When a band sees a record go supernova, they have two broad choices. They can take the easy route and attempt to replicate the success; or they can strike out in a different direction, maintaining the elements that make up their identity, but refusing to stay static for the sake of market appeal. Certainly, with a lengthy career behind them by the time Runaway Train launched them into the stratosphere, Soul Asylum would have been forgiven for taking door number one. The single was a powerful song, emotional and heartfelt, and it wouldn’t have been such a jump, especially after winning the Grammy, to re-recruit Michael Beinhorn (who had produced Grave Dancers Union) and attempt to recapture that sound. However, this is to reckon without Soul Asylum’s punk roots (the band, after all, began its life as Loud Fast Rules), and the follow up took numerous twists and turns, successfully bridging the gap between the band’s early incarnation and where they hoped to go. Released in 1995, the underrated and elegant Let Your Dim Light Shine captures all the elements that make Soul Asylum special. The stone-cold fury of Caged Rat, with its eerie jazz intro; the epic sweep of String Of Pearls and, of course, the hit single Misery, are all part of a remarkable album that is both fluid in its progression and cinematic in scope.
Faced with a changing musical landscape, Soul Asylum were to release only one further album via Columbia following Let Your Dim Light Shine, the ill-fated Candy From A Stranger. Ignominiously dropped, the band went on hiatus, and it would be eight long years before they would return (buoyed in part by the support of director Kevin Smith, who placed their music in Clerks, Clerks II and Chasing Amy), with Silver Lining. Tragically, it would be bassist Karl Mueller’s last album, and he succumbed to cancer before the album was completed.
However, with the cynical milking of grunge at an end, Soul Asylum were able to focus on their art. Teaming up with acclaimed producer John Fields, who has overseen all of their work from Silver Lining to the current (and very excellent) Hurry Up And Wait, the band have continued to grow alongside their listeners, the honesty of Dave Pirner’s lyrics matched by a skilled and empathetic band, now comprising Michael Bland, Winston Roye and Ryan Smith. Hurry Up And Wait, a bittersweet, yet life-affirming record, not only showcases the myriad strengths of Soul Asylum, it also nods back to the faded grandeur of Let Your Dim Light Shine, an album ripe for reappraisal thanks to a gorgeous vinyl reissue, courtesy of Real Gone records.
I reached out to founding member, singer and songwriter Dave Pirner (not without a little trepidation) to discuss the enduring impact of Dim Light and the resultant conversation roamed freely across the band’s storied history. Any nerves I might have felt proved unfounded. Friendly and open, Dave is the same goofy rocker who bounced around with a trumpet on Caged Rat some twenty years ago. Utterly disarming, at one point he checks, having described himself as a musician, chuckles wryly and corrects himself – “guy in a band” he says with a smile, and then we’re off again. And yet, despite a touch of cynicism about the business, Dave’s passion for music remains undimmed. His love of writing is equalled by a love of discovering new music, and you can’t escape the feeling that Dave still has that child-in-a-sweetshop mentality whenever there’s music to be made or found.
Having previously only used my creaking old laptop during the day, I hadn’t realised that trying to hold a Zoom call at night would render me an ominous shadow – something not helped by the fact that our spare room (more of a music space than a room, really), is illuminated by fairy lights. In short, Dave is not greeted by my smiling face so much as by my teeth, reflecting the light from the laptop screen. Nevertheless, having established that this isn’t some sort of prank call, he settles back for my rather bizarre opening gambit:
I apologise for looking like a James Bond villain on camera, but it’s late at night here and the light in this room isn’t great…
[Peers closely at the screen] Well, if you could be any James Bond Villain, which would you be?
[Instantly my mind goes blank, despite a box set of James Bond DVDs sitting on the shelf about two feet to my right] Oh man – that’s tough! Goldfinger was always fun with his laser gadgets, so yeah…
That’s a good choice! The funny thing for me is when I think about that, I just think about Austin Powers villains…
Yeah, that movie hurt James Bond fans quite a bit!
