Travis Morrison
When It's Time To Change...
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In the NATN newsroom, there aren't a whole heck of a lot of bands that will cause our staff to nod their heads in unison, or play some mean air guitar without fear of mockery. One of the only bands for whom such adulation is reserved is Washington, D.C.'s the Dismemberment Plan, who continue to push the indie-rock envelope with each new release. With Change (Desoto Records), the foursome -- frontman Travis Morrison, guitarist Jason Caddell, bassist Eric Axelson, and drummer Joe Easley -- augments its signature hyperactive rock assaults with complex chord changes, creative electronics, and a more serious lyrical outlook than we've normally come to expect from Morrison.
Travis Morrison: The mania is beginning! The Japanese interview was all politics, which was a little hairy. They asked about two questions about the album in an hour, and the rest of it was about America. They've gotten it into their minds, and this one publication in particular, has assigned me "philosopher-poet of my American generation" status. It's really weird, because obviously this isn't really something I contend with on a daily basis [laughs]. They're like, "the editor would like to know how people your age in America feel right now." I totally see why Bob Dylan was an evasive prick. It's totally justified.
NATN: Let's just go track by track on the new album, starting with "Sentimental Man." It seems to be a departure in how dreamy it is, not only as opener but as a Dismemberment Plan song as a whole. I guess that's not really a question..
TM: I agree!
NATN: Well, was it right off the bat the main candidate to open the album? Were you guys looking to start things off differently than on past albums?
TM: Well, I wouldn't say we were directly looking for it. I was starting to get worried because none of the songs we'd written sounded like an opener, and it was the last song we wrote. And really, none of the other songs would be a good album opener at all. It has a nice "opening statement" feel. The singing style is a little peculiar for me, which is kind of nice to kick the record off that way. It puts people on notice that something different is coming down the pike. I think it encapsulates some of the themes of the record lyrically in a pretty cheerful way, so that was good. Just the way the opening chord rings out is a nice way to start a record.
And I don't know [laughs]. Once I exhaust the reasons I think of later, there's also the fact that we didn't have anything else. That's the actual rock'n'roll reason. I think all those things went together with it. It and "Ellen And Ben" were the ones that were done last. They were the ones we were racing to finish as we went into the studio. Earlier on in our work cycles, it's more open-ended and we go through things as a band and fuck around. As we get near the deadline, since I'm kind of like vice-president of musical structure but not necessarily ideas, that's kind of where I start pushing material to have a certain shape, because I think there's holes in the overall feel of the album. So it's probably fair to say that "Sentimental Man" I realized would be a nice album opener and we needed one, so I started pushing certain elements of it to sound the way it did.
NATN: In its construction, the odd turn you might be expecting never comes. Did it ever have one in its earlier incarnations?
TM: I don't think so. The guys weren't initially psyched about the chords and melody I had, because it was very formless. But Joe did a bang-up job elucidating a structure through his drum part. What he does on the chorus to kind of bring the soundscape together to a point, without necessarily raising the volume intensity that much, is really something to behold. Once that came around, it was a lot clearer that we were on to something and that it was the way to go. There never really seemed to be a reason to shift into a different time signature or anything like that.
NATN: As it ends, it sort of fades into the next track, "The Face Of The Earth." Were you always looking to tack something onto the beginning of it?
TM: No. That came in later. I wanted to do more segues, and I actually had other ideas for segues that kind of got vetoed. But that was one that survived. Yeah, I was really happy with that segue. It was just an experiment fooling around after the songs were written. There's a nice drum fill near the start of "Face Of The Earth," where it's almost like the thoughts are overlapping and the drum fill really accents being in a new song. It's also the point at which the keyboard signal disappears from "Sentimental Man."
NATN: To me, this song is sort of like the older brother of "The City," [from Emergency & I] in that it's groove-based, but it's a bit more evolved structurally.
TM: It's got a very intricate song structure, and one that's representative of the direction we wanted to go with the record. "Face Of The Earth" is a really good example of a song having an alinear structure, but still having a basic song shape. I would actually say it's more closely related to "Life Of Possibilities," [also from Emergency & I] in that it shifts around with a basic structure, and then there's a melodic part at the end, and then it goes back to the original groove at the end. The general kind of emotional vibe of it is more similar to "Life Of Possibilities." "The City" is pretty Broadway.
NATN: Lyrically, the narrator seems to be searching for something, be it a person or a feeling, and having difficulty achieving it.
