POP
Paste: So which do you prefer to be called: Spiral or Scott?
Scott "Spiral Stairs" Kannberg: I'm Scott, but Spiral's my rock name, so that's what I'm gonna go as. It's a ridiculous name, so you might as well use it. It's better than Perry Farrell, you know?
Paste: To me, this feels like your best solo record so far, counting the Preston School of Industry stuff; it's reminiscent of some of Pavement's best work, glass shards in the guitar lines that have that same edge.
Kannberg: Thanks. I'm pretty confident with it, happy with the outcome, it took a long time to get the songs together, but finally I just got some [songs] in the mail, it's nice the process has gotten to this point, after all the waiting around. Who knew it would take so [expletive] long to put records out! [laughs]
Paste: Well, it's been five years between Preston School of Industry's Monsoon and this one, right?
Kannberg: Yeah, a lot has changed in those five
years. A lot's gone on.
Paste: I've read the bio Matador issued with the record; it's kind of like being a reviewer when Dylan's Blood on the Tracks first came out. "So, Bob, how about that interpersonal turmoil as creative muse, anyway?"
Kannberg: Yeah [laughs]. Basically, and that's kind of the Dylan that got me back into music, saved me again. I went through a divorce, music wasn't really doing it for me, I got caught up in doing a lot of nothing, drinking, hanging around my house and looking at the grey skies of Seattle. [laughs] I didn't really do much for five years. Time can go really quick when things are like that. I was kind of a mess! Music got me going again, listening to great old records, great new records, and wanted to write about the experiences I've been going through and…yeah. It just came out this way.
Paste: This record feels like a summary of all you are creatively. Some rockers that remind me of Dream Syndicate…
Kannberg: [laughs] Yeah, well, those Dream Syndicate records are all pretty seminal in terms of what's in my influence box.
Paste: Then there are songs featuring steel guitar, almost Nashville country stuff, really.
Kannberg: That's Chris (Henrich), he played with Preston, most of the guys that play on it are Preston School of Industry dudes, but there's also a bunch of players from Australia that I have a band with down there, a guy from Seattle, Ian Moore, who's just an amazing guitar player. A pretty eclectic mix of people. I didn't really do that in the past, I'd done everything myself, but this one I kind of wanted to be looser and, you know, do my Dylan record.
Paste: The Rolling Thunder Revue!
Kannberg: I love that kind of [expletive], no doubt.
Paste: "Maltese T" is sunny-side-up pop: The kind of stuff people would have thought Stephen might have written back in the good old Pavement days, but I'm not sure that's a very accurate picture of how that band really operated if this is the kind of "bah bah bah" pop you're capable of writing.
Kannberg: Well, you know, to be honest, I think Steve wrote those songs for me, because I enjoyed those kind of songs. I can remember the day when he was fooling around in my parents' house with the riff and melody to "Cut Your Hair" and I said "What the hell's that?" and he said "Oh, I don't wanna do that… That song's not very good." I was like, "Dude, that's killer. Pavement's a pop band! We gotta have these kind of songs!" I love that kind of [expletive].
Paste: So here's the rub with The Real Feel: there are all these heavy themes — You don't have to scratch the lyrics very hard to unearth what "Call the Ceasefire" is about, you know? — but on the other hand, the music itself draws you in with strong structures, melodies, hooks. It's a pretty wicked combination punch.
Kannberg: Yeah, the songs came pretty naturally to me. A couple years ago I did this show with my friends in Melbourne, a friend wanted me to play for her birthday party. I had all my Preston stuff but wanted to make up some new songs. I had these riffs with me and was with the guys, and maybe three or four of 'em ended up on the record. When I came home, I started getting into writing songs for it. It was a good impetus to get me going and deal with a lot of the stuff I was experiencing. It was weird how naturally it all came to me, you know? One day I wrote a song, "The Cease Fire Song," the next day, "Blood Money." And I was like "Whoa, I guess I've got kind of a theme going here, or something?" [laughs]
Paste: It seems like sometimes the best records happen that way, though. They don't start off being Dark Side of the Moon, they end up having some kind of throughline that draws them together. Joni's Blue, or Fleetwood Mac's Bare Trees, the first few Velvets' records…
Kannberg: Well, those are my favorite kind of records, where you can point to connections and… Back in the old days, when they had the vinyl, you had sides one and two. That's what I tried to do. I don't know if you got the vinyl version, it's actually got a different song order. The order on the CD flows really well but the album order really kind of hits it.
