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 Sorry About Dresden
is the best band you've never heard
by Whitney Weiss
Sorry About Dresden's penchant for mixing sounds and well-developed
songwriting ability makes them an outstanding example of rock and
roll's ability to endure over the ages. One can see a flicker of the
Replacements in the group, and their latest release, Let it Rest, will
please fans of their last album as well as win over scores of new
people chomping at the bit to see all of what Saddle Creek records has
to offer. We had a chance to interview bass player Matt Tomich and
guitarist/vocalist/songwriter Matt Oberst before SAD hit the road in
support of Let it Rest to ask them about the new album, their Who-like
onstage injuries, and, of course, the dreaded Conor question.
Matt Tomich - bass player :
Sorry, we had band practice and we just got done. Sorry we’re a little
bit late.
WW: Quite alright.
Anyways, what’s going on?
Not so much, how is practice going?
It’s going good, we’re about to leave for tour. It’s just kind of
snuck up on us, like, ‘Oh, it’s quick,’ so it’s kind of like, finals
week? I dunno, kind of like that.
Ah.
But it’s all good, it’s just like ‘Whoa, practice!’
And you’ve got Let it Rest coming out, is that what you’re touring
under right now?
We’re going on tour because we’re Sorry About Dresden, but that’s the
album coming out.
Okay. So do you like touring a great deal?
Yes, to say the least, I think it’s one of the reasons I play in a
rock band. It’s fun, you drive around towns and you meet people and
you play rock music and, um, you see new places. You meet people that
like the same music you do.
That’s awesome.
Yeah, I wish everything in life was that easy.
What kind of stuff are you doing to get ready for tour, just
practicing or…?
Yeah, you have to call up all the places where you booked a show and
then you have to, you have to pack and do all your laundry, it’s sort
of like if you were going on a big camping trip, that’s pretty much
what it’s like.
Hold on a second, I just walked in the room with everyone else.
Matt says "say hi." They all say "hi." Matt says something inaudible,
then
We can all talk. So when you get sick of these questions, I’m going to
pass it on to someone else, too.
Cool.
But yeah, it’s sort of like a camping trip, basically, it’s all the
same things you would pack, and you just get ready to be gone for a
while so you have to deal with, ‘Oh, so what do I have to pay? What
bills do I have to pay?’ And, um, Saddle Creek’s really on the ball
about everything else, though. They take care of contacting the people
in the cities, setting up interviews like this, sending your picture
to the newspaper. And you have to make sure all the equipment works,
make sure the van works.
You’re out of Chapel Hill, aren’t you?
Mmm hmm.
And you’re the only Saddle Creek band that’s not in Omaha?
Well, you can’t really say that because Rilo Kiley’s from L.A., Azure
Ray was from Athens, GA, and they just moved. So I think we’re the
only band, Rilo Kiley all lives in L.A..We’re the only one that lives
on the east coast completely.
Do you enjoy it more on the east coast, were you ever out in Omaha
or on the west coast?
I grew up in Omaha, as did Matt Oberst as well. It’s probably the best
place I can imagine to grow up, it’s probably the perfect place to
grow up. You get to see all four seasons in their most extremeness,
it’s a really fun, safe place, you can sneak out at like, 2 in the
morning, and go ride your bike around the street and not really worry
about anything. And, you know, 20 years of living in any given place
is probably enough. Even if it’s Paris, it’s 20 years, I’m going to be
like, ‘I’m going to try somewhere else now.’
Right. That makes sense. So Saddle Creek’s kind of blowing up right
now, isn’t it? A lot of attention, like with Bright Eyes and even, I
guess, Rilo Kiley and The Faint.
Yeah. I think…
So what do you think about that, how do you feel, coz you’re a
Saddle Creek band.
Yeah, I mean really, even before Saddle Creek started putting out our
records, and our first two records weren’t even on Saddle Creek, my
favorite records were on Saddle Creek. I knew those guys, I knew a lot
of people in those bands before they were in those bands, and even
moving out here it’s like, wow, the people who were still living in
Omaha are making like, my favorite music right now.
That’s awesome.
