Real Estate

Ridgewood

Martin Courtney and Alex Bleeker met in third grade and bonded over Weezer, Built to Spill and Pavement. Matt Mondanile, a year ahead at Ridgewood High School, met Courtney on the school bus, and Julian Lynch took guitar lessons with Mondanile and Bleeker. At college Mondanile began his recording project Ducktails, and over a summer break the three backed Lynch as Lese Majesty, with Etienne Pierre Duguay on drums.

Courtney's songs made the others suggest a band of their own. In the summer of 2008, back in Ridgewood, he and Mondanile wrote more, and Duguay and Bleeker joined them. Bleeker moved to bass so that Courtney could play guitar and sing more easily. The band is now based in Brooklyn.

The name came from Courtney, who was studying for a real estate license when the band started. His parents ran a real estate agency, and the band joked about working there if music did not pay.

First records

Singles on Underwater Peoples and Woodsist came out in 2009, followed by a self-titled debut on Woodsist on 17 November 2009. Pitchfork gave it 8.5 and named it Best New Music. The EPs Atlantic City Expressway and Reality (Mexican Summer, 1 March 2010) followed, and in 2010 the band played the Pitchfork Music Festival and Primavera Sound.

In 2011 they signed to Domino. Duguay had left before the deal, because the band did not want to be legally bound to a drummer they found unreliable. Jackson Pollis and Jonah Maurer joined for touring.

Days

Days came out on Domino on 18 October 2011. It was made over five months in a remote barn in New Paltz, New York, with Kevin McMahon, who produced it with Jarvis Taveniere. Drums and bass went to tape, the rest to computer with old microphones, and during mixing the band switched between their record and 1970s albums such as Dark Side of the Moon. American Songwriter reported that McMahon suggested a natural echo chamber built from an old grain silo, so the album sounds brighter than the muffled debut.

Courtney described the aim as a sound that would last.

The record opens with Easy, which had a video directed by Tom Scharpling for Funny or Die. It's Real, the third track, was the first video from the album, and Out of Tune was recorded separately in Brooklyn. Pitchfork gave Days 8.7 and Best New Music. Its reviewer, Marc Masters, heard the songs as finding meaning in small-town daily life and named the Feelies as the band's closest kin. Metacritic scores the album 77 out of 100 from 32 reviews. Pitchfork placed it ninth on its 2011 list and, in 2014, thirteenth among the best albums of the decade so far.

In 2012 the band played Coachella and the Pitchfork Music Festival, and the Fader put them on the cover of its issue 76.

We wanted to sound timeless.

Martin Courtney, DMY, 2011

Changes and later albums

Matt Kallman replaced Maurer on keyboards in 2013. Atlas was recorded that year, partly at Wilco's studio in Chicago, and arrived on 4 March 2014, debuting at number 34 on the Billboard 200. Stereogum's Chris DeVille called it a refinement of the band's signature sound rather than an overhaul. In 2016 Mondanile left, and Lynch took over lead guitar. In Mind followed on 17 March 2017, produced by Cole M. Greif-Neill.

The Main Thing was released on 28 February 2020, produced again by McMahon, with the single Paper Cup featuring Amelia Meath of Sylvan Esso. Pollis left that August, and Sammi Niss took the drum seat. The Half a Human EP appeared in 2021, and Daniel, produced by Daniel Tashian, on 23 February 2024.

In 2025 the band issued a rarities set, The Wee Small Hours: B-Sides and Other Detritus 2011-2025, and went on an anniversary tour for Atlas. Lynch left in August, and James Richardson joined on lead guitar. Members have kept busy elsewhere: Mondanile with Ducktails, Courtney with the solo project Many Moons, and Kallman with Girls.