{"id":3410,"date":"2011-08-16T01:46:17","date_gmt":"2011-08-16T08:46:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=3410"},"modified":"2011-08-16T01:46:17","modified_gmt":"2011-08-16T08:46:17","slug":"the-decemberists-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2011\/08\/the-decemberists-2\/","title":{"rendered":"THE DECEMBERISTS"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/h1>\n

THE DECEMBERISTS<\/h1>\n

Whether in the studio or a barn, getting back to basics isn\u2019t always easy<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Following 2009\u2019s The Hazards <\/em>of Love<\/em>\u2014the Decemberists\u2019 second straight high-concept fairy-tale song cycle in a row\u2014frontman and principal songwriter Colin Meloy decided to ditch the theatrics and record a batch of no-frills Americana tunes. Taking cues from the Rolling Stones\u2019 Exile on Main St.<\/em> and the Band\u2019s<\/p>\n

self-titled sophomore effort\u2014barebones albums made in rented houses\u2014Meloy booked a barn outside of Portland, Ore., where he hoped to capture the sound of five people playing in a room. But things didn\u2019t work out that way. \u201cThat was the starting point, and much to our dismay, it unraveled,\u201d explains multi-instrumentalist Chris Funk, who has played with the group since its formation more than a decade ago. \u201cWhen you read back about how all the old bands did it, they would take 40 or 50 or 60 takes of songs, and I don\u2019t think any of us had the patience for that. That\u2019s the problem with concepts and dreams: They\u2019re concepts\u00a0and dreams, not reality.\u201d<\/p>\n

So the Decemberists stayed in\u00a0the barn, but recorded The King Is Dead<\/em> in their conventional painstaking fashion\u2014and invited guests like Gillian Welch, violinist Annalisa Tornfelt and R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck to sit in. The result, the warmest and most straightforward work of the group\u2019s career, is also its first-ever No. 1 album. We spoke with Funk about the ups and downs of concept albums, the future of the Decemberists and the dangers of attempting to make a \u201cbarn record.\u201d<\/p>\n

What did you have in mind when you started work on the album?<\/strong><\/p>\n

The concept was to make this, quote-unquote, barn record, like Neil Young\u2019s Harvest<\/em>.\u00a0That record wasn\u2019t made in a barn, but it\u00a0feels like it was. So the concept became, \u201cLet\u2019s make a record that feels like it was made in a barn.\u201d We turned the barn into a more conventional recording situation. It\u2019s been spun like we had these jams captured live during the sessions, and we were all excited to do it that way. But I think the only song we actually recorded live was an outtake, a Grateful Dead cover. It was very much a studio production. People talk about how it\u2019s stripped back, but there are a lot of songs that sound like\u00a0big rock songs to me.<\/p>\n

You wouldn\u2019t say it\u2019s back to basics? <\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think it\u2019s any more or less stripped down. \u201cThis Is Why We Fight\u201d is as big a studio production as anything we\u2019ve ever done. Same with \u201cCalamity Song.\u201d Same with a lot of them. The only ones truly stripped down are at the end, and we\u2019ve had those types of songs on every record. As time has gone on, Colin has started demo-ing songs more, so he gets more in his head what he wants as far as guitar lines and stuff. In some ways it\u2019s helpful, because he has more of a vision of how he wants the song. That gives me a launching point to work from.<\/p>\n

How long did you work with the \u201cbarn record\u201d concept?<\/strong><\/p>\n

We were actually recording for a week. It was happening\u2014then I think everyone started to self-analyze. The reality is that the Decemberists are not a rollicking rock group like the Band. That\u2019s not who we are. We just got caught up in the process\u2014but the point is to make a good record, however you get there. You can\u2019t get hung up on, \u201cBut this is how we set out to make the record.\u201d It\u2019s more glamorous to talk about making a stripped-back acoustic record, but I think it\u2019s more interesting to hear how it really went down. We made a great record, we\u2019re all proud of it, and it was harder\u00a0than our last record.<\/p>\n

