Jeremy Enigk
Rising High
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The rise and fall of Sunny Day Real Estate isn't easy to summarize, but goes a little something like this. The Seattle quartet (frontman Jeremy Enigk, guitarist Dan Hoerner, bassist Nate Mendel, drummer William Goldsmith) inadvertantly set the "emo" craze in motion with its 1994 Sub Pop debut, Diary, arguably one of the most influential rock albums on the decade. But inter-band squabbling (including Enigk's unabashed conversion to Christianity) doomed the 1995 follow-up known as The Pink Album, and Sunny Day was history almost as quickly as it had begun to amass worldwide acclaim.
Mendel and Goldsmith backed the earliest incarnation of Dave Grohl's Foo Fighters, while Enigk made a highly regarded, idiosyncratic 1996 solo album, Return of the Frog Queen. Two years later, Sunny Day suddenly reformed (minus Mendel, who was replaced by several bassists; even Enigk took a turn) and released How It Feels To Be Something On, making good on the promise few such reunion efforts ever achieve. However, a jump to the pseudo-major label Time Bomb for 2000's The Rising Tide failed to appreciably broaden SDRE's mass appeal, and the group broke up again.
Enter The Fire Theft, which finds Mendel returning to the fold and Hoerner completely out of the picture. As Enigk freely admits, the group's self-titled debut doesn't stray too far from SDRE's gradually maturing rock sound (it helps that producer Brad Wood, who was behind the boards in the early days, is back on board). But where SDRE's cryptic lyrics often imparted meaning simply by Enigk's inflection, The Fire Theft finds him offering his most direct wordplay to date. There are naked songs of love lost and found ("Waste Time," "Heaven"), tales of personal redemption ("Sinatra") and even a song that seems to be about recharging ones personal batteries poolside ("Houses").
Enigk gave a rare interview to NATN in 2000, but three years on, he seems more comfortable discussing his musical past, present and future.
NATN: If you can tell me, what exactly went down to result in Sunny Day's final break-up?
Jeremy Enigk: I think we did two or three U.S. tours for The Rising Tide, each about three weeks. We had probably been home for a month or two from those tours and had broken up, basically. I don't know. I think it just ultimately got to the point for us where we had been doing it for so long, on and off, that it was old. It didn't feel really fresh anymore. The spirit of the band... it was kind of just like we were going through the robotic motions of being in a band. It was time to make a change, despite the fact The Fire Theft really isn't very different [laughs].
NATN: It probably didn't help that the Time Bomb situation didn't pan out.
JE: Right. Sure. If we had more of a powerful force and support behind us, I'm sure that would have made things more tempting and kind of worth it.
NATN: But the record did fairly well, all things considered. It even debuted in the top-100 of the Billboard chart.
JE: Yeah, nothing against them either. [Former Time Bomb head] Jim Guerinot is a really cool guy and it wasn't necessarily his fault. It just didn't work out.
NATN: So once Sunny Day decided to split, what happened next?
JE: Well, William and I had already talked about if we were going to stop doing Sunny Day, that we were going to.. it was kind of at the same time that we made the decision to do the band. You know, it took quite awhile to actually make that clear to ourselves, even. We had to start writing, start focusing and finding a name and all of that. I think there was a period where it was hard to adjust to the sudden change. We took quite awhile just trying to rebuild our personal lives, mainly. It was pretty much at the same time that we decided to do the band.
NATN: When did Nate become a factor?
JE: I think right away. We've always wanted Nate to play bass with us, even back in the Sunny Day days when I played bass on Rising Tide and Jeff Palmer played bass on the album before. The connection there musically is just.. you know right away. I don't think we had really talked to him too much about it for a couple of months, because we were still trying to figure it out for ourselves. I imagine at the point of actually asking him, there was a period of time where he had to think about it and balance things. Obviously, he's involved with the Foo Fighters, which is a pretty active rock band. As for Dan, there was no question he was not going to be involved.
NATN: So were you and William working on material before Nate came on board?
JE: Yeah. I'm always writing songs whenever I can get a chance or am inspired. Basically, it was just finding these songs I was working on at the time and suddenly putting the stamp of The Fire Theft over them. My plan with William was to basically build our own studio and be able to record music at any time we wanted down in our basement. For awhile there, it was just a matter of getting the gear together. Once the gear was there, we started to record demos, which ultimately is The Fire Theft album now. It has been an ever-evolving record for the past two years.
NATN: What were the first tunes written? Were any of them ever presented to Sunny Day?
JE: None of them were ever actually jammed with Dan or in a Sunny Day situation. "Carry You" was probably one of the oldest. That was, essentially, intended to be for Sunny Day. Typically, I will try to get ahead of myself and write a bunch of music for the next Sunny Day album. "Carry You" was initially intended for Sunny Day. "Sinatra" too. Obviously, it just ended up not being that way. A few other songs never made it. I'd say five or six songs were intended for Sunny Day.
