Shellac Article-Interview

* Articles *

- - - - - Shellac happening with Steve, Bob and Todd - a very interesting interview (from Cracked Machine) - - - - -

"Shellac time, you know?" quips Steve Albini enigmatically.

"We just record stuff whenever we feel like it and if we ever get a bunch of songs together and we’re really happy with the way they sound then maybe we’ll put them out," explains Bob Weston a little more helpfully, "If after this week we feel we have an album’s worth of stuff then an album will come out next year (97) sometime. If not we’ll do some more recording in a couple of months."

"Don’t press us for a timetable," warns Steve, "Because even if we knew we were finished with it we wouldn’t have the slightest idea when it was coming out. We leave all those details to Touch and Go."

And when it finally graces the racks of your local record store don’t expect Shellac to drop everything for a big promotional tour to plug it. They all have time consuming jobs outside of the band: Steve and Bob both make a living recording other bands and Todd Trainer claims he manages a haircare products warehouse in Minneapolis. When they tour it’s usually because they want a holiday.

"Frankly, of the places we go, while we have friends here that we like, England is not the most entertaining place to tour," explains Steve diplomatically, "It’s OK, it’s not the worst. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not Texas in August."

"But it’s not Japan," adds Bob wistfully.

"It’s not New Zealand in the Spring either," points out Steve, concluding Shellac holiday destination recommendations.

Unlike most bands at their level of popularity Shellac don’t ask for a guaranteed sum of money for each show they perform and they’ll generally take the door minus the promoters expenses, fees and running costs. The show at the Hope and Anchor a couple of days before had made them just £100 and they’ve even played for as little as $50. At the other end of the scale they got $4700 for playing a festival in France.

"We wouldn’t bother taking a trip if we were going to be paying for the honour," explains Steve pragmatically, "Based on our experience we can figure out whether it’s going to cost us money to do the trip or not. If we want to do it and it’s financially viable we’ll do it. The dollar amount we get per night is immaterial."

"We don’t need to make money on a trip," continues Bob, "We just can’t lose it. We make money on our jobs. We do the band for fun. We figured we’d make enough money to cover our plane tickets so here we are!"

Shellac are more interested in playing unconventional venues than raking in big money. They’ve played quite a few gigs in relatively exotic locations, from a living room in a house in Princeton, New Jersey to a town hall with a giant art deco auditorium in Melbourne, Australia.

"At all the state fairs in the United States there will be a building that’s sponsored by the local 4H club, where the local farm children will display their prize rabbits or pumpkins. We played a 4H hall in Debuke, Iowa while the fair was going on, in this deserted fairground in this big concert hall with the 4H logo above the front door," recalls Steve, "That was entertaining."

Indeed it must have been the closest Shellac have come to actually playing at Action Park. A cool event on a smaller scale was their gig in Polly Harvey’s home village of Evershot, Dorset.

"Polly’s mum set up the show for us, a beautiful gig, fantastically organised," enthuses Steve, "She’s a veteran, been doing shows for twenty years. She does a great job and I recommend her to all bands."

Aside from Shellac activity, much of Bob and Steve’s time is taken up with their recording jobs. Steve is reticent about mentioning who he’s going to be recording but Bob has no such qualms.

"Arab On Radar from Providence, Rhode Island and Barry Black which the solo record of the guy from Archers Of Loaf. There’s this band I recorded about a year ago called Vitreous Humour. They broke up and reformed and I’m going to record a record for them but they’re now called the Regrets, a very regrettable name."

"Not as bad a name as Bunch Of Shit or the Bunch Of Fucking Goofs," points out Steve helpfully. Presumably he’s never recorded either band...

Bob was also about to record a band called Roadside Monument who Shellac met on the road in Montana, which came as a surprise to Steve and Todd.

"We drove into a gas station and there was a scuzzy rock van," remembers Steve, "and they had a bootleg Big Black sticker in the window. I walked over to the window and I tapped on the window and the guy rolled the window down and his eyes sort of bugged out. I said, "Do you realise you have a bootleg Big Black sticker in your window?" There was a lot of stammering and it was funny and then the kicker!"

One band that Bob has been involved with on a little more than just a recording basis is Rachel’s, Quarterstick’s contemporary classical ensemble which features ex-Rodan guitarist Jason Noble.

"I mixed the three records. I recorded all of the second and third records and some of the first one. I play on a few songs here and there. I’ve gone on some tours with them. It depends how long they want to go and how it fits in with my work schedule or my Shellac schedule which are more important then Rachel’s, for me. When I tour with them I do sound and play bass from the soundboard on a song or two."

"And trumpet!" Steve jogs his memory.

Unfortunately plans for Rachel’s to tour Europe have twice been scuppered due to the huge expense of getting seven people over here and hiring lots of rental equipment.

