Pitchfork

The Faint aren't just perfectionists-- they're egalitarians, too. And in their own private utopia, the mascara-happy Omaha neo-wavers haven't completed a new song until all five band members decide it's complete. That is why-- as bassist Joel Petersen revealed in a recent interview with Pitchfork-- we've yet to see a follow-up to the Faint's 2004 LP Wet From Birth.

"Originally we were hoping to have the record done right now," said Petersen. "But, well, that's not happening!"

Chalk it up to democracy. "It's pretty much been the founding policy of the band that we keep working on stuff 'til we're all happy. And sometimes to make five people happy, you have to try five different ideas on every little thing-- it just kind of takes a long time."

"But in the end," Joel continued, "we feel it's worth it...if something passes all our standards and hopes and everything, then it's good."

The Faint are presently in the throes of writing their fifth longplayer, which is a far cry from having a title. A new album isn't the only thing they're working on, as the band is also building a brand new studio, which they've named Enamel. "We're actually building [it] right now," said Petersen, "with the intention of recording our own record [there] and making it our new little club house."

Writing continues despite the construction project, and the Faint are making headway. "In our practice space," Joel explained, "we have a little dry-erase marker board thing, and we have the red side and the black side." Black means "done for now," while red indicates fragments and songs in progress. "It's a big deal to move from the red side to the black side, and on the black side I think we have something like eight [songs]-- on the red, probably somewhere around 20."

"To go to the black side you have to have a song title as well," continued Petersen. And several recent Faint concoctions do, including "Forever Growing Centipedes", "The Geeks Were Right", "Get Seduced", and "Fish in a Womb".

As for the sound, the Faint are trying a slightly less synthetic approach this time around, with the goal of making "more expressive" music. "Part of what we're trying to do on this record is treat it more like the five of us as a band, whereas on the last record...even in songwriting and everything, we all pretty much huddled around the computer and just tried different sequencing ideas and stuff.

"It felt very weird to write the record like that, so overall we've been more interested in human interaction on this record."

In terms of a potential release date, "right now we're just saying the record is going to be done when it's damn good and ready to be done," said Petersen with a laugh. "Ideally though, we're probably going to start recording in the next few months, and then that may take a few months, and hopefully we'll feel good about it and not want to redo everything. And that will be that."

Before recording begins, however, the Faint will test the new material on the road at a few previously reported gigs-- including their first SXSW appearance in seven years. "I can't say I love the whole industry aspect of [SXSW]," Petersen confessed, "but...it's really cool to have so many bands converge into one place for a little while."

In between writing, building the studio, and planning the mini-tour, Joel also decided to start the next Broken Spindles record. "It's gonna blow your mind!" he teased.

Among Petersen's goals for the new Broken Spindles: "putting more 'me' into the songs-- trying to be less vague, less ambiguous. Musically, I'm just tired of programming. I just want to play more; I'm probably going to have live drums and it may sound a bit more like a band than an electronic record."

Songs include "I've Never Been This Afraid", which Petersen says addresses "all the thoughts that were going through my head" when a significant other left the country for a long stretch. "The song is about...realizing that I'[d] just given away the best thing in my life."

Joel hopes to wrap up the record in the next couple weeks and release it in the fall via Saddle Creek. Don't be surprised if it has a little geometric humanoid on the cover.

Faint dates:

03-12 Minneapolis, MN - First Avenue *
03-13 Urbana, IL - Canopy Club *
03-14 Nashville, TN - Cannery Ballroom *
03-15 St. Louis, MO - Pageant *
03-16 Austin, TX - Eternal (SXSW) *#

* with Flowers Forever
# with Peter and the Wolf, Hymns, Pela