When I reviewed Field Studies a few years ago, it felt like there were songs on that record that were aimed at the music industry, the business aspect of what it’s like to try to make a living playing music. There’s some of that here, too.
Weiss: It’s another part of life that directly assaults us. That’s kind of our workplace, you know? It’s the context in which our music is heard, which is unfortunate. But we come from a time when things were much less corporate than they are today. Maybe the early-to-mid-‘80s, when nobody had any hope of achieving any sort of mainstream success. When you fly under the radar, there are a lot more interesting things that come about.
Coomes: We sort of struggled with this idea for a while, because our music is pretty accessible, I think. A lot of the sounds and structures we use come out of pop music. People think, “Oh, you’re a pop band. Why don’t you sign up with a big label, have some hotshot producer take out all the unsavory elements that prevent the radio from playing it, then you could make a million bucks?” I think there was a little bit of a perception of that. Just because we like the styles and sounds of certain types of pop music doesn’t mean that we’d say, “We’re not going to do that, we’re going to play hardcore, just to refute that.” We wanted to stick to our musical vocabulary, but push away the perception that we were feeling at that time. I think pretty successfully [laughs]. I haven’t seen so much the hair on the chinny chin chin of an A&R person for several years now. I think we’ve worked that out pretty well.
Weiss: Those are myths, that those people exist. I’ve never seen them ever. I’ve never personally talked to one of them about either of my bands. People always say, “You must have A&R people breathing down your neck,” and I’m like, “No, never.” We don’t. No free dinners for either band.

But there’s freedom in that. From the corporate game. From the fake, the puffery, the surreal.
Weiss: Not our scene.
Coomes: She’s not saying that with any kind of regret at all. [laughs]
Weiss: I think it’s interesting that there’s such a perception that A&R people are out there trying to find bands. I think there’s actually three or four bands they’re all trying to find.
Coomes: I’m talking about several years ago, before the bubble burst. I’m not sure that our actions had anything to do with the fact that those people are all gone now, but that was our intention.

What kind of affinity do you guys feel for a group like the White Stripes? They’re a duo (also former spouses), drawing from certain sources that are recognizable to rock audiences but not within any kind of mainstream context. They might emphasize image than you guys do, though. Maybe that’s their compromise.
Coomes: There’s certainly going to be a lot of pressure on them. I don’t know anything about what their intentions are, but—I’m imagining that every interview we do, certainly those we’ve done so far, we have to talk about the White Stripes. I love them, they’re a great band, Janet knows them, I’ve met them. They seem like nice people, I’d wish all the best for them.
Weiss: I don’t think they compromise at all, actually. It’s pretty interesting that they’ve achieved total mainstream success, but the first time I saw them they were playing to 10 people. It’s one of those stories: “I saw them before anyone knew who they were.” And they were doing the exact same thing. Same image—they didn’t change that to become famous. In that way, we do have that in common with them, in that we’re not interested in compromising, either. It’s just that they’re hugely famous. [laughs]

But I wouldn’t have predicted that for them. There may be some little thread between what made Led Zeppelin interesting to millions of people, and what strikes the indie audience about the Stripes. But it wasn’t a logical leap for me at all.
Weiss: But they don’t have John Bonham! [laughs] But they do have a very charismatic and chemistry-laden thing, and maybe people are hungry for that.
Coomes: Every couple of years, there’s some new thing ... I’ve been publicly performing and recording as a musician for over 20 years, so more than half my life. And every couple of years, the project I’m involved with gets compared with whoever’s popular at that time, who has some very big possible connection. And it always changes; first it’s R.E.M., then it’s Camper Van Beethoven, god knows who else. If you looked at the list of people we’ve been compared with over the years, they’re all very different. Something’s in the air at the time and everybody has to fit into that context.
Weiss: The press always said Nirvana sounded like the Beatles, too—which I always thought was hilarious. Hilarious. It’s like, “Well, it’s melodic.” One person said it, then everyone said it. If that’s the comparison, you’re just grabbing things out of a hat.

