Travis Morrison and Eric Axelson of the Dismemberment Plan
4/23/02 at The Imperial
Interviewed by Whitney Weiss
*All answers by Travis unless otherwise noted*


















 


Movement: You’re back with Desoto Records for this album?
Travis: This last one?

Yeah.
Yeah.

And that’s from Interscope for "Emergency & I?"
No, Desoto put out "Emergency & I".

Right, but originally you were going to be out Interscope with that one?
Yeah, but they completely changed.

Well that answers that question. I figured that’s one you get asked a lot.
(Laughs) Yeah.

(Laughs) Sorry about that.
No, I don’t mind you asking, but yeah it’s pretty documented. It’s like you’re dating someone, and then suffer massive head trauma and their personality completely changes. When the relationship ends, it’s almost like, you can’t blame ‘em, they’re not them anymore.

Right.
(Laughs). And that was really what happened. They were turning into a completely different company…that was all three years ago at this point.

Alright. You never seem to remake a record, there’s such a difference between "Change" and "Emergency & I."
Right, that’s true.

The sound is constantly evolving. How do you accomplish that?
I don’t know, curiosity, I guess. Curiosity (pause) I don’t know, I guess discipline. You want to keep moving. You fiddle around for a while, you make some noise in the basement like any garage band does, and it gives you a new direction, it gives you somewhere to go. After a while, you say, ‘Well, we can go there or we can not.’ Once you decide to go there, it does take a certain amount of discipline or conscious decision to do so.
A truck passes.
Wow it’s really loud around here. Is it because these buildings reflect the noise?

And the plethora of buses.
I hate loud noise. So yeah, we do move around a lot, and I think that’s because we’re inquisitive people. And yeah, you see a place where you can go, you don’t even know if it’s worthwhile but you want to find out…maybe it’ll suck, but you have to go to find out.

And your lyrics: more personal, or more fictional?
Well, that’s a hard thing to say. I mean, they’re more expository and less narrative, that’s for damn sure. In terms of the kernels of emotional insight, like (pause) I dunno. Probably the same. Some of our most popular songs that people always ask about the lyrics I never did. Like "Ice in Boston." That was a mistake I observed other people make. I never moved after a relationship or anything like that. I would barely cross the street for them until pretty recently (laughs). So I mean, I can relate to someone being in that place, but I can’t, uh (pause), it’s not me. And you know those songs like "Time Bomb," I’ve never been that bitter. But again, I’ve seen other people get that bitter, I can understand how it happens, you know. But again, it’s not a feeling I’ve had. I’ve never been that person. But either way, one’s narrative and one’s expository, and—hey Eric, wanna join an interview? We were looking for you.
Eric: Sure.

Hey I’m Whitney.
Eric: I’m Eric.
Travis: Yeah it’s, some songs are personal, some songs are not. Really none of them are about direct situations. Some of them are about the opposite of the situation I’m in, where I just say, ‘Well, how would I think about that if I was the other person?’ I guess that answers your question.

It’s a good question [obviously I meant answer.]
 (Playfully) It’s a good question, and here’s another good question.
(Laughs) Here is another good question.
(Laughs) Do you know who I am?

It’s about lyrics again.
Okay.

"Change" seems to discuss death a lot, or at least a lot more bluntly, and it seems to be more mature than "If I don’t have sex by the end of the week I’m going to die."
I think that’s perfectly mature.

Yeah, it is. But what prompted the shift?
I don’t know. Coz we had already done "Girl O’Clock", uh, I guess that’s a factor. I think (pause) you know, actually, death has been showing up in my lyrics for a long time. Actually, it’s been pretty much since the start. And I get worried, because it’s kind of like easy.
Eric: It’s reading all that Ray Bradbury as a kid.
Travis: Yeah, there’s a lot of weird death stuff. I think probably that’s something pretty personal for me because my pops passed away a couple of years ago, but a lot of it, like I haven’t really written a song—well actually, there’s kind of a new one that kind of does (laughs). But I’ve waited years. And it’s not about mourning at all; it’s about kind of more about how the mourning process is in some ways not nearly as interesting as everyone makes it out to be. (Laughs)

It’s a good topic.
It’s a weird one. Maybe I won’t ever try to describe that to anyone. No, death has been popping up for a long time. In fact our second record has a song that, I look back, and it’s really intense, about, basically about being angry at someone who kills himself, a friend that kills himself, the resentment you feel when someone commits suicide. Uh, so death’s always been in there. I think it’s not so much mature, I think it touches on themes that are more about introspection, like trying to get to know who you are... The third record is very kind of jazz hands melancholy, very much kind of ‘Why did you leave me? Oh God.’ And this record’s like, ‘Well maybe, maybe I see why you did that.’ (Laughs) And that’s much more introspective.