TM: Did I tell you the story that the song came from? I read an interview with Michael Jordan where he talked about going to a beach house with friends. The girl he had been dating for just a little bit got sucked into the riptide at night and drowned. The way he capped off the story was kind of like, "ain't that crazy?" He's actually a pretty meditative and introspective guy. You'll catch him saying all kinds of things you wouldn't associate with a superstar athlete. I could tell he was kind of riffing on the unpredictability of things. It's funny because, how upset do you get if you've been dating someone for three or four months, and they die? That must happen in life. If someone I was just dating through my course of urban bachelorhood died after only a couple of months, I can see it being very hard to establish that they'd be dead. Are they just blowing me off? My dad passed away a couple of years ago. It's nothing like that, but watching people deal with the mourning process, they have no idea what to make of it. Reading the Jordan story crystallized in me the idea of, how upset am I supposed to be? It's an alarming one as human beings. We're very uncomfortable when we think we're supposed to be feeling more than we are, and we don't know why that is. The story stuck with me for the longest time. You go to the funeral but you're probably not going to be that upset, because you don't know them that well!
NATN: The next song, "Superpowers," really takes things to the next level, as in, this is the Plan as of right now. Lyrically, it's also a cool metaphor for an average guy.
TM: It's a fairly universal thing people go through. I can do this and that, but, oh well [sighs]. The song is very trailing. We're trying to get that together. Implying has never been our strong suit [laughs].
NATN: I noticed that it's played live with one guitar, which surprised me.
TM: The whole buzzing bee part is a couple of overdubs. That song scared the shit out of me because I had to put a lot of time into learning how to play that Quincy Jones funk guitar bit, and sing at the same time. I still screw it up occasionally at shows but it's fairly natural now. It still does take a litle bit away from my vocal power, and it shouldn't. I need to learn to separate the two physically. But yeah, that was a challenge.
NATN: The hook into the chorus is unusual and abrupt. Is it a challenge to keep working with such strange chord shifts? Do you guys find yourselves trying to top one weird change with another?
TM: Not really, no. And maybe this is a testament to what a freak I am: I didn't think "Superpowers" sounded that weird. I thought it's startling. Also there's a rhythmic shift that's startling. It is a funny key change. It's not something done that frequently in music we listen to. But I know it's something that happens in music by European composers. It kind of returns back to the original key. It's indeterminate. It changes direction, then kind of changes again a little bit through it. You're not really supposed to do that. But that stuff, honestly, it was just me sitting and playing keyboard and singing to myself. Everyone told me the chorus change was really weird. I really felt like I gotta train my ear to accept things other people get freaked out by. It never seems strange to me.
NATN: When we get to "Pay For The Piano," up to that point, it's the first evolutionary strain if you've just come from listening to Is Terrified.
TM: Yeah. "It's them again!" The first three [songs] don't have much in the way of precedent. This is actually more of a rocker than we've ever done. It's in a melodic mode that we've never really done. There are some blues rock moves in it that aren't typically us. The guy that mixed it kept comparing it to The Police.
NATN: I was going to compare parts of "Sentimental Man" to The Police.
TM: Oh well, the bassline in that is so "When The World Is Running Down." Totally. It goes through a similar modulation. Also, it's that really groovy thing that Sting had. Eric channels that really well. But "Pay For The Piano" actually quotes melodically [Sting's] "Fortress Around Your Heart" in the "may as well be us" part. It's not exactly the same. Sting would do that really kind of pop but very melodically intricate thing.
NATN: The narrator's standpoint on this is like "Doin' The Standin' Still" where he says, "look, listen up for a second." What he's actually telling you about I don't know...
TM: [Laughs hard]. The song is just about emotional sacrifice. It's a song I definitely wrote after observing people involved in the activist world in D.C., who sometimes get so little thanks for what they do. It would be so easy for them to feel sorry for themselves. It kind of takes the perspective of, if you do have what it takes to make the world be better place, you have an obligation to ignore the small-minded mother fuckers around you that aren't going to help you. I realize that it takes a lot of courage to people to say, "they don't know I'm helping them but I'm going to do it anyway." It's strange subject matter for a rock album. I felt the songs were completely obvious what they were about, but people are really like, "what the fuck is all of this?" [laughs]
NATN: "Come Home" is a bit more major key-ish...
TM: Yes. "Come Home" is my Carole King. Nobody notices that. The first few lines are a nod to "It's Too Late." The whole thing with the rain through the leaves. People don't really associate us with Carole King, so I'm not too worried about that one [laughs].
NATN: And then "Secret Curse," which is the pinncale of seriousness. It's so musically intense.
