Greg Ackell talks about their 2022 reunion and future plans

Transmission 099: Interview with Drop Nineteens

Drop Nineteens is an American shoegaze band formed in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1990. The original lineup included Greg Ackell (vocals, guitar), Chris Roof (drums), Paula Kelley (vocals, guitar), Motohiro Yasue (guitar), and Steve Zimmerman (bass). The band first gained attention with their debut album, Delaware, released in 1992, which contributed to their association with the shoegaze movement, a genre primarily centered around British bands at the time.

Following the release of Delaware, Drop Nineteens experienced lineup changes, with Kelley and Roof departing the group. Despite these changes, the band continued to release new material, including their second album, National Coma, before disbanding in 1995. The group reconvened in 2022 and released their third album, Hard Light, in 2023, marking their return after nearly three decades. The band has announced plans for new live performances, including upcoming shows and a festival appearance in Austin, Texas, in November 2024.

Featured image: Drop Nineteens photo by Larissa Doronina
Drop Nineteens’ official site, Instagram

What initially drew you to the showbiz and noise pop scene in the 90s?

I think it was a natural progression from early on as a teenager. I loved the Jesus and Mary Chain. A couple of years after that, I got into Spaceman 3. And, of course, My Bloody Valentine, especially Isn’t Anything. That was the beginning of deciding to really try to sound like something else and do it well.

I was having a conversation with someone recently about this, and how being derivative is typically considered not good because you’re copying somebody. But I had this counter argument that when I first started trying to copy something, it was the first time I started getting any good. It was the first time it started sounding like something that could be out there for a reason.

It was a good starting point. Most bands like my own have to start out derivative. Whether you like to or not, you may want to sound exactly like something, but you’re not going to. It’s going to be your own iteration of it in good and bad ways.

So that’s how it started, with those influences. I was making music before then, but as Drop Nineteens, it all came together around Isn’t Anything. Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation also moved me a lot. So, it wasn’t just UK bands; Sonic Youth in America had a big influence too.

How did meeting at Boston University impact the formation of Drop Nineteens?

Steve (the bassist), Paula (who sings with me), and I all lived in the same dorm our freshman year. So, we knew each other from that, which was important. The original drummer, Chris Roof, came with me from boarding school to BU, so that made four out of five members. Modo joined a year later. He wasn’t from BU, but the rest of us were.

It’s just about who you happen to meet. I like the idea that it’s not all up to us; fate played a role in us coming together, and BU was the starting point for that.

Did you ever feel pressure from the local scene to conform to a certain sound? Or did you feel free to experiment from the start?

We felt free because we didn’t have much to do with the local scene. It’s not that I didn’t like some of the Boston bands at the time, like the Lemonheads, Blake Babies, Juliana Hatfield, Galaxie 500, and Throwing Muses. But there were others, like Buffalo Tom, that I wasn’t such a fan of.

The Pixies were probably the biggest Boston band at the time, and they certainly influenced us. When we recorded Delaware, we used the same studio where the Pixies recorded Doolittle.

As for the local scene, I didn’t really know how to relate to it or how to get shows. We were 18, and I didn’t know anyone in the local bar or club scene. So, we focused on making demos and sending them to England. We thought London labels like Creation and 4AD might listen, since we were fans of the bands on those labels.

Eventually, we had to play a show in Boston, and it was a big deal because people had heard about us from the British press, like NME and Melody Maker. All these Boston bands came out to see us because they had never seen us and heard all this hype. Of course they wanted to hate us because we didn’t play by the same rules.

We were horrible. We played terribly because we were so nervous to play in front of those bands. The place was packed and we knew everyone was there – Evan Dando and all those people. We got very drunk and nervous. But we recently went back and played that exact venue this year and played really well. It was a nice feeling to go back and do that right.

National Coma represents a shift from your earlier sound. Were there any moments during its recording where you felt uncertain about taking the band in this new direction?

