Q&A with Clap Your Hands Say Yeah

UPDATE: one more Alec Ounsworth track: Dee, Oh Dee (mp3), courtesy of Happy Home Recordings.

Alec was kind enough to answer a few of my stupid questions. Here are his answers (along with my questions):

Your self-released self-titled debut CD sold out incredibly fast. Did you guys make only six dozen units?
I think we started with 2000 copies.

How many are you pressing this time around? Do you get a deal if you make a hundred-thousand?
I think we're getting 5000 more in the mail.

I love the opening track “Clap Your Hands,” although some question the wisdom of such a strange song at the beginning. It caught me off guard on first listen, but now it works perfectly when you hear the whole album. How did that song come to be? Did you view it as a risk to start the album that way?
For the first song and "sunshine and clouds (and
everything proud)" I was tinkering around with some of
the instruments in the studio and asked the engineer
if he might record some of what I was doing. "Clap
Your Hands!" came from messing around on the organ.
Then I took the organ track home and arranged the
rest. I didn't find beginning the album with this song very
risky. I think it was the only place for it to go.

The song “Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth” credits the whole band for composition. Is this the only song you’ve written together as a group? How exactly did that collaborative process work, since Alec writes the majority of the songs?
"Skin of My Yellow Country Teeth" is the only song we've written as a group I think. I record the songs or ideas for songs, sometimes arranged and fleshed out (d.machine, synths, guitars, bass, etc.) to begin with and sometimes not, at home in philadelphia and bring them up to new york for practice. Some of the songs remain relatively unchanged and others undergo a bit of a transformation.

According to your website, you’ve only played about 25 gigs together. Have things tightened up with more live experience? Has the audience enthusiasm improved, or do we still suck?
I'm not sure. sometimes it's tight and sometimes we're still quite loose. I am constantly working on new material and so there are songs we try at shows which not everyone has such a handle on but i think it makes a show a bit more suspenseful. Audience enthusiasm has always been great. I can't imagine it being any better.

Any memorable gigs yet?
We played a show in a basement in park slope not too long ago. There were low ceilings, asbestos concerns, and some leaks here and there but we remained relatively dry and unscathed. It was a fun show.

I missed you when you were supposed to play at
Maxwell’s. Luckily I checked your website before heading to New Jersey and it said that you guys were in fact not playing there. Eventually,however, you did. What was the problem the first time around? Did you need a work permit to immigrate to New Jersey?
I think the problem the first time was having a show
somewhere else the same night or someone having a
conflict of some sort. I'm not sure.

You are playing with “Portion Control” at Mercury Lounge on July 27. There is speculation that this is not a real band, and that the Hanson brothers are putting on a few secret shows. Being July 27, that’s practically ‘Christmas in July’; Hanson has two (2) entire Christmas albums, one from 1997 and one they put out just last season. Any plans for your own Christmas album yet?
I think we might get into the studio again after touring with the National in September but i don't know how long it'll take. As far as Christmas albums are concerned . . . I don't think we'll release anything but Christmas albums.

If you released one Christmas album, would you feel the need to release a second?
I don't know if anyone could improve upon John Denver and the Muppets collaboration ("A Christmas Together"), so i'm not sure a Christmas-specific album will be coming very soon.

Last question: Who/what/where/when is Flashy Python and the Body-Snatchers?
Flashy Python and the Body-snatchers is a project I work on in Philadelphia. Flashy himself doesn't like to perform so we don't perform. we work on music that is a bit more inaccesible than some of my other projects. We may put something out eventually but I can't say I'm ever sure of what Flashy is thinking.

Buy the album from Insound here, once they make more copies. You already know I'm addicted to it.

Tickets are on sale for their July 20th show at Southpaw here.