TM: Well, it's very, very broad. I wrote "Secret Curse" on the Pearl Jam tour. I wanted to have a "Wishlist."
NATN: Actually, my friend said Eddie Vedder would kill for the end part of "Secret Curse."
TM: It's a Pearl Jam song in that, and even more so in the way he can channel almost Woody Guthrie-style folksy metaphors. Even if I was offstage and I'd hear them starting to play "Wishlist," I'd come galloping up. The song just blew me away. I wrote "Secret Curse" in the van on that tour because I wanted to write a really simple little song. It's our Pearl Jam song.
NATN: Would it be fair to see some parallels between "Automatic" and "The Jitters" from the last album?
TM: Yes [laughs]! And I think it will be related to that because nobody will really like it very much [laughs hard]. Even if you like it as a song, there's no real reason to listen to it. It's like an intermission. It's all me.
NATN: Has the band ever played it live?
TM: Once. Some technical issue happened and some of my bandmates pushed me to play it. They think I should play it more, but I don't know [laughs]. It went over pretty well. I had kind of had in mind a more rhythmically advanced bossa-nova arrangement, but it just kind of stayed the way it is. I anticipate that like "The Jitters," a freaky 5% of people will love it, but everybody else will treat it not as filler, but a tonic. We don't do palette cleansers, until now.
NATN: A lot of people thought "The Jitters" was proof that you were listening to a lot of Radiohead.
TM: No. It was my Jeff Buckley attempt. Of course that stuff never radiates out. They're both my reponsibility, more than other songs in our catalog. I've always been interested in really sophisticated balladry. Stuff that predates Jeff and maybe even Tim Buckley. German art song tradition like Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht. Either the people I'm playing to aren't into that kind of thing or I'm not very good at it [laughs]. Honestly, [the band's cover of Jennifer Page's 1998 pop hit] "Crush" is another attempt at that kind of thing. I like dense, sophisticated, uneasy, and negative balladry. Joni Mitchell does that kind of stuff really well. They'll always be one of those on an album, because I'm always writing them. The band lets one of them through [laughs].
NATN: The first thing you notice about "Following Through" is the note-y guitar line, for lack of a better description.
TM: Well, that is the influence of the last Blonde Redhead album. That baroque Beatles descending thing, really graceful. With the key shifts, each of the verses is in a different key. It wanders the entire song, but it felt right to dip down in the second verse and get a a little more low-down, harmonically. It's a song I think we did the least justice to in the studio. Live, it's a lot more aggressive and to the point.
NATN: And again, there's an open section to kind of work the riff.
TM: We let the songs breathe a little more on this record. I am actually inordinately fond of "Following Through." It may be my favorite song on the record. The recorded version goes in more interesting places because we did one chorus falsetto. Live, it's like a super sophisticated Promise Ring song. I don't think it's a failure per se. I think the song survived. But in retrospect, I kinda wish we would have rocked out more and forgotten about the falsetto chorus.
NATN: Bands have some songs they play live they can always "go to" if they feel their energy is dipping, or if they need to change the mood drastically. Do you have songs like that, and is "Time Bomb" one of them?
TM: Yeah. I mean, on one level, there are songs we know will get the crowd going. I don't want to call it throwing a bone, but there is an element of, "all right, let's play one we all know, then we'll go back into the weird stuff." I wouldn't say "Time Bomb" is necessarily one of them. Maybe for my bandmates. It's a little more involved for me, but it does get called a lot in those situations. We definitely have those songs. "The City" is one. "Doin' The Standin' Still" is another. I like to fire that off if I feel people are getting sleepy. "What Do You Want Me To Stay" and "The Ice Of Boston": these are the very "clear" hits, songs that have clarity and are focused, and that deliver a payoff with a minimum of circuituousness. I could see "Time Bomb" definitely being one of those songs. I think "Ellen And Ben" will be one of them, too. They're the kind of songs that people dig even if we play them bad, whereas "Superpowers" sounds like shit if we play it bad.
NATN: Would you say where you're coming from lyrically goes beyond the surface reading of a person being a timebomb internally?