Steve may feel it’s not his place to talk about other people’s records but when questioned about Palace his admiration for Will Oldham is clear.

"I get along really well with Will Oldham in the studio because the demands that he makes on the recording session are totally in tune with the way I like to do things. He wants things to be up and running and ready to go pretty much at all times but he doesn’t want or expect any aesthetic judgement to be brought to bear on what he’s doing because he has really good instincts on all that. We get along famously in that regard. I can make sure everything is ready to go at the drop of a hat and then he can tell when it’s done. The thing about Palace is that I think Will’s words and the way he delivers his portion of it doesn’t really change that much. I mean it sure is different every time but I don’t think he approaches what he does drastically differently every time. It’s like a plate looks different in a different place setting and so he’s very careful about choosing the people that he works with so that the experience of doing it will be fun and he can also bank on the results. He likes to work with people of calibre so that he doesn’t have to make allowances for them. I’m a big fan of his methodology and I’m a big fan of his records."

One of Steve’s favourite records from ‘96 was actually a Palace album that Will scrapped. Not quite so obscure, unless you live in Europe where Elektra haven’t seen fit to release it, is Bob’s pick of ‘96, Scrawl’s Travel On Rider.

They also recommend a band from Louisville called Evergreen who had a record on Hi-Ball records, a single by Dianoga from Chicago, a folky single by Songs Ohia, David Pajo’s M who released an EP on Drag City and Steve was very impressed with a compilation of early MC5 singles and live recordings which is possibly a bootleg. And these guys have the nerve to call me a trainspotter for knowing that the dianoga is the monster in the sewer from Star Wars!

Shellac don’t look quite so cool when it comes to the first records they ever bought. Then again who does? Todd is a man who admits to being out of touch with the indieground and who recently replaced his worn out copy of Demons And Wizards by Uriah Heep. His first record was the Animals’ House Of The Rising Sun. Bob was a young glam metal fan, buying Destroyer by Kiss but it’s Steve who has the most embarrassing secret. Who would have thought such an uncompromising personality in the world of punk rock would’ve ever bought a John Denver record?

"The first record I bought that I went to the record shop to buy this specific record was the first Ramones album which I especially ordered," he says, trying to salvage an ounce of coolness.

"But what about Shellac’s own records?" I hear you frustrated readers yell, "That’s what we bought this piece of shit to read about!"

"The lyrics are definitely not the focal point of the music," states Bob, "They’re the last thing we’re worried about."

However they are more than happy to answer questions about the themes of songs despite their reticence to get tied down to specific lines and their antipathy towards lyric sheets.

"If you’ve ever written a song that had words in it and then written the words down and looked at them on a piece of paper they just look fucking retarded," explains Steve self-effacingly, "There’s just no reason to do that. The other thing is that I think that puts too much emphasis on the literal meaning of that version of the lyrics because the lyrics are quite fluid with us. The subject matter is generally pretty stable but the precise words that are sung aren’t. If I were somebody like Bob Dylan who wrote lyrics that were intended to be read in one specific way then maybe I wouldn’t be embarrassed about it."

So here in their own words Shellac describe just what those songs are all about:

SPOKE

This song was recorded for their Peel session but apart from that is played live only and will not appear on the next album. It’s the one that Steve prefaces with a little story that always ends in the words "Play the drum!" at which point Todd kicks into action.

Steve: "We wrote that song on the airplane trip on the way over actually. That’s one of those songs that we had that was a conceptual song that we didn’t have any music for until the tape started rolling. The concept was that Bob and I would alternate playing these droning parts, Todd played continuously and we would alternate hollering gibberish."

Bob: "It was just a matter of working out how many times we sang each gibberish and in what order. There are no words for me except the word "spoke" and I think I say "ABC"."

Todd: "Which isn’t actually a word. It was orchestrated on an air flight, brilliantly conceived and executed perfectly."

CANADA

Steve: "The fascination with Canada is normal for Americans if only because if you lived next door to a freak you’d want to peak through his window every now and then."

DOG AND PONY SHOW

When I asked them about this song I got tongue tied and called it "Dog and shony po".

Steve: "Shonies is a restaurant. Poe is one of the great men of letters from the last part of the nineteenth century. Specifically it’s about this legendary form of amusement that they have in Tijuana, Mexico where men watch women get fucked by all manner of animals as a sort of cabaret entertainment. I say legendary because no one has actually ever seen this happen but everyone knows that it goes on. It’s like the child pornography of the world or snuff films or satanic cults. Everyone accepts as fact that these things exist but no one has ever witnessed one. It was the story of a lot of different things but it does have that thread running through it: the recounting of the search for a dog and pony show by a guy who ended up in Tijuana for that reason alone."

They’ve all been to Tijuana separately and all looked in vain for the dog and pony show. Bob bought Steve a switchblade there for a birthday present.