Speaker 1: Pushkin Slater Kinney has long been a safe space for
Speaker 1: band members Kerrie Brownstein and Koryn Tucker. What started as
Speaker 1: a group born out of the feminist punk riot girl
Speaker 1: scene in Olympia, Washington in the early nineties, has grown
Speaker 1: into a life affirming artistic endeavor. In late twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: tragedy struck when Carrie's mother and stepfather were killed in
Speaker 1: a car accident overseas. In the months after, Carrie found
Speaker 1: respite from her men's grief by playing the guitar for
Speaker 1: hours on end and writing new music. Slater Kenney's latest album,
Speaker 1: Little Rope, is in part a meditation on Carrie's grief,
Speaker 1: but it's also proven to be a triumph for the band.
Speaker 1: Koryn Tucker, who handles the bulk of the singing for
Speaker 1: the new album, has been racking up rave reviews, including
Speaker 1: one from The New Yorker, who noted that Koran's performance
Speaker 1: is the most dynamic inflexible of her career. On today's episode,
Speaker 1: Bruce HEADLM talks to Carry Brownstein and Koran Tucker about
Speaker 1: their intimate recording relationship and how there's sometimes opposing approaches
Speaker 1: to creative work. Compliment one another. They also talk about
Speaker 1: the matriarchal nature of the early Olympia music scene and
Speaker 1: why they wanted their new album to sometimes sound gross
Speaker 1: and obnoxious. This is broken record liner notes for the
Speaker 1: digital age. I'm justin Mitchman. Here's Bruce Headlm's conversation with
Speaker 1: Slater Kenny.
Speaker 2: I think for some acts, and I think you might
Speaker 2: be one of them, critics almost get in the way.
Speaker 2: I think this is the first time I've been able
Speaker 2: to listen to one of your new records without reading
Speaker 2: sort of manifesto about what it meant from somebody, or
Speaker 2: you know, hearing all the kind of is it wired?
Speaker 3: Girl?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 3: This?
Speaker 2: Is this? It was just pure pleasure listening to it.
Speaker 2: Just a great album, and it also is it's incredibly lively.
Speaker 2: Like We've done a lot of interviews with people who've
Speaker 2: sort of been coming out of pandemic, and a lot
Speaker 2: of this stuff feels tentative. This feels like it was
Speaker 2: a shot out of a cannon. I want to know
Speaker 2: from you how this album started and the kind of
Speaker 2: world you were trying to create with this album to
Speaker 2: invite people in. What was it?
Speaker 3: I think because we did make a Pandemic album before
Speaker 3: this one, perhaps we got that insular, isolating sound out
Speaker 3: of the way this one, I think we were recommitting
Speaker 3: to the band, which to me is almost an act
Speaker 3: you have to do with each album is recommit to
Speaker 3: the need, recommit to the making and doing of music
Speaker 3: and find necessity in it and intention and purpose so
Speaker 3: that it's not random or something you take for granted,
Speaker 3: and then you get to the task of making it.
Speaker 3: But I do think because of that, and perhaps feeling
Speaker 3: slightly underestimated, that you know when you're on your eleventh album,
Speaker 3: that people wonder what you have to say. I think
Speaker 3: as we were writing, we knew we had something to say.
Speaker 3: I think there was an urgency to it. There was
Speaker 3: a deliberate, I guess nature in terms of songwriting and
Speaker 3: the craft of it and approaching things in new ways,
Speaker 3: but also returning to some of the methods that we
Speaker 3: have used for almost thirty years, which is the two
Speaker 3: of us in a room together with guitar and singing.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I think interest in terms of when you
Speaker 3: start writing a record and it's your eleventh album, you
Speaker 3: have to know that you want this still, because otherwise
Speaker 3: there's just a flattening of the whole experience in the
Speaker 3: sonic nature of it as well, which we didn't want.
Speaker 2: Was there something different you did sonically here? It's a
Speaker 2: great sounding record. There's a couple tracks particularly I thought
Speaker 2: just had a great sort of background sound. I think
Speaker 2: Hunt You Down was one of them that really just
Speaker 2: had a great sort of atmosphere.
Speaker 4: I think that, you know, we really approached it with
Speaker 4: wanting to have, you know, an album that was really bold,
Speaker 4: and we were fortunate enough to work with John Congleton
Speaker 4: as a producer on this album, and so we worked
Speaker 4: really hard on finding sounds that were cutting edge, kind
Speaker 4: of extra, that were loud and sometimes gross was a
Speaker 4: word that we used a lot, and we wanted it
Speaker 4: to be a little bit obnoxious at times.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But I think, like with something that Hunt You Down,
Speaker 3: we wanted to set moods. But I don't like music
Speaker 3: that is just vibe. But I do like things that
Speaker 3: are immersive that bring you into a world. And I
Speaker 3: think we we thought with each song about the rhythm
Speaker 3: and what tones work with the song, and about arrangement
Speaker 3: a lot. We also do a lot of editing. You know,
Speaker 3: when you start out as a band, a lot of
Speaker 3: it is first idea, best idea, or it's a culmination
Speaker 3: of everything you've been thinking about, everything that's been percolating
Speaker 3: and building up for your entire life. And then the
Speaker 3: first three records are kind of an extension of I
Speaker 3: don't know, that sort of back catalog of ideas. But
Speaker 3: then after that there is a searching and a seeking
Speaker 3: and so we don't always trust first idea, best idea.
Speaker 3: We sit with something for a while, hunt you down.