 I had a lot of uncertainty at the time, but that’s what made me choose the direction. Once we committed to it, I was confident. You can only do what’s in you, and the pressures to make something more in line with Delaware didn’t concern me. The thing that troubled me was being asked to do Delaware again. That’s what made me change the sound. 

Am I a fan of what we came up with now? No. I’m not particularly a fan of that album. It does have some fans, but many fewer than Delaware or Hard Light. I understand why people don’t care for it in many cases. But I’m at peace with what I was thinking at the time and why I wanted to make a departure.

There were new people in the band, and that made a big difference to the sound. It was a decided left turn, and I stand by it because it’s what I chose to do. I have no regrets about that.

Our fans are very loyal and intense about their love for us. The majority are Delaware fans, and I think the new album, Hard Light. But the National Coma fans are really dedicated. At shows and in conversations, I find their intensity and love for that album surprising. I’ve found myself in debates with them about why it isn’t good, with them trying to tell me it is good.

At this point, we’re both listeners. I was there making it, but it’s 30 years later. We’re just all listeners now. My opinion is no more important than anybody else’s.

How did the idea of reuniting come about in 2022? Was it something you had been considering for a while?

No. In fact, it was something I wasn’t considering for all that time. When I decided to stop making music in the mid to late 90s, I really didn’t look back. I wasn’t feeling scorned or disappointed. I felt proud and content with it. I felt like it was something to do earlier in my life.

I felt like I did it. My dream was to get a record deal, make some records, play some shows, and travel. We did that and more. I was very satisfied. It did not occur to me to go back to it. I remained a fan of music, but I was content being a fan and not having to make it myself, having it not be my job anymore.

As an artist, it’s a commercial venture and you’re trying to sell it. It’s all-encompassing and takes a bit of your soul, or you have to use your soul in it. When I do it actively like that, it puts on blinders for appreciating other things in the world, especially music. What I enjoyed all those years was being a fan of music. Now that I’m back and the band is back, I find the same thing happening again where it’s hard to enjoy music out there.

For me, it’s one or the other. I can either be making it or enjoying it. It’s hard to do both. I don’t know what that is, maybe competitive nature. Not that anybody wins, but it’s something I can’t explain.

I was not thinking about doing it. But I got a call from a friend. I would get these calls over the years from people saying, “Hey Greg, let’s make some music.” I’d shut it down every time. I wasn’t interested. I wouldn’t be mean about it. I’d say, “Absolutely not. I’m happy with that. I’m not interested.”

This one time when I hung up with this friend, I thought to myself, “What would a modern Drop Nineteens song sound like?” It was the first time in all those years I had thought about that. That told me something. So I called the other members and we got back together to try to figure out what it would sound like. And that’s Hard Light.

Were there any major challenges during the recording of Hard Light after such a long break between albums?

Absolutely. I didn’t really know how to do it. But these days, the band is all over America. We’re spread out. I’m in Brooklyn. Steve, the bassist is in Boston, and so is the drummer. Moto, my lead guitarist, is in San Francisco. Paula, the singer who plays guitar with me, she’s in LA.

These days you can do it remotely. We didn’t have to assemble in Chicago and go into a studio. We did a lot of recording in different groups and then shared files. It’s an interesting way to make a record. I felt instead of recording it, we were crafting it. That was the difference. It’s more like crafting something.

I think it was effective, and you can hear it in the album. It has a certain sound because of that. Maybe next time we’ll start in the studio and play together. This was the most practical way of doing it, but we had to learn how. I’ve been out of the industry for so long. I wasn’t good with the computer stuff, sharing files and all that.

Thankfully, Steve is really good with that stuff, and he learned it quickly. Without him, we would have been in big trouble. I’m very thankful for him holding the whole thing together. We gave him engineering credit for that reason, even though there were a lot of people helping us in different studios. We credit him as the engineer because he kept the whole thing together.

What was the most memorable moment from recording your recent single, Scapa Flow?

