Modest Mouse Talk Music Cruises, Time Travel, Rollercoasters and Hot Air Balloons, and Psychic Salamander Festival

What makes a festival good for you, as someone playing it? Any festivals you wanted to emulate?

I like ones where it seems like the place where [the festival’s] going on would be nice to be at regardless of whether there was a festival there. Like, is it just a big empty lot and there’s a festival there because it’s available, or is it actually cool as hell because there’s other shit to do and that’s actually fun?

Remlinger Farms sounds great on that front—the amusement park and the pig and the petting zoo and all that. Sweet that it’s so close to [your hometown of] Issaquah, too. Is it going to be a homecoming in a way, especially because you’ve been touring so much? Are a lot of friends from the area coming?

I haven’t checked yet. I’m on the road. Everyone will call me the day of the show. I think that’s how that works. And yeah, I’d do it Issaquah if I could, but there just isn’t the same fun spot. This sort of thing just doesn’t exist in Issaquah. It just exists next door, you know? Honestly, there’s not a lot of places where you could put on things like this in general. So finding the perfect fit—like a Six Flags you do a festival at or something—most likely wasn’t going to fucking happen. But this is a cute version of that.

Wait, your perfect festival would be at Six Flags?

I mean, I don’t know. It would probably be fun. Although, I personally fucking hate roller coasters that are that intense. It’s just too much for me. I mean, I’ve done it many a time. But before it even gets to the down part—like, when you’re going up the hill and you start hearing that clicking sound, like, “click, click, click”—you’re like, “What the fuck am I doing?”

“Do I have a death wish? Why am I doing this?”

Like, I don’t like being terrified, and that’s what’s about to happen! But yeah, there have been all sorts of things over the years that have been cool. Firefly Fest on the East Coast had a hot air balloon at first, which was cool. You just get in the basket, and then you go up, and you just kinda get to look at everyone. It’s something to do. We were talking about maybe getting a hot air balloon at one point.

Oh, you absolutely should. I realized this year I’ve actually never seen a hot air balloon in person and that threw me for a loop.

My cousin used to fly hot air balloons in Colorado, and he-

As a career?

No, but as a full-time hobby. As a lifestyle. There are people who are real intense about it—it’s a whole community. All the hot air balloon people do all the hot air balloon people shit. And it’s one of those things where, like, when you’re up there, you’re looking around, and you’re like, “Okay, this is a nylon balloon with a fucking flame being burned into it, and that’s how this is all working. Uh, why does this seem like a good idea again?” Why doesn’t this go horrifically wrong a lot more often? It’s got all the right ingredients—wicker basket, big propane gas, box flame, a giant nylon parachute…

Like, how did someone find out they could do that without dying? It’s crazy.

Yeah. Especially because they figured that out before they had lightweight nylons and shit. Like, they were going up in fucking canvas balloons.

Remlinger Farms, at least, seems to have a dearth of potentially life-threatening entertainment—which is probably a good thing, considering the fest is free for kids under 12! It’s adorable how much the fest seems geared towards “fun for the whole family” and all that; the petting zoo and rides and everything. It’s especially funny to me because I recently saw this study from, like, 2016 that claimed Modest Mouse was the second most profane band in indie rock and estimated that you used profanity every 310 words, which is crazy specific, for one thing. But between the petting zoo and an interview you did a few years back where you talked “fighting the urge to do a children’s record,” I’ve got to ask: Is Modest Mouse going kid-friendly?

Well, I mean, I wasn’t like, “Hey, let’s find a kid-friendly place for the festival, that’s a top priority,” or whatever. The people who were promoting this and helped get this off the ground—they did Sasquatch and Thing Fest and all that—just suggested this place and it all lined up. There’s things to do. There’s a brewpub, you can wander around, you can ride a miniature train and shit. It’s not white knuckle fun, but it definitely beats a hot fucking parking lot with lots of bands. I mean, like, they put a brewpub down next to a petting zoo. Let’s see what happens.

And as far as the children’s record thing goes, that was just a video we made with a guy who used to be in our band named Tom—we called it Tom The Hillbilly—where he’s singing a traditional song, and then we were animating it so that I was a worm crawling in and out of his brain and ears, harassing him as I loved to do.

Classic kids music stuff.

But yeah, no, we didn’t finish that. My friend Dylan put a lot of effort into animating and shit, and I just didn’t get my part together. But, you know, it’s still there, should I find myself with much idle time.

True—although based on the fest, touring, an upcoming album, and also a cruise, it doesn’t seem like you will have much idle time! Which, by the way: are you a cruise guy? How did that come to be?

