Chris Funk of The Decemberists Interview

With the 2006 release of The Crane Wife, The Decemberists forgoed small moves and took giant leaps of faith.  The first of which was moving to major label Capitol Records.  The second was a culmination of talent, sweat, and anguish in one of the best albums of the year. We had a chance to sit down with string master Chris Funk of the band to discuss the album, the climb to achieve such, and the new kids on tour.

There’s always a feeling when an indie band signs with a large label – in your case the move to Capitol Records – a band can lose focus or change its ways.  How’s it been thus far?

It seems fine.  I mean, we’re not playing basketball arenas or anything.  We’re playing the next logical step for our fanbase I think.  We booked the tour before the record came out.  It’s been baby steps in terms of live shows and it seems like we’ve grown into bigger venues.  The people who come to the shows are really nice but they seem to become younger which is interesting because we don’t see ourselves as a young person band. Steady the course [laughs].

It is interesting to see kids grasp the writing style of Collin and the level of music you play.

We’ve waxed politically about this issue.  We aren’t breaking the mold or anything but we are different than Fall Out Boy or She Wants Revenge.  But it’s great to see the kids get into a banjo, or a mandolin … a song about a Turkish prostitute.

…And then ten years from then they figure out that song.

Exactly [laughs].  Jokes on them.

What do you feel like changed for you personally between Her Majesty and Crane Wife – and with the move to Captiol?

It’s hard to say.  That’s five years of my life.  Going from such a progressive change; things have changed so dramatically since Of Her Majesty and to the Crane Wife in terms of musicianship and fan base. I think when we were recording Her Majesty, after our day jobs we would just come to the studio and practice Mondays nights and then hit the studio and flesh it out.  Then when we toured on that record we found out more stark differences with each musician and where the audience would go with us as well. We had more of an interest in odd ball folk music and the instrumentation that went with that.  It’s been a progression of who we are as musicians and the level of musicianship and the songwriting – and doing something different with each.

How do compose everything that this band brings to the table; violin, piano, the aforementioned mandolin, not to mention the standard strings and percussion and many more oddities that are escaping right now?

When we realized we could make a living doing this I think all our fantasies were realized.  Me personally I would take the time to learn new instruments.  I learned how to play violin over the summer.  We just do things different than other bands who may go to a bar on their time off and talk about how cool that tour was or something – I think that’s what they do.  Nate learned to play the cello.  We are all trying to push the envelope because we do have the time and we view what we have here as a privilege.  We’ve all been struggling musicians in some form at one time.  So I think it’s the idea that each record is going to get better – that you start a good sounding record and then make a better sounding record.  The Crane Wife to us was the record we always wanted to make. I’ve read a few reviews that said it was over produced as a result of this Capitol thing and we’re like ‘No.’  We wanted Castaways and Cutouts to sound like [Crane Wife] but we couldn’t afford it at the time and we had a shitty studio and we weren’t united as a band I think.  With every record you just try and do better than the last.

How do you take that ‘overproduced’ nonsense?

It’s just ridiculous.  I don’t know how we would over produce a record or quote-unquote make it sound too slick.  There’s not like a button you can turn on in the studio and on one side it says Guided By Voices and on the other side it says Justin Timberlake and then you can kinda meter how you want it to sound [laughs]. That last day in the studio you pick your songs and send them off to be mastered.  I view a record as a time capsule because I never think I’m going to listen to it again.  It’s kinda vain – to think I would put on my record to enjoy it.  You listen to it obsessively in the studio but when you are done with it – its for other people.  We had some argument in the studio over this mandolin part and we joked ‘I guess we’ll never fuckin’ listen to it anyway.’ And I’m like ‘oh yeah.’ [laughs]

At least you can just pick up the mandolin.

I didn’t say I was any good.  It just looks cool on stage.

What’s the next big step then for you now that the album is in the can?

Just the tour thing.  We fancy ourselves a tour band.  I’ve had a year off and now I’m getting my tour cap back on.  It’s great to play live when we have this expansive catalogue of songs to choose from.  We are looking to do something with the Los Angeles Philharmonic so we’ll see how that progresses over time – more expansive shows a year from now.