Speaker 3: As a song that we wrote three or four choruses
Speaker 3: for that we really made have elements come in in,
Speaker 3: you know, guitar parts that come in just once to
Speaker 3: just punctuate and accentuate a certain lyric. We really thought
Speaker 3: about that song as a journey, I think, and we
Speaker 3: did that with a lot of these songs, really sat
Speaker 3: with them and wrestled with them over and over again
Speaker 3: until we had sort of the perfect version of them.
Speaker 3: And then, of course you try to throw that out
Speaker 3: when you're recording and accentuate things that are imperfect or
Speaker 3: things that are messy, or things that kind of teeter
Speaker 3: on the edge.
Speaker 2: Can you tell me a little more what that writing
Speaker 2: is like. You mentioned that you guys have always just
Speaker 2: sat in rooms with guitars, I assume facing each other
Speaker 2: and writing. Is that what's it like for you? What's
Speaker 2: the room like, what are you playing? How does that work?
Speaker 3: For this album? I was actually using a friend's apartment.
Speaker 3: He has an apartment downtown and that was kind of
Speaker 3: nice because Corn and I, when we do write together,
Speaker 3: it is often in our own homes or you know,
Speaker 3: small rooms, whether it's been a basement, that's very often
Speaker 3: a basement or an office or some kind of den.
Speaker 3: But we were in a space that was more like
Speaker 3: aloft in downtown, and neither of us live downtown. A
Speaker 3: lot of people in Portland live on the east side
Speaker 3: of town, so you're not kind of immersed in the
Speaker 3: city of Portland. So we were on this sort of
Speaker 3: upper floor able to kind of look out at the
Speaker 3: river and see the skyline and you know, see the
Speaker 3: sort of the mountains, you know, Mountain Hood in the
Speaker 3: in the distance and Mount Tabor, and that was kind
Speaker 3: of nice to build, to have this particular space that
Speaker 3: we didn't necessarily know we're going to have that. We
Speaker 3: only wrote music there. It wasn't anywhere that we did
Speaker 3: any other living. We just went there and wrote and worked,
Speaker 3: and I think that kind of insolarity can be good.
Speaker 3: You know. Sometimes I like when you're writing and you're
Speaker 3: sort of it's ambient and you're kind of eating and
Speaker 3: breathing music and you can walk from your you know,
Speaker 3: where your amplifier is, to the kitchen. But I also
Speaker 3: just like getting in my car or walking and being
Speaker 3: in the space where I know what I'm there to
Speaker 3: do is write and work. And we had that with
Speaker 3: this album, which we have not always had.
Speaker 4: I think that we we give ourselves multiple avenues to
Speaker 4: arrive upon a song, whether it's jamming on something or
Speaker 4: working on a particular part of a song, trying to
Speaker 4: crack a certain chorus of a song, you know. I
Speaker 4: think that we allow ourselves to experiment with different ways
Speaker 4: of writing in different places, different setups, so that we
Speaker 4: can approach things from different angles.
Speaker 3: We also sometimes send ideas back and forth, you know,
Speaker 3: using software, you know, where we can really flush out
Speaker 3: an entire demo of something, and then the other person
Speaker 3: gets it and sits with it for a while and
Speaker 3: maybe reharmonizes the chords underneath it, or works on a
Speaker 3: top line melody.
Speaker 2: Can you walk me through? I mean, lots of standouts
Speaker 2: on this record, but Untidy Creature, which is the last track,
Speaker 2: so I'm starting with the end, but I thought it
Speaker 2: was such an outstanding song. How did that start? How
Speaker 2: did that go back and forth between you?
Speaker 4: The funny thing about that song is it actually was
Speaker 4: the first song we wrote for the album, and we
Speaker 4: wrote it in was it twenty twenty one, beginning of
Speaker 4: that year, and I think Carrie had this great riff
Speaker 4: idea for a song, and I think we just started
Speaker 4: jamming on that one and coming up with an idea
Speaker 4: for the song. And I think it came together fairly
Speaker 4: quickly in terms of the music of the song, but
Speaker 4: the lyrics really changed over the year. You know, I
Speaker 4: think that I wanted it to be a really personal story,
Speaker 4: but it also definitely reflects what happened in the past
Speaker 4: couple of years in terms of women's rights in this
Speaker 4: country and in terms of feeling autonomous and feeling respected.
Speaker 4: I think that, you know, it's meant to reflect that
Speaker 4: experience and rebel against it.
Speaker 2: Of that opening riff, it actually reminds me, it's like
Speaker 2: a minor version to me of the Waterloo Sunset riff,
Speaker 2: kind of the way that little figure just descends when
Speaker 2: you work out the music for that, and did you
Speaker 2: work out the music really solidly before the lyrical ideas
Speaker 2: came yes, When do you guys kind of lock in
Speaker 2: your guitar plank? Because I can't think of another band
Speaker 2: that has an interaction between guitar players the way you
Speaker 2: guys do. You don't have a bass player, but there's
Speaker 2: something amazing about how you fill up the space with
Speaker 2: your two guitars. How do you work that out?
Speaker 3: That is a very ineffable thing, and it's a sonic
Speaker 3: vernacular that we came to very early in this band,
Speaker 3: and it is very instinctive in some ways in terms
Speaker 3: of how we fill things out sonically. You know, neither
Speaker 3: of us are trained musicians, so we are often approaching
Speaker 3: things a little bit differently, probably not always doing what
Speaker 3: is expected in terms of chord progression, no progression, kind
Speaker 3: of hybridizing scales and sliding into notes that might not be,
Speaker 3: you know, the most comfortable for the listener, and I
Speaker 3: think that then affects how Korn sings. We also dtuned
Speaker 3: to C sharp, which always creates something that feels I
Speaker 3: think a little bit scary and certainly a little bit sour.
