Interview with 764-HERO/Modest Mouse
 
  
Dave: Let's kick it off here. Actually, I had a question for you. Have you ever dialed 764-Hero?

_____: I did the first week we had that name, just to see, since people might ask what it was...do you know what it is?

Dave: Yeah, I actually called it one time on a black Mercedes. There was like this gray-haired dude in it. He was all by himself. I was like, I'm gonna fuckin' nail that _______________.

_____: Yeah.

Dave: It was awesome.

_____: That's good. The end of it is something that I kind of wanted to sample, says, "Thank you for being a hero," which is the littlest heroic thing you could do is to rat on someone for not being in the car pool lane. It's inherently a good thing to not clog the car pool lane with single passenger vehicles, but it seems a far stretch to call it heroic, like Greek myth style.

______: They're cashing the checks. DMV or whatever, the Department of Motor Vehicles, is cashing the checks they get from people for those tickets. So you're their hero.

_____: Yeah, true. But I guess, so the guy you called it on, he got a thing in the mail saying, "We're watching you." And he just gets scared. 'Cause you could just turn in your ex-girlfriend's license number.

_____: Right. I always wondered.

_____: Yeah, you can.

_____: ...one of those Camaro cops...

_____: Yeah, exactly.

_____: Some of those guys get Mustangs and shit. In small towns, it's always obviously the _______________...

_____: Had a bake sale?

_____: Yeah, basically, they got this money and he's the cop and he's getting himself a Mustang cop car.

Dave: I told them the location 'cause I thought maybe they were gonna have like a chopper come down and lift him or something. I was kind of hoping.

_____: You were hoping.

Dave: He stayed with me all the way up to Seattle. I was going from Tacoma to Seattle. He was there the whole time so. He kept going though, so I was hoping maybe a little further up the road....

_____: I tried calling the Highway Patrol once when someone in a, it was a BMW I think with a personalized license plate, and they honked at me for, I was doing like 7 miles an hour over the speed limit in the fast lane, fair enough, and shit, and I get honked at, and I got raging-assed pissed. I was like, You want to honk at me!

Dave: What was he honking at you for?

_____: It was some woman. For probably not going fast enough.

Dave: Oh god.

_____: And so I got behind them when they passed me, and just laid on the horn for a couple minutes and then called up the Highway Patrol. I don't know. I didn't feel really great about it, but I got a machine anyways. Hours are from 9:00 to 5:00.

_____: Thank you for expressing yourself creatively. It diffuses road rage, though, if you feel like you can call and tell somebody what just happened. Then you don't need to take it out on somebody else.

Dave: That's actually a pretty good idea. Probably saves a few lives and bullet wounds.

_____: And the Nerf handgun.

Dave: Fire some little Nerf darts. Why did you guys take the name 764-Hero? Was it just the inherent irony of the occasion?

_____: Actually, we kind of don't really...

_____: It needed a name.

_____: Yeah, it doesn't matter. It's one of those things where we were a band and we got a show and we needed a name, and I was thankful that someone suggested that. Polly thought it might be cool to have something with numbers in it, so there you go. There was no other, it wasn't between that or anything else. Someone had to make fliers.

_____: You guys are a pain in the ass when I try alphabetizing my CD's.

_____: S's.

_____: Do I put it under S's, or do I put it under numbers?

_____: I'd say S's, 'cause we're...

_____: I've got a whole section that's with numbers.

_____: Blockbuster puts it under numbers.

Dave: Yeah, I think the official thing is you're supposed to do numbers.

_____: So it would be ahead of everything.

Dave: Yeah. Which is kinda cool. You're before "A."

_____: But would we be before or after 7-Year Bitch? We're 764, so we'd be later.

_____: Yeah, you'd have to be after her.

_____: After her. I don't hate it as a name. I just don't think about it, and once you put out a record, people don't think of it as the name anymore. You're not trying to have a catchy name so they might go see your band, you know what I mean? Like it becomes associated with the music.

