Noisy rock act Sleigh Bells rose to fame in the indie rock world with its 2010 record Treats. Now on the road supporting its third full-length record, Bitter Rivals, the band hits Raleigh on Wednesday. Staff writer Lily Escobar talked to Derek Miller about the band’s latest record and his own Tar Heel fandom.
DIVERSIONS: What was the creative process like behind Bitter Rivals?
DEREK MILLER: It was much more collaborative. The first two records — well, especially the first record, I had a lot of it completed before I even met Alexis (Krauss). Reign of Terror was a little more collaborative, but the first two were still essentially mine.
DIVE: Are there any songs that felt the most natural or challenging to produce?
DM: Well you know actually the last two songs are good examples — the last song on Bitter Rivals is a song called “Love Sick.” That happened very quickly — maybe a couple of hours. You know, not that any of the others were really frustrating but sometimes I’ll sort of feel around in the dark a little bit longer on a few of them.
But “24” was one of those where I sort of — well, there were a couple of different verses of that song on different arrangements, different production aesthetics before I settled on the one that you hear on the record.
But, it was never really frustrating — that’s equally as exciting as sort of spending a couple of days chasing sounds. I love doing that.
DIVE: Who are your biggest influences?
DM: Quincey Jones, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, Mutt Lange, Stanley Kubrick, Steven Spielberg — I have to say The Neptunes and newer stuff. In terms of current producers, there’s an LA label called Fade to Mind, which is home to an L.A. via Brooklyn producer named Kingdom. He’s really incredible.
His production work is very alien but still kind of has a warmth to it. It’s really good.
And then there’s sort of a U.K. version of that called Night Slugs — well, not version but they’re good friends.
DM: I have a question, are you a UNC basketball fan at all?
DIVE: Yes.
DM: One of our oldest friends, who’s also our manager, has family that lives in Chapel Hill. They’re massive Tar Heel fans up in the Dean Dome.
I saw UNC beat Duke in the Dean Dome and it was incredible. And I’m a big Roy Williams fan and I’m a big Michael Jordan fan as well.
I’m an LSU Tigers fan because that’s where everyone in my family went, but yeah, I’m secretly a little bit of a Tar Heels fan. Roy Williams wrote a book called “Hard Work” and it was pretty awesome. I was reading that when we were recording.
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