Here

The interview was done on December, 5 2007.

The $64,000 question, how’s the album going?

Well, I guess my $63,000 answer is we didn’t end up starting it yet. We were meant to start yesterday, but it would have been premature, like taking the car out before you’ve painted it. But we’re doing a benefit album and that seems like a good time, as we’re real close. We’ve been assembling a studio, got everything behind the scenes sorted. So we’re going to use one of the songs Kevin demoed. He’s been doing stuff on the side, and we’ll use that. He’s got a lot of demos, that are very cool. So has Greg, which is very much a first. Those guys have been messing around with recording and demos. Surprisingly, almost, but it’s working out very well.

What is the benefit record for?

It’s a track for the Future Of Music Coalition. They do all kinds of stuff, like badger Congress about this issue or that to do with musicians like copyright law, health insurance for musicians, internet neutrality, that kind of thing. They’re good folks.

Who else is on the album?

Just a few little combos you’ve probably never heard of like REM. We’re the only band you won’t know! Sonic Youth, Bright Eyes, REM, I can’t remember who else off the top of my head. And humble old us. Our inside track is we know the guy who’s putting the compilation together. In typical Wrens style, we’ve been putting him off. The deadline was yesterday and we’ve managed to put him off until today. You’d think we’d jump at the chance, but we’re essentially jackasses.

How excited are you to finally start work on a new album?

Very excited. It’s more than the next record is, it’s more of what the next phase of the band. It’s taken a lot of time to set things up and take care of really old business, mundane small business stuff, the website, real prosaic stuff. But we’ve also been setting stuff up like getting Kevin and Greg recording programmes and home computers. Technology has moved along so quickly that with this next record is radically different from when we started doing The Meadowlands in ’99. A lot’s changed. If you wanted to record on computer back then, it was some valve-driven, in a separate room, generating heat and magnetic reels of tape spinning around. Or that’s what it felt like.

Is it a strange feeling to be doing an album when the band’s actually settled – you’re on a record label that likes you, you don’t have external struggles to worry about?

In a way. But there are a couple of new pressures. The last record did well, from our perspective unbelievably well. OK, from an outside perspective it’s not a big deal. But it does bring its own pressures, writing it thinking ‘Will this be received as well?’ Maybe it’s because we’re older, but the small measure of success we’ve had came relatively late in the day for Meadowlands. And that took a lot of that pressure off me, not having to write an instant follow-up. So I’m thinking ‘If this record tanks and is the largest amount of poop committed to ones and zeros’, at least we had our moment. Things can only get better. I’ve never been this excited or inspired with pages of ideas, and Kevin, Greg and Jerry are the same too. It’s funny, I feel weirdly younger now.

When did Meadowlands start to feel a success to you?

It officially came out in September 2003, and the shows got progressively better. It felt like a fluke, we were waiting for the shoe to drop. ‘Well, that last show was great, but it’ll clearly never happen again, how can we get 50 people to a show twice in a row?’ Then of course it did go very well. For me it was South By Westwest in spring 2004. That was a little overwhelming. Even if it had stopped right then and there, I would have felt ‘Hey, we did it!’

You ended up touring it until this February, so did it start to feel a burden, in terms of wanting to get on with making new music?

It felt that way from the next show after that South By Southwest. Yeah and no, we kept on adding songs and changing the set. We still felt, all the way along, that we were waiting for the shoe to drop, if you want to use the same cliché twice, which I have no problem in doing. On almost every show, we’d wait for it to be ‘Ah, there’s only three people showed up.’ So it was very satisfying to a certain extent, of ‘Holy crap, I can’t believe there’s this many people to see us again’. But at the same time, we toured the whole time. And there’s three of us married, two with children, the other three guys all have real full-time jobs. So our touring was one weekend per month, so it wasn’t exactly gruelling and it wasn’t real often. So we didn’t play the same songs 30 nights in a row. We milked it for longer than intended, and we were pretty tired of doing the same songs by the end of it, but we’re grateful it lasted that long.

Do you think the other guys are on the verge of giving up their dayjobs?

Each in their own measure. We talk about it. Kevin and Greg would be there sooner, for a variety of reasons. Jerry last, because he’s just had his fourth kid just a few weeks ago. It’s one thing for me to be all ‘Hey, I’m a musician! I exist on over $5,000 a year!’ And I’m semi-nude in a park, eating birdseed. Each of us have a line where we’d be financially willing to go full-time for and for Jerry, because he’s got four kids, he has his priorities. And his kids are amazing and he’s still very dedicated to the band. The coolest thing about being in the band this long is we’vve been able to average out the things we need to do to be a band. It works for me, who does this full-time other than teaching guitar and recording some musicians. It’s more about us sticking togetehr and accomodating it for the four of us than worrying about going full-time.

I guess you’ve been through so much stress in the past, you’ve had worse things to worry about than ‘Should we go full-time?’

