The Not-So Secret History
By Ryan Pangilinan (interview by Ryan and Michelle)

Tagline of the year: an epic epic of epicness. It’s currently for a popular film that’s out right now, but it can also be used to describe New York-based indie pop outfit, The Secret History. The brainchild of songwriter Michael Grace, Jr., the band’s debut album, “The World that Was Never” (Le Grand Magestry) is a dark narrative that is complimented with singer Lisa Ronson’s angelic vocals and the varied talents of vocalist Erin Dermody, bassist Gil Abad, guitarist Darrin Amadlo, keyboardist Kurt Brondo, and drummer Tod Karaslk.

Recently, Grace and Ronson sat down with Totally Crushed Out to discuss how the band was fashioned and how they stay so fashionable themselves.

Totally Crushed Out: In short, how did you get together?

Grace: The guys in this band have been playing together for a while, at the turn of the century. And when that band ran its course, we knew we wanted to do something again and do something different. I always wanted a female singer and the way that I write, I wanted to have that duality and be able to tell different stories with different voices…. Eventually we were blessed by Ms. Ronson’s presence and it came together quite nicely.

The album is interesting because it’s a pop-rock record, but I can hear a lot of Stereolab and Portishead as influences.

G: I think it’s more that we have a similar interest in what those bands were doing also. I know those artists and I like them, particularly Stereolab. I think there’s some older, kind of surf and dub stuff that we listen to that went into the production.

I listened to it and I heard a poppy Joy Division-meets-David Bowie…. A lot of the songs come from the male perspective or the female perspective and I kinda got that vibe.

G: Bowie was a guy who was comfortable changing styles and sounds frequently. [He] created a sense that the songs were going to have a point of view, but you weren’t sure from where. There’s a lot of bands now that are doing it – over and over again – but that’s something that we didn’t want to do.

There’s a lot of consistency throughout the album that I noticed. Is there an overall narrative or was there a collection of songs that fit together?

G: At the end of the previous band, I had this grotesque, grandiose idea to do a pulp record about vampires, zombies and dead creatures. This is going back four or five years, so there wasn’t the current interest that teenagers have in vampires. I had that idea and a lot of sketches. I did want “The World that Never Was” to be this hallucination of this twilight – oh wait, I can’t use that word anymore!

I did want to a kind of surreal record where the characters were vaguely here or not. And make a metaphor with the famous monsters of film land, versus a person living in a city feeling a bit monstrous. But the next record we’re going to make is going to be realistic.

Do you and Lisa collaborate on the lyrics?

G: No. Well, yeah. We do. Listen, they say that Frank Sinatra was the greatest reader of a lyric – the greatest interpreter of a lyric ever – but obviously, never wrote a lyric. Lisa and I collaborate in the sense of ‘Yeah, I wrote these words,’ but how to interpret them, how to voice them, the lyrics don’t exist until the singer sings them. She does a good job in giving it life.

Is it fun to try and sing something crazy to what I write?

Ronson: Absolutely. Your lyrics are decorative and can be interpreted in many different ways, so they never get old.

Another thing I find interesting about your band is that you guys have a stylistic aesthetic, which a lot of bands do, but you still look like you came off the street. There’s still a raw feel to it.

G: I’ve been torn between two worlds for a long time. My previous band came from a DIY pop scene, but I grew up in Long Island, which is known for hardcore punk. Even though I was listening to the Smiths and Joy Division as a teenager, the places that I was going to hang out really influenced me. I always want to be a bit rough.

I want it to be beautiful, but a little off-putting, a little dangerous.

So the record came out in March and you’re already planning the next record…

G: You gotta keep writing. We play one new song a night. We’ve been playing shows all year, and that’s great, but at some point, you have to invest some time into new songs and get your head wrapped around a new direction. In September, we’re going to try and do that.

You’re wrapping up a tour right now, but do you have anything planned for the rest of the year?

G: We have a show in New York at the end of the summer, in August, and we might try to do some New England shows, too.

You guys are a very fashionable band…how do you end up in a band and try and be fashionable and look good?

G: My brother gave me a suitcase that unzips and becomes like a hanger.

R: I found this dress at a Chelsea flea market and I can literally roll it up in a bag, stuff it for two days and it comes out like this.

G: You get a shower and run it really hot. No one really notices that you’re not looking as good as you think you do. If you look really closely, you’re barely keeping it together.

The Secret History’s album “The World that Was Never” is out now. Keep abreast of their plans on their website.

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