And I think it’s legitimate, I think what’s happening is that everyone
who would possibly like a Saddle Creek band is actually getting to
hear them. And I think that’s great. Coz that’s what I think the main
limiting factor of independent music is, is that all the people that
would like a certain band don’t get the chance to actually hear them.
But the more people who actually get to hear a Saddle Creek band,
whether they like it or not, at least they get to make a choice
themselves.
Right.
And I think that’s really great. Not everyone has to like Bright Eyes
or The Faint, but if they get a chance to hear them and decide for
themselves, that’s awesome. As opposed to like, ‘Oh I heard this Limp
Bizkit song 40 times and I still don’t like it.’ You know?
Do you listen to a lot of Saddle Creek bands right now, or, what
kind of music are you into?
Um, a lot of stuff I listen to has guitars.
That’s good.
That’s pretty much it. Yeah, I think that’s kind of the blanket that
covers it all. I like stuff that’s in a major key, but that’s me.
Right. What about the rest of the band?
I would say I just gave you a vague enough description to cover
(inaudible), but I think that some of us listen to stuff that’s
sadder. And some of us listen to stuff that’s louder, and I’m being
very vague
No, it’s okay
But that’s because we all listen to really different stuff. Everything
from Lifetime and Small Brown Bike to Van Morrison and Jackson Browne.
And you do hear it in your music, also, a bunch of different
influences.
Really?
Yeah, you definitely do.
I have no idea because…
…you make your music?
Yeah, well it’s like, you know, you can never really see what you look
like.
Right.
You look in the mirror and you’re just like, ‘Oh God, not again, that
person,’ yeah and when you hear your music, you don’t really hear how
other people hear it, you just hear all the mistakes.
Aww.
::laughs:: Well you know, not everyone, I mean, I’m so self-critical
of my own stuff, I could never truly actually listen to it objectively
as someone else would hear it.
Well it makes sense. And it probably means you’re always working to
better your music, as well.
Yeah, it never feels good enough, ever.
So how do you feel about Let it Rest? Are you satisfied? Do you
hear lots of mistakes when you listen to it?
Um, it hasn’t been long enough. To listen, to actually hear it as it
is.
Right.
And you know, some days I go ‘Wow, hey this turned out alright,’ and
some days I’m like, ‘Oh it’s never good enough.’
Right.
You know, always filled with self-doubt. But you know, if anybody who
is like, ever satisfied with their music, has probably quit trying.
Well I heard it and I think it’s great. I think it’s just as good,
if not better, than The Convenience of Indecision.
Well, you always hope that your latest stuff is the best stuff, but,
it’s not always true. But I’m glad that you think so, just coz it’s
the more recent thing. You always wish that your new haircut is better
than your last one.
Exactly.
Matt Oberst - guitars/singing/writing
Hi, this is Matt Oberst.
Hey, I’m Whitney from Movement Magazine.
Nice to talk to you.
Nice to talk to you, too. I had asked other Matt what all has
changed with your songwriting and recording with Convenience of
Indecision versus Let it Rest, which, by the way, you did an awesome
job with.
Well thank you very much. Eric and I, who tend to kind of write the
big parts of the songs before we arrange them, worked on Let it Rest
quite a bit more together. Like, we would take parts of songs and show
them to one another and then kind of work on them from there. It’s
still the basics, like if he sings that song he wrote most of it, but
this time around we did a lot more sort of bouncing off ideas.
Right.
And it was more of a, sort of, together process as opposed to sitting
in your bedroom and writing a song and then bringing it in to band
practice and saying ‘Okay, this is the new song.’ It’s like ‘I had
this part, I kind of had this melody, so let’s work on it from that
angle.’ That’s probably the biggest difference.
And do you think there is a particular song on Let it Rest that is
quintessential of that kind of writing?
Um, let’s see. Probably "Perfect Posture" is the, he came up with the
verse, and I came up with the chorus and the bridge, something to that
effect. That was probably the most 50/50 song.
And what are you listening to right now?
I have a friend’s copy of the Zombie’s box set that I’ve sort of been
obsessed with lately.
The "Time of the Season" people?
Yes.
Wow.
