Contextually, how does the drug-addiction metaphor play out in the storyline to The Forgotten Arm?
It’s funny, because my last record was a lot about isolation and people living in separate worlds that other people can’t even understand, which drug addiction is the perfect negative example of. Your priorities as a drug addict are so specific, and other people outside that world just don’t get it. But with this (album), my vivid experiences with people with substance abuse problems, the metaphor becomes more about abandonment, or isolation and self-loathing, and all the other issues that go along with drug addiction. And wanting to help people but not knowing how, and it’s very difficult to come to terms with the idea that you can’t help them at all. But you can help people in ways you never know; I was just talking to somebody about this last night. With drug addicts, you’re like, “Maybe I can talk them into treatment.” Or “bully them into seeing a therapist.” To help them.

So in thinking about other concept albums that relate to your themes, it struck me that The Forgotten Arm is kind of an interesting blend of Springsteen’s Nebraska, Miles Davis’ Jack Johnson tribute, and Alice In Chains’ Dirt, where Layne Staley meditates on addiction and its aftermath for an entire album. Were there other concept works you carried with you in your head going into the studio? Your press release mentions some very specific records from the ’70s, like stuff from Rod Stewart and the Band.
Isn’t Rod’s first solo album Every Picture Tells A Story?

No, I think it was either An Old Raincoat Won’t Ever Let You Down or Gasoline Alley. Something from around 1970.
That era of Rod Stewart, some of those songs individually were big influences on this record. “Maggie May” is the quintessential “people running off together” story and it’s a fucking disaster. It’s not, “Do you love her or not?” It’s a very mature, complex thing, but in the context of this very specific story all you’re left to say is, “Poor everyone.” [laughs] That was a big influence on this record, too, because they run off together and they’re hoping something’s going to happen. Lives are going to change! But instead, it’s this big mess. Hanging out with this old lady, old gal, it’s a disaster and his life is kinda fucked. So what is Gasoline Alley?

I’m not sure that it, or hell, even Carole King’s Tapestry, is really a concept album—more like a song cycle of related songs. Or Frank Sinatra’s In The Wee Small Hours, another song cycle connected to a theme that runs through all the tracks. But Rod’s first few albums seem to be a series of stories. Maybe they don’t touch each other, but there’s a cyclical quality to them. Lots of covers that he reworked significantly.
Sure! Tumbleweed Connection by Elton John, which is that kind of Civil War/Southern/Georgia thing, they don’t necessarily touch each other, and a few songs that are like, “This is a total psychedelic number!” But the songs all have a down-home flavor that runs together or hangs together.

Or the Band. The first time I heard Music From Big Pink I had none of the context about Dylan, The Basement Tapes, the house in Woodstock, voices of their generation, any of that. I just heard a group of guys making rustic music about memories and emotions, and it was totally out of step with everything being made around them, but hung together as a whole. Maybe I’m just mistaking really great albums, the kind you can remember the exact track order to, for concept records.
I was listening to that record, to Rod, Carole King is another one. That’s the kind of record I wanted to make with a little bump up in the story, with the same characters running throughout the story. One of my favorite books is Fitzgerald’s The Basil And Josephine Stories, and they don’t really tell a narrative, more like a vignette from each of them. But they tie in together, more or less in chronological order.

So I’ve heard that Michael (Penn, Mann’s husband and brother of actor Sean) is making a concept record, too?
Yeah, which I didn’t really know until we were talking about it recently. Michael certainly has concepts. We saw this crazy painting at the swap meet, it’s this boy wearing a sash that says “Mr. Hollywood Junior, 1947” on it. And Michael’s fascinated by this painting, was going to use it for the cover but the artist died, and he couldn’t get permission [from the artist’s heirs]. So he’s totally fascinated by the year 1947; when Israel became a separate state, television became a national thing, all these pivotal events happened. And he’s a bit of a conspiracy-theory kind of guy, and with the end of the war, the creation of certain government agencies—now I’m not sure that I can actually tell you what the concept was. [laughs] He was tying them all together in his record, and I don’t know if it’s a narrative or more of a song cycle where the songs kind of reflect themes off of each other. He discovered the Honeydogs, and introduced it to me, and without that record, I’m not sure that either of us would have had these ideas. But also, the time is just ripe, that record was great, and it’s a real reaction against the one single/one song/put nothing into it kind of pop music, where you can really hear the machinery behind it, and feel the manipulation and calculation behind it from the record companies. “Gimme somethin’ that sounds like Britney!” Very, very manufactured to sell, which I certainly understand that we’re all trying to make a living, but I’m not thinking about that when I’m making it. And if that’s your sole motivation, it’s going to reflect that narcissistic greed, and you’re going to hear it in the music.

I have a six-year-old, and his thing is to turn on Radio Disney in the car, and I get such an allergic reaction to listening to that music and the context into which it falls. I’m really working on him about that. [laughs]
How little bait do we have to use on the hook? How small a hook, how small the bait, to land the fish? I guess there’s a school of thought that says this kind of manufactured music has always been around; the girl groups from Motown in the ’60s, the Ronettes, that sort of thing, where the songs are performed and written by other people, they bring makeup artists. Even the Monkees! Goffin King songs. Those things still had more feeling than (name your female singer with high heels workout-body autotuned vocals) artist.

We’ve just gone through the year of the indie-rock reunion, and I think of people like the Pixies and whether they’ve paved the way for bands like ‘Til Tuesday to hit the road for a tour/payday. Would you ever consider a one-off tour?
No, I don’t think so. You know what, the drummer is my manager. He’s busy. And I’m busy. [laughs] If it was a limited thing, if it was a giant payday and it would give the other two guys a chunk of money, and it didn’t cost a lot of blood, sweat and tears to put together, then I might consider it. I wouldn’t want to take time away—every show I play, for me, it’s about my record, it’s more fun for me to do that. But if it was a big payday and those guys needed the money, sure. I don’t even mean that in an altruistic sense. I don’t need the dough, though. But I wouldn’t want to be a dick and go, “no.” They might need the dough. But having said that, there’s a limit to how much bad music I wanna play. I did it when I was young, and some of the music was OK, but it wasn’t great.