Written by Melissa Payette
I was first introduced to the Decemberists in mid 2009 when the band released their album ‘Hazards of Love’. Their distinct indie-folk sound really caught my interest and I found myself listening to that particular album a whole lot that summer. I couldn’t have been more excited a couple months ago when I found out that they would be touring in support of their latest record, ‘The King is Dead’.
On January 31st, the tour stopped in Montreal at the Olympia Theatre with opening act Wye Oak. I got there a little early for my interview, and had the chance to watch The Decemberists sound check for close to fifteen minutes. It was such a neat experience to watch the five members of an acclaimed band joke around amongst one another while testing out a couple of their tracks with practically no one around.
Shortly after, I met guitarist Nate Query in one of the dressing rooms backstage where we would be conducting the interview. We got comfortable in a couple of chairs and joked around a bit about the small space before getting started. We talked a little about the tour and how things had been going so far. Nate told me that the group had just gotten on their tour bus last night for the first time: “we flew to New York and had a hotel there, then took a train to Boston… and the bus picked us up yesterday on the way here!” He added that their third New York show was one of the most memorable ones to-date. When I asked him what made it so special, he told me about their newest album topping the charts that night: “our record debuted at #1 in the States so that was great, and we were in New York when it happened. Our management and label people were all there with us, so they were totally flipping out”.
As a band that’s been touring for so many years, I was curious as to how that aspect had changed in Nate’s opinion throughout the years. “Well as we’ve gotten more successful we’ve gotten more comfortable on the road, but as we’ve gotten older, we’ve gotten less durable” he said to me with a laugh. He continued a little more seriously by explaining that he still loves touring but has simply become less resilient to it. He reasoned that it had a lot to do with the direction his life had taken since he first began playing with The Decemberists: “In some ways it’s gotten easier because it’s gotten more comfortable and in some ways it’s harder because I have a kid now. When I was 25 years old I didn’t care about my home life as much, you know?”
We continued on a lighter note with the top three things Nate can’t leave home without for a long tour. The first thing on his list was coffee, which I agreed would probably be in my priorities as well, what with the poor choices offered in hotel rooms these days. His last two items were definitely smart, but the final one made me laugh nonetheless: “then… Good reading material. I usually bring way too many books, because I mainly just read The New Yorker every day and one book or something. And… let’s see… The right shoes”. He told me that he failed to pack the right shoes this tour because of the harsh winter weather, and he casually pointed down towards the ones he was wearing that day which weren’t the best choice for the ton of snow Montreal had been getting.
Moving away from life on tour, I asked Nate whether the band had any pre-show rituals that came out throughout all their time together. So many bands these days have fun little traditions that they uphold during their careers and it’s no different for The Decemberists. Nate admitted that they had quite a few. “We do. Jenny leads us in a sort of pagan prayer… Sort of secular pagan prayer *laughs*. But we have a little huddle and Jenny kind of brings us all together. We do that all the time.” He also said that half an hour before a given show begins the five of them seclude themselves and just joke around together, and relax. I thought that was a really fun idea so that they could all just decompress a little bit before heading on stage.
After some fun questions, I finally began to talk to Nate about the bands’ latest record, ‘The King is Dead’. Not only is the title interesting- it makes you want to listen to it to try and figure out where it comes from- but once you actually listen to the tracks, you really begin to wonder where the band was inspired. The album is significantly more folksy than the last CD they released, however it still has the distinct sound that The Decemberists have become so well known for.
When I asked Nate about the main differences between ‘The King is Dead’ and their past work, he confirmed that they had taken the album in a new direction and he explained how they did so. “You know, in some ways it’s sort of like… Hazards[Of Love] was a logical extension of the direction we went in a couple years ago, and this one is sort of an extension to the stuff we did even earlier like in Castaways and Cutouts”. He also said that “some of the influences we have are more American. We just sort of let them shine and went for it. Like in the beginning we went in a lot of different directions on the same record whereas on this one we’re going in a few different directions but we kind of honed it down a little bit more.”
