Pageant's

by Frankih Kolbegger

Kevin Devine is a busy, busy man. Currently on tour with Matt Pryor of the New Amsterdams, I was lucky enough to get some time with him across the street from the Mod Club on September 9th, at a little cafe. We sat down, placed our orders, and enjoyed the fresh air. Kevin’s just come from a twelve hour drive. I turn the tape recorder on.

Frankih Kolbegger: Hi, I’m Frankih Kolbegger and I’m here with Kevin Devine on the Toronto date of his tour with Matt Pryor. I’ve got some questions for him, and some of these questions are actually from the fan community on Livejournal.

Kevin Devine: Okay, cool.

Frankih: How’re you?

Kevin: I’m okay. I’m okay… little tired, little haggard, but, uh, here. Life’s good.

Frankih: You’ve had a pretty rigorous tour schedule. Someone asked if you were planning to take a break?

Kevin: I’m gonna be off for most of the fall… or for two months, for most of October and November and then… I don’t know yet what’s happening for early 2009 ’cause we finished a record between the tour with Jesse [Lacey] and Brian [Bonz] and this tour with Matt, so, um…

Frankih: That is not a lot of time to make a record.

Kevin: Well, no… we had it – it was pretty quick but we had it written. Um, I had written the songs and started demoing them in April… and in June, I guess. So we, uh, you know we had them pretty well mapped out. There wasn’t a lot of writing in the studio. But, um… yeah, I kinda keep saying I’m gonna take time off and then things come up that I wanna do and I take them, you know?

Frankih: Yeah.

Kevin: So, I mean, I definitely wasn’t… between… I’m doing some stuff with this songwriter named Rachael Yamagata after this tour, it’s a bit of a different world… bit more – kinda like – mainstream, slightly? She’s really great, but that word means different things to different people – not great, mainstream.

Frankih: Will it be a little less folksy, maybe?

Kevin: Less… coming from punk rock. It’s not like – she didn’t come from the D.I.Y. scene, but that doesn’t mean anything about her music, it’s great. But anyway, I’ll probably take off most of October and November – I mean, November and – yes, October and November, right.

Frankih: Months are irrelevant – time just happens, and we have to live by it.

Kevin: That’s true, too.

[pause]

Frankih: Do you have any plans to tour with more of the Goddamn Band?

Kevin: Yeah, we’re doing a tour at the end of the year with Manchester Orchestra… that’ll be as full of a full band tour as I’ve done in a while. We were in Europe in May with [Mike] Skinner and [Mike] Strandberg playing the drums and bass and, um, the tour I did with Jesse – Brian and Mike played as a version of the band at that. So the tour with Manchester, I’ll have a band, I don’t yet know how many pieces or who, but it won’t be just me. I don’t know the next time I’ll have like a full six or seven piece tour… that was aided along a lot by Capitol’s tour support money, which doesn’t exist anymore, so it’s kind of whatever I can afford. The tour with Manchester, I’ll have at least three or four pieces which will be as close to a – that’s a full band, you know, that’s, uh…

Frankih: Yeah. That’s a band.

Kevin: Yeah.

Frankih: What’s it been like, working without a label?

Kevin: I think its definitely got its own… I mean, part of the reason I work so much with touring is because there isn’t another… uh, support infrastructure right now, I don’t have a label I’m getting royalty statements from, or getting some sort of uh… tour support from, to pay for, um, your rent, or your bills, and I’ve made a commitment to doing this professionally right now, which might not always be the case. You might do it sometimes while you, like, go back to school or get a job as a social worker or a teacher and… not… play in a rock band all your life. But, uh, but maybe not. Maybe you do do that all the time. I don’t know… I try to keep in the present and see how the rest plays out as the rest plays out. Uh… I like not having a set label.

I mean, I think – the next record’s coming out on Favorite Gentlemen, which is Manchester’s label. Put Your Ghost to Rest was re-released by Procrastinate! [Music Traitors], which is Brand New’s. It was put out by Capitol, I self-pressed a thousand of ‘em in between that. Make the Clocks Move and Split the Country [Split the Street] were with Triple Crown… uh… Circle Gets the Square was with Immigrant Sun, so I’ve already been on seven labels or something, over the course of five records.

Frankih: That’s crazy, dude! There’s people like Bob Dylan who’ve been on, like, two!

Kevin: Or one! For the majority… for like, fifty years!

Frankih: He was on one for like… sixteen years or something, on Columbia -

Kevin: Yeah, but now, Columbia… he’s part of Sony and he’s technically still with Columbia.

[The waitress arrives with our coffee. She sets milk down in front of Kevin, and we both offer thank yous. She asks if we'd like sugar; I decline, Kevin accepts, with a please and another thank you. He is possibly the most well-mannered man I've met. After a moment, we start again.]

Frankih: Yeah, that’s… that’s crazy.

Kevin: It’s a different time, and a different era, for that stuff as well – do you want some milk in your coffee?

Frankih: Oh, no thank you.

[Kevin pauses to thank the waitress again. She smiles at us as she leaves.]

Kevin: So yeah, I think. So far, so good. I think getting out of there was a really good move, a good thing that happened to me. It didn’t look like it at the time, but it became really good.

Frankih: Well, it seemed like right afterward your fan base sort of exploded.