Dave: What were each of you guys doing before you started actually making some money playing music?

_____: I'm still working in the food service industry. Dave: What are you doing?

_____: I tend bar.

Dave: Alright. That's not so much food service as it is alcohol service.

_____: There's some pineapples in our drinks.

Dave: Alright. Occasional olive.

_____: I was, what was I doing, I was doing everything from landscaping to door-to-door sales to remodeling to digging ditches.

Dave: What did you sell door-to-door?

_____: Oil changes.

Dave: Really?

_____: Yeah. You want a taste of the schtick?

Dave: Yeah.

_____: Hi. We're Firestone. We've got a great deal going on. For only $19.99 you get four oil changes, four lubes, two tire rotations, brake repaired, flat, I don't remember. Sometimes I can get it. Give me another beer.

Dave: I used to do vacuums door-to-door.

_____: It's like remembering a foreign language. And shit, I was the worst. I actually would go and read books when I was supposed to be doing it. They'd drive you in the car to this area and drop you off and you're all supposed to take a certain part of the area, and I'd go hide out, read a book, come back, oh, no one bought anything. They were paying me $8.00 an hour before commission, and that's good enough for me.

Dave: Yeah. Right on. This one's for Isaac. Your press kit contained an interesting story about the origin of your debut record for Epic, The Moon in Antarctica. Do you want to tell us your version of the story of how that record came about?

Isaac: No. That whole thing was, it was going to be down as the truth, but then Epic kind of put it out as the false story and then gave the real story and stuff, killjoys. They killed my fun.

_____: What's the story, though?

Isaac: It's about the Ugly Casanova and things. It was going to be this totally anonymous character sorta, and I had my friend James, who used to work at Up, write a story about it based on what I kind of invented for it throughout the years, kind of been building. I kind of dropped it, and I don't even remember it now and stuff, you know. Just going to be this fictional character who made all this music.

Dave: So is it fictional or is it a true story?

Isaac: I don't know.

Dave: That's the mystery?

Isaac: Yeah. I just know what I hear.

Dave: Uh huh. Well, you know, you can't trust those major labels I don't think. I kind of had my doubts, but what do I know? I'm going to go to John. You guys started out as a duo, just you and Polly, is that right? Why did you decide to go for a third person? Was it just time?

John: We actually had a....

Isaac: Conference.

John: Conference. Did you get your invite for that one?

Isaac: Yeah. I'm sorry, I was pregnant.

John: It was kind of like the Super Friends Justice League thing. We had a roundtable discussion about if we should branch out. We've done the two-piece thing. Isaac's vote would have weighed, but we sort of decided it would go to the next level. We did that.

_____: So I hear you're going back to a two-piece.

_____: Is that the rumor?

_____: That's the rumor.

_____: So far we've got three members, we've got a roady, we've got a lighting guy.

Dave: You have your own lighting guy?

_____: He's going to meet us in Lawrence. There's things we're doing with...

_____: We got that sound guy, Thor, the guy with thunder.

Dave: Do you think just guitar and drums is going out of style?

_____: I think guitars and drums will be in style...

_____: Mind if I step in here? I just bought two CD's and one single by the White Stripes.

_____: Brother-sister combo, sister plays drums, brother guitar and sings. Bitchin'. Out of style? No.

_____: The White Stripes are fantastic.

_____: There will always be some good two-people bands, you know.

Dave: Let's hope so. I play in a two-piece...

_____: Sometimes that's all you need. Modest Mouse started out, at one point was a two-person drum and guitar thing and all that jazz. It's a good time, actually.

_____: And we didn't do it out of...

_____: And you don't have to tune with anyone else.

_____: Exactly.

_____: You're always in tune.

_____: Play whatever the hell you want.

_____: And you're always playing a guitar solo, 'cause you're the only thing.

_____: That's right.

Dave: Or drum solo as the case may be.

_____: Exactly. So, either way, it's all you and the other you.

Dave: Isaac, what about you? Did you ever call 764-Hero?

