The new album is
great, and I think the best compliment I can give it is that it doesn't sound
like it picked up right after “Coil”…the songs are imbued with 15 years of your
and the band’s growth. How did “New
Constellation” come about and have you been surprised by the reception to it?
I don’t know about surprised, but definitely pleased. We hoped that we weren't deluding ourselves
when we put this out and I think we waited long enough that we made the record
we had hoped to make and made it worth getting back together. I think we could have gotten back together a
few years earlier and made something that wasn't quite up to snuff (laughs),
and that’s why we didn't. We all needed
to be on the same page again and say something new together. Hopefully we did that.
Were there any
expectations you felt getting back together to put something into this album
different than you would a solo record or WPA or one of the other collectives
you work with?
There are just some major differences with Toad – it’s a
two-guitar band, and it has a lot to do with Todd’s guitar tone and his
attitude towards writing parts, his melodic sense. About half the songs, Todd starts musically
so there is a different voice involved in the writing, of course. And there is the way Randy and Dean play, the
way they interpret the vocalists. It was nice for me to be able to write for a
rock band again, to write for three vocals and harmonies, and to write
something that I wouldn't necessarily have to pull off with a single acoustic
guitar. It was a lot of fun…it wasn't
Americana, it was a rock/pop band.
I thought that it was
very interesting that you revisited “Enough” from the solo thing and repurposed
Todd’s song for “I’ll Bet on You”. What
made you think to salvage those for the Toad album?
I didn't really fully release “Coyote Sessions” – I've just
been selling it at shows and it’s really the kind of album you just dump out
the back of a truck (laughs). I needed
to get it out of my system, and I like the version of “Enough” on there, but
that song was kind of conceived as a little larger and grander and more
dramatic. And I also felt like I hadn't finished
writing it to some degree…I wrote the song with this guy John Taylor, not the
one from Duran Duran, and the ending went on for a bit but it didn't reach the crescendo
that it does on the Toad version. I felt
like we had a lot of mid-tempo, pop-ish songs, but most Toad records have had a
strong song that hits a little harder emotionally, and we were lacking that
moment. I knew that song would fill that
space properly.
Sure. You have songs like “I Will Not Take These
Things For Granted” or “All Things In Time” that wind up their records in
really defining ways, and “Enough” does that for this one.
Yeah, I agree.
Your band has been
kind of unfairly lumped in with some lighter-weight bands…the album “Pale” is
as bleak as anything by Joy Division!
There is some pretty dark stuff that you very deftly balance with the
more uplifting or romantic ideas in your songs. Is that something that you do
consciously?
It’s part of the writing, and it’s part of me, so it shows
up. I’m prone to melancholy, but I tend
towards the more subdued expressions of that instead of pull on angst and
edginess. Talk to a goth…part of being
depressed is seeing how much beauty there is and how much people stomp on it,
how vulnerable we are. There is a fair
admission of beauty, but I tend to balance that with an admission of
darkness. Even on this records, the song
“Life Is Beautiful” – Todd came in with the music for that and he had the
chorus, “Life is beautiful / Life is beautiful”. I tried really, really hard to get rid of
that line, and I couldn't come up with something that sang well, and as much as
it sounds like a happy chorus, the song is pretty close to suicidal. It’s kind
of poised in that moment of choosing to re-engage and not totally give in to
despair. I think that’s what makes the
chorus forgivable, because the verses are so heavy. There were alternate lyrics
on the second verse, one of which was “Love will fuck you up”, but we chose not
to go with that (laughs).
Our other records, we put those out before Elliott Smith
made it ok to be mellow again. In the ‘90s,
there was a sense that if you weren't screaming then you weren't really feeling
anything…which is not to say I don’t love bands that scream, but I’m not a
screamer myself, and I think we got lumped in with lighter bands because of
that. And you have to look for it. If you listen to “All I Want”, and all you
listen to is the chorus, you think it’s about happiness instead of about how
quickly happiness disappears (laughs).
It’s the price of subtlety, I guess.
I have a lot of ham-fisted lyrics, but I’m trying to get better.
You’ve been at this
now almost 30 years…did you ever think you would still be at this, working with
some of the same people that you were as a teen?
Uh, no (laughs).
Absolutely not. I’m as shocked as
anyone, and happy that Toad managed to get it together again. We found ourselves able to get on the same
page, which a lot of bands can’t do or force themselves to do when clearly
there’s no soul in it anymore. It’s not
to say it’s always been easy, but we were able to meet and able to all want to
make this work. We went through the same thing every band went through…pick
your episode of “Behind the Music”, and we did something like that. But, it’s been good to get to go back and do
that but I’m also excited about continuing to have the variety I've become
accustomed to, so I’ll keep doing other things as well. I’m just starting writing for my next
project. But I’m also really excited to be going out this summer and doing the
tour with Counting Crows. It’s good
days.
