Pitchfork

Ted Leo is Mr. Punk Rock, right? He spends all his time in the van, he wears the same t-shirt to two festivals in the same city within five weeks of each other, he plays so hard he bashes his face in (more on that later).

So what's he doing recording his new album on a farm in rural Massachusetts? Isn't that something that, like, Devendra or Brightblack Morning Light would do?

Actually, Ted Leo is being as punk as ever. At Long View Farms, where Leo, bandmates Dave Lerner and Chris Wilson, and producer Brendan Canty (Fugazi) recently holed up to work on their fifth album, conditions were pretty hardcore. "They have a barn with a recording studio," Leo explained in an interview with Pitchfork over the weekend. "The only drawback to the whole thing is you're tracking in the area above where all the horses are. By like the tenth day, the constant flies were really starting to bug me."

Perhaps because of those flies (or perhaps because we live in George W. Bush's America in 2006), the as-yet-untitled album is "a little more aggressive" than what we're used to from Mr. Leo. "In terms of sound, the drum sound and guitars and everything, kind of sounds like a 77 punk record," Leo said. "We did a lot of work on actually getting things like we wanted them to sound on the front end, and then listening back it was like, 'Wow that's the sound of an older record."

Not surprisingly, many of the titles of the 14 songs that have been recorded are appropriately punk-sounding: "Sons of Ten", "La Costa Brava", "World Stops Turning", "Born on Christmas Day", "Who Do You Love" (not a cover), "Some Beginner's Mind", "A Bottle of Bucky", "Army Bound," "Bomb Repeat Bomb", "The Toro and the Toreador", "The Unwanted Things", "The Loft Brigade", and "CIA".

All of the music has been recorded, and the band is working on vocals and mixing this week, with a spring 2007 release in mind. "There's some piano on there, some more folky instruments. I played a lot of mandolin on it," Leo said. Aggressive mandolin! We like the sound of that.

"Bomb Repeat Bomb" was originally written for a musical, tentatively titled Red Bananas, for which Leo contributed music. The musical is currently seeking funding, according to Leo. "Everything in that world just grinds a lot more slowly than I expected it to. Things like that are not nearly as cut and dry a process, I have discovered, as making a record."

Finally, we couldn't help asking Leo about his infamous on-stage injury at the Pitchfork Music Festival in July, when he hit himself in the forehead with his microphone during "Ballad of the Sin Eater", resulting in blood streaming down his face.

"It was pretty bad. It's not the first time that, in playing that song-- especially when we had other members playing guitar and I play tambourine during that song-- and there's one particular line, sometimes I need to add some kind of percussive element to it.

"That particular day was one of the times I felt like I needed to do that. It's just one of those things that if I'm in the right spirit, it feels like the right thing to do. I definitely did not intend to have a river of blood gushing down my face afterward, but I learned also that you don't really have as many nerve endings in your forehead as you think you might. Afterward, somebody tossed me a towel and I put it on and I looked at it after and realized how much I was bleeding. That was a little over the top."

Thankfully, there was no permanent damage.

Ted Leo/Pharmacists hit the road with Death Cab for Cutie later this month, and play a series of headlining shows in late November and early December.

Dates:

10-24 Northampton, MA - Pearl Street Ballroom *
10-26 Upper Darby, PA - Tower Theatre #
10-27 Rochester, NY - Auditorium Broadway Theatre #
10-28 Ottawa, Ontario - Ottawa Civic Centre #
10-30 Toronto, Ontario - Massey Hall #
11-01 Montreal, Quebec - Metropolis #
11-02 Boston, MA - Opera House #
11-04 Providence, RI - Providence Performing Arts Center #
11-06 Washington, DC - Constitution Hall #
11-08 New York, NY - Theatre at Madison Square Garden #
11-09 New York, NY - Theatre at Madison Square Garden #
11-10 Norfolk, VA - NorVA #
11-11 Belle Vernon, PA - Ice Garden Arena #
11-13 Columbus, OH - PromoWest Pavilion #
11-14 Indianapolis, IN - Murat Theatre #
11-15 Louisville, KY - Louisville Palace Theatre #
11-16 Birmingham, AL - BJCC Concert Hall #
11-17 Atlanta, GA - Fox Theatre #
11-18 Clemson, SC - Littlejohn Coliseum at Clemson University #
11-19 Orlando, FL - University of Central Florida #
11-20 Coral Gables, FL - University of Miami #
11-22 Jacksonville, FL - Jack Rabbits $
11-23 Mt. Pleasant, SC - Village Tavern $
11-24 Asheville, SC - The Grey Eagle $
11-25 Charlottesville, VA - Starr Hill $
11-29 Worchester, MA - The Grind at Clark University $
12-09 Seattle, WA - Key Arena #%
12-10 Seattle, WA - Neumos (KEXP Yule Tide)

* with Bullseye
# with Death Cab for Cutie
$ with Vague Angels
% with Jenny Lewis and the Watson Twins