They put out a record called Odyssey Oracle that’s just amazing and
this is a four-CD set with basically everything they ever did. So
that’s been getting a lot of airplay at the house. Um, let’s see,
Spoon, the Kinks, um, 50 Years of Bluegrass. Someone gave that to me
for Christmas and it’s really good. I’ve been listening to a lot of
hillbilly music.
Bluegrass is really great.
Oh, I love it.
I thought I heard banjo once on one of your CDs, but was I
mistaken?
You weren’t mistaken. That was Eric’s attempt to play the banjo. Which
ended up being nice, but anyone who plays the banjo laughs at it.
So you’ve been listening to bluegrass and the Zombies and the
Kinks.
Yes.
Do you hear your influences in Sorry About Dresden songs, or not?
Oh sure. I totally hear it. We’re firm believers in ripping things
that we like off. But a lot of those influences tend to be stuff from
when we were younger, sort of the formative years. You can’t ever
shake that, like that whole Husker Du, Elvis Costello, the Clash,
Replacements, that sort of thing keeps coming out.
Right. How would you describe your music to someone who’s never
heard Sorry About Dresden?
You know that’s always such a tough question. I generally just say
we’re a rock band.
Okay.
::Laughs:: Coz in the sense that, um, older rock bands put out records
that they don’t feel like, you know, you can have an acoustic-y type
song and do different sort of things with songwriting within the
context of a single album. I like to think that we’re not really
limited into having a specific sound, we can kind of, basically have
free range, we can kind of goof around with whatever’s sounding good.
So that’s nice.
Now I have to get the "people ask you these questions all the time"
questions out of the way.
Okay.
Okay, so there’s the obvious, "Your brother is in Bright Eyes."
Yes, he certainly is.
He certainly is. I’m really sorry, you get this a lot, don’t you?
No, it’s okay. It’s been awhile since the last record came out so this
is the first interview we’ve done for this record. So it’s still new
and fresh, I’m not annoyed yet.
Okay, I hope it’s not too painful.
No, not at all.
Do you find yourself, did you play music when you were growing up
together, how did you get into Saddle Creek, that whole thing.
I am six years older than Conor, so basically, he was still pretty
little when I started playing guitar. He sort of was around and I was
in a band with Tim Kasher who’s in Cursive and Matt Maginn who’s also
in Cursive, and we sort of at 14 or 15, just started playing covers
together. And then, you know, as Conor got, obviously when he was
young, he was way more talented than any other 13 year old around, and
so he would open for the band I was in. He would want to play out, and
so he started doing that. I obviously never wanted to be too hands-on
with him, so I just kind of helped him anytime he asked and let him do
his own thing.
Right.
You know, he obviously is really great at it. As for us playing
together, you know, I’m sure we played around the house. Before I
moved to North Carolina we were in a band for the summer together. We
just wrote a bunch of songs and wanted to play at two shows. We did
that and it was fun.
That’s awesome. Okay, what do you never get asked that you would
like to talk about, now that I’ve bored you with the Conor question.
::laughs:: Um…
Like, what do you want to say about this record?
Um, this record was just a lot of fun to make. The studio that we used
looked like an old auto body shop sort of thing. It was guitar player
heaven. He had, you know, probably 25 to 30 sort of vintage amps and a
closet full of guitars, so we just had a blast messing around with
different guitar sounds and taking our time and just having a lot of
fun. We goofed around a lot making this record. It was a lot less
business-like than The Convenience. We just had more time.
Do you find that your songwriting thrives more when you’re in an
environment where you get to mess around more with all those different
amps and see what happens?
Well, it wasn’t really, the songs were all done by the time we got
into the studio, but basically, we had to take off work and put our
lives on hold to go to Lincoln to do this, to do the last record. And
we had a finite amount of time and it kind of got to be one of those
things where, if it were rushed, you know, it’s like, ‘Well that’s got
to be done now because we’ve got to start mixing on this day.’ Whereas
when we did it in North Carolina it was like, ‘Well we can come back
tomorrow.’ And if we need to add a few extra days or take some time
off to decide what we want to do, it was just a lot easier.
Right.
And you’re always just more comfortable at home. You know, being able
to go home and sleep in our own bed, and not have to sleep on the
floor of the studio.
