Christy & Emily

Features • Tuesday February 9th, 2010 • 12:00 am

If it weren’t for The Walkmen, there’d be no Christy and Emily. Then again, it’s usually musical relationships that bring key people together and the Brooklyn scene that’s emerged over the last few years is no different. Once together with The Walkmen’s Walt Martin in a previous band, Christy Edwards and Emily Manzo became friends and band mates over the years – finally going their own way when other ventures faded.

Now, they’re finding some solid ground to stand on – at least overseas. Yet they’re hoping Brooklyn becomes a better place for their orchestral folk and they’ll continue to mine for new music as they build their audience and hone their craft. Here, Emily tells Stereo Subversion about learning to play together and how they plan to make their mark.

SSv: Curious to start with what’s happening for the band right now? What momentum are you finding for the two of you?

Emily Manzo: Our best momentum right now is in Germany. We’ve been making a lot of stuff, a lot of recordings. We made the one that’s out now entitled Superstition in Brooklyn last year and we have another one coming out in January on a recording label called Klangbad. So now we can go to Germany and tour and have a great time and have some fans and everything. Here in New York, the momentum is not as strong. But it does feel nice to have this release out here.

SSv: Did you know how you wanted to move forward from Gueen’s Head?

Emily: We wanted to do more with orchestration, which we did in a way with the strings and vibraphone. We wanted things to sound a little fuller. We wanted to keep exploring through our own songwriting. When I listen to Gueen’s Head, it’s like, ‘Oh, there’s Christy’s song. There’s Emily’s song.’ It goes back and forth. Superstition sounds more integrated to me. I don’t think you can tell who wrote what on a lot of the songs.

SSv: Did you change the songwriting approach to do that?

Emily: Yeah, we started writing together more. It just naturally happened. We used to work much more separately where we’d write the song separately and then bring it to the other person. By the time we recorded Superstition, we were playing so much together that we were bringing in more of the rough idea and then fleshing it out together.

SSv: One thing I wanted to cover was your backgrounds. Your backgrounds musically couldn’t be much different with you having a classical background and Christy learning everything on her own.

Emily: Well, some things I get frustrated with is that I work with so many types of musicians that I don’t want people to hide behind whatever they think is holding them back. Sometimes Christy feels what’s holding her back is her lack of training or I feel like what’s holding me back is that I practice too much. I get afraid to do something different because I get so used to wanting to get things “right,” so that can hold me back. That’s the biggest thing.

If you’re trying to play music with people, you can let those things get in your way or you can just try to make something together, just as you are. Not sure if that makes sense and it can sound kind of hippie, but… Yeah, we come from different places, but I think there’s a lot of that going on. There’s a lot of that going on in the Brooklyn indie scene right now with classical musicians playing with rock bands. That’s happening a lot, so a lot of people are experiencing this.

So it’s good to ask these questions and I see why you ask, but I think it’s best when you can set aside those things, so to speak. They can just become excuses that keep you from listening and not making music together.

SSv: How do you break some of those holds personally?

Emily: I really like to try an instrument that… Well, I play a Wurlitzer and that helps. There’s a grand piano on Superstition and we didn’t have that on Gueen’s Head, I guess, because I was still in that mode. It helps me to play different instruments other than the piano. It gets me out of my habits and the things I associate with that instrument. But I’ve been playing the Moog a lot which is really freeing for its sounds and textures rather than worrying about the chords that I’m playing.

I think it helps to play with musicians you feel comfortable with. I feel that with Christy. I can do things around her and not have to worry about making mistakes. She doesn’t judge. All of that really helps – playing different instruments and finding comfortable musicians.

SSv: Did that take a lot of time to find that trust and chemistry between you two?

Emily: Well, we were in a band together called The Little Fighters, which also had Walter Martin in the band. We wouldn’t make music together if it weren’t for The Walkmen actually. They became super successful, so Walt didn’t have time for The Little Fighters anymore. But he had this great keyboard part going on – as he always does – so they were looking for a keyboard player. I was hanging with my friend Emily Wilson, a photographer, and she mentioned they were looking for someone.

So I started playing keys for them. Then we recorded at Marcata, which is the Walkmen’s studio and The Kills and others have recorded there. So it’s a great studio that doesn’t exist anymore in Harlem. So that’s how that started.

We had a really great song from that band that’s on the LP that they made called “Boys and Girls.” It was from this dynamic of two girls and two boys in the band. Because we were the girls, we had maybe some different sensibilities and we started writing songs that felt like the girls’ songs, for lack of a better way of describing it. So when the band dissolved, Christy and I were still writing things together. So we’ve had that connection from the beginning.

SSv: You have the success in Germany and not so much here in the States thus far. So what do you have to do here at home to get things moving?

Emily: [Pause] Well, it’s tough in Brooklyn. It’s such a great scene and there’s so much music going on. When you make the music that we make, which is really quiet and really heartfelt, you really want to play in a setting where people can listen. We have a huge variety in our set where we can make a really big sound or a really small sound, but I think that’s still a little tough. We just want to make shows in New York that create a good sound for us, which is a harder thing when you’re playing DIY spaces.

Tagged as: Brooklyn, Germany, psych folk