Kevin: Well, I mean, that’s a relative term. Exploded… I-I… there’s more of them than there were, but, uh, it’s nice that you say that. An explosion I think of as being slightly more dramatic.

Frankih: Well, uh, here most of the kids I was talking to are here for you, not Matt Pryor, which is, uh…. considering you haven’t played Toronto in a year and a half…

Kevin: Well, that might have been just the people you were talking to. I mean, this tour’s been pretty egalitarian in terms of who’s coming out, and there’s a lot of cross-over, so, you know. So, we’ll see. But there are more people that like it than did. So that’s good. That means your work is paying off somewhat.

Frankih: Right, it’s going somewhere.

Kevin: Right, it’s what you’re hoping to do.

Frankih: So what are you expecting, working with the new label?

Kevin: Oh… uh. As long as they… they’re my friends, and I trust them, and in particular.. the guys in the band that are in charge of the label part are the guys that I… they’re guys who are savvy and know what they’re doing. As long as they get the record in stores, they… the record label’s job is just as a promotional tool for your, uh, your work.

Frankih: Distribution.

Kevin: Whether you’re on Capitol or on your own label in your bedroom or you’re on your friend’s label or you’re not on a label, you’re still gonna be the one who’s… it’s your career, it’s your life, so you’re gonna hustle, ’cause no one else is gonna hustle for you. I think Favorite Gentlemen believe in the record and believe in me a lot and they love the stuff I’ve sent them. And I think they’re gonna work really hard for it. And what that means is that they’ll work really hard to make sure people have a chance to hear it. It’ll be easier hopefully for people to find the records, but I don’t expect much more from a record label than that. You know what I mean? It’s my job to do pretty much whatever else, it’s how I see it. If a record label came in and changed the scope at which I was operating dramatically, then that would be wonderful, but I don’t really wait around for that kind of stuff anymore. I think it’s up to me to do the work.

Frankih: Yeah.

Kevin: But I think they’ll be able partners. I’m looking forward to that.

Frankih: Somebody had asked if the record would be available in bigger stores… Best Buy, for example.

Kevin: I believe it probably will. I mean… I don’t really know the ins and outs. We haven’t really gotten to those conversations yet, the record’s still being like mixed and mastered and the artwork’s being… like, we’re not even. We’re not at the, uh, marketing plan stage of it, but for however well-developed that plan will or will not be. But right now we’re still at the creative part. And we’ll get to the business part afterward.

But I think the point is to make sure it’s in more stores.

Frankih: To make sure it’s available.

Kevin: Yeah.

Frankih: Especially here, it was very hard to get a hold of any of the albums.

Kevin: It still is! And that was… the Capitol thing, which was – it was alarming – did not help that a whole lot. They didn’t really get the record out to more places, and that’s a major corporate record label.

Frankih: And that’s exactly what a label is supposed to do. And if they’re not doing that…

Kevin: Well, especially one like that. That’s their entire purpose. So there was some confusion about that from my end for sure, but… you know, we’ll see.

Frankih: So how have things sort of… changed for you, over the course of time, from Miracle of 86 to now?

Kevin: In what way?

Frankih: Musically. There’s been a huge shift.

Kevin: You know, I think… Miracle of 86 broke up when I was 23 years old, um… I started that band when I was 14, and I was the principal songwriter for the nine years it existed. But we didn’t do much touring, really, till the last year or two we were a band, and even that was nothing compared to the amount of touring I’ve been doing over the last four years or so. It was very very select, mainly the Northeast and some of the Midwestern United States. We went to Europe twice.

And I love the last record a lot, I love Miracle’s last record and I love stuff from that band and I love the energy and the spirit of that band. I started… that change started while I was still in it. It wasn’t… that band was very much a high-wire, electric, loud rock band. And I love… there’s elements of that in the music still, but it’s not the prime element anymore. And I think that as that band was developing, if I was writing twenty songs a year, four of them were like… rock ‘n’ roll, heavy punky songs, and sixteen of ‘em were… not that they were just me with a guitar, most of my records aren’t just me with a guitar, but they’re not that either. There’s a lot in between stark, by yourself, and loud punk rock. There’s a lot of room in the middle there.

Frankih: And I think a lot of people forget that.

Kevin: Yeah. Well, not – I mean, most of the bands I listen to don’t. And I think that’s what sort of happens, you get sort of influenced more like… and also the idea that your recordings and your live show don’t have to be the same. I can get up and play “Cotton Crush” [with] an acoustic guitar and have it be hopefully as impactful as if I were on stage with nine people playing electric guitars and drums and screaming. Maybe not, but the point is it should feel that way to me.

So yeah, that… that was the… I think there’s just a bit more nuance to it now – not to disparage what Miracle did, I certainly love a lot of what that band did and I wish I could still do… I like when the Goddamn Band plays with me and we can do some of those louder songs, and have that as part of what we are. And I think there’s all this stuff in the middle, where you have something that’s pretty and mid-paced and there’s violins and pianos or these rock-er… heavy, punky songs or different kind of rock songs, something that would be kinda like a Wilco thing or a Fleetwood Mac thing or a Rolling Stones thing.

