Balkan folk, Gallic humour, Mexican detours: it’s the unique clash of sounds that makes Zach Condon’s band Beirut special
WHEN ZACH CONDON released his debut album, in 2006, it’s safe to say he wasn’t exactly prepared for success. As a trumpet-playing teenager living at home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with his parents, he made the album in his bedroom and feared it sounded like something that might appeal only to inhabitants of a remote Balkan village. Or Borat. There are no electric guitars, 4/4 rock beats or emo posing; instead, the album is a life-affirming collision of folksy instruments and marching beats, topped with a Jacques Brel-style sense of back-alley irony.
To seal the album's lack of marketability, Condon titled it Gulag Orkestarand pressed just 500 copies. And he named his band Beirut. Not the actions of someone seeking Justin Bieber levels of teen adulation.
But word got around on the electronic bush telegraph that a new musical shaman had arrived. Condon found himself feted by bloggers, indieheads and industry types, all charmed by Beiruit’s pungent clash of sounds.
Beirut made their New York debut in front of an expectant crowd at the Knitting Factory – and came undone. The music felt like an ill-fitting costume, and Condon’s Balkan musical journey seemed like a fool’s errand.
“I did worry whether the novelty of the music had worn off,” he says. “And I was worried about not being taken seriously, because to me this wasn’t just an exercise in sound: it came from my love of brass.”
While the other kids in his home town were picking up guitars, young Zach picked up a trumpet and was delighted with the explosive sound he got out of it. For a shy teenager who craved attention, the trumpet was the perfect show-stopper. He dropped out of school at 16 and worked for a time at a local movie theatre that played only foreign films. That was where he discovered the Balkan soundtracks to movies by such directors as Emir Kusturica.
“When you play trumpet as a teenager you end up going to jazz,” he says, “but I got to hear it being played by a Balkan folk band, and it’s completely different. To hear this beautiful instrument being played by some guy as if it was his last day on earth – that blew me away.”
Four years on from his shaky start, Condon has shed the teenage awkwardness and become comfortable on stage. His group are now a sharply honed band of musical gypsies who can hold their own equally in a dancehall in Macedonia, a wedding in Mexico or a hot afternoon at the Coachella festival.
They will be turning Dublin's Tripod into a Balkan barn dance this Tuesday, one of the final dates on their European tour. "I feel like I've crystallised the Beirut sound," says Condon. "It's not Balkan and it's not indie. I've come to the realisation that I have found my own voice. The first album wore all its references boldly on its sleeve, but I've kind of distanced myself from that since then. There's a lot more to the music now, and I've changed a lot too. But that said, I thoroughly enjoyed making Gulag– it's a good kind of drunken romp."
Condon followed up Gulag with the Lon GislandEP (named after a locale not a million miles east of Manhattan), and then a second album, The Flying Club Cup, in which he explored his love of things Gallic. This showed he was becoming adept at weaving different cultures into his sound without going woolly. "The first album was like broken glass. The second album was me picking up the pieces of glass, reassembling my mind."
Still, the thrill was almost gone in April 2008 when Condon, overworked and overwhelmed, decided to cancel the band's scheduled European tour and instead set off on another musical journey. It took him to Oaxaca and the sound of a Mexican funeral band. The resulting EP, March of the Zapotec, was bizarrely backed with synth-poppy songs he'd worked on in previous band Realpeople. It was a weird mash-up, even for Condon – back to the bedroom with a detour south.
"After Flying Club Cup, I felt I'd reached a plateau," he says. "I just automatically did the entire album in 3/4 time – it had just become too systematic. I tried to write new material, but I'd gotten myself stuck in one groove. I needed to shake it up by doing something completely different, so I went back to those songs I did as a teenager. And it worked."
For Condon, his beloved trumpet will continue to be the driving force behind Beirut. “There’s something pure about a brass instrument, the look and feel of it. And playing the trumpet is like playing no other instrument: you’re singing through it.”
