Swan Lake: Dan Bejar

Today, the final installment of our three Swan Lake interviews. You can find chats with Spencer Krug and Carey Mercer way back when.

Dan Bejar is known to most as the man who calls himself Destroyer. It's a name that initially seemed like a send-up of glam rock cliches, or at least a KISS cover band, but over time the one thing that Bejar has been bent on destroying is people's expectations. Through his association with the New Pornographers and on his own varied discography, Bejar gives off the air of someone who really doesn't care what anyone might think of what he does, a confidence that confounds critics and audiences as much as it attracts them to his devil-may-care artistry.

Swan Lake is no exception, and it's a license to confuse even some of the most loyal Destroyer fans. Part of the reason I was initially a bit skeptical was because for me, the low point in the Destroyer discography (and there are a couple, balanced by some of my favourite albums of all time, by anyone) is the Notorious Lightning EP of 2005. This is where he hired Carey Mercer's Frog Eyes to be his backing band while touring the synth-heavy misunderstood masterpiece Your Blues, an album I loved. While that material could easily be re-interpreted in a variety of ways, I didn't find any--well, okay, most--of the Frog Eyes arrangements to illuminate anything in particular about the Your Blues material. Au contraire, there seemed to be a certain delight in thrashing it to pieces.

Spencer Krug was recruited to join a later version of this band, which made me all the more curious what would happen when the three of them started something from scratch. While Frog Eyes is the dominant influence among these three strong personalities, Bejar's songs here are unmistakable, even at their most abstract ("Shooting Rockets"). In some ways, the opaque nature of the recording reminded me a bit of his much-maligned (by himself as well) debut album We'll Build Them a Golden Bridge, which would be completely unlistenable were it not for fleeting glimpses of later brilliance; indeed, some of those songs were later adapted for the New Pornographers. A similar microscopic eye is required here, but the payoff is much bigger, considering the experience and talent involved.

Time for qualifiers: I sent these questions off to Dan before I spoke to either Carey or Spencer, and at that time I obviously hadn't discerned what the division of labour was on the album. And I also don't feel great about this interview because despite having been a fan for five years now, this is actually the first time he and I have spoke on the record. Early on he refused all Canadian press (except, I believe, one Discorder article and a chat with Mr. Zoilus--can't find any links either way), and I had to decline interviews for both Your Blues and Rubies due to my own time constraints at each time. For that reason alone, I wish I'd put more thought and research into this before I sent it off to him; at the same time, I knew that I had to squeeze three eloquent men into one 800w piece.

Note: Radio Free Canuckistan is taking a brief break for Yanksgiving. I'll be in North Carolina meeting the Fockers.

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Dan Bejar

November 7, 2006

Via email

Is it true you tried to enlist Spencer into Destroyer when he played piano in a building you lived in? Did you hear his original material at that time, or was he just mucking about?

Absurd! We lived together at the E.18th house for a year, and at the end of that year as far as I was concerned his main musical interests were Charles Ives, Texas Swing and ska, in that order. I deemed his tastes insane (and rightfully so). [Jason] Zumpano had already been playing keyboards in Destroyer for a year, before I'd ever met Spencer. I had no idea that Spencer had any interest in writing songy songs till way later when I heard rumour of these bizzarro four-track genre pieces floating around Victoria/MileEnd (in Montreal)/EastVan (there should be a word for the city that those three things comprise), which I guess were the earliest Sunset Rubdown recordings.

What drew you to Carey as a kindred spirit? What is it you share in common?

I like the volume at which he plays his guitar. And, of course, we're both painters. His lyrics are pretty funny, vivid. So are mine. He has a kind of total disregard for melody, and total insistence on it at the same time, which is something most of my favourite singers and guitar players have/do.

What would you pinpoint as the main strengths and attributes of Carey and Spencer's writing?

Kinda tough, don't really wanna do that. It is enough to know that they are there, often in spades.

To my mind, Carey sounds the most different here from his "day job"-whereas I could see both your songs and Spencer's being Destroyer or Sunset Rubdown songs, respectively. Would you agree?

Can't say I agree. I find Spencer's stuff on Beast Moans more croony and soulful, less rigorous than the Shut Up record. As for my stuff, “Freedom” would sound totally out of place on any Destroyer record released in the last five years. “Rubella” has a bit of a This Night vibe I guess, which obviously makes me really into it. But “Widow's Walk” totally sounds like Swan Lake me, and “Shooting Rockets” is a hilariously brutal example of extreme Swan Lakeness, though I doubt anyone's ever heard more than the first minute of that song, and therefore might be hesitant to agree or disagree.

