Who Are…Night Driving In Small Towns
The second record from Georgia group Night Driving in Small Towns is called Serial Killer, but don't mistake them for a gaggle of gloom-mongering Goths. In fact, Night Driving operates with almost the opposite m.o.: They smuggle sadness in sweet, airy indie pop, using coy melodies to call attention to their heartsick themes. The album opens with Rogers trying to fall asleep in an empty apartment and inevitably obsessing over her station in life (“Everybody starts a family/ I can't even pay my heating”). From that lonesome opening, the group goes on to explore romance (and the collapse thereof), personal loss and destructive relationships with large metropolitan areas. That they manage to do it while keeping the mood and melodies feather-light is one of Serial Killer's best tricks.
eMusic's J. Edward Keyes caught up with Rogers as she was taking a break from her work at an Atlanta law office.
On inauspicious musical beginnings:
[Colby and I] went to high school together. He graduated in 2003, and I graduated in 2001. Our school had a “senior song,” and every year the kids would pick one [from the radio]; it was always something so stupid. So me and another singer decided we were going to write our class song, and I recorded it with Colby, who was a sophomore at the time. It was pretty cheesy — the song was called “Recollections,” the lyrics were like, “All of these memories, I put them in my pockets.” But, again, I was 17! So now, every year since then, it's become a tradition in that town, that somebody writes the class song rather than just picking one.
After that, [Colby and I] just started playing around, trying to figure out if we wanted to work together. We had different incarnations of bands, but this one is obviously the most serious. The other ones, I think, we were trying to find our legs. Colby is one of those people where, when you first meet them, you think they're quiet or shy. He just has a certain demeanor about him, where it seems he has a secret.
On zombie dance parties:
Our label was working to do a really awesome record release party. What we originally wanted to do was something like a middle school dance, where you could dress up if you wanted to, and it would be like an event. But when we approached the lady who does the booking for the venue we wanted, she said, “There's already a company that hosts 'prom' event here, and they have the rights to be the only organization who holds a 'prom.'” So we were like, “OK, what about if we did a robot-themed party?” And she said, “There's already a company that does a robot-themed party.” So we had taken these pictures of us for promotional stuff where we were playing off the idea of the album's title, Serial Killer — we had on really nice formal clothes, but it looked like we had gone out for the night and come back beaten to a pulp. So then we took that idea and developed the concept of a zombie dance party.
I'm planning to wear something formal — well, basically, think “Thriller”: They had all those goodwill dresses that were kind of not hip, but maybe used to be, and then they shredded them and added blood and makeup and bad hair. So that's what I'm going for!
On haunted practice spaces:
Colby, his family lives out in the middle of nowhere. When he was younger, they lived in this house that was on the same property, and they thought it was haunted. I think maybe somebody died there? So they moved into another house, and when we would practice in that old house, something would always fall or break. There was a bird that built a nest in the wall, and any time you would get near the wall it would swoop in and try to attack you. So that space was pretty much a disaster — now, we practice in my house.
On evocative band names:
All of us are from small towns. When I was living in [the Georgia town of] Valdosta, I used to make mix CDs for my friends once a month. Every month I would do one, and I would name it after the vibe I got from the songs. So I was driving around listening to Keane, and it was just very rich, very powerful. I was driving around by myself, I think it was around 2 or 3 in the morning, and I thought, “There are only a few songs that really touch you in a way that you feel like you connect with it.” It's kind of like, you're driving around in a small town and if you're the only person on the street, you're the only person experiencing that moment. There are certain songs I like that make you feel that same visceral feeling. So I came up with that title for the CD, and then for the band. The thing I like about living in a small town is the proximity of things — it makes you feel a sense of security — even if it's a false sense of security.
On cities that are out to destroy you:
I tend to turn things that have affected me into little capsules, and when it's time to write a song, I break one. I've lived in Atlanta for about two years now. I love the city — I love how huge it is. The city is its own entity — it could live and breathe with or without you. But it's very difficult any time you relocate anywhere and you don't know anybody. It's difficult to come to terms with your new surroundings. We had been trying to write, and two weeks after I moved here I got a job downtown. I was on the 27th floor, and I had to be there at 6 every morning, so I got to see the sunrise from the top of a skyscraper. I was just thinking about watching these lines of cars going to work — all of those tiny cars have people in them that are going to do something. I really wanted to write about that feeling, of loving the city but also being beat down by it. It's so hard to afford to live here, seeing the homelessness and the drug addiction. My sense of empathy has gotten a lot stronger, but I've also had to grow a thicker skin. The city is basically killing you while you're trying to start this romantic relationship with it. You're trying to get to know the city, but every time something really good happens, something really terrible happens. You keep going back to it, but it keeps beating you up. All of that is where the idea for the song “Serial Killer” came from.
On trying to balance rock 'n' roll with real-world expectations:
It's a very strong pressure — I'm from a small Southern town. I'm 26. I remember from my early 20s, going to family reunions and people asking me, “Why aren't you married?” They're all operating under the assumption that we want to do what they did. Almost all of my friends have kids — sometimes you almost feel selfish, because they're talking about all of these grown-up things, and I'm like, “That's really powerful. I'm…trying to book a show.” You feel almost like an ass sometimes. Am I being selfish? Am I doing the right thing? There's a lot of pressure. When you write, or when you do some kind of art, there's the whole theory that the art becomes your child, and it goes out into the world independent of you. And while I think that's a very valid theory, how do you explain that to someone who has four children? It's not the same thing.
And it's hard to have a real job and do music. I finished my Master's in English in 2008, and so I was teaching for a while. Basically, I taught the incoming freshmen Introduction to Writing. It was difficult for me, because I was very close to their age — it was a fine line between trying to do a really good job while trying to still somehow stay on their level. It's hard for them to respect you anyway when you look like them. I think I was 23 when I started teaching, and some of the kids actually were my age. So I was trying to make it relatable, since I was on their same page, but I was also trying to teach them without them hating it. People don't really read or write like they used to, so writing classes seem like a chore to them. I didn't want it to be like that.
On the impact of loss and grief:
I wrote my Master's thesis on grief, focusing on the idea that it's a unifying experience and a natural experience. One of the natural responses to grief is to cry out. There's a Rilke poem where he talks about crying out in grief. It's hard for you to write about the grief when it's so immediate — it's too fresh. One of my best friends I've ever had was in a car accident in 2005 and passed away. I was trying to deal with that, and I really, really could not get over it — so all of my relationships were disintegrating because I couldn't talk to anyone, because I'd internalized it so much. The writing I was doing was very fragmented — it was basically shitty poetry. I tried to write about the experience once more time had passed when it wasn't so fresh. And that became “The Sum + Its Parts.” It's very dark, but I think it also has a lot of heart.
