When Chet “JR” White, bassist/producer of the San Francisco pop band Girls, sat down to record the group’s second album Father, Son, Holy Ghost, he did not have a specific plan for the record. He did, however, have a template: Leonard Cohen’s New Skin for the Old Ceremony.
“The idea of that album that I really like is the focus of songwriting, where it sounds almost like he starts playing and then the musicians start to pick up instruments as the songs develop,” White says. “There’s a lot of space in the song. It’s really sparse.”
Girls emerged from a San Francisco music scene dominated by fuzzed-out, lo-fi rock bands including Ty Segall and Thee Oh Sees. “Girls was started because it felt right playing pop music at some point,” White says. “It seemed almost punk to be playing pop music.”
In 2009, their collaboration spawned Album, a pop record with roots in Bowie-esque glam rock and ’50s/’60s girl groups and doo-wop. Owens’ lyrics are earnest and vulnerable without being over the top, and the album was very well received, finding itself on end-of-year top music lists of 2009. Girls began touring widely and established their name in the indie pop/rock scene. In 2010, they followed Album with a six-track EP, Broken Dreams Club. The EP was equally well-received.
While recording Father, Son, Holy Ghost, the band did not have a definite plan or direction aside from the Cohen-inspired approach to the instrumentation. “We leave a lot open to the process, really,” White says. “There’s planning, but not as much as other bands. There’s always a bit of a surprise element for us when we make a record.”
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxuDoYhQI2o[/youtube]
The success of Album enabled Owens and White to hire musicians and sound engineers and use a real studio the second time around. “Money gets you things,” White says, and Father, Son, Holy Ghost features back-up singers, organs, steel guitar and countless other instruments. When talking about the additional musicians, White described them as “total pros who do this all the time. Being able to have somebody like that come in and afford to give them money to come in and do that is pretty cool. It makes it sound a lot bigger and more professional and more pleasing to me.”
The resulting album covers a wide range of styles and emotions. It features the signature pop tracks that brought the band success while including some heavier rockers and several spaced-out ballads that capture the sparseness that White was aiming for. Although the band is bigger, White insists that Girls is still himself and Owens. “For me, it’s really important that it stays that way because that’s what Girls is,” White says. “It’s Chris and me, our creative output. We give people more leeway to create stuff, but we’d shoot them down if we didn’t like it.”
Girls perform at One Eyed Jacks on Monday with Unknown Mortal Orchestra and DJ KG Accidental. Doors open at 9 p.m. Tickets are $15.
