Pitchfork

The notion of a fourth album from a band like the New Pornographers— the side-project-gone-amok that, among others, harbors principal songwriter Carl Newman, Destroyer's Dan Bejar, and titan-voiced troubadour Neko Case— seems an almost impossible feat. It's hard enough keeping centrally-located bandmates together, let alone riding out the schedules of so many otherwise-occupied musicians over the many miles that separate them.

But against the odds, Newman tells us that the band's fourth LP of dashing, deftly crafted pop will be out in August, and will almost certainly be titled Challengers.

Pitchfork spoke to Newman in a rare break from recording to discuss the album’s progress, his high hopes for his downtime at the Pitchfork Music Festival (at which the New Pornos will play), the pros and cons of indie rock endorsement deals, and the importance of brevity.

Pitchfork: How are you doing?

Carl Newman: All right. Just taking a day off from recording, sorting through receipts for taxes. It's hard to believe how much I spend on restaurants each year. Food. Food and shelter, that really takes up a lot of money.

Pitchfork: You're recording with the New Pornographers now?

Carl Newman: Yeah, we're about a week away from starting to mix our record. We're going to try and have it finished by the end of April, then it should come out at the end of August, something like that.

Pitchfork: Do you have a name for the record?

Carl Newman: I think it's going to be called Challengers.

Pitchfork: You're pretty confident about that?

Carl Newman: Yeah, I think that's what it's going to be called.

Pitchfork: Any song titles?

Carl Newman: Most of them are there. What are they? Let's see. Well, Dan's songs are called "Myriad Harbor" and "Entering White Cecilia" and "The Spirit of Giving", which first showed up as a Sub Pop single b-side years ago, which never got released, so it seemed safe to do it again. What else is there? A song called "All These Things That Go to Make Heaven and Earth" and "Go Places", there's a song called "Challengers", and there's a song called "All the Old Showstoppers". That's all I can think of right now. I'm always zoning out.

Pitchfork: Can you tell me how the record's shaping up, what it's sounding like?

Carl Newman: It definitely sounds like something that, when it's quiet, I think it's much quieter than it ever has been, to the point that there are actually songs that don't really have any drums. Or, a song that has no drums for the first half, but then the drums come in, and even then they don't come in that much. There's a little more instrumentation than we've really tried having before. We brought in a string quartet, and there's actually flute on it, there's going to be a little bit of trumpet. I feel like I kind of shied away from that in the past, but I thought, why not try it now? There was a long stretch there where I thought there were too many bands with strings and horns and flutes. Then I thought, I like those instruments, so I brought them in. Not that there's going to be that much of it on the record, per se, but you know, just wanted to add a few more colors to the palette.

Pitchfork: It seems, compared to Mass Romantic, the last couple records were a little more stripped-down production-wise and instrumentation-wise. Do you see Challengers as getting back to something you've done before? Or a whole new direction?

Carl Newman: That's a tough one; I don't think we'll ever really do another Mass Romantic record. I mean, that was kind of a strange, garage-y, really dense record. And a lot of it was very dense because we didn't even know any better. We just recorded a lot of stuff and were like, "let's put it all in the mix." And then it just ended up being this weird wall of sound thing, which we didn't really even attempt, but that's what it ended up being. I thought if there was any weakness of Mass Romantic that it was a bit too "push 'go' and then continue for 40 minutes on maximum." So I think ever since then, we've been trying to pull back. So many of the records I love just have everything in them, you know? Take the White Album. Even though people don't think it's the best Beatles record, I always loved it because it was so disparate sounding. And I think I've always wanted to make records like that. And so maybe it's no coincidence that we have four singers in the band; it's always a subliminal nod to the Beatles.

Pitchfork: You also mentioned in a recent interview with Billboard.com that one song on the record is fairly long, six or seven minutes. That seems to be a kind of departure for you.

Carl Newman: Yeah, it's currently six and a half minutes, but I'm going to try and edit it down. Who knows how much we can knock it down? We don't want to become one of those bands that puts out long albums. I think that, you know, hardly anybody can pull off putting out the really long album. So I think it's a kind thing to do to your fans to try to get your albums somewhere around 45 minutes. That's always been in the back of our heads. When you look at our last two records, Electric Version and Twin Cinema are 46 and 48 minutes, and we tried so hard to keep them that short. I remember at some point during the Twin Cinema sessions, I would be adding up all the songs and going, "Damn, we're at 50 minutes. We've got to cut something. We've got to shorten that outro, it doesn't need to be that long." Just on principle, we were like, we've got to shorten our record.

Pitchfork: Do you think that your style of hard-driving pop would be hard to take for 70, 80 minutes, like the length of a rap album or a double album?

Carl Newman: Yeah, definitely. I think it really, really would. That's one of the reasons why, at least personally I try to move away from that. You know, I think even hard driving pop records are hard to take in 45 minute doses. And I don't think I ever really wanted us to be a pop punk band; I never even really wanted us to be a power pop band. If we're any kind of power band, I kind of want it to be a power folk band.