Well definitely.
And it sort of made it less stressful. It’s probably the same thing
all the bands in Omaha get recording in Presto. It’s kind of low-key
because they can go home and take some distance from it. You know, not
feel like they’re super pressed for time.
Are you finding more advantages or disadvantages to being based out
of Chapel Hill?
Um, probably, I would say advantages. It’s a lot easier to do weekend
tours and short tours being in Chapel Hill, because in Omaha you have
to drive quite a ways to get even to Kansas City or Chicago, and here
you can play some of the biggest cities in the country in four or five
days. You can go play Washington, DC, Philadelphia, and New York, and
Boston and come back home. So that’s just easier to do. Now, getting
to California, on the other hand, is much easier from Omaha. But we’re
going to embark on that adventure in a couple of weeks.
Yeah, where all are you playing on this tour? Is this a bicoastal
tour?
We’re neglecting the east coast because we’ve done that quite a bit,
so, I mean, our first show is in West Virginia, and then we’re playing
across the Midwest fairly quickly, we’re playing down Washington,
Oregon, California, and then across to Texas. And then we’re going to
do a week with Bright Eyes in April, it will take us sort of the
southeast, and then we’re going to try to do the east coast in
probably July. We’re excited about that, it should be fun. We hear the
guys from Arab Strap are big drinkers.
So when you’re on tour is it business and no play, or are you out
partying with the best of them?
Probably a lot of partying with the best of ‘em. We’re old enough that
on most nights we’re responsible enough to get where we need to be on
time. We take pride to getting to clubs on time.
Well that’s excellent. You’re doing van tours. How many years would
you estimate you’ve been doing tours as a band?
Let’s see. Our first, real-life sort of extended tour was in ‘99 or
2000. I think it was ‘99, it was our first getting out of the region
sort of tour. We all have jobs and other things that have kept us not
being on the road all the time.
And how do you find that balance between work and the band?
I think most of us have found jobs where if it got to the point where
it would be feasible to leave work, we would in a heartbeat…until
then, we have to take three weeks here and there and still try to do
almost as much touring as everybody else, it just has to be, we can’t
go on the road for six weeks, we have to split it up a little bit
more.
That’s understandable. I commend you on being able to balance it.
::laughs:: it’s tough sometimes, but we do our best.
Do you manage to not get on each other’s nerves while touring?
For the most part we all get along fairly well. There have been a few
notorious blowups with one another in various parts of the country,
but 95% of the time we get along pretty well. You know, the typical
‘You chew too loud’ sort of thing, or ‘Take a shower please.’ Typical
boy touring stuff.
That’s great.
Yeah.
Have you been playing the songs that are on Let it Rest before, or
will this be the first tour where you kind of debut them?
Um, we’ve played probably half of them at various shows we’ve played
in the past probably six months, but we haven’t really been playing,
like, we recorded the album and then my daughter was born, so I took
time off between recording and starting up again when it was going to
come out. So, we’ve probably played five of them live before. So we’ll
see what happens.
How are you thinking it’s going to come across live?
10 out of the 12 songs are pretty much catered to big live rock shows,
even more so than a lot of the stuff on the Convenience record. We’ll
at least have fun playing them, hopefully people will like them, too.
Great. Is anything else going on right now with the band that’s
particularly interesting? I know you have the new record out and
you’re touring.
We’re going to be on the 50th Saddle Creek release compilation.
Oh wow.
That is looking like it’s gonna be good, I’ve seen the artwork and it
looks good. I haven’t heard any of the other band’s songs, but
everyone’s doing one new song and one previous song off of a Saddle
Creek release.
Which are your two?
"Sick and Sore" is going to be the song that we have released, and a
song called "People Have Parties" is the unreleased song on that.
How did you choose "People Have Parties" for this?
We had recorded it, we always try to record a few extra songs when
we’re making a record. That one just didn’t make the cut for the album
because it had sort of a different tonal quality to it. We thought it
would be great for a 7" or a comp and this came along.
That’s great. When you write an album, do you go into with, I don’t
want to say ‘concept album,’ but, do you see the songs connected
before you arrange it as an album, do you write specifically like
that?
