TLOBF Interview // The New Pornographers

Rounding off a busy 2010, The New Pornographers are heading back to the UK this week for a special show at Shepherd’s Bush Empire, as well as an appearance at Bowlie 2 at the weekend. The shows will mark the first time Neko Case has toured the UK with the band. TLOBF caught up with Carl Newman last week to discuss bringing more bombast to The New Pornographers, latest album Together, how Annie Clark is the female Hendrix and how he’d never let Sarah Palin use his music.

Hi Carl, hows it going? How was your trip to Australia?

Australia was very great, yeah. They treat you nice there- it feels very relaxing touring there- which is great because we’ve been touring for almost 6 months, so when you’re getting towards the end it’s nice for it to get comfortable. We were on the beach in Perth in the sun just a couple of days ago.

You’ve been touring with Neko Case again recently. This tour will be the first time you’ve come across to the UK with her. Does having her with you change the live dynamic? In the past you have said you don’t want the band to have a frontperson-although when you’ve toured in the UK you’ve been forced to be the frontman.

Yeah, it’s kind of true. I don’t know, it’s hard for me to say – I have no objective opinion on the matter. I’ve got to say I’ve never felt the need to have the spotlight on me – sometimes it’s nice to have somebody to do more of the singing, you know. Maybe it’s just the lazy part of me….”Alright! I have to do less work…Nice…”

When I saw you in Halifax back in October, you played selections from all your records – is that we can expect from these shows?

We’ve never been that band that only plays the new album. I’ve always felt it’s good to play something from all of your records. Because, you know, when I go to see a band I appreciate that. If you go to see REM you’d be annoyed if they didn’t play anything off Murmur. I think the fact that the audience likes the songs gives them a new life. Some of our songs I can’t remember writing them or what headspace I was in. But I love playing them because I know the audience wants to hear them and it makes a difference.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpvqU2cmK8I&feature=related

So you feed off the audience?

Well, you can’t follow them completely. You try and keep a balance. I feel like if we just play the rock songs then we’re pandering, like court jesters. “You want a fast one, well, alright…” It makes you feel like a wedding band. I try and keep the louder and the quiet stuff mixed up.

Being as it is close to Christmas, will you be playing any of your Christmas songs?

I don’t think we will ever play those… We just did those for what the hell. Sometimes we do covers, but we have too many songs now. We used to do them because we didn’t have enough songs- ‘Send Me A Postcard’ by Shocking Blue, ‘Cruel To Be Kind’ by Nick Lowe and a few years a go we did ‘Don’t Bring Me Down’ by ELO. But there are to many other songs. But I’m a massive ELO fan.

Roy Wood or Jeff Lynne?

I love both of them equally. I’m a massive fan of The Move. I think it’s shocking there were two people of such amazing talent in the same band.

Moving on to the new album… The band seems to exist between everyones other projects, which has led to a scattering of the band all across the continent. Does the fact that you don’t get spend much time with each other anymore have an impact on the record, and did it influence the name?

Well, I think the title has a number of levels. There was the honest part….”Holy shit we’re still together!”- so many people over the years have written about how we’re about to split apart because we all do different things. But we’re not. We still like each other as much as we ever did. And then there’s the irony that we don’t live in the same town – I live in Woodstock, Neko lives in Vermont, the others in Vancouver – we don’t see each other so much now.

And there’s also the fact that it’s not just you on this record – there are a lot of guests…

That was more like cameo appearances. They were friends so we called them up and they were around. The only people we didn’t know were the Dap Kings. But then it was like, for ‘My Shepherd’, we needed a guitar solo, and our producer Phil had just finished working with Annie (St. Vincent) and suggested we get her in. And it worked nicely. I like using her as a guitar player because not many people realise how amazing a guitar player she is because she’s known more as a singer. But if you watch her play live she’s like a female Hendrix.

Is there anyone else you would like to work with in the future?

I’ve always talked about working with the Fiery Furnaces – they are one of my favourite bands of the last 10 years. I don’t know if it will happen, but if I was going to collaborate or bring in an outside producer, I think I’d want to bring in Matthew Friedberger.

When you are writing your records, do you write for a voice, or write and see who it works best with, like they used to do for the old Motown records?

I wrote the song ‘My Shepherd’ for Neko. But most of the time we just see what works. After a while you begin to know what key someone sings in. Sometimes I’ll write a song that’s out of my register – and think, “OK thats a Neko song…this is two steps above what I can sing.” And I’m always happy when someone else sings. It’s like a snow day.