And then you have your folk songs. There’s all different ways to do it. There’s all different ways to do it even if it’s just you and your guitar! There’s different ways to strum, different ways to pick, there’s different ways to sing, there’s different ways to express yourself lyrically. It’s not all one colour.

Frankih: [laughing] It’s a rainbow.

Kevin: Well, when it’s right, when it’s working, I guess. It’s the goal.

[pause]

Frankih: Well, uh. With the internet, you’ve got a lot of fans on there… what are your feelings about downloading music? ’cause it seems to be the way that a lot of people are introduced to it.

Kevin: You know, I heard someone say something recently that I really liked. It was about having feelings about… being a musician, having feelings about downloading music is like having feelings about wind. Like it’s gonna happen regardless of you having… I don’t know.

Would I prefer it if people bought the records I made rather than got them online? Like… yeah, it looks like… according to like how those things are measured, I’ve sold like eight or ten thousand copies of my most recent record. That’s enormously successful to me, that’s way more than anything I’ve ever sold before. But there’s probably forty or fifty thousand people that actually know it. And have it. Or some of it. And it would be nice if that was reflected in my bank statement, to some extent, but… but at the same time, I have money in savings, I pay for an apartment, I have money to travel, I have a phone that keeps me in contact with friends and family while I’m away, I have a lot of things in my life. I have a Netflix subscription, I have a DVD player that works, I have a laptop computer, I have an iPod, I have things, that I wouldn’t… that I pay for because you guys come and watch me play songs.

That’s crazy, in terms of what other people’s lives are like. You know? And that doesn’t mean I always have that perspective. Some days I’m annoyed, some days I treat someone unfairly for five minutes because I’ve had a bad day, and they don’t deserve it, some days you forget that perspective and just bitch and whine and wish you were home. But the truth of it is, I have a pretty awesome job and a lot of that heat – whatever, relative heat, relative heat that’s been generated is because of kids downloading things from the internet and talking about it and sharing it.

And kids come to the show and I’ve had so many people tell me in this guilty tone of voice that they’re buying it ’cause they downloaded it and I’m like, you don’t have to feel guilty about it, you’re here. You just…

[pause]

What’s preferable and ideal? It would be awesome if other people bought your record, you know? But I also understand people aren’t… the system’s an issue, not personal behaviour. People aren’t supposed to be self-negating angels and if you have the choice to get something for free from an industry that’s fucked you over for fifty years as a consumer… why would you buy it?

I don’t blame people for making those decisions, and I certainly don’t always make them myself. I don’t know enough about downloading music, I’m sort of technologically retarded, so I buy a lot off iTunes. But I don’t go to like… the local record store as much as I did when I was a seventeen year old kid at all. Almost never! Only when I’m in a city and I have time to kill. I look for the coffee shop, the comic shop, the record store.

Frankih: Actually, there’s a great little comic shop just down the street. I don’t know if it’ll be open later, but the next time you’re in town…

Kevin: We got in real late, and we’re leaving real early… it’s a long drive again. I love it here, though, I love it whenever I get to come here but this is just such a condensed night. But… but anyway. That’s what I think about that, for what that’s worth.

Frankih: Um, so things are obviously changing in the music industry because of music downloading – legal or illegal – and uh…

Kevin: Yeah. Record stores are closing, record labels are closing, and… yeah. [laughs]

Frankih: Where do you think it’s going to go?

Kevin: I don’t really know. My worst case scenario is… because, it’s bigger than the industry, there’s economic questions, particularly in the American market… there are ecological questions about touring and traveling and mid-level bands being able to afford four dollars a gallon, rising cost of food, rising cost of… I mean, when you travel, you are very much part of that economy. You’re dependent upon how much it costs to ship strawberries to IHOP to make your pancake. You’re dependent upon how much a barrel of oil costs ’cause you gotta get your gas everywhere you go, and you’re dependent on whether the travel industry’s booming or not booming and how much plane tickets are and hotel rooms are… so I think I could see it becoming a thing that becomes a lot more regionalized.

Frankih: More local scenes?

Kevin: Yeah, and things like Youtube and people can see me play tonight in Germany. Someone could go on tomorrow and someone could have taped two songs on their phone and a kid in Berlin can watch the two new songs I play tonight at the club in Toronto. So you don’t…

What I don’t know… that’s great for fans, and… and on some level it’s great for access… it’s great for start-up bands. I don’t know if it becomes a thing for the career musician in the position I’m in that’s not a celebrity and isn’t a cover band artist, but is just kind of a worker bee. I don’t know what that means for people like me…

Frankih: As in mid-level artists?

Kevin: Yeah. And I don’t know what that means, or if it means anything. But uh… I keep getting work, and… my overhead’s kept pretty low. I keep making strides. And not to be self-involved, but when I look at it from the big picture, it’s more confusing and when I keep it about how I’m existing in this little changing environment, it’s a little bit easier to deal with. I don’t think we’re ever gonna be able to figure out a satisfactory way to replace… I think the days of the 10 million selling album are done.

I think what people have to come to grips with in the music industry is that it’s not a changing paradigm, it’s a changed paradigm, it’s over. And now you have to figure out what comes afterward.

Frankih: Adaptation.