Isaac: I didn't.

_____: He's anti-car pool lane.

Isaac: No, I've gotten too many tickets in the car pool lane for not being a car pool to feel good about that one and stuff. I've never gotten a ticket for tailgating someone and honking. So I'll call those people in all I want. Don't want to be a hypocrite.

Dave: I'm giving it to Tim. I think he's aching to ask a question.

Tim: Alright, these are gonna be like more general, just kind of background questions for like a written interview plus on the Web.

_____: I wonder if I could exchange my vodka for a beer.

Tim: You could feel free to answer any questions...Has there been any reservations amongst your peers now that you guys are getting like larger and larger and on a major label?

_____: Not the ones that tell us and stuff, you know? Our friends who talk to us seem pretty psyched or whatever, you know. It's a good time kind of for a while maybe and stuff.

_____: As one of his peers, to me, it's exciting, and I get to ask him like what it's like and not expect....he won't give the party line style answer, you know. It's like, I'm curious, and Isaac's my friend. It's like that's going on his life and that's exciting. So that's how most people I know look at it. There's a lot less, oooooh, you know, negative oooohs. It's like, wow, that's fuckin' rad, you know, and it's like, I'm proud of them.

_____: It's kind of something to do, something we have to try, you know, like see what happens with the big, fat wallet, you know, like, what can those people accomplish and shit. Maybe make it so we can do more interesting stuff or more stuff we want to and stuff.

Tim: Did the wallet help you out in the studio at all, give you more freedom?

_____: Well, it helped out a bit. It bought us a little more time and things, not a lot more, like I was explaining to you all before we did this. Most producers work on a sliding scale, or engineers of studios, so if you're a small band with not much money, they're probably going to give you a really good deal, as much as they can, and fit you into the space where they can and whatnot. And this one we kind of, we helped our friends, Red Red Meat, build their studio, which in hindsight seems a little foolish 'cause we should have built our own damn studio and had them come to it and things, but it was interesting. It was definitely interesting.

Tim: That's actually leading up to my next question, because...

Dave: Actually, let me ask a couple questions, 'cause we kind of opened up a bag of worms.

Tim: Let me do this one, you take it? So you ended up recording in Red Red Meat's studio that you helped build in Chicago, and on your album, there's a lot of talk about like atmospheres and certain climates and geographies. How was the South Side to record that album on?

_____: The south side of Chicago?

Tim: Yeah.

_____: It was rough. It's a rough neighborhood, man, and whatnot.

Tim: It's where I grew up.

_____: Do you live in Bridgeport?

Tim: No. But I went to school like maybe three miles from Bridgeport.

_____: You ever box by any chance?

Tim: Yeah.

_____: Golden Gloves? Go to that place and things?

Tim: I went to this gym at like 51st and Princeton.

_____: Right. Well, they got a Golden Gloves thing, which is I think nationwide. There aren't any on the West Coast that I know of, but around those areas and the East Coast, they've got those set up for kids to go kill time and box. You got all these folks in Bridgeport who are the top Golden Gloves boxing thing. I got my jaw broken by some of those kids. Actually, a CNN reporter got the crap beaten out of him too, and that one actually made the news. I wasn't newsworthy. The 15-year-old, a black kid from across the highway, he was just riding his bike or something through the park, and he got the worst of it. He got beat worse than any of the three of us and things. But, yeah, the mayor for the past 25 years come from Bridgeport and things. Really, it's like a small town full of evil, evil Italian red necks or whatever, you know. But they're just blood-thirsty, those kids and shit. And their dads are cops, politicians, or part of the Mafia, or all three and whatnot, you know? And so they know they've got no repercussions. The cops aren't even going to look into it and stuff. It didn't have a lot to do with the lyrics in the song, to be honest.

Tim: Were you guys there in the winter or the summer?

_____: We were there from summer to fall.

Tim: So it wasn't like Antarctica...

