One-man show goes on tour in support of new record

 

The do-it-yourself (DIY) ethic has been around for decades in the music industry, exemplified by such diverse bands as hardcore rockers Fugazi to Welsh weirdos Super Furry Animals, but native Angeleno and Say Hi frontman Eric Elbogen has taken the DIY ideal to a whole new level.

“I’ve always just worked better on my own,” Elbogen said over the phone while driving somewhere in central Oklahoma. “All the bands I had been in earlier always ended in some argument or another.”

“Working on my own” is an understatement in Elbogen’s case. Having started what was originally called Say Hi To Your Mom in Brooklyn in 2002 as a one-man band, Elbogen chose to forgo the traditional route of studio recording and played straight onto a computer he built himself, performing the majority of the instruments and vocals.

“It takes me about eight months to a year to make a whole record,” Elbogen said. “Lately I’ve been drawing in some other people [like drummer Chris Egan and keyboardist Jeff Sheinkopf] to tour and sometimes record with, but for the most part it’s just me and the computer.”

You wouldn’t know it from listening to the music, however. A mainstay of the indie lo-fi movement, Say Hi plays a lush brand of quirky synth-pop that sounds like the product of a dozen musicians, much less one. It’s Elbogen’s introspective and often eccentric lyrics that make him stand out, however, with their last album, Impeccable Blahs being entirely about vampires.

“I don’t really know how I come up with my lyrics,” Elbogen explained. “I write everyday and when it’s time to start the record, I pick the ones that stand out to me and throw away the shitty ones.” Their latest album, The Wishes and the Glitch, turns more to the personal side of things, with songs like “Zero to Love” speaking more about relationship problems than ever before.

The shift seems to have resonated with fans, which has made The Wishes and the Glitch the “best received record so far,” according to Elbogen. “So far on the tour the new songs have been gone over pretty well.”

Elbogen’s one-man show doesn’t stop with just making the music, though.

“I made the first record [2002’s Discosadness] and shopped it around for a while, but no one wanted to release it,” Elbogen said. “So I decided to do it myself.” Elbogen started up Euphobia Records to self-release his work, and received a crash course in the business of setting up a label and distribution.

“For the first couple of albums I was still figuring out how everything works, the business aspect, and around the third record I started feeling comfortable about it,” Elbogen said. “Now I know what I need to do when I release a record and so on.”

So being in the unique position of being both a working, touring musician, producer, and the head of a record label, Elbogen has been quick to catch on to the trends that are currently turning the music industry upside down. 

“We released The Wishes and the Glitch online six months before it hit stores,” Elbogen said. “It was a pretty successful sales technique and definitely helped with cutting costs.”

Elbogen cites Radiohead as one of his biggest influences, along with perennial alternative rockers Pavement, and believes that the record industry is inevitably headed to an online-only retail stage that Radiohead’s In Rainbows already pioneered. Elbogen agrees, however, that it will take a long time for the industry to change.

“Mp3s have helped us gain fans, of course, but they mostly hurt in the long run,” Elbogen said. “I think everyone is still trying to find out what works best, and the music companies take a long time to figure out anything.”

Elbogen, however, has never concerned himself with what the rest of the music industry is doing, and it doesn’t seem likely that Say Hi will let the cumbersome bureaucracy of the record business slow them down from doing what they love. Say Hi is what music is at its heart: simple, unrestrained creativity.

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