Interview: Golden Smog [Part II]

by John Davidson
5 August 2006

[Continued from Part I]

So you really didn’t have a whole lot written other than maybe ideas?

DAN MURPHY: GARY LOURIS and I and MARC PERLMAN and KRAIG JOHNSON had probably gotten together four times, one of them being to do that Corvette song. We had maybe seven or eight or nine other ideas that were mostly just humming into a Dictaphone. So we just kind of worked them out right there; there were a couple of things that I wish we could have worked out farther and finished, but we just couldn’t get them finished. When you have 20 or so things that are kind of rough, you try to get half of them worked out.

Then did you re-do everything when you got back to the States?

DAN MURPHY: Spain’s kind of funny. We brought a bunch of two-inch recording tape over there, because no one hardly uses that anymore. We got that on eBay, actually. It got held up by Spanish customs the whole time we were there, and we finally got our two inch tape with only four days left to record. So, we ended up using some recycled tape that PACO had lying around, and it had drops and stuff in it. Degradation was so bad on some of it that we couldn’t use it. We were all saying that we wouldn’t do anything with computers and ProTools but, we ended up bouncing everything into ProTools once we got back here to finish it. It’s so much easier that way, to see things linear and then to overdub. It wasn’t painless and effortless, but it all turned out in the end.

Since JEFF TWEEDY wasn’t in Spain, did you feel like you had to call him to Minneapolis to keep him involved?

DAN MURPHY: Yeah, because he wanted to do something but scheduling was involved and then his record label got involved. I think Jeff felt the responsibility to do it, and also it’s a good time to play and hang out with good musicians. The way it worked out was fine; if we would have done it in Spain, it would have been really, really crammed quarters. Most of the time when we were cutting tracks, someone had to sit outside the recording room because there wasn’t enough space. So, I don’t think that it would have been magical live had he been there, because there was only room for three people. We also brought JODY STEPHENS (of BIG STAR) back in to do some drums, and I don’t think Jody would have been comfortable in Spain for a month because of his other responsibilities.

Were you lined up with Lost Highway Records, your record label, before you went to Spain?

DAN MURPHY: We were. They signed the band without hearing a thing. That’s pretty rare these days. They said, “We just love you guys. Whatever you guys want to do, we wanna be involved.” That was really nice. It was funny because Paco is a really nice guy, but he’s kind of a nut job, you know? His pants don’t fit, you can see his butt crack. He’s kind of this eccentric, very talented guy. And the record company guy, whom I’d never met, came over to Spain about three weeks into the recording and the rough mixes were really brutal sounding. I thought they were gonna, like, drop the band! They said, “Wow, that’s pretty interesting. That has some interesting life to it.” They said all the right stuff, so I knew that the label was a pretty good home for us. They didn’t act as worried as I thought they should be.

Well, with THE JAYHAWKS there, who are on the same label, I’m sure the label people were at least a little confident things would turn out okay…

DAN MURPHY: Oh, it was bad. There were no rough mixes done at that point, so they just put something up for them to hear. They would be sitting there, and it would be, like, the wrong vocal part. It was excruciating for the band to sit through that, but the A&R guys got it. They came to Minneapolis and met with us a few times to; they were pretty involved and I think they’re pretty happy with the record.

They probably want you to get out on the road and tour…

DAN MURPHY: And we would love to do it. But we have to sit down with our internal schedules, and then see if it will work with Jeff, or if we have to do it without Jeff, then what does that mean as far as venues go. It’s never been easy. I think we’ve probably toured four weeks total. I think there were two, two-week tours on the last Smog records.

It’s come a long ways since that first Crackpot EP.

DAN MURPHY: It’s funny. I’m actually getting married on Sunday, so I put together a wedding band from hell. It’s Noah, who was the original drummer on that record, Dave Pirner. We’re doing some THIN LIZZY songs, which reminds me of that Crackpot record [where GOLDEN SMOG covered Thin Lizzy’s “Cowboy Song”]. That seems like a million years ago.

Does it seem like a million years ago when Grave Dancer’s Union was all over the radio, and SOUL ASYLUM was really blowing up?

DAN MURPHY: Yeah, and really, those four or five years after that were pretty crazy because we were just constantly on the road and busy. It’s all kind of a blur. I think if you check, it was like, 1992 or something. That really is a million years ago! But you know, in hindsight, I really don’t have too many regrets. I wish I would have been able to enjoy that period a little bit more. It seemed like it was kind of hectic and stressful. But there were a lot of fun shows and a lot of fun times. Nothing else in your life had any significance, in comparison. That’s all you did. It was an unhealthy balance, really.

It seems logical then, that you guys needed a break.

DAN MURPHY: Well, when it reaches the point where it’s not fun, we’re gonna quit. As well as that record did, you make a little bit of dough but you don’t really get rich because of the funny accounting system. It was a lot of work and we got rewarded for it, but it wasn’t like we could all retire on that one record.

[Part III to follow]

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