I don't have to apologise about anything: An interview with Papercuts

17 March 2011, 17:46

Jason Robert Quever is the mastermind behind Papercuts, the San Franciscan dream-pop outfit who recently released the subtly gorgeous – and TLOBF Recommended – Fading Parade on Sub Pop. It’s a record that calls to mind various bands, from The Beach Boys and The Zombies through to Galaxie 500 and on to Beach House – but the bright production and touching song writing marks Papercuts out as being on the verge of something special. Venturing away from his home studio for the first time took Quever to The Hangar in Sacramento, and to producer Thom Monahan (Beachwood Sparks, Vetiver, Au Revoir Simone).

We took this opportunity to chat to Jason via e-mail about the making of the record, lofty ambitions, and of course how to get the perfect rack tom sound….

Hi Jason, it’s good to meet you. Where in the world are you right now?

Sunny San Francisco (well it’s sunny for 2 hours a day).

I think the new record (Fading Parade) is great, does releasing it on Sub Pop give it a different feel to any other records you’ve done?

Thanks! Maybe it pushed me to go for a more classy sound, thinking about other things that have been on Sub Pop. Plus they were enthusiastic about getting me to work with Thom, which enabled me to get a bigger sound…

When working with Thom Monahan, did you approach recording methods any differently than that of past efforts? Do you perhaps think you had to hold yourself back from getting too involved in production, or did it free you up to concentrate fully on the music?

You nailed it. Working with Thom enabled me to focus on the things I cared about the most. I don’t really need to worry about what mic to put on the rack tom, etc… I would get bogged down on those things, so much that when it came time to mix my other records by myself, I’d be so psyched out and exhausted, I’d make dumb mistakes and forget about “big picture” stuff that would be obvious to anyone who wasn’t too close to the song, like the vocals being too low. So I used it as a chance to focus on singing better and thinking about how to make the arrangements and songs as diverse and dynamic as possible, given the material. And we wanted a bigger sound than before, so Thom helped me do that, I would have been too sidetracked with that task, and not focused on playing guitar and singing and writing, which is what I love doing the most.

As a multi-instrumentalist what’s it like playing and recording with a full band? Do you prefer having people around you, and what’s the process you go through in selecting the right guys to play with?

I love not playing drums and bass on all the tracks, it’s so nice to have people like Graham (Hill, drums and vocals) and Frankie (Koeller, bass) doing it better than I could, again, so I could focus on the stuff I wanted to do. They and Thom made the whole thing fun, and it’s so great to have that memory when I think about making the record, we had a lot of fun. And the amazing thing was both of those guys, at times, encouraged me to record a track if they thought I could just get the vibe better. It was low ego, which is crucial. It’s really hard to find people who can be my great friends and can play well, and it took a super long time to find a few people I can do this with. It has to be fun or people will sense that you are seeing it as “work”, especially on stage, at least for me.

Does working in someone else’s studio relax you more? Like when you’ve having a party at your own place you can never fully chill as you’re worrying about someone spilling something? Or is that just me?

Again you are totally right, I love recording somewhere else for this very reason. I don’t have to apologise about anything, and I don’t have to worry about pissing off the neighbours or fixing the tape machine. It’s a totally different and superior experience to work in other studios, and I can’t wait to make another record.

Let’s talk about the record. I felt it was an album packed with references to endings and breakups/changes – did you set out to write about those things or did it come about naturally? Am I picking up the right themes?

Yes this is true. It’s really about memories of people that I once have known but do no longer… It’s like a dream about all the different relationships I’ve had, except it’s mostly fictional, if that makes sense. Sometimes the thought of having once been really close to someone and then never seeing them again is a strange and devastating thought.

I think it’s quite an ambitious record. It’s got a big sound to it – does being successful bother you? Do you aim high?

I suppose I have a certain drive to do something great. There’s probably some Freudian stuff in there about being neglected as a child, etc… I don’t know, every time I make a record, I wonder why I keep doing it. I have no interest in being mediocre, though I’m afraid of the reality of it all that maybe is it!

The centrepieces to me are ‘Chills’, ‘The Messenger’ and ‘White Are the Waves’ and they come in the middle of the record. Was that a conscious decision to have the standout tracks together like that?

Very interesting that you say that because I’ve heard others say the opposite, that that’s the weaker part of the record, starting with ‘Messenger’ I think. Hah, so I really appreciate you saying that. Sequencing is so weird I tend to have such a different view of what are the strongest songs when I finish a record. I get completely lost in the details of making a record by the end. So I couldn’t say I had an opinion on which were the strongest, I just tried to lay out an order that had a flow yet diversity to it. Those songs seemed like the less surface level, more subconscious, psychedelic songs, so I thought it was good to put them at about act 2.

Is ‘Chills’ a reference to The Chills, the NZ band?

No. I get sick a lot and I was dreaming about a saviour woman offering me epic cold medicine or something to save me.

Who generally are your musical influences, growing up and then when you came to start making music?

I became obsessed with The Beatles, particularly the White Album, when I was really young, and I’ve still listened to that record about 100 times more than any other record. I taught myself ‘Here Comes the Sun’ on an abandoned guitar when I was 10 or so. Other early stuff was just all the classics, like Dylan, the Stones and Led Zeppelin. Then I discovered My Bloody Valentine, Pavement and Belle and Sebastian, all of that was huge for me.

Were there any records you listened to before making Fading Parade, or during the making of it, that influenced the sound?

Well I don’t know exactly how it influenced the sound, but the big records for me over the last few years have been the Vashti Bunyan singles/rarities collection, Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk, Kate Bush’s Hounds Of Love, any Bo Diddley, El Perro Del Mar, Broadcast, Neil Young, Nina Simone, Curtis Mayfield, always The Kinks… Maybe Ritchie Valens influenced this record a little, that makes some sense.

What does the album title refer to?

It’s a parade of people going by, people I’ve known once upon a time but my memories of them is getting blurry…

Do you plan on touring, and what’s next for Papercuts?

Yes we are starting a US tour this week and hopefully we’ll get to the UK in June! After that it’s hard to say…

Fading Parade is out now on Sub Pop