_____: I think it actually snowed before we left. Yeah, that place is cold when it's cold. And it's hot when it's hot, man. It's some extreme climates. I like Chicago. Last time I was in Chicago I was getting my ass beat too. But I kind of brought that on myself. Maybe I brought all of it on myself, actually. But I still like it. Good time to get your ass kicked in.

Tim: That's why I moved out here, man. Got my ass kicked, such a regular...

_____: Really? Yeah, it's amazing. The only time anyone ever pulled a knife on me, I beat the crap out of him, and while they were still holding the fuckin' knife. Yeah, see, no one else had a stick. It was one person with a knife, and he was in middle school.

Dave: How old were you?

_____: I was also in middle school.

Dave: Those were exciting days. I wanted to actually ask you a couple more questions about being on the major label and ask John a couple questions about it as well. 'Cause one of the focuses of the program, it's called the Joe's Blue Plate Special, and it's basically all unsigned and independent bands except for one kind of larger band, so in this case, we're _________ two...but anyway, maybe we'll chop it up or something. At any rate, do you guys find that it's at all ironic that some of the biggest sounds in the indy rock world have gone to major labels?

_____: I don't at all. I mean, okay, go back and think about records you liked the most throughout time and things like, I'll give you the list of mine, or just things that I think are really good. The Cure, the Clash, hell, Pixies, Nirvana, Talking Heads. Let's go way back. The Rolling Stones. But all these people are on major labels. It's like it's really hard to keep yourself floating and things and doing this washing dishes. It's hard enough work actually as ridiculous as that sounds to a lot of people. It's really, really, it's not easy to keep doing it and keep really busy doing it and stuff, especially the busier you get, much less having to worry about how you're going to pay for it to record the next record. And a lot of really good bands have been on major labels. I'm not talking crap bands, or bands that weren't crap but were obviously like good for major labels, you know, Culture Club or something like that. It's like, yeah, obviously that's going to hit a major label, I guess obviously now, maybe not back then. It doesn't seem ironic.

Dave: Do you see a big difference being on a major label now? Do you feel a big difference?

_____: Not really. They got us kind of for a screaming deal, and it's like they had not expectations. They didn't put enough money into it to have to worry about... breaking even happened within the first month of the record coming out anyways. For them, it's like whether we sink or swim is not their problem as long as they break even or maybe make a couple extra dollars and all that jazz. They're not going to put much effort into us because it's not like they gave a couple hundred thousand dollars or a million dollars or whatever on top of the recording budget to have to deal with. They don't bug us at all, which is kind of what I wanted. I didn't want to take a lot of money and have it be this thing where they're stressing and up in my case to do all sorts of wax stuff, you know?

Dave: Team shoots and things like that, photo shoots.

_____: For that matter, meet and greets, in stores or even interviews I don't want to do and stuff, I can turn anything I want down at this point. Like I don't have to do jack shit, except for what I feel like I want to.

_____: Thanks for being here.

Dave: Yeah, thank you.

_____: Cheers.

Dave: This is a question kind of in general for both of you. What do you guys think about the resurgence of teen pop music and stuff like that?

_____: It's a little vague. What do you mean? Dave: I just mean things like the 'Nsynch and the Back Street Boys that kind of seemed to go away for a little while and then all of a sudden, come back with a vengeance.

_____: It's really expensive for a major label to put out something like that. They don't really actually have to wheel and deal and finagle with the people in those bands, 'cause they're paid actors, and so it's really easy for them. They have this thing they can control completely. Any idea they have that they feel they need to do, the reason they do it is it's easy. Get an image, 13-year-old girls or whatever, I don't know, the 13-year-old boys maybe into things. I don't know who's buying that stuff. But they got this image, they don't know any better. It's really easy, catchy songs, not hardly even, most of them aren't even catchy, you know.

