So how’s everything going? You have a pretty massive tour that’s just getting started?
We actually just finished a massive tour. In a week we do about two weeks worth of shows in the North West and then we’re done. We have a trip to Australia, and that’s all we have planned.
So how has the tour gone?
It’s been good. Yeah, we had a good time.
What’s life on the road like for Built To Spill? Do you guys have a bus that you travel around in with many ridiculous adventures?
Yeah it’s non-stop excitement and fun. [Laughs] You know, we used to tour using two vans and then a couple of years ago we started touring on a bus. We lease the bus for about a month or so, but for this trip we’re doing in the North West we’re just getting one of those sprinter vans and staying in hotels and stuff, but when we live on the bus we live on it; we don’t have hotels rooms, we sleep n the bus every night.
Does that make it harder or more interesting when you kind of rough I a little bit?
Oh, you know, it’s all right…its not too bad. The bus is pretty good, it’s pretty comfortable. It’s better than you’d think it would but it’s also not as great as you’d think it would be.
It gets you ready for those RV trips when you retire…
Exactly. It’s nice to have a nice backstage. We’ve played some clubs that don’t have much of a backstage. And also, you can go take a nap whenever you want. You can be on a weird schedule sometimes when you’re on tour so it’s convenient sometimes to be able to take a nap after sound check, whereas sometimes your hotel is far away and it’s a pain in the ass.
So you’re coming of the back of your most recent record ‘There Is No Enemy’ and you guys seem to be really just channelling more buzz than ever, and I think you’ve been quoted as saying your band has never been better. Is that something you feel has been the case?
Definitely, I think the more you do something the better you get at it, you know. I guess there are certain things that take time, like your physical…you know, athletes, don’t get better! The activity we’re doing is something that you do get better at. I don’t know how people feels about the songs we write or anything like that, but as far as performing shows live, you know, we’ve just got to figure out how to get better tones out of your guitar and amps, figure out, you know, a lot of stuff. It takes year to figure out things for me at least, and I feel like we’re getting better.
And, I mean, the album itself did huge success in terms of the medias reaction to it at the very least. How are audiences responding to it?
Fine I guess. We don’t go on tour and play all the songs from our new record; we’ve just never done that. We kind of shy away from it because we’re usually a little burned out on the new record when we finish it, and with this record some things kind of changed in the studio, through the songs, so we really had to learn a few of the songs. We still play two or three songs from the new record each night and then play a lot of old songs still. To me it just faded into the catalogue immediately, I don’t feel anything special about the new record. I don’t know what the fans think. I’m proud of the record, as much as anything else that we’ve done. I kind of just keep moving forward. I don’t pay much attention to what I’ve done in the past. I might have when I was younger, but now I usually get disappointed so I don’t even bother looking back.
Well fair enough. Are you this kind of band that keeps writing consistently or do you keep focused on it when you sit down to write a new album?
As far as the band…I’m not really sure. We kind of do each record differently; we don’t have a specific way of working. I’m always working on stuff. I have twenty little bits and pieces of things that I’m always working on that are at different stages of being written. It takes years for me to write.
Yeah, I remember, I was at SXSW or one of those conferences and there was a well-known Australian song writer who was saying that he’s pretty happy if he’s written two songs in a year.
Yeah, I mean I might sort of be like that too. In a way it’s like, you know, we’re all over forty years old and we have a catalogue. We’re better musicians. I feel like we could just not make another record and still play our old songs and that would be fine. I would find that status fine. I don’t get tired of playing these songs. I thought I would when I was younger. There’s always ways to improve them and work on them and each time you play, you play in front of people who haven’t heard them or haven’t heard them for a while or haven’t heard them live yet. You get all kinds of energy from the crowd, at the same time I’d like to keep doing stuff. I have another band, my old high school band, and we’re gonna make a record. To me, it feels like time goes so fast that the older you get the days just fly by, and I can’t imagine writing more than a handful of songs a year.
It’s seems pretty ridiculous that we’re talking about you being back in Australia, but is this your second visit down here?
It is, yeah.
So how were your experiences on your last tour and what can we expect from you this time around?
We had a blast, I think you know it’ll be a similar show I’m sure. We have this website that keeps track of all our shows and sometimes they have set lists so I’ll try to look at the set list and mix it up a little if I can. You know, we have maybe 40-45 songs to choose from so we’ll try to mix it across all the records. Write a different set list every night and change the order of the songs around. We have a kind of closing song that we play, but other than that just try to mix it up every night.
So you were mention that you’ve got a website that follows your set lists. I know there are quite a few prolific American bands that have that sort of dedicated online following; have you found that there really is this kind of grassroots following to Built To Spill in the internet circles?
I really don’t pay attention to it and I’ve only just started using this website as a resource. Half way through the tour I started using it to decide what songs to play. You know, on the tour we were playing two years ago I just wanted to make sure that we weren’t playing the exact same set lists. But yeah, I don’t really pay much attention to the internet and websites about Built To Spill. When our record came out I tried to look for some reviews cause I had no idea how to gauge what we had done at all, but I feel like anytime I’ve done that I came away from it not feeling very good. I feel like that information really doesn’t need to be in my head.
I can understand that. There has been quite a bit of buzz online nonetheless and we hear that you got to play ATP in April, and Matt Groening was the curator?
Yeah. A couple of times we’ve played when Matt Groening’s been the curator and I don’t think he picks us. The first time that we played when he curated it I met him, briefly because I was walking around earlier in the day, and he didn’t know who I was at all, he hadn’t heard of my band. But that’s fine, and we got to open for The Stooges at the one we just played.
That sounds really cool, but it sounds like we’re not going to see you on The Simpsons any time soon!
I bothered him to get his autograph for my son and he seemed pretty bothered by it, pretty annoyed, but I was determined, and I don’t think I’ve ever asked anyone for an autograph, but he drew a little Bart on the schedule for the ATP thing.
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Transcription by Marc Knevett