Did you all write together or bring material to the project? Was any part of the recording done piecemeal in isolation, or were all three of you present for the whole thing?

Are there any other players here, or do the three of you cover everything?

Firstly, all I did on this record was write four songs, play them on acoustic guitar, sing 'em, play one electric lead on “Rubella,” and sing back-up vocals on Spencer and Carey's songs, in the spots where they asked me to. I threw in my two cents once or twice during mixing, but fact of the matter is that most of the work went down in Victoria after I'd gone back to Vancouver. The rest of what you hear is all Carey and Spencer. It would be too much work to delineate which of the two did what where, because it's pretty equal and it's all over the place. If you're familiar with their other records, you can probably tell, for the most part, what Carey's guitar sounds like, or what a prototypical Krug keyboard part is, but even that can be tough in spots. Same goes for the mixing, drum building, etc. In that sense, my songs were extremely collaborative, in that I wrote them and those guys made them. Also, I hear Carey all over Spencer's songs, and vice versa.

Did making this record illuminate anything in your own work that you hadn't realized before?

Those guys, especially after having to learn all those Your Blues numbers, seem to think I gotta lot of songs in the key of B, or maybe it was E. Anyway, I never realized that till it was pointed out to me in their usual brutal manner. They also like to point out how numbingly simple my songs are, which is something I've been suspecting for a while now.

Do the three of you share any good/bad work habits?

I'm known to pace in the studio, but I can't remember if those guys did any pacing or not. I'd have a hard time identifying my own habits in the studio (aside from taking the occasional sip of beer), let alone theirs.

At least two of you are known for placing importance on lyrics, but it's very hard to distinguish words the way the vocals are mixed here. Was there an intention to that? Did you consciously not want to make lyrics a focus?

It was pretty intentional. At least for my songs, I think it was intentional. The lyrics being way up front was old news as far as a Destroyer song goes, so I think those guys thought it was time to try something different, and I was totally into it. That being said, if you are referring to the indecipherability of “Shooting Rockets,” the vocals are treated and somewhat buried in an attempt to veil the gurgling sound that I mistook for singing, at the time.

I read recently that you were going to reissue (his 1996 debut) We'll Build Them a Golden Bridge. Is this true? I've read you make disparaging remarks about it in the past, so why did you want to? Part of the reason I ask is that is that in some small way, Swan Lake harkens back to the home recording experimentation of that era. Is there any parallel in the approach for you?

I think the Bridge is out, though I haven't seen it in any of the shops here in Malaga. Maybe I used to be a little embarrassed of it, I felt like I had moved way beyond it even by the time it came out. But I'm way over that now. That's what I sounded like when I was 22, whatever. It's fine. Let it be in print. As for Beast Moans sounding like a screwy toybox one-man-band basement record, I'd concede that neither record is too scared of cleaning up loose threads, but the threads themselves seem to me very very very different. And obviously there is a level of musicianship that is impossibly different. Maybe on both records you get to hear the sound of music taking place in a room, which is pretty rare for anything recorded in a studio these days. But in no way do I think that Beast Moans is the sound of a PZM [microphone] plugged into a 4-track. I'd say if anything there is maybe a little overlap between the way some of the songs on Beast Moans were approached and some of the songs on This Night were approached.

I hear your schedule is filling up with all sorts of new projects: something with [girlfriend] Sydney [Vermont], something with Mr. [Stephen] McBean [of Black Mountain/Pink Mountaintops], something called Bonaparte. What are all these bands, who are they with, what differentiates them all?

Bonaparte has a record that's been sitting on the shelf for ages, and I think will finally come out in the spring on Soft Abuse. That band's kind of on semi-permanent hiatus, though, and has been for quite a while. It was a rock band that Syd wrote songs and sang for. I played guitar. Steve Wood played bass. Krista Marshall played guitar. And Josh Lindstrom [now of Awkward Stage] played drums. Hello Blue Roses is just the two of us, and I think pretty soon Syd will have an enough songs to fill up an album. We're gonna try and record it ourselves. Maybe it'll come out in 2007 as well. If you're referring to McBean's 'old man' band, Pimbod and the Total Boners, that just entails me learning how to play “The Oven Is My Friend” some time between now and 2009. Besides, I thought I got kicked out for spelling Pimbod wrong once in an e-mail!

