Posts tagged interview
Posts tagged interview
“New Decemberists album takes ‘left turn’”
Colin and Nate on CNN
(Source: CNN)
The Decemberists chat it out on QTV (by Qtv)
Pitchfork: A few months ago, talk of your working on a musical surfaced. Do you think that will happen?
CM: It’s something that’s been planned for a while. I’m working with [director of Green Day’s American Idiot musical] Michael Mayer, who’s a good friend, down at the Berkeley Rep Theatre to getting something off the ground, but it’s still in the very early stages of planning.
I have a conflicted relationship with musicals, because I think the music itself can be so horrendous. It’s an industry that relies on appealing to a mainstream culture in order to survive. If Broadway musicals were as popular as they were in the 20s, 30s, and 40s, then people like Sufjan Stevens and Iron & Wine would be writing for Broadway, which would be amazing. As it stands, it’s the worst stuff that’s mired in pop music.
College Tower: Do we find anything about Colin Meloy from these stories? Is there a lot of yourself that you inject into these lyrics that are about far away times, people, and places?
Colin Meloy: There is and there isn’t. I act as an omniscient narrator overseeing everything. So inevitably there is a certain amount of myself in the songs, some songs more than others obviously.
CT: Give me an example.
CM: The last song [from Picaresque] “Of Angels and Angles” is a very personal song. “The Sporting Life” is really loosely based on memories of playing soccer as a kid. Though the circumstances never happened to me, it’s the impression that stuck with me. It’s in varying degrees. Then you have something like “Infanta” which is completely removed from my realm of experience.
