Sebadoh (Jason Loewenstein, center) by Travis Tyler
You guys are just
about to head out on tour, so I appreciate your time.
Yeah, no problem, man.
We’re getting ready to go out on these little 10-day long trips, so
we’re excited to hit the next one.
By way of background,
you and Lou got back together (as Sebadoh) in the early aughts and brought
(original member) Eric Gaffney back for a bit, and then brought Bob D’Amico
into the fold in 2011. You’ve been at
this for so long – what keeps Sebadoh an ongoing concern for you?
Well, because it’s still fun to play (laughs). We toured the heck out of the last record we
made for Sub Pop, called “The Sebadoh”, and after that we had almost two years
off and then Lou and I have kind of been playing ever since. We
were kinda under the radar, but we never really stopped playing for that
long. I think most people assumed that
we were gone for much longer than we were because we were playing low-profile
gigs. But we’ve been back at it for a
while and we’ve even had Bob in the band for four, maybe five, years now. Getting him in the band was really a huge
boost to the old material and made us hopeful for the future. Bob’s influence in being here and the fact
that we never let it die is really why it’s still an interest.
He’s a hell of a
drummer! You’ve been with him previously
in the Fiery Furnaces and Circle of Buzzards stuff, so I am sure that it’s easy
to tour having someone you like as a person in the band.
Wow, I appreciate you knowing all that history stuff! Yeah, we were in the Fiery Furnaces together
and Bob was also in the solo band I had in the early 2000s, and also the Circle
of Buzzards thing – so I have done a LOT of playing with Bob. He’s also a good
pal as well, which is always a good thing.
Obviously he
influenced the writing of the new album, “Defend Yourself”. What change did he
bring to the dynamic of playing the older stuff?
You know, he’s really versatile and has a lot of skills he
doesn’t let on about. He’s a great salsa
player, he’s good with hand drums and things like that. It didn’t matter what kind of material we
were bringing to him…he’s able to play really crazy, math-y, aggressive beats;
he swings really well; he can play really simple Ringo-stuff. He’s a very song-appropriate kind of player;
the older Sebadoh material is pretty simplistic, and I don’t mean in a bad way,
but in a way that a musician needs to kind of bend it and push it around to
keep it interesting. He’s really fun to
do that with, because he’s really good at pushing the edges of the material and
nuancing it into making it more interesting.
You just put out your
cover of Rush’s “Limelight” on 7” picture disc with Bubbles from “Trailer Park
Boys” on it. Were you surprised by the
reception that cover received when the A.V. Club put it out last year?
Not entirely (laughs).
I’m actually surprised how many “normal” Sebadoh fans were even into
it. Because it was the A.V. Club who put
it out and not just our own fans watching it, a lot of hardcore Rush fans (who
were not into Sebadoh) were VERY critical about it, and that was kind of fun
(laughs). I kind of expected that,
because prog-rock fan mindset is something I’m pretty familiar with. There are no worse critics of performances
than those guys (laughter).
(Laughs) Yeah, they
can be pretty exacting about their expectations, and doing something so
different with it, like Lou did with the vocals, probably gets their ire up.
I’m really glad that Lou did it the way he did it…it was a
nice balance of chaos. We kept it very
Sebadoh-like (laughs).
Rush was never a band
I gravitated towards, but seeing what you did with it helped me to kind of
understand the fascination people have with that band. It’s a good song! (laughs)
That’s cool. It’s the
greatest service we could do to Rush (laughs).
Carl, who’s the head of Joyful Noise (the label that’s releasing the 7”),
kind of randomly reached out to the Trailer Park Boys’ people….I mean, I’m a
huge fan of that show. When he brought
it up, I was like, “Sure, go ahead and try it!”, really pessimistically. But it
worked out. They found some value in
maybe the humorous part of the song, and some of those guys are actually
Sebadoh fans which is really cool!
Alex Lifeson was in a
couple of episodes, so I’m sure that they thought that those guys have a sense
of humor about things.