Over the years you seem to have said this, that you’re not terribly confident in your own voice. Isn’t that a drawback for someone in your position?
I have no problem with it, it’s just I think everyone else is a better singer than me. Neko and Kathryn have great voices – there’s no way I’m going to start thinking I’m an amazing singer, even within my own band.

Are you a harsh critic of other acts, making you doubly hard on yourself?
I don’t think I am…I’m pretty much on board- name a popular band and I probably think they’re great. I’m like “Yeah… The National are awesome. Animal collective…Yeah, awesome.” I am my harshest critic. But I’m sure there are some critics out there who would be quite happy to challenge that.

This record feels “Big” especially the big rock cello intro on ‘Moves’ and the big riff of ‘Your Hands (Together)’ and backwards guitars and spiraling solos on ‘Daughters of Sorrow’. Was that a conscious effort or was it just how things worked out?

It really was a conscious effort – on Challengers we were getting mellow, and I wanted to have something like ‘Moves’ built around a big cello. I’ve always loved bombast, and I wanted to add a little more – if I had my own way it would be even more bombastic.

How do Dan Bejar’s contributions fit in? Does he bring a collection of songs for the band to pick or does he just deliver them as is?
Have I ever said that’s a Destroyer song we can’t do it? There is a song called ‘Painter In Your Pocket’. He presented that as a potential song for us. But I didn’t know what to do with it as a New Pornographers song. But I think that is one of the only times.

And ‘Hey Snow White’ – he did that as a Destroyer song originally but now you’re doing it?
Yeah – we’ve just started playing that live. We never played it before, even though it is on this big record (Dark Was The Night). A lot of people only know that song by us. But it’s fun to play live. It’s nice to be included as one of the ‘cool kids’ to be put on a record like that.

And at your festival (Stanley Park Singing Exhibition) you got to play with them too…
Yeah! If you want to be one of the cool kids you have to have your own festival…

New Pornographers songs have been used in Rock Band, and in TV programmes – with radio play much harder to come by and album sales down in general, do you see this as a new way of getting music heard? People seem to be very down on people letting there songs be used…but surely as long as you don’t have issues with the product it should be fine? I’d rather my favourite band sold a song to an advert and got enough money to carry on making records than not being able to afford to record new music at all.
I’m not at all precious – no one will ever be able to take your art away from you- no matter what I do with that song, no one can change it. If somebody puts meaning in to it, and decides it is important to them, then thinks it’s been tainted by use, I don’t know what to say. If I have no problem with it, that’s the best I can do. I’m concerned not to let just anybody use my music. Like I wouldn’t let Sarah Palin use one of my songs because I’m so offended by her. And I wouldn’t let Walmart use one. But most of the time it’s like sure, whatever. A Jennifer Aniston movie wants to use it? Sure, why not. If people are going to take music for free, can you really blame a band for trying to get paid eventually? It doesn’t work both ways.

What about the reunion tour? Would you ever consider reforming Zumpano for a couple of shows?
I don’t think that would ever happen – not enough people are asking us to do it, and the effort involved is too much. I think about it every now and then. I’m too busy with future things…I’ve got a few projects coming up that I’m really excited about- but I can’t tell you about them just yet…

As the year, and this interview, draws to a close, what has been the highlight of 2010 for you?

It’s all been a blur. I guess this is a lame answer but at the heart of it I’m just happy that I get to play music, that that’s my job. It’s what I like to do so the act of recording and going on tour, it’s the stuff I look back on most fondly.

That’s the most you can ask for really isn’t it? If you love it and you can do it, you’ve won.

That’s how I feel for the most part, even if it’s not a carriage ride the whole time.

It seems to me that you guys are always having fun on stage too – it’s refreshing and I think it comes out in the crowd.
I think that’s what we wanted to be. We never wanted to be an image based band- we wanted that DIY aesthetic- that anyone could do it. We want people to look and see regular people, not some “Rock Star”. Really, at the heart of it, isn’t that what Punk Rock was supposed to be about? Getting rid of the whole “Rock Star” idea. Even though the Pistols were rock stars they were saying “go out and start your own band”. I’ve always liked the underground- the regular joes getting onstage and making music. Before I started playing I thought the audience to person on stage was a frightening line to cross- but I’ve got used to it now. I remember being a teenager and realising a lot of the bands I liked weren’t popular, like ‘pop music’- if they came to Vancouver there wouldn’t be 2000 people there and that actually that was ok.

The New Pornographers play Shepherd Bush Empire on December 9th and Bowlie 2 Weekender on December 11th. The new album ‘Together’ is out now via Matador.