Speaker 3: Sometimes the tuning is slippery in C sharp. No matter
Speaker 3: how many people intonate these guitars, it definitely creates some
Speaker 3: dissonance there that we like, you know, we like creating
Speaker 3: a sonic landscape that isn't just something that you can
Speaker 3: sort of relax into it, because then when it does,
Speaker 3: when all the notes align, it's very satisfying. But there's
Speaker 3: a lot of times where the notes are misaligning, you know,
Speaker 3: when it's it's just right on the edge of not
Speaker 3: being right. So I think we're aware of that as
Speaker 3: we are putting the guitar parts together and we utilize
Speaker 3: that discord, we seek it out a little bit and
Speaker 3: we toy with it. And then we can also contrast
Speaker 3: that really well with something pretty like Untidy Creature starts
Speaker 3: out with that big riff and then it breaks down
Speaker 3: into a very beautiful, catchy verse, has much more classic
Speaker 3: like chord, you know, structures. And then the other interesting
Speaker 3: thing about that song is that because we didn't record it,
Speaker 3: Korin misremembered the chord she played under my riff, so
Speaker 3: she ended up writing two different chord progressions. And when
Speaker 3: I remembered that she had written two different ones, I thought, well,
Speaker 3: let's use both. So at the end of the song
Speaker 3: it switches. She just her guitar switches. I'm still playing
Speaker 3: that riff and her part switches. And I think we
Speaker 3: are conscious of the ways that that can really change something.
Speaker 3: It can make something go from minor to major, or
Speaker 3: even something a little more subtle than that. And it's
Speaker 3: very satisfying. We are such a guitar bassed band. That
Speaker 3: is such a tool for us in terms of how
Speaker 3: we express, you know, the emotion in our song. And so, yeah,
Speaker 3: we are we are very particular about it, but mostly
Speaker 3: it's instinctive. But we also, I think have gotten better
Speaker 3: at utilizing it effectively.
Speaker 2: Just so I understand, are you using standard tuning and
Speaker 2: then tuning everything down three se It's not a it's
Speaker 2: not an alteration.
Speaker 3: That would be even more insane. Yes, And in fact,
Speaker 3: sometimes when we've had people come into the studio or
Speaker 3: join us live and we say, see sharp, they're imagining
Speaker 3: some real jazzy, crazy tuning and really no, it's just
Speaker 3: basically standard but dropped you know, a step and a
Speaker 3: half there.
Speaker 2: And was this just something you started doing early or it.
Speaker 3: Was such an accident?
Speaker 4: Great corn, Yeah, it really was an accident and was
Speaker 4: I think when we first started playing together, I had
Speaker 4: detuned my guitar for my former band, I was the
Speaker 4: only player. I was the only instrument player, and I
Speaker 4: liked singing with a slightly dropped tuning because it made
Speaker 4: my voice. It just gave like a drama to my
Speaker 4: voice that I liked. And so when Kary and I
Speaker 4: started playing together, when we finally tuned our guitars to
Speaker 4: each other, it happened to be C sharp, and we're like, great,
Speaker 4: that's what it is.
Speaker 3: Yes, it could have been D at that, you know,
Speaker 3: I mean, it could have been it could have been
Speaker 3: E flat, could have been d Literally the moment we
Speaker 3: decided to codify it, it was C sharp, and for
Speaker 3: some reason, we still only tune to that. It is
Speaker 3: the language of this band. It's like you step into
Speaker 3: the land of Slater Kenny and everybody speaks C sharp.
Speaker 3: That's just it's one of the only rules.
Speaker 1: After a quick break, we'll be back with more from
Speaker 1: Slater Kenny. We're back with more from Bruce Hedlam and
Speaker 1: Slater Kenny.
Speaker 2: So did the lyrical idea? Does it grow naturally out
Speaker 2: of the music or you're just hearing it and you think, well, no,
Speaker 2: I have this, I have a lyrical idea I can
Speaker 2: apply it to this or are you listening to it
Speaker 2: saying it's got to be this, this is where it's
Speaker 2: leading me.
Speaker 5: I think it depends on the song.
Speaker 4: I think for a tidy creature, that one had some
Speaker 4: lyrics that came very naturally while I was singing, but
Speaker 4: I really wanted to develop a story in that song
Speaker 4: that you know, was about one particular experience that was
Speaker 4: about being inside of a world instead of a moment
Speaker 4: inside of a feeling.
Speaker 5: And so that involved a lot of.
Speaker 4: Writing and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting those lyrics, but
Speaker 4: it was the music had come first in that particular song.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like both of us. But I definitely
Speaker 3: write things down all the time, either in my notes
Speaker 3: app or on an actual you know, in an actual
Speaker 3: notebook lyric ideas, but I can't always be certain that
Speaker 3: they will fit with the song. You know, a song
Speaker 3: like Needlessly Wild or the verses of Hunt You Down.
Speaker 3: It's like the music compels me to sing a certain
Speaker 3: way or to sing certain words, and often we will
Speaker 3: have placeholders and it's almost like a feeling like the
Speaker 3: word has to sound a certain way in your mouth.
Speaker 3: You can't shoehorn some new set of consonants in there,
Speaker 3: or you know, or it has to be this way syllabically,
Speaker 3: like it does inform things. You want it to be
Speaker 3: singable and not, you know, sort of clumsy. So sometimes
Speaker 3: the melody a little bit dictates the lyrics, not every obviously,
Speaker 3: you know you hear certain when I listen to a
Speaker 3: band like The National, I think there's no way that
Speaker 3: you know, Matt beren Journey must be almost telling a
Speaker 3: short story here. But for us, I think, and especially
Speaker 3: Korin with her capabilities as a singer, she can convey
Speaker 3: a lot with very few words, but they still have
Speaker 3: to be the right words. But I do think the
Speaker 3: music can kind of inform what we end up singing about,
Speaker 3: because it's a feeling, and if you put the wrong
Speaker 3: lyrics over there over it, you can really tell, you know.
