Steel Cranes Gotta ‘Tango’

The Oakland, Calif.-based duo has received plenty of accolades.  MTV depicted the band’s music as “the slo-mo heaviness of a 2,000 pound pendulum,” and SF Weekly described Steel Cranes’ new “Pretty” single as “rollicking drums and bass collide with salacious guitar licks to create a moody, grunge-rock tune revolving around the topic of prettiness.”

Tango is the new album by Steel Cranes.  Arriving Aug. 5 on Mister White Tights Records, the LP expands on the sound established by group’s 2013 debut, Ouroboros. The result is a more textured and layered album that’s not afraid to take chances while remaining true to the raw, in-your-face rock vibe found on Ouroboros.

Shapiro was driving from Oakland to Tucson, Ariz., when Pollstar caught up with her over the phone..  Chatting from a rest stop on Interstate 5, the musician described Steel Cranes’ evolution and speculated on what the future may hold.

What’s different about Tango compared to Steel Cranes’ debut album, Ouroboros?

Tango is drastically different in many ways. The one similarity … almost all of the songs are still Amanda and me in a room, with my guitar and her on drums, playing the parts together.   But then we … [had] a lot of arrangements and orchestrations.  It took about a year to record and we ended up engineering and producing it ourselves.  For Ouroboros we produced it but worked with an engineer in his studio.  This time around … we wanted a richer, more complex album.

How long have you been playing with Amanda?

We started playing music the week that we met.  I was working in a restaurant in Oakland and Amanda lived around the corner.  She came in with a friend of hers and was sitting at the bar.  We started a conversation and I think her friend thought I was flirting with Amanda. …  I think it quickly became obvious that it wasn’t a romantic partnership that was available for us.  We met later that week … and went through some songs I had.  A pretty intimate chemistry for us … [and] the friendship kind of grew from there.

Do you see any similarities between a working relationship and a romantic one?

Pretty similar in a lot of ways.  You make a commitment to each other and you’re involved with something that is deeply personal, that you both share.  You have to combine the entirety of two [artistic] people in that spirit, together, and hopefully it works.

Did you feel that the two of you had a connection when you first played together?

When we first played, I don’t remember it being like, “Oh, yeah.  This is it.”  Over the years I have tried to jam with people … and I have no idea how to do that. … So the fact that Amanda and I lasted playing a couple of hours that night felt creative and hopefully interesting.

Do you have any thoughts on why guitar/drum combos have grown in popularity during the past couple of decades?

I wouldn’t be surprised if the lack of financial compensation for music has possibly moved people towards minimizing what their setups are so they can afford to do more of what they do. … Our ideal situation would be to tour as probably a five-piece, with another guitar player, bass player, cello, ideally.

Were all the songs on Tango written for the new album or did you and Amanda include any songs that were composed around the time of the Ouroboros sessions but weren’t quite ready for prime time?

There’s one song in particular called “What Am I Doing Here.”  That was the only [song] we tried to record for Ouroboros.  I think we spent, probably, almost half a day if not a whole day out of those five days trying to get that song and we just couldn’t. It’s a bit of a shit show kind of song in general and we liked that about it, but it was too much of a shit show to find itself onto that album.  That one made it on to Tango but it still gave us a hard time. … It’s a song we love playing live but it definitely had some tricky pieces to get it to where it felt like it should be on the album.

There was one cool thing.  After we recorded, Amanda and I took a couple of weeks break from seeing each other, talking [about] and playing music.  When we came back … we realized that over those two weeks we had written songs with the same title – “Today Is The Day.”  She had heard me singing that one [while] walking onto the rehearsal stage.  She was like, “Oh my God.  I also wrote a song called ‘Today Is The Day.’”

Have you and Amanda worked so closely over the years that even in a conversational setting you find yourselves knowing what the other is going to say?

Often.  We definitely are very close … When we’re recording we’ve often been in these small spaces and even when we’re touring it’s just us.  We absolutely have that kind of rapport.  We bicker sometimes, like sisters … and all that good stuff.

While touring have you encountered any problems that might not face an all-male group?

Our first tour caught us off guard how much we felt people [were] treating us differently because we are women.  In all honesty it’s been a lot better since.  Amanda and I have talked about that and we don’t know if that is because we’re playing better shows, we’re connecting to more bands we really like and are building relationships.  I‘m sure that’s part of it.

But I wonder if another part of it is that our first tour out we were kind of wide-eyed, like, “Oh, God. What have we done?”  We were out for two months and I had toured before but Amanda hadn’t.  It was our first one touring together, and we were kind of dialing [in] what we were doing while we were on the road. I think we … were a little less confident, less certain of what we were doing.  A part of me wonders if that translated into how people were treating us.  I don’t deal with that as much anymore where … people are trying to plug in my amps for me. I welcome people helping to load and unload the van.  There is no part of my pride getting in the way.  I’m always up for those kind of offers.

But as far as being poorly treated, it was no different than in daily life. Some people are assholes and some are not.

How does Steel Crane travel?

Amanda got a van.  When we first met she was a librarian, has a master’s in library science.  She had a great job and a car.  Within a year she had quit her job, sold her car and bought a van. …  After the first tour we ended up putting a bed into the van because we don’t have a ton of money and we spent [nights] at various peoples’ houses.

Amanda and I are pretty strongly slanted toward the introvert side of the spectrum so to be constantly social is wearing on us. We also needed to save money and not have to pay for hotel rooms.

How old were you when you started playing guitar?

It felt old at the time I started.  I was 21, 22.  I grew up playing classical piano, from age 4 to 12, 13, and pretty much stop playing music for a while.  I picked it up late in college and never intended to do anything with it. But it took over my life pretty quickly.