NATN: Can you give me an example of something that only came together once Nate came onboard?
JE: Yeah, absolutely. "It's Over" is a song we all wrote together. "Summertime" is a song we all wrote right there in the studio within a day, with the help of [producer] Brad Wood. "Rubber Bands" is probably the first song we wrote together as a band. That's a very rock, fun.. it's pretty much instrumental until the very end of the song. Those three are the ones that jump out at me.
NATN: Can you elaborate on what you mean by "this is an album of demos?"
JE: Well, initially, we had the spirit of newly creating these songs. As far as we were concerned, they were just demos for what we'd record in the future. Since we had our own system, and Brad understood that system, it just eventually sort of evolved into being the record. Some things we just couldn't re-do, because capturing special moments is tough. That's fine. It doesn't need to sound perfect. I'm contradicting myself [laughs], because I want to be as perfect as possible musically and it never happens. It just sort of evolved from that into, wow, this is probably as good as this is going to get.
NATN: Well, are there differences in the demos vs. the album versions?
JE: It's pretty obvious. Pretty much every song had orchestra recorded over it, but most of that was taken off, just to keep the original essence of the album we had. We didn't want to get so buried in all these new instruments that we'd forget what the original concept for the record was. We ended up taking off a lot of those things. You can hear the changes in "Houses" and "Summertime," because it seemed to work on those. Whereas on "Chain," it just buried the song, and it was best to keep it rock.
NATN: There's also a new end for "Sinatra." How did that come about?
JE: Well, I don't know. That ending, in a lot of ways, was something we'd experimented with live. We couldn't really do what we were doing on the demo. Just jamming the song, we started doing this whole different ending where William comes in on the drums and I do a little vocal thing around this circular guitar thing that repeats over and over. For me, when we got back into the studio, I was so used to that that I wanted to sing it and hear it every time. Especially the lyrics, I felt close to. I felt like I was for the first time making some semi-political statement, but very vague and obvious [laughs]. I love when those two words exist together. I just had the need to constantly evolve it. That is one of my blessings but also one of the things that can be a hindrance: I constantly want to improve and build. I'll do it until I'm lying on the ground bloody [laughs].
NATN: Bill Dolan played guitar on The Fire Theft's first tour. Is he playing the guitar solos?
JE: Oh, yeah. That big one [on "Uncle Mountain"] is Billy. Then pretty much it's just me the rest of the album. The one that is really obviously exceptional guitar playing is Billy. I mean, he is a master at that instrument.
NATN: Will he tour with you guys again?
JE: Unfortunately, no. We're going to be touring this time with Greg Suran, who has played guitar with Sunny Day on The Rising Tide tour and plays guitar with the Goo Goo Dolls. He's a good friend from Chicago.
NATN: In Sunny Day, the lyrics were often collaborative between you and Dan. Was the process entirely different this time?
JE: Yes, it was a tremendous struggle for me, actually. Yeah. Dan is a serious reader and a writer, and has an incredible ability to shape words. Whereas, I bring in a lot of imagery. It was a struggle mainly because I didn't have that extra amount of confidence backing me up, but also, because some of the things I was going through personally, I wanted to express musically. I wrestled a lot with the idea, do I really want this revealing, sort of depression... do I want to reveal this? It's very personal. It was much more difficult. But at the same time, I'm finding -- and will continue to find -- a whole new way of writing that I've never known I have.
NATN: In Sunny Day, people latched onto the ambiguous lyrics. But you're being more direct than ever here.
JE: Thank you. I feel a lot more at home doing it this way. They're directly my lyrics. I can sing with a little bit more conviction, if that's possible, because I'm saying directly what I mean.
NATN: One song that doesn't follow that narrative is "Hands On You," where you reference "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue" by Bob Dylan.
JE: See, the person who that is about will understand completely. That was kind of the sneaky little point I was trying to make, almost like a music letter letting this person know this is how I feel, but doing it through music. It is kind of cheating in a way. It's very literal if you know what it's about, but hard to latch onto. That song actually isn't on the album. Through trying to sequence the album, there's so many epic, moody songs, that every time we tried to sequence, there was always one song that didn't fit. It ended up being "Hands On You" in this sequence we choose. Everybody I think likes the song and thinks it has potential, but it just didn't quite reach the musical zone we had intended and hoped for it to reach.
NATN: Are there any other leftovers?
JE: Well, let's see. There are ones we recorded basic skeletons for but never really expanded upon. Those got ditched from the beginning, but every one that was intended for the record is on there, except for "Hands On You." We're hoping to maybe put that as a B-side on a Japan release, and hopefully even improve it live. I'd love to record it live someday to make it more along the lines of what we wanted to hear, but still be able to keep that vintage version or whatever.
NATN: What became of the song "Easy Whistle?"
