Q&A: Now It's Overhead

The best album put out by the Saddle Creek label last year was also the most overlooked. Released last fall when all the world seemed to be hiding out, dark and depressed, Now It's Overhead's eponymous debut should have made frontman Andy LeMaster huge. The album was some of the best breakup music ever, sad and furious songs about a doomed relationship, but controlled and never cliched. It was beautiful, lush indie pop that was both spare and elaborate, raw and dirty music that somehow made you feel clean.

I remember the album sitting around my office for months before I finally dug it out and listened to it during a weekend trip on a dreary day 100 miles from Manhattan. We put it on the boombox and looked out the window and made dinner, and 40 minutes later we wanted to listen to it all over again.

In the past year, LeMaster has remained largely invisible, although Saddle Creek currently seems unstoppable. The little Nebraska label is now a powerhouse, with Bright Eyes' Conor Oberst becoming the biggest indie-rock star in the universe (although the Voice still can't spell his name correctly). Bright Eyes' new album has done stunningly well on the Billboard charts and may end up outselling all the other Saddle Creek albums combined. This would be an impressive feat given that the label's bands have recently gone on separate tours with acts like No Doubt, Moby and Jimmy Eat World. Saddle Creek now has a UK office, and Oberst sells tickets in New York quicker than, say, Vanessa Carlton does.

Oberst still likes to talk about how Saddle Creek is a family that doesn't involve signing contracts, but it's become something much more adult and businesslike too. The Nov. 2 Saddle Creek CMJ showcase at Irving Plaza will be a big night for both Oberst and LeMaster, who became fast friends and frequent collaborators after meeting in Florida about seven years ago when both were impressionable teenagers playing in long forgotten bands. (LeMaster has produced much of Saddle Creek's most memorable work, including many Bright Eyes songs, and he's also played on Oberst's albums.)

Nov. 2 will be a sort of coronation for Oberst. It will also be a chance for LeMaster to reintroduce himself. Plan on getting there early to make sure you catch both.

It's about halfway through Now It's Overhead's set at Northsix on Sept. 28, and my pal Pan is worried that LeMaster is going to cry. His band includes indie sexpots Maria Taylor and Orenda Fink of Azure Ray, and a jovial drummer with a golf shirt who looks more like the band's bus driver; but it's the skinny, nondescript LeMaster you can't take your eyes off of. For 20 minutes he's been singing about a two-year relationship that ended horribly, and now he's shaking and Pan is worried he could break down at any moment. But he doesn't. He may be one of Oberst's biggest pals, but there's only so much LeMaster's going to spill out.

LeMaster's a sensitive, artsy guy, no doubt, but he's also got amazing self-control, which is why his music works. He knows what to reveal and what to hold back. Given Now It's Overhead's subject matter, LeMaster is a little like Trent Reznor with restraint, or Chris Carrabba with production skills and a sense of shame. Earlier that night, while Faint side project Broken Spindles is soundchecking what seems like tape loops designed for former Artbyte readers, I ask LeMaster why his album is so break-down-free, how he's managed to write such personal music that isn't cringe-worthy.

"I was controlling myself when I was writing," he says. "I was trying to take the high ground, which I probably shouldn't say. I was definitely controlling myself and trying to be a good person about it. It's still just as personal, but that edge of anger that you've heard on other albums isn't there. That's kind of gross to me. That's the element of relationship albums that have been done a million times that I could do without. It's a little childish."

LeMaster says he was never trying to write a breakup album. He had been working on songs for about two years, and "it just so happened that my relationship was ending as I was finishing enough songs to have a record."

I ask him if he sees a second life for Now It's Overhead's debut album, given Saddle Creek's recent rise. "With all this momentum, with all the bands focused and supporting each other, I can totally see that happening," he says. "It can get you down a little bit when you work on a record and feel like it's good and it kind of does maybe fizzle out or whatever. But then I think about all the bands I love, and how I got into them on their third record, and then I went backwards and I was like, 'That record's great, too.'"

LeMaster's not in a relationship now, which, he says, means his mind's clearer and he's writing faster, and he plans to have the followup Now It's Overhead album out next summer. I ask him what the new songs are going to be about. "I hesitate to say," he replies, and here he laughs a little and then hesitates. "I don't want to jinx myself. They're not love songs anymore. They're songs that will hopefully deal with some of the stigma about being gay in a universal way. That's what I'm trying to conquer on this one."

This isn't exactly light material, but given LeMaster's sensibility and production chops (the airiness of Now It's Overhead's debut has a cooling, calming effect not unlike the new Future Bible Heroes' album or fellow production maven John Vanderslice's Life and Death of an American Fourtracker), you can bet this stuff won't be cloying or an embarrassing mess.

"I'm going to try to avoid any sort of self-indulgent preachiness," LeMaster says. "I want it to be something to bring out more of the human aspects. It's a matter of thinking of what is the most inspiring thing to me. The things that are mysterious that I'd like to get to the bottom of, that take up a lot of my time, a lot of my thoughts; that's what I write songs about."

I ask him if he wouldn't rather just be in love, if he would give up creating music if the right person comes along. He doesn't hesitate even a moment.

"No," he says. "But I'm stubborn enough to believe I can figure out a way to have both. I'd still love to find someone. I still keep my eyes out for that."

Now It's Overhead plays Sat., Nov.2, at Irving Plaza, 17 Irving Pl. (15th St.), 777-6800.