Red Mosquito

Did you ever think it would take you eight years to make a new Modest Mouse album?

I didn’t have any expectations that I would [make another Modest Mouse album] and I have no expectations that I’ll make another one.

How does an eight-year process work for the band?

Honest answer to whether I thought it would take eight years to make another Modest Mouse record? No. People in the band are having kids left and right. I scored two movies which I didn’t do overnight. I had other interests. I wanted to learn about mycelium. I spent a lot of time reading books and going out into the woods to learn about mushrooms.

How do you write these days?

The method is this: Small ideas? Don’t hone in on them too much. If they seem too specific, too dead on, if your point is too on the nose, you’re going to lose the opportunity to have a lot of people get your point. Change it. Find a way to make what you’re saying matter to people without saying too much at all. Allow everyone enough imagination and ownership of coming to something themselves. They could come to something better, which would be great. They could come to something worse, which is dangerous. But, don’t be direct, otherwise you’ll be too preachy. I don’t have a rule, but it’s an approach I try.

Do you have a favorite Modest Mouse record? Least favorite?

Some of ‘em are like yearbook photos. [2001's] “Sad Sappy Sucker” is a yearbook photo. It exists purely because it was made, and why not put it out? But I don’t care for that. I don’t care for [1997's EP] “The Fruit That Ate Itself” except for some vague remembering of what you were, or a chunk of time, it’s useful to me. As far as what I want people to hear, those two can eat a dick. I don’t think [2004's] “Good News” was a particularly good record but why shoot the cook? Dude’s got bills to pay. It’s not like it’s a bad record, but I think sonically it could have been better and it could have been a more complex record than it was. But it turns out when I do complex records people don’t tend to like ‘em until 10 years later and that doesn’t do very much to keep the lights turned on in my house, does it? [2000's] “Moon & Antarctica” is a fabulous record. No one liked it, really, until they had to deal with two other Modest Mouse records that they didn’t like as much.

People seemed to think “Good News” was a dramatic shift in your sound.

That record was every bit as simple as every record I ever made and maybe [fans] didn’t like it because of that, but no one ever said they didn’t like it because it was simpler than the previous records. It was always that it was overproduced. And it wasn’t. It was shoved out the door. We wrote the record in basically a month and recorded it in not much more than that. “Float On” was a fine song but I was still writing the lyrics on the last day we were working on it and deciding if it was something we wanted to put on the record.

People think of Modest Mouse as an indie-rock band. But you’re really not.

I’ve only ever been fucked over by independent labels. I went to a major label feeling like an asshole, like I’d betrayed some sort of legitimate movement. But none of the bands that got me into playing music – I wouldn’t have heard of the Talking Heads, the Clash – a lot of music I would not have heard of if it hadn’t been on a major label. So I dragged myself there thinking that if people don’t want my music, fine, but I did not believe it should just be allowed for people in hip college towns and major cities. I’m not from those. But I felt like a prick. But then over the years I realized that everything from K [Records] to Up [Records] to Sub Pop, these are the people who have actually fucked me over in business. Epic [Records] is pretty simple. The least fucking-over I’ve gotten in business has been from major labels. They’re still semi-fucking me over with the streaming thing, but they can’t help themselves.

I’m a big fan of the concept [of indie music], but it’s still just an asshole who hasn’t managed to get his or her business in a sky rise.

You guys have been a major label band for longer than you were an indie band at this point.

Look, I’m a huge Cure fan. I love the Cure. The scales being tipped to when they weren’t on a major label compared to when they were seems pretty meaningless. I had the good fortune of having them go before me and seeing their careers, musically at least, lose something. Like a novel written by a dead hand. There’s nothing quite there but it’s sort of still there. Which is why I’m willing to wait eight years before I put out a record. I just won’t do that to people who like my band. I like Modest Mouse. I’m our biggest fan. And enemy. I won’t waste people’s time by putting out a Modest Mouse record just because. That’s fair, right? Did you get to hear the new record?

Yeah.

It’s good, right? It could’ve been better. But I pulled songs that would have made it more interesting because they would’ve been distracting.

Have you ever released a record where you felt like it couldn’t be any better?

No. The difference between how I approach putting out a record and how I think most people do is that I actually believe that the people who put time into listening to it matter every bit as much as the time that I put into it. As frustrating as it is to not have a record come out, I have to make sure that it’s worth putting out. I have to be trying to say something, for one. I have to not oversell what I’m trying to say. I can’t “Bono” it.