June 9, 2026 • 53 mins
The New Pornographers have never been easy to pin down. Since forming in Vancouver in the late ’90s, the band became one of the defining acts of the Canadian indie rock explosion. They’re part of a scene that also produced Neko Case, Dan Bejar, and a generation of artists who seemed to operate entirely outside the commercial mainstream. Co-founders Carl Newman and Kathryn Calder have spent more than two decades making records that sound like they arrived fully formed: densely layered, relentlessly melodic, and somehow both euphoric and melancholy at the same time.
Their latest album, The Former Site Of, draws on a different kind of raw material. Part of it came from a friend’s terminal illness and the weight of watching someone you love reckon with time running out. Part of it came from something more unexpected: the last remaining payphone in New York City, which became a kind of anchor image for the record, a physical object standing in for everything we hold onto after it stops being useful.
On today’s episode, Bruce Headlam sits down with Carl Newman and Kathryn Calder to talk about where their new album came from, what it’s like to make something beautiful out of grief, and how the Canadian music scene that shaped them still runs through everything they do.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:15):
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
The New Pornographers have never been easy to pin down.
Since forming in Vancouver in the late nineties, the band
became one of the defining acts of the Canadian indie
rock explosion, the part of a scene that also produced
Nico Case Destroyer and a generation of artists who seemed
to operate entirely outside the commercial mainstream. Co founders Carl
Newman and Katherine Calder have spent more than two decades
(00:41):
making records that are densely layered, relentlessly melodic, and somehow
both euphoork and melancholic at the same time. Their latest album,
The Former Site Of draws on a different kind of
raw material. Part of it came from a friend's terminal
illness in the weight of watching someone you love recking
with time running out. Part of it came from something
more unexpected, the last remaining payphone in New York City,
(01:05):
which became a kind of anchor image for the record,
a physical object standing in for everything we hold on
to after it stops being useful. On today's episode, Bruce
headlam sits down with Carl Newman and Katherine call There
to talk about what their new album came from. What
it's like to make something beautiful out of grief, and
how the Canadian music scene that shaped them still runs
(01:26):
through everything they do. This is Broken Record, real musicians,
real conversations. Here's Bruce Headlam with Carl Newman and Catherine
call There. Head over to YouTube dot com slash Broken
Record Podcast if you want to see the video.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
So tell me first of all about the name of
the new album and explain that to me. The former
site of well this is I.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Have a great answer. I have a great answer. It's
kind of a long answer. Living in upstate New York,
I would drive past the reservoirs they you know, which
is where in New York City water comes from the
Kren Reservoir, the nearby the one near us ya Choken
Reservoir has a sign next to it that says the
former site of West Hurley. And when I saw that sign,
(02:16):
I was kind of fascinated, like what happened to West Hurley?
And I started looking into the history, and around like
nineteen oh five, New York decided, you know, we need
these areas for the reservoirs. So they they got towns
to just uproot and leave, and they said, we'll buy
your property. But if you won't sell it to us,
well we're going to take it anyway, so you might
(02:37):
as well sell it to us. So parts of the
towns just got raised, and then anything they wanted to say,
they put the cars on wagons or sorry the they
put the buildings on wagons, and it took them away.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
And so.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
I was I was fascinated by the idea, and I
wrote the song the Former Site of about that, which is,
you know, about a church, about a preacher who decides
he's going to stay with the church. It's like, I'm
just gonna and the water is rising around him and
he's sitting on the roof and he's about to die
because he's going to be flooded. And I thought that
(03:19):
was an interesting little story to try and tell. And
I also I also thought, like with all the changes
the bands have gone has gone through through the years,
to call our record the former site of and on
the record it basically reads us the former site of
the New Pornographers.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
I thought I thought it was a.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Kind of you know, it was a slight slightly slightly ironic,
but an element of truth there about you know, various
things that have changed through the years, good and bad,
and and also just my my urge to always want
to change, you know, like I want I want the
(04:03):
pornographers to be something different. But the the weird ps
to that story, that is, we just played WDST, a
radio station outside of Woodstock, and it's in a church,
and I found out right before we started playing that
(04:24):
it was a church that had actually been moved from
West Hurley.
Speaker 5 (04:28):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
So it was essentially we were playing we were playing
this song about the church in West Hurley inside that
actual church that used to be in West Hurley, which
I thought was kind of mind blowing.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Yeah, for people like me who bought your first album
when it came out and been following you along, tell
me what's changed in your songwriting between those early days
and this new album.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Well, I mean, I know what's changed in my songwriting
in the last few years. I think I decided to
write very narrative songs on this album, or a lot
a lot more narrative songs, songs that were clear, not
like I'm trying to write Glory Days by Springsteen or anything,
(05:17):
but I just wanted songs that were a little clearer.
I think I think if i've if I was trying
to write like anyone. I'd say Leonard Cohen, you know,
like the the pictures he paints in like Suzanne or
Sisters of Mercy, which is a kind of high thing
to shoot for. But you got to shoot for something high,
(05:38):
and so that's different to me. And also I'm I
know how to I never used to know anything about engineering.
I used to stand behind John Collins, our bass player,
and say do this, do this?
Speaker 4 (05:51):
Can you make it? Do this? And and now I
can do a lot of that stuff on my own.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Which I love because it means like I can, you know,
any given day, I can just go to my studio
space and just work for a couple hours and engineer,
and like, I can do everything now except play instruments. Well,
but it's rock and roll music, so I can get
away with not doing that. And plus I have other
(06:19):
people that can play instruments. Well.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
That's interesting because this album, to me was the writing
felt different, not on every song, but.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Oh to me, it feels very different. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
But you know, the I think of your songs, you know,
particularly on your big albums like Real Bruisers or Morse Code,
they're very linear songs. They start with a big hook,
they go to you know, verse chorus, middle eight, They're
often quite different. This one felt like it was built differently,
(06:53):
Like it was built in layers. Almost.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
Yeah, I think that.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
I mean, I like, I don't. I wouldn't call it
a concept album, but I think I wanted it to
all fit together. I wanted it to I wanted to
have a similar feel. I wanted it lyrically and have
a similar feel. I mean, even to the extent that
the final song, the former site of like name checks
(07:21):
characters from the previous songs, like I just wanted to have,
you know, I think I've said to people I wanted
it to feel a little bit like a little book
of short stories. But that feels like a slightly pretentious
thing to say. But that's I guess you gotta.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
Shoot for maximum, you know, pretense.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
It's a very pretentious thing. Yes, that's what makes it work. Yes, well,
some of you. Some of these songs reminded me of
particular short stories. The I want to get the title right,
and I always write these things down. Wish you could
see me. I'm killing it. Tell me about that song.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
I mean that one is essentially just something very real
that happened and I think I just fictionalized slightly, and
it was both of my parents have passed away, and
a few years ago I was at the flower store
and you're the graveyard, the cemetery, and I was buying
(08:22):
flowers and I got this really nice, you know, bouquet
from my mom, and then I was looking for my dad,
and I started thinking, like, he didn't care about flowers,
you know, so I bought him.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
I bought him like flowers and were quite as nice as.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
My mom's, because I just thought like he he doesn't care,
like my dad would be like, no, what are you
spending flowers? You know, why would you spend forty dollars
getting me flowers? Get those ones that are on sale.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
And and then.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
That just made it just made me think about how
we talk I guess how we talked to the dead,
which is even a line one of one of the
last lines in the Former Sight of.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
We find our own ways to talk to the dead.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
And then from there I started thinking about you know,
it was a song, It was a song about that,
but then it became more about this person who's who
has spent so long buying flowers for his parents' graves
that he knows a lot about flowers now, and he
(09:25):
can and he can tell you, and he can tell
you about flower arranging. So there there's something kind of darkly,
darkly comic in there, but it's also meant to.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
Be kind of a knife to the gut.
Speaker 5 (09:38):
You know.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
It's one of the few songs I think I've ever written.
I almost like made myself cry writing it.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
And it's also the line like I wish you could
see me I'm killing it is a little.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Like like I'm not exactly sure what I meant, you know,
Like it means both I wish you could see everything
I've done, but it also it also means.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
I'm kind of you know, I don't think I'm killing it.
M M, I give you some help.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
But yeah, what came across to me was the narrator
felt a little foolish, a little overwhelmed.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Yeah, yeah, I think, I think, I think, I think
there's that. But yeah, that was yeah that I felt
very happy about that, that song.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
You know what it reminded me of, And now that
I know the origin of the song has nothing to
do with it. The James Joyce story. Araby, do you
know that story?
Speaker 2 (10:39):
No?
Speaker 1 (10:39):
No, Oh, it's in Dubliner's it's a kid who goes
to a little fair to buy a present for this
girly lins and it's he's overwhelmed. It's getting dark, the
fair is closing and he can't buy anything, and he
just there's this terrible line at the end when he
feels like, I think a creature, a creature derided by vanity.
(11:00):
I think is the line, and just kind of that
sense of being a little overwhelmed.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
That's I think. I think, I think there is that.
I think there is that that element of it. Yeah,
because that ultimately I didn't I don't know anything about flowers,
you know, but uh but I guess this character I
was trying to write kind of kind of does.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Did writing more narratively Did that change the melody writing
at all?
Speaker 4 (11:29):
It did? We were just talking about that last night.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
I think I just became less precious about melody or
like like I would write a melody and then when
the melody met the lyrics, when the melody met the lyrics,
and when they both met performance, like whatever I had
to change to make it feel better.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
I would.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Is that different for you before you came?
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Yeah, I think I I think I as used to
think like, this is this is the melody I wrote,
and sometimes it'd be like it's hard to sing. It's like, well,
you know, I guess I will go into falsetto and
sing it, you know, like like I I would bend
around whatever the melody was in this one, and maybe
on the last one as well, and then the one
before that. I think I think about a few years ago,
(12:18):
I started thinking, just changed the melody and just sing
what feels good. The first song I remember doing that
on was a song called falling down the Stairs of
Your Smile from Morse Code to Break Lights. I remember
I wasn't sure about it and then I just I
(12:40):
just sang. I just sang it again. I just wanted
to find it. Yeah, because I remember that I wanted
to drop it. I was in her her husband call
and mixed it and I remember saying like this isn't
working on to drop in him turning around, going this
is the best song on the record, and I said, okay,
well I guess I should finish it, and yeah, and
I just I just I just sang it until I
(13:01):
found something that felt good singing, and I thought, and
then that really worked. It became like the single and
I think it was the best song on the record,
and and I think I carried that into continue as
a guest. And on this record, I mean, there's an
infinite amount of melodies. I mean it's nice, it's maddening,
(13:21):
but it's just there are.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
So many melodies, Like why not change the melody? It's like.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Before, were you, uh we a writer who just got
the harmony down for the song and then pulled the
melody out of that.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
I don't know. I think it usually started with a melody.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Really yeah, It's like.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Like chords and a melody are or sometimes I would
just kind of sing something just like into my into
my phone, into my voice notes, and and then I'd
go and play the chords, Go what are the chords
of this? Sometimes I hate to find out what the
(14:02):
chords are. Sometimes it ruins it really. Sometimes you think
you've come up with something really interesting. It's like, oh,
the chords are G, C and D. That's so boring.