My biggest question was definitely in relation to the album title. Where does ‘The King is Dead’ come from? According to Nate, the band won’t be divulging that information anytime soon! He told me that not only was the name a secret, but that Colin Meloy (lead singer of The Decemberists) had yet to confirm Nate’s very own theories as to where it actually came from. He did however tell me how he first heard about this mysterious album title. “Colin, when he sent us the demo for the record had it labeled as ‘The King is Dead’ and I was sure that was just him goofing around and it was just a name at the time… But it stuck! But he dodged the question in an interview recently so I’ll just follow his lead”. Some of Nate’s favorites off the record are currently ‘Down by the Water’ and ‘Rise to Me’, the latter because it reminds him so much of home.
As for his all time favorite song that the band has ever recorded, you’ll have to dig up an older album of theirs: “You know, one of my favorite songs is one that we don’t really do anymore is from way early on; it’s called Odalisque”. The song has quite a sentimental meaning to Nate too. “part of the reason why I like it so much is because I remember when Colin brought it to us and Jenny and I both looked at each other and we were like ‘this song is so weird, it’s awesome!’. It was kind of one of those moments I think where we started to become more of a band.”
The reason I had him reminiscing so much about a song off The Decemberists’ very first record was actually because he happened to hear it recently while sitting in a coffee shop. That spawned a whole new conversation between the two of us as to whether it was strange hearing his music in public. Nate told me that it could sometimes be weird: “it’s not music I can listen to without thinking about it so I can’t just tune it out once I notice it.” He told me a few stories about times that he happened to be in a place where a Decemberists album was being played in its entirety, and how it could be very distracting for him. “It’s a little weird but mostly because I’m not very good at just being like ‘oh I’ll sit here and just read my book’, I have to wait for the song to be over.”
We also took a couple minutes to talk about music and what Nate was listening to these days. He started to laugh almost immediately and said with all honesty that not many people would necessarily enjoy what he listens to, however he did share a few of his current favorites. “There’s this one woman in New York, Mary Halvorson, who went to the same University I went to, and she’s pretty young- younger than me anyway, she’s like 30 or something- and she’s just amazing, her record is awesome”. I asked him if he listened to anything more current since jazz fans aren’t numerous, to which Nate laughed a little before adding “there are a lot of great Portland bands I really like! The band that’s opening for us, Wye Oak, they’re really amazing! Their record is really good. I hadn’t heard them before they were picked for this tour but it’s a kind of an exciting discovery for me.”
Our conversation about current music led into me asking Nate what his dream tour would be like, if he could create it and then play on it. He surprised me by saying that his dream tour would be with artists that he’s already toured with and had really great experiences with. “I would put like, some of our hometown favorites who were really fun… And we’ve toured with Mastodon in Australia and that was AMAZING, I love them. They kind of suck at bumper cars but they’re really cool guys!” I had to hand it to Nate, he definitely knew how to create an imaginary tour with a wide variety of musical genres.
Afterwards we spoke a little bit about the work the band did with Peter Buck, guitarist in the band R.E.M. Nate told me that Peter worked on three tracks on ‘The King is Dead’. I asked him what it was like to work with a musician that has had such an illustrious career, to which he replied: “he adds so much, so quickly. He just has a great ear and a great delivery, so it’s fun to watch him work in the studio. It was remarkably easy, I mean he’s so good, I wish he had been around for more days but he did all his stuff in like an afternoon.”
Finally, we ended the interview with a fun fact about Nate’s personal life. I asked him if there was something about him that his fans may not necessarily know. After thinking about it for a few seconds, he told me that a few fans had recently discovered he brewed his very own beer at home. He joked a little bit about his hobby in relation to his home roots: “It’s such a typical thing to do in Portland though, I’m sure there’s going to be a Portlandia episode where there’s a guy in a band that loves bikes and brews beer and drinks coffee all the time!”
After thanking Nate for taking some time to chat with me, we headed back down towards the main stage. The Decemberists went on to play a fantastic show that evening, receiving rave reviews across the web the following morning. The band is still in the midst of touring for their album ‘The King is Dead’, with full dates posted on their MySpace page below!
You can learn more about The Decemberists through the following links:
www.myspace.com/thedecemberists
www.twitter.com/thedecemberists
And if you’d like to read our full interview transcript, you can do so here
Follow Us on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Follow us on Tumblr
Check out our videos
