Alex Schaaf of Yellow Ostrich - Photo Credit smulligannn and Flickr

On a cold April night in Minneapolis, a small crowd gathers at the 400 Bar off of Cedar Avenue to listen to Blair and Yellow Ostrich, two bands from New York City that are sweeping through the area on a month-long tour around the country. Alex Schaaf, a tall, thin man in his twenties, stands near the back of the seating area, watching the crowd with his arms folded across his chest. Blair begins to play, the lead singer’s somewhat airy voice and dream-pop guitar filling the room. People nod in agreement with her as Schaaf slips quietly to the back of the bar, sitting at a merchandise table filled with CDs.

Schaaf, a Wisconsin native, is the frontman for his band Yellow Ostrich, a venture that has grown from a one-man band into a three-man operation. Along with Michael Tapper of Bishop Allen and Jon Natchez of Beirut, Schaaf has been able to expand his reach beyond simple layer-building and vocalizations into the realm of collaboration, drums, bass and horns.

Yellow Ostrich is perhaps most known for the most recent album The Mistress, featuring songs such as Whale, Hold On and Slow Paddle. The range of the music goes from soft, sweeping melodies that pay homage to Schaaf’s background as a choir singer in his formative years to upbeat and springy, such as can be found in Whale, an energy-filled a cappella song layered with raw drum beats and scratchy undertones. When listening, one might notice the constant looping effect that transforms a song from a single player to a room full of perfectly harmonized voices, creating an almost magical effect that is increasingly being used by musicians across the board.

Back in later January I had the chance to correspond with Schaaf about his musical endeavors. Because of distance and time issues, Scaaf agreed to e-mail me a set of responses to some questions I had for him. Check out his responses below.

Every musician can name off a list of “inspirations” that come from early-life exposure, but I’m curious about the kind of music you listen to currently. What is on your mp3 player right now? What vinyls do you have sitting around? What is your favorite record store in your area?

My listening habits are usually formed by short intense phases, where I listen to only one band/artist for a couple of weeks, get completely immersed in their work, and then move on.  The last few months have seen phases of Bob Dylan, Neutral Milk Hotel, Brian Eno, Sharon Van Etten, Talking Heads and more.  generally I’ve been listening to older artists lately, haven’t listened to any new music in a while, which is kind of intentional I suppose.  Lately I’ve been obsessed with songs, in the sense of lyrics and song structures taking precedence over sounds and production.  so Dylan has been right up my alley lately.   Also I just got this album by the Bulgarian State Radio & Television Female Choir called Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares and it’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard.  Bulgarian voices are amazing, they can do little trills and slides that most American singers can never do.

The name Yellow Ostrich puts a unique image in listener’s heads. Can you explain how you came to choose that name?

Mostly just because of that, the image.  I really didn’t think about it too much, I just needed a name after I recorded the first album, and that one seemed cool.  I like how it’s something that doesn’t really exist, but it sounds like it does or should.

What do you predict for the Brooklyn music scene in the next five to ten years? Do you plan on sticking around for a while?

I have no idea, I’m a pretty newcomer to the Brooklyn scene so it’s hard to tell where it will go.  Maybe bands will run out of 60s, 70s, 80s or 90s bands to call influences, so they’ll have to go back even further.  I predict a rise in Beethoven-inspired bands that only play covers of songs from pre-1900.

Would you consider yourself primarily a solo artist, or have you begun to form a partnership with your current drummer, Michael Tapper? Do the two of you have plans to work together in the near and distant future?

Yellow Ostrich is definitely a band now.  We just added Jon Natchez, who is playing bass and horns.  It’s a much fuller sound, and we’re working really well together, so it’s become more of an official band.  I’ll still probably write all of the songs and lead the general direction of the music, but in terms of everything being a democratic process I think that’s how it will be.

Most of your music is fairly upbeat and positive. Would you consider yourself to be a mostly positive person, about both music and life in general?

I’d say I’m pretty positive.  I tend not to focus on bad things, sometimes to a fault.  But I think that we’ve only got so much time here, it’s not really worth dwelling on things that don’t make you happy.

With that said, I’m very interested in exploring the darker side of things with a lot of my songs.  I think as a person I’m pretty positive, but as a songwriter not as much, because I think writing songs is a way for me to stop ignoring the bad things going on, and to take them full on.  I also think that makes songs more interesting, and more easy to relate to from a listener’s perspective.  Even some songs on The Mistress are, I think, deceptively sad.  Like Hold On, i’ve seen that called “adorable” and a “love song” but really I think it’s one of the sadder songs on the album.  I know that the music is generally upbeat so I know why people would just get a purely happy vibe out of most things, and that’s totally fine, I have no problem with people thinking whatever they want to think, but for me personally it’s more interesting to have songs that don’t just focus on the positive in life.

Are there any other up-and-coming bands you’ve heard of and liked over the past 6 months the you believe deserve some recognition?

The band Young Man, from Chicago, is really great.  It’s one guy who recorded an EP a few months ago and then Frenchkiss put it out, and now he’s got a killer live band.  But besides him, there’s tons of great young bands just like us that are up-and-coming, I’m just blanking at the moment.

Yellow Ostrich will be touring the East coast starting May 30th and running until June 6th. Find the downloadable version of their music here.