Speaker 3: Sometimes those are the songs that don't end up on
Speaker 3: the album because they just don't feel connected in that way.
Speaker 3: The relationship is muddy between music and lyrics.
Speaker 2: You mentioned the singing on this song, and I would
Speaker 2: say the whole album, it's fantastic. I'm not sure you've
Speaker 2: sounded better. In fact, Kryn, are there things you can
Speaker 2: do with your voice now you feel you that you
Speaker 2: couldn't do before?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Weirdly, yes, Over the years, I have started taking better
Speaker 4: care of my voice, and I did start working with
Speaker 4: a voice coach in Portland who helped me work on
Speaker 4: and maintaining my voice on tour, and I think he
Speaker 4: taught me a bunch about singing. He taught me how
Speaker 4: to work through different parts of my voice and control
Speaker 4: them a bit better. And so I think kind of
Speaker 4: unconsciously that came out on this album because it was
Speaker 4: it was a very emotional album, but it also has
Speaker 4: a complexity to it that I think sort of really
Speaker 4: speaks to where we are in our lives right now,
Speaker 4: and I wanted to be able to convey that with
Speaker 4: the singing as well.
Speaker 2: Carrie, did you find her singing on this album different? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think it is some of Korin's best singing. I
Speaker 3: go back and listen to something like dig Me Out
Speaker 3: or The Woods, which are two albums that Sleader Kinney
Speaker 3: are sort of known for, and Korn's voice is incredible
Speaker 3: on both of those albums. But the control role on
Speaker 3: this album, the nuance, the diversity of sounds and voicings.
Speaker 3: A song like Small Finds, there are three distinct vocal
Speaker 3: styles on that song.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: The verse has kind of a tossed off ensutionient, almost
Speaker 3: Kim Gordon feel, and then the chorus is this big
Speaker 3: rock voice, and then the coda, which takes you out
Speaker 3: of the song, has this whole other, almost Jim Morrison
Speaker 3: doors vibe. It's sounding to me, you know. And then
Speaker 3: of course there's something like the choruses of Hell, which, yes,
Speaker 3: you can maybe imagine that on dig Me Out, but
Speaker 3: not with that control, and not with the verses being
Speaker 3: so pretty and melodic. So yeah, I'm very impressed. And
Speaker 3: I really needed quarant to sing more on this record
Speaker 3: because I had just gone through loss in my life
Speaker 3: and was grieving and didn't really think that my strength
Speaker 3: was going to be in singing on this album, and
Speaker 3: so Koran really stepped up, and it's probably the most
Speaker 3: singing she's done since very very early Slater Kinney.
Speaker 2: So, Koran was your voice your first instrument growing up?
Speaker 4: My dad is he was like a hobby musician. He
Speaker 4: played folk music in the sixties. He opened for Pete
Speaker 4: Seeger once yeah, And he was always playing music when
Speaker 4: I was little. I remember being two or three years
Speaker 4: old and singing folk songs with him, and he would
Speaker 4: play guitar and be like, sing this one, you know,
Speaker 4: And I just thought that was what kids did growing up,
Speaker 4: was learning folk songs.
Speaker 5: I was wanted to sing.
Speaker 4: I think I got really anxious as a teenager. I
Speaker 4: didn't feel comfortable pursuing it because I I was just
Speaker 4: I didn't have the self confidence. But when I arrived
Speaker 4: in Olympia and I connected with the music scene there,
Speaker 4: it was so supportive and so wide open in terms
Speaker 4: of what a band could be, what a singer could be,
Speaker 4: that I wanted to start my own band. I was
Speaker 4: so inspired by other women in bands that I wanted
Speaker 4: to do it myself. And so I started a band
Speaker 4: right away and started singing in it and performing with
Speaker 4: no real training and no real idea what I was doing.
Speaker 2: Was there a particular song, a moment that made you
Speaker 2: feel that you wanted to do this.
Speaker 5: I think there was a moment.
Speaker 4: It was February fourteenth, nineteen ninety one, and it was
Speaker 4: a Valentine's Stay show with Bikini Kell and Bratmobile two
Speaker 4: bands that I was extremely inspired by, and I think
Speaker 4: Feels Blind by Bikini Kel was probably one of the
Speaker 4: most inspirational songs. It hit me so hard at that age.
Speaker 4: I was eighteen and I saw what they did as
Speaker 4: a band. It was so impactful. It wasn't professional, it
Speaker 4: wasn't polished, but it just really dared people to do
Speaker 4: something different with our lives. And I felt like it
Speaker 4: was a calling for me as well to start singing
Speaker 4: and do my own band.
Speaker 2: Carrie, what was it for you?
Speaker 3: Gosh, A single moment. I think for me, it was
Speaker 3: definitely in high school when I started actually going to shows.
Speaker 3: You know, I had grown up listening to a lot
Speaker 3: of pop music in the eighties and watching MTV. I
Speaker 3: could never decode how or what people were playing. There
Speaker 3: was a lot of spectacle surrounding that music. You couldn't
Speaker 3: really permeate the artifice of it. But I started going
Speaker 3: to shows in high school and I remember seeing hammer Box.
