Music
Playing Wednesday, 31st at Grimey’s at 6 p.m. and Exit/In w/Illinois at 9 p.m.
There are multiple moments on experimental rock trio Menomena’s latest, Friend and Foe, where you have to fight the urge to hit the rewind button—surprising and intoxicating bursts of delicate beauty interspersed throughout their controlled layers of loop-based cacophony.
These Portland natives—Brent Knopf, Justin Harris and Danny Seim—have ridden their dynamic, idiosyncratic rock to full-blown buzz-band status. Their perplexing third album is a conglomeration of distinct but interlocking elements—the jagged guitar lines of “The Pelican,” the lilting Beatles-y piano on “Rotten Hell,” the rumbling, ominous bass line on “Running.” And though all three members contribute equally to vocal and lyrical duties, this collection of songs still feels cohesive.
The Scene recently caught up with Knopf by phone from his home in Portland, Ore., where he was enjoying a few days off and doing laundry.
Knopf:I’m in a chateau in France, I have a magical feast laid out…no, I’m at home, it’s raining—I’m in Portland, doing laundry.
Scene:It’s nice there.
Knopf:It is nice here. I had a nice day at the beach. It’s about an hour away. It’s nice to be home for a few days before heading out again.
Scene:So, you guys are playing a Halloween show in Nashville. Anything whimsical planned?Any costumes? Any pyro?
Knopf:(Laughs.) Well, my brother thinks I look a lot like Jim Halpert from The Office, so I’m gonna try to be Jim Halpert. That’s the only plan.
Scene:As long as someone is Angela.
Knopf:Who could be Angela? Justin is too muscular and Danny is too tall? Do you mean Pam?
Scene:No, I think Angela would be funnier—with the blond wig and the cats.
Knopf:And a really sour disposition.
Scene:So, you guys are from Portland—the No. 1 coolest place in the country to be in 2007.
Knopf:(Laughs.) We’ll see how long that lasts.
Scene:Were you all born and raised there?
Knopf:Yeah, I was. Danny and Justin have been since age 10 or 11, so we’re all pretty much native.
Scene:Has it been interesting and strange to watch this whole scene grow up around you?
Knopf:It’s exciting. What I really like about it is that so many bands in Portland are unique and doing
their own thing. It’s not like we’re all competing to be the big thing
in the dance-punk-hype trend. Everyone sounds like themselves. The
Thermals have their own sound, and so do The Decemberists and The Shins
and Modest Mouse and Sleater-Kinney. I really, really like that about
the scene, and I think there’s an atmosphere of mutual encouragement—I’m
really excited when Portland bands succeed. One thing I wonder about is
dearth of Portland labels, in terms of sizable indies. You have sizable
indies in Seattle, and even Nebraska, and New York and all those
places. There are a couple of really small labels here but none that
have national stature. There’s not like a Merge or a Touch and Go or a
Sub Pop or a Barsuk here. Anyway, it’s been cool. I think Montreal is
another really similar place where good music is happening. I feel
really lucky to be here.
Scene:I think Nashville does too, it’s just that no one is paying attention, yet.
Knopf:Also, both times we’ve been to Phoenix there’s been excellent, excellent bands playing with us. So I kind of think Phoenix is up and coming too.
Scene:That’s interesting. A lot of old people and then a lot of indie rock bands.
Knopf:(Laughs.) Exactly.
Scene:So you guys are pretty into using creative, well-thought-out album art—which is ironic considering that this is an era when people are buying fewer and fewer physical CDs.
Knopf:I’d like to think that we’d do this even if the music industry weren’t dying. And I wish that we’d been more successful. I wish I could say that our album artwork single-handedly was working wonders. It’s a puzzling time, in terms of the precipitous decline in CD sales, but I think the underlying motivation for us, beyond all that, is just realizing that the packaging for music, whether it be vinyl or CD or whatever, is an opportunity to not waste someone’s time. We just try to maximize that chance. Why not? You have a chance to interact with someone, you have a chance to create something that someone interacts with, why not make it worthwhile and put some time into it. So, that’s kind of our philosophy. And, in the back of our minds, sure, why not give someone a reason to buy the record instead of stealing it? Or rather, why not have there be a reward? If you buy the record, then you get this really cool packaging with all these different levels and layers and design. So, we’ve taken a similar approach to the vinyl packaging. It was really elaborate for our first record.