But then it's amazing when you realize, oh, yeah, the
chords are C minor and A minor.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
That's weird. You know.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
This album also felt a little fewer chords in this album,
maybe a little less harmonically complex earlier album.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Yeah, I think that, although there's still when I when
I play the songs now, there's more chords than I
think there are, like you know, like for for us,
like a song that doesn't have very many chords is
six chords, you know, but you know, lou Reid said
any more than two chords is jazz. So I'm I
(14:57):
think another thing I've done and tried to do in
the last decade was just see how much you can
move around with not very many chords, because you know,
just like there are infinite amounts of melodies, there are
kind of infinite places you can go within two chords.
(15:20):
Like sometimes I just like the cycle back and forth
between like G and A just two chords that are
just a step apart, and there's so much you can do.
You know, you can write, you can write a hundred
songs that are different that are just cycling back and
forth between A G. There's so many things you can change,
the tempo, the way it's syncopated, the melody, just the vibe.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
It's great to hear you say that, because I think
a lot of musicians fear the opposite, that they only
know a few chords, there are only twelve notes. Maybe
it's all been done well.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
I that really annoys me, you know, I think it's
just laziness, you know. I think if you can't figure
out how to do it, and you don't want to
figure out how to do it, I don't know what
to tell you.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
You know.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Do you work hard at songwriting just something you do
every day?
Speaker 4 (16:21):
Yeah? I do. I try to.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
I mean I feel like it's part of like I
think it's part of like, you know, mental health process,
you know, Like I think I think it's good just
to to use your brain. You know, like in some
ways it doesn't feel that dissimilar to going on in
New York Times spelling bee, you know, like like like
(16:44):
I'm trying to find an answer, you know, like I've
but it's a puzzle. It's a puzzle I invented, you know.
It's it's a it's an amorphis puzzle that I invented.
And I'm like, how do you solve this puzzle? And like,
I know there's an answer.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yeah. By the way, the panagram today is befouled. Just
want you to know I know that I've already done it. Okay, Well,
there you go.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Genius by the way, not Queen Bee. But it was
a pretty easy one today.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Yeah hard.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
We'll be back with more from the New Pornographers after
the break.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
So, Catherine, when you saw these songs, could you present
them to the band? Right?
Speaker 4 (17:23):
Yeah? Yeah, well altogether.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
No, But what did you think? What was what was
your first reaction and what did you think you could add?
Speaker 6 (17:32):
I don't know, I just I I guess I approached
these songs when Carl sends them to me with a
kind of a sense of I'll just do what comes
to me, and I'll send it back.
Speaker 4 (17:47):
And we'll see how it goes.
Speaker 6 (17:49):
Knowing that, knowing that, you know, I think a lot
of things are going to change between the time I've
listened to that version of the song and the final version.
Because I've been in a band with Carl for over
twenty years now, Yeah, and I know the process and
the process itself hasn't changed that much. No, like over
the you know, except from now. You know, I'm more
(18:09):
able to do things from my own house, which is
awesome because it means I have more personal control over
what I'm doing and my knowledge has increased. Like to
be able to do that kind of like you're you
were just saying, you know, you can record on your own,
and now so can I. And that wasn't the case
when I first joined the band, so so that personally
(18:33):
has changed. But yeah, I just expect unexpected twists and
turns and adjust accordingly, and.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
I love it and it usually comes.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Like I think Catherine and Todd, Fancy and John Collins,
I mean, I think they all kind of.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Like know.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
How I work or not, maybe not how I want
to work, but just how I'm doomed to work. And
they they will they will always send me like a
bunch of ideas for a song, Like Fancy never gives
me a full take, like he will play a cool
guitar part and it only is only in the first
forty five seconds because I think he knows, like, like
(19:13):
what's the point. Like like if I if I find
something that he did that I totally love, I will
go back and go, can you do a full take
of that? And usually I will like paste it up
and and I'll do that with.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
Something Catherine plays or John plays. I'll just be this is.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Cool, and sometimes it's sometimes it changes the song. Sometimes
I'll go like that's the only good thing that keyboard
thing Catherine did is the only good thing in the song.
You know, I'll be like the keyboard you got, so
we got the keyboard and the and the beat, and you.
Speaker 4 (19:44):
Know it's just you know, yeah, they're just you know,
they're like tools.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
What was the song on this album that underwent the
biggest transformation once people got their parts back to you?
Speaker 4 (19:59):
I have no idea. I cannot remember.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
It's it's I think it's always It's like it's it
goes on for so long and I'm always like working
on things, and you know, they don't remember, you know, I'm.
Speaker 6 (20:18):
Sure maybe Spooky Action.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
Spooky Action went. Yeah, that went through a big transformation. Actually,
that that one, that one definitely did. Yes, I'm glad
you caught that one.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
I remember that.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
That That one felt like it was like it was
hard to get it like it was a lot of
things happening, but it was it was hard to to
make it smooth and and interesting. And sometimes you get
to a point where you have too many ideas. At
the end of an album, I feel like there's a
lot of muting.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
You're taking things out. Yeah, do you do that more? Now?
This album felt a little area or a little less yeah, yeah, yeah,
a little less heavy, complicated and some of your other records.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
Yeah, but but I think ironically, I think that kind
of makes it a little more, a little more complicated,
you know. I think it's uh, it's just less less noisy. Well,
one thing I one thing I've thought about in the
last few years, which might be the most obvious thing
in the world, but I just learned it, or I
don't know if it's something I can say I learned,
(21:32):
but it's it's it's a theory I have, and it
is that if something cannot be the loudest thing in the.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
Mix, it shouldn't be in there.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Wow, like like because so many times through the years
have been like, oh this part.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
Is cool, but oh it's not. It's too loud, you know,
like pull.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
It down and you know, and you're burying things. And
I just thought, no, if if it can't be the
loudest thing, it shouldn't be there, you know, if if
something if yeah, if something's going to bother you, if
it's too loud, and it's to me it seems seemingly
obvious now like, yeah, it probably shouldn't be in the mix,
(22:13):
And that's helpful. To me, because when you listen to
an album on different stereos, it always sounds different, or
if you listen to like the album playing in the
next room, it sounds different. So on this record, I
feel like I've eliminated that because now I listen to
it and I go, well, that sounds louder and that
sounds quieter.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
But who cares.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Do you ever ever have experienced someone's playing a song
in another room and you can't tell what the song is,
but it so it sounds really cool, and then when
you hear it, it's almost a little bit of a disappointment.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
That wasn't that? How you know invented ambient music? Oh?
Speaker 1 (22:46):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
Yeah, apparently he was.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
In like a hospital or something and he just heard
some like music playing like fear in the distance, and
he couldn't.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
Tell what it was, and he just thought that was
a cool effect, Right, that's how you invent a genre.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Just a bunch of music you can barely hear, and
it's like, what if all the music was meant to
be barely heard?
Speaker 1 (23:08):
You may shod spooky action. Tell me about that. It's
got a very vivid.
Speaker 4 (23:14):
Narrative. Well, that's good. That's the one song. My wife
said she couldn't figure out what was going on.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Well, I was reading about, you know, I was reading
about a couple of things. I was reading about quantum entanglement,
and Einstein said that quantum entanglement was spooky action at
a distance, which I thought was an interesting turn of phrase.
And then unrelated to that, I was reading an article
(23:44):
about the Cassini Huygens probe, which you know, was circling
Saturn for thirteen years and taking pictures of it and
that's how we know so much about everything that's going
on around there. And then at the end of it,
it you know, immolated itself and they flew it into
Saturn and it burned.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
And the idea was that it would.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Be a song about like the last moments of the
Cassini Huygens pro where for some reason it's sentient I
guess just artistic license, but the idea of like, what's
what's it thinking right before it dies?
Speaker 4 (24:19):
And I thought the last.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Thing it would think would be like, wow, this is beautiful,
you know, just looking looking at everything around it. That's
basically the little snapshot I wanted it to be.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Why is that such a sad thing? The idea of
this space pro it's done all its work and then
just like it heads into the planet to burn up.
I find it's just an incredibly sad image.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
Really, I mean, I guess it kind of is.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
But I also, I mean there's not much of it.
There's not much of it in the song, only one line.
But the subtext in my brain was that quantum entanglement,
the idea that you're connected with something and you're never
(25:10):
you're always connected with it. There could be billions of
miles between you, but you're still connected to it is
a kind of like a beautiful idea. And it made
me think of like the idea of heaven, of a
people we've lost, how we're always connected.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
And so there's a line in the song where it was.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Like like a, I guess it's the part in the
song where it flies into Saturn and it was like
a series of nail biting dives and I'm done.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
I'm on the cloud. And the with the double meaning.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
Being that all the information inside Castini Huygens is on
the cloud, like like the machine is gone, that everything
it learned is, you know, on the literal cloud. And
then but then the idea of like the cloud like heaven, right,
So so there's kind of a I think it's kind
(26:07):
of a spiritual song. And I think the the line
about like have you seen it the way it's meant
to be seen?
Speaker 4 (26:14):
Is supposed to be a very hopeful line.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
I think it's just a very another way of saying
stop and smell the roses. That the casini heiens haygens
probe isn't sad to die, you know, it's just look
at how beautiful this is. Like I'm going to go now,
which seems like a you know, that's how I'd like
to depart this earth. I think, what a beautiful place.
Speaker 4 (26:41):
See you later.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Okay. In both the cases of the songs we've talked about,
you've come up with an initial idea from the sign
from this from reading Einstein, where a lot of people
get their lyrics by the way, from Einstein.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
Well, I wasn't reading Einstein.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
It was like it was like an article somewhere, you know,
I'm sure I clicked on it.
