old Zombies songs, they wouldn’t even understand why it was cool. The thing that a lot of these Southern pop bands do have in common is that they have melody lines instead of grooves.”

I ask Mitch if he thinks of himself primarily as an entertainer or a craftsman.

“I feel more like a motorist most of the time. But really, it’s gotta be more craft. I’m really aware that it’s show biz, and it’s entertainment, and that’s great, and funny, ’cause I never thought of myself as being a Sammy Davis type in any way. I can t imagine myself being one of those, ‘How ya feeling tonight’ kind of guys.

“I saw John Cougar on TV the other night saying how it’s not good enough to just stand there and play, you have to entertain people. And I was thinking, yes, but, I like to just stand there and play. I don’t really need to have somebody tell me to rock. I don’t need to be given clues about how into it to be.”

I’d advise a few listens to Let’s Active. It’ll give you lots of clues in all kinds of directions, and you’ll be into it. a