Scene:It’s actually kind of interesting—a couple weeks ago I talked to Matthew Caws from Nada Surf and he said that album art was one of the motivations behind them signing to Barsuk. He could tell it mattered to them.
Knopf:They’ve been nothing but supportive. When we first signed to Barsuk, we weren’t sure what attitude to expect. They have proved themselves to be nothing but encouraging of our crazy packaging ideas, and luckily enough we didn’t break the bank with all the dye cuts and craziness.
Scene:So, a lot has been made of this software you developed for recording—Deeler. Are you a computer geek by nature, or was music the impetus for getting into all that stuff?
Knopf:Um, I view myself more…I like inventing things. And I guess the computer side is there as well. Deeler is one of my little inventions—that’s really not all that special—that’s gotten a disproportionate amount of press. And I’m just going to perpetuate that more by talking about it now (laughs).
Scene:I tried to come at it from a little bit of a different angle.
Knopf:Yeah, true. For any given song we’re only using Deeler for about a half an hour and then we’re spending hundred and hundreds of hours taking the ideas that it stored on the computer for us, arranging them and turning them into a song. So, fortunately we don’t really use it that much in relation to the real work of songwriting and arranging, however it does help shape the process of generating our original ideas. It helps make our music more loop-based and more layered. So, it’s a little, kind of silly program that we use to create an environment where it’s easy to generate new ideas, and it stores those for us. And what I like about it is that you don’t really have to decide which ideas are gonna make the cut. Half the ideas are usually jokes, really ridiculous rhythms and guitar lines, and they’re really embarrassing. But sometimes ideas that were put down as jokes end up being put in the final song—so you never know what to expect.
Scene:Is the lyrics-writing process as collaborative as the musical side of the songwriting? Do you guys each come to the table with your own stuff?
Knopf:We do each come to the table with our own thing. In terms of collaborating, we’re not so much into each other’s lyrics. Lets see how to describe that: lyrics are something that we usually have more distance with. We give each other each space. All three of us contribute lyrics in equal share—about a third of the lyrics were written by each of us on this record. So, yeah, we each have our own process and our own ideas that we’re kind of sifting through when we write our lyrics.
Scene:I think that sometimes in the current musical climate, there isn’t enough emphasis, or respect for how effective prettiness can be. I think that’s one of my favorite things about your music, that you alternate the loud stuff with moments that are genuinely really pretty.
Knopf:Oh, I though you were going to say we were good looking. Too bad. (Laughs.)
Scene:: Well, I haven’t seen you guys yet.
Knopf:We are hideous. You’ll think we’re in Halloween costumes when we haven’t even put anything on yet. Anyway, you were saying something very thoughtful before I completely mocked you…
Scene:Yeah, something about really having an emphasis on having unabashedly pretty parts.
Knopf:Interesting. Which parts do you think are pretty on the record? If any?
Scene:: Lots of 'em. That much talked about little bridge on “Muscle’n Flo.” Or even a song like “My My” is really pretty.
Knopf:Yeah.
Scene:And there are lots of bands that play pretty music, but I think you guys are really dynamic. And I guess that’s what I really like. There are really clamorous parts rubbing right up against parts that are really pretty.
Knopf:Well, thank you. I think that’s a pattern that emerged on this record, doing just what you said: juxtaposing harsh elements with soft elements and loud with quiet and seeing what happens, and not being afraid of those kind of dynamic changes.
Scene:Ok, this might sound like a silly question, but I was reading around, and it seems like you guys don’t take all this press stuff too seriously, in a good way. You’re kind of funny.
Knopf:Well, Danny and Justin are funny. Unfortunately I’m the guy who is kind of struggling to match their good senses of humor.
Scene:Being a “buzz band,” it must just be the only way to keep yourselves sane, doing all these interviews over and over again, and answering the same questions over and over again? Right?
