Colour Revolt - Photo: Daniel Sprague

On this edition of the Daily Dic, we speak with Jesse Coppenbarger of Colour Revolt about his new album Plunder, Beg and Curse, out now on Fat Possum. They’ll be in Austin tonight at Emo’s with The Breeders. Highly recommended.

Big Diction: I hear you took your exams early to hit the road. Does “We’re going on tour with The Breeders” have as much clout in the academic world as it does in the music world?

Jesse Coppenbarger: Surprisingly, yes. Kinda.

Big Diction: Speaking of The Breeders, what has it been like on tour with them so far?

Jesse Coppenbarger: It has been crazy fun. They’re really nice and talk to us, from time to time, which was surprising.

Big Diction: It seems the one fact everyone knows about Colour Revolt is that you used to be “Fletcher.” Can you fill in the gaps some? A little history lesson perhaps?

Jesse Coppenbarger: Um, I didn’t really know that “everyone” knew that… that’s kinda embarrassing. Oh well. Fletcher was a math/grunge rock band 3 of us were in in high school. We were pretty awesome. You know, like tons of time changes. Jesse, Jimmy, and Len were all in that band while Sean was leading a band called City Lights and Patrick was in the Rockwells.

Big Diction: People have compared you to early Modest Mouse. I’m not sure how accurate that is, though, but have they been an influence to you? Or is that over-simplification?

Jesse Coppenbarger: I don’t know. We’ve heard that for a while though. I think it’s the screaming and religious references. I definitely was blown away by Moon and Antarctica and they’ve recorded their last two records in the town that we live in and the guy that’s mixed our last two records (and recorded the last one) worked on both of their last two records so there is definitely that tie to them.

Big Diction: What are your other influences?

Jesse Coppenbarger: I think everybody would list different influences weekly. But I think the ones that remain are Tom Waits, The Books, Deerhoof, Bonnie Billie…I’ve recently been listening to a lot of Mark Kozelek and this band called Why? Sean’s been into Paul Simon’s self titled album.

Big Diction: You can’t think of Oxford, Mississippi without thinking Faulkner, and clearly southern gothic traditions have had an influence on you. What in particular has been influential?

Jesse Coppenbarger: Well, there’s a huge civil war cemetery right by where i used to park my car on the way to class. What can you say to this? I always equate southern writing with a dark, poetic flair, a kind of lazy storytelling that is more sweeping than precise, or the beautiful vulgarity of a Barry Hannah story. I hope we encompass a little bit of that, but I also hope we aren’t dominated by it.

Big Diction: The lyric “Eden is a Hell of a place” is about as darkly ironic as you can get, especially on the opening track of an album. What are the implications of this lyric?

Jesse Coppenbarger: It’s supposed to be kinda funny but still unsettling. The idea is that the Devil has been killed by Adam and the world is still pretty evil.

Big Diction: The guitars are often used in unconventional ways. Like on “Moses of the South,” there are as many “noises” as there are “parts.” How did this come about?

Jesse Coppenbarger: Mainly out of necessity. We wanted to add atmosphere to the kind of folky vibe but also to be able to play it live. Since we had our keyboard stolen we thought this was the best option. Also, that’s kind of Jimmy’s thing. You’ll notice noises as parts in almost every song.

Big Diction: You played a show for SXSW, was that your first South By? What was that experience like? And are you looking forward to seeing Austin without all the hullabaloo of the festival?

Jesse Coppenbarger: This last SXSW was our second time. The first time we went we got our van and trailer stolen in Dallas but we still caught a ride to Austin and played 4 shows. It was Patrick’s first tour. It actually was pretty fun though. Needless to say this time was a lot more comfortable though. We had our stuff and got to see bands and not worry about where the next guitar we’re gonna borrow is gonna come from.

Big Diction: Tell us a little about “Naked and Red.”

Jesse Coppenbarger: “Naked and Red” was pretty much the first song we wrote of the new songs. It went through a few different versions and finally came together about six months after we started playing it live. We have active imaginations.

Colour Revolt - “Naked And Red”

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