Speaker 4 (27:02):
It was it.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Was probably like a smart person clickbait. Okay, spooky action,
what's this.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
Prostrate?
Speaker 4 (27:11):
Try?
Speaker 3 (27:11):
Oh no, no, I have my email address, curse them, Yeah,
get all these democrats asking me for money.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
But then, but then you do a lot of research
because you mentioned all the stars, you mentioned the things
that it would have seen, and in the other case,
you you looked at what those communities would have been
like and you.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
Describe Yeah, which which was new to me.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Is that new to you?
Speaker 3 (27:34):
I've never done I've never done research like int into songs,
like yeah, I would just try and find like, you know,
because I have a vague idea of like this.
Speaker 4 (27:48):
You know, the weird story I'm trying to tell.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
But then I'm like, I need some details to make this,
you know, just to surround it with. And then unspooky action.
I looked up like oh, and some of it was
just you just try and find things that sounded cool,
like the Arc of Daphness.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
That's cool, keelers Edge, that's cool. The Loan Propeller. It's like,
what's the loan Propeller.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
Oh, it's it was made by Moonlits And it's like, oh,
that's cool.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
That should be its own song, The Loan Propeller. That's
a great title.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
Yeah, well I guess it can be. I'm allowed to
do that. But I doubt I will.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
I think I've exhausted everything I have to say on
the matter with with the eighty words I wrote.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
You know, so tell me about a ballot of the
last pay phone.
Speaker 4 (28:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (28:42):
That was?
Speaker 4 (28:43):
Yeah, that was That was. That was another one I was.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
I was reading about the last payphone in New York City,
and I thought.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Did you go see it? You see it at the
Museum of New York.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
I hope they cleaned it up, because ye remember, I'm
sure they did.
Speaker 4 (29:07):
But again, I was talking about this. Last night. There
was this.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
Even though I'm I'm not a big Raven Raymond Carver expert,
I read this little five page short story called Fat.
It was about this this waitress in bed at night
with her boyfriend and she's talking about this overweight man
she served and she can't she know, she can't put
it into words, what you know, what fascinated her about him?
(29:38):
And she doesn't even know why she's talking about him.
And I think her boyfriend is like, what are you
talking about? And but you're reading it, and you know, like, oh,
she relates to this man somehow. There's something, there's something
in him that she sees in herself. But she she
can't figure it out. So I was thinking of that,
and and instead of that, it was this guy who
(30:00):
goes to see the last payphone in the museum of
the City of New York. And he's looking at it,
and you can't quite figure out why he's so fascinated
the last payphone. But but to me, it seems very obvious,
because you know, the last payphone got left behind. You know,
it used to be important, it used to be a
(30:20):
big part of the world, and then now it's in
a museum. Now it's just like a relic. And I thought,
to me, it seems pretty easy. Why a person might
a person.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Might be not so different from the satellite story.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Yeah, yeah, I mean they're they're they're all meant to
be like very very similar. I mean like I was
like to me, like I wanted them all to be
kind of stories about loss and acceptance, Like like when
you start with loss, yeah, it makes it seem like
they're very sad.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
But was that something that emerged from the stories or
something when you sat down you wrote loss at the
top of the paper and said, no, no ideas.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
I think it just im I think it just immerged.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Why do you think it emerged now.
Speaker 4 (31:09):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
I mean, maybe it's just maybe it's just like getting
getting older, just just just trying, just trying to figure
out life. It's just but it really was just it
wasn't really conscious. I mean, what I was consciously trying
to write only came together as it as it took
(31:32):
form on its own, and I began I began to
see that there was there was a connection between the
things I was writing, like I had to go back myself.
But I mean, I think that's also I mean that's
what I struggle with.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
I mean, having struggled with like mental health.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
I I think that those are those are strong feelings
like trying to you know, trying to come out the
other side, trying trying to be happy, you know, trying
to figure out what can I do to be happy?
And one of the things you have to do to
be happy. I think it was just like ride with
all the loss and tragedy in your life, you know, yeah,
(32:19):
just like a The one song, the song on the
record that is the most absolutely auto biographical, it's called
like Bonus My Ties, about my friend Cheryl who died
of cancer, and it was about the first time I
saw her, and.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
I was so shocked that.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
She had already seemingly accepted like she had spent she
had spent months dealing with the fact that she was
going to die soon. And I was talking to her
and she was very and she was very, very like
matter of fact about it, like how like, oh, I'm
worried about I'm worried about Warren. She was worried about
her husband, who's like an old old friend of mine,
(33:04):
and like, what's what's you know, how's he going to
deal with me dying? And she they always made drinks.
They were the couple that would always have like different
drinks when you came over.
Speaker 4 (33:15):
And that night they made my ties.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
And I just thought, like, you're going through this hell
in your life, but you're still making my ties for
your friends and they're coming over and you know, and
I think we both got in my tie and she said,
you know, like I should have I should have died
four months ago. Everybody thought I was going to die
four months ago because it was so bad, and you know,
(33:39):
this is my bonus time on earth, and so like
this is a bonus my tie and everything like cheers,
you know, drinking on my ties. And but I just thought,
how like what it's it's sad.
Speaker 4 (33:54):
But there was a kind of there's a kind of
beauty to.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
How people face the inevitable. You know, it's like everybody's
everybody's going to die and you can put your head
in the sand and say no, not me. I'm you know,
I'm going to be like some comedians said, I'm going
to be immortal, and so far, so good.
Speaker 4 (34:17):
You know.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
Yeah, So I think I think that's a I think
that's in a I think there is something just yeah,
beautiful about figuring out how to, like you know, how
to how to end, how to how to how to
deal with things ending.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Well, let's break and we'll be back with the New Pornographers.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
You know, the the songs, particularly Spooky Action, the Payphone song.
They remind me you always have a lot of technology
in your songs, do I. Well, you have like twin cinemas,
which is when I was a kid, I remember the
first time there's a twin cinema and nobody could you
can go and choose what movie you could see? That
seemed incredible. Of course they was showing the same one
(35:06):
on both screens when you get there exactly. But break lights,
things like that, and there's sort of the kind of
old fashioned technology that's sort of sort of like about
it in your songs.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
Yeah, I mean I think I can see that, yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
It makes me think, you know, it almost reminds me
of the Kinks. You know how the Kinks were like
a modern band, but they always seem to be singing
about things that were like thirty or forty years old. Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
To me, I always get that sense with new pornographers
that like it's a very up to bate band, but
the sense of loss over these kind of old technologies
(35:45):
fading away. I always got that from your music.
Speaker 4 (35:48):
Yeah, I mean I can see that.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
Yeah, Like, even though it's incredibly u tooth and obscure.
I think the song electric Version is kind of about that,
although I couldn't even tell you what the lyrics are
right now.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
Yeah, I mean I don't know. I don't know why
that is. I mean, I do think I come.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
I come from a kind of like culturally, I feel
like I being a kid in the seventies. I remember
watching the reruns were from the fifties, so I had
like one culturally, I had like one foot in this
weird black and white past where I was watching I
Love Lucy and The Andy Griffiths Show and and things
(36:33):
like that. And also my parents were like I was.
I was the youngest of five kids, so it was
like the uh my parents were like, we're from a
generation like basically before rock and roll, you know, like
like I think my mom was a young mother. You know,
(36:54):
I think she had a baby when Elvis showed up.
You know, she might have had a newborn. So like
they were so there was this whole like you know
that there was like my life but like my parents,
like to me, seemed to come from a distant pat.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Okay, what what record albums did you have at home
growing up?
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (37:13):
You mean like that I bought or No.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
I'm always I'm always fascinated that people because.
Speaker 4 (37:19):
Well they like they like country music.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Oh really okay, most people I know, like they would
they'd have like the Sound of Music soundtrack.
Speaker 4 (37:27):
No, they were not at all.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
Now they were.
Speaker 4 (37:29):
It was it was country music.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
I remember my mom liked Charlie Pride and I still
love those Charlie Pride records. She like really liked Freddie Fender,
you know, she liked she just liked country music. I
remember we had a k Tel country music record that
I absolutely loved, you know, I had like.
Speaker 4 (37:48):
You know, I beg your pardon. I never promised you
a Rose Guardian like.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
I still love that that met That country politan is
still my favorite country music.
Speaker 4 (37:59):
Like Charlie Rich. What was the big Charlie Rich hit?
Hey did you happen? Let's see the most beautiful.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Grool h I love that Behind Closed Doors? Wasn't that
one of his? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (38:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (38:12):
We had a best of Whale and Jennings record I remember,
which I didn't know was outlaw country. It just seemed
like more country to me. But I had older brothers
and sisters, so I think that's how I hold that's
how I heard other music. Like when I was like
nine or ten, I had an older brother who bought
never Mind the Bollocks and Talking Head seventy seven, So
(38:35):
there was music I remember, and because of them. I
remember the White album was around or like the like
Wings greatest hits, Like there wasn't a ton, It wasn't
a ton of music. My sister who was closest to me,
really like Pat Benatar, and she liked you know, Ario Speedwagon,
hind Fidelity and I thought that was cool too.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
But you didn't start playing till much later, right, I
didn't start.
Speaker 4 (38:58):
I didn't pick up a guitar until I was eighteen.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
But around the age of sixteen, that's when I think
I decided that music was a big part of my personality.
And I became obsessed with ra em like murmur and
reckoning and chronic Town and I loved the Smiths, and
I loved echoing the Bunnyman, and I loved violent Fems
and Husker doing the replacements and whoever.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
You know.
Speaker 4 (39:24):
One of the advantage, I felt like a nerd, but
I was super cool when I look back at what
I was listening to.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
I just had one of the advantages growing up in Canadas.
You just got a lot more English bands, and you
got them much earlier than Americans did.
Speaker 4 (39:36):
I think.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
I think it's possible being being part of the Commonwealth, maybe, like, yeah,
I bought enemy, you know, religiously, was always interested about
what was going on there. I mean, the Queen was
on our money. I didn't understand disliking the Queen, but
at least I knew, like who were they were talking
(39:56):
about when they said when the sex pistols talk about
God Save the Queen. It's like I've seen her, Yeah,
God Save Her.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
Was there one song? Was there one album that made
you think that made you pick up the guitar and
think I can do this.
Speaker 4 (40:11):
No, I just said I loved music.
Speaker 3 (40:15):
And I had a friend who just when I was eighteen,
said hey, I'll show you how to play a few chords.