Honestly, I just tossed it out once as, like, “That would be ridiculous.” I didn’t even know that music cruises were a thing when I started the conversation about doing it. I had no idea that this was actually something that bands were doing. I’d heard of a friend doing some blues fest cruise, but I thought that was just an anomaly or something. So I mentioned it to my management—like, “I want to do a cruise!”—thinking they’d be, like, [in a pacifying voice] “Of course you do, Isaac, of course.” But then my management came back, and they were like, “We’re talking to people who do this all the time,” and I realized, “Oh shit, this is gonna happen then.” So, basically, I just thought it would be a ridiculous idea, and it turns out it is—and turns out it is also one that people already seem to enjoy, so fuck it.

Have you been on a cruise before?

I have never been on a cruise before.

Oh, shit. What a way to kick things off then. So you’re not a cruise guy?

It’s mostly just that the destinations often aren’t what I’d want to go to. Like, in my mind for this cruise, initially I was thinking a cruise to Australia.

…Wouldn’t that take a long time? Like, wouldn’t that be a crazy long cruise?

Yeah, well, mostly I just wanted to find a way to get to Australia or New Zealand without a flight. But, you know, turns out that’s not really a thing. At least, not that I know of. So then I started thinking about doing a cruise up to Alaska—that was a conversation we had initially, about having it be from Seattle to Alaska. But then the people who do this were like, “Yeah, I don’t know,, it’s too many rules going the coastline about noise, you can’t really have bands, couldn’t have a swimming pool…” Maybe it’s weather related or whatever, all this shit. So eventually I was like, “Okay, fine, let’s go tropical.”

The name for the cruise is Ice Cream Floats, which is obviously a reference to “Ice Cream Party.” But then there’s the Psychic Salamander Fest—which… isn’t a reference to anything, I don’t think?

Yeah, well, I think festivals almost always have stupid names. And I don’t want to break with tradition, so stupid name ahoy!

The name mostly came from the fact that you’ve been enjoying watching the salamanders in your backyard, right? I get the salamanders part, but what’s the deal with “psychic?” Is the idea that these are, like, telekinetic salamanders?

I like to imagine so, because they’re short on words, and I pick them up and scare them a lot. Usually they’re just saying, “Put me down, so I can continue crawling slowly on the ground.”

Wise words. Are you bringing any salamanders from home to the fest as little mascots? Or to be in the petting zoo?

No, I don’t like to stress them.

I think if they could talk, they’d appreciate that. Anyways, one of the sets you’re doing at the fest is obviously a full run-through of The Moon & Antarctica, which is sick. You’ve done quite a few tours with full album sets now—I caught a Lonesome Crowded West show a few years back, which was incredible—so was there any difference in preparing for the Moon & Antarctica set compared to the other ones?

Yeah, but mostly because this time we’re having to learn everything on the road. Good News [For People Who Love Bad News] was pretty easy, because we were pretty much playing everything off that record anyways. It was like three songs to learn. But this one’s a lot harder, both because we’re having to learn all this shit only during sound checks, and also because some of the songs themselves are just more difficult to do on tour.

To be honest, a week ago I was nervous, but now that we’ve got “Life Like Weeds” pretty much nailed, I think it’s starting to come together. “Life Like Weeds” really was the most daunting of them. “The Cold Part” is probably the second most daunting, partly because it’s a lot of violin, and I haven’t gotten a hold of the violin player yet. Which, uh—Memo to myself: call the violin player.

I can imagine it’s hard to translate full albums, especially ones that were recorded very in-studio, into actual stage performances straight through.

You’re telling me. I mean, there’s no way it’s gonna be an exact duplicate. But that might be a little boring anyway.

I’d imagine so. I don’t think anyone goes to a concert to see an exact replica, really.

I’ve actually been to a couple shows where that was the case, and I was just kinda like… “Huh.” You know? I kinda wanted to see them work at it.

What’s your live show philosophy? Has the way you’ve approached playing concerts in general changed over the years?

I mean, honestly, I don’t go out there fucking drunk anymore. That used to be something I did a lot, and then eventually I was just, like… Too many people put too much time and energy into coming out and seeing this for me to fuck it up for them, you know? So there’s that.

But other than that, we’re still very particular about set lists, and making sure that wherever we’re playing, we look at the last set list we played in that town, even if it was like three years ago, to make sure we don’t hit too many of the same songs.

When writing and recording tracks, how much of a consideration is the future live show aspect of it? When in the studio, do you ever make decisions based on how a song will feel to play live?

