Sean Altman: No Accompaniment Needed

By: David Schultz

This may surprise you, but you know Sean Altman. You may not realize that you do, but the odds are you have seen him on stage or TV as a member of Rockapella, or you may have seen him on PBS singing the catchy theme he penned for Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego, or you may have seen him serenading allergy sufferers in TV commercials as a member of The Astelins, or you may have heard the award-winning songwriter on NPR Radio's Fresh Air With Terry Gross singing "They Tried To Kill Us (We Survived, Let's Eat)" as one half of What I Like About Jew. Whether you recall his name, at some point in time, you've probably welcomed Sean Altman into your home and enjoyed the visit.

A graduate of Brown University, Altman is nowhere near as zany and goofy as his stage persona, album covers or web site would lead you to believe. Prior to taking What I Like About Jew on its first tour of the West coast, Altman sat down with Earvolution to talk about his current projects, provide insight into the world of a capella music and discuss The GrooveBarbers' metamorphosis into The Astelins.

Altman's first brush with success came while a member of the hip a capella quartet, Rockapella, a group Altman co-founded with his fellow Ivy Leaguers Steve Keyes, Elliott Kerman and Charley Evett. Rockapella's vibe differed from the generic garden variety a capella group. "When most people think of a capella, they wonder, 'Can you sing 'My Girl' or 'Under The Boardwalk?''" explains Altman. "Any group can do that. We had a sound that wasn't just linked to the history of a capella. We were doing truly original music that happened to be a capella and we had our own voice." Having appeared on stage with Billy Joel, Sting and Don Henley, Rockapella set themselves apart from the peers with their own headlining performances. "Peculiar to a capella is that there is a novelty appeal of about three minutes, which conveniently is the length of your average pop song," reveals Altman. "Rockapella's success was that we could sustain the interest over the course of an entire show." As one of the group's main songwriters, Altman, with a wink, made sure to point out that Rockapella's success also came as the result of "good songwriting."

Given Rockapella's role in expanding the boundaries and transforming the public's conception of a capella music, Altman remains modest and humble when discussing his time in the group recognized most often as the house "band" on PBS' Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego. Instead of the stereotypical self-adulatory explanations for Rockapella's early success, Altman feels it was "absolutely attributable to the fact that modern a capella, doing rock music a capella, was just starting to come into its own in the late eighties."

Rockapella's a capella singing of rock music caught the attention of Spike Lee and the director featured the foursome in his PBS documentary Do It A Capella. The documentary placed the rock-minded a capella group alongside such other genre expanding a capella groups like The Persuasions, Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Take 6. Altman points to Lee's documentary as a turning point for the acceptance of a capella music. "Up until that point, people thought a capella, they thought old style doo-wop or barber shop," explains Altman. "The documentary provided a snapshot of contemporary a capella, a real eye-opener."

Altman possesses a firm grasp of the misconceptions that lead towards a capella music being narrowly pigeonholed. "A capella music, all it is, is an instrumentation. Anyone asking 'do you like a capella music?' is asking the equivalent of 'do you like guitar music or violin music?'" Altman explains animatedly. "A capella music isn't a style in the way that pop, rock or hip-hop are styles; because any style of music can be done a capella. To compare Rockapella to Manhattan Transfer wouldn't be fair because they are different styles of music; they just use the same instrumentation."

Rockapella's appearance in the documentary caught the attention of PBS producers putting together the pre-teen geography-based game show Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego and they asked Rockapella to audition for the role of the house band. "Next thing you know, we're on television every day at 5:00," Altman states matter-of-factly. "We went from being an unknown club act in New York doing shows for 100 people at the Bottom Line to being a nationally known family act within a year." The reason for the increased attention focused on Rockapella never puzzled Altman. "Television is a powerful medium."

Altman and Rockapella remained part of the PBS children’s series from 1991 through 1996. "Ironically, that's the highlight of the group's exposure,” says Altman with a tinge of regret. During that same time period, Rockapella had a successful career in Japan, touring the Land Of The Rising Sun extensively while releasing seven albums. "In America, we were a kids TV act that played for family audiences; in Japan we were looked at as an adult act."

Altman's run with Rockapella had a moderately Behind The Music style ending. After going through a 1994 divorce, Altman's songwriting took a darker turn. "The songs were much more about heartbreak; bitter twisted love songs as opposed to the happy quirky funny songs," says Altman. In lieu of therapy, Altman entered a "prolific period of post-divorce song writing." The new songs didn't mesh so well with Rockapella. "The songs were kind of darker, mean spirited," the singer explains. "By 1997, I was feeling the need to go in my own direction musically and Rockapella, which was once the perfect vehicle for me and my music, now didn't seem so perfect anymore." Like any breakup, feathers were ruffled. "There were some hurt feelings on both sides, but those have mended," he says reflectively.

