Despite praise for his Adderall enhanced stocking ability, Dada Trash Collage’s Billy Freed has just turned in his two-weeks notice at Menards. Releasing his hotly anticipated third LP and getting married in the next month, the future holds many changes for Freed. And like the amphetamine fueled Liverpool era Beatles before him, Freed’s pep pills will likely come in handy as the experimentally noisy DTC is earning local buzz at a rapid pace.
All of the local hype barometers are skewing in DTC’s favor in the lead-up to release of their third LP, “Neighbors.” The Current is spinning standout track “Paint on the Windows” and local alt-weeklies have boasted lauding write-ups. The group’s first two LPs went largely unrecognized, but with the release of EP “Rain War” last January, tastemakers zeroed in on DTC’s densely innovative sound.
Part of DTC’s success in the Twin Cities is due to his sound’s departure from the status quo. “It’s super different than a lot of other local stuff,” said Justin Steen, member of local rockers Hunting Club , DTC’s openers for the “Neighbors” LP release show. “[Freed] represents what I wish a lot of people represented, which is something different — not ‘Juno’ soundtrack folk music.”
While DTC’s vibe is a local novelty, one national comparison keeps rearing its head: Animal Collective. “It really doesn’t bother me. They’re my favorite band playing music these days. They’ve had a big influence on what I do,” Freed said, adding his only concern is if listeners would accuse him of taste-baiting or straight-up mimicry.
The Animal Collective ties aren’t strictly sonic; Freed contacted prominent producer Scott Colburn — a wing and a prayer attempt, admittedly, but one that worked. The man behind the board on AC’s “Feels” and “Strawberry Jam” actually recorded “Rain War” and “Neighbors” in Seattle last fall.
“He knows every indie band and their managers,” Freed said of Colburn, who even offered his home as a crash pad. “You’re used to people like that being completely unattainable.”
Colburn’s professional spit-polish is evident, as the songs on “Rain War” and “Neighbors” have unlikely depth. A wash of samples, loops and kitchen-sink instrumentation, songs that would be callow stabs at artiness by lesser musicians ring true with DTC. Freed’s vocals are passable — emotionally volatile, boyish and earnest — but it’s clear he’s a music geek to the core, with the complex arrangements usurping the lot of his focus.
“It’s an addiction, writing music. It’s all I ever want to do,” he said. “The technicality of playing music doesn’t interest me that much.”
It’d be fruitless to adorn DTC with the next scene-darling crown. Critics — this one included — are fickle beasts, after all. But to Freed’s credit, he’s giving DTC his all, even getting kicked out of McNally Smith College of Music for absenteeism. With the record release, a wedding and a national tour on the horizon, the Menards job he so excelled at will soon be history, too.
“This band has consumed my life since it started,” Freed said. “Since I’ve moved here every second of every single day has been about this band.”
No, Freed isn’t lost in rock star fantasy realm. “Billy, from the beginning, as a musician, just wants to get the music in as many peoples’ hands as possible,” said Joel Cooper, DTC’s manager and occasional member. “He just wants people to hear it.”
And for Freed, a middle school jock that discovered Phish and never looked back, his ambitions are steadfast: “My goal is to be able to make a living off it,” he said.
Stud producer? Check. Total devotion? Check. A markedly different, skillful sound? Triple check. Time will tell where a soon-to-be newlywed Freed takes DTC, but in the meantime he’s giving the Twin Cities a break from the indie-pop-by-numbers doldrums.