Interview: Soul Asylum [Part II]

by John Davidson
6 August 2006

[Continued from Part I]

Does a decade ago, when you guys were on the comet’s tail, seem like a different life?

DAVE PIRNER: It’s disconnected, but not exclusive to any of the other parts. The timeline of course has its peaks and valleys, so it’s just a rough ride. You play something really well, and it reminds of you all your successes, but if you f*** something up, it reminds you of all your failures, I guess.

Is that what “Success Is Not So Sweet” is about?

DAVE PIRNER: That’s such a weird thing because it’s the oldest song on the record and it was written at the peak of the band’s success, but nobody wanted to hear it during that time. It’s very peculiar like that to me. It’s like, how come nobody liked this song when I wrote it back then? Everybody identifies with it now! People were like, “That’s great, we gotta put that on the record,” and I’m like, “No sh*t!” Sometimes it really surprises me when I write something and everybody loves it.

Is it hard being so far away from the band?

DAVE PIRNER: I think ultimately it was kind of not the best way to go about it. But at the same time, it was totally necessary somehow. I had to get some perspective. There were times when the band was on the road so much that it really didn’t seem like any of us lived anywhere. To that degree, it didn’t seem to matter much. When I wrote Grave Dancer’s Union, I’d sort of separated myself from the band, and it worked in a way that really surprised the hell out of me. Previous to that, we were really rehearsal-intensive; we would practice a lot. I pulled away from that, and we actually sort of demoed them as I was teaching them to the band. And it just worked. It sort of taught me something about how less is more, and being civil, and not challenging the musicianship of the band in a negative way. Just having something simple and fun to play on the first time. In that way, it didn’t make sense for me to be there in Minneapolis all the time. I could just bring things in, and it would be more spontaneous. I really don’t think I could have written this record if I lived in Minneapolis. New Orleans has just opened up my eyes and ears so much. It’s an amazing city for music. It doesn’t make me want to make a record of New Orleans music, but it just opens up my scope and my perspective to allow me to breathe a little bit.

Was it a better experience to make the record on your own nickel, rather than have a major label looking over your shoulder?

DAVE PIRNER: It is, but I don’t think anyone would ever prefer that. It makes you a lot more nervous and conscious about how you’re gonna blow your money. There’s even a less likely chance that you’re going to go in there and not know what you’re doing. (laughs) It allows you to calculate things a little more accurately and be more realistic. You don’t end up spending a lot of time in the studio in a frivolous way. Which I love doing! (laughs) But when you have to pay for it yourself, it’s another issue.

Well, when you were actually doing just that with a major label’s money, as a band, did you feel the pressure to have a hit or to spend a lot of money in the studio?

DAVE PIRNER: It’s sort of an unspoken agreement that I choose to be oblivious to, and a record label is either consciously or subconsciously trying to jam down your throat. The situation is probably different with every artist, but when we came to Columbia, we were finished with Grave Dancer’s Union. We were finished writing the songs and it was all ready to go. So they understood it from the get-go, that there wasn’t a whole lot they could do in terms of the songs. All the demos were completed and the songs were ready to be recorded. They realized it was not a hands-on band. We’d basically been on our own course for nearly 15 years at that point. But at the same time, that’s when the whole world of art and commerce began to collide for us, and began to fall apart as well. We had to remake the record, we were spending tons of money trying to do…we didn’t know what we were trying to do. And the record label wasn’t saying, “We want you to do this…” They just said, “That ain’t what we’re lookin’ for.” And I didn’t know, and I didn’t care because I just can’t think that way. It was really arduous. A really tough situation where nobody wanted to step back and ask what the f*** was going on. So, it just kept going in sort of a snowballing direction, spending more money and hoping that things would come.

Did you have a sense of confidence when you turned in Grave Dancer’s Union? Like, “Wow, this ‘Runaway Train’ song could be pretty huge.”

DAVE PIRNER: I never had the notion or the inclination or even the clarity to think of something in those terms. I was a little afraid of the melody, thought that it might be too “not punk rock.” I think I held onto it for a little while before I brought it to the band just because it wasn’t punk rock and we were a punk rock band. It sort of coincided with me picking up an acoustic guitar and playing that a lot more. I didn’t really get the feeling that it was anything different than what we’d always done until people started listening to it and reacting to it. I’d never gotten a reaction like that before. I was looking for a manager, and I go, “Well, here’s our new record. We just finished it.” And he listened to it; he’d get halfway through track one, halfway through track two, and then right away into “Runaway Train” he said, “Oh, that’s it! I want this job!” And having STERLING CAMPBELL play on that was a huge revelation for me, because we’d been through so many drummers. I specifically remember with that album, bringing the finished mix back to the hotel, and welling up with emotion because I couldn’t believe how good the groove felt, how that had been what was missing from my music. I got very emotional about that, just how much a good drummer and good groove could make my compositions.

Did that set the expectations for what the band could attain from then on?

DAVE PIRNER: Well, it really allowed me to realize that the songs and things in my head could sound great. That’s what the emotion was about. That as a band, we could do anything now. Maybe I’m misguided. Maybe I should have realized, “Well, we can write pop hits now!” but musically, that’s never where I was coming from. Musically, I’m trying to just make stuff that’s gratifying and interesting. But it definitely raised the bar, almost impossibly high. We’re kind of in this position now where if it’s not 100% brilliant, then it’s not worth getting out of bed for.

[Part III to follow]

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