_____: It seems also like it's just the cyclical, every decade it happens, and then it just gets wiped out. Like the way pop music starts out insipid and it's popular because it's stupid and easy to like. I mean, I'm a music fan and stuff like that, but a lot of people who don't like music buy those kind of records, 'cause it's just, oh, that's cool. And it's nothing against them. But then something comes along, and either the public and what's going on in the community explodes at the same time, whether it be the Beatles making awesome albums at the height of their popularity, or Nirvana just saying, no more stupid heavy metal or something. But that's like the industry and artists working, but it's like every decade, it seems like it just goes back....

_____: The Jackson Five are one of those bands in reality. There's probably a billion other, there's a lot of other bands and whatnot, around that time, had the same shindig going. There's the Jetts, you had Manudo, you had all that stuff...

_____: New Kids on the Block.

_____: It's not something that's ever really stopped, and I mean, I owned an El Debarge record when I was in grade school. Maybe they did write their own songs or whatever, but it's not something's that new. I don't think it's much of a resurgence. I think there was actually a gap where there was a small period of time where it wasn't going on, but since there's been rock 'n roll, there's been a whole bunch of prefab bands. I mean, the 50's is nothing but a whole bunch of prefab bands, you know? And so it's not surprising that they're huge. Let's say you get a boy band on Epic or Sony, the label I work for. Work for. Don't you like that?

_____: Label, I am a slave for....

_____: In a way it's fascinating in a way...

_____: The machine would get behind them and stuff, where they won't get behind a rock band.

_____: There's been some great music that has been of that, like someone writes a hit and then just shops it around. I just read that "Baby One More Time" was written for TLC, but they were too controversial at the time. They gave it to Britney Spears. That kind of stuff is interesting to me that song is there...

_____: And that computer dude hanging out writing songs and...

_____: Like the perfect formula for a hit and all that kind of stuff. That kind of is intriguing in a way.

_____: It's actually, to be honest, I think it would be easy in a sense. Like, I don't think it would be that hard to write pop songs. I don't think it would be hard to fuckin' write, god, I'm sorry you guys, I know this is radio and I keep screwing up, to write a tool song. I mean, Christ, no, it wouldn't be hard. It's like, whether you're writing it for yourself or someone else, like the people who write those songs for all those bands and whatnot, they're writing them to write pop hits. You know the best pop hit out there, one of them, besides Cisco's song, which he probably did actually write, good song, is Destiny's Child.

_____: I like that.

_____: Good song. It's a good song. I can dig it. That's what the problem was. The cicadas or whatever. Let's go kill that fucker.

_____: Eat him?

_____: Crush him with our big, big feet. Dave: I don't even know what that was.

_____: It was a cicada. Dave: I didn't know we had cicadas here, though.

_____: Well, you do know. No, they got 'em in Kansas, so you guys got 'em.

Dave: Alright, we must have 'em. Well, here's another music industry question. I hope I'm not bothering you guys with all this crap, but how do you guys feel about the Napster and MP3 thing, giving away music for free?

Isaac: We'll probably step on each other's feet here, so why don't you go first, John?

John: Okay. I just recently got a computer, and I've never used Napster or anything, so I could be totally wrong as to what I think it is. So tell me if I'm wrong, but to me it seems like it's the radio, and if I wanted to download a song off the radio by pressing record and play on my cassette deck, that's my naive way of looking at it. I know it's more, it's digital and it's perfect, quote unquote, and you pay...

_____: You don't pay for Napster.

John: I look at it as it's the radio, and it could be like, oh, our song's on the radio, oh, it's on Napster. When someone starts making money off it and you don't see any of it....

Dave: But you get paid for the radio.

John: True. So that's where it's different? I'm asking, yeah. So, is that, what do you think of that?

_____: My call on Napster's like this. Bootlegging is fine, you know, whatever. It's a good time, actually, it's kind of a cool thing, someone taking some incentive, and obviously most people who do that are kind of into whatever they're bootlegging or whatever, making it. Because Napster to my understanding is a way that you can find all sorts of things like bootlegs. They get you hooked up with that. And I don't really mind individuals bootlegging and making money off that or doing whatever. I sure as hell wish they'd give us a copy, or give whoever they're bootlegging a copy. Some rich guy kicking back and making a whole bunch of money off of every band, he ain't doing anything except for creating a channel to get to it. The guy's not doing jack shit, the guy's worthless, you know?