Right.
Maybe that is mature. (Laughs) I’ve got more sex songs in me, it’s just what this album’s about.

Yeah.
Death and sex. (Laughs)
Death and sex.
Eric: Food!
Travis: No, I don’t have any food songs yet.

I read an interview where the band is described as Prince and Fugazi, your sound.
Eric: We probably said that ourselves.
Yeah, I think you did.
Travis: (laughs) Right. It was probably us trying to end the discussion, (aggravated tone) ‘Well I don’t know.’

No I don’t want you to do that horrible thing where you pigeonhole yourself. But I thought it was a pretty decent description. How long did it take to develop that sound?
Travis: How long did it take to think up that comparison? (Laughs)
Eric: To develop our sound?

To develop your sound. Have you always sounded…
Eric: Like Fugazi? Our first record, we thought was like some jazz meeting punk rap. We’ve always had a different idea of what we sound like versus what the world thinks we sound like. Literally, every record that comes out we think we did this, people say something else about it. Which is probably for the best.
Travis: Yeah, I definitely think it’s for the best.

Well what do you think you did on your last record?
Eric: On "Change?"

Yeah.
Eric: You mean what do we sound like now?

Yeah, what do you think you sound like?
(Laughter) Travis: Prince meets…I don’t know. We can tell you the things we were listening to. Leading up to it, there was a lot of D’Angelo, uh, a lot of "Kid A". We’ve been listening to "Remain in Light" for about nine years now by the Talking Heads.

Wow.
Stuff like that is really funny. I, all my life, have been studying the records of Janet Jackson. Usually people laugh when I say that—she’s an okay songwriter, but mainly, the record makers, Jimmy Jam and Jerry Lewis, are just geniuses. Those records sound amazing. They haven’t dated at all. Ten years later, "Control" sounds fantastic. So I think they’re as good record makers as have existed in American recording history. And it’s not that it doesn’t go over well in punk interviews, but I’m usually reduced to being like, ‘No really.’

No, it’s okay.
So we get our ideas from very odd places. And a lot of times they may not even be things that sound remotely like the things we say they inspired. But it’s like, something—a vibe—we picked up from it. You know, we wanted the record to sound like D’Angelo. Well it doesn’t sound like, you know, I’m not up there with my abs.
(Laugh)
If I had abs, I wouldn’t be up there with them.
Eric: It’s a lot more laid-back, it’s a lot more sophisticated like "Voodoo" is…I don’t think someone would listen to our record and say, ‘Oh yeah, D’Angelo and the Plan. Brothers in arms.’

Stranger things have happened.
Travis: If I do more sit-ups (laughs).
(Laughs) You too will get there.
Travis: We’re working on this new video where I spin around, it’s all looped up. Man, some band with a completely obese lead singer should do a parody video of that.
Eric: Har Mar needs to do that.
Travis: (laughs gleefully) Oh no. Do you know Har Mar Superstar?
Yes.
Travis: (laughs some more) That would be so raunchy.
Eric: Who’s this for?
Movement Magazine. It’s local.
Travis: Yeah I’m writing him an email tonight.
Eric: He’d do it.
Travis: He would do it.

So you get to talk about other people’s music a little bit more.
Travis: That’s a relief. I love talking about other people’s music.
Eric: It’s more fun than us.

Whatever you want to talk about, your opinions are important. And your opinions are on your website.
Travis: Yes they are.