Showed me how to play E, A and D and
he said, okay, now you can play Gloria by them,
and I thought that's cool. And then I realized that E,
A and D. I could also play Superman. The song
ari Em covered.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
It was a sixty song right yeah, by the Click.
Speaker 4 (40:39):
And which I learned years later. And then I think.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
I I bought a Easy Guitar Beatles songbook, and I
think that's where I learned most of my chords. But
even Easy Guitar Beatles was still like every chord you know,
you were learning C seven and C minor, you know
C sharp minor.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
And so when did the writing start, I think.
Speaker 4 (41:12):
I don't know it was. I'm not even sure if
you'd call it writing.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
I think I would just I would just like mess
around on the guitar, like I remember getting super into Uh.
There was a point where all I I'm not sure
if I started playing with anybody yet, but I became
obsessed with the Pixies and Throwing Muses. There was a
six month period where I honestly don't think I listened
to anything except Pixies and Throwing music. And there's some
(41:40):
especially with Throwing Muses, there was something cool and angular there.
I realized I could just pick up a guitar.
Speaker 4 (41:46):
And I didn't even have to learn scales.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
You know, I could just like make rhythmic noise, like
I could almost play like random notes, but if you
do them, if I play these five random notes, but
I keep doing it every few bars, like that's.
Speaker 4 (42:00):
That's the part, you know. It felt like that's what
the Throwing Muses do. And then the Pixies.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
I realized like it was the first music so that
I absolutely loved where I could break it apart and
figure out what the parts were.
Speaker 4 (42:14):
It's like, okay, well the.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
Bass is doing that simple thing, and the guitar is
just doing that simple thing, and the drums are doing
that and the guitar is just going you know, it's
just making cool simple melodies. And that was what I
think made me think I wanted to try making music,
(42:36):
but I was not serious about it that it even
occurred to me to imitate the Pixies or imitate throwing muses.
And I start my friend started a band. It was
called Superconductor because we thought it was a stupid name,
which was a very ninetiest thing to do.
Speaker 4 (42:54):
This is the worst name. Let's start a band to
go with this terrible name.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
And we ended up having six guitar players because six
guys who played guitar showed up. And then we just
and then nobody wanted to sing, and I realized, like, oh,
maybe I'm the singer. H And I never thought about
being a singer in the band, but it was almost like.
Speaker 4 (43:18):
I don't.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
I don't know why, you know, I I've been thinking
about it recently, how like about things being almost predestined,
like like how like how much of your life is
pre Will?
Speaker 4 (43:31):
Sorry pre will?
Speaker 5 (43:32):
Like that works too, pre Will pre Well, yeah, I
like to live pre Will. Uh it's my favorite era.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
I was into pre love.
Speaker 4 (43:49):
Exactly. Uh.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
But the uh, because I've just becoming the singer in
the band, I just fell into it and it just
it just happened and I never I never intended and.
Speaker 4 (44:01):
I I look, I look.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
At myself playing music through the years, and I can't
figure out why I kept going because for the first
few years I wasn't very good. I was I wasn't
really taking it seriously, but I kept doing it.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
Like I was in your twenties, Yeah, like early twenties.
What were you were you at school at that point?
Were you doing other things that you were more serious
about that.
Speaker 3 (44:27):
I was a school but I was a terrible student.
You know, it's just a general loser.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
Wow, you know, but I really selling this album, I
have to say.
Speaker 3 (44:38):
But I think, but I know, I think I was
a loser because I was kind of not listening to
what my fate was, you know.
Speaker 4 (44:48):
I think.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
I was clearly being called towards something, and which is
kind of my point, and that like I would do
these shows where there's nobody there and we weren't very good,
but yet none of that it bummed me out, but
not enough that I would stop. And there are so
many things, things that I've been bad at in my
(45:10):
life that made me think I don't ever want to
do that again because I hate being.
Speaker 4 (45:14):
Bad at it. But music, I just kept I kept
moving in that direction.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
Now, was Vancouver a good place to be for that?
Were there was there a scene where they're good clubs?
Were there places you could go? Did people want to
hear new music?
Speaker 3 (45:28):
I think so well, I think there's just you know,
you have group you have groups of people that like music.
Speaker 4 (45:34):
I think I think that's where it starts.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
You you collect in this city and you realize they
are the people that go to the same shows, or
maybe they all work at the same record store or
something like that, and at some point somebody says, oh,
maybe we should start a band because we we like
The Fall and mud Honey and Sonic Youth or whatever,
you know. And yeah, So, I mean I think every
(46:01):
city has that. And you have you know, you have
the kind of group of people and I don't know
if they have the girls that you're in love with
than that group of people.
Speaker 4 (46:10):
And you know, and.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
There are people that have their weird little clubs that
people have their weird little record stores and clubs that
let you play. So it was good that way, but nothing,
nothing really important was coming out of it. But you know,
it's I don't think that's that is important. It was
just a place for people to start. It was people
(46:33):
a place for people like me just to kind of
start playing people like me and pornographers and Destroyer and
Black Mountain, a place just for those people to start
playing music and see what happens, and some people drop out.
I used to think it was so strange that people
quit quit playing music, Like somebody I knew from the
(46:55):
scene who had a band that was going for years,
and one day they said, no, I'm going back to
school and they abandoned music forever.
Speaker 4 (47:01):
And I thought, what you know?
Speaker 3 (47:04):
And that's when I realized, Oh, people are doing this
for different reasons, like like like some people are starting
a band because they wanted to become popular, and if
they don't become popular, it's like, what's the point.
Speaker 4 (47:15):
And I realized, No, I was not that person. I
was a person.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
What person were you then? What allowed you to persevere? I?
Speaker 3 (47:23):
Well, again, I think it was I had no choice.
It was just a direction I was moving in. It
never occurred to me to stop, and I loved it.
I loved the idea of it as a life pursuit.
I remember seeing the band The Sun City Girls play
in a radio station, and I was very inspired by
(47:46):
watching them, not only because they were good, but there
was a sense of music as a life pursuit, like
that they didn't care if they were popular. They I
could just sense this love of music. And I remember
seeing this songwriter from San Francisco named Barbara Manning, and
she gave me the same feeling, like she is doing
(48:07):
this for the love of it. And that was inspiring
to me.
Speaker 4 (48:12):
And so I think I was. I thought, that's me, and.
Speaker 3 (48:17):
Like maybe I saw and I must have saw myself.
I think I saw myself in the Sunset Girls in
the and Barbara Manning, the same way that guy and
Ball of the Last Payphone saw himself in the Last
Payphone in the Museum of the City of New York.
Speaker 4 (48:32):
That's a big sentence.
Speaker 1 (48:36):
That is a big sentence. Yes, do you guys want
to play.
Speaker 4 (48:40):
A little Yeah, let's let's try.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
I'm sorry, Catherine, I didn't get over to you. I
wanted to ask you about No, no, no, no, please, there's
still time.
Speaker 6 (48:50):
It's all good.
Speaker 4 (48:52):
We can and if we screw up, we can.
Speaker 1 (48:55):
I sing what rehearsals must be like, like what why.
Speaker 4 (49:04):
Why don't we do? Why don't we do? Pay?
Speaker 3 (49:06):
Because we h we've been talking about it. We've got
something like a segue, right.
Speaker 4 (49:16):
I say. One Tuesday before.
Speaker 7 (49:38):
I had to see it with my very eyes at
the Museum of the City of New York had the
off hand brace that you will find in the last
ones left alive.
Speaker 4 (49:58):
They took it from Time Square.
Speaker 8 (50:01):
May little fanfare or paid respect. It first comes love,
then it must be Then it's terminal Veloss City, nothing
major mind.
Speaker 4 (50:22):
It's just the last pay.
Speaker 8 (50:28):
Nothing major man.
Speaker 7 (50:33):
It's just the last pay.
Speaker 4 (50:48):
I had to see it with my very eyes, but
some advice from the just left behind.
Speaker 8 (50:58):
Reversed the charges.
Speaker 4 (51:00):
I tried, but it had no lightening inside.
Speaker 7 (51:08):
Did you get a good look at their face? Because
often thieves.
Speaker 4 (51:14):
Are not gone very far, and they're not strangers.
Speaker 1 (51:20):
They really are.
Speaker 8 (51:23):
They're not strangers, they really are. Nothing made man.
Speaker 7 (51:33):
It's just the last pay pham, nothing maging man.
Speaker 8 (51:42):
It's just the last pay phone. Nothing made a man.
Speaker 4 (51:50):
It's just the last.
Speaker 7 (51:51):
Pay phone, nothing made a man. It's just the last
pay fam.
Speaker 8 (52:10):
Yeah, first comes love, then comes pity. Then it's terminal
blass City. Yeah, first comes love, then comes pity. Then
(52:35):
it's terminal Looss City.
Speaker 3 (52:48):
I like the sound of like the gears moving around
inside that thing.
Speaker 4 (52:53):
It sounds like a machine.
Speaker 1 (52:55):
New Pornographers, thank you so much, Carl, Catherine, thank you
for coming in. It's been just wonderful. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (53:02):
In an episode description, you'll find a link to a
playlist of our favorite songs from the New Pornographers. If
you shure to check out YouTube dot com slash Broken
Record Podcast to see all our video interviews, and be
sure to follow us on Instagram at the Broken Record Pod.
Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with
marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer
is Ben Holliday. Broken Record is production of Pushkin Industries.
(53:25):
If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider
subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription
that offers bonus content and ad free listening for four
ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple
podcast subscriptions, and if you like this show, please remember
to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app.
Our theme music is by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.
Pushkin.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
The New Pornographers have never been easy to pin down.
Since forming in Vancouver in the late nineties, the band
became one of the defining acts of the Canadian indie
rock explosion, the part of a scene that also produced
Nico Case Destroyer and a generation of artists who seemed
to operate entirely outside the commercial mainstream. Co founders Carl
Newman and Katherine Calder have spent more than two decades
(00:41):
making records that are densely layered, relentlessly melodic, and somehow
both euphoork and melancholic at the same time. Their latest album,
The Former Site Of draws on a different kind of
raw material. Part of it came from a friend's terminal
illness in the weight of watching someone you love recking
with time running out. Part of it came from something
more unexpected, the last remaining payphone in New York City,
(01:05):
which became a kind of anchor image for the record,
a physical object standing in for everything we hold on
to after it stops being useful. On today's episode, Bruce
headlam sits down with Carl Newman and Katherine call There
to talk about what their new album came from. What
it's like to make something beautiful out of grief, and
how the Canadian music scene that shaped them still runs
(01:26):
through everything they do. This is Broken Record, real musicians,
real conversations. Here's Bruce Headlam with Carl Newman and Catherine
call There. Head over to YouTube dot com slash Broken
Record Podcast if you want to see the video.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
So tell me first of all about the name of
the new album and explain that to me. The former
site of well this is I.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Have a great answer. I have a great answer. It's
kind of a long answer. Living in upstate New York,
I would drive past the reservoirs they you know, which
is where in New York City water comes from the
Kren Reservoir, the nearby the one near us ya Choken
Reservoir has a sign next to it that says the
former site of West Hurley. And when I saw that sign,
(02:16):
I was kind of fascinated, like what happened to West Hurley?