How do they effect the future of Destroyer? Which has always been in flux anyway, but are these more collaborative or could you see your main focus shifting away from something with the expectations of a Destroyer album?

None of these above projects you mention involve me writing a single song, so that side of things is still pretty focused. They do spur on my interest in becoming a shit-hot guitar player/studio wiz.

-end-

Swan Lake: Spencer Krug

This is the second of three interviews for Swan Lake, the new band for Carey Mercer of Frog Eyes, Dan Bejar of Destroyer, and Spencer Krug of Sunset Rubdown/Wolf Parade. This one runs today because I find myself back in Montreal on an abnormally balmy November morning (it's warmer and sunnier than Ontario today, go figure; yesterday was the most torrential and miserable experience I've ever had making this trip on the 401). Also, because my email interview with Dan Bejar is kind of terrible--entirely because I sent him questions in a rush, before I'd really begun to understand what was happening on Beast Moans, Swan Lake's debut album, and before I talked to Carey and Spencer. That conversation will run on Monday, the day before the album's release, and long after you've absorbed the better two of the three interviews.

The Exclaim piece these interviews were commissioned for hits the streets on Tuesday, November 28. I'll provide the link when it goes up.

Side note: Thanks to Chromewaves for the shout-out yesterday.

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Spencer Krug

November 7, 2006

Via phone, from his home in Montreal

How is Montreal?

Pretty much as you remember it. I don’t go out much these days.

Have things calmed down a bit? Are you at home for a while?

Yeah, I’m pretty much done for the winter. Wolf Parade was just in Iceland, and that’s it. I’m just writing right now for Sunset Rubdown. I don’t think I’m playing a show until April. I might be a bit stir crazy by February, but right now it’s nice to be at home.

This record was made when, last March?

February and March. Then a little more mixing… I can’t remember.

I had no idea what it was going to sound like, but when I heard it, it didn’t sound like what I thought it would.

That’s fair.

For some reason I thought it would be more band-like, with drums and such. Did you have any idea what would happen when the three of you sat down in a room?

No. There were thoughts of getting a drummer up to the studio, but it just never happened. And we were fine if it didn’t happen. There were no preconceived notions of what any of it would sound like. Whatever came out was going to be the record. It could easily have gone a completely different way, more like a real band with a drummer on every track and more succinct-sounding songs. But it didn’t! I’m not surprised. I didn’t know what it would sound like, but I’m not surprised at all at how it turned out given what I know of Carey, Dan, and myself and what we like. I knew, for example, that there would be a lot of noodly guitar, because it’s Carey.

One thing that did surprise me is the treatment of the vocals on the record; the lyrics are quite obscured. The voices are more textural than they are lead instruments. It’s less of a songwriter-y record.

I can’t really tell why. You’ve asked me about this before, about why I like vocals up so far in the mix, and I think I answered by saying that I didn’t realize I did. I probably wrote a whole paragraph about it. And Dan does that too in Destroyer. I think Carey got his hands on us. If you listen to Frog Eyes, the vocals are fast and a blur to understand anyway, even if they were up in the mix, so they turn into more of a texture. Carey and I mixed a lot of it together. I don’t have a real aesthetic towards vocals that I lean towards one way or another. There are also points where all three of us are singing—and you just naturally want to turn that stuff down. We’re not trying to make an opera.

The record baffled me quite a bit initially and I keep hearing new things every time I listen to it. At first I thought it was pretty much the three of you in your own corners with your own songs, but the more I hear it the more I notice collaborations and people singing on each other’s tracks. But that doesn’t strike me right away.

Yeah, there’s a lot of things floating around in the mix!

Initially, I thought that Carey’s stuff sounded the most different from Frog Eyes, whereas some of Dan’s songs do sound like Destroyer to me and some of your songs definitely sound like Sunset Rubdown. How do you think all of that worked out?

Carey has another project that he used to do called Blackout Beach. That stuff tends to be a lot more ethereal, trippy, washed-out sounding. Frog Eyes is becoming more and more streamlined and clean. He still has that side of him that really wants to trip things out, and maybe he was letting that side out with this project. I know what you mean, though, because there is some of Dan’s stuff here that rings like Destroyer as soon as you hear it. I think that’s his voice and his lyrics—when I think of Destroyer, the first thing I think of is his voice and his phrasing. It’s almost like it doesn’t really matter what music you put underneath it; it’s going to sound like Destroyer. For me, anyway. As far as stuff sounding like Sunset Rubdown, I don’t know. I’m sure you’re right.