Paste: Who's the woman you're talking to in the "Ladies and Gentlemen" snippet?
Kannberg: Kevin Drew, from Broken Social Scene, that's his grandmother and him talking. For his solo record, he asked me to do a guitar solo for a song, and that's what his grandmother was going to do, announce it: "Ladies and gentlemen, Spiral Stairs." The solo I gave him was this little one-note thing, and he was like, "I can't have my grandma announce that!" [laughs] So I asked him if I could use that on my record, and he said yes.
Paste: Speaking of solos, on "Call the Ceasefire," is that guitar solo yours? Holy cow, it's got some dexterity to it.
Kannberg: Well, which one, the one in the middle? No, that's Ian Moore. He's an amazing guitar player, that was his solo. It's like off a Television record or something. It was one take. Basically, I went to his house and asked him if he could put some guitar on it, he listened to it, he said "OK" and did it right then and there, and I said "That's good." [laughs]
Paste: Where did you do most of the recording for the album?
Kannberg: Seattle, we did most of it there, the basics in a studio in Pioneer Square, all my singing in my basement, [the Posies'] Jon Auer mixed it in his little rehearsal space. He did a great job. He kind of obsessed over the record, I'm really glad he did. He took time and care without fussing over it.
Paste: You've been splitting your year between Australia and Seattle for a while now, but I've heard you're getting remarried and moving there permanently now?
Kannberg: Yeah, I am. I'm getting married to an Australian girl next March, the plan is to move there at some point next year, so I'm pretty excited about that. I've been going to Melbourne pretty regularly for the last five years, have a lot of friends there now. And now family. So I'm excited.
Paste: Not to mention the weather benefits involved. [laughs]
Kannberg: It gets cold in the winter time, but not snow, not the Seattle-like six months we get. I don't mind it here, but the people here, the way they hibernate during the winter, that eventually sort of gets to you. You're in Portland, so you know exactly what I mean; people don't really do anything! [laughs] It was hard to get used to, it's weird. Coming from the Bay Area, I dunno, I think I started going to Melbourne to escape Seattle because I was going through some hard times, and it kind of saved me, being there. I find that country really progressive, in every facet of their lives. I'm lucky because I know a lot of people in the city—maybe in the country, it's different—but there's only 20 million of 'em vs. 200 million here. The thing is, I wanna live somewhere where they've got it figured out. You're lucky in Portland, your public transportation, people really care about it, and back in the '70s, people kind of made it a priority to get it right. In Seattle, they're not gonna ever get it together. They just fight it.
Paste: It's depressing, you can watch that movie Singles from the '90s and one of the characters is talking about the "Super Train," nearly 20 years ago. No progress.
Kannberg: [laughs] Totally, dude. They're so screwed up here. They let the suburbs dictate what goes on. They just built this light rail, and it's so dumb, they built it a mile from the airport, and it won't even be open for another year, just to connect out there. It's like, "You know, you should have built that first!" [laughs]
Paste: What are your plans to tour this album?
Kannberg: I've booked a lit five day West-coast tour with Bob Mould and festival in San Francisco; we'll probably put together some Midwest/East coast things in January, go to Europe. Then probably nothing until the summer, all the Pavement stuff starts in February, rehearsals in Portland down there.
Paste: I harbor a personal dream about the reunion: Whenever I can finally catch up with the tour, you guys will be playing Wowee Zowee in its entirety. Then my fantasy can be put to rest!
Kannberg: [laughs] Dude, that would be pretty fun, you know, I'd love to do that! Personally, I'd love to do Slanted and Enchanted with Gary! In the old days, I used to fantasize about that myself: "Let's just go play one of the records front to back." Or not even that: Let's do another band's record!
Paste: One from The Fall, or maybe Echo and the Bunnymen's Ocean Rain.
Kannberg: Hey, we might still do that!