You’ve got your ten best songs of all time, as of right now. So right now, what are your ten best songs of all time?
Travis: He just did that one, so you know his.
Eric: Mine are on the web site right now.
Travis: I’ve been obsessed with this guy named Gold Chains. Oh my God.
Eric: He’s awesome.
Travis: He’s amazing. He’s this weird combination of, like his rapping pretty much sounds like Tone Loc. But he’s got a very burly, raspy voice, and his rhyme scheme is pretty simple, party rockin’ old-school hip-hop stuff. And it’s also kind of the same old like, having fun, strange brag kind of stuff. And then the music is halfway between that old hip-hop stuff, and a lot of weird, twitchy electronic stuff. Like there’s a lot of dance music you can tell that guy’s into, but he’s channeling it all through this like, early hip-hop prism. But it doesn’t sound dated at all. It’s just incredible. The guy’s an amazing songwriter, and he has one of the greatest voices I’ve ever heard on anybody. I envy his voice so much.
Eric: It’s like laptop Miami bass.
Travis: That’s pretty much what it is…Another Miami bass sounding thing that we’re hip to is something called the Detroit Grand Pubahs who are, it’s just nasty. It’s this thing called ghetto tech, which is a weird, alienated, futuristic take on Miami bass, like Skywalker stuff. And they have this song called "Sandwiches", which is this like, really spare, (makes the drum machine noise) beat with somebody’s voice pitched up to cartoon levels with like (assumes cartoon levels voice): ‘I know you want to do it.’ (laughs) It’s a really dirty, threatening song about how ‘I know you want to go do a sandwich with me and my friend on the dance floor. (Assumes cartoon voice again) but it’s all done in this cartoon voice. (End of cartoon voice.) It’s so good.

It belongs on every top-ten list.
(Laughs) Right. If everyone heard it, it would be so. And lately I love the song "Peaches and Regalia" by Frank Zappa. That’s great. The last Outkast single was great, that whole world song.
‘The Whole World,’ yeah.
Travis: The new Jay-Z single is the first one in awhile that’s kind of let me down. (Pause) You know which song we love?

Which?
Have you heard the song, it’s…Mr. Biggs and R. Kelly. (sings) ‘You’re contagious. Touch me baby.’ Then they kind of go into this weird three-way dialogue where [Mr. Biggs] catches R. Kelly sleeping with his woman. That song is great. That song is so good. What are other tour tracks?
Eric: One of the vans—we have two vans this tour—in the cargo van…
Travis: I don’t know what’s going on in that van.
Eric: A lot of classic rock.
Travis: Death Cab…
Eric: A lot of Chemical Brothers. Spoon.
Travis: Yeah Spoon. You heard Spoon?
Yes I have.
Travis: Their last record was amazing. Death Cab.

Weren’t you just on tour with Death Cab?
Travis: We were just on tour with Death Cab.
Eric: We still listen to them in the van.

I like your top ten.
Travis: Oh thank you.

It’s wonderful.
Travis: The last one’s his.

Have you started working on new material yet, or are you just touring right now?
Travis: I have.
Eric: It’s all written in MIDI, so when he plays it back it’s in computery tones. You can tell what the idea is, it just sounds like ‘do dee doo doo.’ (Laughs)
Travis: You know when you go to a web page and like, uh,

They butcher the song?
Travis: Yeah, well they have some MIDI version of like, (starts humming a MIDI version of Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’), some classical song. It’s got that kind of tonality to it, but it allows me to hear the chords and the melody, stuff like that.

That’s all you really need.
Travis: Yeah.

It’s not like you’re making an album of MIDI.
Travis: That’s right. We have like, half a song we’re working on right now.
Eric: About death.
Travis: Yeah, it’s about death.
The death song.
Travis: About death.
Do you have a name for it yet?
Travis: (matter-of-fact) It’s called ‘People Die.’
It’s called ‘People Die’?
Eric laughs.
Are there any little-known bands you think deserve more exposure?
Travis: Gold Chains.
Eric: Gold Chains.
Eric: Ted Leo and the Pharmacists.
Travis: Cex.
Eric: Definitely.
Eric: Is Spoon still…
Travis: No, I think they’re kind of known now. Their record kind of busted it open. More people should know.
Eric: Yeah. They should be packing big-ass clubs.
More people will know.
Travis: (laughs) At least eighteen people will now read about Spoon.
Hey now.
Travis: Um, I love that band the Monorail from Tallahassee. They’re young, but they’ve got some really funny ideas. I’m really into them…
Eric: El Guapo.
Travis: And I always think people should know about The Band. I know they broke up 25 years ago, but…
I think most people know.
Travis: Michael Jackson. The Beatles.
The Doors. All those band that no one’s ever heard of.
Travis: (laughs) The Strokes.

