In the midst of post-World War II happiness in 1950, Remy Zero - real name Remy Boligee - was born in Chelsea, Ala. Remy left home and made his way to Birmingham, where he worked unloading trains and soon found a home in a run-down shack. With newfound friend, Sam Bruno, Remy recorded several songs on a reel-to-reel tape recorder. Passed down through family friends, the songs soon inspired a young musician named Shelby Tate, who formed a band with his brother, Cinjun, and a few of their local friends.
\n\nThis story, though used by the band Remy Zero as their \"official\" biography, is completely false.
\n\n\"That came from red wine and a lot of time,\" admitted Cinjun Tate, the band's lead singer.
\n\nIt's an important note to make, though, as Remy Zero has never been an easy band to figure out. And what they do or where they're going is just about anyone's guess. After speaking with Cinjun Tate for a while, you realize the band is nothing if not a bundle of ideas and communication. And while a fabricated story explaining their roots may be simpler than the actual truth, it almost makes more sense that this imaginative group of musicians would insist on passing the \"mythology\" off as fact. At least until you talk to them, that is.
\n\nThe Tate brothers did grow up in a very unconventional home, one that nurtured a drive for off-the-wall sounds and experiments.
\n\n\"We grew up in a really weird situation. I quit school in seventh grade, [Shelby] quit for a while and we had this home where our parents did poetry in the '60s,\" Cinjun Tate said.
\n\nMinus the wonderful, rich details of the \"real\" Remy Zero, the band did form in Birmingham. It's an unusual home for a band that creates emotionally driven art-rock with a nod to European noise. But in a way, the band would have never happened without their Alabama address.
\n\n\"The eyes of the world aren't on Alabama,\" Tate said. \"You definitely get this gestation or growth period. We're all very affected by the environment we exist in. Like-minded people really stand out. So it's really easy to look across the way and see someone reading a good book or listening to a good album. And you just kind of latch on to those people.\"
\n\nThe five-piece band latched on to one another, and after a few years of making music, they released their major label debut, Remy Zero, on DGC. Oddly enough, the complex album must have been inspired by Radiohead's influential OK Computer, except that OK Computer wasn't released until six months later. It was vastly ahead of its time and a little over the heads of pop music ears. But they developed a strong following and ended up touring with Radiohead.
\n\nTheir second album, Villa Elaine, was released in 1998 with greater attention and high expectations. But when Universal Music bought DGC, everything fell apart and the band became one of many great bands without a label. They didn't fret, however.
\n\n\"We're going to be making music one way or the other,\" Tate said, admitting that the band realized they still need a label to help convey their messages. \"You do get this drive that you want to communicate with people. For me, being a vocalist, I have to explain something to someone. I was consciously trying to reach out and tell a story instead of diving inward.\"
\n\nThe need for the band to reach out and touch someone - anyone, everyone - soon led to a deal with Elektra Records. And that in turn led to the creation of their third album, The Golden Hum. The new record is Remy Zero's most focused and personal ever. It's perhaps because of changing temperatures in the world around them or changing temperatures in their own lives.
\n\n\"We started one record, and three people got married. We finished another one, and three people were divorced,\" Tate said. His divorce was the most high-profile, when he and television star Alyssa Milano ended their very brief nuptials. Tate didn't want to discuss the marriage's end, but he did allude to its demise by fully explaining how balancing your rock-star life with your human needs can be rough.
\n\n\"It's definitely a Gemini nature in me. The balance is something that everyone has to work on. It's kind of hard because we live such a crazy life,\" he said.
\n\nRemy Zero is a band willing to work out any internal, mental or emotional difficulties. They're a tough band full of big thinkers, and as Cinjun Tate admitted, \"Gandhi's my idol.\" So when they released their record Sept. 18, they knew the world around them was very different from what they had expected.
\n\n\"It definitely shifts the excitement [of releasing a new album]. The good thing is, honestly, that the three-dimensional or ego aspect of it is pretty much non-existent,\" he said. \"The main focus of my life is to meditate, so you have to do that. You can't wonder what Soundscan is doing; you just don't care.\"
\n\nTate also hopes that fans can hear their open-minded and peaceful rock, and gain a sense of understanding or comfort.
\n\n\"As long as I can still hear it and think that I was trying to say something from a true part of myself, maybe in some way that song can maybe resonate with someone,\" he said, noting there are few better avenues to explore this need to communicate than in the live concert setting.
\n\n\"When you're playing live, the greatest thing is that you get instant communication. Sometimes, people aren't aware that every person is 100 percent the whole show. Everybody, what they bring to it, the willingness to listen or lack of it. It's neither negative or positive, but it's energy that we have to deal with,\" he said, hardly stopping to catch his breath.
\n\n\"If you want to tell a story, how do you tell a story? I think before going out, we try to have a focus and some belief that we're going to try and uplift something. As silly as it sounds, it's a belief that everyone would do the same in terms of communication. We're just doing it amplified. It's just a matter of when I play a song for someone, I want in some way everyone to be lifted up. I want some kind of resonance. I want somebody to be inspired or mad, or I want somebody to hate it or love it. You get that reaction and we're excited every time we play.\"
\n\nRemy Zero is traveling with Scottish rock band Travis, another group known for their Radiohead comparisons. Much to both bands' surprise, though, the similarities didn't end with music media classifications.
\n\n\"That band is like our best friends. These guys are like our Scottish doppelgangers. Tragically, sometimes musicians connect or don't connect, [but] they're literally our best friends,\" he said.
\n\nThis should be evident purely because the Travis and Remy Zero concert bill bears a striking resemblance to a bill that toured last fall: Travis and Remy Zero. They like to tour together, and Tate and Travis frontman Fran Healy hang out more often than not.
\n\nDuring one late-night conversation, Healy and Tate made a friendly deal that resulted in a new song for both bands' new albums. It was an ordinary long-distance communication that brought out the best in both musicians.
\n\n\"Franny was on the phone for hours one night; he was in Paris or Amsterdam. And we talked and talked, and he said, 'Let's do an experiment. You go away and write a song, and I'll go away and write a song. And we'll come back in the morning and we'll play it for each other,'\" Tate said.
\n\nHealy came back with \"The Cage,\" a beautiful and painful song about losing someone you love. The song was so strong that Travis included it on their latest release, The Invisible Band. Tate was floored and a little embarrassed because his song wasn't complete. It soon was, becoming \"I'm Not Afraid\" on The Golden Hum. Both songs communicate a message about losing love and finding love. And it's in the greater strength of the what comes from an album - making it and listening to it - that gives Remy Zero a brighter hope to hold onto as a band, no matter the crisis in their personal lives or in their nation.
\n\n\"Music, in general, has been the thing amidst any tragedy, any situation. Happy or sad, music is a constant in our lives,\" Tate said. \"As long as you put your main focus on what you do with your life, music is just a fun thing that happens.\"
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