You and Counting
Crows have a lot of similarities lyrically and aesthetically – how did the tour
come about?
I just gave Adam a call and checked in and asked what they
were doing this summer. He said he had
gotten the record and how about we tour together, and I said “I think that’s a
great idea” (laughs)
You mentioned that
you are in the early stages of writing for your next project, so what’s on tap
next for you and for the band?
I don’t really know.
We haven’t really talked about it.
I am sure that we will play shows here and there. It’s been a really
long time since I have done a proper album, so I am excited about pursuing that
and getting back to some of my more obscure projects. John Askew and I want to do another Remote
Tree Children record and that is something that we can kind of send back and
forth to each other because it’s a lot of samples and electronics. There is a lot I like to do. The strange thing about Toad is that once it
gets moving it’s kind of all-encompassing, so when I get home it’s the last
year that two of my girls will be home – they’re starting to head off to
college, so I’m trying to be available when I’m home and soak up these days
when we’re still a family of five living in the same house. For me, it’s just trying to satisfy the other
parts of my creativity. I really like
variety, and I have become pretty accustomed to that. I like having a project to write to and a
palette to write to, and it’s been really cool to think about what that palette
will be for my next record and who I want to work with and how to make that
happen.
A random, kind of
obscure question for you: I was a huge fan of “Winter Pays For Summer”, which I
know was born out of the “lost” album, “Tornillo”. What went into the decision to scrap the
sessions with David Garza and go back and re-record a lot of that?
I was kind of catastrophically depressed when we recorded
that record, and I really wasn't able to communicate effective. David had stuff going on in his life as well,
his marriage was unraveling, and I was vomiting my feelings. It was hard for us to get on the same page. I mean, David’s a freaking genius, but we
were not seeing eye to eye, so it was hard to make a record. Sometimes you can have a situation like that
where it’s edgy in the right way and everything works, and sometimes it just
fizzles a little, and I just wasn't able to make it work. Coming from that experience, I had new management
and was being represented by AWARE, and they were really hoping that I could
get on the radio again…so was I, for that matter. It was strange, because after Toad broke up
was really the beginning of the major changes in the music industry and I had
no idea how to navigate those changes and took it really personally. They got together with John Fields, who is a
great guy and tons of fun to work with, and he wanted to make a big pop
record. It was an interesting process to
enter into. I also got friends that I
had worked with before, Jon Brion and Pete Thomas and a lot of really players,
and we ultimately made a record that was probably a little more “pop” than I
feel my center is, but there were a lot of great songs and I got the
opportunity to write a lot more and refine what the album should be. I’m really proud of that record.
In the years since then, I've been really
busy making records while in the process of getting dropped from a label
(laughs). I made “Mr. Lemons”…I was
intending on doing a record in Nashville with Neillson Hubbard, and then the
label said, “how about some demos instead”, and I knew basically that I was
getting dropped. So I took the demo
money and made “Mr. Lemons” far too early…I needed something that I could tour
solo acoustic on, and most of the records I have made since then were reactions
to situations instead of really sitting down and asking myself what the next
creative statement I wanted to make. I feel
like when I did “Secrets of the New Explorers” or WPA or Plover, those were all
feeling like screw strategy, screw commerciality, screw anybody’s need of what
they want me to do. I am just going to
make records for myself. And so I did, but there was no label, no promotion,
and so I would like to make another record that I hope maybe somebody will hear
(laughs)
I would think that the
new Toad album would buy you some increased visibility and the ability to do
that. A lot of fans you know to look for
your stuff, but “New Constellation” should hopefully widen your fan base and make
the next thing more accessible.
It may, or it may not.
I have kind of gotten past seeing it personally. My friend Teitur was talking a while ago
about making records and his attitude was that you only get to make a handful
of these things and nobody may ever even hear them, so you may as well try to
make something great every time you do it.
I have put out records before because I had to make a living, I had to
go on tour, I had to support my family…and they all have good songs and worthy
creative expression on them, but I wasn't making them from the point of view of
pure creative freedom and asking, “what do I truly want to achieve right now?” It was more like, “I need to get this next
batch of songs out or we don’t eat!” (laughs)
And writing and recording from that point of view is problematic. So, what I am looking forward to is having
the time to make something that is creatively worthy and well thought out and
that is sounds like what I really want it to sound like, not anything
strategic. I’ll just keep making music,
and maybe people will hear it and maybe they won’t. Right now, it’s just great making music with
Toad and having people show up because they want to hear it!
