Seattle Americana: The Cave Singers

BACKSTAGE AT A recent Cave Singers show in Portland, Ore., one of the singers on the bill broke out some unhealthy substances and pushed her fellow musicians to indulge in them. Ah, the crazy life of a rock 'n' roll star.

"She brought five or six fruit pies that she baked for all the bands; it was pretty awesome," said Cave Singers vocalist Pete Quirk. "I was like, 'This is more my style than people doing coke in the green room.'"

That's quite a changeup from the indie-rock scene in which Quirk, a Seattle post-grunge figure, and guitarist Derek Fudesco of the now-defunct Pretty Girls Make Graves had established themselves before turning to neo-folk and forming The Cave Singers.

As the popular PGMG headed toward a breakup, the roommates found their individual four-track bedroom recordings meshed well, as both were looking to soften their style a little.

"We were both unconsciously learning toward more minimal, quieter acoustic music," Quirk said. "I was trying to sing a bit more rather than just screaming and yelling."

Neither intended a huge future for the collaboration — "It was more something to do on a Wednesday night," Quirk said — but were soon looking to present their songs live, requiring the addition of rock drummer Marty Lund. By then, The Cave Singers was a full-on band, and last year's "Invitation Songs" on Matador followed.

Pretty Girls Make Graves' fans may be puzzled by the traditional, Dylan- and Guthrie-esque stylings of the project, but The Cave Singers are no hackneyed tribute: The band's organic, coolly wistful Americana is intricate enough to garner broad appeal — and the members' rock pasts suggest a receptive audience far wider than a stale folk niche.

"We go back and forth from playing with heavy rock bands — not Metallica or anything like that — and it's rad, because we can play with anybody.

Below is a full transcript of our conversation:

» EXPRESS: How did you and Derek Fudesco find out you had this sort of folk-music chemistry?
» QUIRK: It just kind of came out of Derek and I being roommates. We live in this house in Seattle and it organically came out of the two of us individually doing four-track bedroom recordings. I was doing more vocal stuff, and he was doing soundtrack stuff for a mutual friend's movie, and we just started collaborating. He had written a guitar part and was like, "Hey, try to sing on this," and I did, and then we were like, "Hey, that was pretty good — we should keep on doing this."

» EXPRESS: So the idea didn't occur to you in a metaphorical dream or something.
» QUIRK: It was more something to do on a Wednesday night. Derek was in a bigger band that was coming to a close, but Cave Singers, as a band, was never an intentional thing — it was just a way to hang out. It's become a band, but it was never talked about before.

» EXPRESS: Are you surprised you're still doing it?
» QUIRK: It's been two years now. It's kind of crazy. We got Marty six months after Derek and I started doing recordings; it was the evolution of, "Hey, we've got a bunch of songs here that we like, how do we play them live?" Until then it was mostly bedroom-recording stuff. That took a while, and that's when we got Marty to fill in some of the stuff. The progression for us feels natural.

» EXPRESS: Was it hard to get used to not plugging in?
» QUIRK: We were both unconsciously learning toward more minimal, quieter acoustic music. I was trying to play quieter music and sing a bit more rather than just screaming and yelling. It was really just a combination of us playing together and bringing together different musical styles. It's not too planned out.

» EXPRESS: Is the dust collecting on all the big amps and stuff sitting around your house?
» QUIRK: It was a pleasure to get rid of that shit. We can play whatever we want now. It can be 3 a.m.

» EXPRESS: Less early-morning visits by the cops?
» QUIRK: None of that stuff. We can get the old hippie lady walking by saying, "Sounds pretty good!" She'll like bake us a pie or something. It'd be nice.

» EXPRESS: I can imagine people eating pie at a Cave Singers concert.
» QUIRK: We played with this woman Laura Gibson at a show in Portland, and it was a full-on folk show. She brought five or six fruit pies that she baked for all the bands; it was pretty awesome. I was like, "This is more my style than people doing coke in the green room."

» EXPRESS: Bringing you freshly baked pot brownies instead. Pies filled with cocaine.
» QUIRK: Cut a slice and snort it. Freebase the crust.

» EXPRESS: How is the touring different these days?
» QUIRK: It's just the three of us, and our instrumentation is so bare, we can play smaller places like art spaces or galleries. We go back and forth from playing with heavy rock bands — not Metallica or anything like that — and it's rad, because we can play with anybody.

» EXPRESS: Have there been any attempts to bring in Derek's old fans from Pretty Girls Make Graves?
» QUIRK: It's a totally new endeavor. Some of the fans of Pretty Girls Make Graves have come out and said, "Oh, I like this new thing you're doing."

» EXPRESS: They don't ask for Dylan-esque PGMG covers or anything, I assume.
» QUIRK: That would be horrible. If they did that, I'd throw a cocaine pie at them.

» EXPRESS: Do you considering your music folk music?
» QUIRK: It's just like, "Hey, let's try this new thing." We don't think of it as folk music. We don't call it that. Compared to the other bands we were in before, I can see why people would say that, because it's so drastic. It's a progression for all of us, but, in terms of just creating music, we let it happen organically and naturally. If there was a song we wrote that was plugged in and loud, that would be fine. We just let the songs live on their own. We're not trying to keep our same dynamic with acoustic guitars — it's such a new thing, it's endless experimentation.

» Rock & Roll Hotel, 1353 H St. NW; with Love as Laughter and Bellman Barker; Thu., 8 p.m., $10; 202-388-7625.

Photo courtesy Matador Records