Dave: So who's that guy?

_____: That's Mr. Napster, Bob Napster.

Dave: He's like 22 I think actually.

_____: Is he?

_____: Is he overweight.

Dave: I think he's pretty skinny. I saw a picture of him.

_____: Well, Bob Napster, invent something, do something creative. Have to deal with a printing press or something. You know, like have to show up, do a show and record it, fine. But Napster, you know, I don't actually have any real problem with it. No one's really going to lose any money from it. And music belongs to everyone really anyways, you know? Not that I'm complaining that I might be able to make some money doing it, but what it boils down to, that's kind of some sort of mutation of music anyways. Like all those old Delta blues singers and stuff, no one owned those songs as far as they were concerned. There wasn't someone out there saying, I wrote Bottle Up and Go, that's my song, you know, like trying to stop all the other blues musicians from doing their versions of it. It's music. Take it and make it what you want.

Dave: Alright. Thanks. Kind of an appendage to that question, do you guys actually come out of touring making some decent money, or do you mostly just break even?

_____: I think I end up making a little more than if I had worked ________, so not only am I not broke, but I made a little money, which is good, and it's fun. We're doing fine.

_____: I'm doing fine. You know, the sacrifices that, look, I'm gone, so much touring and things that I pretty much can't maintain real relationships with friends and stuff. Hell, I won't even see my girlfriend for what, 2-1/2 months or so. It'll work out to be about 3-1/2 months. It's like working on an Alaskan fishing boat. You go there, you're making decent money, but it wasn't for nothing. I share a bed with someone else every night. There's eight of us on this trip, there's four people per hotel room, which beats the shit out of sleeping in the van or staying at people's houses, 'cause then you gotta hang out and roll with the party. If you're not in the mood or anything, and there's always at least two people out of eight who just don't want to hang out and party. So this staying at people's houses, no good. Yeah, I lost my focus, so...

Dave: Don't sweat it. This is kind of another question for both of you, and then I'll hand it back over to Tim Dog over there. When you guys are writing songs, I think you're both kind of bands that have, from album to album have kind of changed the way that you sound to a certain extent, but do you guys have a conscious idea of when you're writing a song how it kind of contributes to the overall sound that you have at any time?

John: No. Writing songs will be either like sitting on the couch with the T.V. kind of half loud and maybe the radio and something else, sort of, oh, that sounds cool and maybe explore a little thing I just did, bring it to practice, say, how about this, and then Polly and James will be, how about this and that, and it's never, with our band at least, it's never anything precious little is preconceived or esthetically mapped out as far as like, they'll always sound like 764-Hero if me and Polly are playing, you know what I mean? Does that answer your question? I don't look at the overall picture, if that's the question.

Isaac: Yeah, when I'm writing songs, they just kind of happen by a more of way of mapping out or whatever, laying out when they do land on anything, an album or anything like that, how they're going to fit into and make a cohesive story. It's important to me when I do write songs that they fall into this one cohesive story, that every album is one song, or book or film or whatever. You never start writing songs, I'm sure John doesn't, and I don't, with any idea of what the hell it's gonna be. That's kind of the fun of it, it's a little weird for yourself, 'cause you kind of unlock this part of your brain and things where you're just playing and letting it roll or let whatever is happening in your head come out, and stuff that you didn't even know, it's the only way I can actually a lot of times even communicate really what's going on in my head to people. I don't realize it, but it works for me, and I like that.

_____: I also like the hindsight of your own songs, like, oh, that's probably what I meant, or that's one of my favorite parts is, people will ask you what it's about, and songs that I do will be about a million different things in one song, or one cohesive thing. There's once again no formula or whatever, but there will be lines or phrases that I'll be like, oh, I know what I mean now, and that's kind of fun.