He throws a shoe, you know?! [laughs]
It’s a weird to think that I’m speaking to Dave Pirner about James Bond villains, but it dispels any potential tension and sets the tone for an interview that tends to ramble freely around the subject.
How’s it going?
It’s going pretty good… what day is it today?
It’s Monday…
It’s Monday! I got it. It’s, well, things are kind of slow. I just got back from Mankato. We drove to Mankato, which is about a couple of hours from here, and we did a virtual gig, which… there was probably twenty people in the room, and that was the most people I’ve played in front of since the beginning of this pandemic situation, so… [pauses for a moment as something else occurs]
We’ve been doing a lot of stuff on the internet. We did 100 songs. 100 original songs, me and my guitar player. We did it every Friday for seventeen weeks [stops, astounded]. Is that right? It’s hard to keep track of time.
Everyone’s having to scramble to do such original things in the face of this… 100 songs is a crazy, creative endeavour and a cool thing to do…
Yeah, I had to dig deep into my catalogue. It’s always interesting to sing a song that you haven’t sung in twenty years; that you wrote when you were knee high to a grasshopper, or still in puberty or whatever. But yeah, it’s cool for the time being. At first, extremely uncomfortable. Playing into a phone is not really my favourite thing to do. It’s that thing, where you’re playing a gig and everyone holds their phone up… well, this is just the phone!
It’s a really strange experience – I work in education and for the last four months, I think, I’ve been teaching entirely online and I have no idea if the students are there, not there, asleep or watching Netflix… it’s really disorienting.
What do you teach?
Intercultural Studies and Academic English.
You think it’s easier for you or easier for the students when you’re online like this? I have a kid that took a sewing class over the summer and I can’t even imagine how that could work online. It seems so tactile, like you’ve got to show with your hands… it’s weird.
I think if you have something you want to study, then you find a way and I had some students who were just great. And kids who are shy like being able to type answers and not have to speak, so that’s cool. But there were others who just missed it being face-to-face, and the classes there kinda sucked! It’s kinda similar to music – trying to find ways to reach an audience when you thrive on interaction, it can be tough to get that energy.
Yeah, I feel for you. It doesn’t seem like kids are that into it. Like, I thought they’d be really into not going to school and just opening a computer… but then, I figured that, if you’re home schooled, you’re at a pretty big advantage! It’s got to be a big plus if you’re already used to it and you’ve got a method down and everything.
Yeah, if you’re shy, I think, or self-directed… you can make it work. But, you know, I have singing lessons, so I’ve been on the other side of it and it was all through a laptop and, you know I was walking around the house yodelling, and I don’t know what the neighbours thought about it…
[Laughs] Yeah, my guitar player has sixty guitar students that he is now teaching online. That sounds kinda devastating to me! But he’s got the right demeanour, man. I talked to a couple of students who say it’s great… I wish he’d teach me how to play the guitar, you know?! [laughs]
So, I kinda had two reasons for wanting to talk to you. One was the reissue of Let Your Dim Light Shine, which was a huge album for me because it was the first Soul Asylum album I bought, and I think it’s one of those cases where the first album you find by a band becomes your go to album in a lot of ways…
[Nods] It is…
…And then the new album, Hurry Up and Wait and, you know, finding the same sense of excitement in that record and in the lyrics. So, I have some questions that hopefully will bridge those two records if that’s OK?
Sure.
So, the first question is to do with how you came to the album. Obviously, the previous album was, to some extent, a reaction to the punk rock of your earlier records; and then Runaway Train became this huge thing, and I was wondering to what extent Let Your Dim Light Shine was a reaction to what had gone before and a chance to push yourselves further, artistically.
Yeah. I think that Let Your Dim Light Shine probably has the best outtakes of any record we ever made. I was really trying to expand on what I was doing; I suppose.
