Catching Up With... John Moen

Paste: How should fans of the Decemberists or your previous projects such as the Maroons or Stephen Malkmus’ Jicks think about Perhapst? What is the provenance of the project- is it a band thing, a solo thing with friends?
John Moen: At this point I’m not all that sure, actually. (laughs) I made it a long time ago- the Maroons had broken up, I was still excited about songs and music, but didn’t have a band, didn’t even want one at that point, was more excited about studio stuff. Not that I really used a proper studio, but that was the impetus. I have a feeling I’ll always like to make songs - it’s not a very concise answer, but it’s the truth.

Paste: So when was Perhapst recorded?
Moen: Definitely before I joined the Decemberists- so probably 2005-ish? I was just done with all the recording at that time, and still a member of the Jicks at that time, too. It was a weird in-between transition time. I didn’t get the album art done until last year, though. (laughs) I should also give proper credit to Eric Lovre, who was in the Dharma Bums with me, for his help in recording the album. I played all the instruments except a couple of guest-y bits, but Eric played bass and supplied amazing creative assistance.

Paste: Well this all blows my theory, then. My thinking was that, having spent time with both Malkmus in the Jicks and Colin Meloy in the Decemberists, the two of them had rubbed off on the songwriting heard on Perhapst. But given the chronology you’ve just laid out, it’s clear that this album is entirely yours.
Moen: True, although I’d say there’s some Steve influence- maybe not so much in the writing, per se. I mean, his record collection is amazing, and being in his band for five or six years, I learned a lot about music I didn’t even know I liked—folky stuff, that kind of thing. Definitely I’d credit him with that influence—not so much wanting to be Pavement or anything like that, the first obvious step, but several steps back. It’s a little more chaotic than the Maroons- I allowed a bunch of things to happen at once and didn’t really “check” that urge at all in terms of the textures [on] the album.

Paste: If anything, since you’ve left, the Jicks have become even more of a liberal-arts collective- the latest album is pretty shaggy-sounding. Your record certainly has a Pavement moment or two, but also some pastoral, Pink Floyd kind of stuff—Pentangle. I could swear there’s an autoharp on “HyperPlanets,” right? “Caution” is more of a locomotive blues- this record is definitely an “everything but the kitchen sink” sort of affair.
Moen: Hey, don’t forget Foghat! (laughs) It’s a little mish-mashy, and friends have told me that, too- “It’s nice, John, but a little unfocused.” But that’s fine with me. It’s how I am, I suppose.

Paste: Well that squares with one of my theories about Portland- everyone plays in multiple bands, simultaneously, and our city’s reputation for being an “indie rock Mecca,” or whatever, is sort of ridiculous when you consider how random, stylistically, the typical Portland band has always been. There’s no “Portland sound” or anything remotely like it.
Moen: That’s a really great point and doesn’t get talked about that much- totally true. With this record, for me, it represents my record collection WAY better than one of the Maroons records would have. I used to get reviewed as a “pop enthusiast” and truthfully I don’t know that much about pop - rock and folk, sure. Portland’s great that way- you can be in both a new wave band and a folk band and no-one thinks that sort of thing’s a conflict of interest. (laughs)

Paste: The only thing that really did remind me of the Maroons was “Maryanne,” which has a Byrds-like twelve string and more of a power-pop throughline to the melody. Otherwise, this is entirely unlike anything you’ve recorded before.
Moen: Yeah, there’s a lot of different things on there, I guess. (laughs) The only rule I had, as cliché as it sounds, was to have no rules- to let everything go where it wanted to go.

Paste: I laughed out loud when I heard “Bornless One” in the car today- the Satan-centric lyrics are seriously funny. I just about had to pull the car over before I hurt someone, probably me!
Moen: (laughs) You’re the first person I’ve spoken with to ask me about lyrics at all. I wrote ‘em so long ago, it’s funny to think about them- they’ve been in a void somewhere, not very listenable. I’m sort of a non-believer in most stuff but I also went through a big heavy metal period as a kid, like a lot of kids I know. Now, no-one cares about Satan and rock- but at the time, I thought about it a lot, and how that kind of glued itself to artists who’ve explored that and weren’t accepted, in their time. And that was the theme behind that song. Most of them are like collages- they’re not very “to the point.” (laughs)

Paste: It’s an album of watercolors rather than linear narratives- although you play with a writer, Colin Meloy, who’s talked with me before about using songs to tell the stories that are in his head, however fantastical they may be.
Moen: Right, right- some writers, for sure, are really good at telling a direct story. But I’m not one of those, necessarily. (laughs) I like it both ways.

Paste: “Incense Cone”- I don’t know what that story is, but it reminded me of hippies, the guitar part is almost Grateful Dead-like, and then it veers off and has nothing to do with either after the first minute of the song.
Moen: (laughs) Yeah, it’s a little slapped-together sometimes.