Dave: So you don't know at the time, and then later on it kind of...

_____: Sometimes it'll be about a specific thing, but there's been songs where I'll look back and get it out of that. Being so removed from it, that it's just like somebody else's song that I would guess that's what that is about. Dave: Do you think that other people are more liable to get the meaning that you've imbued to a song, or do you think that they're more likely to get their own meaning out of it?

_____: I have to pee. Dave: Jesus, man, we were hittin' something there. No, go ahead.

_____: I've been thinking about it for the past half hour. Can you pause it?

Dave: Sure.

_____: ...six other things, and I think probably four of 'em consist of stuff off the other albums.

_____: What about, I was asking him too about the French thing, like Air and Stereo Live and that kind of stuff. Are you into that at all?

_____: Air's got like a couple good songs, but for the most part, it's crap. A great idea. Good layout, good artwork. Stereo Love's amazing. I don't understand why they're not just super-huge, you know.

_____: ..in Chicago...

_____: When we were playing in Europe, played a couple festivals with them, Camaco Brothers, Built to Spill.

_____: In the festival circuit?

Dave: Alright, well go ahead and ask some questions.

_____: You're in that light there, aren't you Tim?

_____: Half your face looks sunburned.

Tim: Alright, some more background stuff. Growing up, going to grade school and all that, were you more curious about sciences and math or like language and literature and that sort of thing, 'cause the science and math thing, physics comes _______________.

_____: I wasn't interested in any of it. No, I had no interest in school whatsoever.

Tim: Well, outside of school.

_____: Oh. As a kid? God, I don't remember. It's kind of a blur. I was interested in walking around places where there weren't any people, and I did a lot of that. Walked through the hills or whatever, and just futzing around and screwing with stuff. I actually had no interest in math. Well, I had a little interest in science actually. Science is pretty cool. I was pretty down with that. And kind of have to have one to have the other on that. And then English, I liked reading. I don't know if I gave a good goddamn about English.

Tim: The majority of your audience seems to be grouped into the college students and ____________ both you guys, and I just wondering if you guys yourselves have any formal education past high school.

_____: I went to an art school for a semester, that's it. Tim: Do you find it ironic then that a lot of your audience, or does it bother you, it's grouped into like college radio?

_____: No. I kept getting jumped ahead all throughout, from grade school on. Like when I was in third grade, they were trying to teach me Chinese and shit. I had no interest. All I wanted to hear was the kid lie about owning piranhas, who's supposed to be teaching me, and then by the time I was in 10th grade, they tried getting me to go to college and I didn't for a year, and then a year later, I went back and did a year and a half of college and just kind of floated through. I went to it, I didn't really pay any attention. I kind of figured I knew it all already. I was probably definitely wrong, but I got a year and a half of college under my belt.

Tim: A lot of the themes on the new album sort of were touched on in earlier albums, like math equations and circularness and everything like that. Is this sort of like the ___________ where everything kind of came together on this album? Were you able to express all those...

_____: I'm not sure it's come together yet. Maybe I'll get it down a little better as time goes on. I'm not sure I actually explained....I got this constant loop that goes through my head, which is tied in with all sorts of stuff, the universe, whether there were a god or not, no big concern of mine to be honest, but it lurks there. It works into that, and it works into being a math equation, and the impossibility of god with certain math equations, which are infinity and things. The fact that, not impossibility, but improbability, the fact that science, nature, itself has figured out a way to create infinity while having it limited. What I didn't get across is a limited infinity, which is like the planet Earth. You could circle this thing forever, and it never ends, but it's limited, limited infinity. Spheres. The universe has to be shaped like __________, the scientists just decided, they'd go back and forth, I heard somewhere that they decided that the universe isn't round, that it just kind of goes out forever and expands, but in some sense I'm pretty sure that this is something that they'll never know, but I'm pretty sure that it has to work as a sphere in order to be infinite, and even if it's an infinite number of spheres inside each other, it's still, that's how it has to work out. Am I making any sense, or am I just babbling? John?