Speaker 3: They were a band from Seattle, The Fastbacks Beat Happening,
Speaker 3: and I would just watch these people play, like Kim
Speaker 3: Warnick or Kurk Block from the Fastbacks, and I could
Speaker 3: actually see what they were doing I could see what
Speaker 3: the pedals, the guitar effects pedals look like. I saw
Speaker 3: that there was a quarter inch cable going from an
Speaker 3: amp to a pedal to maybe a tuner if we
Speaker 3: were lucky, And I could see how their fingers moved
Speaker 3: across the fretboard. I could see that there were monitors
Speaker 3: like that. Whole machinery was demystified for me, and music
Speaker 3: was something that was made. It wasn't just packaged or produced.
Speaker 3: There was sweat and effort, and I really just needed
Speaker 3: to kind of press myself to the front of those
Speaker 3: stages and watch and decode. And so I think more
Speaker 3: than a single moment, but just being in rooms every
Speaker 3: weekend and understanding that this was something that wasn't happening
Speaker 3: in New York or la or London, but happening in
Speaker 3: the suburbs of Seattle and in Seattle and in all
Speaker 3: these places that I inhabited with people that were just
Speaker 3: a little bit older than me, and that I had
Speaker 3: access to it, that I could if I got a guitar,
Speaker 3: that I could play this. It wasn't foreign.
Speaker 2: You know, I've asked that question of so many people,
Speaker 2: and you're the first two have mentioned live music, not
Speaker 2: recorded music. For so many people, it's you know, under
Speaker 2: the covers with my radio hearing love Me Do for
Speaker 2: the first time or whatever it is. It's amazing, that's
Speaker 2: what you reacted to so strongly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think, of course we both have all those
Speaker 3: moments of recorded music, but you know, we came up
Speaker 3: with such community, and I think that idea of conveying
Speaker 3: something live and being able to do that, to me,
Speaker 3: it was not just an oral experience. There was something
Speaker 3: more than just listening involved. It was ritual.
Speaker 2: Your experience in Olympia is really interesting. People know the
Speaker 2: Seattle scene from that era. Tell me how it was different,
Speaker 2: or maybe it wasn't different.
Speaker 4: I think it was different in terms of the diversity
Speaker 4: of bands in Olympia and the kind of support there
Speaker 4: was immediately for young women playing music.
Speaker 5: And you know, I think that.
Speaker 4: There was a space there for hearing about women's stories
Speaker 4: and women's experiences.
Speaker 5: That was super important. You know, there was a radio.
Speaker 4: Station from the College at Evergreen that Diana Aaron's and
Speaker 4: other friends DJ'ed at that would have our bands play
Speaker 4: on them. There was multiple recording opportunities. I think for
Speaker 4: bands it didn't cost any money. I mean my first
Speaker 4: recording was Molly Newman renting a task tape recorder and
Speaker 4: we made our first single off of recording. You know,
Speaker 4: that was free, and so having those kinds of resources
Speaker 4: and those opportunities available, I think, you know, it just
Speaker 4: kind of eliminated of those barriers to have really interesting
Speaker 4: already and female fronted bands happen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was almost matriarchal compared to Seattle, and it
Speaker 3: had an avant garde element. It had a real art
Speaker 3: slant to it. In Olympia, there were bands were minimal.
Speaker 3: There were a lot of two pieces, you know, like
Speaker 3: sort of White Stripes were the first band that got
Speaker 3: big as a two piece, but Olympia had twenty two
Speaker 3: piece bands. A lot of bands didn't have bass. Just
Speaker 3: convention was really done away with, and you could form
Speaker 3: a band on a Monday and play a show on
Speaker 3: a Friday. This notion of professionalism was very much deconstructed,
Speaker 3: almost frowned upon, you know, which of course was endemic
Speaker 3: to punk in general. And punk was you know, sort
Speaker 3: of turning its nose up at a lot of those conventions,
Speaker 3: but particularly in a scene like Olympia, you know, there
Speaker 3: was a real i don't know, just sort of celebrating
Speaker 3: of the amateur, and then of course eventually you want
Speaker 3: to get better, and bands did, and they watched each
Speaker 3: other and tried to best their last thing. But in
Speaker 3: the spirit of it was definitely something that felt kind
Speaker 3: of anti commercial, anti professional, and very much pro art,
Speaker 3: pro weird.
Speaker 2: I've always wondered if there's a flip side to that
Speaker 2: kind of experience, which is it seems like a very
Speaker 2: intense place and people are very intense about their art,
Speaker 2: and sometimes intense fans can be punishing ones. There are
Speaker 2: not a lot of casual fans of your band. There
Speaker 2: are super fans, and their people say I've never really
Speaker 2: listened to them, and super fans kind of scare me
Speaker 2: a little bit. You know. I'm thinking of someone I
Speaker 2: really admired, Liz Fair, who put out one record that
Speaker 2: people didn't like and it was like a war crime
Speaker 2: or something. Maybe it's worse for women, like you know,
Speaker 2: Lou Reid can do a whole album of guitar feedback,
Speaker 2: and then Joni Mitchell does Mingus and people are like
Speaker 2: furious with her when you're making records. Are you kind
Speaker 2: of conscious of that core fan? Are you worried, well,
Speaker 2: are they going to feel betrayed by this if we
Speaker 2: do this? What's your relationship to those kinds of fans.
Speaker 4: I think that we try and first and foremost make
Speaker 4: a record for us, for ourselves that we're enjoying, that
Speaker 4: we feel like we're doing something new when we write music.
Speaker 4: I wouldn't say that we're totally unconscious of our fans
Speaker 4: and what people enjoy about the band.
Speaker 5: I think that would be dishonest.