So, you know, the songs, like String of Pearls – I was writing a lot of long narratives and stories, which… it wasn’t necessarily what people were looking for. Because, at that point, people were like: [record company voice] “well, whatever you did on the last record –do that again!” Which is not, you know, ever what I was going to do, or ever would do.
But, yeah, I kind of wanted the sweep of the music to be even broader. So, I was sort of building on Grave Dancers Union, in a way. And I had more… just more facilities available. I could use whatever producer I wanted, and people were willing to hear me out for some of the songs that were a bit different. Which was good because they wanted hits and I’m not that kind of song writer. So, I really dug deep, and there were really some good outtakes. [Thinks for a moment].
They released Misery first and then, they kind of regretted it. So, that was kind of an interesting move… the first single was misery, it was really successful and then they kind of went: [the uber-serious record company voice comes out again] “Oh no! We should have released this song third!” Which is kind of what they did on Grave Dancers… Runaway Train was the third single.
I don’t know, I certainly have a lot of vivid memories of writing that record, being in Vancouver; being in LA; being in New York…. Recording in New York, I was really all over the place while I was writing the record. And, you know, we worked with Butch Vig because Maddison, Wisconsin is where Butch is from, and Smart Studios. My parent met in Maddison, Wisconsin! So, we had known Butch Vig for years. And, of course he’d had the success with the Nirvana thing, so it was a perfect fit. We went down to Maddison and we all got up on stage and started jamming together and it was fun. We were like: “Hey, he’s a mid-west rock dude, just like us!” And you take the whole thing to the most expensive studios in New York and LA and, I don’t know man… [laughs] It’s amazing how much money we used to spend on records!
So, yeah, I had forgotten… not only have I forgotten what your question was, but I had forgotten that Let Your Dim Light Shine never came out on vinyl [note: in this, it seems, Dave might be mistaken. Certainly, there’s mention of a Columbia vinyl release of the album on Discogs, although it appears to have been hard to come by, having emerged at the cusp of everything moving to CD]. I was like: “no, really? I don’t have a copy!” So, there’s one more record that has never come out on vinyl! It was the same… the guy at Legacy – the label that put out The Silver Lining – when we did that record he said: [this record company guy sounds more like a used car salesman] “Yes, you will get vinyl, I promise”… and they didn’t put out vinyl, so I busted his balls. I said “Dude! You said….” So, he made me one copy! So, I’ve got one copy of that record, which maybe someday will be released on vinyl!
But you know, the last three records came out on vinyl. So, it’s back and it’s great and I love it. The whole resurgence of vinyl has been very gratifying to me. Just because I went through all this time of “oh god, now I have to buy everything on CD!” And I resisted the CD for so long and finally I started listing to CDs because it was the only way to get certain records.
That thing flipped too. I mean, we would have a vinyl record, then we’d put out a CD that had a bonus track to encourage people to switch to CDs, so it’s all just kinda goofy marketing stuff that just doesn’t really resound with me, but I had sort of backed off on playing records for a while and now I only play records and, well you know, they’re all over the place. So, you know what I mean, I’ve got records with no sleeves and sleeves with no records, so I do have those moments where I’m like “OK… now I get why people like all this Spotify stuff” because it just doesn’t take up very much space you know?
Yeah, my house is groaning under the weight of CDs and records… but, the records I want on vinyl (and I don’t go for everything on vinyl) are the records that flow and have that narrative journey and that’s something I always loved with Let Your Dim Light Shine, because you put it on and you want to know where the record’s going to take you… you’ve got that opening one-two punch, with Misery and shut down… but you mentioned String Of Pearls, and that’s a song that if I ever miss any of the lyrics, I always want to go back and listen again because it’s a great story and a great journey… so vinyl has a really great purpose in that regard, because it forces you to get back to that mindset, don’t you think?