Kevin: Yeah, not thinking you’re gonna change… you’re not gonna roll the tape back from where it’s at now, you’re on a new thing altogether. But what that’s gonna be… I think you’re gonna see that touring decreases, if bands can’t tour, you might see things go back to a more regional kind of scene. And you might see bands putting on concerts that they broadcast online a lot more to access their fans in a cheaper way. Maybe you pay $5 for an access code and you watch Bright Eyes do a show in DC from Toronto or Mexico City or London and that’s the way people make money.

I mean, I don’t know, I think it’s really exciting for the creative side of it. But for the business part, I’ve never been particularly adept at those things. I know enough to make my own little niche work. I don’t know. So, you know, we’ll see.

Frankih: It’ll be interesting.

Kevin: It will, yeah. Music’s not going anywhere. People made music before they knew how to make money off it, entertainment and art and folk songs and dialogue, and those things aren’t going anywhere.

Frankih: Thank god for that.

Kevin: The business might go somewhere. Maybe that’s okay. I don’t know. You know? [laughs]

Frankih: [laughs] Okay, so, moving on to lighter questions.

Kevin: Those aren’t that heavy, don’t worry about it. The music industry is not to be taken seriously.

Frankih: Very, very true. I don’t think… industry’s such a harsh word for it.

Kevin: But it’s what it is. It’s this wonderful little microcosm of capitalism, the music industry. Constant growth, and if you don’t grow constantly, there’s something wrong. If you sell ten million records, then you sell five million records, you’re a failure. Dude, we just sold fifteen million records. But no. You know? So, anyway.

Frankih: So what’s the craziest or stupidest thing to have ever happened on tour?

Kevin: You know, I’m the worst at these questions because I, uh… it becomes… especially since I’ve been on tour with four six-week breaks since June of 2006. So some things are just like mush in my head now. Like I know they happened, but like… I was here… was last time I was here at the KT Tunstall show? No, with Pablo and Jennifer O’Connor.

Frankih: Yeah, Lee’s Palace.

Kevin: But that was 17 or 18 months ago. But that feels like that just happened, to me. Because I’ve been on tour since then. So in one way it feels like one long tour where the people I’m with change every couple months. But so I mean… I can tell you a nice story. But… nothing crazy.

Frankih: That would be awesome! Nice stories are always good.

KD: We went camping last night -

[At this point, tourmates Darren and Matt Pryor walk over from a table across the patio. Darren wraps his arms around Kevin's neck.]

Darren: We really like you.

Kevin: Let the interview reflect that Darren and Matt Pryor walked in as the camping story was being told.

[He looks at them.]

There’s a question about what’s the craziest thing that happens on tour, but I hate that question -

[Quickly, he looks back at me, with an apologetic smile.]

Not you for asking that! But I can never answer it satisfactorily. The nice thing was that we went camping.

Matt Pryor: There was that bear last night -

Kevin: That was weird!

Darren: That wasn’t a bear. That was chipmunks.

Kevin: Chipmunks that attacked your tent, yeah.

Frankih: Chipmunks attacked your tent?

Matt: I think so.

Kevin: It’s possible it was a tree.

[Everyone laughs.]

Darren: They’re boring stories, like the metal guy who delivered the pizza or -

Kevin: That was – no but, see, that is the best stuff. Like we were -

Matt: He was like, ‘You guys in a band? Here’s my card, I’m in a band called Shreddinger-’

Kevin: And there’s your answer. I second that story.

[To Matt and Darren]

Thank you, thank you.

Darren: That’s really tame though, our stories are never like -

Kevin: No, that’s perfect! We let him in our room briefly, which is dangerous.

Darren: Well, he brought the pizza in, and then he like… put it on the bed, and it had all slid to one side. And he was all, ‘Oh man, sorry about that.’

Kevin: See, that’s a more detail-oriented person, all I remember is we had pizza. That’s a good one, that’s a good one. So there you go. There’s your answer.

Frankih: Well, thank you.

[Matt and Darren leave, waving.]

Frankih: So what’s this nice story?

Kevin: That was it, we went camping. Like… I’d never been camping in my life.

Frankih: You’d never been camping? What, no Boy Scouts?

Kevin: [laughs] I wasn’t a Boy Scout. They didn’t have Boy Scouts in my neighbourhood. Um. But. Yeah, so no, I wasn’t a Boy Scout.

[pause]

Frankih: So how do you keep yourself busy on tour?

Kevin: Um… I… I try to keep in contact with home a fair amount, ’cause I didn’t always do that, and it wasn’t good for me. I read – I read a lot when things are quiet. It’s a little harder in the van, with people around, but I try to keep up on that. You know… I’ll go do something if I have time.

I have friends scattered… the one good thing about growing up in New York and going to college in New York is that your friends tend to… it’s like clusterbombs, they blow up and go everywhere, all over the world, so you go to London, and you know someone, you go to… Cleveland, tomorrow, and I have a friend I haven’t seen in three years, so we’re going to have dinner. I try and reconnect with people, or I just try to find pockets of quiet… I don’t tour the way I did when I was 23 anymore, I’m not getting fucked up every night and living some raging lifestyle.

You are just perpetually, by nature, in motion. So it’s finding ways to kind of slow down. You go to a park, you go for a walk, you go to a cafe and do some work.. things that don’t involve… like. Getting outside the club, and the walls inside your brain about what you do and that it’s not the middle of the world, that you’re just writing songs and you’re lucky to be playing them to people and it’s important in its own little box, but I’d rather know about my brother’s job and about how my nieces and nephews are, and what my friends are up to.