Oh God.
Travis: You’re not so down with The Strokes?

Oh no, I like The Strokes. It’s just, everyone I’ve interviewed for the past three months just has to talk about The Strokes or Rufus Wainwright for at least ten minutes.
Travis: (excited) Really? Rufus Wainwright!
Eric: Really?
Do you know John Mayer?
Eric: Yeah. What did Rufus say about John Mayer?
Travis: You interviewed John Mayer.

Oh, no. They talk about Rufus Wainwright, or the Strokes. And it usually comes one after the other. John Mayer went on and on about the Strokes, and then Rufus Wainwright came on M2 on his tour bus and he had to talk about Rufus.
Travis: That’s the song that I like.
Eric: Yeah, Rufus Wainwright is amazing. He always plays DC when we’re on tour, so we always miss him. He’s doing a small southern tour, and he gets as far north as Athens.
Travis: Not much of a southern tour. ‘He gets as far north as Jacksonville.’
(A loud truck drowns out the rest of the Rufus conversation)

Travis: How was the interview with John Mayer?
He was well-spoken. He’s bubbly, effervescent, if you will.
Travis: (laughs)
Eric: All coked up.
Travis: Sounds like it. Like a bottle of Perrier. Did you see the show?
Yeah.
How was that?
Excellent.
Really?
Yeah.
I love that song; I haven’t heard anything else by him.
Technically, he’s really proficient, and he gets really into it, and the whole band…it’s just great.
Was it here?
No, it was at another place called the Marquee.
Travis: He’s pretty big.
He’s getting there. They’re trying to hype him.
Travis: Like (makes grunting noise, like he’s lifting a heavy object.)
 Pretty much.
Travis: Was he here with Nora Jones?
He wasn’t. Okay.

What’s the best show you’ve ever played?
Eric: Ever played?

Ever played.
Eric: Can we have a couple?

You’ve been together awhile, so you’re allowed to have a couple. John Mayer on the other hand… (Everyone laughs)
 Eric: For me I think it would be, last tour in St. Louis, on the Death Cab tour, was just right. The timing
Travis: That was spectacular.
Eric: The crowd. Everything.
Travis: It was awesome. Dance party in Chicago.
Eric: Our publicist threw a dance party for us, and there was a dance contest. So for the first part of our set, the whole room erupted…we had people onstage doing the Worm. It was the best.
Travis: When we went on tour with Pearl Jam, we played a coliseum in Italy that was built in 38 A.D. That was actually kind of crazy because our sampler died as we started to play in front of 15,000 Italians who already had no idea what we were about. We had to create a new set without the sampler so it meant no "City" no "Life of Possibilities", no "Time Bomb." And we did it, but yeah it was, like, I don’t know, like the ghosts of dead gladiators screwing with our equipment.
Eric: It was a cool setting though, coz the sun’s going down on the top of the coliseum…
Travis: It was so amazing. You could go out afterward and get some red wine and some gelato in the courtyard. That was sick.
And there’s just a million shows that it wasn’t so much the show or how many people came, it was just like crazy stuff that happened afterwards. We played in…Germany to 40 people, and we went to this incredible party afterwards, and we were out until like 6 o’clock in the morning. We always have a wonderful experience at a club in Holland called Vera. They’re always good to us, they’re Dutch so they know how to party in their own way. Getting to play Tokyo, seeing kids freak out in a tiny club in Japan. Foreign places like Tokyo or Indiana (everyone laughs).