Speaker 4: I think we do think about what people might enjoy,
Speaker 4: but I think that you try and put that on
Speaker 4: the back burner, and the front burner is stretching and
Speaker 4: doing something interesting, because otherwise I think it's so easy
Speaker 4: to feel stale in a band.
Speaker 1: All right, one last quick break and then we'll be
Speaker 1: back with the rest of Bruce Hedlam's conversation with Slater Kenny.
Speaker 1: We're back with the rest of our conversation with Slater Kenny.
Speaker 2: What do you do to make sure you don't go stale?
Speaker 2: I mean, when you're younger, you're still learning to play,
Speaker 2: you're still feeling your way out. You guys are very experienced. Now,
Speaker 2: are there barriers you put up for yourself or the
Speaker 2: things you feel now we got to get over this.
Speaker 2: Is there a way of making it hard, making it
Speaker 2: more rewarding.
Speaker 3: I mean, that's the goal. I think it doesn't always
Speaker 3: come easy to make it hard, if that makes sense,
Speaker 3: But we try to avoid the facile or something that's
Speaker 3: repetitive of Well, that's an avenue we've explored before. This
Speaker 3: is you know, it's very easy for Korin and I
Speaker 3: to have kind of these sort of angular terst guitar
Speaker 3: parts intertwining and a certain kind of vocal. But we
Speaker 3: allow ourselves now to kind of work through that process.
Speaker 3: We will take every idea and sort of run with
Speaker 3: it and exhaust it, because I think that's part of
Speaker 3: the process. I think for a while, when we would
Speaker 3: land upon an idea that felt too familiar, we would
Speaker 3: discard it immediately. I think one methodology we've learned is
Speaker 3: or one thing we've incorporated in our writing is patients
Speaker 3: to sort of see something through until we know that
Speaker 3: it's not working or that having faith that it will
Speaker 3: transform into something that is working. But those parameters I
Speaker 3: think are good, and there are ways that you can
Speaker 3: have parameters. One is just setting time limits. You know,
Speaker 3: those very few records are great when someone spends five
Speaker 3: years recording them in the lap of luxury in paradise,
Speaker 3: that's not like the best way to make great music.
Speaker 3: But if you say, you know, we recorded Call the
Speaker 3: Doctor in five days, and we recorded Dig Me Out
Speaker 3: in ten, and we recorded The Woods in three weeks,
Speaker 3: so you know we recorded this album in probably fifteen
Speaker 3: to seventeen days, right, Quorna, You know that is a parameter.
Speaker 3: That is a limitation. Now we'd already done the writing
Speaker 3: on it. But I think having something some where it
Speaker 3: feels like you're pushing against something that is you can't
Speaker 3: really manufacture that, but I think you can trick yourself
Speaker 3: a little bit into into having something to push against.
Speaker 3: And that's important because then you have to justify. You
Speaker 3: have to, Okay, can I justify this part or this length,
Speaker 3: like what you know, test me on, like someone's sort
Speaker 3: of testing you, someone's pushing back, and you say, like, no,
Speaker 3: I'm going to affirm this thing. That that is helpful.
Speaker 3: But each album kind of has its own world to it,
Speaker 3: and sometimes the worlds of a Slater tiny record have
Speaker 3: really high stakes, and this one did. And it's not
Speaker 3: an experience we would I would ever want to live
Speaker 3: through again. I'm talking about the death of two people
Speaker 3: in my family that occurred when we were making this record.
Speaker 3: You know, I would I never want to live through
Speaker 3: that again. But it certainly raised the stakes and it
Speaker 3: created an absolute, like ontological like shift in this band,
Speaker 3: and that that doesn't always happen. And short of that,
Speaker 3: you have to create a way for there to be
Speaker 3: stakes and necessity and parameters. Life doesn't always bring you that,
Speaker 3: and I wouldn't wish those parameters brought onto any now.
Speaker 2: For a lot of people, that would be a reason
Speaker 2: to stop making the record. Did you consider that, No.
Speaker 3: I needed music more after the death of my mom
Speaker 3: and stepfather. I needed the choreography of playing guitar. I
Speaker 3: needed to feel something almost prayerful. And that's what music
Speaker 3: is for me. It's a version of that. It's a
Speaker 3: version of placing myself in a room communing with something
Speaker 3: bigger than me, putting my fingers on the neck of
Speaker 3: the guitar. I played and wrote over and over again
Speaker 3: for eight hours a day, sometimes, which I hadn't really
Speaker 3: done since I was in high school or in the
Speaker 3: early years of Slater Kindney. It was it became an
Speaker 3: absolute need for me, and I think we just we
Speaker 3: just kept going. I also needed the songs to be
Speaker 3: what I couldn't be. You know, I felt incoherent, I
Speaker 3: felt weak, I felt despondent, and I needed the songs
Speaker 3: to be the opposite of those things. I needed the
Speaker 3: songs to be coherent and vibrant and strong and make
Speaker 3: noise in a way where I felt mute. So we
Speaker 3: just channeled all all of that into into the into
Speaker 3: the songs, and even the songs we had already written
Speaker 3: and we had recorded a handful of them, were sort
Speaker 3: of dragged into this new reality.
Speaker 2: Your book, which is excellent, you write about being a kid,
Speaker 2: and by virtue of your parents' relationship, you were very
Speaker 2: early dragged into the adult world of complications and complex feelings.
Speaker 2: You know, one thing I really love about this album,
Speaker 2: or all your albums, but this one is seeing people
Speaker 2: try and figure out those complexities almost on the run.