And I started looking into the history, and around like
nineteen oh five, New York decided, you know, we need
these areas for the reservoirs. So they they got towns
to just uproot and leave, and they said, we'll buy
your property. But if you won't sell it to us,
well we're going to take it anyway, so you might
(02:37):
as well sell it to us. So parts of the
towns just got raised, and then anything they wanted to say,
they put the cars on wagons or sorry the they
put the buildings on wagons, and it took them away.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
And so.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
I was I was fascinated by the idea, and I
wrote the song the Former Site of about that, which is,
you know, about a church, about a preacher who decides
he's going to stay with the church. It's like, I'm
just gonna and the water is rising around him and
he's sitting on the roof and he's about to die
because he's going to be flooded. And I thought that
(03:19):
was an interesting little story to try and tell. And
I also I also thought, like with all the changes
the bands have gone has gone through through the years,
to call our record the former site of and on
the record it basically reads us the former site of
the New Pornographers.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
I thought I thought it was a.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
Kind of you know, it was a slight slightly slightly ironic,
but an element of truth there about you know, various
things that have changed through the years, good and bad,
and and also just my my urge to always want
to change, you know, like I want I want the
(04:03):
pornographers to be something different. But the the weird ps
to that story, that is, we just played WDST, a
radio station outside of Woodstock, and it's in a church,
and I found out right before we started playing that
(04:24):
it was a church that had actually been moved from
West Hurley.
Speaker 5 (04:28):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
So it was essentially we were playing we were playing
this song about the church in West Hurley inside that
actual church that used to be in West Hurley, which
I thought was kind of mind blowing.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
Yeah, for people like me who bought your first album
when it came out and been following you along, tell
me what's changed in your songwriting between those early days
and this new album.
Speaker 3 (04:57):
Well, I mean, I know what's changed in my songwriting
in the last few years. I think I decided to
write very narrative songs on this album, or a lot
a lot more narrative songs, songs that were clear, not
like I'm trying to write Glory Days by Springsteen or anything,
(05:17):
but I just wanted songs that were a little clearer.
I think I think if i've if I was trying
to write like anyone. I'd say Leonard Cohen, you know,
like the the pictures he paints in like Suzanne or
Sisters of Mercy, which is a kind of high thing
to shoot for. But you got to shoot for something high,
(05:38):
and so that's different to me. And also I'm I
know how to I never used to know anything about engineering.
I used to stand behind John Collins, our bass player,
and say do this, do this?
Speaker 4 (05:51):
Can you make it? Do this? And and now I
can do a lot of that stuff on my own.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Which I love because it means like I can, you know,
any given day, I can just go to my studio
space and just work for a couple hours and engineer,
and like, I can do everything now except play instruments. Well,
but it's rock and roll music, so I can get
away with not doing that. And plus I have other
(06:19):
people that can play instruments. Well.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
That's interesting because this album, to me was the writing
felt different, not on every song, but.
Speaker 4 (06:29):
Oh to me, it feels very different. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
But you know, the I think of your songs, you know,
particularly on your big albums like Real Bruisers or Morse Code,
they're very linear songs. They start with a big hook,
they go to you know, verse chorus, middle eight, They're
often quite different. This one felt like it was built differently,
(06:53):
Like it was built in layers. Almost.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
Yeah, I think that.
Speaker 3 (06:58):
I mean, I like, I don't. I wouldn't call it
a concept album, but I think I wanted it to
all fit together. I wanted it to I wanted to
have a similar feel. I wanted it lyrically and have
a similar feel. I mean, even to the extent that
the final song, the former site of like name checks
(07:21):
characters from the previous songs, like I just wanted to have,
you know, I think I've said to people I wanted
it to feel a little bit like a little book
of short stories. But that feels like a slightly pretentious
thing to say. But that's I guess you gotta.
Speaker 4 (07:38):
Shoot for maximum, you know, pretense.
Speaker 1 (07:41):
It's a very pretentious thing. Yes, that's what makes it work. Yes, well,
some of you. Some of these songs reminded me of
particular short stories. The I want to get the title right,
and I always write these things down. Wish you could
see me. I'm killing it. Tell me about that song.
Speaker 3 (08:02):
I mean that one is essentially just something very real
that happened and I think I just fictionalized slightly, and
it was both of my parents have passed away, and
a few years ago I was at the flower store
and you're the graveyard, the cemetery, and I was buying
(08:22):
flowers and I got this really nice, you know, bouquet
from my mom, and then I was looking for my dad,
and I started thinking, like, he didn't care about flowers,
you know, so I bought him.
Speaker 4 (08:34):
I bought him like flowers and were quite as nice as.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
My mom's, because I just thought like he he doesn't care,
like my dad would be like, no, what are you
spending flowers? You know, why would you spend forty dollars
getting me flowers? Get those ones that are on sale.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
And and then.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
That just made it just made me think about how
we talk I guess how we talked to the dead,
which is even a line one of one of the
last lines in the Former Sight of.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
We find our own ways to talk to the dead.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
And then from there I started thinking about you know,
it was a song, It was a song about that,
but then it became more about this person who's who
has spent so long buying flowers for his parents' graves
that he knows a lot about flowers now, and he
(09:25):
can and he can tell you, and he can tell
you about flower arranging. So there there's something kind of darkly,
darkly comic in there, but it's also meant to.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
Be kind of a knife to the gut.
Speaker 5 (09:38):
You know.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
It's one of the few songs I think I've ever written.
I almost like made myself cry writing it.
Speaker 4 (09:45):
And it's also the line like I wish you could
see me I'm killing it is a little.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Like like I'm not exactly sure what I meant, you know,
Like it means both I wish you could see everything
I've done, but it also it also means.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
I'm kind of you know, I don't think I'm killing it.
M M, I give you some help.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
But yeah, what came across to me was the narrator
felt a little foolish, a little overwhelmed.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
Yeah, yeah, I think, I think, I think, I think
there's that. But yeah, that was yeah that I felt
very happy about that, that song.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
You know what it reminded me of, And now that
I know the origin of the song has nothing to
do with it. The James Joyce story. Araby, do you
know that story?
Speaker 2 (10:39):
No?
Speaker 1 (10:39):
No, Oh, it's in Dubliner's it's a kid who goes
to a little fair to buy a present for this
girly lins and it's he's overwhelmed. It's getting dark, the
fair is closing and he can't buy anything, and he
just there's this terrible line at the end when he
feels like, I think a creature, a creature derided by vanity.
(11:00):
I think is the line, and just kind of that
sense of being a little overwhelmed.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
That's I think. I think, I think there is that.
I think there is that that element of it. Yeah,
because that ultimately I didn't I don't know anything about flowers,
you know, but uh but I guess this character I
was trying to write kind of kind of does.
Speaker 1 (11:23):
Did writing more narratively Did that change the melody writing
at all?
Speaker 4 (11:29):
It did? We were just talking about that last night.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
I think I just became less precious about melody or
like like I would write a melody and then when
the melody met the lyrics, when the melody met the lyrics,
and when they both met performance, like whatever I had
to change to make it feel better.
Speaker 4 (11:52):
I would.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Is that different for you before you came?
Speaker 3 (11:57):
Yeah, I think I I think I as used to
think like, this is this is the melody I wrote,
and sometimes it'd be like it's hard to sing. It's like, well,
you know, I guess I will go into falsetto and
sing it, you know, like like I I would bend
around whatever the melody was in this one, and maybe
on the last one as well, and then the one
before that. I think I think about a few years ago,
(12:18):
I started thinking, just changed the melody and just sing
what feels good. The first song I remember doing that
on was a song called falling down the Stairs of
Your Smile from Morse Code to Break Lights. I remember
I wasn't sure about it and then I just I
(12:40):
just sang. I just sang it again. I just wanted
to find it. Yeah, because I remember that I wanted
to drop it. I was in her her husband call
and mixed it and I remember saying like this isn't
working on to drop in him turning around, going this
is the best song on the record, and I said, okay,
well I guess I should finish it, and yeah, and
I just I just I just sang it until I
(13:01):
found something that felt good singing, and I thought, and
then that really worked. It became like the single and
I think it was the best song on the record,
and and I think I carried that into continue as
a guest. And on this record, I mean, there's an
infinite amount of melodies. I mean it's nice, it's maddening,
(13:21):
but it's just there are.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
So many melodies, Like why not change the melody? It's like.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Before, were you, uh we a writer who just got
the harmony down for the song and then pulled the
melody out of that.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
I don't know. I think it usually started with a melody.
Speaker 1 (13:41):
Really yeah, It's like.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Like chords and a melody are or sometimes I would
just kind of sing something just like into my into
my phone, into my voice notes, and and then I'd
go and play the chords, Go what are the chords
of this? Sometimes I hate to find out what the
(14:02):
chords are. Sometimes it ruins it really. Sometimes you think
you've come up with something really interesting. It's like, oh,
the chords are G, C and D. That's so boring.
But then it's amazing when you realize, oh, yeah, the
chords are C minor and A minor.
Speaker 4 (14:21):
That's weird. You know.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
This album also felt a little fewer chords in this album,
maybe a little less harmonically complex earlier album.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Yeah, I think that, although there's still when I when
I play the songs now, there's more chords than I
think there are, like you know, like for for us,
like a song that doesn't have very many chords is
six chords, you know, but you know, lou Reid said
any more than two chords is jazz. So I'm I
(14:57):
think another thing I've done and tried to do in
the last decade was just see how much you can
move around with not very many chords, because you know,
just like there are infinite amounts of melodies, there are
kind of infinite places you can go within two chords.
(15:20):
Like sometimes I just like the cycle back and forth
between like G and A just two chords that are
just a step apart, and there's so much you can do.