 So do you prefer touring in the United States or Europe?
Eric: It’s easier in the States. We do better here and people know us. And overseas it’s great but it’s just a lot more work…You’re walking around town and you have to walk into places to see what they’re selling. And it’s cool, but it kind of gets old.
Travis: When you go to Japan, I get to eat sushi every night. The food there is just unbelievable. Touring America we get to see our friends, we play to people who speak English; it really is apples and oranges. It’s just easy. Especially like the Pearl Jam tour, is such a fairytale experience. I mean, the least-interesting part of the day was the half hour we spent onstage. Everything else was just unbelievable. And that was, go out there, try not to get hit by too many things, try to get offstage, if you get offstage without them getting it together to boo, if we bewildered them long enough. And some of the Pearl Jam people commented on this, they’re like, ‘Yeah they don’t know how to react to you guys. They don’t even boo.’ That’s a victory. And then it’s back to catering to have incredible grilled salmon. It’s easy for those shows to be remarkable.

So besides travel and grilled salmon, did touring with Pearl Jam open any doors for you?
Travis: It did mentally. I don’t know, I can’t speak for the other guys, but for me, it made me think. I just felt shamed every night. It’s like, those guys are only eight years older than me, but they’re just like monsters. Eddie Vedder can talk to 15,000 people like you and I are talking. It’s kind of creepy to see, actually. If you’re able to stand on the side of the stage, and he’s like, up there, and (assumes Eddie Vedder voice), ever heard him talk? Deep voice, and he just kind of cracks mellow jokes, and everyone laughs. (Back to his own voice). Watching that guy, it wasn’t so much that I thought, ‘I’ve got to learn to excel on a stage in front of 50,000 people’, but I did see a group of people who were incredibly dedicated and clear-eyed about what they want to do. You don’t see that very often. Generally you’re supposed to endorse confusion…those are the values of rock. And I saw a band achieve, it was almost like watching a sports team. Very effective. And effective isn’t always, it’s kind of a dirty word. You don’t say, ‘I’m in a very effective band.’ No (laughs). People would be kind of turned off by that. So that’s why I learned.
Eric: The food. You can’t even imagine…Swiss chocolate…
Travis: Also, for parallels. Eric’s about as good a bassist as Jeff Ament, but Eddie Vedder is one of the greatest frontmen ever. It’s unbelievable what he can do…he’s a magician. It was a great tour.
Eric: We’re a food-based band. We talk about food all the time. I can tell you what we ate at the shows. That St. Louis show, that night was Italian catering. Gnocchi…When we eat, it’s not a game. (Laughs) We also played the city square in Salsburg. Have you ever seen "The Sound of Music?"
Yes I have.
Eric: It’s like the scene where the calls were all driving.
Travis: We were playing "The Sound of Music". That’s exactly what we were doing. With a 400 year-old statue of Mozart staring at us.

Sounds daunting.
Travis: Kinda, that was actually one of the more fun shows.

So what’s after this tour?
Eric: Pretty much from May to August, except for a couple of benefit shows, we’re off. No tours.
Travis: (joking) none of those miserable shows like here tonight.
Eric: We’re pretty much going to go back and practice four days a week…We’re all pretty chomping to get back into the studio.
Travis: We’ve got two records out in five years.
Eric: We want to step that up.
Travis: Yeah.
Eric: Spoon did it, so we’ve gotta do it, too.
Travis: Yeah. We’re ahead of Promise Ring, but we’re behind Spoon.
Eric: Must. Beat. Spoon.
Travis: It’s not about quality, it’s about quantity.
Eric: We’ve got some pop punk coming out. (laughs)
Travis: (laughs) right.
You’re going on tour with Blink 182?
Travis: (laughs)

 You mentioned you’re chomping at the bit to get back into the studio.
Eric: Yeah
Travis: …going back to the studio can be, I’m not so psyched.
Eric: The studio is torture.