My most memorable thing was Steve seeing the video I directed and saying he didn’t understand it. Steve and I are the ones who typically start the songs musically. Lennon-McCartney, right? I’m not comparing us to the Beatles, but in terms of the positions. Musically, that’s the case. We work together on the music intensely. Then I do the vocals and melody. Then we bring the other band members in to add things. It’s collaborative, but it starts that way.

“Scapa Flow” began with Steve’s music. I wrote the melody and lyrics, which are a parable about ships being raised from the depths—a metaphor for the band’s return. It’s a bit on the nose, to be honest, but there’s a place called Scapa Flow in Scotland, a bay where a lot of ships were sunk during World War I. The Germans intentionally sank them, and a few years later, they started raising those ships because they were valuable. I thought that was a perfect metaphor for the band—something coming up from the past, even though the lyrics question whether it’s a good idea or not.

So I made this video using footage from Scapa Flow in 1919. It was kind of a nice coincidence because the numbers matched up, and I thought it was a cool concept. But when Steve saw it, he didn’t get it. We had a big argument about it. He asked, “Why is it like this?” and I didn’t have a good answer for him. I just felt like if he didn’t get it by seeing it, there wasn’t much I could explain. It got heated, and he ended up driving back to Boston in the middle of the night.

We were both sensitive because we’re trying to make this comeback, and we want everything to be perfect, or at least to agree on everything. At the time, we didn’t agree on the video, but I think he’s come to accept it. That argument was probably the most memorable moment related to the song—not the recording itself, but the emotions around it.

Were there any specific sounds or ideas you wanted to revisit or avoid while working on Hard Light compared to your previous records?

We didn’t set out to make a great shoegaze record. I think you can hear that. We set out to make a great record. I’m not a particularly big fan of shoegaze, honestly. I like some of it, but it’s not my go-to, even though my band is known for it. I realize there’s that desire from people to hear us explore that genre. I appreciate that. I don’t blame people for asking for it. But we hedge that genre somewhat. I think we’re considered outliers in the genre because of it.

Even though that word will always be associated with us, I don’t think we’re as specifically known for that as something like Slowdive, where it’s been consistent the whole time, just that sound. For us, it’s been a little all over the place and harder to categorize.

Making Hard Light, I wasn’t afraid to bring some of those elements, some of those motifs. One would be glide guitar, using the tremolo bar, which My Bloody Valentine really invented. We’re all copying them when we use that. But you could listen to a lot of shoegaze stuff where the tremolo bar is used on everything, all the time. I think it’s too much sometimes.

Being a band from that genre, for me, the interesting thing is when we bring it, because you know we’re going to, but the issue is when and how, and how little and how strategic we are about it. That’s very interesting to me.

For the lyrics, I don’t think shoegaze is known for particularly expressive lyrics. They’re usually buried in the mix. You can’t really figure out what people are saying. A lot of the motifs repeat themselves. I find a lot of shoegaze lyrics kind of trite, kind of shallow. So I made a real effort on Hard Light to work on those lyrics. I really wanted to create some poetry there. I’ll leave it for others to decide whether I’ve succeeded, but I definitely made an effort at it.

Those are two things we focused on making that record.

What are your long-term plans for Drop Nineteens moving forward?

Our long-term plans? Honestly, they’re more short-term than long-term. We’ve finally played some shows after all that time—30 years of nothing, and now we’ve played some shows in America. We’ve got more shows coming up in October, and we’re playing a big festival with Slowdive in Austin, Texas, in November.

Steve and I are writing and working on some stuff, but I wouldn’t say we’ve decided to make another album yet. It’s all up in the air. The fact that we’re even back at all feels like a miracle. When we came back, I didn’t know if anyone would care, but it turns out people do, and that means a lot to us.

We’re treating it seriously, and we’re inclined to keep going, but this band has a history of disappearing for a long time. That’s part of our DNA, so we’ll see what happens.

Photos courtesy of Drop Nineteens

Matteo Damiani

Matteo Damiani is an Italian photographer and author. Curator of the sites Retrofuturista.com; weirditaly.com; china-underground.com and others