Strolling along Kingsland Road in east London, Jesse Tabish shows no interest in the vintage clothes emporiums or charity shops that might engage a visiting American musician. Neither do the bars appear to hold any fascination. For this resident of Stillwater, Oklahoma, is instead gabbling madly about the fact he has been able to eat breakfast "at any time of the day. Breakfast here is great! We're eating a full English twice a day." On stage with his band Other Lives in London the week before, Tabish had sung the praises of the black pudding he had devoured that morning. "You probably have black pudding everywhere here!" he tells the crowd, as if the dish held the key to the magic kingdom.
It's Tabish's first time in the UK – he comes from a town in the vast plains of the midwest, famous only for being where the parking meter was invented – and he's in full kid-in-candy-store mode. "I've always wanted to come over here," he beams, cradling the first of several lunchtime espressos (it's breakfast time all over again). Recording a session at the BBC's Maida Vale studios has been another high point of the band's trip to rival black pudding. "That was cool," he says. "In my mind, I was imagining George Martin in the basement, conducting the orchestra."
So he's a Beatles nut, but Other Lives' horizons are not limited in the manner of Oasis. Minimal composer Steve Reich and Canadian instrumental post-rock ensemble Godspeed You! Black Emperor are among Tabish's primary influences. He has the straggly long hair and unkempt beard (only cellist Jenny Hsu is beardless in the band) that is virtually mandatory for practitioners of American rustic rock, but he's much more sound boffin than rock'n'roller. ("We're a pretty boring band when it comes to sex and drugs and rock'n'roll," guitarist Jonathan Mooney says. "In fact, we're none of these things.") Other Lives' brilliant new album, Tamer Animals, shares DNA with Midlake and Fleet Foxes but has a ravishing orchestral sweep. Swooning lead single For 12, named after Reich's For 18 Musicians – "I was trying to write an ensemble piece, but I totally failed and ended up with this," Tabish says – could be Radiohead's Pyramid Song scored by Ennio Morricone. In other words, US alt-rock has finally thrown up something new, mysterious and cliche-free.
Other Lives' origins in 2003, as an instrumental band named Kunek, underline the distance between them and their peers. "I still mostly listen to instrumental music," Tabish says. "It has a meditative quality that allows the listener to be more engaged, whereas a pop song usually tells you how to feel and what the story is. But I'm not interested in duplicating late 20th-century minimalism. I want to bring it into my world." He stops short of calling himself a composer, "because it's something I still aspire to. But I do write for six to 12 instruments, which means a lot of interplay and movement that doesn't rely on a vocal line. And then you have to properly record the arrangements to get the right dimension, and have everything breathe. That takes time. Tamer Animals took us 16 months, working every day."
Mooney, who was Tabish's studio foil throughout the process, says the pair lived and worked together the whole time, like brothers. "We didn't always agree but we had a common goal, something we'd talked about for years. Any argument we had, we said our piece and moved on like it never happened, as brothers do. And I reckon we accomplished 70% of our goals."
Tabish says the album was recorded "note by note, not as a band". So what of the other members, called in to play as and when? "It's a cliche but we have our other lives too," says Hsu, who went travelling while Mooney and Tabish recorded. Drummer Colby Owens returned to college and bassist John Onstott moonlighted with other bands. Playing live, though, Other Lives are a finely meshed ensemble, swapping instruments between and during songs. Everyone appears to play two instruments simultaneously; even Owens occasionally wields four drumsticks of varying thickness. Yet the band are touring novices. "We only played locally for the first five years," Tabish recalls. "I wasn't sure what I wanted from a band but I knew writing music was paramount. We did tour for eight months after the first Other Lives album, but I didn't like the way the songs were presented. It wasn't interesting and dimensional enough. So I decided to just write, full force, which became Tamer Animals. But playing as a band and touring have been great because we can bring the album to life. Our two worlds have collided."
Short and slight, with nervy eyes and a winning smile, Tabish resembles a boffin; only the white lab coat is missing. He used to live in his studio until his landlord found out; before then, he lived in "this little white house", according to Onstott, "with just a bed and piano in it". The studio seemed a natural enough place to move to for someone obsessed with music. "When Jesse takes a break," Owens says, "he writes. But that's why the music's so good, because there's so much thought put into it."
Despite his perfectionism, Tabish says he still values spontaneity. When Other Lives have to make difficult decisions, they play a game called What Would Neil Young Say? "Neil comes from the real, the feeling, what he calls 'the spook'," Tabish explains. "It's important to have those moments on the fly." And then you presumably work on the result for months on end? "Yes! You can really kill an idea and I've been there so many times."
For all his discipline, Tabish was not a success at school, where Hsu and Owens were in the year above and Mooney the year below. He ended up in "learning disability classes" and says he came close to dropping out. "I loved American history but that was it. I knew I wanted to write music." Equally surprising is the fact Tabish only had piano lessons for a year (when he was 10) and taught himself guitar before teaching others at Daddy O's Music in Stillwater. "I really wanted the job, so I just faked it at first. I taught there for nine years so I learned music theory as I went."
Kunek came together at the Bohemian Lounge on Main Street. "It was the only place to go," Hsu says. "They'd stay open till 4am, playing Portishead, Sigur Rós, whatever we liked really, because we knew the owner." But not even Stillwater's university campus could keep the place in business. "There's no culture there," Tabish sighs. "But staying has worked to our benefit. We've survived as a band for this long, without success, because we have no distractions."
"And we have the freedom to spend time on other things besides working because the rent is so cheap," Mooney adds.
Kunek became Other Lives after their 2006 album, Flight of the Flynns, when Tabish wanted a fresh start. He was already working with vocals, "to add the human touch, and because I'd be humming counter-melodies as I wrote, say, a piano piece, and syllables and words would come out. That's where the Neil Young instinct comes in; to go with your gut." At first Tabish hated singing so much it brought him to tears. He got over it, though, and if he doesn't exude Gallagheresque swagger, he's comfortable enough to chat to audiences about black pudding. Lyrically, it's less exotic food and more his love of American history that seeps through. "The broader theme to Tamer Animals is humans and their relationships to nature. Like the track Old Statues, which says all man-made structures will eventually crumble and nature will reclaim its place. But we're not commenting, just observing."
As Sigur Rós – another of Tabish's declared influences – are to Iceland with their glacial grandeur, so Other Lives are to Oklahoma, with western tinges to the music representing the surrounding prairie. Was it an accident or was Tabish just a Bonanza fan? "More like Gunsmoke! That desolate landscape inspires, and it's where I live. And though I swear it wasn't conscious on my part, minimal classical music lends itself to that landscape. The western also embodies the American individual, the Woody Guthrie lone-cowboy type who makes his own rules. And that was the attitude of minimal composers such as Reich and John Cage. These guys were out west, making music on their own terms after being kicked out of college for being individuals."
Rather than go west at this juncture, the band are taking the opportunity to go east. It's not just two English breakfasts a day, but currently Indian food every night. After a performance at the Rough Trade shop in London's East End, Mooney admits they're not going on a pub crawl or seeing another band; instead, they're booked into a curry house around the corner. People have said food is the new rock'n'roll for a while now, but Other Lives appear to have taken them at their word.
Tamer Animals is out now on Play It Again Sam. Other Lives tour the UK from 18 October. Details: otherlives.com
