World Enough and Time

Austin’s the Gloria Record is having a bit of an identity crisis. While the band members’ talents may be fairly obscure and their bankrolls small, their ambition is as huge as their attention to detail is persnickety. “We decided, for whatever reason, that it would be a good idea to make a record as if we were U2, or someone who had a boundless budget and time,” guitarist/vocalist Chris Simpson says, chuckling ruefully. “Which seems like a good idea, and I think creatively is a good idea, but it was a lot of stress, because obviously we didn’t have a label or money.”

Nearly a full two years after the release of its second EP, A Lull in Traffic, on indie label Crank! Records, the band is finally resurfacing with its first full-length, Start Here, due out in April on The Arena Rock Recording Co. label. Why such a long wait, almost unthinkable in the indie-rock world? According to Simpson, the band simply didn’t want to rush things.

“Indie bands like to just put stuff out on a regular basis, but we’re really not into that idea,” he says. “I mean, it would be cool, I suppose, if you had quality stuff to put out, but more often than not, people don’t.”

Instead, Simpson and bandmates Jeremy Gomez (bass/keyboards), Brian Hubbard (guitar), Ben Houtman (keyboards) and Brian Malone (drums) concentrated on writing the best music they could for their next release, however long that happened to take. “Plus, I think creatively it was a real hump for us to get over,” Simpson says. “Making a record together, as a band, is much more difficult than if it’s just one person’s showThere were definitely some dark times in there.”

Those dark times nearly spelled the end of the band, but they persevered, and the pieces of Start Here began to fall into place, forming a recording unlike most of what the Gloria Record has done before. Rock guitar parts are relatively few and far between, shifted to the background so that the keyboards, drum tracks and Simpson’s angelic, heartfelt voice can take center stage. In some cases, the songs hardly resemble the band’s indie-rock roots at all, evoking instead the music of Tori Amos, the aforementioned U2 or Radiohead’s less obtuse moments.

The tracks are dark and melancholy, for the most part, something Simpson attributes to the isolation of recording in exile. Not content to sequester themselves in an Austin-area studio, the Gloria Record trekked to Nebraska to record most of the album. “People are like, ‘Wait a minute. You live in Austin, Texas, you play in a band, but you have to drive to Lincoln, Nebraska, to record?’ ” Simpson says with a laugh. “Because Austin is the home of recording studios, y’know?” He says the main reason for the change of scenery was to work with producer/engineer Mike Modis, an old friend with whom they had worked on the Lull EP, but they also wanted some distance between themselves and home.

The pressures and disillusions of young adulthood also fuel the bleak, haunted lyricism of the record. “I think I’m writing about what I always write about, which is kind of just dealing with the world and life and how I fit in the big picture of things,” Simpson says. “It’s a lot darker now, especially this record. I think it’s dealing with a lot of frustration and anger about the process of becoming an adult and letting go of some of the more romantic notions that you have.”

Just as the members of the Gloria Record grew into adulthood, so did the group grow from a “project” into a band. When Simpson, Gomez and Hubbard formed the Gloria Record in 1997, along with then-drummer Matt Hammon, it was never their intent to form a new band, but instead merely to play together and write a few songs. Those songs became the loose-knit group’s self-titled debut EP on Crank!, and it wasn’t until they had finished that first recording, two years down the road, that three out of the four members realized that they wanted to have a go at being a “real” band.

After floundering for a while, Simpson says, they recruited new permanent members Houtman and Malone, just in time to make Lull, which heralded an impressive shift, soundwise, from the earlier work. These days, the “recording project” version of the band is long gone, replaced by a committed lineup determined to make things work as a unit.

“It’s a band, all of a sudden,” Simpson says, when asked about the difference between the last EP and the new album. “It’s not like I’m a singer-songwriter who sits at home writing songs and brings them into the band, y’know? Everything is done with all five of us, with our hands on the steering wheel.”

Now that the album is on its way, those hands are on the wheel of the band’s tour van. Simpson brightens when talk turns to the band’s current road trip and another jaunt planned after the album’s release. “We’re really very excited about moving on to this phase of the cycle — not sitting in a room for 20 hours a day, working on recording. We’re looking forward to seeing air and trees and people,” he says. “It just seems like so long since we’ve done anything public.”

But in general, Simpson says, the Gloria Record prefers to concentrate more on writing new songs rather than gigging every weekend, especially at home. When asked about the band’s place in the Austin “scene,” he says he doesn’t feel that the band fits in very well at all, but it doesn’t bother them. “I think that’s essentially part of who we are,” he says. “I think it’s nice not fitting in.”

Simpson isn’t sure where the Gloria Record is headed next. They have few plans beyond their upcoming shows, but Simpson asserts that all of his bandmates are “career-minded and serious” about the music.

Will there be another long disappearing act after this album’s run? Maybe, Simpson says. “It’s kind of nice to just disappear for a while and come back with something new to show people.”