Paste: I told Malkmus that his latest record is my favorite one precisely because I couldn’t make head or tail of it. When we spoke, he couldn’t seem to either, really! He’s just pushing the band concept as far as he can and letting it happen under his watch.
Moen: (laughs) I love it too, actually! I dig how unchecked it is. So many things in life stay at this high school level- people competing with each other, being childish and taking that into adulthood. In music, you don’t really have to worry about who you’re going to please so much. It just barfs itself out in multi-colored fashion. (laughs) Prince is actually a good example of someone who’s rock and R & B at the same time, you know? At the time, he didn’t really fit in with anything either, which was great.

Paste: Getting off tangent, I wondered if I could ask you about the Galley Chef blog you took up while on tour with the Decemberists?
Moen: It started with a sincere desire to eat something good with limited ingredients and hardly any cooking apparatus involved. You may have noticed there’s only two entries- it’s conceptual art, maybe? (laughs) I actually wouldn’t have done it without Colin- I still don’t know much about making a blog, he helped me with photos and our record company insisted that I give it a try. Friends took the pictures, and I posed. The recipes are wholesome and mine, unless otherwise noted. (laughs)

Paste: This is starting to shape up as a year off for the Decemberists, right? Colin’s doing his solo tour and album, Chris Funk and Jenny Conlee are working with Ashleigh Flynn, you’ve got your record out now. What’s next for the band beyond this break?
Moen: I think that’s probably a fair statement. We had intended to have a year off. And then with the tour cancellation last fall, things shifted- but it’s been in the plans for a long time. There’s three of us with full-on families and all that, babies I should say, so that’s been really great. But this summer’s gonna be pretty thick with recording for us. Not touring, but still work. We’re excited about that, it’ll be fun to be home but working on something. The studio stuff’s my favorite thing anyway, after having the chance to tour the world a bit.

Paste: Colin’s told me the same thing- that it’s hard to take his kid around in a bus, hard to “stay well” on tour. The last time we talked it was clear that the more time he could spend at home making records, the happier he’d be.
Moen: Yeah, and you’d probably get that answer from a lot of musicians, especially those who’ve toured. I’d fall into that category, too. We have to go do our thing, too, of course.

Paste: So the Decemberists will be recording it locally [in Portland], then? I’m assuming with someone other than Chris Walla this time, given that Death Cab just started the big touring machine for their new album?
Moen: Yep, we’re excited about that, it’ll be fun. We just saw Walla this weekend, actually- we played a show with them in Bend. We’re going to be doing the whole thing with Tucker Martine, who was a co-conspirator on the last one, a former Seattle resident who’s down here now. He’s just fantastic to work with.

Paste: One of the “Chris Walla-led” batch of musicians fleeing Seattle for the cheaper, more artist-friendly confines of Portland! (laughs)
Moen: Yeah, exactly! It’s unfortunate, that dynamic, sometimes.

Paste: I don’t know if this is out in public now, but the fall cancellation started a huge rumor mill in the blogosphere about who the sick Decemberist was, was the “illness” real, will the band continue, that sort of thing. I’m sure it was a pain in the ass for you guys to come back to- it’s great to have super-interested and passionate fans, but boy, that really brought out the conspiracy theorists in packs.
Moen: Yeah, there’s not much of a company line on that- somebody needed more time without working, so we all just took time off. Unfortunately there was a huge plan in the works. (laughs) It sucked on a lot of levels but worked at the most important level of all, so that’s what happened. I’m fine. I think everyone’s gonna be fine. Time will figure all that out.

Paste: How are you dealing with the whole “rock n’ roll dad” thing?
Moen: Well, I dunno. That’s still very much in development. My daughter Louise [turned] a year old on the 28th of May. It’s amazing and I don’t know that I have it all wired just yet. (laughs) As luck would have it, I’ve been home a lot, more than I thought I would be in her first year. So I don’t have much experience being gone while she’s around. I’m a little nervous about that- we’re still getting to know each other! You’ll hear this from a lot of musicians, too- what else can I do, you know? I’m gonna be 40 this year, pretty old for a “rock star” with quotes, tongue in cheek- but it’s how I make my living now. I think that’s where the whole, “What if we just made records, and someone gave us enough money just to do that?” It’s not happening at that level in the industry right now.

Paste: That is the whole of the debate- the recorded music part of the equation is way less valued than it used to be.
Moen: It’s an interesting time- it’s so easy to make music now, anyone with a laptop and smarts to build out a MySpace site can be a band. I get confused in this day and age, to be perfectly honest about how much I’m a Luddite, as some level.

Paste: There used to be that old t-shirt “here’s three chords, now start a band.” Now it’ll be a laptop and a URL - “go start a band.”
Moen: (laughs) It kind of is! But you have to support that—anyone who wants to do it should have a chance. But it’s different than when I was first battling it out as a young man.