Setting Sail with the Decemberists

March 15, 2005 – 5:30pm
Interview – Chris Funk – The Decemberists
by Steve Sangalang

It’s been at least ten years since I’ve gone to Disneyland. But on March 22, a particularly inclement Tuesday night, the Decemberists conspired with Mother Nature to bring me as close to the Pirates of the Caribbean as I’ve been in a decade. With their tall tales of seafarers and rogues, the Decemberists managed to transport me, and my bespectacled hipster maties, to that most magical of lands. At one point during the set, an audience member spontaneously broke out into a full-blown, hearty, “Yaaaaarrr!”… several others following suit.

Now, believe me, I can appreciate the sheer corniness that this image conjures for some. I usually find such gimmicks to be trite and, well… gimmicky. However, neither the Decemberists, nor their rabidly loyal following, will apologize for the unabashed escapism in which both indulge. Colin Meloy and company delight in weaving tales of far-off lands, soldiers in harm’s way, and even vengeful mariners. And as much as they relish their role as entertainers and artistes, their devotees appreciate the opportunity to simply commune with genuinely talented storytellers.

With their third long player Picaresque (first proper since 2003’s surprisingly metal-ish rock-guitar laden, “the Tain”), the Decemberists tread upon familiar ground, all the while pleasing those of us with musical ADD. The aptly titled Picaresque, recommences the escapism. From the opening, “The Infanta” finds Meloy singing praise to the lovely “veiled young virgin, the Prince’s betrothed.” “Eli the Barrow Boy,” is a fine lament, telling of a boy who mourns a lost love, and finds no solace in death. Picaresque, like its predecessors, also includes a handful of bouncy pop songs. “The Sporting Life” is a jangly number, calling to mind the master of bittersweet, himself, Morrissey. “16 Military Wives” is as upbeat as it gets, replete with a full horn section and “La di da” refrain. My vote for the most radio-ready goes to “The Engine Driver,” with its catchy, sing-a-long chorus. “On the Bus Mall,” on the other hand, gets my vote for catchiest tune about runaways-cum-male-prostitutes. “The Mariner’s Revenge Song” is a chantey about a mariner’s revenge upon his mother’s dead-beat, gambling boyfriend. Oh, and it also takes place in the belly of a whale. At 8 minutes and 43 seconds, it could easily be adapted into a movie starring Leo DeCaprio, directed by Martin Scorsese, and take home the Oscar.

Past the pretense, past the nasal, faux-Brit accent, past the spectacle, the Decemberists sing songs that fill you up. Picaresque, may not win many new converts (indie-missionaries would be better served by Castaways and Cutouts, their outstanding first album), but the Decemberists know how to please their loyal “picaroons;” exceptional storytelling and yet another opportunity to feel smarter, and therefore cooler, than those jock-assholes who blast Linkin Park. After all, when’s the last time they had to use a dictionary to listen to Hybrid Theory?

On the day before they kicked off their two-month, cross-country, “Advance of the Picaroons Tour 2005,” I had the opportunity to chat with the Decemberists guitarist/multi-instrumentalist, Chris Funk, on the telephone. I found Chris in a rather generous mood. As he enjoyed a brief respite from rehearsing, Chris not only found time to talk with me, but he also took time to roll up posters to benefit Mercy Corps.

Steve Sangalang: How was it working with Chris Walla?

Chris Funk: Chris was great to work with. He’s, you know, an endless ball of energy and ideas. He works really hard and he’s got great ears, you know. He’s awesome to work with and he’s a friend of ours so it was really mellow, ya know.

SS: Are you a fan of Death Cab?

CF: Absolutely.

SS: Did you enjoy recording in the “church?”

CF: Well, it was difficult. It wasn’t really a church. It used to be a church, and now it’s a part-time day care center, part-time this guys house who owns it now. I mean its still very much a church but they don’t do worship services anymore or anything. So, from a recording perspective it was exciting, you know, for the drums and all the other sounds and a leisurely feel to it ‘cause there was a lot of strange kids toys in there and stuff to play with and a swing and all this stuff.

There was a kid that lived there too, it turns out. We didn’t know the guy was actually living there [in the vestibule]. It turns out he was living there. But he wasn’t around when we were recording. But then his daughter sort of started to trickle out even though he was like “Honey, stay out of the way.” Of course, you know, a kids gonna want to come out and see what was going on. So we got to hang out with her quite a bit.

But from a recording perspective, you know, the church and the sounds that we were able to harness for that larger room sound you’d normally have to pay a lot of money in a large, large studio. So, it was great for the drums and I think it shows in the first track the “Infanta,” the drums, they’re really bombastic. And it’s awesome. You can’t really replicate that with any sort of reverb or anything. Beyond that there wasn’t any air conditioning and it was in a heat wave in Portland. It was just overall just a funny thing to look back on that we did.