Both Carey and Dan have singular visions in their other bands, where they drive everything. You have two other bands: one where you write everything, and one where you and Dan collaborate and modify each other’s songs. How did you find it entering into a writing situation with two other bandleaders? Or is that more natural for you because you do that with Dan?

It was fine. I played with Carey for a long time in Frog Eyes. I’m used to taking directions from him. Frog Eyes is his baby and I’ll write my own parts and be respectful of the fact that it’s his material and I like it and I just do what he tells me. That relationship between him and I is fine. None of us are really megalomaniac control freaks.

Carey actually described you all as tyrants.

Then we’re all totally passive tyrants, with frustration taken out through mockery. We make fun of each other’s stuff a lot. We went into it with open minds and ready to let go of that stuff. In Sunset Rubdown I do like to hold the reigns; I bring stuff to that band that I have very specific ideas for that are already fleshed out. With Swan Lake I went in with really loose ideas, with lots of holes in them to be filled by the other two. That was the whole idea of the project.

Did the three of you share any work habits, good or bad?

No, none at all. We’re pretty different. When it comes to mixing, both Carey and I are workhorses. We’ll sit there for hours and hours. We did some shiftwork: overdubbing, mixing, and erasing it. I’d do that all night and he’d do it all day. At this point Dan was in Vancouver, but we did do another mix with Dan. We’re all different in the way we approach recording. I’m not totally sure what you mean by work habits.

A lot of people approach songwriting and recording differently; I was just curious how the three of you did that together.

There’s definitely differences, but nothing that got in the way. The one uniform thing we did was sit down with an acoustic guitar for the first few days and had a round table of pressing record and laying the bare bones of a song down. After that, all rules were off.

Carey told me that if someone told you a couple of years ago that you’d both be playing acoustic guitars that you’d be horrified.

I wouldn’t have, he would have.

He’s just speaking for you, then.

Yeah, not the first time! He shirks the thought of the singer/songwriter open jam night at the coffee shop in Ann Arbor—that whole scenario. He’s scared he’ll end up being that, which he most surely will. No, I love acoustic guitar.

Did making this record illuminate anything in your own work you didn’t realize before, didn’t know was there?

Hmmm. Maybe some different approaches to mixing. It was also further affirmation that you can record tons of shit, tons of tracks on top of each other and then go back later and find the gold. It’s the way you treat the things you want to keep that I might start doing differently because of Carey. I mean, once you’re actually mixing it.

We also talked about how it’s a personal project without particular goals in mind, just three friends seeing what they could do together. Obviously when you make a record like this you’re not thinking about how people will react, but now that it’s done, do you think it’s more of a personal thing or is it something…

You mean, how will we react to how it’s accepted? It felt really free. None of the three of us had aspirations for Swan Lake to make it big or signed to something bigger. We weren’t mouthwatering at the prospect of a first tour. We’re all busy with that stuff already with other projects. This was really pure, for lack of a better word. We just wanted to work with each other and see what happened. I don’t want to say that we don’t care what anyone thinks of it, because that’s not the way anyone should ever make a record: it is for sharing and bringing something good into the world. It was nice to have a clean slate. If it was another Frog Eyes or Sunset Rubdown record, there’d be something to hold it up against. We could do whatever we wanted. Maybe that’s not to our credit, because we didn’t stray too far from what you might expect. Maybe we’re not capable of doing that.

Yet.

Who knows?

Going back a fair bit, then, what drew you to these two men? When and why did you realize you had something in common with them musically?

I lived with both of them at different times within a few years of each other. Carey’s stuff I didn’t really like when I first met him. Listening back to it now, The Blue Pine, I find things that I like. But I liked his ideas a lot, and we started playing together when I lived with him. We always clicked musically right away. I was a fan of Destroyer long before I ever played with Dan. I learned about Destroyer and heard it when I lived with him and a bunch of other guys in about ’98, and it took off just after that. This is around the time of Thief. I remember him doing the cover on his computer. It was my last year of school in Vancouver, that might even have been 2000; I’m really bad with dates. I’ve barely played with Dan; I was part of Destroyer for a European tour, that’s it.