Did your experience playing classical piano help make it easier to master another instrument?

I’m not sure.  In many ways it made it harder to move into a spiral that was not preordained. … I remember starting to play guitar and thinking this instrument makes no sense.  With piano everything feels very laid out, there’s that note and you [play it]. … I think because that’s the original way I learned music … and I still look at the guitar and think I have no fuckin’ clue.  I never know what I’m playing as far as the keys, notes, this or that. It’s completely instinctual. 

When composing, do you write musical notations?

I never have since I started writing songs.  I started capturing, just on my phone, different riffs or musical ideas on my guitar.  I’ll write down lyrics.  Especially when I’m working stuff out it’s helpful for me to write around it or see it on paper.  But more often or not, nothing gets recorded and it just lives in my mind and in my muscles.

I think in the way I play with Steel Cranes and, hopefully, the way Amanda and I communicate, my language for music is so removed from music.  When I describe what I’m doing or what I’m looking for, any piece of that, I’m usually talking in more story form, colors, or visuals.

What do you hear in your head that you have yet to express musically?

I’m not sure.  With Steel Cranes I feel an immense amount of freedom in playing with Amanda in that any idea I have can be explored into whatever weird, ugly, musical or non-musical extent in which it wants to be explored.

 I do know I’m sitting on piece that is not for Steel Cranes.  I also do music along with comedy and got my start doing comedy music.  It eventually led me to Amanda and we’re obviously for the most part, not a comedy band.  I’ve been working on a theatre piece that’s a musical comedy.  A lot of what has come to me in the last couple of months are some bits and pieces that are going to be worked into that piece.

Do you see sounds when something is emerging in your mind and you have yet to play it?

In a way, yeah.  That’s how I learned to sing harmonies.  I would close my eyes and … would see this grassy hill and I would see the exact spot I needed to land on that hill.  I would close my eyes and go back there.  I often relate to [music] in a way that is visual.  Not always like, “This note is a fairy note or this one looks like a tree,” or anything that is that concrete. But there is definitely a stronger, visual element for me than speaking in more traditional music language.

Where do you see Steel Cranes in five years?

It’s so unknown, it’s hard to say.  I would love for us to continue recording music, touring and playing shows. … I think we’re probably happiest recording and having that type of creative space to work in although we love playing live as well.  Touring itself, at this level, is somewhat grueling although if you asked us a couple of hours after playing a show, that would not be our answer.  It’s such an incredible opportunity to be able to do that.

So it’s hard for me to say.  We’re working our asses off and have been to build what we’re doing, have it be able to reach people and have, hopefully at some point, have people come onboard and help us because it’s pretty exhausting doing all the pieces were doing ourselves.  So I would love it if forces would transpire to allow us to continue creating and continue playing, hopefully, for more and more people.

What’s the best advice anyone has given you so far?

The first thing that pops into my mind isn’t necessarily a piece of advice.  I was reading a New York Times article about my favorite comedian, Maria Bamford.  It quoted her repeating, “Do the work.  Do the work” as a mantra.  She’s someone who has a lot of mental health struggles and various things that could derail someone.  Something about reading that. … I know that as we’ve grown … what we try to always come back to is “Do the work.”

Upcoming Steel Cranes shows:

Aug. 4 – Tucson, Ariz., The Flycatcher
Aug. 5 – Phoenix, Ariz., Rips Bar
Aug. 6 – Los Angeles, Calif., Redwood Bar
Aug. 7 – San Diego, Calif., Tower Bar
Aug. 9 – San Luis Obispo, Calif., SLO Donut Company
Aug. 10 – Fresno, Calif., Dynamite Vinyl
Aug. 12 – Santa Cruz, Calif., The Crepe Place
Aug. 13 – Oakland, Calif., Golden Bull
Aug. 14 – Pacifica, Calif., Winter’s Tavern
Aug. 16 – Ashland, Ore., Club 66
Aug. 17 – Eugene, Ore., The Boreal
Aug. 18 – Portland, Ore, The World Famous Kenton Club
Aug. 19 – Seattle, Wash., Blue Moon
Aug. 20 – Olympia, Wash.,  McCoy’s Tavern
Aug. 21 – Tacoma, Wash., Real Art
Aug. 22 – Boise, Idaho, High Note Café
Aug. 24 – Salt Lake City, Utah, Kilby Court
Aug. 26 – Denver, Colo., Lion’s Lair
Aug. 27 – Omaha, Neb., Barley Street Tavern
Aug. 28 – Lincoln, Neb., Vega
Aug. 29 – Des Moines, Iowa, Vaudeville Mews
Aug. 30 – Iowa City, Iowa, Gabe’s
Aug. 31 – Saint Paul, Minn., Amsterdam Bar and Hall
Sept. 2 – La Crosse, Wis., The Root Note
Sept. 3 – Madison, Wis., Bos Meadery
Sept. 6 – Milwaukee, Wis., Linneman’s Riverwest Inn
Sept. 7 – Chicago, Ill., Township
Sept. 8 – Bloomington, Ind., The Back Door
Sept. 9 – Evansville, Ind., PG
Sept. 10 – St. Louis, Mo.,  Schlafly Tap Room
Sept. 11 – Columbia, Mo., Cafe Berlin
Sept. 12 – Lawrence, Kan.,  Jackpot Music Hall
Sept. 14 – Wichita, Kan.,  Kirby’s Beer Store
Sept. 15 – Norman, Okla., Red Brick Bar
Sept. 16 – Albuquerque, N.M.,  Burt’s Tiki Lounge
Sept. 17 – Santa Fe, N.M., Boxcar

For more information, please visit Steel Cranes’ website, Facebook page, Twitter feed,  Instagram HQ and YouTube channel.