We ask, they answer

The Decemberists

By Jeremy Schnitker

The Decemberists, a five-piece indie rock act from Portland, Ore., sometimes get pigeonholed as a hyper-literate band that only grad student stiffs and history geeks can get into. The thing is, they’re actually a pretty fun band that’s willing to try just about anything once, such as go on a mini tour backed by a full orchestra, have some of their songs get remixed by underground electronic musicians and pick a fight with TV’s Stephen Colbert. The Real Chicago’s Jeremy Schnitker spoke with guitarist Chris Funk about all the crazy things the band has done this past year, as well as when they’ll be dropping their next album and just what this “Long and Short of it” tour they’re currently embarking on is all about.

Q: The last time you played Chicago was with the Grant Park Orchestra at Millennium Park in July. How did that five-show mini-tour you played with orchestras go?
A: It was really fun. It was a bit of a novelty for us. That’s not something we do every day, and it’s probably something we’ll never do again. It was a really fun experience to hear the music interpreted by an arranger who arranged all those pieces for us and conducted them. To have the bombast of a symphony behind you was interesting. Honestly, though, when we were done with that fifth show, it was like, “OK, we’re ready to get back to our show.”

Q: That’s what I was curious about — whether after shows you guys were like, “That was great, let’s do that more often,” or if you were like, “That was fun, but this might be kind of a headache to do again.”
A: It’s interesting. With a lot of our contemporaries — and even we’ve done this in the past — there’s this kind of tendency to want to make larger orchestrations and keep adding musicians. Bands like Arcade Fire, Sufjan Stevens, Bright Eyes that keep adding people and adding people. When we did the first “The Crane Wife” tour, we brought another musician with us, and we were going to bring another one on top of that, but she had another band that she had to go out with too, and we were sort of like, “We don’t really need that other person.” It was kind of refreshing to just realize that the five of us could make music that we want to make without all these bells and whistles. Going full tilt in that other direction (with the orchestra) reminded us even more how we’re really starting to jell as a band after all these years and see that less is more sometimes.

Q: It’s been a full year now since you released “The Crane Wife” on Capitol Records. How has your relationship been with the label thus far?
A: They’ve left us alone pretty much. All the horror stories you hear about bands being shoveled into awkward positions — that never happened to us. I think it was because we were established already, and we didn’t sell our souls to the devil financially. That’s kind of when those things do happen (when you’ve got) kids who are 18 and 20 who don’t have a clue about how the industry works. You know, the more you take to buy a house, the higher your payment’s gonna be. We just kept it real when we did this whole thing and were well aware that we weren’t going to be Coldplay. But it’s been good. The label’s been bought and sold I think twice since we signed, so it’s been a little up and down, and I think something’s going to happen again. All that’s reactionary with what’s going on in the record industry right now to stay competitive in a failing market. When they first got sold, they were downsizing the label, and the people we were working with got fired. They shaved off like 40 bands, and we weathered that, so I guess in terms of the game, I think we’re doing really well. I don’t really pay attention to it anymore, though. I kinda got caught up in it a couple months ago, but I realized we’ll always have an avenue for our music as long as we want to, I think, whether the audience goes up or down. We’re all adults about it. However it changes, we’ll come out on top.

Q: How did “The Perfect Crime #2” EP come about? You guys seem like the last band we’d ever hear a remix album from.
A: That did kind of come from our label. They were like, “Alright, you want a tour? We need to do something.” The initial idea was to have it all online and have our fans remix it, which I think would be a lot of fun. It was kind of my idea because I listen to a lot of hip-hop and dance music and that kind of stuff, and I was like, “Why don’t we have people remix it for fun?” The people they came up with, while reputable names, weren’t the people I felt should have done it. We actually killed it, not to disrespect Diplo and Junior Boys, and then the label was like, “No, we think we should do it.” So we were like, “F--k it. Why not?” It’s not like it was a big statement from us, we just did it out of curiosity and fun.

