Providence-based band The Low Anthem play a kind of experimental folk that makes you wonder, “What the hell is that sound?” It’s a cell phone. Two, actually, held up to the microphone by frontman Ben Miller to create an interesting whirring tone. Jeff Prystowsky and Jocie Adams round out the trio, and help to man the menagerie of instruments that the band carts around from festival to festival. According to their MySpace, they are currently traveling with one WWI-era portable pump organ, one ‘73 Gibson J-50, a 3/4 scrapmetal drumkit, two clarinets, one German upright bass, one alto (E flat) horn, crotales, one Salvation Army electric and “enough harmonicas to summon a swarm of locusts.”

I met with Ben and Jeff (it was Jocie’s birthday—note the party hat in some of the photos—and she was spending time with family) before their set at the record (re)release show for their album, Oh My God Charlie Darwin. We hung out in a sweltering room (seriously, it was, like, 100 degrees in there) decked in movie posters and tucked behind the stage at the Brattle as the guys opened up to me about their influences, the beginnings of The Low Anthem and what is coming next.

OPENING ACT: THE TEAPARTY 10

What is your favorite breakfast cereal?

Jeff: Autumn Wheat

Ben: Apple Jacks

Who would you rather punch in the face? Mouth from The Goonies or Long Duk Dong from Sixteen Candles?

J: Who are those people?

B: I don’t know who either of those people are…

You guys gotta get up on your 80s movies…

If you were a kitchen appliance, what would you be?

J: Egg beater.

B: Toaster.

Jocie: This is like the Newlywed Game where you see if the answers match up.

If  The Low Anthem was a Muppet, what would you be?

J: …The drummer Muppet.

Animal?

J: Yeah, Animal.

If The Low Anthem woke up after a rough night with a tattoo, what would it be?

J: It would be a tattoo of the Ravenswood Wine symbol on the back of… on the small of your neck…is that the small of your neck?

The nape?

J: The nape.

What is your dance-around-in-your-underwear song?

B: Isn’t that a leading question…?

We’re not going to make you demonstrate…

B: Appalachian Spring. The first movement of Appalachian Spring.

Would you rather be a rodeo clown or a sumo wrestler?

B: A rodeo clown. For health reasons.

J: Sumo wrestler because Japanese food is awesome.

B: You can eat Japanese food and be in a rodeo.

If you were a kind of cheese, what would you be?

J: Sharp cheddar.

B: um… camembert.

If the Low Anthem was a particular style of facial hair, what would it be?

B: It is! [Points to Jeff]

J: Handlebar mustache.

What is your favorite word?

J: Lugubrious.

B: Timshel.

Timshel?

B: It’s a Hebrew word.

Oh.

THE MAIN EVENT: THE LOW ANTHEM TPB INTERVIEW

What are the events leading up to the creation of this band?

[Long pause….laughter]

Jeff: Uh…Ben and I met in college, at Brown, in the Fall of 2002. We started a band within a month and the band was a mixture of electronica, some classical music and pop music and was, well, way different from what we do now. There were many different members that rotated throughout the four years.

B: It was called Hi This Is Otis. We even had a gig once.

J: We did, yes.

B: Jeff and I played in many different bands throughout college. And when we graduated we decided, hey, let’s actually make some music that we’re proud of. Let’s try and get some gigs and play music professionally. Because, what could be more fun? And Jocie, we, uh, kidnapped her for a guerilla recording session on our first record, What the Crow Brings and it went beautifully. So we started having her more frequently come and sit in on different songs. And the rest is history, as they say.

What are some of your music influences? You all have different musical backgrounds so what kinds of inspiration do you each bring to the table?

B: Jocie came from a classical background, Jeff came from a jazz background. I came from more of a songwriting background.

What are you listening to now? Do you listen to the same music?

B: Well, we do now since we’re traveling in a van. We usually listen to whom ever is the most willful about what they want to listen to.

J: We really enjoyed Dylan’s Telltale Signs.

B: It’s his last bootleg.