TM: Well, yeah. I think it's clearly a character sketch in the context of the album. It's so decidely unlike anything else on the album. With "The Other Side," it's a two-song eruption of really serious involvement. I like how "The Other Side" is in the same key as "Time Bomb" and leant itself well to overlapping. "The Other Side" almost talks the "Time Bomb" narrator down: "I'm not going to succumb to bitterness. Get over that." "Time Bomb" is almost a little cartoonish. It's almost pointedly an exercise in adolescence or self-pity. "I am a time bomb" -- you kind of want to slap someone who says something like that [laughs]. It does go beyond it, but if only because I think somewhere listeners understand it's a bit of an untrustworthy narrator. Somehow the song communicates that this person is not in a good place or a place you want to be. It's not a complete endorsement of adolescent resistance games. It's a very classically constructed smash-you-over-the-head-with-a-hook kind of thing. It's the only one on the record does that. That also may contribute to the sense of very specific craft, which may play into the idea of, this is a character. And I've only been that bitter a couple of times [laughs]!
NATN: I can see how "The Other Side" could be in a way linked thematically. There's definitely more there than taking the title at face value.
TM: Yeah. Well, it's kind of like the flipside of "Time Bomb." It talks about the values of commitment, but it also doesn't sound like whatever is being talked about is very enjoyable [laughs]. They both have that element of overt "feel my pain, won't you?" The rest of the record resolutely lacks that. It denies the listener, by and large, the right to feel the narrator's pain.
NATN: And then you go and link that lyric to what is some of the most unusual music you guys have ever recorded. Tell me about this song's evolution. Was it always in 150+ beats per minute tempo?
TM: The way it came about was that I had written the chords and the melody. I wrote it like a fingerpicked Jobim bossa-nova. If you hear it with guitar and vocals, you will totally hear that. The melody has a completely Brazilian lilt to it, and a very lightly minor key sound. Joe and I were all really into Lake Trout. We had gone to see them and the next day, I was like, "hey Joe. I've got a song that sounds a little like Lake Trout. Play a Lake Trout beat!" So he did and I started playing my song over it, and there it was. I thought the frantic-ness of his beat was offset by the kind of smooth melancholy of the rest of the song. I love that LTJ Bukem song, with the furious drums against Herbie Mann flutes. I can never get enough of that. I kind of wish we had gone farther, with Jason's slide part as a flute or clarinet or something. We play it fairly regularly. It actually goes over. I've got to admit, it's not one I get nervous about before we play it. It rocks pretty hard. The arrangement is far less colorful, because we did a lot of trickery with the guitar sounds in the studio.
NATN: I imagine Eric's hand falling off while playing the bassline.
TM: His part is actually really simple. The bassline is "Bed's Too Big Without You" by the Police. The song drove Joe to wear glove when he plays, because it's so maniacal. He clobbers the drums to within an inch of their lives. It's an odd one. Do you think it's odd melodically, or is it the rhythm?
NATN: Well, the first thing it reminded me of was Aphex Twin. I couldn't believe it was Joe playing live. Overall, it's like, this is the Dismemberment Plan! This is what they can really do!
TM: [laughs hard]. Whew!!
NATN: "Ellen And Ben." In the same way "Sentimental Man" lends itself to being an opener, this song is a bit akin to "Back And Forth" in that it makes perfect sense as a closer.
TM: I always think of in terms of cinematically, is this a song credits could roll over? Definitely at the end [of the song]. I could see the Panavision logo scrolling up. It was definitely written to be an album ender. The material is so open-ended that it lends itself to being bridge statements. None are start or end statements. Consciously and unconsciously, we're moving toward making the songs fit the positions they are in.
NATN: What is your take on the way that each narrative segment works together? Is this a new approach for you, in that from section to section, you don't know who is speaking or what is really going on?
TM: Yeah. That's definitely true. An important part for me of the song is that there are certain things about it you can't get your head around. There are huge unanswered questions about what's going on in that song. That is kind of part of the song. The essential nature of Ellen and Ben, besides the fact that they're boorishly in love, fondling each other in front of their friends, and then they vanish for awhile, is that the narrator doesn't seem to still be friends with them. He hears about them breaking up, but then you're wondering if they were ever really close friends. Or, did he date her? I don't think he did. It kind of sketches out strange little details that are all based on the narrator's perception of the couple, less than on the couple themselves. There are odd things in the first verse where it goes into omniscient mode. That is core to the song: these strange little moments strung together. At the end of the song, it leaves space for the listener to ask, "what's going on with you?" But at that point he's gone, and so is the record. You can't. By the end, he's telling someone, "you can always give me a call," which sounds like a little bit of a guilt trip.
NATN: It's a great concept that you get a ray of light at the end, but then the album is over.