Q: What was your response when you initially heard the remixes?
A: That song, “The Perfect Crime #2,” it’s a straight copy from the Talking Heads’ “Remain in Light.” It was fun to do, but it’s a little bit different for us. That’s actually a track people could dance to, which is why this really turned into (a remix). It’s fun. We all listen to all kinds of music (not just the kind of music we play). We’re not a bunch of history professors that wear funny costumes every day.

Q: What’s the timetable for the next full-length? Have you begun work on a new album yet?
A: We’re planning on (putting it out in) 2009. That sounds like a long time, but it’s really not. We’re going to take a real break. We haven't really taken one since 2002 it seems. We’re taking a year to do nothing and travel with our families, hang out and get back to life at home for once. We’re planning on rehearsing during that period, though.

Q: Have you worked on any material yet?
A: There are five or six songs we’ve been kicking around, some of which we’ve played (live) recently. Initially, we said it was going to be a folkier album, but I think we’ve sort of given up on that. But there is some really ballad, finger-picky stuff that Colin (lead singer Colin Meloy) has been playing for us that reminds me of our first record. They come from more of a first-person narrative than a third-person, which is exciting because he’s really a great songwriter in that way, too.

Q: Are you setting out to make something as ambitious as “The Crane Wife” again?
A: I don’t know yet. I feel like every record has it’s own ambition, and it changes every time. We put the same effort in every record, it’s just hard to see exactly what is going to happen with it. We have every intention of making another good record, you know what I mean?

Q: Everything you guys do, from you songwriting to the way you dress on stage to even the artwork on your albums, is grandiose. Is it possible for you guys to have any restraint when it comes to this band?
A: I think the whole package, if you will, comes from a genuine place and a place of creativity and people being excited about performing live, recording and artwork and everything. It’s sort of just grown that way. So for us to say we should really take it down, I don’t think we could do that.

Q: Will you be playing any new material on this tour?
A: We’re trying not to. Just from my perspective, when I go to see a band, I don’t want to hear new songs. I like to hear the stuff I like, the songs I know. I think the super fans would like that (if we played the new material), but I think it’d be pretty boring.

Q: You have an interesting concept surrounding your current tour — The Long and Short of it, as you’re calling it. Explain how these shows are going to go.
A: It’s something we’ve been talking about for quite awhile, where we’d play a set with more epic songs, or songs that are a bit longer like “The Tain” and stuff like that. Who knows what it will feel like? I think you have a to be a real fan of the band to enjoy that night (“The Long of it”). And “The Short of it” night is more of the pop songs like “Perfect Crime #2,” “O Valencia!” and “16 Military Lives.” We’re playing small rooms on this tour. Since this is our last tour for probably the next year and a half, we thought we’d give a little bit back to the fans and do something nerdy like a “Long and the Short of it” tour.

Q: Last December, you faced Stephen Colbert in a guitar solo competition on “The Colbert Report” to settle the faux feud the Decemberists and he had. What was that experience like?
A: It was totally fun. It was their season finale, so they had a Christmas party that I went to, and it was insane. Stephen Colbert is hilarious. He really wanted to get my input on what we should do, and he called me on tour in our hotel room and was like, “What should we do?” and I was like, “I don’t know (laughing).”

Q: Did you know he was going to bring Peter Frampton out?
A: I did. I really just challenged him to a guitar duel as a joke, but they just kind of ran with it, like “Holy shit, this will be really fun.” And (Colbert) will get injured, and they’ll get somebody to be his proxy, and I guess Frampton was the guy. It’s funny because I’m not much of a shredder, and I got all these e-mails from kids on MySpace, and they’re like “Dude, you suck. You don’t deserve that beautiful guitar,” which was a B.C. Rich Warlock that the guy from Slayer plays, which I bought for like 200 bucks. It was just comedy the whole night.

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