You know, you can write, you can write a hundred
songs that are different that are just cycling back and
forth between A G. There's so many things you can change,
the tempo, the way it's syncopated, the melody, just the vibe.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
It's great to hear you say that, because I think
a lot of musicians fear the opposite, that they only
know a few chords, there are only twelve notes. Maybe
it's all been done well.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
I that really annoys me, you know, I think it's
just laziness, you know. I think if you can't figure
out how to do it, and you don't want to
figure out how to do it, I don't know what
to tell you.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
You know.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
Do you work hard at songwriting just something you do
every day?
Speaker 4 (16:21):
Yeah? I do. I try to.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
I mean I feel like it's part of like I
think it's part of like, you know, mental health process,
you know, Like I think I think it's good just
to to use your brain. You know, like in some
ways it doesn't feel that dissimilar to going on in
New York Times spelling bee, you know, like like like
(16:44):
I'm trying to find an answer, you know, like I've
but it's a puzzle. It's a puzzle I invented, you know.
It's it's a it's an amorphis puzzle that I invented.
And I'm like, how do you solve this puzzle? And like,
I know there's an answer.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Yeah. By the way, the panagram today is befouled. Just
want you to know I know that I've already done it. Okay, Well,
there you go.
Speaker 3 (17:03):
Genius by the way, not Queen Bee. But it was
a pretty easy one today.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
Yeah hard.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
We'll be back with more from the New Pornographers after
the break.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
So, Catherine, when you saw these songs, could you present
them to the band? Right?
Speaker 4 (17:23):
Yeah? Yeah, well altogether.
Speaker 1 (17:26):
No, But what did you think? What was what was
your first reaction and what did you think you could add?
Speaker 6 (17:32):
I don't know, I just I I guess I approached
these songs when Carl sends them to me with a
kind of a sense of I'll just do what comes
to me, and I'll send it back.
Speaker 4 (17:47):
And we'll see how it goes.
Speaker 6 (17:49):
Knowing that, knowing that, you know, I think a lot
of things are going to change between the time I've
listened to that version of the song and the final version.
Because I've been in a band with Carl for over
twenty years now, Yeah, and I know the process and
the process itself hasn't changed that much. No, like over
the you know, except from now. You know, I'm more
(18:09):
able to do things from my own house, which is
awesome because it means I have more personal control over
what I'm doing and my knowledge has increased. Like to
be able to do that kind of like you're you
were just saying, you know, you can record on your own,
and now so can I. And that wasn't the case
when I first joined the band, so so that personally
(18:33):
has changed. But yeah, I just expect unexpected twists and
turns and adjust accordingly, and.
Speaker 4 (18:42):
I love it and it usually comes.
Speaker 3 (18:44):
Like I think Catherine and Todd, Fancy and John Collins,
I mean, I think they all kind of.
Speaker 4 (18:50):
Like know.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
How I work or not, maybe not how I want
to work, but just how I'm doomed to work. And
they they will they will always send me like a
bunch of ideas for a song, Like Fancy never gives
me a full take, like he will play a cool
guitar part and it only is only in the first
forty five seconds because I think he knows, like, like
(19:13):
what's the point. Like like if I if I find
something that he did that I totally love, I will
go back and go, can you do a full take
of that? And usually I will like paste it up
and and I'll do that with.
Speaker 4 (19:24):
Something Catherine plays or John plays. I'll just be this is.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Cool, and sometimes it's sometimes it changes the song. Sometimes
I'll go like that's the only good thing that keyboard
thing Catherine did is the only good thing in the song.
You know, I'll be like the keyboard you got, so
we got the keyboard and the and the beat, and you.
Speaker 4 (19:44):
Know it's just you know, yeah, they're just you know,
they're like tools.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
What was the song on this album that underwent the
biggest transformation once people got their parts back to you?
Speaker 4 (19:59):
I have no idea. I cannot remember.
Speaker 3 (20:06):
It's it's I think it's always It's like it's it
goes on for so long and I'm always like working
on things, and you know, they don't remember, you know, I'm.
Speaker 6 (20:18):
Sure maybe Spooky Action.
Speaker 3 (20:21):
Spooky Action went. Yeah, that went through a big transformation. Actually,
that that one, that one definitely did. Yes, I'm glad
you caught that one.
Speaker 4 (20:34):
I remember that.
Speaker 3 (20:35):
That That one felt like it was like it was
hard to get it like it was a lot of
things happening, but it was it was hard to to
make it smooth and and interesting. And sometimes you get
to a point where you have too many ideas. At
the end of an album, I feel like there's a
lot of muting.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
You're taking things out. Yeah, do you do that more? Now?
This album felt a little area or a little less yeah, yeah, yeah,
a little less heavy, complicated and some of your other records.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
Yeah, but but I think ironically, I think that kind
of makes it a little more, a little more complicated,
you know. I think it's uh, it's just less less noisy. Well,
one thing I one thing I've thought about in the
last few years, which might be the most obvious thing
in the world, but I just learned it, or I
don't know if it's something I can say I learned,
(21:32):
but it's it's it's a theory I have, and it
is that if something cannot be the loudest thing in the.
Speaker 4 (21:39):
Mix, it shouldn't be in there.
Speaker 3 (21:42):
Wow, like like because so many times through the years
have been like, oh this part.
Speaker 4 (21:48):
Is cool, but oh it's not. It's too loud, you know,
like pull.
Speaker 3 (21:53):
It down and you know, and you're burying things. And
I just thought, no, if if it can't be the
loudest thing, it shouldn't be there, you know, if if
something if yeah, if something's going to bother you, if
it's too loud, and it's to me it seems seemingly
obvious now like, yeah, it probably shouldn't be in the mix,
(22:13):
And that's helpful. To me, because when you listen to
an album on different stereos, it always sounds different, or
if you listen to like the album playing in the
next room, it sounds different. So on this record, I
feel like I've eliminated that because now I listen to
it and I go, well, that sounds louder and that
sounds quieter.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
But who cares.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Do you ever ever have experienced someone's playing a song
in another room and you can't tell what the song is,
but it so it sounds really cool, and then when
you hear it, it's almost a little bit of a disappointment.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
That wasn't that? How you know invented ambient music? Oh?
Speaker 1 (22:46):
I don't know.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
Yeah, apparently he was.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
In like a hospital or something and he just heard
some like music playing like fear in the distance, and
he couldn't.
Speaker 4 (22:53):
Tell what it was, and he just thought that was
a cool effect, Right, that's how you invent a genre.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
Mm hmm.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Just a bunch of music you can barely hear, and
it's like, what if all the music was meant to
be barely heard?
Speaker 1 (23:08):
You may shod spooky action. Tell me about that. It's
got a very vivid.
Speaker 4 (23:14):
Narrative. Well, that's good. That's the one song. My wife
said she couldn't figure out what was going on.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Well, I was reading about, you know, I was reading
about a couple of things. I was reading about quantum entanglement,
and Einstein said that quantum entanglement was spooky action at
a distance, which I thought was an interesting turn of phrase.
And then unrelated to that, I was reading an article
(23:44):
about the Cassini Huygens probe, which you know, was circling
Saturn for thirteen years and taking pictures of it and
that's how we know so much about everything that's going
on around there. And then at the end of it,
it you know, immolated itself and they flew it into
Saturn and it burned.
Speaker 4 (24:03):
And the idea was that it would.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
Be a song about like the last moments of the
Cassini Huygens pro where for some reason it's sentient I
guess just artistic license, but the idea of like, what's
what's it thinking right before it dies?
Speaker 4 (24:19):
And I thought the last.
Speaker 3 (24:21):
Thing it would think would be like, wow, this is beautiful,
you know, just looking looking at everything around it. That's
basically the little snapshot I wanted it to be.
Speaker 1 (24:35):
Why is that such a sad thing? The idea of
this space pro it's done all its work and then
just like it heads into the planet to burn up.
I find it's just an incredibly sad image.
Speaker 4 (24:46):
Really, I mean, I guess it kind of is.
Speaker 3 (24:48):
But I also, I mean there's not much of it.
There's not much of it in the song, only one line.
But the subtext in my brain was that quantum entanglement,
the idea that you're connected with something and you're never
(25:10):
you're always connected with it. There could be billions of
miles between you, but you're still connected to it is
a kind of like a beautiful idea. And it made
me think of like the idea of heaven, of a
people we've lost, how we're always connected.
Speaker 4 (25:24):
And so there's a line in the song where it was.
Speaker 3 (25:29):
Like like a, I guess it's the part in the
song where it flies into Saturn and it was like
a series of nail biting dives and I'm done.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
I'm on the cloud. And the with the double meaning.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
Being that all the information inside Castini Huygens is on
the cloud, like like the machine is gone, that everything
it learned is, you know, on the literal cloud. And
then but then the idea of like the cloud like heaven, right,
So so there's kind of a I think it's kind
(26:07):
of a spiritual song. And I think the the line
about like have you seen it the way it's meant
to be seen?
Speaker 4 (26:14):
Is supposed to be a very hopeful line.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
I think it's just a very another way of saying
stop and smell the roses. That the casini heiens haygens
probe isn't sad to die, you know, it's just look
at how beautiful this is. Like I'm going to go now,
which seems like a you know, that's how I'd like
to depart this earth. I think, what a beautiful place.
Speaker 4 (26:41):
See you later.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Okay. In both the cases of the songs we've talked about,
you've come up with an initial idea from the sign
from this from reading Einstein, where a lot of people
get their lyrics by the way, from Einstein.
Speaker 4 (26:57):
Well, I wasn't reading Einstein.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
It was like it was like an article somewhere, you know,
I'm sure I clicked on it.
Speaker 4 (27:02):
It was it.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Was probably like a smart person clickbait. Okay, spooky action,
what's this.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
Prostrate?
Speaker 4 (27:11):
Try?
Speaker 3 (27:11):
Oh no, no, I have my email address, curse them, Yeah,
get all these democrats asking me for money.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
But then, but then you do a lot of research
because you mentioned all the stars, you mentioned the things
that it would have seen, and in the other case,
you you looked at what those communities would have been
like and you.
Speaker 4 (27:30):
Describe Yeah, which which was new to me.
Speaker 1 (27:33):
Is that new to you?
Speaker 3 (27:34):
I've never done I've never done research like int into songs,
like yeah, I would just try and find like, you know,
because I have a vague idea of like this.
Speaker 4 (27:48):
You know, the weird story I'm trying to tell.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
But then I'm like, I need some details to make this,
you know, just to surround it with. And then unspooky action.