TM: It's definitely an ellipsis in sound. The way the album ends, it sounds like an invitation to say something to the narrator, to ask them a question, like "what's your story?" Usually I can't say I thought of these things, but I definitely thought of this one [laughs]. It became a mission for me, to tell the sides of the story and therefore write a song about the absence of the story at the center. You wonder and care about the narrator's condition. It's kind of about what it's not about.
NATN: So that’s the album. Was there anything left over? You guys don’t seem to have a lot of material lying around unused.
TM: No. We don’t have songs to burn. We’re the opposite of the Elvis Costello spectrum. We pour it all into the work at hand and there’s just nothing else. There is a 55-second song called “BTA.” It’s really frenetic and not of a piece with the album. It will be on the Japanese version of the album. We’ve been kind of fiddling around with some cover ideas and stuff. There is thought about the next record. But generally, for me, and being a structure guy, songs laying around without a place to go die quickly for us. There’s no support system for orphan songs. Some bands do have that support system. The songs we’ve completed to the point of playing but not recorded only number two. One I don’t even remember. But the other, “Hole In The Parachute,” just never made the cut. The roadie from that tour still sings it to us. I am proud of “BTA.” It’s a fun little song.
NATN: In preparing to make the new album, was it a tough decision to work with the same folks again, like J. Robbins and Chad Clark?
TM: No! J. is a genius! We’re actually bad about change. We mate for life, which I think is a D.C. thing. I would love to work with the Neptunes or Nile Rodgers or Brian Eno. I have thought of funny people that would be funny to work with, like Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. But we just go, “who do we know who produces records? J. and Chad!”
NATN: Further to that, what do J., Chad, and Inner Ear bring to the table?
TM: I think they complement each other well. We put Chad in a little bit of a tight spot because we asked him to play this Andy Wallace/mixer role, which was a little unfair, given the situation. It also worked out well in some ways, because you have a whole new set of ears to hear it. Chad is wonderful at pixie dust-style stuff. Those strange filter effects in “Sentimental Man,” which sound like congas dipping out of the mix, is a classic Chad idea. He’s responsible for the sci-fi wooshing sounds on “Back And Forth.” There’s always a tension between the documentarian impulse of recording, which I think J embodies very, very well, and the attitude that Chad shares, which is, “fuck documenting! The record is the document. Think about how it comes out of the speakers.” For our next record, we’re going to be more mature about picking which one we want to do, because we can’t be asking the best of both worlds from everybody. The next one, we’ll do it one or the other way. But for these last two records, it was a really great way to work. We got more out of the situation on Emergency, because we were so green and stubborn. That got bashed out of us by the time way made Change, thank god.
NATN: In a general way, this album is more serious. There are manic moments, but seeing as how “The Dismemberment Plan Gets Rich” was the last song released prior to the new album, that one kind of feels like a clearing of the decks for this phase.
TM: I think it worked more in reverse. It was abundantly clear that “Gets Rich” would sound terrible on this record. Probably subconsciously, it was a clearing of the decks. “Gets Rich” was written third after Emergency.
NATN: So, now you are a band with a new album: you tour, you came up with the idea of fan remixes, and you do other things to get the word out. I’d like to hear your thoughts on that part of what you do.
TM: I actually feel like we’re not so good at promoting ourselves. I think we have gone about it the right away in that we’ve allowed people to slowly come to us. And, as a result, although we probably could have more bodies in the shows at given points in the last two years had we been on Interscope, the crowds are getting bigger. Still, we still don’t have people coming by to “check out the new, hip band.” That tells me we have really done the right thing by being on Desoto, which is run only by Kim [Coletta]. Now she’s got a baby. They put out press ads that are kind of hard to read [laughs]. They’re more about what Desoto is selling these days. The records crawl from dorm room to dorm room on their own accord. I think that’s good in the long run, because if you come to see us play, you’ll see a pretty weird scene, and that’s for the best.
You should have seen the Canada shows. Whenever we bust into a new territory, there’s still this perception that we’re D.C. hardcore, still! So, we went up there and played to really young crowds. Those are weird for us, because we’re a great deal older than those kids, and we have a completely different intellectual and emotional M.O. We did when we were that age, and now we really do [laughs]! But it’s good for one’s character.
NATN: I’m thinking back to basement parties you guys used to play. Do you ever do shows like that anymore?