And you know, some days I’m not good at that either. Some days I get very trapped in the bubble, and I kind of float, and all of a sudden four days have passed and I’m like, I haven’t had a constructive conversation with someone in half a week. But, you know, that’s when you kind of gotta smack yourself off, drag yourself out by the hair, get back into it. So that keeps me busy, just trying to be an adult in an adolescent environment.

It’s enough to keep you busy. Or at least enough to keep me busy, other people might glide through it effortlessly, but I’m a bit more fitful than that.

[pause]

Frankih: What are you reading right now?

Kevin: I’m still fighting with Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, I really love it, but it’s very dense, circular… very antiquated language. It’s like chewing leather. I’m like… three months in, and I’m obsessive with books. So I don’t wanna start the next thing till I finish the current one. So I won’t be… the next thing I have with me is Confessions of an Economic Hitman, a book by a guy who used to work for the US government, talking about the sort of shadowy side of how the United States sets up its uh.. puppet regimes in other countries to do its economic bidding, how we’ve really become the most powerful country in the world – it’s more the dollar than the shotgun. But I haven’t really… I’m still doing Blood Meridian. I read comics interspersed throughout there, or magazines, you know, but that’s the book I’m still working on. I’ve got eighty pages to go or something like that.

Frankih: What’s your favourite book?

Kevin: Ah, I don’t know what my one favourite book is… that’s hard, but my favourite thing I’ve read recently, I’ll tell you. And that’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by a Dominican writer who lives in Jersey, I think, his name is Junot Diaz, and he’s quite popular now in the States, and he’s a fucking brilliant writer. And that book blew my mind, I totally loved it and would recommend it to anybody. It’s one of those sprawling, wonderful books that’s so intelligent it just blows your mind with how bright and empathetic and just masterful a writer [he is]. So that’s the one I would say right now.

Frankih: So have you managed to catch any baseball games lately?

Kevin: Yeah! Yeah, this year I went to three Mets’ games. Um… and I went to a Dodgers’ game last summer when I was in L.A… Dodgers and the Phillies. And I watch a lot of baseball, when I can. And I keep up with the Mets on my phone… um… and on the next tour. I, um. I’m gonna go see a Mets’ game at home with my brothers, so that should be cool. I keep track of it, definitely. Especially this year, it’s a very close pennant year again, so I’m keeping an eye on it.

[pause]

Frankih: So who would you love to tour with? Your absolute dream tour.

Kevin: People who are alive, or… anybody?

Frankih: Anybody.

Kevin: Um… anybody?

Frankih: Anybody.

Kevin: Um… I’d love to tour with Bob Dylan in 1965. With Elliott Smith in 1998. And with Nirvana in 1991. When Nevermind came out, they were still touring like… little clubs. I don’t think anyone knew it was gonna do what it did, and everybody… and they were like the number one band in the world playing 500-seat venues when they could have been playing arenas. So that would be a cool tour to be on.

Um… people that are around now, I’d love to go on tour with Wilco. I’d like to go on tour with Stephen Malkmus. I’d like to go on tour with David Bazan. I’m looking forward to hopefully doing some dates with Colour Revolt, because of the people I know, they’re really the only guys I haven’t gone out with yet, and I really wanna do some stuff with them.

And I’m really happy that I get to go out with the people I do. I get a pretty broad range of things I get to go out and do. So I feel lucky about that.

Frankih: Awesome. So, the last question is what songs do you most enjoy playing?

Kevin: Right now, I really like playing “Yr Damned Old Dad” and “You’ll End Up Joining Them.” I probably play those every show I play. Everything else tends to switch up every night, but those two songs I probably play every night cause I love them, I really love them.

Um, but I also like… there’s all the new songs [that] are so new and fresh that I really love playing all of them right now, too. I’m trying to just do a couple of those every night, ’cause we just did fifteen [for the record], and I don’t wanna do… in my head, I just wanna play the whole new record every night, but I just have to hold off a bit on that. There’s a song called “Carnival” I love to play, and “All of Everything Erased” I really love to play right now. too.

But, um. Those two are two that I’ve noticed in the last two and a half years since Put Your Ghost to Rest has been written and recorded and toured on, those two songs… I bet if you looked through… I’ve probably played about 400 shows in that time, and I’ve probably played those songs 375 times each. You know, I play those songs quite a bit. So… you know.

Frankih: Well, thank you so much for your time and all, it’s been rad.

Kevin: No problem.

myspace.com/kevindevine
Many thanks to the Kevin Devine fan community on Livejournal, found here.

by Frankieh Kolbegger

Straylight Run had nearly disappeared from everyone’s radar, when they came out with their new album, The Needles The Space. Now they’re back on the map, dodging obstacles on all fronts, from being dropped from their label to the terrible weather that comes with winter touring. I got the chance to catch up with Straylight Run’s John Nolan and Shaun Cooper in Toronto at The Mod Club on January 30 for an interview before the show. This is what they had to say.

Frankieh: So how’s the tour so far for you guys?