Seandemonium, Altman's first album was a collection of those unRockapellaish songs. The pun-heavy titled, solo debut album received great reviews upon its release. It also marked some of Altman's first recorded work with instrumental accompaniment. "There are purists in the a capella community who frown upon anything that’s not a capella; to the point where they will scrutinize recordings to hear if god forbid, a real drum is snuck in there or god forbid,there should be sequenced vocal percussion not an actual guy doing the vocal percussion," Altman says with a slight mocking tone. "There is something cool about being able to do it with only voices; in the end, I just want to make good music."

The follow-up alt.mania contained "Unhappy Anniversary," a song covered by Vitamin C, and "More In Hate With You." In 2005, those two songs would qualify Altman as one of a dozen finalists at the Kerville Folk Festival. The experience made an impression on the normally unflappable singer. "I've sung at Madison Square Garden with Billy Joel, in huge venues for lots of different people and I've never been as nervous as when I was singing my two songs at the Kerville Folk Festival in front of 500 people, most of whom were songwriters." That same year, Altman won Best Male (presumably singer) at the International Acoustic Music Awards for "Unhappy Anniversary."

Even with the awards accumulating, Altman has not acquired a swollen ego. In explaining his appeal, Altman remains extraordinarily down-to-earth. "My charms are more subtle," he explains. "I'm not the kind of singer that can blow the roof off of a joint just because of my vocal chops." In the modern context of today's American Idol pop singer mentality, Altman deftly explains how his strengths, while seemingly perfect for the genre wouldn't be suitable. "If there was a competition for an overall show, a one half hour performance, I would have a shot. It's less about the melisma and more about the ability to connect with an audience."

One of Altman's current projects, What I Like About Jew makes such a connection, finding a growing receptive audience that shares in the delight in tweaking Jewish stereotypes and rituals. In order to find humor in such stereotypes, they must be understood and Altman's understanding of stereotypes isn't limited to his current project. With a grin Altman describes the stereotypes usually applied to a cappella music. "It's lame, it's dorky, it's kitschy, it's collegiate, it's not cool," he explains. "Most of those stereotypes are true." Far from burying the genre in which he’s made his name, Altman points out, with entertaining audio accentuations, that it's hard to do a capella really well. "There's lots of bad a capella: goofy choreography, embarrassing vocal arrangements and vocal imitations of guitar parts. A bigger problem is overly busy vocal arrangements creating a cacophony that's confusing to the ear."

Altman hasn't forsaken the world of a capella, joining Charlie Evett and Steve Keyes (former Rockapella members) and Kevin Weist to form The GrooveBarbers. During this past holiday season, the quartet released Glory, an album of Christmas songs. As you would expect from one half of What I Like About Jew, Glory contains one Hanukkah tune, "I Have A Little Dreidel." Before the snow could settle on the holiday season, Astelin nasal spray tapped the GrooveBarbers to portray The Astelins as part of a national advertising campaign. Although discussions are afoot for additional commercials, for now, Astelin will puzzlingly silence the talented singers moving them into print ads. While equating the metamorphosis into The Astelins with Garry Shandling's portrayal of Larry Sanders, Altman remains pragmatic and doesn't foresee the same upsurge in popularity that greeted Rockapella's foray into television. "Rockapella was on TV every day at the same time for five years; that kind of exposure is amazing," says Altman. "We were also identified as Rockapella. The GrooveBarbers are appearing as the Astelins for only 30 seconds at a time."

Just recently, Altman released Unorthodox with his What I Like About Jew partner-in-crime Rob Tannenbaum and celebrated the release with a show at New York City's Canal Room where they were accompanied by members of another Altman project, Loser's Lounge. WILAJ's humor can border on the culturally offensive but the album somewhat tempers the duo's smart, snarky humor. "I would say the album is naughty," reasons Altman. "I don't think it's dirty, but it's definitely naughty." In discussing What I Like About Jew, Altman's natural humor blossoms forth. "Jews are going to appreciate it more because it's mostly Jew-friendly humor; people who aren't Jewish will also enjoy it - even if you're an anti-Semite you'll enjoy it."

With airplay on National Public Radio, Altman feels certain pressure, mostly self-generated, to tone down What I Like About Jew's content. "The only pressure I feel is with respect to satellite radio and morning radio, which are really the only broadcast exposure that we're going to get. Most of the songs are probably too dirty," frets Altman. "We don't feel any pressure to tone down the ideas but rather to tone down the language," he continues. "The perfect song for radio play is 'They Tried To Kill Us (We Survived, Let's Eat)' because it's really funny, goes over as well, if not better, than any song in our repertoire, it doesn't have any dick jokes and it doesn't use the word kike." Clearly finding the recipe for success, the song helped propel Unorthodox into amazon.com's top 40 albums. "We hit on something with that, where the humor is smart and not quite as juvenile."