How does this compare to Hazards<\/em>?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I really liked Hazards of Love<\/em>. It was interesting and fun to play a lot of electric guitar. Being a multi-instrumentalist I don\u2019t ever think to do that, because I get a little annoyed by how much guitar there is in the world already. It was fun to indulge and spend a lot of time doing that, but I was excited to come back to this approach. This record is like Castaways and Cutouts<\/em> [2002], our first record, in some ways\u2014just a random batch of songs from Colin\u2019s writing periods over the past three years. So it was refreshing in that way. We\u2019re such fans of music, and we love to think about our songs in terms of other bands. In interviews we talk about R.E.M. more than we talk about ourselves, which is probably just us being modest. But it\u2019s weird. I don\u2019t see Arcade Fire talking about Bruce Springsteen all the time.<\/p>\n

How was working with Peter Buck?<\/strong><\/p>\n

He did that in an afternoon. He works really fast, and all those songs were already\u00a0being written as his parts, essentially. It\u2019s no secret that we just rip off Peter all the time. Like on [2006\u2019s] The Crane Wife<\/em>, \u201cO Valencia!\u201d that\u2019s me playing [R.E.M.\u2019s] \u201cSeven Chinese Brothers\u201d backwards, as a descending line instead of an ascending line. The [King Is Dead<\/em>] song \u201cDown by the Water,\u201d in its original form, was so much like \u201cThe One I Love\u201d it was insane. We were like, \u201cLet\u2019s just put the cards on the table and go into the belly of where we came from.\u201d So it was more about us wanting to work with Peter. He lives down the street from me, and he\u2019s amazing to work with on many levels. He\u2019s super humble: \u201cWhat do you want me to play? I\u2019ll just play the parts you want me to play.\u201d He added his touch here and there. It\u2019s funny\u2014on \u201cCalamity Song\u201d Colin had written the arpeggio parts, but they\u2019re just sort of Peter Buck\u2019s sound. And Peter would just say he got it from Roger McGuinn. It\u2019s a style of guitar playing that\u2019s very recognizable, and that nobody on this record is going to claim to have created\u00a0in the first place.<\/p>\n

What other artists do you listen to?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s always been R.E.M., Neil Young, the Byrds, Camper Van Beethoven and the Waterboys. We tried to get a Fisherman\u2019s Blues<\/em> thing going on this album, in the\u00a0sense that the Waterboys had a lot of\u00a0demo sounds or scratch field recordings.\u00a0Tom Petty, who\u2019s a Byrds fan. All roads lead back to the Byrds, in my opinion.<\/p>\n

Colin has said this will be the last Decemberists album for a while. Has he discussed that with you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

That statement is kind of a tricky one with us, because most bands in our position of touring, sales and however you want to look at it usually take two or three years off between records, and we haven\u2019t done that since the early 2000s when we started touring a lot. But I\u2019ll believe it when I see it. I\u2019ve heard it before with Colin: \u201cI don\u2019t have any songs, let\u2019s just take a break.\u201d And I\u2019m always like, \u201cGreat, let\u2019s do it. I\u2019m ready to come off the road for a while.\u201d Colin is putting out a children\u2019s book, too [Wildwood<\/em>, due out this fall], so maybe that\u2019ll take over. Maybe it\u2019ll be the next Harry Potter<\/em>, and he won\u2019t want to do music\u00a0anymore. I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

\u2013Kenneth Partridge<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

THE DECEMBERISTS Whether in the studio or a barn, getting back to basics isn\u2019t always easy Following 2009\u2019s The Hazards of Love\u2014the Decemberists\u2019 second straight high-concept fairy-tale song cycle in a row\u2014frontman and principal songwriter Colin Meloy decided to ditch the theatrics and record a batch of no-frills Americana tunes. Taking cues from the Rolling […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[1059,970,1332],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3410"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3410"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3412,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3410\/revisions\/3412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}