On a recent Thursday night, Past Lives played their first ever show
at Spencer Moody’s magic antique shop, the Anne Bonny. Outside, it was
cold and damp, forcing smokers to huddle in their parkas. Inside, the
upstairs loft was snug and humid, a temporary tropical zone. The place
was, appropriately, full of old friends, former members of bands, and
dead people’s things. A street art show hung on the walls. There was a
fishbowl of cash by the top of the stairs. At one point, Legend!ary
grunge scribe and former Stranger music editor Everett True
even poked his head in (he was back in town on Sub Pop’s dime for
indeterminate reasons).
Past Lives rise from the rubble of the Blood Brothers (among other
bands)—Jordan Blilie sings; Morgan Henderson plays guitar,
sampler, and synth; Mark Gajadhar is on drums; and Blood Bro from
way-back-when Devin Welch plays guitar. They share a lot of past.
“Does everyone remember this one?” Blilie asked his bandmates, off
mic. Someone unseen replied, “I think so.”
Their six songs ranged from the steel drum and bass groove of opener
“Beyond Gone,” to churning punk, to the almost-bluesy wail and stomp of
their as-yet-untitled closing song. Common to all the songs is a
satisfying balance of thrash and groove. Welch’s guitar was inscrutable
as always, Gajadhar’s drumming was alternately shimmying and pounding,
and Henderson’s baritone guitar and low-end synth were dubby and loose.
Blilie’s vocals were
almost easier to make out when he shouted
without the mic. From the back, only glimpses of heads were visible.
The loft floor sagged and bounced on the beat with the weight of the
crowd; it felt a little bit dangerous in the best possible way.
“It’s a really cool thing to see so many familiar faces,” said
Blilie, introducing a song called “Past Lives.” “It means so much.”
Five nights later, the band were onstage at the Showbox, opening for
No Age and Liars in front of a politely excited if less intimate crowd
of maybe a couple hundred people. The south bar was blacked out and
blocked off, but it was still a big space for a second show. The band
exhibited a certain nervous, newborn smallness, closing in around
Gajadhar’s drum kit, which was pushed halfway up the stage in an
attempt to shrink the space. They played the same six songs, sounding
clearer and louder on the Showbox’s sound system. Henderson and Welch
played guitars at opposite sides of the stage—Welch fiddling with
pedals and picking out high-pitched discord, Henderson playing rhythm
occasionally on synth and sampler. Blilie sang, hunched and stomping
and pointing one arm to the ceiling at the lip of the stage. Gajadhar
kept time in the center of it all.
Talking to the band the next evening at a tiny Capitol Hill bar,
they seem a little relieved to have their debut performances under
their belts.
“Both shows were nerve-racking in their own unique way,” says
Blilie. “The first one for the simple fact that it was our first show,
but it was also a bit unnerving looking up and seeing every one of my
friends ever there. But once we got started, I just felt an
overwhelming sense of support coming from everyone.”
The band’s mood is decidedly optimistic, and with good reason. For
the old friends, Past Lives is a chance to start over, to reunite with
Welch after 10 years (Welch, Henderson, and Blilie jammed sporadically
in that time, but nothing came of it).
“I liked the idea of divergent paths coming together,” says Blilie
of the band’s moniker. “It has to do with starting over again and loss
and regret and hope for the future, and those [themes] all kind of play
into these six songs.”
The four friends bring not only a wealth of collaborative experience
to Past Lives, but a wide array of influences and a renewed enthusiasm
for experimentation.
“Everybody has really different frames of reference,” says Welch.
“We’re just trying to be as open to as many ideas as possible without
trying to steer in any specific direction.”
“There was this immediate chemistry,” adds Henderson. “But in some
ways we tried to pull away from that, because we really want to do
something unfamiliar and be in the uncomfortable spot of something
new.”
For now, the band have a handful of shows booked (“we have a
practice space to pay for,” jokes Blilie), opening for These Arms Are
Snakes on February 22 at El Corazón, Crystal Castles on March 6
at Chop Suey, and Triumph of Lethargy on March 22 at the Comet. They’re
heading into the studio this month with newly minted producer Dann
Gallucci to record an EP. Blilie estimates the band have “maybe three
or four other songs floating around in various degrees of disarray,”
any of which could end up on the record.
But a lot of their excitement seems to come from their lack of
future plans and their freedom from any obligations. The band plan to
release records and tour, but they also stress the importance of
balance and maintaining healthy home lives. Blilie even enthuses about
his 9-to-5 day job at a nonprofit, although it’s clear that the band is
at least as exciting.
“It’s like the beginning of any relationship,” says Blilie.
“Everything’s new and there are so many possibilities.”