Speaker 2: In the relationship songs like say It Like You Mean
Speaker 2: It Certainly and Dress Yourself Untidy Creature. Actually probably the
Speaker 2: whole album. It's this sort of collision of polemical and
Speaker 2: personal ideas. I'm wondering if that's a pretty common experience
Speaker 2: for artists that as kids they're pulled into that kind
Speaker 2: of adult world and they spend a lot of time
Speaker 2: trying to figure that stuff out. Do you think that
Speaker 2: relates to your writing.
Speaker 3: I mean it's true for me, but I don't know
Speaker 3: if it's true for everyone. I mean, obviously you hear
Speaker 3: that a lot when you listen to someone talk about
Speaker 3: what compelled them to create art, to drive them towards something,
Speaker 3: to be driven to have grit, to yearn for something
Speaker 3: that's helps them make sense of a situation that they
Speaker 3: might not be able to do with words, with language
Speaker 3: that they don't have. They channel that into something that
Speaker 3: is artistic or physical, or involves a knowing without knowing,
Speaker 3: you know, that kind of just an awareness with it
Speaker 3: before you have the language. I think that was true
Speaker 3: for me. I do think that our band, even though
Speaker 3: obviously we are adults now and can express ourselves mostly eloquently,
Speaker 3: I think there is a lot of Slater Kidney that
Speaker 3: operates in that dual space of the conscious and unconscious,
Speaker 3: where you have something that's concrete but also intangible. I
Speaker 3: think we aim for that in our songs. You know
Speaker 3: that there's something sort of ineffable and hard to grasp,
Speaker 3: but also something very grounded. And that's kind of the
Speaker 3: sweet spot with our band lyrically or musically, that it
Speaker 3: feels very tethered to experience, tethered to honesty and integrity,
Speaker 3: but also reaching for something that might transcend those things
Speaker 3: or get you away from those concrete ideas, gives you
Speaker 3: an allowance to escape from some of the hard truths.
Speaker 2: I think you mentioned that you really needed the band
Speaker 2: at that point, and does that explain in part why
Speaker 2: there's so much short of energy in this record. You
Speaker 2: always have energetic records, but you're kind of at the
Speaker 2: stages in your career where a lot of songwriters and
Speaker 2: people I love. The first thing that goes is the
Speaker 2: fast song. I don't know if you've ever noticed that.
Speaker 2: You know, they kind of they can do the mid
Speaker 2: tempo song. They can do even better slow songs, but
Speaker 2: they kind of lose something off fastball, and nobody wants
Speaker 2: to admit it, but it's kind of there, not you, guys,
Speaker 2: because this album just it just has such velocity. I
Speaker 2: guess I would call it rhythm's great beats. It's all
Speaker 2: kinds of things, but it just has such energy all
Speaker 2: the way through it.
Speaker 4: We were conscious of that and that we worked on
Speaker 4: having fast songs. I think at one point we went
Speaker 4: through the tempos of the different songs and we're like,
Speaker 4: that's too slow.
Speaker 5: That's too slow. We need to at.
Speaker 4: Least have one song that's I don't know, one forty
Speaker 4: tempo or above.
Speaker 2: Really well, yeah.
Speaker 3: I think it was helpful to record a batch of
Speaker 3: the songs in August and to get a sense of
Speaker 3: the album as a whole, like what did those songs represent?
Speaker 3: Did they have enough variety in terms of rhythm and tempo.
Speaker 3: We did intentionally write some fast songs, but we also
Speaker 3: I think there was just a propulsion at that point,
Speaker 3: like sometimes when you feel out of control or things
Speaker 3: feel chaotic, you need something to match that, And so
Speaker 3: we were able very naturally, very organically to come up
Speaker 3: with fast songs. It wasn't I think there's something honest
Speaker 3: when people write their mid and slow tempo songs. It's
Speaker 3: because if they write the fast song, it feels like
Speaker 3: they're quote writing the fast song, which I feel also
Speaker 3: wary of, like, don't forget we can still do a
Speaker 3: fast one, which is not what you want. You'd rather
Speaker 3: have someone do a great mid tempo song if they're
Speaker 3: not feeling the fast ones, but we I think we're
Speaker 3: just there was a real sense of like tumult and yeah,
Speaker 3: that we were able to last of those faster ones
Speaker 3: and have them feel innate and that they belonged on
Speaker 3: this record, and so we definitely ended up with a
Speaker 3: handful of them.
Speaker 5: I think a song like Small Finds, though, was it was.
Speaker 4: Kind of a question mark going into the studio with
Speaker 4: that one. I think John was really puzzled by that song.
Speaker 4: And I loved that because I loved that we were
Speaker 4: trying things that were a little bit of a stretch
Speaker 4: and still a little bit avant garde, and that I
Speaker 4: was trying this vocal thing with it, which John was like,
Speaker 4: this is bizarre, and I was like, just wait, just wait,
Speaker 4: just give me, give me five more minutes, let me
Speaker 4: try this one thing, you know.
Speaker 5: And and I think that we just in the end,
Speaker 5: like it.
Speaker 4: Kind of stipped together at the last minute, you know,
Speaker 4: it kind of came together as this interesting flavor for
Speaker 4: the album that was unlike any of the other songs.
Speaker 4: And I think that's that's the joy of having the
Speaker 4: patience and having that language with each other to say like,
Speaker 4: just give me five more minutes, let me try this
Speaker 4: one other thing with it. And sometimes that's what you
Speaker 4: need in order to make something that's unique for the album.
Speaker 2: I also want to ask you. I would like to
Speaker 2: ask you about all the songs, but I'll tick one more,
Speaker 2: which is say it like you mean it. Can tell
Speaker 2: me about that one.