Absolutely. And, you know, it feels strange to me to think about not coming from that. So, if I was half my age and I was a musician… [catches himself] “musician”?! Guy in a band… You wouldn’t really have that mindset.
I still think about everything as a vinyl – and even when they switched from the vinyl to the CD, I struggled with that, because I was “side one & side two” and that aesthetic had suddenly gone. I grew up with LPs and, yeah, you spend a lot of time trying to get the sequence right and make it feel right from the beginning to the end. I don’t think it’s the way that a lot of people listen to music anymore, but… as my manager has told me: “just keep doing what you’re doing, because it’s probably going to change again anyway, so make a record.”
But, there’s a part of someone’s mentality (not mine) where people just go back to putting out singles. You know, just try to get placement of one song and there’s no rest of the record. They call that “fishing for hits” or something… I don’t know what they call it. Actually, I’ve always been sort of fascinated by that and correct me if I’m wrong (I could be wrong), but it seems more like a British phenomenon, to put singles out. I mean, I don’t know, but it seems that way. It seems like Top of The Pops and singles are more intense in England for some reason, I don’t know, I still want to hear the whole Gay Bikers on Acid LP – do you remember that band?
I’ve heard the name, but I don’t know I’ve heard their music…
They’re hilarious!
I know what you mean about singles but, for me, I’m very divorced from what’s happening in popular music. But, certainly in the 90s, the singles thing was always about the B sides and getting hold of those off-the-cuff moments that bands would release – the covers, or the live tracks… because of course, live albums were less common and it was one of the only way to get live music from the bands you wanted to see… singles were great for that.
That’s true and I had all those records – Kiss Alive and Frampton Comes Alive [laughs] and all those records were a big deal. I think pretty much because we’re part of the punk thing, the records sounded like shit and the live records were even shittier sounding – too fast and too furious to even record. I don’t know, I can’t think of a good, live, hardcore record – it just doesn’t even seem like a thing… which it should have been because we went through all this time where people were saying: “oh, they’re great live, but they can’t seem to capture it on record.” So, I suppose, in the back of my brain somewhere, I was like “oh yeah, I hope some day we get to put out a double live album….” That never happened, which is probably a good thing. [pauses for a moment].
We actually did recently release a live album, so there you go. It was from Liberty Lunch in Texas in the late 80s. It didn’t sound that bad – maybe early 90s, I don’t know.
Punk live albums are a funny beast. I remember being so tragically gutted because I got into heavier music through stuff like Nirvana and then I started exploring, as you do, and I got hold of a live bootleg of the Sex Pistols from some shady guy on a market – you know the type of thing, a cassette with a black and white xerox cover – and I got it home and it just sounded like someone smashing a drum and John Lydon about five miles away…
That’s terrible! The board mix, you know, it’s all lyrics and no guitars and yeah! I don’t know about the whole bootleg thing. It seems relevant to me that when Nirvana did put something out live, it was in an acoustic setting, it was MTV Unplugged. And it translates better that way, which is interesting. But yeah, I’ve been recently getting into black metal, which also sounds pretty terrible…
Funnily enough, my wife’s downstairs now listening to Satyricon!
Oh yeah? I discovered Mayhem. I didn’t know about Mayhem. So, you know, I’m always studying…. “researching” as they call it, which basically means watching stuff on YouTube. But yeah – it’s a fascinating story. I don’t know if anything is worth burning a church down… I mean, it puts you on the map, I guess…
Extreme marketing? You know, I remember reading an interview you did, and you were talking about covers that you do, and it included all sorts of weird stuff from Mambo Number 5 and Beyonce, is that true?
Well, I thought I’d do If I Were A Boy, because I thought it would be really funny if a dude sung that song. I don’t know if you know the Beyonce song?