SS: How long were you guys recording?

CF: We were at the church for a month and then we went up and mixed it in Chris’s studio and a couple other studios in Seattle. It took us like a month and a half I suppose, all said and done.

SS: You have two new members, John and Petra. Has their sound changed the dynamics of the band at all?

CF: We’re still working it out. We’re on a break from a rehearsal right now as we speak. When you have people that you’ve played with for so long, like Rachel we played with for over three years, and you just kind of meld. So of course its going to be different but it’s not better or worse. It was exciting for us in many ways because you get bored playing the same songs sometimes. It has a new feel to it, something that’s probably not audible to the listener, but being a musician, its like, oh that has a really different back feed. Not that it’s better than Rachel it’s just a different feel. We want those two to add their own touch and their own flavor, if you will, to the music as they see fit. They’re great musicians so it’s like asking someone to not have their personality shine through when they speak or something. Petra recorded all of the violin parts on the new album and sang quite a bit in the new record too, so it’s almost like the new album is completely replicated live, which is exciting.

SS: So are you excited about starting your two months tour? Is it something that’s stressful or do you enjoy it?

CF: It’s stressful in the sense that getting up and running has been stressful, well, more taxing because we’re breaking in two new musicians. It’s just more getting everything together and getting your life together.

SS: How is it spending two months with the bandmates? Do you guys have fun or is there a lot of drama?

CF: No, we’re pretty boring people, I think. We all get along and hang outside of playing in the band and stuff so getting together is really nothing different than at home. With the exception of Nate. We get to be around Nate more because he lives in San Francisco right now. We’re pretty boring people.

SS: I’m looking forward to seeing you guys in San Francisco. Are there any stops on your tour that you’re particularly excited about? Do you have any favorite cities or venues?

CF: I think Portland and Seattle because we’re bringing up a whole four piece horn section with us and that will be a lot of fun. We worked with them yesterday and it sounded awesome. There are a lot of horns on the new record so I’m looking forward to those just from a musical perspective. Bimbo’s I think is an awesome venue. All the old waiters are still in there running around. I’m looking forward to the Metro in Chicago because I grew up around there so I’ve been to countless numbers of concerts at the Metro in Chicago so that’s one I always get really excited for. There’s not, well you know, I hate to say cities that I don’t like, but Houston was always (nervously giggles), one I could take or leave.

SS: Are you still managing other hip-hop bands?

CF: I’m not. I gave that up probably about a year and a half ago.

SS: How did you get into hip-hop in the first place? Are you still a big fan?

CF: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think over all, we’re into all kind of music as long as…(interruption) At the time, I’ve always kind of worked in the music business side of things just to sort of stay afloat. I just started working with hip-hop musicians because I started initially working with the Coup. They were the first group I worked for in the hip-hop idiom and then the Lifesavas on Quanum, and Lyrics Born and all these people. So it was sort of just because you work in hip-hop, people kind of are attracted to that sort of style. But it really didn’t matter what style it was, you know? It was a straight business job. It was like, it was a management job it wasn’t a musician job, although I did play with Lifesavas on New Year’s Eve.

SS: It just struck me as odd, reading about a Decemberists member managing hip-hop crews.

CF: Oh, it’s totally odd, I guess you would never see that kind of past but, I’m older now…I mean I’m 33 years old so we’ve all had long roads in our lives and have done many, many things so far. I mean you listen to Colin’s music and you’re like, wow, that guys an amazing songwriter how did he ever work in a pizza parlor. It’s just what I did, you know. I don’t know how to explain it. I just liked the music and I was interested in the music business and doing something and working in the music field and not doing a different day job. It was either that or pour coffee. I know music and I know the music world and I used to teach music. I’ve always done something in music and so I sort of was excited about starting my own business and trying to do that for a while. All along I was part of the Decemberists stuff, ironically, and in other bands too. We just got along until we could hopefully quit our day jobs, which we did.

SS: Of your three LP’s, so far, which one is your favorite?

CF: Oh, I don’t think I have a favorite. If I had to have one, probably Castaways and Cutouts, the first one. I think that …I mean as the guitar-player-instrumentalist-person in the band, it’s the least intriguing one for some reasons, ‘cause the new one would be the most intriguing because there are so many different instruments on it. I think there’s just some great songs on that record in terms of writing. The writing is what struck me, how much I liked the band.

SS: What’s your favorite song to perform?

CF: It changes. It depends on how well things are going in the evening. “The Tain” is really fun to play…
I think people love it. We get requests for it all the time. I think it’s pretty visually entertaining to watch because we’re switching around and it’s a quasi-metal song, rock song so it sort of peakens up the set. I suppose someone that doesn’t like Black Sabbath or vehemently hates Riot, probably wouldn’t like it.

SS: What’s your favorite part of the rock and roll lifestyle? Or do you lead a rock and roll lifestyle?

