Song Exploder - The New Pornographers - Brill Bruisers

Episode Date: February 9, 2016

The New Pornographers are kind of a supergroup, with seven members in the band, including Neko Case and Dan Bejar, who are both acclaimed songwriters with their own successful solo careers. But the band is led by Carl Newman, and in this episode, he breaks down the title song from their sixth album Brill Bruisers. Plus you'll hear some thoughts from bassist and co-producer John Collins. My interview with Carl Newman was recorded live at the Greene Space at WNYC.

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirwe. The new pornographers are kind of a supergroup, with seven members in the band, including Nico Case and Dan Bayhar, who are both acclaimed songwriters with their own successful solo careers. But the band's led by Carl Newman, and in this episode, he breaks down the title song from their sixth album, Brill Bruezers. Plus, you'll hear some thoughts from bassist and co-producer John Collins. My interview with Carl Newman is recorded live at the Green Space at WNYC.

I'm Carl Newman. There was a guitar part I had an idea for. It sounds really clumsy, but I remember thinking like, oh, this is a cool guitar part. The chords are sort of boneheaded. It's just an A and then like an A with the G added, and it goes to D. It's like just couldn't be simpler. It's the hardest thing to do. It's just come up with something completely just dead simple.

When I first started writing songs, I wanted to write something really complex, because I thought that was the only way to write something that was interesting was to try and come up with chord progressions or structures that nobody else had ever done before. I tried to do that for years, and then in this band, I just tried to do what I thought was dumbing it down. I'm trying to get dumber, actually.

I'm really trying to explore, like, how dumb can I get? Musically, lyrically? Because I'm trying to make a go of this, and I figure, like, getting really dumb has always worked for me. Because I've always thought we were dumb from the beginning. I was shocked when people started talking about us as a band that had any sort of complexity. I remember playing a few early songs for Nico and being embarrassed that I was playing her these dumb songs.

We take it seriously, but we also, you know, we're trying to have fun with it. John Collins is our bass player and does a lot of the production. When we started, John said, So what's to feel of the song? And I just went like, kick, kick, crash, kick, crash. And because it didn't have a title, you know, and John has to call it something. It's like, this is just a song.

It doesn't have any words. And so he called it rock you just because he thought the beat sounded like, we will rock you. And so I had that in my head. We will rock you thing. Because of that, I thought, like, this song should be about rock in some way. Like my version of the rock and roll dream.

The chorus, the sea was all lighters. And the sea was all lighters, it was all lighters. You know, a sea of lighters. When you're at a concert and you're looking out, and they have their lighters, and it looks like a sea of lighters. Then I started just going off on this tangent about, like, getting lost in a sea of lighters and being, like, carried away. I don't know way over the relics,

send you back. I never became back here, but they're just set and sailing away, been left behind. I never became a rock star, but I found myself playing in these absurd places like Coichella or Lollapalooza where there's like 40,000 people there,

and it doesn't even seem real. The whole idea that I became this person in this rock band, how do you reconcile that with feeling like you're the still-this person is trapped inside his head and feels sort of shy? And that's what I was thinking when I wrote the song. It's how we know now to never go back. I was sifting through my voice notes in my phone,

and I just had this idea that was just a sort of call and response. Been left behind. Looking for the searchlights late in a charge for mass appeal. To me, that seemed like the thrust of the song. I remember thinking it can't be ba, ba, ba, ba. It's got to be bopah. I don't know why. Actually, Dan and I have had this stupid conversation

for so long through the years, talking about people who we admire for their nonsense syllables, like David Byrne for coming up with Fah Fah Fah Fah Fah Fah Fah Fah Fah Fah Fah Fah And so we're always thinking about that. What are variations on nonsense syllables that we can use?

And the weird thing is, it's very precise. I'm not at all overthinking it I'm going to come up with it, but when somebody's singing it, I'm going, no, it's bo-pa-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-poh. And it's like, no, because you're going bo-pa-pah-pah-pah, that's wrong. And some things I'm pretty lax about, like, yeah, that guitar is good enough, that bass is good enough. But with vocals, I'm like, no, you have to do it this way. I'm John Collins. I am the bass player and recorder of the new pornographers.

There's a middle section that was added at the... at a later date, like months and months later. It's happened like 20 times or more in my life where I'm sitting there with Carl and we're working on a song we've spent 100 hours on already. And then he's like, I got a new piece for this section, like for this part after the chorus or whatever, and I'll just be like, why do you want to mess up this gem of a tune?

Just going, okay, here we go, cutting into this great tune when it's really rocking along just fine. And I trust myself to always get that wrong now. I felt very happy about that bridge just because I liked all the rhymes in it. There's that internal rhyme. a fire in love of sirens, which I was really happy about. A firing love with sirens, we go in fighting, to crying, the rising star dying from its own virus. It's tied in, a firing love with sirens.

It's sort of what I was talking about before, like, just feeling like you're an imposter, a charlatan. you know, maybe somebody who's like playing rock and roll and I should have like dropped it and be doing something else. But hey, this is what I do, so I'll do it. Now here's Brill Bruisers by the New Pornographers in its entirety. Visit SongExploder.net for more information on the new pornographers, including a link to buy this song. I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24th.

It's been about 15 years since I last put out of full ink. And this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishikesh Her Way. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career. And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music, talking to other artists. And it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs. And this album is the product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists, including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabon, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Weinrobe.

I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting in April, and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me. So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album with a different amazing guest moderator in each city. Like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzuchas, Josh Malina, Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings, John Roderick, Austin Cleon, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage. And then I'll play with my band.

The album is called In the Last Hour of Light, and the first couple songs are out now. You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website, rishikash.co. Or just go to songexploder.net slash live. That's songexploder.net slash live. Thanks. Next time on Song Exploder, Clipping, an experimental hip-hop trio that includes David Diggs of the Broadway musical Hamilton. You can subscribe to Song Exploder on I. iTunes, and you can find all the past episodes on the show's website, songexploder.net.

Song Exploder is part of Radiotopia from PRX. My name is Rishi Kesh Hereway. Thanks for listening. Holl out your city if you ride for it. Let them know why you die for it. Same reason all these riders get high, so it's all medicinal. Now what you won't buy, homie. Radioopia.