Talk It Out

On the couch with folk rockers Girlyman.

by John Vettese

I SAW THE SIGN: Girlyman's latest, Joyful Sign, is a bit more rock and a little less political than the band's previous albums. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Of the many changes afoot at Camp Girlyman, drums are the ones you notice right away. As in now there are some. Functioning as a hard-touring, harmonizing new folk act since 2002, the Brooklyn acoustic trio of Nate Borofsky (baritone guitar), Ty Greenstein (acoustic guitar/djembe) and Doris Muramatsu (acoustic guitar/banjo) decided while writing the new Joyful Sign that they could use a bit more rhythm. Enter Joe Chellman, a stickman and friend from Chicago, who helped Girlyman craft an aesthetic growth to complement the personal growth they were writing songs about. On the phone from her new digs in Atlanta, Greenstein discusses this, apartment irritations, therapy and silly names.

City Paper: It's strange to say, but Joyful Sign almost feels "rock." Songs move faster and use full drum kit instead of just the djembe you played before. What brought about the change?

Ty Greenstein: There's a certain energy in our live show that can be hard to get across on record. In our earlier recordings, we just used hand percussion and baritone guitar as our rhythm section, which is really effective live, but that doesn't always carry over. So we added a bass guitar and a drum kit, and we're all really excited by how it sounds. It's different from anything we've done so far. None of us were interested in a straightforward drum sound, but we had a feeling [Joe] was going to be a good fit. It's an extension of what I do with my djembe, and we orchestrate it like we'd orchestrate our voices and instruments.

CP: The first Girlyman album, Remember Who I Am, was introspective, while Little Star was more topical, discussing gender roles on "Young James Dean" and the war on "Commander" and "Soldiers." Would you say Joyful Sign is back to introspection, or are you just being more subtle with your views?

TG: I never feel like we know what we're going to write when we write it. We tend to write about whatever is preoccupying us at the moment, and at the time, we were getting ready to make a big move in our lives. We all lived together in an apartment in Brooklyn for six years, and we realized that if we wanted to keep being in a band, that was going to have to change. So leaving became part of our songs. The topical stuff hasn't really disappeared — we wrote some political songs that didn't make it on this album, maybe they'll be on the next one — but as a whole, these are the songs that fit best together, and they wound up being more personal. But hopefully not too naval-gazing. We still want them to be something people can relate to.

CP: A band living together is pretty impressive. How'd you make it work for so long?

HALF OFF DEPOT

Why live life at full price?

TG: In a word — therapy. Seriously, in New York we actually had a band therapist, and it really helped. The three of us were close friends for so long. That's why we moved in together; the band evolved out of the living situation, not the other way around, and it was important to us the whole time that the friendships not fall apart, because we knew if the friendships fell apart, the band would be next. So all those interpersonal irritations, things that usually break up bands, we brought them up, and as uncomfortable as that was, it was helpful to do around somebody who could help us problem-solve.

CP: Nate said in early interviews that you chose Girlyman as a band name because it was the silliest thing you could think of at a time when you wanted to enjoy making music. Has that changed? Do you ever regret that decision?

TG: It's funny, but the name keeps us real. There are times when I wonder if doors have been closed to us because of the name. I'm sure there have been. People have come up to us at shows and said, "I didn't think I would like you because of your name, but I did." But I do think that when we start to take things really overly seriously, we just look at each other and say, "You guys, we're called Girlyman. We should probably just have fun."

(j_vettese@citypaper.net)

Tue., Nov. 6, 8 p.m., $15, Tin Angel, 20 S. Second St., 215-928-0770, www.tinangel.com.