Mr. Gnome

Three years ago, when I first time interviewed mr. Gnome singer/guitarist Nicole Barille, she talked to me about the challenges of making a name for her band outside of their native Cleveland. The second time, a year or so later, she and her band mate, drummer Sam Meister, had just begun receiving widespread national attention and distribution - this around the time of the release of their excellent debut LP, Deliver This Creative. Now, two years since their last trip to Fort Wayne, they’re bigger than ever.  

Hard work, killer riffs and a Queen named Josh, that’s the answer.

“We're still based out of Cleveland. We actually live out in the country just outside of Cleveland, but we're not home very often because we tour so much,” the lanky and charismatic Barille recently told me while discussing her busy 2009. “Last time you and I spoke we were releasing our first full-length album, Deliver This Creature. Since then we've done about five national tours.

“We also got invited to record at Josh Homme's Pink Duck Studios out in L.A., eventually releasing our second full-length, Heave Yer Skeleton, in November of last year,” she added. “People have been treating us so wonderfully so we're very appreciative to everyone for that.”

For Heave, the duo worked with Homme’s studio manager, Justin Smith, running around his studio for a week, “playing with all of Josh’s magical toys,” Barille joked.

Before making the trip from Cleveland to Los Angeles to record, Barille and Meister, known for their hard-to-pin-down sound, recorded demos of their new songs, sending them to Smith in advance.

“It was really cool to share our ideas with him. We had never worked like that in the past, it was a much more of a hands-on experience,” she said “We then went out to L.A. and did all of the main instrumental tracking, getting introduced to some amazing vintage gear along the way. We ended up finishing up the remaining vocals, some more guitar overdubs and so on in Cleveland at Ante Up Audio with Adam Korbesmeyer. Then the album was mixed by Beau Sorenson of Smart Studios up in Madison, Wisconsin.”

Before recording those Heave demos in Cleveland, of course, the duo had to write the songs.

“Sam has always been able to finish or help develop my initial song ideas. Before we started collaborating I always had these pieces and parts without a solid direction,” Barille explained when asked about the mr. Gnome songwriting process. “Sam really brought focus to all of that; he's able to make the songs more dynamic just through the use of certain pedals or breaks throughout the song.

“We usually just start jamming on a melody or riff that I've written by myself and see where it goes from there. Some of the songs come completely out of nowhere, just from intoxicated jamming. That's always a nice surprise.”

The rare powerful live two-piece, mr. Gnome’s records can be quite hard to describe. Barille stands up front, guitar slung low and hair falling everywhere. She has the unthinkable ability to at once tap into the more intimate side of PJ Harvey and the wild feminine roar of Karen O. In a pinch you could call her a Cat Power for the gutter crowd, but don’t. She’s got her own thing going on; that she reminds of a diverse of modern greats like PJ, Cat and O at moments is only a testament to her versatility.

Behind the kit is the tall, often mohawk-clad Meister, an electrifying player with art house sensibilities that bring to mind jazz-turned-art-punk drummer Brian Chase. Meister and Barille, when seen together, look like rock stars. Not in a clichéd Mick-n-Keef sort of way but, rather, in a way that, upon first sight, smells of smoke, tastes of warm PBR and gives your ears the post-show rings. They have an accidental swagger that only artists with guitars and mohawks can pull off. They have it going on, no matter how unclassifiable they might be.

“The music scene in Cleveland was weird for us in the beginning because we never clearly fit in anywhere. We were always too schizophrenic to be considered straight-up indie or hard rock or punk,” Barille joked when asked about her local scene. “But there's some great music coming out of Cleveland for sure. If These Trees Could Talk are an amazing instrumental band that are very good friends of ours. The music scene in Cleveland definitely has a lot going on.”

True D.I.Y. artists, the duo have been able to do the unthinkable: live as working musicians without a major label deal or major sponsor. They, once again, have earned every bit of this success by working tirelessly.

“As of right now, believe it or not, we are full time musicians,” Barille said when asked about her band’s recent success. “We'll probably work some odd jobs this summer just so we can eat and dress ourselves. Sam's been wanting to do some exotic dancing so hopefully that'll work out for him this summer.”

Why exotic dance when you can tour, I wondered?

No festivals this summer for us because we're going to take some time off and really throw ourselves into the writing of this next record,” she explained. “We got home this last winter from our last big tour and began writing a whole ton of new songs for the next record. We'll be writing the rest of the album when we get home from this current tour in early June, and then hope to record at the end of summer or early fall.

“We’re very excited to finish writing the new songs. We've been incredibly inspired on the road and are really looking forward to expanding upon the sounds we left off on. We also just got some vintage gear that we're totally geeking on. We’re so excited to get back to it and play for hours and hours until our hands feel like they may fall off. That's a great feeling.”

Indeed. But, for now at least, mr. Gnome are out on the road supporting their great sophomore album, Heave Yer Skeleton, while daydreaming about their next recording sessions. Hard work - and organizations - sure do pay off from time to time. Lucky for us.

Written by G. William Locke