Yeah, absolutely, there’s much worse things happened. You get a little older, everyone’s perspective is different. When I had a straight office job for five years, I actually liked it. It’s weird being Mr Art Casualty who reads books on aesthetics, that’s what I romanticise about. I never even entirely lost that. When it rained, I’d be ‘Yes, it’s raining and I’m walking through the Chrysler building, let’s get our coffee and complain about the football game.’ A consistent pay cheque was nice. So I kinda liked it. My perspective is very odd compared to the other guys. And they’re homeowners.

So, with the new record, have you given yourselves a deadline on when to finish it by?

No. Although if it takes longer than a few months with the amount of songs we’ve got, I’d be shocked. Kevin alone has demoed a million songs and there’s so many good ones, so many even as they stand are close enough to completion. I’ve got a million ideas, and Greg is demoing ideas for the first time.

How do Greg’s sound?

I only heard the one. It was great, a mid-tempo, with double-vocals so it had The Beatles thing going on.

What about your own songs?

Oh, I’ve given up writing. No, as much as I can, I’ve been trying to hold off writing until I’ve got this stuff like the studio done, then I’ll pool out all those ideas. And coast on those for the remaining years of my life. You can’t help but pick up a guitar. So a couple are written here and there, but I’ve not demoed them and I’ve resisted doing that because as soon as I start, I know I’m not going to want to stop. I want to be able to keep going, so I’ve had to get the mundane stuff out the way first.

Is that how you’ve always written, getting into a space where you’re clear enough to write?

No, that’s what’s taken so long this time – finding a new way for me to work, and the band too. On the other albums, each person would write on their own on acoustic guitar or piano and then you’d bring in the band, and we’d record and arrange it. And I’d mess around with the recordings after, change chord progressions or whatever. That’s not the best way to go about it, it doesn’t represent the whole band. It’s been a Charles thing, for better and very often worse. That last album almost killed me. There’s a long testing four years there. It’s so much easier now, getting Greg and Kevin set up to do their own ideas on computers. They’ve taken to that way like a cliché to other cliches that involve fish and water.

Are there any subjects, lyrical themes you think you’ll definitely write about?

That’s always tricky, part of why I wasn’t in any hurry on this record. On Meadowlands, we had something to talk about. It’s a funny thing, a weird pressure. Why shouldn’t I just put out a song because it sounds cool? And hopefully we will do that. This could be the album, though, where The Wrens talk about the burning issues of the day. But it could be one that’s just for fun. I don’t know. It’s funny, when we finished the last record, in 2003, we were already looking ahead with such clarity to the next album. The plan then was that no-one was talking about the times we were living in. That’s changed in the last four years. I don’t mean rehashing Dylan. The field was wide open then, and now a bunch of things has come out, some better than others. That’s a mixed bag. At worse, you end up like Sting namedropping Pinochet so that 10 years later you’re thinking ‘Whaaat?!” And that’s a bandwagon I never want to end up on for the wrong reasons. If I end up with something to say, great, but it’s tough.

So you might end up going ‘La la la’ for 45 minutes?

It could be. The funny thing is, when I start writing, it usually has nonsense phonetic lyrics, I don’t want to be distracted too much by what I’m singing about for it to get in the way of the melody. But the funny thing is once I start singing “Googie-glaggy-gloo’, when I start to write the real words I’ll write them to rhyme with the nonsense. ‘Everything that’s new’, ‘Stay a little blue’ and I’ll think ‘Why is this shit?’

Have you started thinking about a producer for the album?

Yeah, I think that’s something we’ll..it’s hard to say. I don’t have much interest in working with an outside producer. We’ve learnt about that stuff since finishing Meadowlands. We dodged a bullet with that one, it’s strange considering that it was just me pointing microphones at instruments, that how badly it was recorded, that it came out salvageable. Production’s the equivalent of a painting. The lyrics and melody are one thing, they’re the content. And how you put the stuff on there is the form. Painters can paint the same object, but each one will make it look totally different. It’s the same kind of thing. It fascinates me no end, how the reverb on a piano can be more effective than a properly recorded piano. You can be too paint-by-numbers. It’s not about perfect reproduction.

You know better than anyone how you want a song to feel, I guess?

I guess that’s what I’m getting at in my usual roundabout way. That’s what counts with me. I’ve got a log of things I want to try, in addition to lyrics and songs. I think that stuff is as important. I’d bet you a dollar I can ruin a song, no matter how good it is, by putting, say, the bass drum on it too loud. It’s all part of it.

Do you think the album will come out next year?

I’d say yeah. Sometime in 2008, we will at the very least have a single out or some iTunes thing. Our next album is called In Rainbows and it’s out in 10 days’ time. Even if we finish the album in the spring, label stuff can get in the way. But, yeah, new music in 2008, somehow.

Will you preview it live, take a break from the studio and test some new songs?

We’ve already said we’ll play South By Southwest again. It seems real unlikely that we’d have a whole album done by January. But we had a plan at the end of Meadowlands on playing it all the way through from start to finish, one last time. We didn’t do it, but we could do that for South By Southwest and finish by playing some new songs.