Shaun Cooper: It’s been good, we’re only a few days in, so, you know, we’re still getting used to everything but everyone’s cool, we’ve known the Bayside guys for forever… so, um, yeah, it’s been really good so far. Today was a little hectic, we left at 2 AM last night from New Jersey and we just got here about half an hour ago [at 6:10 PM]. So. It was a long time in our truck.

Frankieh: I can imagine. Was it border problems or…?

Shaun Cooper: No, no, just, uh, bad weather.

John Nolan: And there was a bridge out that was like the main bridge to get into Toronto? Something like that, I dunno.

Frankieh: That’s pretty crazy. Gotta be fun. So how do you guys keep busy if you’re in the van for like fifteen hours?

Shaun Cooper: Well luckily we have a driver with his big truck so he was the one who had to handle everything. So we just watched Rambo movies.

Frankieh: [laughs]

Shaun Cooper: And I’m not kidding. For like five hours we watched Rambo.

John Nolan: [laughs]

Shaun Cooper: And we slept a lot, so we’re well-rested.

Frankieh: So it’s all action flicks on tour then?

Shaun Cooper: Oh no, we like to switch it up every now and again but today was just Rambo day. I was in the mood for some Sylvester Stallone. So. Made me happy.

Frankieh: Do you occasionally get in the mood for, like, The Notebook, have a good cry in the back of the van…

Shaun Cooper: Every now and again.

John Nolan: Shaun usually takes those types of movies into his bunk to watch by himself…

Shaun Cooper: [interjecting] I keep it private.

John Nolan: [continues]… so no one can see him crying.

Shaun Cooper: Mmhm.

Frankieh: What are you guys listening to? Do you listen to music a lot on the road?

Shaun Cooper: [mumbled name], Crosby, Stills and Nash.

John Nolan: Yeah, we’ve been listening to a lot of that. Shaun’s been manning the mp3 in the front lounge of our little truck. He’s been listening to a lot of punk rock as well.

Shaun Cooper: That’s only when I get drunk. I get all amped up and I gotta put on The Lawrence Arms and rock out… by myself…

John Nolan: [shakes head, laughing]

Frankieh: What’re your favourite drinks?

Shaun Cooper: Heineken. Heineken and Patrón Silver.

John Nolan: Oh, that’s a tough one… [pauses] I, uh… Heineken would be my favourite beer, I think. But you know, “drinks” covers a lot of ground so it’s really hard to narrow it down. I’d have to go through and tell you in every category of drink. There’s no way I could possibly single it out. There’s too much.

Frankieh: You guys have been having a lot of problems with your label lately, from what I’ve gathered.

Shaun Cooper: [nods]

John Nolan: Yeah.

Frankieh: Do you think this is a culmination, sort of, of everything that’s wrong in the music industry?

John Nolan: I think it’s an example of everything that’s wrong with the music industry. It’s sort of our experience, and not everyone has the same one, but I think, definitely, there’s quite a few bands who do have a similar experience. So it’s just one example, I think, you know? We kind of had that very typical bad major label experience that you hear about. It was almost the kind of thing you didn’t think necessarily really happened, that obviously as or as blatantly as it happened to us.

Frankieh: So the new Radiohead release [In Rainbows]… is that a way that the music industry is going to be changing in the future?

Shaun Cooper: Certainly. I think what they did was really cool. Made them some good money. So.

John Nolan: And I think since they were such a big band and they took the initiative to go ahead and do it, I think it’s going to give a whole lot of artists the confidence to do the same type of thing. Bigger artists, and smaller ones too, probably. I think we’ll start seeing things change in the next few years.

Shaun Cooper: If they don’t, fuck it, the industry’ll be dead. So be it.

Frankieh: Do you think CDs, vinyl… will all be obsolete? Is it all going to be mp3-buying online?

Shaun Cooper: I think CDs will become obsolete pretty shortly but, I don’t know, records… people have some attachment to vinyl, which is really cool, so I think those will still keep selling as collector’s items. And it’s so cool to have the artwork all nice and big and stuff.

John Nolan: CDs aren’t much of a collectible item, I feel like.

Shaun Cooper: Yeah, they’re a cheap piece of plastic and it’s all flimsy…

John Nolan: Vinyl seems to have more value to it… I think there’s always going to be people who want to collect it, like Shaun said. I agree with that.

Frankieh: For a show, what’s your dream line-up to watch?

Shaun Cooper: The Beatles would be fun to see, I would imagine. With Radiohead, too. Throw Wilco in there, maybe.
John Nolan: [nods along] Yeah.

Frankieh: So The Beatles, Radiohead, Wilco… one show, best ever?

Shaun Cooper: It’d be up there, I’d hope!

John Nolan: I would say so. It would be about the best thing… I mean, just to see The Beatles alone, you know?

Shaun Cooper: Yeah.

John Nolan: It would be enough for me. I can’t even imagine how amazing that would be.

Frankieh: It’s really weird to think that now, some of the shows you go to will be those talked-about shows, like the first Sex Pistols show at CBGB’s.

John Nolan: Yeah, that is interesting. And it’s hard to know which shows those will be in the future, you know, which ones will have that…

Shaun Cooper: Yeah. [puts on strange pseudo-English accent] Y’nevah know. Y’nevah know.

John Nolan: [using same accent] Y’nevah, evah know. [speaking normally again] It’s a funny thing.