I looked up like oh, and some of it was
just you just try and find things that sounded cool,
like the Arc of Daphness.
Speaker 4 (28:07):
That's cool, keelers Edge, that's cool. The Loan Propeller. It's like,
what's the loan Propeller.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
Oh, it's it was made by Moonlits And it's like, oh,
that's cool.
Speaker 1 (28:18):
That should be its own song, The Loan Propeller. That's
a great title.
Speaker 4 (28:22):
Yeah, well I guess it can be. I'm allowed to
do that. But I doubt I will.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
I think I've exhausted everything I have to say on
the matter with with the eighty words I wrote.
Speaker 1 (28:34):
You know, so tell me about a ballot of the
last pay phone.
Speaker 4 (28:42):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (28:42):
That was?
Speaker 4 (28:43):
Yeah, that was That was. That was another one I was.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
I was reading about the last payphone in New York City,
and I thought.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Did you go see it? You see it at the
Museum of New York.
Speaker 4 (28:56):
Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
I hope they cleaned it up, because ye remember, I'm
sure they did.
Speaker 4 (29:07):
But again, I was talking about this. Last night. There
was this.
Speaker 3 (29:14):
Even though I'm I'm not a big Raven Raymond Carver expert,
I read this little five page short story called Fat.
It was about this this waitress in bed at night
with her boyfriend and she's talking about this overweight man
she served and she can't she know, she can't put
it into words, what you know, what fascinated her about him?
(29:38):
And she doesn't even know why she's talking about him.
And I think her boyfriend is like, what are you
talking about? And but you're reading it, and you know, like, oh,
she relates to this man somehow. There's something, there's something
in him that she sees in herself. But she she
can't figure it out. So I was thinking of that,
and and instead of that, it was this guy who
(30:00):
goes to see the last payphone in the museum of
the City of New York. And he's looking at it,
and you can't quite figure out why he's so fascinated
the last payphone. But but to me, it seems very obvious,
because you know, the last payphone got left behind. You know,
it used to be important, it used to be a
(30:20):
big part of the world, and then now it's in
a museum. Now it's just like a relic. And I thought,
to me, it seems pretty easy. Why a person might
a person.
Speaker 1 (30:31):
Might be not so different from the satellite story.
Speaker 3 (30:34):
Yeah, yeah, I mean they're they're they're all meant to
be like very very similar. I mean like I was
like to me, like I wanted them all to be
kind of stories about loss and acceptance, Like like when
you start with loss, yeah, it makes it seem like
they're very sad.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
But was that something that emerged from the stories or
something when you sat down you wrote loss at the
top of the paper and said, no, no ideas.
Speaker 4 (31:03):
I think it just im I think it just immerged.
Speaker 1 (31:06):
Why do you think it emerged now.
Speaker 4 (31:09):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
I mean, maybe it's just maybe it's just like getting
getting older, just just just trying, just trying to figure
out life. It's just but it really was just it
wasn't really conscious. I mean, what I was consciously trying
to write only came together as it as it took
(31:32):
form on its own, and I began I began to
see that there was there was a connection between the
things I was writing, like I had to go back myself.
But I mean, I think that's also I mean that's
what I struggle with.
Speaker 4 (31:48):
I mean, having struggled with like mental health.
Speaker 3 (31:51):
I I think that those are those are strong feelings
like trying to you know, trying to come out the
other side, trying trying to be happy, you know, trying
to figure out what can I do to be happy?
And one of the things you have to do to
be happy. I think it was just like ride with
all the loss and tragedy in your life, you know, yeah,
(32:19):
just like a The one song, the song on the
record that is the most absolutely auto biographical, it's called
like Bonus My Ties, about my friend Cheryl who died
of cancer, and it was about the first time I
saw her, and.
Speaker 4 (32:37):
I was so shocked that.
Speaker 3 (32:41):
She had already seemingly accepted like she had spent she
had spent months dealing with the fact that she was
going to die soon. And I was talking to her
and she was very and she was very, very like
matter of fact about it, like how like, oh, I'm
worried about I'm worried about Warren. She was worried about
her husband, who's like an old old friend of mine,
(33:04):
and like, what's what's you know, how's he going to
deal with me dying? And she they always made drinks.
They were the couple that would always have like different
drinks when you came over.
Speaker 4 (33:15):
And that night they made my ties.
Speaker 3 (33:17):
And I just thought, like, you're going through this hell
in your life, but you're still making my ties for
your friends and they're coming over and you know, and
I think we both got in my tie and she said,
you know, like I should have I should have died
four months ago. Everybody thought I was going to die
four months ago because it was so bad, and you know,
(33:39):
this is my bonus time on earth, and so like
this is a bonus my tie and everything like cheers,
you know, drinking on my ties. And but I just thought,
how like what it's it's sad.
Speaker 4 (33:54):
But there was a kind of there's a kind of
beauty to.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
How people face the inevitable. You know, it's like everybody's
everybody's going to die and you can put your head
in the sand and say no, not me. I'm you know,
I'm going to be like some comedians said, I'm going
to be immortal, and so far, so good.
Speaker 4 (34:17):
You know.
Speaker 3 (34:17):
Yeah, So I think I think that's a I think
that's in a I think there is something just yeah,
beautiful about figuring out how to, like you know, how
to how to end, how to how to how to
deal with things ending.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Well, let's break and we'll be back with the New Pornographers.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
You know, the the songs, particularly Spooky Action, the Payphone song.
They remind me you always have a lot of technology
in your songs, do I. Well, you have like twin cinemas,
which is when I was a kid, I remember the
first time there's a twin cinema and nobody could you
can go and choose what movie you could see? That
seemed incredible. Of course they was showing the same one
(35:06):
on both screens when you get there exactly. But break lights,
things like that, and there's sort of the kind of
old fashioned technology that's sort of sort of like about
it in your songs.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
Yeah, I mean I think I can see that, yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (35:24):
It makes me think, you know, it almost reminds me
of the Kinks. You know how the Kinks were like
a modern band, but they always seem to be singing
about things that were like thirty or forty years old. Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
To me, I always get that sense with new pornographers
that like it's a very up to bate band, but
the sense of loss over these kind of old technologies
(35:45):
fading away. I always got that from your music.
Speaker 4 (35:48):
Yeah, I mean I can see that.
Speaker 3 (35:50):
Yeah, Like, even though it's incredibly u tooth and obscure.
I think the song electric Version is kind of about that,
although I couldn't even tell you what the lyrics are
right now.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
Yeah, I mean I don't know. I don't know why
that is. I mean, I do think I come.
Speaker 3 (36:10):
I come from a kind of like culturally, I feel
like I being a kid in the seventies. I remember
watching the reruns were from the fifties, so I had
like one culturally, I had like one foot in this
weird black and white past where I was watching I
Love Lucy and The Andy Griffiths Show and and things
(36:33):
like that. And also my parents were like I was.
I was the youngest of five kids, so it was
like the uh my parents were like, we're from a
generation like basically before rock and roll, you know, like
like I think my mom was a young mother. You know,
(36:54):
I think she had a baby when Elvis showed up.
You know, she might have had a newborn. So like
they were so there was this whole like you know
that there was like my life but like my parents,
like to me, seemed to come from a distant pat.
Speaker 1 (37:09):
Okay, what what record albums did you have at home
growing up?
Speaker 3 (37:13):
Uh?
Speaker 4 (37:13):
You mean like that I bought or No.
Speaker 1 (37:16):
I'm always I'm always fascinated that people because.
Speaker 4 (37:19):
Well they like they like country music.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
Oh really okay, most people I know, like they would
they'd have like the Sound of Music soundtrack.
Speaker 4 (37:27):
No, they were not at all.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
Now they were.
Speaker 4 (37:29):
It was it was country music.
Speaker 3 (37:30):
I remember my mom liked Charlie Pride and I still
love those Charlie Pride records. She like really liked Freddie Fender,
you know, she liked she just liked country music. I
remember we had a k Tel country music record that
I absolutely loved, you know, I had like.
Speaker 4 (37:48):
You know, I beg your pardon. I never promised you
a Rose Guardian like.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
I still love that that met That country politan is
still my favorite country music.
Speaker 4 (37:59):
Like Charlie Rich. What was the big Charlie Rich hit?
Hey did you happen? Let's see the most beautiful.
Speaker 1 (38:06):
Grool h I love that Behind Closed Doors? Wasn't that
one of his? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (38:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (38:12):
We had a best of Whale and Jennings record I remember,
which I didn't know was outlaw country. It just seemed
like more country to me. But I had older brothers
and sisters, so I think that's how I hold that's
how I heard other music. Like when I was like
nine or ten, I had an older brother who bought
never Mind the Bollocks and Talking Head seventy seven, So
(38:35):
there was music I remember, and because of them. I
remember the White album was around or like the like
Wings greatest hits, Like there wasn't a ton, It wasn't
a ton of music. My sister who was closest to me,
really like Pat Benatar, and she liked you know, Ario Speedwagon,
hind Fidelity and I thought that was cool too.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
But you didn't start playing till much later, right, I
didn't start.
Speaker 4 (38:58):
I didn't pick up a guitar until I was eighteen.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
But around the age of sixteen, that's when I think
I decided that music was a big part of my personality.
And I became obsessed with ra em like murmur and
reckoning and chronic Town and I loved the Smiths, and
I loved echoing the Bunnyman, and I loved violent Fems
and Husker doing the replacements and whoever.
Speaker 1 (39:23):
You know.
Speaker 4 (39:24):
One of the advantage, I felt like a nerd, but
I was super cool when I look back at what
I was listening to.
Speaker 1 (39:28):
I just had one of the advantages growing up in Canadas.
You just got a lot more English bands, and you
got them much earlier than Americans did.
Speaker 4 (39:36):
I think.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
I think it's possible being being part of the Commonwealth, maybe, like, yeah,
I bought enemy, you know, religiously, was always interested about
what was going on there. I mean, the Queen was
on our money. I didn't understand disliking the Queen, but
at least I knew, like who were they were talking
(39:56):
about when they said when the sex pistols talk about
God Save the Queen. It's like I've seen her, Yeah,
God Save Her.
Speaker 1 (40:04):
Was there one song? Was there one album that made
you think that made you pick up the guitar and
think I can do this.
Speaker 4 (40:11):
No, I just said I loved music.
Speaker 3 (40:15):
And I had a friend who just when I was eighteen,
said hey, I'll show you how to play a few chords.
