We've never seen such a condensed period of artistic corner-turning for so many of our barbaric-yawp-sounding losers-on-wax: Nick Cave, Bob Mould, Paul Westerberg, Eric Bachmann and, yes, Frank Black have each in their own way outstripped former-band personae and revealed themselves as songwriters serving life sentences. In a proclamation that echoes Jeff Goldblum’s quasi-famous line in The Fly, they’re not getting older—they’re getting better. In Black’s case, the magic started happening last year with Dog In The Sand, a crystallization of his mission with backing band the Catholics: playing American music, recording live to tape and embracing influences from Doug Sahm’s Texas country-psych and Exile On Main Street (Americana the Stones way) to Black’s own idiosyncratic vocal and lyrical tics formed with the Pixies in alt-rock’s primordial ooze.

Because his two latest albums—Devil’s Workshop and Black Letter Days, released simultaneously in August—are of equal quality and substance, there’s no need to differentiate between the two; simply know that the former begins with a Keith Richards-like guitar burst, and the latter is bookended by covers of Tom Waits’ “The Black Rider.” Black doesn’t scream through these honky blues and cult classics; he sings them as if he’s the last man standing.

MAGNET found Black—a sometimes unforgiving interviewee—in an affable mood the morning we called him at his home in Los Angeles.

I was wondering if you could tell me about this mobile recording studio you’re using.
It’s a studio, it’s on wheels, and we move it into whatever building we’re recording in. We move it around in a truck—it’s not ready to go like a fire truck in two minutes, it takes us six hours to break it down—there’s hydraulic lifts and things involved. I love being in a rock band, because it’s just like being a kid. I just play with big blocks and trucks, I stack blocks and unstack them, plug things in and turn them on and off, back up the truck, “OK, back up the truck! Beep-beep-beep! OK, we’re gonna drive to another city! Oh, let’s get out the map for that. Let’s go get gas and we’re thirsty, let’s get a nice cold drink at the gas station.” I mean, it’s just very simple, you know? [Laughs] And it’s satisfying.

Are you mechanically inclined?
No, I’m not mechanically inclined. I know how records are made and that’s what I do, so I know sort of how to put together a studio loosely. I can’t do all the subtle electronic stuff, I don’t do the engineering. I don’t get behind the board or anything, I hire a professional to do all the recording stuff. I’m the owner and the lowest-level employee of the studio. I’m the gopher. I go to the store to buy the part. The engineer gives me a list of things I need to buy for the studio and I have my little list: “OK, I’ll be back in a couple hours. You want me to pick you up a sandwich?” So yeah, but I know how it all works and that’s what I’m blowing my money on. [Laughs]

Were both albums recorded in this way?
Yeah, in town here, but in different locations, different buildings.

Did that have an effect on the songs?
No. Where we go does have an effect on the mood of the band sometimes, because depending on where we go, we may end up working in the evening instead of the day for some reason. It may affect the way that we attack the session. Devil’s Workshop is way more casual, we were working at night but had to stop by midnight, and I didn’t have any songs so I would have to go in at one in the afternoon and write a song. There was no pressure to make the record because we’d already made Black Letter Days. With Black Letter Days, we had to build a studio. Did we build a studio and then make Black Letter Days? No, we had to build a studio and pretend that we were making a record, so we made demos to try it all out and work out all the kinks.

You’ve got these coming out at the same time. Were you concerned, sales-wise, about doing both at once?
No, I wasn’t. I mean, other people are concerned, but if I really analyze what I think about it, nah. I don’t care. If I sell 30,000 of one album and 30,000 of another instead of 60,000 of each because my audience divides their patronage, I mean ...

I wouldn’t figure Frank Black fans would do that.
No, the loyal patrons are pretty good. I try my best not to give them every little piece of drivel that goes through my mind. I try to edit myself, I don’t put out board tapes from my European tour from last year. Not yet, anyway. We made a record that ended up on the Internet called Sunday Mill Valley Groove Day, and it was just an OK session but in general it was not an album, so we didn’t release it as an album. I had a few copies of it in my pocket and I was on tour and a couple of super-excited kids who seemed like they deserved something special happened to be there and I said, “Here you go,” and they posted it, like, the next day. I didn’t ask my audience to buy it. It’s a freebie, I’m not going to sell it.

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