Shaun Cooper: [normally] I like that.

Frankieh: How was recording The Needles The Space different than recording your last EP, or the album before it?

Shaun Cooper: It was produced by Straylight Run so we didn’t have anyone else in there, trying to control the direction of the record. So that was something we had going for us.

John Nolan: We did a good portion of the album outside of any real studio. We just set up recording gear in different places. So that was different too. And because we didn’t go into real studios, a lot of times we took a lot longer with things.

Shaun Cooper: Which could have been a detriment, we’re not sure.

[Everyone laughs]

Frankieh: Well, I think it’s a pretty good record.

John Nolan: Well, thanks… I think what happened was we took a really long time messing around and then kinda got lost for a little bit. And it was good to have that time at the end – we actually had time to go away from it and come back, and I think that time of going away and coming back was really crucial. If we’d had to end it at that point where we took that break… the record would have been much worse, I’d say.

Frankieh: What were your biggest influences on the record?

Shaun Cooper: I think it’s more a culmination of different influences, from music we grew up with to music we’ve been listening to more recently. So I don’t know. It’s really hard to gauge that, because when we go into working on songs or whatever, we’re not thinking about it, it’s just this amalgam of influences that influence every single facet of our playing and our writing. So it’s really hard to say, “We liked this band at this particular point a lot, and we wanted to emulate them,” ’cause that’s not what we want to do. We want to be Straylight Run, not a light version of someone else who we think is great.

[long pause]

John Nolan: Right on.

Frankieh: So what are you guys reading, if you’re reading anything? Or what was the last thing you read?

John Nolan: I’m actually reading Moby Dick right now.

Shaun Cooper: Do you feel like a man lost at sea?

John Nolan: [laughs] Yes. I can really relate to it.

Shaun Cooper: I saw that in your bunk, I was like… [strokes chin] You are looking kind of sailor-esque with your big beard these days.

John Nolan: Going on tour is kind of like going out on a whaling vessel. Into uncharted waters.

Frankieh: To spear a great white whale?

John Nolan: (grins and laughs) It’s not really like that at all.

Shaun Cooper: No.

John Nolan: I can’t even remember if I read the book or not when I was younger. I don’t think I did, now, because when I’m reading it, I’m pretty impressed by it, and nothing is reminding me of anything. I’ve actually been really surprised at how good it is. I kinda read it because I felt like it was something everyone should read, and I’m really liking it. It’s really good.

Frankieh: I think I read an abridged version when I was six or seven… I can remember the first line, but I can’t remember the guy’s name.

John Nolan: “Call me Ishmael.”

Frankieh: “Call me.” doesn’t have quite the same effect.

John Nolan: Call me Gary. [pauses] Not the same. Call me… Jerry.

Frankieh: You guys are getting pretty popular online, or have been for a while… are you very aware of the internet fanbase?

Shaun Cooper: I feel like we’re aware of it because we used to be way more popular on the internet a few years ago. Now we’re slightly less popular but I think because of this whole major label thing, and how blunt we’ve been about it, and how openly we’ve discussed it, kids are discussing us more… maybe kids that lost track of us for a little while are hearing about us again because we have some drama going on that we’re pissed off about.

Frankieh: If you’re aware of the internet community, do you know about fanfiction and slash? What are your thoughts on that?

John Nolan: I’m not sure what the fanfiction is… is that when people make up stories about people in bands or famous people?

Frankieh: Yeah. I’m not sure if you guys know about this, but there’s a lot of it involving you.

John Nolan: I know that there’s lots of people that are really big fans of our band or who like to do that kind of thing. Or like to go into online communities and pretend, for fun, to be someone in our band or in another band. I personally think it’s really weird.
Shaun Cooper: I find it very creepy and I… [pauses] just the idea that anyone would be fascinated enough by little old me to make up stories about my possible life.

John Nolan: Yeah, or to create these elaborate scenarios that are totally fictionalized but like… still revolve around our lives. I don’t know. To me, it seems like a colossal waste of time, mostly. And I know, like I said, some people are fans of our band and I’m sorry if it offends people that I say that. But I can’t help it. I mean, if any person who does that, if they could stop for a minute and think about what it would be like to have somebody doing that to them, I feel like it would change people’s opinions. But people don’t have that ability, to really think of it that way. They think of people in bands as somehow being different than them, and kinda being up in the public eye, to have anything done to their lives…

Shaun Cooper: I mean, what shocks me the most is that I feel like my life is so mundane.

John Nolan: [laughing] Yeah!

Shaun Cooper: There’s nothing really cool about it, I’m not a very popular figure in any sort of music scene. I just play bass in a band that, you know… tours! And for someone to have any idea about like… I dunno. It’s weird. It’s not like I’m Paris Hilton and I’m all over the internet, going out and seeking fame.

John Nolan: Yeah, I guess. Well, what are you gonna do?

Shaun Cooper: Well, I didn’t put myself there. I’m not walking around in front of paparazzi with my celebrity girlfriend or something like that…

John Nolan: Not wearing underwear when you go out to the clubs.

Shaun Cooper: Yeah, and my little short skirts.

John Nolan: You always wear underwear.

Shaun Cooper: I make sure I put on my best thong.

