Features

The Disco Biscuits’ Aron Magner: Unabashedly "On Time"

The Disco Biscuits are currently featured on the cover of Relix. Relix/Jambands.com Executive Editor Mike Greenhaus spent time with the band in the studio when the musicians started work on Planet Anthem in 2006 and followed up with the band numerous times over the past six months. While the July Relix cover story tackles a number of issues such as guitarist Jon Gutwillig’s recent wrist injury, the band’s crossover potential and the four musicians’ relationship off the stage, the interviews also touched on a number of other topics.

In anticipation of Camp Bisco, which will take place in Mariaville, NY from July 15-17, Relix.com and Jambands.com will roll out additional interviews not included in the Relix cover story. First up is an interview keyboardist Aron Magner gave in early May. For some context, when this interview took place Gutwillig had just taken off his cast and was about to pick up his guitar for the first time since injuring his wrist in March.

Click here to subscribe to Relix or Click here to pick up a copy of the issue with the Biscuits cover story.

You wrote Planet Anthem’s successful single, “On Time.” Though very different than the usual Biscuits song, “On Time” has actually received a bit of mainstream attention. When did you start working on that particular song?

I guess it was summer of ‘08 and at the time I was listening to a lot of new disco, and a lot of Chromeo. It was also a period of time, for whatever reason, that it was just me in the studio. It was kind of like designated vacation time so it was me in there and songwriter and producer Harry [Zelnick], and I wanted to do something dancey. Harry and I put down a cool little riff and then we put in a little bit of drums. It needed something more so I put Harry in the vocal booth with a snare drum so he could tap out a few more rhythms and then we had something solid. I spent the next day by myself just walking around the studio listening to it and dancing to it, and I am not a good dancer. I mean, the whole reason I play music for a living is because I’m not a good dancer. I can’t go out to the club and impress the girls with my dancing skills so I impress the girls with my music skills [laughter]. So I would dance around the studio and listen to it. And Harry was like, ‘Dude you need to come up with more bass lines, that one’s good but you’re not quite there yet,’ and I just kept on pumping more and more bass lines into it. Finally, came up with two different sections that I saved on the computer as “Funky Sex.”

Then I brought it to a Conspirator show, and played it for Marc [Brownstein] at our hotel after the show. I plugged it in and he is like “Yeah, whatever dude, it needs like an ARP [synthesizer] on it,” and I was like, “What? Listen to how funky it is, what do you mean it needs a fucking ARP on it.” And that was kind of the divide. So I went back to work on it, got another section in and the bass line, and I realized in that other section was pretty much a Chromeo song I’d involuntary stolen—I was listening to that much Chromeo that a put down a Chromeo bass line. So I had to end up changing that.

Anyway, I got to a point where I knew that the song was dope enough but didn’t know what to do with it. Harry suggested that we ship it off to this [Philadelphia rapper] Tu Phace who I didn’t even know at the time. Two or three weeks later he sent it back to me while I was in Colorado with a note that said, “I don’t know if you guys are gonna like this.” I listened to it on the speaker of my iPhone and I was like, “This is sick!” I hooked it into a stereo at this birthday party on a boat and it was an immediate dance party. I thought it was an immediate hit but everybody in the band was really against it. They were like, ‘Well if you want to make it a song, you gotta like have us play on it.” I mean, I guess in defense, it is a little bit of a departure from the sound of the Disco Biscuits—it’s a little weird hearing, whether it’s Tu Phace or somebody else, sing over what—we never really bring in singers or guest vocalists. So there was a point where I was going to drop it or use it for a side project. But I am glad I convinced everyone to put it on the album.

Was the goal of Planet Anthem to have a crossover hit?

It’s funny because our manager said to me the other day, “I’m just still working on how to get your fans to go into a record store and buy your CD” and I was like, “What record store? Where the hell is there a record store in 2010?” Where do you even buy records these days? I don’t even know the name of any record stores any more.”

The Disco Biscuits recently spent time in the studio working on another batch of songs. Are these tracks intended for a new album?

I mean the goal was definitely to keep the follow-up going. For us it’s kind of like a—you know we set aside time, obviously, to be in the studio but you can never force art, force creativity and there was this period of time in January where we went in and worked on some tracks for another Disco Biscuits album. We had a really fun New Year’s show, a great Caribbean Holidaze, and a chance to breathe because we only had four shows at the end of January. So we had all this time and Planet Anthem was done but not out yet and all of a sudden we started working on new songs again and it was that same vibe that it was that we were able to capture again that it was when we first started the album three years ago.

We have two control rooms in our studio and both were firing at full cylinders. I was working with Harry on electro stuff and Marc was working with [band songwriter and producer Alex Chiger] on hip hop stuff. When we would get sick of working on those tracks we would switch. It was so fun and refreshing ‘cause you’re sitting there working on a track for hours and after a while you lose a little bit of perspective. So it’s nice to be able to have somebody that hasn’t been listening to it for the last five hours in a row.

We wrote a lot of tracks in January, almost too many. They are not completed though, which is big problem with the Biscuits. We’re so good at starting things and not so great at finishing them, which is why we have to bring people in—whether it was Harry and Alex or whether it was even Tom Hamilton who is a really good finisher as well. It was almost difficult figuring out where the jam sections were going to go ‘cause the songs tell a story in the four and a half minutes or whatever duration the song is, you know, and it’s complete from there without having to insert a jam.