Spencer Krug talks Moonface and Siinai, the Wolf Parade reunion and 00s nostalgia

If that wasn't enough to keep Krug busy, he's also back with a new Wolf Parade EP, the band's first new music in six years. As he prepares to play London this evening as Moonface with Siinai, we caught up Krug for a chat about all his current projects.

Would you say that the bare-bones nature of your last two records had an impact on how you have approached song writing since? Do you think that last EP [2014's City Wrecker] was as far as you could have taken the solo piano thing?

No, I don’t think so. I think I’ll do more solo keyboard work for sure. I don’t think I’ve taken that nearly as far as it could go – I could get considerably more minimal if people would have it. It was just time for a new rock record. The new Moonface and Siinai record happened almost by chance. We recorded it simply to document the songs that we had been jamming while I lived in Helsinki.

One day I said “I’m gonna move back to Canada in the summer.” So they said “Well let’s go document what we’ve written, just for the sake of having it.” It unfolded much more organically and kind of by chance – the record label didn’t even know I was recording it. So I just sent them the whole record all at once.

What made you want to revisit the song "City Wrecker" in particular?

I wrote that song for the piano – like I said, we were just jamming for fun. So one day, I said “Check out this song, let’s try it.” So we did it as a band, and it’s just so groovy and so much different from how I play it on piano that I couldn’t help putting it on the record.

On the record, it was just fun to include the preamble. I think I’m clapping, and our drummer Markus is just staring at me waiting, while other people are funking around on their bass. So when I say “Let’s do it together, buddy,” I meant let’s count it in together. The slap bass never actually makes it into the actual song, though…thank goodness.

Does where you’re living have an impact on your writing?

There’s no way that your surroundings don’t influence you one way or another, but I don’t know how conscious it is. You probably could try to pay attention to how your surroundings are influencing you and inspiring you, and then try to channel it and magnify it, but I don’t do that.

But then the music for this record was written in the same place, in the same season [as the piano records], and it actually got kinda groovy. And I think it’s because we were very relaxed while we were doing it because we were like dads in the garage – it was just music for music’s sake. There was no agenda, which I think you can hear in the music too – it’s funner. But then some of the lyrics were written there, some of the lyrics were written here. I really can’t say – ultimately they all come from the same head.

All of the Moonface albums have been self-produced – how do you know when a record is “done”?

I always think that it’s gonna be simpler than it is – like, “I’m just gonna record this, let someone else mix it - get it away from me!” But whenever I do that, and someone else mixes it, I get really picky – I don’t know why. And it’s weird, because all my records actually sound pretty lo-fi, and if you listen to them a year later, they could be way better. So I do find it hard to let go of things, and the way I know it’s time to just put something into the world is when the people I’m working with – who are almost always friends of mine – are just sort of…I’ve exhausted their patience. [laughs]

Has the sort of fan attention you’ve received for your music over the years had any effect on the way you think of the music/artists that you like?

I’ve always been fairly ignorant when it comes to music. You know, some people are really into liner notes, credits and names. I’ve never been that guy – I don’t know anyone’s names, I just listen to everything on the surface. Wolf Parade are always giving me shit – they’ll name, like, the fuckin’ drummer from Led Zeppelin or something, and I’ll be like “Who’s that?” and they’ll be like “Come on dude!” And I’m like, “I don’t know!” I just don’t know. I mean, I know what Led Zeppelin is. I’ve heard "Stairway to Heaven". I know that I don’t really care about it… [laughs] And that’s never really changed. As a culture, we have a way of wanting to dissect the heads of the people who make the work that we like, and I guess that’s always gone on. Maybe it’s super-naïve of me to think that’s not necessary. But I don’t ever feel that need – I don’t really care about whether or not Frank Black is a nice guy. I just love the Pixies.

How do you feel about the way nostalgia has started to creep into the mid-00s indie rock scene in general?

I find it really surprising that it’s happening, because to me it just ended. It’s like, there was a flurry of activity with Wolf Parade, and we took a break, and now it’s become retro already. So I’m surprised that it happened so soon, but when you think about the rate of diminishing returns in which things become retro right now, the time lapse is getting shorter and shorter – I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised. Wolf Parade said to one another when we decided to reunite that we weren’t going to do just a reunion tour and just play Apologies to the Queen Mary and make a bunch of cash and check back out eighteen months later. We said, if we do this, it’s to start up the band again in the interest of making new music, and touring that new music, as well as, of course, touring old songs, as any band does. But we have three albums, so we’re going to play a lot of the old material, but also a bit of the new material. We tried to make it as if we never stopped.

I’m not a nostalgic person, personally. I think back on the mid-aughts as something that just happened, that I only have remember because I was drinking too much at the time anyway. It was just a really lucky time and place launching pad for me to start whatever career I may have in this, and I’ll always be grateful for that. Other than that, I don’t really care about the mid 2000’s. It’ll probably go down as one of the more boring decades, but whatever, it happened, and people are wanting to remember it.

You’ve said that you have a new Moonface album ready to go. Can you talk a little more about it?

It’s live drums, and keyboards and synthesisers with delay on them. Everything is played live off the floor, nothing’s programmed or sequenced. There wasn’t even any click track, but it does have a bit of an electronic vibe, somehow. It’s mostly to the credit of the drummer, who’s just so good that it feels like a machine doing it sometimes. His name’s Ches Smith – he usually does improv music, y’know, Haitian stuff. He’s the real deal. We recorded it in December 2015

Given the chorus of “Risto’s Riff”, what do you have against photographers?

Hmm. I have nothing against photographers. I feel bad for photographers. I’m saying “At least I’m not a photographer” in the same way you’d say “At least I didn’t break both my legs.” The internet, which is the place where basically everyone gets their media from, is so oversaturated with images that good photographs are starting to lose their meaning, and everyone’s a photographer now on their phone, and fucking Instagram. I have a friend who’s a photographer in Finland – that’s what he does. And he still loves it, he’s very passionate about it, and he takes great photographs – I recognise that. I just wonder if thirty, twenty years ago, he wouldn’t have been more well known. I don’t know how many people will ever see his stuff because it’s just buried in everything else out there. I just feel like we’re just bombarded with images all the time. I can’t imagine what it would feel like to be a photographer.

That’s what that song’s about. I have nothing against photographers. I have nothing against the internet. It’s just the circumstance. It’s just the way it is. It’s aggressive because it’s not just about that – it’s just one small aspect of what the song’s about…the song’s about the [pauses] ah I don’t want to get into it. It’s about the devaluation of art in the contemporary world, and it is something that makes me angry sometimes.

My Best Human Face is out now via Jagjaguwar Records.

Moonface with Siinai play Hoxton Square Bar and Kitchen tonight, 27 June. Tickets are available.