That wasn’t all of Frog Eyes, was it?

No, and I was the replacement for Grayson Walker, who didn’t want to go to Europe.

Was Michael Rak there too?

No, he didn’t want to go to Europe either. I shouldn’t get into it. (off the record talk). I got picked because I could play bass lines with my left hand and do whatever else with my right.

Are you back in Frog Eyes now then?

I can’t really speak to that. I will keep playing with Frog Eyes whenever I can. I’m like an honorary member. I’m always welcome.

You talked about how you met Dan, but musically, what do you like and respect about what he does? Or that you think you might have in common with?

Oh, I don’t have anything in common with him musically. It’s his lyrics that get me. I think he’s an amazing lyricist, and the way he delivers them in his heartfelt crooning style. I don’t think there are many songwriters who are poets, for lack of a better word. I know I’m not, and I don’t think Carey is, but his lyrics transcend songs. I like playing with words and making words and phrases as meaningful as I know how, with the syntax and the cadence of a song. But Dan’s stuff remains poetry with that cadence and rhythm to them, and I don’t think many people can do that. He does it really well.

I find it interesting that it’s obviously part of what drew me to him as well, but in pretty much any interview with him—I don’t know if he’s just being self-deprecating, a jester, or whatever—but he gives off the impression that he’s really just putting words together. I guess people try to press him to explain meanings and relationships in his lyrics, and he usually dismisses all of that.

He always will, though.

Most people would at least defend themselves instead of insisting there’s no meaning to their work. I find his reaction quite funny.

It’s not a show. He is truly humble. You just have to make your own guesses. He’s given me the same answers.

I thought he was just trying to throw off people in my profession.

I don’t think he has an agenda in that regard. There’s just certain things that he won’t talk about.

In terms of the division of labour, it sounds like everyone was all over everything, really.

Pretty much. If you hear a screechy electric guitar, it’s Carey.

Are you all the keyboards?

No, Carey did some. Dan did some of the electric guitar. Drums is me and Carey, mostly. I even played some bass, which I never do.

Do you think the record has a unity? Was that a concern when making it?

Do you mean does it stand separate from our other projects?

I think it does that, but in terms of song choices...

Oh, as a single work of art. Lyrically, there was not a lot of collaboration. But we were definitely conscious of making a cohesion to all of it, to make one work rather than a compilation of three guys. Because the lyrics came from three different people, we could only attempt to do that through the music. Really, all you can do is try to stick to the same kind of instrumentation. There’s some stuff we cut because it conflicted with the rest of the record, not because it was horrible. All you can do is try. I don’t know if we succeeded.

I understand that there are plans to revisit this, schedules willing. What kind of life do you think it will take on?

I don’t know. I think it’s going to get crucified, personally. I think it will be a small handful of people who really like it, whether or not they’re already fans of one of the other projects. Hopefully there will be people who just like it for what it is. But on the whole, I have a feeling that it will be really torn apart, and I’m okay with that. I’m interested to see what happens to it that way, but it’s not a one-off. It is a ‘when-time-allows’ thing. Even if it does get totally brutalized, I think we’ll do another one because it’s fun. Whatever label is willing to pay for it!

I’ll admit that I was baffled the first time I heard it, and anyone who reviews it after listening to it only once might not be kind. But anyone who’s an honest fan of any of the three people involved is going to give it a few shakes. I also don’t think it’s any weirder than any given Frog Eyes record, so anyone who likes that band will like this.

That’s true.

I don’t about Wolf Parade or Destroyer fans, though.

Yeah, I’m not sure frat boy Wolf Parade fans will take a shine to it.

They might not Shine a Light, you mean?

(laughs)

-end-

Swan Lake: Carey Mercer

Swan Lake is the much-anticipated meeting of the minds between Dan Bejar of Destroyer, Spencer Krug of Sunset Rubdown/Wolf Parade, and Carey Mercer of Frog Eyes--three men that the editor of Exclaim jokingly referred to as "the three most annoying male voices in Canada, together at last."

I'd wax poetic about the record now, but I've already written a review for Eye that will run next Thursday and an article for Exclaim that comes out in the December issue; I had the chance to interview each of the three men for said piece. And I'm running off to Montreal for the weekend, so today's time is tight.