Yes, well, yes and no. There’s definitely like, Eric and I will spend
many times after band practice talking in vague terms about the songs
and what they’re about, because you kind of write batches of songs
together. They’re kind of all connected, if not necessarily musically,
either musically or thematically or just have a certain tone to them.
And so I definitely look at, you know, proper albums should be
connected. Not necessarily being high-concept like Tommy, not
necessarily something silly like that, but a good album should be
taken as a whole and I think sometimes that gets lost in single world
of today. We always try to make sort of a cohesive album. Not
necessarily telling one specific story, but trying to evoke something
as a whole.
Okay.
And hopefully you can listen to one song and like it, too.
Well yeah, definitely.
We definitely like to think of it as a complete album.
And lyrically, are you and Eric kind of balanced with lyrics?
Yeah, like on this record, I sing half the songs and he sings half the
songs. Whoever’s singing probably wrote at least the majority of the
words. Here and there we’ll ask each other for ideas if we’re stuck on
something, but for the most part, if you’re singing it, you wrote it.
I just to comment because it’s, it’s almost literary. You have
really good imagery in your lyrics.
That would be the nerd graduate school (inaudible). Thank you, thank
you, I mean we do take time and effort in trying to have fairly
cohesive lyrics, not, it’s more a sort of circular, not a linear
progression on any sort of thing and not storytelling. There are
characters that keep coming back and point of view and that sort of
thing.
Right. It’s good that you take time to do that some. People who
listen to songs appreciate it.
Thank you, thank you.
Yeah. Do you think, out of all the songs you’ve done with Sorry
About Dresden, is there one that’s just the quintessential Sorry About
Dresden song?
Because of the fact that we get like, we have our songs all over the
map in a way, there’s acoustic songs, there’s sort of dirges, there’s
songs in ¾, there are sort of different quintessential ones. Like,
when I think of that live, there’s a song off our first record that’s
sort of the quintessential Sorry About Dresden closer. You know what I
mean, the last song you play at the show?
Right.
So, there are those sort of things. There are, I guess, the sort of
convoluted answer is that it depends on when you ask me. You know,
what I think is the quintessential Sorry About Dresden song, because
sometimes it’s like ‘Oh this is the quintessential Eric song’ or ‘This
is the quintessential Matt song.’ It sort of shifts depending on what
mood I’m in.
Well how about right now. What’s your quintessential Matt song?
Oh, off the new record, probably…that’s such a hard question.
::laughs::
Sorry.
Yeah, um, I don’t know.
It doesn’t have to be off the new record, it can be off any record.
Well I can answer it, the quintessential closer is "Design and
Debris." I don’t know if you’ve heard the first record that we did,
but that’s the song that for years and years we basically ended every
show with because there would be broken guitar strings and you just
couldn’t play after that.
Right. So you get really into it onstage?
We have been known to.
You’ve been known to.
::laughs:: We’ve had two incidences of having to go get stitches
afterwards.
Were you the lucky recipient?
I was in Boston and our bass player Matt Tomich was in Raleigh. That
was fun. We were all excited playing in Boston with (inaudible) of the
Desaparecidos and I managed to crack my head open on a stage light.
Wow.
But you know, we finished the show and then I went to the hospital.
Nine stitches later, I was in the van in the middle of the night,
driving to Cleveland.
That’s the quintessential ‘Tell the interviewer how hardcore you
are’ story.
Yeah, that’s the ‘I’m a rockstar’ story. I could embellish it great,
you know, there’s blood streaming down, it was very G.T. Allen sort of
moment.
Wow. Well that’s all I can think of. Do you have any more stuff you
want people to read about?
::laughs:: No, no, we’re just flattered that you’re taking the time to
ask us questions.
Well, awesome. I love Convenience of Indecision. I wasn’t sure if
Let it Rest was going to be as good or better, and I think it’s
better.
Well, that’s the goal. It’s funny like, people will go ‘I really like
the last record, but this one’s better!’ you know, like ‘Don’t take
that the wrong way.’ We want every record we do to be better than the
last one.
Right.
That’s why we still want to be in a band together. If we got to the
point where we weren’t writing good songs anymore, we’d call it quits.
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