Speaker 4: So that one I had this idea for. I had
Speaker 4: the chorus for it, and I had this weird guitar
Speaker 4: line for the verse. And I had a really hard
Speaker 4: time finding a verse for that song. And Carrie was like,
Speaker 4: this is great. You should keep working on it, you
Speaker 4: should finish it, and you know, she helped kind of
Speaker 4: work on the music for the verses, and I came
Speaker 4: up with, you know, an idea. I started singing it
Speaker 4: and I did a first take of it, and John said, no,
Speaker 4: that's that's not really interesting enough. And it was very frustrating,
Speaker 4: and I was like, okay, right, and I kind of
Speaker 4: sat down on the couch, just like boiling inside. I
Speaker 4: was like, just give me, just give me a minute,
Speaker 4: give me some time with us one then, and I
Speaker 4: went home that night and I went to bed and
Speaker 4: I woke up in the middle of the night, and
Speaker 4: I had this other idea for the vocal melody, and
Speaker 4: I sang it to my phone and I came back
Speaker 4: the next day and I rewrote the whole vocal melody
Speaker 4: for the song. And when I started singing it, John
Speaker 4: was like, Okay, yeah, yes, start there and then we
Speaker 4: can go to this place in the chorus. And he
Speaker 4: knew he knew where to go with that song when
Speaker 4: I started it in a different place that was more vulnerable,
Speaker 4: and then he pushed really hard on the chorus to
Speaker 4: make it sort of have a range of feelings of
Speaker 4: not just sad, but also you know, there's a bed
Speaker 4: of anger on it and regret, and you know, I
Speaker 4: think it was another song that evolved kind of at
Speaker 4: the very last minute. You know, I'm so glad that
Speaker 4: we had the patience to keep working on it.
Speaker 2: I've noticed in other interviews that you Koran, sometimes the
Speaker 2: relationship seems to be You're sometimes a little worried about
Speaker 2: going too far with the song, and then Carrie is like, no,
Speaker 2: I want you to go too far with this song.
Speaker 2: Do I have that right? Is that the dynamic between you?
Speaker 3: Yes, I think it is. I mean, that's kind of
Speaker 3: our dynamic in general, like I'm like a speedboat and
Speaker 3: Korn's like an oil tinker, and I'm like doing a
Speaker 3: million like turns, and then Korin will slowly turn and
Speaker 3: then when she's turned, it's like, oh my god, Whoop's okay?
Speaker 3: Now this is It's like she's there and it is
Speaker 3: like no going back with Koran, and I love that.
Speaker 3: I love that we temper each other because Korn's like,
Speaker 3: would you just slow down? This is like this is
Speaker 3: so garrulous, this is just too many ideas, too many melodies,
Speaker 3: and Koran is very, very steady and very commanding.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, there's that old line that perfection is
Speaker 2: the right combination of opposites. Are you opposites in other
Speaker 2: ways as well?
Speaker 4: I think we're more similar than we are different. I
Speaker 4: think that, you know, we both really are disciplined about
Speaker 4: art and think it's really important. Carrie's brain operates on
Speaker 4: like a different level though for sure, like She's, she
Speaker 4: has just a very high capability for composing and working
Speaker 4: on things. And I would definitely say that I'm a
Speaker 4: much more subconscious writer and that sometimes I have to
Speaker 4: not think about something to find the answer for it.
Speaker 4: I have to walk away, or I have to do
Speaker 4: something else and it will need to hit me emotionally
Speaker 4: for it to be the right answer.
Speaker 2: Has that relationship changed over the years. Do you think
Speaker 2: have you taken on some of your each other's characteristics?
Speaker 3: Probably no, Corn saying no. Now, Corn's too stubborn for that.
Speaker 3: Corn is so stubborn. Korn's way more stubborn than I am.
Speaker 3: I'm impulsive and Corn is stubborn. I would have said yes,
Speaker 3: but Corn saying no, and then I just default and say.
Speaker 2: Korn's right, Well, she is the oil.
Speaker 3: So there's yeah, you just you don't mess with that.
Speaker 2: You'd a great You used a phrase a couple of
Speaker 2: times in your book, but the one I remember was
Speaker 2: I described boldness. She was bold.
Speaker 3: Yes, that is very much us. Like I am such
Speaker 3: a meta person. I feel like I'm always dancing around it, circumlocutionary.
Speaker 3: Korn's just right there, She's right at the center of it.
Speaker 3: I think. Also in my book, an example is when
Speaker 3: we were coming up with titles for The Wood and
Speaker 3: I had a list of like fifteen and Korn just said,
Speaker 3: let's just call the Woods. And I was like, yeah, right, okay,
Speaker 3: that's of course. Why are we trying to do something
Speaker 3: other than that. It's just that's the right.
Speaker 2: Answer, and it's the final answer.
Speaker 3: Final answer. Yep.
Speaker 2: Well, the right combination of opposite is perfection. I think
Speaker 2: this album is the right combination of opposites. I think
Speaker 2: it's just fabulous. So thank you so much for taking
Speaker 2: all this time.
Speaker 3: Thanks for having us on.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Carry Brownstein and Coreyn Tucker of Slater Kenny,
Speaker 1: their new album Little Rope, along with all of our
Speaker 1: other favorite Slater Kenny songs, are streaming on a playlist
Speaker 1: be made at broken record podcast dot com. Subscribe to
Speaker 1: our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com slash Broken Record Podcast,
Speaker 1: where you can find all of our new episodes. You
Speaker 1: can follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record
Speaker 1: is produced and edited by Leah Rose, with marketing health
Speaker 1: from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer is Ben Holliday.
Speaker 1: Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries. If you
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Speaker 1: by Kenny Beats. I'm justin Richmond.