But I will say that I found Swan Lake's Beast Moans to be totally baffling and impenetrable upon first listen; I initially considered turning down the assignment. Because I'm such a fan of everyone involved, I threw it on ultra-high rotation for the next week, and only around the 12th listen did everything start to come clear. It's enriched with mystery, which means it's easily going to be misunderstood. Hopefully these interviews will illuminate the process and intentions behind it and will pre-empt questions before people hear it for themselves.

Quick side note: I saw Handsome Furs last night at the Drake in Toronto. This is the new band for Dan Boeckner of Wolf Parade, a duo with his new wife, who handles all drum programming, keyboards and electronics. I'm happy to report that this exceeded any expectations I had; I was worried that Dan was simply playing catch-up to his ever-prolific writing partner Spencer in Wolf Parade. Instead, Handsome Furs has a whole aesthetic unto itself--with the exception of one two-chord rocker that descends from "This Heart's On Fire." Dan is singing his ass off, his pained howl having been tastefully refined after a full year of touring, though it still gets deliciously raw when necessary.

I guess I was also skeptical because of my evolving appreciation of Wolf Parade. When I first saw them three years ago, I loved Dan's songs and hated Spencer's; now I'm firmly in the Spencer camp, and until last night I had started underestimating Dan's own writing. The electronics also add a welcome difference in texture, whereas the first time I saw Sunset Rubdown as a band (a very rough early gig) it simply sounded like a weirder Wolf Parade unplugged (it's obviously become much more than that).

Handsome Furs' debut album for Sub Pop is expected in the new year.

In the meantime, back to Swan Lake...

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Carey Mercer

November 7, 2006

Via phone in Victoria, BC

I don’t know what I was thinking Beast Moans would sound like, and yet it does and doesn’t sound like I thought it would. Did you have expectations of what would happen when the three of you got together?

Nope. That was the nice thing about it. It makes it difficult to talk about, like we wanted a mixture of this sound and that—which we never spoke about. We wanted to see if we could make a record. When it’s all on one songwriter or some context with prior records, you’re more aware. But to use the over-used organic cliché, it was pretty much head-to-the-monitor.

For some reason, I expected it to be more of a band record, but because it’s just the three of you and none of you are drummers by trade, it’s more three guys singing with lots of keyboards and weird sounds.

I think so, yeah. There’s the danger too of having it be really folkie, which feels a little hamfisted. At the same time, you’re right, the thing about Swan Lake that’s really peculiar in the context of the three of us is that all the songs are rooted in acoustic guitar. Especially for me and Spencer—if we could have looked into a crystal ball ten years ago and seen that, we would have cried in horror.

Such was your repulsion at that stage in your life?

I guess so! And none of us are powerhouse drummers. Even if we were, I don’t think we would have necessarily wanted to have rocked it out. There’s a bit of that on the record, though.

Who is drumming, then?

Dan didn’t do too much drumming, so it’s mostly me and Spencer. But we did it mostly individually: I would do a hi-hat, and then Spencer would hit a snare.

Wow, that is collaborative!

It makes the drums really tight in a way in that they’re to a metronome, but they’re loose too, in that it’s very hard to do. It’s counterproductive, I suppose, but it gives it a neat kind of feel. There’s something about those drums I really like. Dan described the drums as really early electronica, when things were still pretty stupid.

Like what, 70s, late 60s electronic music?

I guess so. I don’t actually know what he’s talking about.

Dan in particular, and certainly yourself, and to a somewhat lesser degree Spencer—you all have an emphasis on lyrics, wordplay and words in your writing. And yet I find it really hard to distinguish words in the vocal tracks here. The way the record is mixed seems to obscure that. Is that just my deafness, or is that deliberate?

No, I think it’s because it wasn’t pre-meditated, and it was really done on the fly, so texture became more important than succinct ‘this-is-the-bass,’ ‘this-is-the-guitar,’ ‘we-are-here-to-document-our-sound’—well, we didn’t really have a sound when we started out. Because of that, it really is a studio thing. Maybe also the fact that we all tend to put our vocals up pretty high on our own records, Spencer probably the least and Dan probably the most. It’s not like we’re going to blow people’s expectations by mixing the vocals low. I think it felt right to bring them down a bit.

Listening to it, you’re all singing in your usual styles—actually, you, less so—so there’s a certain amount of words per meter, yet I can’t make out what you’re saying.