Pitchfork: That's probably a more apt description of your music than just power pop. It's sprightly, sure, but it's substantive.

Carl Newman: I think we really walked into that label, because we put out some songs in our career that are full-on power pop in every way. A song like "Letter From an Occupant" is pretty much a power pop song. So we're kind of stuck with the label. We could put out an album of all ballads and people would still write, "This peppy power pop band's fourth album, made for rolling down the windows and cruising down the beach," or whatever people write about us.

Pitchfork: Do you get tired of that descriptive repetition?

Carl Newman: Not really. I think it's your own fault for paying attention to it. Why am I reading that stuff anyways? What purpose does it even serve to read what people write about you? If it's a bad review, it makes you sad, so, well, that doesn't help. And if it's a good review, well, what does that do? Does it make your ego bigger? That's not so productive either. I just try and pay no attention to what people write, for the most part. But it's hard, it's so hard. Ultimately, I can't help it, and I run to see what Pitchfork wrote about us. I don't know, I think we've really got a vicious review coming. It's been three albums and a solo album, and they've all been really positive from Pitchfork. I just-- I can feel the backlash coming.

Pitchfork: Well, you all keep putting out great records. We aren't giving you a free pass.

Carl Newman: Really? So it's true-- that proves my point. The backlash is due. There's no free passes for anybody.

Pitchfork: Well, we'll wait for it. You're playing our fest, so that might have something to do with it.

Carl Newman: Yeah, I'm looking forward to that; it's going to be fun. I really want to see [Sonic Youth's] Daydream Nation being played. It's actually really bizarre to see all this kind of nostalgia for a time that I remember. It's just so odd.

Pitchfork: Did you listen to that album a lot in 1988?

Carl Newman: Yeah, I saw them on the Daydream Nation tour. And yeah, I totally loved it and I thought they were awesome. They were like pretty much my favorite band at the time. The other day, I was watching TV and Austin City Limits came on and it was the Pixies, reunited and doing all their old songs, and I thought, man, this really brings me back, and I realized it was like 18 or 19 years ago, and I thought, that's crazy. Me listening to the Pixies was the equivalent of somebody in the 80s listening to the Beatles and going, "oh, I remember those old times."

Pitchfork: Both Dan and Neko had big years last year. What's it like roping those two giant egos back in when they've been out on their own, doing their thing?

Carl Newman: I don't know, I don't think we really have to rope any egos. It's the same as it's pretty much always been in that Dan has always been a satellite member of the band, but it's always been pretty easy to get him. But Neko, I'm actually kind of shocked that Neko always has an interest in the band, you know, as she gets more and more popular on her own. But I think she likes the New Pornographers in that it's something else for her to do, but we don't ask a huge amount of her. We realized a couple years ago that, for us to effectively exist as a band, we basically just had to treat it like, try and get Neko whenever we can, and whenever we can't we just have to play without her. And it's worked out very nicely. And I think Neko doesn't feel the pressure of having to play with us any more than she should.

Pitchfork: She must like it; she seems to give you quite a bit.

Carl Newman: Yeah definitely, I mean, sometimes when we start making a record, I forget all the people we have in the band, and it's kind of shocking. When Neko comes in and does her vocals, I go, "shit, she's really good, isn't she?" Or Dan sends his demos in and I go, "shit, Dan's a really, really good songwriter." Basically, everybody in the band. A real secret weapon on this record has actually been [longtime member] Todd Fancey. For whatever reason, the way the band is, the logistics, he's never really played that much on our records, but on this record we decided to bring him in and have him play a lot more, and he's really, really, really good. He played a lot more guitar and banjo and mandolin. I guess my whole point is that everybody in the band is just really good. Having Kathryn [Calder] as a full-time band member is a great thing, she singing a couple, one or two songs. It's just strange; when I look at everything we've got I feel like we kind of have an embarrassment of riches within the band.

Pitchfork: With all these other folks singing, how many opportunities do you have to get your voice in?

Carl Newman: Well, there's also the fact that we pretty much all sing. Like, some songs it's really hard to say who the singer is. On some of our more well-known songs like "The Laws Have Changed" or "The Bleeding Heart Show", who's the lead singer? Is it me? Is it Neko? And I've always kind of liked it that way. I mean, it's funny that we've been known as this band that's full of these personalities, because initially I really wanted us to be a faceless band, where everybody sang, and it didn't really matter who was singing. I've thrown out the Alan Parsons Project as a comparison and people constantly scoff at it, but there's a certain level of truth to that. Like, he wanted it to be a band that was just known for being this band, but inadvertently filled that band with too many personalities. We can't be that band; we're the New Pornographers, and we're full of all these people who have different things that they do.

Pitchfork: You guys seem to be doing as much in this band as any other band; four albums in seven years, lots of touring. Plus, everyone else has their own projects. Is it strange that this band that began as a thing on the side for a lot of you has become such a big deal?