Knopf:It depends on the interview. Cause some interviews…this one for example, is excellent (laughs). No, but seriously, it depends on how thoughtful the interviewer is. But also, each of us have different tolerance levels for certain questions that we have been asked a million times before. So we will sometimes think of creative ways to play with those questions.
Scene:Anything in particular come to mind?
Knopf:Well, lets see. There’s of course the question about how we got our name. And one time an interviewer said, “Some people are talking about you guys as the white TV on the Radio,” which was so ridiculous. I responded, “No we sound more like a Korean Los Lobos,” or something like that. With ridiculous things like that you kind of have to play with it and not take yourself too seriously. I like talking to people who have thoughtful questions—its kind of a kick to become an egomaniac for a small portion of my day, then I go back to picking up after my dogs and doing laundry.
Scene:I was actually going to ask you about some of the best and worst questions—but I can’t think of anything more horrible than that TV on the Radio question, that’s pretty bad.
Knopf:Yeah, it was ridiculous. But it just reflects so much that’s wrong with the world. But some of the best questions? Well, questions much like the one you asked before. People who get it, they get the whole idea of things being complicated and that working—kind of playing with opposites. Then there’s the occasional flattering question, which is always kind of fun. Someone will compare us to Arcade Fire. It’s like, really? You think we’re even to be put in the sentence with those huge rock stars? So, it’s kind of flattering.
Scene:I actually got to see them a couple weeks ago. It was pretty awesome.
Knopf:I think their new record is absolutely excellent and I’m so happy they exist in the world. The good questions are the ones that allow you room to play, room to be thoughtful. And because of that they’re usually complicated, and none of them are on the tip of my tongue.
Scene:Right, it’s much easier to remember the bad questions.
Knopf:(Laughs). I don’t know if they’re bad, but we each have different levels of patience. Because you want to honor someone’s intentions—it’s not their fault that they’re the ninety-fifth person to ask that question. But I feel bad talking about this, and dwelling on this too much.
Scene:Well, this is just going to be a short interview piece so…I’m done.
Knopf:Oh, OK. “Brent Knopf hates all journalists and has no patience for them and in an egomaniacal way compares himself to Arcade Fire.” That could be your headline.
Scene:Exactly. He thinks Menomena are the next Arcade Fire, unquote.
Knopf:(Laughs.)
Scene:But they’re going to be bigger.
Knopf:Oh God, save us all.
Scene:No, but Arcade Fire are my favorite example of the fact that we live in a bubble. My mom doesn’t know who Arcade Fire is; my college-aged brother doesn’t know who Arcade Fire is.
Knopf:(Pause.) What?! That’s like…wow…wow.
Scene:Does that blow your mind?
Knopf:It kind of does. And it kind of speaks to where we’re at in terms of mainstream music being so much more homogenized. It seems there’s both limiting going on—in terms of the Nickelbacks and R. Kellys of the world—and then there’s also this, I don’t know if its bifurcation, or how you’d say it, where there’s this incredible complexity happening in independent music. So much of it is under the radar and spread magically, and internationally, through the Internet and through word of mouth. It’s kind of a strange time to be in culturally.
Scene:I guess it’s funny, that being in this world, and reading music blogs all day, it creates the illusion of bigness, and everyone is like, “this is such a big deal,” kind of convincing themselves that it’s a big deal and then you get out into mainstream culture, I go home, and no one has any idea what I’m talking about.
Knopf:It totally creates a bubble—some people have never, ever heard of you and other people think you’re much more successful than you are. Like we went to Mexico, and they were like “After the overnight success of Friend and Foe, how does it feel to be famous?” And its just like, “Well, it feels great to go back home and wait tables.” So, I don’t know, its kind of strange.
Scene:I’m sure people also assume that you got “Best New Music” on Pitchfork and now you have convertibles full of money or something.
Knopf:I have a 14-year-old, two-door sedan that’s in bad shape, that’s what I have.
Scene:Full of money?
Knopf:(Laughs.) Yeah. I sell drugs on the road. That’s how I really make money. God knows you can’t make it selling music.
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