Yeah, absolutely.
They’re kind of a constant theme on that show because it’s Canada! Fucking Canada, man (laughs)
You guys have been on
tour pretty constantly the last couple of years – do you find these shorter
runs to be more manageable or enjoyable?
You know, actually I like longer runs. We’ve been doing these two-week tours, which
is really a function of Lou; he’s got two bands and a family, so it only gives
us so much time. I like going out and
really getting into “road unit” mode.
After about three weeks on the road you get into a really cool mindset,
which I worship. You never really get
into that on these shorter runs, but they are still really fun, you know.
When you are not on
tour, you’ve obviously got your recording gig (the “Jakerock Mobile Recording
Unit”) – what about production work and being behind the scenes fulfills you?
I’m kind of a geek, so at a certain point during Sebadoh’s
recording career we were in studios and I didn’t know what the fuck these
engineers were talking about so I figured out that I had to learn the boards a
bit just to be able to talk to engineers. It really changed things. At a certain
point, it just made sense to help other people out. So now after 10 years of recording, I have a
really compact recording setup that I just take to the bands, because I don’t
have a place to record. We record
basics and overdubs in these remote locations and then just bring it back to my
studio, which is basically a mixing room.
I have a pretty awesome home studio setup which makes that easy to do.
Have you been able to
flex those muscles with Sebadoh as well?
I have to imagine it’s helpful to have someone with that type of
knowledge in the band when you enter the studio.
Yeah, it’s always helpful to have someone who knows a bit
but also who knows enough to shut-up sometimes (laughs). You can always learn new things. There is definitely a language to the
technical side of recording, and if you don’t speak it, it can be very
challenging to get your record to sound like it does in your head.
I’m sure. Shifting gears a bit, are there any songs that
you find particularly rewarding to revisit and play or that mean something
special to you? “Careful” (off 1994’s “Bakesale”)
has gotten me through some pretty dark times, so thank you for putting that out
there.
Wow, thank you for that.
What comes to mind immediately is a song from that same record called “Got
It”. It’s always a little bit emotional
to sing. Sometimes we do it really fast
and it sounds unemotional, but it brings me back to a certain time in my life
every time we play it. And many of them
do, you know. We have been lucky to be
playing some of these songs for twenty years, so sometimes the meaning changes
for me much in the same way it probably does for you as a listener. I keep going back to them and they mean
something a little bit different…it’s cool how your perceptions about things continue
to evolve.
Oh, sure. The song means something different when you
are an angst-ridden 16 year old than when you are a more-resigned feeling
forty-something. Or, in some cases, it
just DOESN’T connect anymore.
Yeah, or it reminds you of that certain time and you can pit
where you are at now against that, which is also kind of useful. Taking a sort of emotional stock based on
your own timeline.
You’re a pretty busy
guy in general and I am sure that Sebadoh keeps you busy – do you have any
plans to do more solo work? Will there
be a follow-up to (2002 solo album) “At Sixes and Sevens”?
I have a lot of time coming up in these summer months
because Lou is really busy with Dinosaur (Jr.) stuff, so I am going to hunker
down and try to make that follow-up sometime between now and August. I’m starting to get some momentum – I have a
lot of songs kicking around and now I just have to divide them up. I think Sebadoh is going to record come the
fall, so I have to write a bunch of tunes (laughter).
You have your
homework to do (laughs). How do you
determine what goes to Sebadoh and what stays a “Jake” song?
It hasn’t been much of a sorting process so far, because if
I have a bunch of stuff kicking around I just pick what’s the best
(laughs). A couple of the tunes that
ended up on the last Sebadoh record (2013’s “Defend Yourself”) have been around
so long that I played them with Bob in the solo band 10 years ago. Many of them are much newer, but I always
feel like, “Well, I better put my best foot forward, whatever that is!”
So what’s next?
Sebadoh’s the primary focus at the moment. After this tour we have a lot of time off
where Lou will be busy, so I can hopefully get something out for the fall.
