Exclusive interview: Decemberists' singer-songwriter Colin Meloy
Andy Pareti
Issue date: 4/10/08 Section: Arts & Entertainment
CM: [Laughs] Sure. That was actually written only like, three years ago. It was basically written in the process of writing The Crane Wife - around the same time - so you know, I never really write songs specifically to be on a record. You're just constantly fielding pitches from your imagination and trying to get them out before they fade away. And that one happened to be kind of a wild pitch maybe, and I discovered pretty quickly into it that no amount of writing would redeem it. I kind of was just struck by how incredibly bad it was.
The Lamron: You seem to have an impressively broad array of musical influences. You've released EPs that cover Morrissey, Shirley Collins and Sam Cooke. On your upcoming album, you cover Pink Floyd and Fleetwood Mac. What other musicians influenced you and the Decemberists?
CM: Gosh, you know I always think of us as kind of a record collector's band. We're pretty avid record collectors. I think of us as being kind of academic music listeners, so I think the music that we write, in its own way, is the sum total of our record collection. There's a little bit here and a little bit there, and some stuff you probably wouldn't pick up on, but it's there somewhere.
The Lamron: There's one band in particular - and I had a little help from Wikipedia on this one - but I saw that you actually wrote a 100-page book on the Replacements' album, Let It Be.
CM: Yea, I did. It was for a series called 33?, which was kind of different musicians and mostly rock critics giving kind of treatises on their favorite record of all time. And the editor of the series hit me up to see if I wanted to do one, being a music fan, and it was kind of hard to turn down the opportunity to write 100 [pages] about your favorite record.
The Lamron: A lot of your songs have lyrical themes that evoke, at least to me, old English literature and epic poems. What kind of books did you read growing up?
The Lamron: You seem to have an impressively broad array of musical influences. You've released EPs that cover Morrissey, Shirley Collins and Sam Cooke. On your upcoming album, you cover Pink Floyd and Fleetwood Mac. What other musicians influenced you and the Decemberists?
CM: Gosh, you know I always think of us as kind of a record collector's band. We're pretty avid record collectors. I think of us as being kind of academic music listeners, so I think the music that we write, in its own way, is the sum total of our record collection. There's a little bit here and a little bit there, and some stuff you probably wouldn't pick up on, but it's there somewhere.
The Lamron: There's one band in particular - and I had a little help from Wikipedia on this one - but I saw that you actually wrote a 100-page book on the Replacements' album, Let It Be.
CM: Yea, I did. It was for a series called 33?, which was kind of different musicians and mostly rock critics giving kind of treatises on their favorite record of all time. And the editor of the series hit me up to see if I wanted to do one, being a music fan, and it was kind of hard to turn down the opportunity to write 100 [pages] about your favorite record.
The Lamron: A lot of your songs have lyrical themes that evoke, at least to me, old English literature and epic poems. What kind of books did you read growing up?
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