Well, there’s a pack mentality about rock criticism. Like how Interpol supposedly sounds like Joy Division. I’m like, “Do you remember listening to Ian Curtis when he was alive?” There isn’t a lot there for me to work from.
Weiss: Well, I’m sure it was in the press kit! In the bio! [laughs] I’m glad that our bio doesn’t say anything, it forces people to actually listen to the music and decide if they want to write about it. We don’t want to cram it down anyone’s throat. We didn’t just regurgitate our old songs onto a new record; you’d expect people to want to write something unique.
Coomes: Most rock journalists seem to be maybe one or two years out of college. They don’t know very much. They probably studied journalism in school and it’s the only job in the field they can get. They come and go. A million words of criticism get written by a million critics, and it rotates over the years. It sounds like you’ve been doing this for a number of years, but you’d be the exception. There’s a few people who really love music, and want to advocate and spread the word on the stuff they love and get people excited about that ...
Weiss: There’s crap bands and great bands. And there’s crap writers and great writers. But it should be respected as something that requires some skill. It’s natural that the musician isn’t going to feel that much affinity for the writer, because the writer tends to hurt the musician. Like you’ve been hurt by these people because they’ve criticized you.
Coomes: You have a band like us, who’ve done all right in the press. We haven’t been battered by the press, by any means. But it’s weird, I don’t know you, you seem like a nice guy. I get a good feeling from you; I like you. But musicians hate the press, hate critics. Even if you’re treated well by them. You’re still like, “How dare you judge me!” It’s human nature, really.

We get letters to MAGNET that say things like, “You wrote about X the same way you’d write about a new restaurant opening, and they’re not the same thing! Do your job!” And they’re right, really. It’s all very reductive in a way. Music is more like the selling of a piece of one’s soul than any restaurant opening could be. And yet, when it’s all said and done, we’re basically saying, “I’d recommend the new X album” in the same way you’d say, “You should try the Copper River salmon in butter sauce” at a particular restaurant.
Coomes: That’s funny. Months ago, I picked up The Consumer’s Guide To ‘90s Rock in this store. And it was like a book about toaster ovens or something! I thought, “Oh shit, I wonder what they’ve said about Quasi in here?” And what they wrote wasn’t even about the music. There was one line, which only mentioned me—not the music, the band, not even Janet—and it said, “Sam Coomes is the archetypical indie whiner.” That was it. That was the Consumer’s Guide To ‘90s Rock, their summary of my entire life’s work so far. [laughs]

The McReview: “Thank you. Drive through, please.”
Weiss: And he never forgot it, either! [laughs]
Coomes: At first I was really angry. I was like, “Who is this person? I’m gonna find them and slap ‘em around” or whatever. But then, after a few minutes, I chuckled and thought, “Who cares?” I do remember it. But I don’t remember who it is, I’ve forgotten that. But I should look it up, because I’d really like to confront him. [laughs] “You’ll be the one who’s whining after you meet me, mister.”

I think I read somewhere that you guys lost the Roxichord? It broke? Has that forced you into a different approach on the new record? This one is so guitar-heavy I just assumed that it played a role in how the sound was architected.
Coomes: Yeah, the Roxichord broke, but I play a fake one now; a digital keyboard with that sound loaded into it. But on this record, I didn’t play it at all.
Weiss: Sam often has these rules that pop up on each record. This one, there was going to be no Roxichord. And no doubling of vocals. For whatever reason, he comes up with these hard and fast rules. And it’s like a challenge—to the band, I think. Out of that no-Roxichord rule came the new sound: more piano, more guitar.

Well, a song as blues-oriented as “Master And Dog” isn’t much like anything you guys have done before.
Weiss: Our friend told us that the first half of the record was like Led Zeppelin III and the rest was like Physical Graffiti. To me, that’s the biggest compliment of all time.
Coomes: We’ve been playing that song for years. We played it on the last tour.

So the imposition of a rules set really does seem to change the trajectory of any given Quasi album, then.
Coomes: Well, the singing, the doubled vocals—I was disappointed with my vocals on the last record. I thought I was paying too much attention to them, trying to make them sound nice. And that had the net result of taking some of the character out of them. So this time, I just wanted to be more raw and not try to mess around with them too much. Try to belt it out, let it happen.

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