J: Tom Waits’ Orphans. Similar idea—rare and unreleased songs.

Do you listen to any local bands? Boston- and/or Providence-based.

B: We do, yeah. Annie and the Beekeepers are a great band. They are good friends of ours, they are from Berklee. And she’s a great kind of country songwriter and they have cool arrangements with cello and upright bass. There’s a band called The Accident That Lead Me To The World. She’s from, I suppose, outside of Boston. They’re fantastic. They have clarinet and upright bass, banjo and guitar, beautiful harmonies. There’s a lot of good stuff from Boston.

J: The Slip. They’re a reincarnation of Surprising Mr. Davis.

B: The Slip has moved to Boston. They’re from Providence but they moved to Boston. They’re great.

So more about Boston… being based in Providence, are you guys in town often? What do you do here?

B: Boston seems to only have sports bars. I think it has probably more sports bars per capita than any other place in the world. However, there are a few wonderful little places in Boston that we’ve found, such as the Lizard Lounge. Toad is a great little bar for live music, and they have a lot really good stuff comes through there. They’ll have artists in residence that are just, like, playing on this tiny little stage and everybody’s getting wasted and just loving it. This is a beautiful theater, The Brattle. The Somerville Theater. Club Passim fills a certain niche.

Well you guys are doing a lot of touring… you’re here then you go to Glastonbury, Lalapalooza, Newport Folk Festival… a lot of festivals coming up.

B: We’re especially looking forward to the Newport Folk Fest, which has an amazing line-up of any festival I’ve seen. They have the best of the old stuff. Like they’re bringing Pete Seeger back and they have Joan Baez. Rambling Jack Elliot.

J: Gillian Welch.

B: David Rollins has his own band playing. Billy Bragg is playing. Mavis Staples is playing. And then they have all these great young bands like the Decemberists and…

J: Elvis Perkins.

B: …Elvis Perkins and Deer Tick. Fleet Foxes are playing. So it’s just the best of the old and iconized list, and the best of that really young energy.

Who are you most excited to share a festival stage with?

B: Neil Young?

J: We’re going to miss him, though.

B: …that’s a shame.

J: Gillian Welch. I love seeing him. Always.

B: Nick Cave’s playing. At Glastonbury.

J: We’ll miss him.

B: Dammit. We miss everyone. We just go to these festivals and we do interviews all the time…

Sorry. We’ll be at Newport Folk Festival too, but I’m bugging you now instead.

B: Rad.

So you’re re-releasing your record…what’s up with that?

B: The record we self-released in September and we just made a small run that we expected to sell from the stage, essentially in the few towns we were touring regularly. We were just shocked how publications started picking up on it and people started buying it like crazy from our website. That was the only place it was available so we were sending out envelopes everyday just from our post office. And thousands of copies of the record later, record labels became very interested in it. We were really interested in a record label necessarily, since we were able to sell our CD ourselves, but we hold Nonesuch Records in the highest regard and when we found out that they were interested in distributing the record, it seemed like the kind of chance that you don’t say no to. The artists that they represent are just some of the most amazing artists. From Emmie Lou Harris to Wilco to David Byrne. Every one of them is amazing. And we’re giving them a chance to distribute our record. Let’s see if they do a better job than we did.

So why are you having the release show in Boston?

B: Boston is one of the first towns anywhere that really embraced out music. On the first record we put out, most of the best touring we were doing was around the Boston area. There’s a great community here, around those places I mentioned—Toad, The Lizard Lounge—that comes out to see roots music and there’s no pretension about it, there’s nothing sceney about it.

J: The first show we sold out was at the Lizard Lounge.

B: We’ve always felt a special connection to this town.

J: I was actually just reminiscing with some people in the audience and they were talking about our first record, with the cereal boxes and how they still have them. When we first made What The Crow Brings…

B: We glued together cardboard that we cut from cereal boxes. Painstakingly with an exacto knife.

J: It was the craziest thing. Only 500 exist… 600?