Kaiser Cartel focuses on music, not merchandise

Kaiser Cartel

Howler’s Coyote Café with Eric Wilson & Cameron McGill

Oct. 5

Since its… Kaiser Cartel

Howler’s Coyote Café with Eric Wilson & Cameron McGill

Oct. 5

Since its musical beginning five years ago, the band Kaiser Cartel said it wanted its listeners to feel like they are in the band’s living room.

Even on tour, promoting its newest EP Rock Island, Kaiser Cartel sticks with its personalized style of mellow indie music.

“We want an intimate setting with the audience, like we’re hanging out with them and they’re hanging out with us,” Benjamin Cartel yelled from the driver’s seat, while Courtney Kaiser held the phone for an interview on the road.

“We used to say it’s like being in our living room — and that’s still the vibe we’re going for,” Cartel said.

Though the name Kaiser Cartel screams duo, that wasn’t the group’s original intent.

“In the beginning,” Kaiser said. “We were just playing music together on tour. We didn’t have a band or anything, and the name of our band came out of the audience’s enthusiasm. By the end [of the tour], they were saying, ‘Where’s the Kaiser Cartel CD?’ We’ve never crafted what we do to be a duo.”

Kaiser and Cartel said the twosome label never crossed their minds in the formation of their band, but they acknowledged their reliance on each other.

Kaiser said it was Cartel’s talent for drumming that initially drew her to him, but his songwriting offered something different from her own, and that made him an invaluable partner.

Similarly, Cartel said his female counterpart added a sound that had been missing.

“I had been doing stuff by myself, but when we played together, something happened that never happened by myself. And once we played it live, the audience’s reaction proved it was a good thing,” he said.

The new sound the musicians found with each other was so important that they named their first full-length album March Forth, after the first day they played music together — March 4.

Kaiser said the title also signified the band’s new beginning.

Kaiser Cartel has changed its style over the years, building up its instrumentation and adding more technology to create a larger sound.

Kaiser said the duo used to play more “organic” music that was ignorant of technology but has since changed its repertoire.

“As we grow, we apply new challenges and a new limit,” Kaiser said. “We do it with two people, and there’s this goal of ours to make something sound huge with seemingly nothing — and it’s a challenge. It actually surprised us how well it worked sometimes.”

The band has also employed techniques for songwriting that contrast with its early days of playing together.

According to Cartel, the group started by just playing each other’s songs, but they now share in the process.

“Now we’re vibing together,” he said. “I’ll have, like, a whole song that’s almost finished, and she’ll add a piece, and visa versa.”

Kaiser said the perfect example of this was the conception of the song “Falling,” which emerged from one of Cartel’s ideas.

“It can’t be narrowed down into specific duties. We’re really flexible with the way we write,” Cartel said.

On their albums and throughout their live sets, the duties are similarly gray.

They share vocals, but Kaiser focuses on guitar and keyboard, while Cartel mixes drums with intermittent guitar. Meanwhile, a xylophone and other

synthetic sounds amplify the experience.

Rock Island, which is only available at their live shows and through their website, consists of three new songs and a cover of Lucinda Williams’ “Something about What Happens When We Talk.”

Kaiser Cartel’s ability to adapt has made the band one that not only surprises its audience, but offers mellow music that invites its listeners to intimately experience the songs.

More importantly, Kaiser Cartel appears never to stop traveling and making music.

With a seemingly neverending tour schedule and an additional set of new songs, the band doesn’t show any signs of slowing down yet.

Check out the band’s Myspace page here.