No, I’m afraid not…
…but I kind of got laughed out of the practice space on that one – the band were like “no, I don’t think so!” And, I was watching something recently that said that Mambo Number 5 was like the worst song created by anyone, ever! I just thought it was funny – it was kitsch and cute and funny. I’ve never pursued any of those things… I’ll try anything, you know. I tried to do Institutionalised, by Suicidal Tendencies, and my drummer was like “no!” and I was like “come on, man, it’s hilarious!” But you’ve got to remember a lot of words and stuff. It’s such a great song.
But it doesn’t matter to me where a song comes from. If I like it, I like it. Actually, the new Beyonce track I just heard for the first time, like yesterday, is kinda cool. It’s very non-traditional, arrangement-wise and stuff. It sounds experimental to me, which is kind of what got me into hip hop in the first place. It’s more innovative and more experimental than most of the stuff that I’m accustomed to, so there is that element where I’m listening to DJ Shadow and thinking “oh man, I’ve got this, but how does this apply to me…?” I love listening to it, but I’m a singer! I love instrumental music, which is kind of a problem… [laughs]
The Meters – when I discovered the Meters from New Orleans, it changed my whole paradigm. It was like “oh, it’s a four-piece band, it’s like the Beatles…” except, there’s something so great about it, I had to move to New Orleans, meet the guys in the band and do that whole pilgrimage to study under whatever umbrella that is, and they don’t have a singer…. And I don’t like it when they do have a singer. Sometimes they do, and I’m like “nah!” [Thinks for a moment].
Yeah… well, it’s hard. You never get used to the sound of your own voice, I mean I don’t, but yeah, my trumpet playing sucks also, so I won’t be putting out an instrumental trumpet record anytime soon! [laughs].
Most recently, you released a cover of “Nazi Punks Fuck Off” in support of the George Floyd situation in America, which is a great cause and it sounds like you had a blast in the studio; but it’s interesting, because I always felt that Soul Asylum had a very nuanced relationship with activism for much of your career, whereas this is a very direct statement, so the tensions must have really resonated with you?
We were…. Gosh, we actually re-recorded that a couple of years ago. I just had a lot of steam to blow off. I have this incredible relationship with my drummer, Michael Bland who, as you know, played with Prince etc. He’s an amazing musician. We kind of play off each other’s musical past. The thing we do have in common is that there was one classic rock radio station in Minneapolis, that we both listened to. But the rest of it… he grew up in an African American family, listening to African American music (whatever you want to call it) and my parents were into…. Elvis and Gene Krupa, my dad really liked Gene Krupa.
So anyways, we were kind of challenging each other. He wanted to explore hardcore drumming and, like everything else he does, it just comes so naturally, and it has this feel that I just never got from so many drummers. So, yeah, we recorded TV Eye (Iggy), Love Will tear Us Apart, by Joy Division. Nazi Punks Fuck Off… some Sham 69 song, that he wanted to do (which I wasn’t familiar with). It was really fun. I think we did Your generation by Generation X and a couple of other songs. Yeah, it was a fun thing to do.
I always very much appreciated the sentiment of Nazi Punks Fuck Off and yeah, the Dead Kennedys. [pauses as something new occurs] I got offered to do a gig with Jello in New Orleans, but I wasn’t available… but he’s always surprisingly forthcoming whenever I talk to him. A couple of years ago, I was at a bar in New York and East Bay Ray was there, and I got a pic from him, so I’m a fan. I’m a fan first, I suppose.
That’s so cool! There’s a song on the new album, I absolutely loved it, it’s called Dead Letter, which feels like almost a traditional folk arrangement and that was such an interesting track to do. Also, to me, the lyrics felt like an extension of the storytelling of Dim Light, so I was wondering about the inspiration for that song…
Well, ever since I heard about something called the Dead Letter office, I was sort of fascinated with that concept. You have this room full of letters that kids wrote to Santa Claus and all this other stuff that never was answered. And you go through this situation in a band where you’re always travelling, and you’re always away from the people. So, you’re trying to communicate and you’re trying to make a phone call and it just goes wrong… a lot! And, oh my god, when’s the last time you wrote a letter on paper?! [laughs].