The studio is torture. So touring, writing, or recording, which is your preference?
Eric: Touring. I love to be on the road. I’m probably the most tour…Travis, you like touring a lot.
Travis: Yeah I’m pretty close.
Eric: Touring’s fun. It’s exhausting, it takes you away from friends and family, but it’s what we do. Whereas the studio, you’re going to be listening to the same song you wrote, thirty, forty, fifty times a day…and every little, tiny problem you hear. You hear all the little…I’m glad we do it…it’s pretty intense.
Travis: I write a lot on tour, so it’s kinda, I kind of write more on tour than I do at home. Probably my original love was writing, but I love performing to crowds and putting together a good show…I kind of feel like it is kind of a, it’s not a lost art, but I definitely get the sense that 99% of rock bands I see don’t take the evening really seriously, as like a, you know, like a good sports team, like a basketball team would…I’d get like incredibly high-strung, also I try to stay away from coffee when I’m on tour, this tour I’ve kind of gone, I mean, I have a single shot of espresso a day, so I measure it alright.
You fell off the wagon.
Yeah, I fell off the wagon, yeah. But I get home and I just pound the espresso, and I just become a nervous wreck for days after I get home. But I’ve got so much to do, I’m the band accountant. Getting home from tour is when you finally reconcile some credit card statements and stuff like that, stuff that’s been waiting for months. So for me, I kind of, it’s like I hit the ground running, and then I fall down in a couple of days. And I fall down pretty hard, generally. I usually get sick about a week after tour.
Eric: Yeah.
Travis: Yeah, coz you know, that’s your body. A cold, I think is really just your body’s way of like, ‘Lie down!’

Yeah.
But it’s never right after touring.

We turn our attention to a guy running down the sidewalk in a cow suit.

Travis: Awesome. Tour’s alright.

Yeah. You’re going to come back to Jacksonville again, aren’t you?
Travis: I may move here.

Actually no, that was really great, because so many bands whine and sulk about touring…
Travis: I don’t understand that at all.

But you’re going to put the game face on, eat your good food, and play your shows.
Eric: We used to eat a lot before shows, and all of a sudden you realize you’re playing sluggishly. You ate too much food and it sucks. Now we kind of eat four hours before we play, if not more…We were playing South Dakota…you only play South Dakota once every two years…
Travis: Oh yeah I remember that.
Eric…and we ate too much before, and it sucked.
Travis: A lot of times musicians expect every day to be awesome, I mean, (laughs) it’s a really weird problem. Not a problem, I don’t know what it is. Musicians tend to like, if a day isn’t any good, it’s like they want to hang themselves. They want to quit what they do.

Right.
Travis: Anything you do you’re gonna have a bad day. So yeah, the tendency for musicians to kind of complain is an odd one. I don’t know if they’re just passively waiting for things to be handed to them, or what.

Right. So "Ellen and Ben" is at the end of the record, and it’s not listed.
Travis: Well the lyrics aren’t.

Lyrics aren’t listed, right. Are you trying to differentiate it from everything else on the album…
Travis: (jokingly) Yeah, what’s your problem?

I’m sure you’ve heard this one a lot, too. I always feel bad when it’s the obvious question.
Travis: Aw no, I haven’t heard this one. For me, the rationale for not putting the lyrics on the book was that I kind of liked. "Ellen and Ben" was finished, the first and last songs on the record were finished last. We had this body of songs, and kind of didn’t have a kick-off and a closer. And for me, I thought, once "Ellen and Ben" really started to take formation, it was, that song is very much my baby because there was a jam we did that I literally obsessed with for a year and a half, and (funny voice) ‘Nobody believed in it, but I did.’ (laughs)
Eric: It was from the session for Emergency & I…

It kind of did have that sound. It sounded a bit like the last song.
Travis: Yeah, I can see that, yeah.
I couldn’t let go of it, and so, and I heard it as a nice, kind of song that credits could roll over at the end of an album, and because "The Other Side" ends so dramatically, and after this like one-two punch of "Time Bomb" and "Other Side", where it’s kind of the placidity of the album kind of starts getting shake, shook, shaken, shookeded. I just kind of like the idea of some ways, the album being done. Like on second record, we did it with "Respect is Due," which is like this 14-minute dirge after all these hyper-spastic songs. And there’s an extended pause between songs and that last song on Emergency & I. If you look on the back on the J-card, the "Respect is Due" song title is ever so slightly graphically away from the rest of the songs. So I think it’s that kind of thing, like a pallet cleanser. So it just seemed like it was kind of nice to not have the lyrics, make people close the book, and kind of listen. I mean, I will say that it had occurred to me in doing the album art, ‘Well fuck me, there isn’t a page per song.’ I was like ‘Well I can move the information on the back cover of the booklet maybe onto the CD or somewhere else, or onto the J-card, or something.’ And then I was like, ‘Nah, you know, I kind of like that. That’s funky.’ I liked it. And so now everyone gets the email asking what I’m saying in the bridge because no one has any idea. No one knows what the lyrics are.