Showed me how to play E, A and D and
he said, okay, now you can play Gloria by them,
and I thought that's cool. And then I realized that E,
A and D. I could also play Superman. The song
ari Em covered.
Speaker 1 (40:36):
It was a sixty song right yeah, by the Click.
Speaker 4 (40:39):
And which I learned years later. And then I think.
Speaker 3 (40:44):
I I bought a Easy Guitar Beatles songbook, and I
think that's where I learned most of my chords. But
even Easy Guitar Beatles was still like every chord you know,
you were learning C seven and C minor, you know
C sharp minor.
Speaker 1 (41:04):
And so when did the writing start, I think.
Speaker 4 (41:12):
I don't know it was. I'm not even sure if
you'd call it writing.
Speaker 3 (41:15):
I think I would just I would just like mess
around on the guitar, like I remember getting super into Uh.
There was a point where all I I'm not sure
if I started playing with anybody yet, but I became
obsessed with the Pixies and Throwing Muses. There was a
six month period where I honestly don't think I listened
to anything except Pixies and Throwing music. And there's some
(41:40):
especially with Throwing Muses, there was something cool and angular there.
I realized I could just pick up a guitar.
Speaker 4 (41:46):
And I didn't even have to learn scales.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
You know, I could just like make rhythmic noise, like
I could almost play like random notes, but if you
do them, if I play these five random notes, but
I keep doing it every few bars, like that's.
Speaker 4 (42:00):
That's the part, you know. It felt like that's what
the Throwing Muses do. And then the Pixies.
Speaker 3 (42:06):
I realized like it was the first music so that
I absolutely loved where I could break it apart and
figure out what the parts were.
Speaker 4 (42:14):
It's like, okay, well the.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
Bass is doing that simple thing, and the guitar is
just doing that simple thing, and the drums are doing
that and the guitar is just going you know, it's
just making cool simple melodies. And that was what I
think made me think I wanted to try making music,
(42:36):
but I was not serious about it that it even
occurred to me to imitate the Pixies or imitate throwing muses.
And I start my friend started a band. It was
called Superconductor because we thought it was a stupid name,
which was a very ninetiest thing to do.
Speaker 4 (42:54):
This is the worst name. Let's start a band to
go with this terrible name.
Speaker 3 (42:58):
And we ended up having six guitar players because six
guys who played guitar showed up. And then we just
and then nobody wanted to sing, and I realized, like, oh,
maybe I'm the singer. H And I never thought about
being a singer in the band, but it was almost like.
Speaker 4 (43:18):
I don't.
Speaker 3 (43:19):
I don't know why, you know, I I've been thinking
about it recently, how like about things being almost predestined,
like like how like how much of your life is
pre Will?
Speaker 4 (43:31):
Sorry pre will?
Speaker 5 (43:32):
Like that works too, pre Will pre Well, yeah, I
like to live pre Will. Uh it's my favorite era.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
I was into pre love.
Speaker 4 (43:49):
Exactly. Uh.
Speaker 3 (43:50):
But the uh, because I've just becoming the singer in
the band, I just fell into it and it just
it just happened and I never I never intended and.
Speaker 4 (44:01):
I I look, I look.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
At myself playing music through the years, and I can't
figure out why I kept going because for the first
few years I wasn't very good. I was I wasn't
really taking it seriously, but I kept doing it.
Speaker 1 (44:19):
Like I was in your twenties, Yeah, like early twenties.
What were you were you at school at that point?
Were you doing other things that you were more serious
about that.
Speaker 3 (44:27):
I was a school but I was a terrible student.
You know, it's just a general loser.
Speaker 1 (44:33):
Wow, you know, but I really selling this album, I
have to say.
Speaker 3 (44:38):
But I think, but I know, I think I was
a loser because I was kind of not listening to
what my fate was, you know.
Speaker 4 (44:48):
I think.
Speaker 3 (44:50):
I was clearly being called towards something, and which is
kind of my point, and that like I would do
these shows where there's nobody there and we weren't very good,
but yet none of that it bummed me out, but
not enough that I would stop. And there are so
many things, things that I've been bad at in my
(45:10):
life that made me think I don't ever want to
do that again because I hate being.
Speaker 4 (45:14):
Bad at it. But music, I just kept I kept
moving in that direction.
Speaker 1 (45:18):
Now, was Vancouver a good place to be for that?
Were there was there a scene where they're good clubs?
Were there places you could go? Did people want to
hear new music?
Speaker 3 (45:28):
I think so well, I think there's just you know,
you have group you have groups of people that like music.
Speaker 4 (45:34):
I think I think that's where it starts.
Speaker 3 (45:36):
You you collect in this city and you realize they
are the people that go to the same shows, or
maybe they all work at the same record store or
something like that, and at some point somebody says, oh,
maybe we should start a band because we we like
The Fall and mud Honey and Sonic Youth or whatever,
you know. And yeah, So, I mean I think every
(46:01):
city has that. And you have you know, you have
the kind of group of people and I don't know
if they have the girls that you're in love with
than that group of people.
Speaker 4 (46:10):
And you know, and.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
There are people that have their weird little clubs that
people have their weird little record stores and clubs that
let you play. So it was good that way, but nothing,
nothing really important was coming out of it. But you know,
it's I don't think that's that is important. It was
just a place for people to start. It was people
(46:33):
a place for people like me just to kind of
start playing people like me and pornographers and Destroyer and
Black Mountain, a place just for those people to start
playing music and see what happens, and some people drop out.
I used to think it was so strange that people
quit quit playing music, Like somebody I knew from the
(46:55):
scene who had a band that was going for years,
and one day they said, no, I'm going back to
school and they abandoned music forever.
Speaker 4 (47:01):
And I thought, what you know?
Speaker 3 (47:04):
And that's when I realized, Oh, people are doing this
for different reasons, like like like some people are starting
a band because they wanted to become popular, and if
they don't become popular, it's like, what's the point.
Speaker 4 (47:15):
And I realized, No, I was not that person. I
was a person.
Speaker 1 (47:19):
What person were you then? What allowed you to persevere? I?
Speaker 3 (47:23):
Well, again, I think it was I had no choice.
It was just a direction I was moving in. It
never occurred to me to stop, and I loved it.
I loved the idea of it as a life pursuit.
I remember seeing the band The Sun City Girls play
in a radio station, and I was very inspired by
(47:46):
watching them, not only because they were good, but there
was a sense of music as a life pursuit, like
that they didn't care if they were popular. They I
could just sense this love of music. And I remember
seeing this songwriter from San Francisco named Barbara Manning, and
she gave me the same feeling, like she is doing
(48:07):
this for the love of it. And that was inspiring
to me.
Speaker 4 (48:12):
And so I think I was. I thought, that's me, and.
Speaker 3 (48:17):
Like maybe I saw and I must have saw myself.
I think I saw myself in the Sunset Girls in
the and Barbara Manning, the same way that guy and
Ball of the Last Payphone saw himself in the Last
Payphone in the Museum of the City of New York.
Speaker 4 (48:32):
That's a big sentence.
Speaker 1 (48:36):
That is a big sentence. Yes, do you guys want
to play.
Speaker 4 (48:40):
A little Yeah, let's let's try.
Speaker 1 (48:45):
I'm sorry, Catherine, I didn't get over to you. I
wanted to ask you about No, no, no, no, please, there's
still time.
Speaker 6 (48:50):
It's all good.
Speaker 4 (48:52):
We can and if we screw up, we can.
Speaker 1 (48:55):
I sing what rehearsals must be like, like what why.
Speaker 4 (49:04):
Why don't we do? Why don't we do? Pay?
Speaker 3 (49:06):
Because we h we've been talking about it. We've got
something like a segue, right.
Speaker 4 (49:16):
I say. One Tuesday before.
Speaker 7 (49:38):
I had to see it with my very eyes at
the Museum of the City of New York had the
off hand brace that you will find in the last
ones left alive.
Speaker 4 (49:58):
They took it from Time Square.
Speaker 8 (50:01):
May little fanfare or paid respect. It first comes love,
then it must be Then it's terminal Veloss City, nothing
major mind.
Speaker 4 (50:22):
It's just the last pay.
Speaker 8 (50:28):
Nothing major man.
Speaker 7 (50:33):
It's just the last pay.
Speaker 4 (50:48):
I had to see it with my very eyes, but
some advice from the just left behind.
Speaker 8 (50:58):
Reversed the charges.
Speaker 4 (51:00):
I tried, but it had no lightening inside.
Speaker 7 (51:08):
Did you get a good look at their face? Because
often thieves.
Speaker 4 (51:14):
Are not gone very far, and they're not strangers.
Speaker 1 (51:20):
They really are.
Speaker 8 (51:23):
They're not strangers, they really are. Nothing made man.
Speaker 7 (51:33):
It's just the last pay pham, nothing maging man.
Speaker 8 (51:42):
It's just the last pay phone. Nothing made a man.
Speaker 4 (51:50):
It's just the last.
Speaker 7 (51:51):
Pay phone, nothing made a man. It's just the last
pay fam.
Speaker 8 (52:10):
Yeah, first comes love, then comes pity. Then it's terminal
blass City. Yeah, first comes love, then comes pity. Then
(52:35):
it's terminal Looss City.
Speaker 3 (52:48):
I like the sound of like the gears moving around
inside that thing.
Speaker 4 (52:53):
It sounds like a machine.
Speaker 1 (52:55):
New Pornographers, thank you so much, Carl, Catherine, thank you
for coming in. It's been just wonderful. Thank you.
Speaker 2 (53:02):
In an episode description, you'll find a link to a
playlist of our favorite songs from the New Pornographers. If
you shure to check out YouTube dot com slash Broken
Record Podcast to see all our video interviews, and be
sure to follow us on Instagram at the Broken Record Pod.
Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with
marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer
is Ben Holliday. Broken Record is production of Pushkin Industries.
(53:25):
If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider
subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription
that offers bonus content and ad free listening for four
ninety nine a month. Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple
podcast subscriptions, and if you like this show, please remember
to share, rate, and review us on your podcast app.
Our theme music is by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.
Popular Podcasts
Hey Jonas!
Hey Jonas! The official Jonas Brothers podcast. Hosted by Kevin, Joe, and Nick Jonas. It’s the Jonas Brothers you know... musicians, actors, and well, yes, brothers. Now, they’re sharing another side of themselves in the playful, intimate, and irreverent way only they can. Spend time with the Jonas Brothers here and stay a little bit longer for deep conversations like never before.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.