Frankieh: So, speaking of the internet, there’s a rumour circulating that the song “Skinny Mean Man” by Say Anything is about you, John. Thoughts, comments?

John Nolan: I’ve never heard the song, I don’t know anything about it, really.

Shaun Cooper: Max would know a lot better than us.

John Nolan: You could ask him, he could probably tell you. But I have no idea. I’ve heard the same rumour, and I have as much of an idea as anyone else. And I’m not interested enough to look into the song, and check it out. So. Whatever.

Frankieh: What kind of shows do you like to play best, when you’re on tour?

Shaun Cooper: (grinning) Big shows. Where they’re well-attended.

John Nolan: Good shows?

Shaun Cooper: Well-attended headlining shows. But those are unfortunately few and far between.

John Nolan: We do really love being able to headline, whether it’s at a small club or a big club… to be able to headline, and have a packed out show of people who are all really excited… it’s the best thing for us. Better than any kind of big support tour that we could get or any kind of support tour. There’s just something about having our own show, and having all our fans out there, and the excitement that that generates, it’s really something.

Shaun Cooper: It’s very rewarding.

Frankieh: Any last things you want to say? Comments to our readers?

John Nolan: Hello!

Shaun Cooper: Thank you for reading this.

Frankieh: Well, thanks so much. Have a great set.

John Nolan: Thank you.

www.myspace.com/straylightrun

On An Unmade Bed: The Chelsea Hotel
Writer:  Frankih Kolbegger

Site: www.hotelchelsea.com

It’s about 6:00 AM on July 28th, 2007, when I roll into Port Authority on the Greyhound from Albany. The city sky is kind-of grey, and I’m exhausted. I was fortunate enough to see a show the day before – Jesse Lacey and Kevin Devine, solo and acoustic in a tiny venue – and I haven’t slept more than four hours in a couple days. All the sleeping I have been doing has been done on buses, watching the city lights blur as the night turns into morning.

I look around to try and orient myself. The attempt doesn’t really help. I do the sensible thing to do, when it’s so early. I go for coffee. When the time seems more reasonable, after wandering around for a couple hours, I start off to my destination again.

I follow the numbers to 23rd Street, just between 7th and 8th Avenue. A neon sign flickers at me, introducing me to my home for the next two nights: The Hotel Chelsea, also known as The Chelsea Hotel. Walking into the lobby, it’s easy to tell that this place is humming with history.

Opened in 1884 as an apartment building, the place was changed into a hotel in 1905, though the option remains to rent a room for the long term, and really, who wouldn’t want to? Though the rooms are small, the place is alive, and within minutes of settling in a chair in the lobby, I have already met some interesting figures. (Over the course of three days, I will meet a lady who just comes to sit in the lobby and dresses like it’s 1992, an art gallery owner from Montreal, and a very drunken Australian.)

I fall asleep curled up in a chair in the lobby, and when I wake up, it’s eleven in the morning. I approach the check-in desk. My room is ready.

The walls are an odd shade of yellow, and there’s no view from the windows – except for the view into the apartment building next door, or the white plastic chairs on the balconies. The hotel isn’t anything exceptional – except when you consider its history.

The people who have stayed in or lived at the hotel are varied and many, and the hotel could tell a lot of stories if it wanted to. Jack Kerouac wrote his most famous book, On the Road, in one of the hotel’s rooms. William S. Burroughs lived there, as did Charles Bukowski and Mark Twain.

It’s seen actors and artists, including Andy Warhol’s superstar Edie Sedgewick, who lived there just before her consignment to a mental hospital in 1967. She had her breakdown there too; she fell apart after finding out Bob Dylan, with whom she had a close relationship, had been secretly married. Her relationship with Dylan was allegedly not sexual, though more recently, there are claims she terminated a pregnancy, and the child was his.

Musicians have been included in the long list of residents, too; Janis Joplin had a brief affair with Leonard Cohen in the hotel, and they both lived there. One of the more famous references to Hotel Chelsea is actually Cohen’s song, “Chelsea Hotel #2″. (Kudos if you got the song reference in the title. For the record, the unmade beds are very comfortable.)

More recently, Pete Doherty of The Libertines, Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and alt-country singer Ryan Adams have all spent significant amounts of time at the hotel. It’s also been immortalized, as well as many of its former inhabitants, in the profound lyrics of the song “Godspeed”, by the alternative band Anberlin, off their 2006 acclaimed album, Cities.

Perhaps the most famous thing to ever take place at the Chelsea Hotel was the death of Nancy Spungen on October 12, 1978. It was ruled a murder, and while many believe her boyfriend, former Sex Pistol, Sid Vicious, was at fault, it could also have been two of the drug dealers who visited. Spungen and Vicious lived in the hotel after the break-up of the Sex Pistols. Parts of the film detailing their lives, <i>Sid & Nancy</i> (made in 1986 by Alex Cox), were filmed in the hotel.

For decades, the Hotel Chelsea has been a safe-haven and home for artists, musicians, actors, and writers. But what’s its allure? Is it the location, a block away from the subway? Maybe it’s the neighbourhood. In modern times, it’s safe to say that part of its allure is definitely its vast history. After all, who doesn’t want to be the next addition to the long list of residents?

At The Hotel Chelsea, the staff are friendly, the beds are comfortable, and the legacy won’t stop growing.