Yeah, well, there is a lyric sheet.

Ah yes, right. So, uh, you obviously played in Destroyer for a while…

And Spencer did too, in Europe.

When Destroyer and Frog Eyes went to Europe, right?

Yeah, the four of us: Swan Lake and Melanie, the Frog Eyes drummer. It felt really good. I don’t know if Europe was turned on its ear or anything, but it felt really good to me, and we felt like it would be awesome if we could provide ourselves with a more formal atmosphere. I never got to attack one of Dan’s songs fresh; there’s always context of this other record that sounds really different. That was the stressful part of it. It wasn’t the sounds or the songs themselves, but it was the preconceptions. When I knew Spencer here, he wasn’t so much a songwriter, he was more of a bedroom guy, more like, ‘this is my song, but you’re lucky if you’re allowed to hear it.’

Sunset Rubdown at that point was just a cassette-only project, wasn’t it?

Exactly. It was kept quite close. It was also not the kind of thing that would lend itself to someone else contributing.

It was very private.

Totally. But obviously over the years he’s become a more public songwriter, so I think it seemed right to me to get together and try to make a record. We’re really lucky that Jagjaguwar was into it.

Why specifically do you find a kindred spirit in these two men?

There’s a lot of things, and it’s kind of weird to talk about in terms of friendship. You would never have an interview about a friend, and then the friend would read it. That would be horrible, right?

Usually we wait for funerals before that kind of discourse.

But musically, there’s a pretty similar sense of struggle and commitment to the idea of an album as high art, and also the contradictions and the dilemmas that brings. The fact that even in doing that you make just as much of a mockery and a pompous cliché as the rocker does. That kind of struggle: no matter what you do, you’re kind of a hollow mockery of what you started out to do. But you do it nonetheless. You keep going on. Then there’s the natural, organic friendship, too, which has an effect on the music. In some ways it’s very masculine. I have no idea what they’re singing about. We don’t sit around and some topics are very off-limits. It’s as if we’re a couple of mechanics, not fey songwriters.

How collaborative was the writing?

The idea was that there would be no collaboration on the songs themselves. The premise was that everyone would bring in three or four songs and we’d flesh them out together, and that’s what we did. It was a little weird at the start, because no one wanted to be the keener: ‘I’ve got a great one!’ Once we got started it was really neat, because Spencer had been in Japan for a month and a half and he’d written these songs there, so it’s not like any of us brought a song that was like: ‘I’ve been singing this song in the shower since I was eight.’ At the beginning there was some trepidation, but once it bloomed it was really neat to be in the control room and hear the song for the first time.

What’s odd about the project is that in my experience, recording is the last phase of the song. Usually you’ve played them on the road. I felt privileged in a way when I heard these songs for the first time. It’s one of my more memorable experiences playing music, was hearing this unfold and recognizing that you can integrate yourself into a song at the same time it’s integrating itself into you.

I hear discovery on the record, and three men feeling each other out—or feeling each other up, as the case may be. It’s more exploratory than your other projects, which sound a bit more readymade.

Yeah, more realized. That’s what I like about the record. I also like that it’s not all me, so it’s easier to talk about. It felt very private and outside of the scope of response or the public forum. For one, we laid the foundations even outside of Victoria, in a barn in the country, so it made it feel like you were out of time. And Victoria itself is a bit removed.

Considering those interiors and the private nature, what do you hope that a listener takes from it? Someone who pays for the album, takes it home and says, ‘I don’t really know what these three guys are doing!’

I don’t really know. That’s always a really difficult question. It blows my mind that people shell out money. (30 seconds lost due to battery failure). I hope people can hear it without context, without bloggery…

That sounds like buggery.

That might be a better word. But it’s a hard one to answer, because I can’t imagine what hearing it for the first time would be like.

It was baffling at first, for me, but knowing where the three of you come from individually, more things rise to the surface with each listen.

That’s good, because that’s what I like in a record, when you’re not sure about a record the first few times, and then you go back to it and you feel rewarded. We’re not trying to be willfully obscure or repelling the listener. I would love to make a record that is butter to the ears on first listen, but this one was not going to work out like that. We’ve all learned to let the collection of songs take you where they want to, and try not to force their hand.

Your songs on here sound the most different from your “day job,” if you will.

Maybe. On the other hand, it’s been a while since there’s been a Frog Eyes record.

It’s been what, two years?