What about festivals? Some people were disappointed you never did any festivals here for Meadowlands.

We were finagilling through our label there to get on at Reading and Leeds, and it didn’t quite happen. It was touch and go, but no. We played some in Europe, Netherlands, Germany, Spain. But it’d be really cool to do them in the UK. Some of it is political, in the general sense, so-and-so knows so-and-so. There’s so many bands and by the time Meadowlands came out in the UK all the press and attention had already run over here. That all factors in there, but we would love to play festivals there, it’d be a daydream.

I forgot to ask, what are Kevin’s new songs like?

Oh, godawful.

Ah well, at least he’s trying.

Actually, in a production sense, they do go from godawful to 10 songs later to they’re really good. Some of them have cool keyboard sounds, but he’s experimenting too. He’s recorded guitars this way and that way. Some of them are really good. I’ve had the benefit since doing the recording crap, I can sing my vocals in any room, as often as I need to without hearing the awful mistakes you usually get of nasally drones in the background. In the past, the guys had to run production things through me, but now they know how to do it on computers, it’s easier. No matter how well you know someone, it’s easier to do it on your own. Kevin does some really beautiful singing on these demos, better than he’s ever been represented on our albums, because he’s comfortable – he’s in his own room, with a huge Henry VIII chicken leg in one hand and a tankard of mead in the other. He’s just singing, comfortable, and on his own, and now he can get them sounding as good as he wants to. So it’s all cool.

What’d be your album of the year?

For 2007? Man, you are so asking the wrong band and the wrong dude from the wrong band. I am perpetually a year or two behind. I’m like ‘Hey, this band Bloc Party, are pretty cool aren’t they?’ This year especially, I have a huge list of albums that I’ve been meaning to get, I’ve just been so busy. I am not cool. Although, I’ve thought of one, with the disclaimer that we’ve known them for a few years, and that’s Okkervil River. It’s a great album. So that’s a safe one to name.

What are the ones you want to check out?

Well, someone on our message board started their list and I looked through it and thought ‘Man, I’ve not heard of any of this!’ I haven’t even heard the last Hold Steady record. Or In Rainbows, surprisingly. I’ve thought ‘Oh, I can download it for a Euro’ and never got round to it. I keep a list. Internet radio can be cool, but they’re spotty in saying what you just listened to.

Have you heard of Levy? You should check out his album Glorious, it’s the best pop record in years – it’s actually that one crucial place higher than Okkervil River in our own list.

Really? I’m writing that down. L-e-v-y. OK. I’m just looking at my list. There’s the band Psapp. Sister Rosetta Tharpe. The first two Bert Jansch. Orange Juice. And now Levy.

OK, well I’m glad to know there is new music due next year.

Yeah, all four of us next week, it’s pretty cool. And thanks for wanting to bother to talk to us, especially off-season.

Well, I was talking to Bernard the other day and saying ‘What the hell are The Wrens up to?’ And here we are. Actually, whenever I talk to Bernard, I usually ask ‘What the hell are The Wrens up to?’

We’d do anything to help Bernard out, he’s a good guy.

He is one of the good people in music. And if he can finally get you on the Reading/Leeds bill, he’ll be an even better guy.

Yeah, we love Bernard. It wasn’t for lack of trying that he didn’t get us on the bill, believe me. He got darned close.

I know. Shame. But I hope I’ll be talking to you again when you’re on season and there’s a new record out.

Thanks for the link (and text), Vypa. I'm really excited about their next album - hopefully it doesn't take as long as The Meadowlands to write and record. It's hard to imagine them topping that, but they've gotten better with each release so who knows. And of course a new album would mean that they'll do a full US tour again...I've seen them three times and each time they were amazing.

I'm excited about the last full run through of "The Meadowlands" in concert at this year's South by Southwest. That is one of my favorite albums. Might have to get myself out to Tennessee or wherever for that.

Can't wait for the new album. These guys make sure that all that waiting is worth it.

quote:

Originally posted by BContrat:
I'm excited about the last full run through of "The Meadowlands" in concert at this year's South by Southwest. That is one of my favorite albums. Might have to get myself out to Tennessee or wherever for that.

Austin, Texas. And, yes, try to go. Not only is the festival awesome, but Austin is one of the best college towns in the U.S.

I'm kind of nervous about Greg Whelan having put together some demoes which may develop into studio recordings and turn up on the album. I mean, Kevin and Charles are such good songwriters who needs a third wheel?

And Charles Bissell joins Okkervil River on the road.

Looks like we've got longer to wait for that new Wrens album.

Hmm, I'm not sure how I missed this thread the first time 'round, but that was a great interview. Thanks, Vypa.

quote:

Originally posted by Chamberk:
And Charles Bissell joins Okkervil River on the road.

Looks like we've got longer to wait for that new Wrens album.

Saw that too.