Q And Not U

Q and Not U's D.I.Y. approach to music can't be stopped by something as small as a broken foot.

Despite canceling nearly all the dates for their spring tour after drummer/vocalist John Davis broke his foot during a hockey game back in April, the Washington D.C.-based indie rock trio has been working steadily at creating new songs and planning new shows throughout Davis' recovery. A fully recouped Q and Not U will be making a stop at the Kraftbrau Brewery in Kalamazoo on June 3 as part of their summer tour, making up an earlier show that was scheduled for April.

"We have a lot of new stuff; I feel pretty certain that we're going to be ready to go in and record a new single in June," Davis said via phone from D.C.

One of the top new bands on the legendary D.C. label Dischord Records, which celebrated its 20th anniversary with a three-disc compilation set in October of 2002, Q and Not U has been around since the summer of 1998 and has always worked with Dischord.

"I can't think of a better label in the world than Dischord or certainly a better music scene than D.C. I think everybody should look to what's going on here as an example," Davis said. "Some of the older labels that are still around have sort of slid into irrelevance, but Dischord is still about what it's about, which is documenting the heart of the Washington D.C. punk scene and [they] have continued to do that for almost twenty-five years.

"Just about anybody who is involved in indie rock or punk or whatever is familiar with Fugazi and Minor Threat, and those bands' impact and influence on what they love and what they're involved with. It's pretty undeniable, I mean Dischord has had a huge part in this, sort of reinforcing the D.I.Y. ethic and providing an example of how you can do it yourself, how you don't have to co-opt your message, how you don't have to sellout, for lack of a better word. You can still survive, you can still thrive, and you can have an impact, I mean, that's what Dischord's been all about for years."

Currently, Q and Not U is made up of Davis, vocalist/guitarist Harris Klahr and vocalist/guitarist/bassist Christopher Richards. The band survived a shake-up of its own in 2001 when it parted ways with former bassist Matt Borlik, an experience Davis described as being similar to the end of a bad relationship.

"It's funny often how bands can mirror close friendships or romantic relationships, how they change, and how sometimes you need to get out of them, and that's exactly what it was when we were a four-piece," Davis said. "We wanted to continue as a band but we couldn't do it with Matt in it. That was definitely a big change for us."

Prior to parting ways with Borlick, Q and Not U had recorded their first seven-inch single, Hot and Informed, and its debut album, 2000's No Kill No Beep Beep for Dischord. Both had Fugazi frontman Ian MacKaye and veteran engineer Don Zientara at the helm. The newly reestablished trio has since gone on to release another seven-inch, On Play Patterns, and its follow-up full-length, last fall's Different Damage, once again working with MacKaye and Zientara. The two discs showed a clear change in the band's sound and Davis said the still rough new material once again shows the band's continuing changes.

"It's so early right now that it's hard to tell," he said. "Honestly, I think there's a difference between the first two records. The first was a little more traditionally sort of guitar-punk kind of stuff, and then the second one I feel was a little less traditional. It was more spacious and sort of also about rhythm, as much, or I think actually way more, than the first record, which for me is kind of an interesting mix because I don't think we really planned that. We were interested in getting more rhythmic, but mainly it's just how we played, or that that's where we were going. But then, the way the songs worked out, there seemed to be a lot of space in them, which I thought was pretty cool. Now the new stuff we're working on is definitely, I'd say, much harder rhythmically, and it's not quite as relaxed as some of the songs on the second record."

Just letting the songs take the band where it's going is characteristic of Q and Not U's songwriting style, and Davis said this is somewhat reflected in the band's frequently misunderstood lyrics.

"Chris and Harris' lyrics are sort of along the spectrum of analyzing how people are about music, about clothes, politics, little things," Davis said. "Chris likes to play with sort of images, and certainly he has the main idea as a foundation for him that he doesn't like to be particularly didactic or upfront about what he's singing. I mean, it certainly means something to him, but it might be a little bit too obtuse to someone who doesn't know what he's singing about. And I think he likes that. The idea that people will maybe make up their own sort of ideas for what it means because he and all of us are really interested in the communication between band and audience and sort of blurring those lines. It gets pretty boring if you're just a band, and you stand there and play for people who just soak it up and then leave. You want to get something back. And I really like that approach. Sometimes people get infuriated because they don't know what he's talking about, but I like that. At least people are talking about his lyrics, unlike 98 percent of the bands out there.

"I've read plenty of reviews where the same song has gotten five different meanings. Like the song 'Soft Pyramids,' the first song off Different Damage. I just read a review that was like, 'This song is the one of the most powerful songs about homelessness I've ever heard. It puts Phil Collins' "Another Day In Paradise" to shame,' or something like that. And you know, that's not really what the song's about for Chris, but that's cool that that's what it's about for whoever listens to it."

While the band's objectives may be up to personal interpretations lyrically, its intentions become a little clearer when looking at some of the causes it supports. This includes a link to votenowar.org on the band's web site as well as one of the band's most recent projects, a cover of Neil Young's "Don't Let It Bring You Down," for last year's Don't Know When I'll Be Back Again: A Compilation to Benefit American Veterans of the Vietnam War.

"I like that the organization wasn't some kind of flag-waving thing," Davis said. "It was about protecting the rights of people and that is what's important to me."

While Davis said it wasn't until the last tour that audiences became fully familiar with Q and Not U's already released material, the band still plans to play as many of its new songs as possible during the upcoming summer tour.

"As soon as something is ready to go, even sometimes if it's not fully ready, we definitely play it live because it's a good forum for testing new material," he said. "I prefer to be able to write a song, and then take it out on tour for a month or two, and sort of work on some things with it and then record it."

While the summer tour will be the first time Q and Not U will tour Canada, Davis said the band is in a pretty enviable position having already toured the U.S., Europe and Japan. Q and Not U's next U.S. tour will take place this fall, after which the band plans to begin recording a new album in December.--Eric Mitts

June 2003