CF: I think probably just the freedom to have time to focus on music. I have another musical project I’m working on. To have the freedom to rehearse with the band for 5 days straight is really exciting. Nobody has to run off to day jobs and then have the freedom to go on tour and get away from it. We’re glamorized being on tour all the time and being on tour is difficult in the sense that you’re away from home 24 hours a day, and we travel by van, and its cramped quarters. We have a lot of fun but, you know, we drive ourselves, and it’s a lot of driving, and a lot of set ups and tear downs, and all that stuff. I’m not saying I don’t want to do it, or it’s a horrible lifestyle, but its grueling you know. We toured for about eight months last year with all said and done. We flew home for Thanksgiving from Europe, and I just, I was physically exhausted. I mean when I read the newspaper about ‘Jennifer Lopez had to cancel tour from exhaustion’ or someone with a more credit like Thom Yorke or something. Now I know exactly what they’re talking about. I cannot physically move my body right now and I don’t know why. It’s just insane. It’s a lot of work.

SS: After going through all of that, do you look forward to this coming tour? Is two months a piece of cake?

CF: I think it’s a piece of cake in the sense that we space them out. We have three weeks off in between the two. Up until about the 21st we’re pretty much in the Northwest, so we’re back and forth. As my girlfriend calculated, we’re only gone for seventeen days, on this first leg of the tour, so it doesn’t seem like anything. Once we launch into San Francisco it sort of really begins for us. Then we fly to New York for the second half. We’re figuring out how to tour and how to do it more effectively. Last year we had this great idea to tour across the United States; to park our van in New York and then get on a plane and go to England and tour for two and half weeks and then get back in the van in NY and tour back across the US. Then we came home and did a photo shoot for a week for the new record and then we had four days off and flew back to Holland by the end of that week. It was just nuts. I think we’re in a position now where we’ve put a lot of grunt work into the live touring situation and we can kind of just see what has worked for us and what we deem as valuable to go out and promote the record and tour. We just kind of know our limits now instead of rushing.

SS: So being more mature, when you’re on tour, after the gigs do you just go back to your room and chill and your do you go out and party a little bit?

CF: It depends how tired we are. The funny thing about some of the bigger venues is after the show everybody’s gone. They have the bouncers that get everybody out the door and walk out and everybody’s gone and you’re just like, “Okay.” and you go back to your hotel or whatever. We’re game to hang out with people. I think most of us like to unwind after the show and spend time with people or friends. We have a lot of friends in different cities now. Like in San Francisco, we’ll be there for about two and a half days so we’ll go out and about and try to make a ball of it. You do have to preserve your energy though. You can get into a bad rhythm of drinking every night. I’ve seen friends do that, and we’ve done it ourselves, you know. You start drinking every night and you just kind of, keep doing it. Thankfully none of us are checked into AA yet. We know our limits now. We’ve gotten better at it. The first tours though, my God, it was insane. You just drink to fall asleep at night because you’re up till 4. It was way more punk rock. We have hotel rooms now and stuff.

SS: Who gets to play DJ on your tour van?

CF: The driver gets to play DJ, but then everybody has I-pods now so everybody’s off in their own little world. We do get a rental van though from this company in San Francisco and they have DVD drop screen movies and things so it’s sort of like a movie watching time, I think it’s become that.

SS: Ok, well, here are some more real quick one answer questions. Ok, so speed round…Would you rather be able to fly or be invisible?

CF: Fly.

SS: Favorite candy?

CF: Baklava. Does that qualify for candy…it’s more of a dessert.

SS: Favorite book?

CF: Oh, boy. I would say, Confederacy of Dunces.

SS: Best book of 2004?

CF: David Sedaris’, Dress Yourself in Corduroy.

SS: Favorite movie?

CF: Right now, City of God.

SS: Musical guilty pleasure?

CF: Buying guitars.

SS: Biggest pet peeve?

CF: Broken strings.

SS: Does your tour van sport the yellow ribbon?

CF: HELL NO! (vehemently)

SS: What do you miss most while you’re on tour?

CF: Stumptown Coffee.

SS: First thing you do when you get back

CF: Kiss my girlfriend (lots of giggles).

SS: Have you ever broken a bone?

CF: Yes.

SS: Which one?

CF: Well, most recently I broke my leg in a motorcycle accident.

SS: Oh… that sucks.

CF: Yeah, it was a doozy. It almost took my leg off, it was a doozy.

SS: Did you go to your ten-year high school reunion?

CF: (Laughter) No, I did not, no.

SS: Favorite smell?

CF: Tater tots

SS: Mini-me or Willow?

CF: Mini-me! (emphatically)…

SS: Ok, again, thank you so much. I appreciate it. It was great talking to you. Best of luck on the tour and I look forward to seeing you guys in San Francisco.

CF: Yeah, for sure, we’ll see you there.