At this point, no one could blame Real Estate for feeling burned out. In the last six years, the acclaimed New Jersey-based indie rock band has released three albums, one EP and toured extensively around the world. For a group known for a peaceful and breezy aesthetic, it gets very little time to sit back and relax.
Real Estate’s latest release, Atlas, is full of subtle (and a few not-so-subtle) hints that the touring life might just be starting to get to them. Whether it’s the sad delivery of the line, “We’re not getting any closer/ You’re too many miles away” from album opener “Talking Backwards” or the homesick love-note hook on “Had to Hear,” it’s easy to sense that fatigue is setting in.
It’s that same sense of weariness that makes Atlas Real Estate’s most interesting release to date. The band may be tired, but they haven’t given up on music. Even so, there’s a sense that, like many in the entertainment industry, the members of Real Estate have put their personal lives on hold to make other people happy; the down-but-not-out persistence of Atlas is a testament to their resolve.
Now, in the seventh month of a near-constant 2014 touring cycle, Real Estate returns to Athens. On the heels of the critical success of Days, their previous full-length, singer and guitarist Martin Courtney says he had a humble if not slightly cynical view of their return.
“I tend to be on the more pessimistic side when thinking about this kind of stuff,” he says. “I went into this album process just kind of hoping that people even wanted a new record from us: ‘It’s been so long since Days came out, I hope people even still care about us’.”
Despite Courtney’s hesitation, Atlas has been the band’s best-selling and most well-received album of its career. Courtney admits the album could appear to some as more commercial-friendly or pop-conscious than the group’s previous work.
“We had way more songs to pick from going into this record—we whittled it down from 17 songs to 10. I really wanted it to be 10 songs. I think the songs are maybe a little more stand-alone single-ish this time around, but we still went into this thinking foremost about how it would work as a whole album.”
Part of the reason for the album’s success, no doubt, is because while it’s easy to find a lot of bands that try their best to sound like Real Estate these days, there’s no one else out there who can really recreate the perpetually chilled-out atmosphere the group brings to the table.
“We really don’t think about trying to create the ‘Real Estate sound’ when writing songs,” says Courtney, who takes a moment to think before rewording his answer. “I think we do definitely have an aesthetic, but I think that just comes from us playing together for so long. There are certain styles that come from each member when we write songs separately that we try to mold into a certain, consistent tone when we get in the studio together.”
When reflecting on the current tour, Courtney is in higher spirits than the themes on Atlas might suggest. “It’s been good. We went into this not wanting to do much touring, because on the last record we toured a lot. It’s been fun, though.”
Not that there haven’t been hardships. In addition to a particularly tiring showcase at SXSW, Courtney describes the difficulties of working the festival circuit. “We did a part of the tour in Europe, and it was all festivals, so we were in a plane every single day. We’re still in and out of planes going to a bunch of festivals. It’s a lot of craziness, we get tired of it sometimes.”
But the band members are big fans of Athens, and while they’ve played hundreds of shows since, their last performance here still lingers on their minds. “I like Athens a lot,” says Courtney. “I’ve actually thought about moving there. I don’t know anybody there, though. I wish I did. We’re all excited to go back. It was a conscious choice to play 40 Watt again; we were still talking about our last show there months after the fact. For this tour, we were going back and forth between that and the Georgia Theatre, but we thought, at least for now, playing the 40 Watt again would make for a better show.”
And for anyone worried about the band’s energy level, Courtney says you don’t need to fret. “Somehow, we tend to play better shows when we’re jet-lagged—as long as the audience can help get our energy up. I’m confident that this show will be one of our best.”
WHO: Real Estate, Regal Degal
WHERE: 40 Watt Club
WHEN: Saturday, Sept. 20, 9 p.m.
HOW MUCH: $19 (adv.), $21 (door)
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