There’s no pretention behind The Landladys’ infectious brand of indie rock and the camaraderie that facilitates its creation. Filed somewhere between The Microphones and Brian Eno, the part-time “supergroup” is a rock and roll outlet for Seacoast indie folksters Seth Gooby, Guy Capecelatro III, Peter Squires, and Mike Wolstat. The several decades of experience between them have led to a project with a completely interchangeable instrumental lineup, collaborative songwriting process and near-constant laughs. These components are both the secret to their success and the reason they got into making music in the first place. Behind the humor lies a seriously talented cadre of songwriters ready to release their second full-length album, “20 Year Reunion,” this month. They’ll celebrate its release on Sept. 17 with Rick Rude and Tall Juan at the Red Door in Portsmouth. The Sound recently met up with the band to discuss what’s different on their new album, how they make it all happen, and which pop-culture characters they represent in the band.
Where did your name come from? Do you have a mission?
Guy: Well, I think we realized at some point that we are all, in some ways, landlords. The name Landlords seemed kind of dumb.
Seth: And Slumlords was taken.
Guy: We wanted to gender-bend and go with the Landladys.
Seth: And purposely spell it wrong.
Peter: It gets at the mission in that it shows that we’re silly and we don’t take ourselves overly seriously. And we’re gonna swing hard for the fences, and if we don’t totally connect, we don’t really care.
Mike: I like how it’s a really good team name; it reminds me of a sports team. We all write songs as a unit. On our first album, there’s a lot of bringing in older songs, but for this album we all contributed songwriting, we all came up with our parts on the instruments, we collaborated a lot lyrically. In terms of a mission, it’s just being a songwriting team and dealing with how to get four people to agree on something.
Seth: And there’s no rules.
You all play in different bands. Why do you keep coming back to this project?
Guy: I feel like this is the first band for me in a long time that was just a band. We decided we just wanted to play together. We did that for a while and then an opportunity for a show came and we were like, “Oh shit, now we have write songs and figure out how to actually do this.” It really was based on just getting together and playing, whereas most bands are, you write songs and then you figure out the people to realize the songs in a recording setting and then practice once for a show kind of thing. Whereas this feels like we’re just doing it to hang out and have fun.
Seth: I feel like we’ve all passed the point that we’re like, “We’re gonna make it, man!” (laughs).
Guy: That ship has sailed.
Seth: Now we’ve been able to just focus on why we all started playing music: To get laid and to uh — (laughs).
Guy: And to have babies (laughs).
Seth: We’ve had two babies since this band has started.
Guy: Something’s working (laughs).
What are you most proud of with the new record?
Guy: That we got through it. That’s always an accomplishment for
a band.
Peter: That we wrote together. With this one, it was much more collaborative throughout the process. It was fun writing lyrics together, really going in with nothing and seeing what kind of nonsense we could come up with.
Seth: It captured all of our writing styles and playing styles throughout the whole album, but making it also sound cohesive as well. We each have a different technique when it comes to writing music. It’s awesome to have that together as one project.
“When everyone has a say in what the song does, it just goes to a place that you wouldn’t have otherwise realized.”
— Guy Capecelatro III
The new record seems more polished, a bit slower and more methodical. What’s changed for you guys this time around?
Guy: For this one, it was nice to go into the recording process. We’d recorded a lot of the songs prior, just doing demos at Peter’s house. So going in to the recording process itself, I felt like we knew the songs a lot better. We even tried on the last record to write a couple of songs essentially in the studio, which worked to some degree and not to others. We did it at the Electric Cave (in Portsmouth), again with (producer) Mark McElroy and had Chris Decato mix it, Which I think helped a little bit with the overall sound. I mean, Chris is pure magic with that stuff. I think to have ourselves removed from the mixing process was helpful. You’re not just listening to your part and how it sounds, but you’re trying to hear the whole song and what it’s worth, and Chris did a great job with that.
Seth: I think we were actually a band first before we recorded the album, We went into the first album after playing maybe for a couple of months together. This one (is after) a year and a half, two years, I think. We played shows, you know, played a show in New York and Boston and Worcester, Mass. So we kind of did band stuff and it made us more of a unit. Like Mike said earlier, we got each other and being in any band, that’s one of the most amazing things; unless you’re actually in a band you can’t explain to other people that vibe you can get with others and this feeling that “Oh, you know what you’re gonna do next.” It’s on a different level, brah (laughs).
Mike: There were definitely some fails. I think our first batch of songs, we saw how audiences weren’t getting some of the louder stuff or some of the more angular chord changes. I think we were just trying not to send our friends and family out of the room, because beyond that we don’t really have an audience (laughs).
Peter: I agree with these guys that we had more of a sense of what kind of a band we are. With the first (album), it was like we just threw a bunch of shit in a pot and stirred it up and saw what happened and some of it tasted good and some it didn’t. With this one, we went in with more of a sense of, “This is what we want to do.” I think that this album is more representative of what The Landladys sound like. It’s just more cohesive; it’s not like all the songs sound the same, but they hang together a little better.
Seth: It’s an album.
Guy: We’re old — we make albums.
Peter: Also to your point about it being slower, you know, we’re just super-soulful and wise (laughs).
Seth: We’re like owls.
Guy: We’re not as fast as we were a year and a half ago (laughs).
Peter: There’s a couple of monster ballads on there (laughs). … Also on the last album, I don’t know if we had any songs where multiple people sang. Maybe we’d sing harmonies for each other a little bit, but there was pretty much one lead singer with everyone else backing them up. On this one, there’s a lot more interplay. On that first song “Cellophane,” Seth is singing the lead, but Guy and I are doing a call and response thing in between. It’s more interactive vocally, which I think adds a different element to it. It makes it feel more like a band also.
Mike: That’s definitely something that we as a band are unique in. We’ve recognized it as a strength. To make up for all the shuffling around during the live show, you know, at least you get some more dynamic singing (laughs).
Seth: Sound guys love it. We need three mics, actually (laughs).
Guy: Maybe, you know, if you don’t like one of the singers it’s not going to be that long