TM: Not so much. We were generally pretty lucky with the basement shows. We did play a house show in Ann Arbor, Mich. It was a mad house. Basement shows are for bands that draw 5 or 15 people. They invariably are in places that have crap sound and crap sight lines. If you can’t hear or see the band, you really kind of have no options! We’ve endeavored to find art spaces and clubs before houses. In terms of the promotion stuff, the remix stuff has an attitude of promotion to it. But for me, it’s more something that is both interesting and a way for people to hear us. I had no idea where it was going to go. It’s like band shrinky-dinks. We’ve had seven submissions so far. They have been pretty consistently good, but nothing visionary good yet. I’m waiting for a band to record death metal tracks around “The City”; you know, go to some freaky conceptual places and hit a home run. By and large, it’s like Travis over a dance beat, or a dub landscape.
NATN: Do you think you will maybe release them?
TM: Yeah, I think so. I also like the idea of them being sent back and forth. If we accumulate a bunch that are really good, then yeah, why not?
NATN: Are there any songs that you just don’t play anymore?
TM: Oh, yeah. I realized the other day that most of Terrified we don’t play. “That’s When The Party Started” is always lurking as a possibility. It may slink back but Jason announced he was tired of playing it. Usually, I don’t get sick of songs. I’m always up to play “The Ice Of Boston.” I always enjoy playing around with the vocal patterns.
NATN: “This Is The Life” is a never? I can’t recall ever seeing that played.
TM: No, actually decidely not. We’ve talked seriously about reconstructing it. I always thought it was the best song on the album, and it drove me crazy that nobody ever noticed it. I was thinking it would be nice to reconstruct the first part before the rock-out part at the end, then leave that hanging there and go into the next song. I thought it would be interesting to rescuscitate “Manipulate Me” but none of us know how it goes [laughs].
NATN: “Survey Says?”
TM: Yipes. That made it up until the show before we went in to record Emergency. I don’t think we played it after that album came out. The chorus is really good. I’ve always thought about taking some songs and almost doing covers of them. We’d play them so differently. We’ve played “Respect Is Due” at rehearsals but it never sounds good. We almost did it at the last D.C. show but we chickened out. We’ll whip it out at some weird ass show.
NATN: “Memory Machine?”
TM: Oh yeah. We play that a bunch. The last two months it has been played second in the set a lot. One show we even started with it. We’ve definitely talked about reviving “Fantastic,” but I don’t remember what bizarro guitar things we were doing. Half of ! still gets played: “Rusty,” “If I Don’t Write,” “Soon To Be Ex-Quaker” got played twice on this tour, “Onward Fat Girl,” and “OK Joke’s Over.” We got “Wouldn’t You Like To Know” together, but all my bandmates thought it sucked [laughs].
NATN: What’s it like when you get off tour? What do you all do? Pick up jobs?
TM: Get back to sniffin’ glue [laughs!]. No. I’ve got a million things to do with the band. Some of us had day jobs this summer. Eric had his first waiting job and Jason did basic office temp work. I believe Joe did too. I usually get weird freelance computer stuff, but I still took half pay from the band because I was doing a lot of work. I balance the books and stuff like that. I was nervous about being able to fill my days when I finally quit my day job, but actually it all filled up very, very fast. I actually get out of bed a lot earlier than I did when I had a temp job.
NATN: Do you guys ever work with other musicians outside the context of the
Dismemberment Plan?
TM: Jason has played guitar on a few things, and I did a Braid remix. Back in the day I would occasionally produce and mix other local bands. I did art too. But my schedule is so busy now. There are times I think there are things I’d like to express outside of the context of the Dismemberment Plan. But in general, it’s a fool’s errand. We have mated for life. One of the things I am most proud of about the band is not so much that we stuck together, which is a feat, but we rejected some of the ideas that are pretty endemic in the underground of what artistic loyalty means and what you’re supposed to do with your life. The average indie-rock musician does not have the kind of relationship with their craft as, say, a jazz saxophonist who plays on tons of sessions. They’re just not that good. If you’re not committed to your band as a work of art, or committed to playing your guitar nine or 10 hours a day, then what are you? You’re kind of just a poseur.
I’m proud of the fact that, in terms of how underground rock bands exist, we
don’t hue to the “I have 19 bands model.” I guess sex with 19 people can be
interesting, but you can’t really start a family. I’m glad for that. As the
guy in the band who, if the band broke up tomorrow, would have a solo album out in five minutes, the question is: what does the continuing emotional narrative
of the band -- through the songs and through everything else we do -- have to
say to people? I’m really glad we kept faith in that.
JONATHAN COHEN | Jonathan Cohen co-created Nude As The News with his Indiana University mates Troy Carpenter and Ben French. When not traversing the globe for business and pleasure, he holds down the fort as a senior editor for Billboard in New York. Stop him and he just may ask, "what for lunch?"