It concerns me while I’m recording or working on a song, but I don’t usually really do anything about it. I’m actually at a studio right now, mixing before a sound check and shit. I woke up early and went to the studio to mix, and I was just talking to the mix engineer about a new song and he was like “Yeah, this is not gonna be an easy one live. Too much of it is you dropping coffee mugs and-”

Wait, like literally you dropping coffee mugs?

Yeah, there’s a whole percussion track that’s just me making this cup drop.

Maybe you just need to increase the cup budget on tour. Have them fall from the truss or something.

Mmm, nah. It would take 20 people to do all the shit, all the little sound effects. But yeah, it is a going concern. I’ll have to figure it out for this next record.

How’s that been going, by the way? I know you teased it last year, but it’s been a minute.

I’m actually about a week to two weeks away from being completely done.

Holy shit. Well, congrats.

Thanks. I’ve heard a lot of it by now. It’s the end of a fairly long process. I started this record right as the other one—Golden Casket—was ending. Actually, the first song was written right where I’m standing right now—at Dave Sardy’s studio, outside on the balcony, that long ago.

After working on an album for such a long time—like, these are songs you’ve had for about five years—is it ever weird to go around and treat the material as if it’s fresh and brand new once it finally releases?

I might be a little weary of a song by then, definitely. I’ll have already tested to see if it’s worth putting out for years. But also, by the time you’ve heard it as many times as someone in this part of the process has, I think if you start growing sick of it even before release, then you should probably just stop and B-side that thing.

How has it been to be working on a new album while doing all these tours of full sets of previous albums? Has having to play your old stuff live so much—cover-to-cover, at that—had any impact on the process of creating new music?

Yeah, no, it wasn’t a good idea, but mostly just because of the logistical stuff. I’ve been having people mix it remotely, and I realized that I’ve been sending the wrong files to multiple people. Like, I set up my workstation every day at the venue and I send files and shit, and I send them the wrong shit. And by the time I realize that, it’s like, well, they’ve already gone too far into mixing on this version for me to actually give them the proper files, so I guess we’ll just work off this one now. So that’s a thing.

That’s actually why I’m at the studio right now. I was like, “Dude, I have a few hours today, and I bet we can get like two weeks of work done if we’re doing some shit back and forth.” And we have—we’ve already finished, like, one day, and that’s fucking great.

You’ve played a few of the new songs on tour by now, yeah? Any chance we’ll be hearing more on the non-Moon & Antarctica set day of the fest?

Yeah, I think we’ll probably play a couple on the first day. And we’ve been playing a handful of them on the tour so far, but only a few. It’s like 24 new songs and we’ve been playing five of them.

Has it been weird having to prepare not just songs and sets for the fest and cruise, but, like, logistical aspects as well? After all, you’re a band that started out leaning pretty heavily away from the infrastructure and bureaucracy and industry aspects of the business, so what’s it like to now get involved on that end more, considering you’re hosting a whole festival and cruise?

At this point in my life, with the business side of it, I think there were so many years that we just kind of fucked ourselves in the name of “integrity” or some shit. We had, you know, the wrong people managing and handling the boring shit, and for what? So now, I take seriously who’s handling the boring shit, and they do a good job. Like, I do have to be aware and have opinions and be engaged in the bureaucracy and boring stuff, but I have people to help me facilitate what needs to be done. So it’s fine. I plan on doing this for a while, so I should probably do it right.

You’re doing a bunch of pretty crazy stuff right now. How would, I don’t know, the you from 1996 react if someone told him about Psychic Salamander Fest and the cruise?

I’d probably just shrug, but I honestly don’t even think I’d do that.

Do what?

Use that power in the first place. Like, A) I’m not good at time travel. And B) hell, I’m not even in that good of touch with 1996 Isaac, either, although I’m not sure there’s much of a difference between us. Like, yeah, I definitely know a lot fucking more than that guy. But I’m not sure I’d use that power to my benefit as much as I should.

Fair enough. Well, in the vein of thinking about the past and future and all that, are the festival and the cruise things you can see continuing annually or, at least, somewhat regularly? Or is that still cart-before-the-horse at this point?

I think I just want to see how it feels the first time. Like, what if it turns out that, while it’s fun, it’s just not something I want to be the driving force behind? I guess I just don’t know right now. I’m still in the thick of it. But I’ll find out!

Is there anything you’re most excited about for the festival?

Uh… No, it’s kind of a whole package.

Yeah.

You know?

Casey Epstein-Gross is an Assistant Music Editor at Paste. Her work can be read in Observer, Jezebel, and elsewhere. She is based in New York and can typically be found subjecting innocent bystanders to rambling, long-winded monologues about television and film, music, politics, and any number of opinions on bizarrely irrelevant topics. Follow her on X (@epsteingross) or email her at [email protected].