Rocketing on the surprising (to them) success of their 2006 debut Be He Me, Annuals’ mesmerizing and eccentric live shows are enough to start anyone speculating on their planet of origin. Touring their EP Wet Zoo, the six-piece collective descended in New York long enough to tell us not to worry: it’s just North Carolina. Other topics of import include their recording process, Brian Wilson, and which one of them is the funny one, as well as why they’re one band with two different names. Some of their customs are still strange to us.

Annuals are Adam Baker (vocals), Kenny Florence (guitar), Mike Robinson (bass), Nick Radford (drums), Zack Oden (guitar) and Anna Spence (piano).

Beyond Race: So how do you like New York?

Anna Spence: It used to really stress us out. We were coming from Raleigh on our first tour, but now...

Adam Baker: We definitely know our way around by now.

AS: It's not so scary.

BR: Wouldn't the name Perennials make more sense if you want to have a long career?

AS: I think there's another band called Perennials.

Mike Robinson: They MySpaced us to say hello.

AS: To say we should play together. I thought it was funny.

BR: Wet Zoo, which came out in April is a split EP with Sunfold, which is Kenny’s project. [The same band, but headed by Florence]. How did that come about?

Kenny Florence: Sunfold used to be called Sedona up until about 4 months ago; we had to change it for trademark purposes. It used to be that was our main project, before Annuals happened. Annuals was an offshoot of Sedona, and then we decided to take Annuals a step further. The opportunities were just sort of popping up for us.

I still kept writing songs, and everyone still seemed to be wanting to play those songs, but the music doesn't really fit together. Well, it fits together, but it doesn't really seem to be the same band, even though it is.

MR: Our new record label wanted to put out something before we put out another full-length record, and when we got to talking about what it could be, without wanting to sacrifice too many new songs to it that we'd rather have on the new record, we decided it was a good compromise that made a lot of sense for helping us out with our own releases and that kind of stuff.

BR: You guys have your own record label. Are there other labels in or around Raleigh putting out local artists?

AB: Not a lot.

KF: Chapel Hill has quite a catalog of record labels.

AS: Not Raleigh.

KF: Raleigh's kind of...

AS: It's ours now.

MR: We own it.

KF: It's a little bit more of a tight-knit community, I'd say.

BR: Is there a solid music scene in Raleigh?

AS: We just have a lot of friends that play music really well.

MR: There are talented people in North Carolina and around the Triangle area. There's never, to my knowledge, been a collective or label attempt in Raleigh. We're the first ones to do it. We're just trying to help our friends out and just get music out to people, or at least give it a fighting chance to be heard.

BR: So is it small enough that you guys (musicians) all know each other?

MR: It's very small.

AB: All the people we're involved with we've either played with before, or went to high school with.

AS: Or we're related to.

BR: You've been called a "collective." Is that what you consider yourselves?

MR: That was sort of more bestowed upon us, rather than something we decided on.

KF: The label's a collective.

AB: We have a collective mindset. But there's definitely been projects with different focuses. It's definitely a collective.

MR: In light of the fact that Broken Social Scene is a collective, Arcade Fire is a collective; we're not that kind of collective, but we are a sort of collective. We're definitely doing it our own way, for sure.

BR: Adam, you write the songs for Annuals. How much input do you get from everyone else?

AB: The studio that we do most of the Annuals stuff , is the Terpsikhore studio, in the basement where everyone is anyway. I'll go in there and put the idea down, the basics all go in. Then as things progress, as the record gets closer, everyone in the band is listening to the cut that I made, and they'll come in and go, can I have this part? There's a lot of sifting through that happens toward the end of the mixing process, because there's so many different ideas coming in. It's the most complicated part, but it's definitely worthwhile.

BR: Do you think that process has been an influence on your sound?

AB: Definitely. We all listen to different genres of music. Of course I write the songs, but I love getting ideas from people, because six heads are better than one.

BR: Three of you [Baker, Florence and Robinson] have known each other since you were kids. What was that like, and how did you start playing music together?

KF: We all dated these three girls, three sisters. And we just met each other through our girlfriends. We were in middle school at the time, and we started playing music in Adam's basement as a pop-punk trio. You know, the kind of stuff that 13-year-olds listen to.

AB: It was definitely a good start, though. We got our chops.

BR: I'm glad you guys moved on from that.

KF: Some people don't. And that's fine.

BR: How did the other three of you get involved with these guys?

Zack Oden: Me and Nick [Radford] played music together since we were 12 or 13, early middle school, during the same time [Baker, Florence and Robinson] were playing music, different types of music. Anna was playing in bands a little later than that. We met her through some mutual friends, and begged and pleaded with her to play keyboards, and got her.

AS: I told them I'd do it temporarily. Then I fell in love with the music.

BR: So Anna, you were the last to join?

AB: She was the missing link.

AS: [Oden] was technically the last to join the group.

KF: Anna did stuff for Sedona before we were actually Annuals.

BR: Are you all from Raleigh originally?

AB: We're all from the general area.

AS: He [Oden] is from Texas.

ZO: I'm from Texas.

AB: I'm from Virginia. But we all grew up in the Triangle.

BR: Now what exactly is the Triangle?

AB: Chapel Hill, Durham, Raleigh and Carey, which is a suburb of Raleigh.

BR: Be He Me came out in 2006. Are you satisfied with the reaction to that album?

AB: Yeah, I was actually blown away. The whole time it was being made, we were just thinking it was going to be the first record that we'd sort of get known by, and we'd build from there, but luckily, a lot of important people in this city [New York] took notice of us and believed in us. We got a lot of really great opportunities because of that record.

It was totally-self recorded. The studio we have now at Terpsikhore is a bit better than it used to be. Before it was just in the Sunfold/Annuals practice space.

We recorded that whole record with other bands playing all around us. We were just expecting it to be a launching pad, of course, but a launching pad for the Wright Brothers' plane, not a spaceship, like it turned into, which is wonderful. We're all so happy that we've gotten all these opportunities.

KF: Now we need to build a space station.

AB: Right. We don't even know where we're going, though.

BR: Some songs on Be He Me, particularly “Dry Clothes” and “Complete or Completing”, I detected a huge Brian Wilson influence. Adam, could you talk to me little bit about what he means to you?

AB: He was an extremely big part of my life. Growing up, my mom was a huge fan of beach music. She was listening to the Beach Boys all the time, so that sort of melodic feel from their music, the really great harmonies, was sort of ingrained in my mind. Then I sort of departed from that music, rebelling against my parents. I started playing punk and stuff, but as I got older, and got tired of punk, Brian Wilson just had more stuff that he put out, even as a solo artist, of course. He's never failed to captivate me, and I definitely think he's one of the best American songwriters ever, along with Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, and stuff like that.