It’s been a while for sure…
Exactly! So, you know, it’s that whole thing about unrequited or unanswered pleas or whatever. It just kind of became a situation that I could relate to and, yeah, somebody goes “oh, it’s d minor” and I was like “yeah, it’s the saddest of all keys” – straight out of Spinal Tap, I’m sure! People hear that chord and they immediately think it’s an Irish folk gig – you know [sings] “Molly, oh Molly….”
Yeah, I get that, although the first thing I heard in it was John Lennon – Working Class Hero – it had that sort of vibe for me.
Oh, thank you! I love that song. I was just listening to Marianne Faithful’s version of that song, which is quite nice.
Another song on the album that I thought stood out is If I Told You, which is a really powerful song lyrically… especially in the way you invert the final chorus from “I miss the sun” to “I miss my son” – that’s a really powerful moment on the album…
Yeah, I didn’t know if anyone was really listening…. Long story short, I got divorced, I don’t know, four or five years ago; and it was very painful to be separated from my son. I only have one kid. But I had been living in New Orleans for sixteen or seventeen years and then I came back to Minneapolis. You know, all my friends were her friends and this that and the other thing and that… I just really miss that guy!
We’re on really good terms. I just gave him drum machine and an expensive sweater and a synthesiser… he’s into some really interesting music. So, we’ve always had that going on. He used to come out to the studio – I had a studio in the back yard, and that’s where he did his piano lessons.
And when I go back to New Orleans (or did, before the whole COVID thing), we’d meet at a record store and I’d buy him a whole bunch of records. And he would come and be like [affects bored teenager voice] “Naaah, I’m not taking that one!” and I’m like: “you’ve got to take that one!”
And then I hold up Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On, and it’s EP sized – it’s really cool and I’ve got a couple of them, and he’s umming over it and I’m telling him he has to have it, and then the guy at the record store comes over and he said “oh, that’s a great record! It’ll really get you in with the ladies…” and the kid immediately agreed to have it!
I couldn’t get him to buy a Stones record, but Sgt Pepper – he took that one. It’s so interesting to see what he reacts to. The first Velvet Underground record, I told him he should probably have a copy and he was like “oh yeah, Andy Warhol, I’ve got that!” So, yeah, then I buy him records that he wants and he’s kind of a hip-hop kid, which is cool… I don’t know why we’re talking about him… oh yeah, because I miss him! It sucks, but he’s almost eighteen, so… we’ll see. That’s the person that was taking the sewing class online. Yeah, he’s going to be a record producer and he’s going to have his own clothing line and he’s going to be a mogul and support me in my old age! He’s going to be P Diddy before he’s twenty-two. [Laughs].
One thing that you said in an interview was that it had always been your goal to write lyrics for the long term – that you could relate to as you got older. And that’s really challenging, because punk rock has that slash ‘n’ burn, energy of youth – so to have that idea, to make the lyrics meaningful over a longer period – how did you approach that?
I don’t know, but it’s a really good question because, like I was saying, I have just done a hundred songs and some of those songs I wrote when I was twenty. And, when I’m on stage now, I still feel the rage. I still like to fucking get in there and rock out with my cock out (or whatever you want to call it) and put a lot of angst into it.
So, those feelings are still there, but I think somehow, I kind of managed to… I don’t know, I guess my goal was to write things that were timeless and now, when I sing things from twenty years ago, it still feels relevant to me. I don’t know, it’s not La Bamba, but yeah… it’s pretty satisfying in a way.
I don’t know if I should think about it that way, but I’m like “Oh, this is still relevant to me, this is till me, this is still how I feel…” Or is it like, “wow, I’m still thinking like I was when I was twenty-two”? I guess I’m still pissed off about all the same stuff. But I guess that part of the trade is to sort of put words together that aren’t stuck on kicking someone’s head in or whatever the case may be. You know, I could be doing Nazi Punks Fuck Off acoustic…. It would be kind of interesting to see Jello Biafra do Nazi Punks Fuck Off with a string section.