Do you know?
Yeah I know what they are.

Are you gonna tell us?
Yeah, oh alright, I thought maybe you did. It’s just this stuff about F15s and MiGs, which are old Soviet fighter planes…it’s kind of bullshit really, but it sounded neat in that part. And I don’t know, it made some kind of weird, intuitive sense for me with the rest of the lyrics. And that’s not usually how I write. Usually it all kind of hangs together, like obviously. But yeah, no one can ever understand what the bridge is about. So that’s why there’s no lyrics.

Lyrically, you seem more intelligent…
Travis: Yes, Travis is much smarter…(laughs)

 Seriously though, it’s way more intelligent and sort of more…
Eric: Cerebral?
Travis: Well it’s more introspective, so there’s more like, you know (half-joking), I’m not crazy about what you’re saying. (Serious) To me, "Louie, Louie" is smart songwriting. Or, uh, "Wooly Bully" is perfect songwriting. Is it quote ‘smart’? I don’t know what that means. But I can’t imagine anything else in that song but (sings) ‘Wooly bully’.

How about clever?
Travis: (laughs) Well yeah, it’s more cerebral.

It is more cerebral.
Travis: More overtly analytical.

A bit more philosophical.
Eric: Yeah, I’d agree there. I see where you’re coming from…there’s few lyricists that I really dig what they’re saying…there’s a lot of bands that are kind of rehashing the old stuff, or not making any sense, I’m not going to drop any names.
Travis: Just get ‘em! ‘Well so-and-so does…’ But I don’t think I was that before, either (laughs). I think my lyrics were pretty smart before.

Well no, I do think, I’m not saying ‘On Change you were really smart, but you were an idiot on everything’, coz it’s not like that at all. I was going to ask you, ‘Do you read often? Would you consider yourself well-read?’ I wasn’t attacking your intelligence.
Travis: (laughs)
Eric: He’s constantly reading.
Travis: Yeah, I don’t really read like, fiction.
Eric: No but you and Jason always have something in front of you.

You really seem like you’re a voracious reader from how you write, so I was going to ask.
Travis: Yeah, I’m an even more voracious-- (gets distracted) there’s a weird mural in the Happy Chef. I never even noticed that whole farm thing. Uh, I mean it’s funny the things I do like to read are like history, science. Science fiction and science history. I really feel that movies influence [me]. I really feel like lyric-writing is trying to catch verbal rhythms and match it to music. It’s not meant to be scanned; it’s meant to be heard. And actually, there’s an ongoing band fight for years which I lost years ago about putting lyrics on the [album] sleeve. I don’t like people to, I would never, on the new Death Cab album there’s the…third song, actually, where, I don’t know what he sings, but, are you familiar with The Photo Album?

Yes.
Well he sings that line, ‘City is my home, construction noise all day long, and gutter punks are bumming change.’ And then I thought the next line was, ‘So I breach her skin and let my lustrous cum fill in.’ And I was like, ‘That’s the rawest thing I’ve ever heard! I can’t believe he went there! That’s so messed up!’ And I didn’t have the lyrics, so I was like, ‘That is so bold’ in the setting of their very dulcet kind of little-boy lost voice indie rock, to have this dirty line about his semen, his lustrous semen (laughs). I was like, ‘Wow, that guy is better than me by a long shot.’ And then it turned out that wasn’t what he wrote! And I was so bummed!
Eric: ‘Let my lustrous coat fill in.’
Travis: Lustrous coat. That’s so not as good as lustrous cum. But if that had ever occurred to me, I never would have sang that intentionally.
Eric: Maybe.
Travis: Nah.

It’s a shame you didn’t get up there and do a duet on it.
Travis: Well, we would do a little cover of it.

Really?
Travis: Yes, yes.

With your line or their line?
Travis: Well, with my line, of course.

