Milwaukee’s Field Report has been creating a lot of well-deserved buzz in the past several months with the release of their self-titled debut album Field Report. I had the opportunity to catch up with Christopher Porterfield after their quick in-store appearance at Strictly Discs on Saturday afternoon, prior to their show at High Noon Saloon. We stood among the endless vinyl and talked about the band’s journey over the past year.
What are your overall thoughts about 2012? How did it go? Favorite parts?
“Twelve was unexpected, and overwhelmingly positive. We got to do a bunch of stuff I’d never thought I’d get to do. Highlights… I think when we were touring with Aimee Mann, singing with her. I got to do a duet with her pretty much every night. That was a highlight. Just being friends with her, that was super cool. We got to play at Red Rocks which is ridiculous. We got to play the Fillmore in San Francisco.
“You know, when we made the record I didn’t know if anybody would ever even hear it, and sort of the thing that is insane about last year was that a bunch of people heard it and a lot of them really liked it. It was validating. We’re still a really new band. We have a lot to learn and a lot of work to do, but we’re excited to just keep building on the floor we built last year. We haven’t arrived anywhere, we’re not owed anything, we’re just going to keep working at being honest with ourselves and with each other, and hopefully continue to earn people’s trust enough that they want to come be a part of the thing that we do.”
Did you notice any major points of growth with the band? I’m sure there are many.
“Oh man. Yeah, I don’t even know how to quantify. We learned so much about being players and listeners and people. Just this trust with each other, I think, was the biggest thing. We always knew each other and trusted each other, but when you log that much time and that many miles and that many shows with that a group of people, there’s something that… there’s no other way to come by it other than to do just do it.
“It’s like if you go to Pier 1 and buy a vase or something that’s supposed to look old, and you can tell it’s not old. That patina is shitty gold spray paint. If you really find something that’s old, that’s earned the right to look and feel and smell that way, that’s a thing. That’s why people buy antiques. So we’re just beginning to get that, to feel like we’ve lived in ourselves long enough to start taking on these intangible things that only come with time and from playing a lot.
“So, a big goal for this year is to continue that and to continue to challenge ourselves and not ever get comfortable or stagnant with anything, and just keep poking things. There’s always something that we don’t know, and if we ever feel like we know everything about something then it’s time to kill that off entirely. There’s got to be mystery for us in it in order for the thing to work the way we want it to.”
Can you talk about your songwriting process and a style?
“Sure. For me it’s always lyrics first. I need to have something I want to say, or have to say, otherwise there’s just no point in this band doing it because that’s just how it works for us. I’m always in sort of a gathering stage. I’ve always got scraps of paper in all my pockets, or I’ve been using Evernote a lot on the phone. It’s pretty slick. You get something and you pop it in there and then it exists everywhere.
“Once stuff has been gathered then I look at it, take some time off and look at it some more and see what it’s saying. Usually these things sort of happen in clusters and then they’re all kind of talking about the same thing. Then, I start organizing in a way that makes sense with words and images. It goes through a couple of drafts. It’s really lyric-heavy and just sort of winnowing it down to something that makes sense.
“One way that I’ve talked about it… it’s kind of like each song is its own exhibit and you have to go through and say, ‘Well, that’s cool but it doesn’t work with this very well, but maybe save that for a different exhibit.’ You hang different things on the wall and see how it fits. Then once you get something that fits you start putting music to it. That goes through a few different drafts. If it survives that process, then I take it to the guys and we’ll break it again, and again, and again. So all of these things are always forced to justify their existence. That’s really important to me: not just have something and lean on it too hard, but to make it continue to fight a little bit.”
So the emotions and feelings you have when you’re writing these songs, do they stay the same every time you play them? Or do they change as they gather history?
“It totally changes. Different things take on new meanings and lines can slightly change here and there. You can gauge an audience and see what they’re feeling. There’s a big feedback loop that goes back and forth between me and the band, and us and the audience. And everybody’s working together. There’s never going to be a definitive version of these songs. It’s always going to be for-that-moment. That helps us stay interested and engaged, too. If we’re interested and not just coasting, it makes it a more interesting show to be a part of.”
Do you want to talk about anything you’re working on?
“New stuff. I’ve got piles and I’m just sorting through those piles right now. We’ve got one new one in the set. I wanted to have more, but everyone is just so busy with their time and at home and their own stuff going on that it’s been tough to get together. I’ve got lots of stuff to go through, though, and figure out what it all means. It’s coming. We’re booking studio time for September.”
You’ve already touched on this a bit, but anything you’re looking forward to? Anything you want to do more of? I know you did some house shows last year.
“Yeah, definitely. I love doing the house shows. I think for me, that’s another way to look at the material and to figure out what it means for me and the band. The band thing and the solo thing inform each other big time. You learn so much from the other thing. I would like to continue to do more solo intimate things, like we did the Madison one. The day after that I was in St. Paul and that was amazing.
“This woman reached out and was, like, ‘We’d like to host a house show’. I had no idea who she was, so I roll in there and it’s this 70-year-old woman and her husband with this big old house in St. Paul. She had heard a song somewhere, bought the record, got into it, got her husband into it, got their kids into it, their kids got their kids into it, and it was this crazy family affair. It was, like, her birthday party, having me come to their house. Having a stranger come in and play songs. It was nuts. I threw everything I had at them. I played for like 2½ hours and they just ate it up. It was amazing! They were so sweet and gracious and very apologetic, like, ‘Sorry, we’ve never done this before.’ It was so cool.”
Do you prefer something like that over bigger festivals? Or do you just take each for what it is?
“Everything is its own thing. You can’t really ever compare one show to another because every situation is different. This week, for example, we’re in such a weird place. We played in Iowa City for, like, 30 people, the next day we played [Milwaukee’s] Turner Hall to 600 people and that’s just kind of the world we live in right now. Roll the dice. Go out and keep making friends and hopefully next time it will be more full. We’re just starting. People are just starting to become aware of what we’re doing and some of those people that become aware of it decide that they like it. We just want to go out and make more friends.
“We’re going to do some festival stuff and that will be interesting. We’re definitely a band that, in the ideal situation, we’re in a quiet room where people are listening. When we were out with Counting Crows we played a lot of outdoor shows to a lot of people that maybe wouldn’t initially be Field Report fans, but we won over so many bros. It was awesome. They would come to the merch table and be like, ‘Fuck yeah man, that was so fucking awesome!’. We won over bros, we won over older people, and there were little kids here today [at Strictly Discs]. We can never make up our minds about who we’re talking to or have any judgments about anything going in. We just have to continue being honest with ourselves and present it in a honest way. And that’s the biggest struggle and that’s not a pejorative struggle. The goal is that struggle, and when we do it right people pick up on it.”