I don’t know, I get the impression that he’d be up for that challenge!
I’m sure he would.
There’s a literary thing there, isn’t there? I love reading and I read a lot of things like Dickens, and one of the things that you notice is that there’s social commentary there, but it’s often couched in such a way that you can take it out of the context of the society in which it was written and that, for me, was stuff like Eyes Of A Child – stories about people in everyday settings that gain a potency, depending on what age you are when you listen – and I think I remember you talking about an interest in literature and the romantic poets in particular…
Yeah, I had a a…. Actually, it was just in Mankato when I was speaking to someone who was also a teacher and I’m always… I’m so into teaching as a… I don’t know how to call it. They’re the most over-worked, underpaid, most important people that we have. And I probably would have gone in that direction if I hadn’t gone in this direction. Because I love sharing whatever it is I know about music. I just think everyone can do it. You just put your mind to it and it’s so easy and blah blah blah and there’s fucking aid notes and this and that and every other fucking thing – just do it! You’ve got to feel it first! And people are looking at me like: “why do you think that’s easy for me?” But it is really simple, you know? That’s what I love about it. If it starts to get too convoluted, then no one can relate to it… unless you’re talking about Rush, which I still don’t understand!
Anyways, I forgot what the question was…
It was about influences of lyrics and whether there’s a literary influence in there alongside the folk and punk influences…
Oh yes, yes! I mean, I usually cite Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Toni Morrison and Zora Neal Hurston and Albert Camus… the writing has a certain rhythm to it and that’s kind of what, not only fascinates me about language, but I get lost in it. And I start… I’ll just read a sentence four times because it’s so cool and it’s got a nice flow to it. And I’m like “oh that’s right! I’ve got to get on with the rest of the book!”
But yeah, it’s in me and I have always cited… that’s what I was talking to the women who was a teacher in Mankato about… my high school English Teacher. And her name was Charlotte Westby and she was very mean and extremely hard… she was difficult. She really worked the students hard. But through the passion that I saw in her about the Romantic Poets, it really (for lack of a better expression), it really turned me on to poetry and that’s something that probably informed my lyrics before I started listening to Bob Dylan, you know.
I think that’s really cool because I always think that when you have a great album, it’s like a great book – you get that feeling of loss when it’s over and it should… you know, take you out of the everyday…
It’s like that thing when you finish a book and you just didn’t want it to end… yeah, that’s always a good feeling for me. I think I achieved it, because I listened to this most recent record, [adopts cheesy grin and gives the thumbs up sign] Hurry Up and Wait – shameless plug; and it ended, and I kind of wanted more, and that’s…. that’s what I’m going for. I didn’t get bored with it and I kind of wanted it to keep going.
I felt the same way, and when it ends with Silly Things, which just kind of drifts away at the end, it makes you want to kick straight back to the start – it’s really cool…
Ah thanks man, I appreciate it. I also think that, I can’t remember what it was that I was analysing… but the last day of school. It’s that feeling that you’re so glad it’s over but you’re not going to see your friends anymore. It’s a very strange feeling that will probably stay with me forever.
And with that, the interview comes to an end, which is something of a shock because the time flew by and yet we covered so much ground. After it all, the lasting impression is of boundless enthusiasm – an infectious love of music in all its forms that sits at the heart of Soul Asylum’s enduring appeal – and listening back to transcribe the interview, I can’t wait to go and give Hurry Up And Wait another spin.
Soul Asylum are set to release an acoustic EP entitled ‘Born Free’. in the meantime, you can stream an acoustic version of ‘If I Told You’ now:
https://lnk.soulasylum.com/IfIToldYouAcoustic