Alright!
Travis: Anyways, I think the verbal aspect of it is really important. So I think songs and movies are the primary influence. In terms of thematic stuff, I look to poetry and stuff like that, but making records and songs is more like making movies. It’s more the way you use, I think, say the way Fleetwood Mac or the Beatles used artifice and a lot of planning and cunning to create something that looks utterly natural. That’s very much like a movie. Yeah, and I love movies, so. But yeah, I know a lot of words. I got some words.

And did you win, were you on the winning half of printing lyrics?
Travis: Oh, it was three against one. It was three against one and all our friends, too.
Eric: Everyone looks at the lyrics.
Travis: (whiny bitchy voice, joking) I don’t. I look at the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.
Eric: On the record we didn’t put lyrics in, we had to mail out so many lyrics sheets over the next year.
Travis: I wasn’t going to do that either!
Eric: Coz kids were writing and, this is before email was so big, so they sent out hundreds and hundreds of lyric sheets because people wanted to know what the lyrics were…But it’s a dumb fight.
Travis: Oh I wouldn’t fight for it. Some kid thought, when he heard "Time Bomb" the first time, the lyric was (sings) ‘I, I am a pork rind, and I…’ (Laughs)
Eric: Someone thought it was ‘I saw the Bosstones’ buddy.’
Travis laughs hysterically.
Travis: I never heard that one.
Eric: The guy who posts the lyrics online for "Come Home" just did… ‘Hank is alright’ instead of ‘Anger’s alright.’
Travis: Oh yeah (laughs and sings) ‘Hank is alright, but bitterness no.’ Actually a good one, from the guy who’s married to the New Zealand lady, they came to see us in West Virginia, uh, was, on "Ellen and Ben", the line about ‘Hanging with my nephew and trying to keep my eyes on the prize.’ He thought it was, ‘Hanging with my nephew and trying to keep my eyes on my fries.’ As in, I’m trying to eat lunch with my nephew…
Eric: That’s a great line.
Travis…and he’s stealing my French fries. I know! I was so, and he looked really crestfallen and he was like, ‘Eyes on the prize? What does that mean?’

Oh dear.
Travis: What I’m gonna do, is when they ask me, ‘Is that what you’re saying,’ I’m gonna say, ‘Yeah.’

Is there anything you want to talk about that I haven’t mentioned?
Travis: No. No, I fear that question. ‘So you got anything else you want to say?’ ‘Uh…’
Eric: You want to know my recipe for baked tofu? It’s really good.
Travis: I love Rufus Wainwright and the Strokes.

Are you happy that they’re starting to get play on M2 and the radio?
Travis: We’re making a video.

You’re making a video? That would be something good to tell me. You’re all, ‘No, no there’s nothing to say.’
Travis: (laughs)
Eric: We’re on tour, though, we’ve got tour on the brain.

What’s the video for, "Time Bomb?"
Travis: Yeah. Weird people are on M2 these days, so why can’t we be on M2?

Yeah. Next to the White Stripes.
Travis: Next to the White Stripes. No, much smaller bands. Like our peers. Bands smaller than us. Indie rock bands (jokingly) Little indie rock bands!

(Joking) They didn’t open for Pearl Jam.
Travis: Right (laughs). Yeah, all kinds of crazy people are being played. As long as the video isn’t totally ghetto.

Is it started at all?
Travis: Yeah. Well, wheels are turning. They require a whole lot of push to turn them, a whole lot of work.
Eric: We’re working with a crew who’s gonna do it really cheap for us, coz they’re trying to [build] their resume…
Travis: We also decided…it involves getting a lot of extras, so I’m having to email people every day…We’ve gotten 40 ‘yes’es but I kind of wanted 100. (Laughs) So I had to redouble my everything. So yeah, it’s a lot of work. People that make full-length feature movies blow my mind.
Eric: They have a crew, though.
Travis: But you still have to be up on it. You know that people like Robert De Niro, Kubrick, they’re obsessive. ‘What are you doing? That’s the wrong costume!’ They must be clinically insane. None of them must have functional, balanced lives. I don’t have one and I’m just in a rock band. I just write some songs. So yeah, no directing in my life. Just acting…

 



 



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