JE: "Easy Whistle" has been shelved. There are two reasons really. Number one, it just wasn't finished. We had been wrestling with the chorus for some time, trying it many different ways. None of them were quite there. Perhaps in the future we'll check it out again, but it's doubtful because of reason two. Lyrically the song is angry in a venting sort-of way, despite the ultra positive chorus. While these feelings are valid and justified, I hesitate officially releasing anything so negative and personal. In fact, we never officially released the version of it on the Web. Some sneaky person did. Hey sneaky person, shame on you. Oh well.
NATN: Can you tell me what it was like working once again with Brad Wood?
JE: It was a very intense time. Brad is a producer. His survival is based on how much work he gets with other bands. This was a two-year process for us. Brad was an incredible trooper to deal with the constant evolution of this record. One minute, he thinks it's gonna be this, but then I call him two weeks later and say we have to make it this epic, "Quadrophenia"-style thing now, and he's like, no! Working with him, aside from probably frustrating him, it was good. He's got an incredible classic rock influence. He sang a lot on the record. The harmonies he does, I like to hear a lot more than my own harmonies, because they're things I'd never do or think of. It ends up bringing a whole other element I didn't really know was there. I don't believe he ever sang on any of our albums, actually. We always encouraged him. On this record, I encouraged it to the point where I was like, I'm going to leave the room, and it's up to you if you want to do the vocals. Sure enough, I'd hear him down there whispering quietly, so you couldn't hear him. But then when you hear it with my vocals and the whole thing, it just sounds great, and I don't think he could even deny that either. It's definitely a good thing.
NATN: Can you predict whether Nate is going to be able to participate in every tour?
JE: Nate's going to be doing everything he can to tour with us. We're going to be doing three or four U.S. tours for this album and hopefully two or three European tours. He wants to be there for every single one. But you've gotta do what you've gotta do. This is all William and I have as our band. When we've gotta go, we've gotta go.
NATN: Has it gotten to the point where you're considering his possible substitute?
JE: Well, currently our keyboard player Nick Macri, who played on the last Fire Theft tour, will be playing keys on this tour. The first two shows we played, he played bass. I imagine we'd probably talk to him if that were ever a possibility and see if he'd be interested in doing it again. The thought has crossed my mind, but I try not to look to far ahead as far as that. I just want Nate and Nate wants to be here too. We'll just try to roll with the punches.
NATN: Do you have any plans to make another solo album?
JE: Yeah. Nothing I can see at this point, but I do have technically two more solo records to do with Sub Pop. I signed a three-record deal with them, did one, obviously, and have two more to do. It's really just a matter of when I get the time in between this project as to when I can record it. I was actually hoping to do it this summer but as it turns out, The Fire Theft is pretty busy.
NATN: Did you think about moving right into solo work at the end of Sunny Day?
JE: I knew immediately I was going to work with William. The idea of creating The Fire Theft came at the same time of breaking up with Sunny Day. But sure. At all times, I want to do a solo thing. Honestly, it's my personal thing and I have the ability to do anything the way I want to. I'm always open to do it, but if it conflicts with The Fire Theft, I don't want to say, hold on here for two months while I do my own thing.
NATN: What is the story behind the name of the band? In "Sinatra" there's a lyric about "taking back the fire."
JE: That line is actually from the name, sort of. The name itself was from this Joseph Campbell TV special or something. He's talking with Bill Moyers. William was watching it a lot. It's about different myths of history. William had discovered this myth called "The Pollen Path." I was like, hmm. I don't know about the name The Pollen Path. The word "pollen" is just kind of weird. At the same time, I came across "The Fire Theft" myth, which is more or less Prometheus going to the Sun to steal the fire for the good of mankind, and to pass the fire on to Earth. That's where we got it.
NATN: Do you feel there is any unfinished business with Sunny Day? Are there any unreleased songs from the last album that might see the light of day?
JE: There were two extra tracks recorded for The Rising Tide that didn't make the final album. One song I think we called "Aquarian Eyes." It was a decent song, but unfinished and hardly crucial to the album. The other song, "Holiday," is a strong orchestral lullaby with story-like lyrics. I would like to listen to these again and potentially release them some day, but no time in the near future. The Fire Theft is our focus, and naturally we want to promote what we are doing now.
NATN: When we spoke in 2000, you said you only listen to old Sunny Day albums once a year or so. You also said when listening to The Pink Album side by side with The Rising Tide, you don't think too highly of the former. Do you still feel this way? Do you still feel a lot of distance from that era of music?
JE: I am proud of all the music I have been a part of. Some songs make me cringe, and some still blow me away. Some songs that made me cringe once, blow me away now. I think it's best to realize that these albums were documenting a certain time in our lives -- where we were then, emotionally, spiritually. Ultimately, I feel we wrote some pretty timeless music, and that's just fine with me.
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?"