Easygoing band Beirut gains momentum

Paul Collins, far right, says Beirut is a pop band, despite descriptions otherwise. Singer-songwriter Zach Condon, second from right, formed the group in Santa Fe, N.M.

The band Beirut does not make Balkan or gypsy music.

"Zach was very inspired by that music, but we've never done a song in one of those time signatures ... or never really done anything like that," says Beirut bassist Paul Collins. "Maybe the first album was kind of making a nod to that. Ever since then it's just been more and more into the pop-music realm. We're just a pop group."

Beirut is a pop group that has quietly been gaining a dedicated following since the album "Gulag Orkestar" was released in 2006.

"This year has been fantastic," says Collins. "It's been exciting and it's a nice progression. Every time we go on tour we get better and tighter."

The project grew from recordings singer-songwriter Zach Condon made in his bedroom while living in New Mexico and attending college. Those recordings made up the bulk of "Guglag Orkestar," which was released on a small label and gained rave reviews and an enthusiastic following on the indie music circuit.

The band was formed after the first album was recorded.

"(Accordionist) Perrin Cloutier, (drummer) Nick Petree and I, along, of course, with Zach were the original live band," says Collins. "When we first went to South By Southwest (the Austin, Texas, music festival) it was just the four of us trying to get a set together. Then we moved to New York and the band expanded considerably."

The transition from being a simply a group that executed Condon's vision to a larger collaborative group was, Collins says, "pretty crazy."

"It was a lot of ideas being thrown out there and having to come up with things very quickly. Tons of ideas. Tons of excitement. Lot of drinking. It was a total whirlwind. It's almost more difficult to assert your ideas in a situation like that because things get lost. As time has gone on and the band has gotten smaller, the parts we've come up with are far more direct. The ideas are much more complete now and well-rounded."

Roles changed as well. When the group started Collins was playing ukulele, keyboard and trombone. He has since moved almost exclusively to stand-up bass and electric bass. He plays guitar in the group Soft Landing with Beirut co-member Cloutier.

Collins grew up in Hamilton, Ore., and had played in a series of local punk bands. Of course he'd listened to Nirvana, but, he says, it was Oregon-based singer-songwriter Elliot Smith who made the deepest impression on him.

Collins says touring with Beirut for the first time was an eye-opener.

"What didn't surprise me?" says Collins. "I'd barely traveled anywhere other than Washington, D.C., when I was a kid and went with a school group. I'd never been to Europe. I'd never seen anything other than New Mexico and Oregon."

Beirut's most recent album, "Rip Tide," was released in August.

"With this record Zach went upstate by himself and demo'd out a bunch of songs," says Collins. "So he had a pretty good idea of what he wanted for a bass line, how he wanted drums to sound, what the main melodies were. He'd fleshed them out so that they'd sound pretty complete. But then on the song 'Port of Call' he just came in with a ukulele chord progression and then we and our producer Griffin Rodriguez wrote and arranged that song in two days in the studio. Sometimes we come up with tons of stuff new and sometimes it just works the way Zach demo'd it."

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