Carl Newman: It's been strange in that we were never meant to become popular. Everybody wants to be popular, but we never expected it. If I was trying to put together a band that was trying to become really popular, I don't think I would have just filled it with people that all have their own things. I probably would have filled it with people who could dedicate themselves 100% to it. So, from the moment Mass Romantic started getting attention until now, we've just been going, "How the hell are we going to do this?" There have always been things working against it, like trying to get all the members together, and different people quit, or leave, or can't make it, and you have to bring in new people. It's always been a lot of strange logistics. How are we going to record our album when everybody's scattered to the four corners of the earth? Considering all those things, I really can't believe how far we've gotten. It just shocks me, because we're just not your average band. The average band doesn't have four singers. At least I don't think they do.

Pitchfork: Depends on who you're talking about. Kiss did.

Carl Newman: Yeah, and Fleetwood Mac had three. We're like Fleetwood Mac if Dylan joined. That's big talk. That can be the pull quote.

Pitchfork: I know you have a few dates scheduled in Europe, but are there any plans to tour behind the record this summer?

Carl Newman: Yeah, September, October, we're going to be touring. Until then, we're doing Pitchfork Festival-- of course-and we're playing Battery Park in New York for July 4th. In June, we're going to England and doing three London club dates, and Glastonbury. That's kind of a new thing; we've never really spent that much time in Europe. We're trying to make a go of it. I think in August we're going to do some festivals in Europe again, and hopefully if all goes well, the record will come out in August, and then we'll start touring here in September and October, so that's the plan. Not a lot of free time.

Pitchfork: Are Dan and Neko going to tour with you?

Carl Newman: Well, I know Neko is coming with us in the fall. God knows if Dan is ever going to tour with us again; it's a tough one.

Pitchfork: I saw an ad for one of those quasi-legit universities, the University of Phoenix, and it happened to have a song of yours in the background.

Carl Newman: Yeah, I know. It's weird, isn't it?

Pitchfork: What's the deal with that?

Carl Newman: It's one of those things that just, you get a call, and somebody said "hey, the University of Phoenix wants to use the end of "Bleeding Heart Show" in a commercial." And I thought, "eh, fair enough." And I really honestly didn't know that University of Phoenix was a huge online university. I actually thought it was, like, the University of Phoenix; like, every city has its big university, you know? And I thought, "oh, it'll show in the Southwest." It seemed kind of odd to me, like, I've never heard of a university having a TV commercial, but I thought, oh well. All of a sudden, people started saying "I saw your commercial during 'Saturday Night Live'" or "I saw your commercial during 'American Idol'," and I thought, "what the hell is up with that?" Then I began to realize that, well, I guess we inadvertently signed up to be in a big commercial. How about that?

Pitchfork: Does it seem odd to be connected with a sketchy university?

Carl Newman: You know, if University of Phoenix is some kind of scam, then I suppose I'd feel kind of stupid for being a part of it, but you know, I can't really say that I have much of an opinion, you know? It's a university, or a school, and it might be a crappy school, but it seems like letting a crappy school use your song is probably better than letting the best business use your song. I'm not overly political, but if Wal-Mart wanted to use the song, I would just go, "fuck off, no chance in hell." But for a lot of other things, I'm not so precious about our music. A lot of work went into it-- you record your song and you mix it and you put it out and it's there in the world, and as for the rest of it, I can't really stop people from doing with it what they want. Songs always mean the same thing to me regardless of whether they're in a commercial or playing in the background on "The Office" or whatever. I don't really have any... I'm kind of shocked that I have to talk about it.

One thing that made me feel better was, right around the time that commercial started showing up, there was also the Outback Steakhouse commercial with Of Montreal in it. And I thought, "thank God, that's really going to deflect some attention away from us." At least we didn't give our song to Outback. Now I'm afraid if I accidentally say something about the University of Phoenix that a hammer is going to come down on my head, or I'll find myself in a lawsuit. My official stance is, "I fully support the University of Phoenix," but to back that, I honestly didn't know what it was. But then again, if I did know what it was, I'm not sure that I would have said no. We're just trying to get by in this world. When you play music for so long and don't make any money, and people start offering you money for things that involve no effort on your part, you start going, "I'll do that."

Pitchfork: Any plans for another solo record?

Carl Newman: I'm actually kind of thinking about it now. I mean, I don't know when I'll get the time to do it, but I do really want to do one. I've got some songs sitting in my head that I think I want to make a solo album around. It's something I want to try and do-- I'm thinking I wouldn't mind doing a pseudo-Astral Weeks record, where you just bring in a bunch of really shit hot players and get them to play. It won't be nearly as good as Astral Weeks-- let me preface that by saying it won't be 1/100th as good as Astral Weeks-- but I'm kind of fascinated by the idea of surrounding myself with just really, really good players, just playing songs and seeing what comes out.

Pitchfork: You seem to do that a lot.

Carl Newman: Yeah, I guess so. But I'm thinking of having a cello player, and a violin player, and a flute player, you know. I've been listening to a lot of Kevin Ayers, so I've been feeling the urge to do a record that sounds like Joy of a Toy or Shooting at the Moon. We'll see. It's all just bullshit right now, it's just the things I do to distract myself from the matter at hand, which is finishing the Pornographers record.

Pitchfork: And doing your taxes.