I think so. Maybe people will think the new one sounds different.

It’s en route, yes?

Yeah, it’s done and should be out in March. When I listen to a song like ‘Widow’s Walk,’ I haven’t heard that in Destroyer; it doesn’t sound like a Destroyer song. Or the last song, that’s really far from Dan’s territory. Also, the fact that Spencer played acoustic guitar makes it quite a bit more folkie than the synth-heavy stuff he’s most at home with.

Really? I hear a lot of acoustic guitar in his work, on the new Sunset Rubdown album and especially on the EP before that.

That’s true. I think the acoustic guitar on his EP is more of an effect than it is the foundation. If you reduced the songs to just him and one instrument, it probably wouldn’t be the acoustic. It just kind of happened that we would randomly go around and attack the songs and then take things away. His songs probably ended up having the least on them, which is definitely to the album’s benefit. You need to hear all the songs in the context of the record. I talk like that’s an abnormality, but it shouldn’t be.

If your songs sound the least like your main band, then his songs sound the most like Sunset Rubdown. That’s also because I hear you and Dan singing on each other’s songs more than either of you appear on Spencer’s.

Sure, yeah. But there is some trading of voices, and Spencer’s and my voices can by quite similar if it’s done together. But I hear you. It might be more noticeable, the way that Dan’s and my voice work together—or doesn’t work together. I haven’t really thought about that.

Were all three of you present for the entire process, or just the recording?

No, Dan had to go in and out, as did Spencer.

Were you steering it?

It was my computer, so I guess I was always there, but I wouldn’t say that I made it or that I’m responsible for it. Every idea was okayed or made by everyone. I might have done a bit more clean-up stuff and the boring parts of making a record, but in terms of the important stuff everyone was there.

Did this record illuminate anything in your own work that you hadn’t realized before?

No, nothing every illuminates anything for me, to tell you the truth. It’s a dark process. I really enjoyed it. There probably are lessons learned, but ones that I don’t want to actively look upon.

Do the three of you share any similar work habits, good or bad?

It didn’t feel like work, to tell you the truth. We’re all pretty mellow. No one was really like, ‘WHAT THE… FUCK! Bejar, get in there!’ It was more, ‘Yeah, sure, dude.’ Very supportive. No freak-outs. It’s odd, too, because we are all tyrants in our own way—very controlling of how our records sound. I know it’s been leveled at Spencer that he sounds a lot like me, or vice versa, but I think we both felt that our aesthetic was quite different. That has been an illumination for both of us, that each one is right in our own way. It has influenced me in a way, because I have this idea of weaving 20 different melodies into one kind of cohesive one, and he’s very much the opposite. He wants everything to turn into one very cohesive whole. I think that had an effect on me in our little battles, which were always civil. I really like the parts where he convinced me to go this way, and I especially like the parts on the record where you can feel all of our wills murking about. Sometimes one radical cohesive statement can be very effective, especially when put in the context of bouncing off a chaotic weave.

Is it easier to take advice from another tyrant than it is someone in your own band?

(laughs) I guess so, I don’t know. Probably! But I wouldn’t want anyone from the band to read that!

By the language you’re using, I’m assuming this won’t be the last we hear of Swan Lake, then.

No, we have an agreement to have a discussion about touring.

Really? You got Dan to agree to that?

I said ‘discuss touring.’ I can’t say anything, but I would really love it. It would be really neat to take those songs and go the exact opposite direction with them. You only get to play the songs once a night, so it has to have a lot more cohesion and less texture.

Obviously when you were making the record you weren’t envisioning having to play these songs live, though.

No. It doesn’t really matter anyway, especially coming from our history of turning Your Blues into a thrashing rock onslaught. If we wanted to do it, we could. But we’re definitely going to make another record. That was the one promise we made to the label. I don’t like the suggestion that it’s a side project, because that implies that these are the doggerel songs. It’s another project. Wolf Parade is the side project! These songs were written for Swan Lake.

You’ve often done the paintings for your own album covers, so why did you pick Shary Boyle to do this one?

Because they were really awesome, and they seemed appropriate. And I haven’t painted in a really long time. There was talk of me doing it, and then I suggested her, because Dan’s good friends with her too. He wrote her and she said she wanted to hear the music first and then agreed to do it. I’m extremely grateful to her. Especially because it’s so easy to download records now, I think it’s more important to create a beautiful package.