John: Sounds good to me.

_____: You're babbling.

Tim: I find it kind of ironic on the opening track, Third Planet, you're sort of talking about the connectedness of all of life and matter by looking like really closely from like the molecular level to like the universal level and how things are always kind of like similar, but then at the same time like the album is sort of about desolation and separation and isolation and disconnection.

_____: It's about the in between of, microscope, telescope, it's kind of the whole thing with that album, but it's kind of about what goes on in between and how that deals with whatever, how the in between of the microscope and telescope deal with each other.

Tim: It seems like you're doing that with time as well, like there's a line that you say, "Rust is a fire," and I guess if you're looking at rust through a different relative timescope, rusting would sort of seem like a...

_____: Actually, rust is scientifically a fire. It is actually a fire. Slow burning.

Tim: Were you doing the microscope/telescope thing with that kind of too, though? Though like if you like look at like at geological time...

_____: Oh yeah.

Tim: ...it's like....

_____: Yeah, the whole thing works out to have about four different meanings.

Tim: Yeah, it works well. I'm having trouble seeing. No, I think I got this. From Modest Mouse, when you guys were in Washington, did you guys, in the small town, did you guys end up randomly just running into each other, or were you the only people in that town that actually played music and dug the same kind of tunes?

_____: The reality behind that small town, once it was a small town, and when I moved there, about the time that I ran into Eric, it was a small town that was getting absorbed. It's not far enough from Seattle to have not become a suburb sooner or later. As Seattle exploded, it became a suburb. It's basically the first town before the foothills of the mountains. We'd run into each other quite a bit, but not Jeremy. Jeremy just kind of lived everywhere on the east side of Seattle, which is predominantly nowadays a really rich area, for what that's worth. Tim: Are you three, both your bands, how does it work out, as you guys grow as individuals, your musical tastes are changing. Is that something hard to find common ground, or are you guys kind of on the same general path?

_____: For us, we've never actually had that much of a common ground with music. Like when Jeremy and Eric were into hardcore, I was into this kind of Pixies, Talking Heads, maybe some Lung Fish or whatnot, stuff like that, and now Jeremy's really into techno. They're both into every sort of music, but it's never really stayed, what any of us were really, really into was the same thing, and I think it works out a lot better. I think if we were all into making techno, then we'd accomplish just that. But since we all have kind of different goals with what we want out of music, even saying that to be honest, it's like being into whatever we're into isn't that much of a factor. It's that when we get together, we make our own music, and that's the trick. John?

John: Hear hear. Tim: For 764-Hero, how's that working?

_____: We all listen to different kinds of stuff, we all can agree on stuff, but we always look at it as like, would our band do this, we just write the kind of stuff that we do as a band. James has another band and the stuff is different. I have another band, that stuff is kind of different. Blah ta da blah. Yeah, we know what would be, we all agree on, there's nothing on any record that we're like, damn, I wish that wasn't there because that one person liked it but the other two didn't. We all agree on this, so that is our, you know what I mean.

Tim: Okay, so then a couple background questions, two more. Are you guys all still living in the Washington area?

_____: 764-Hero all does, all live in Seattle.

Tim: And Modest Mouse?

_____: I was living in Florida, and before that Chicago. And before that I was living in my van underneath a bridge with my girlfriend, and now I live in Oregon, and we'll see how long that lasts. There's been talk of Colorado, but who knows?

Tim: Has it made it difficult to get together with your band and writing music.

_____: Actually, we got together more. Well, maybe not writing, but playing we got together more. We go in spurts with the writing. I'll hang out and write all sorts of different little parts and things, and then we'll all get together and it'll all come together.

Tim: I was going to close with this, and I asked you before, and if you don't want to answer it, don't, just because I was asking you, 'cause I thought you were purposely going for like the Isaac and Children of the Corn. Have you seen that movie?

_____: I have.

Tim: Okay, so, are you often mistaken as having starred in the 80's cult classic film, Children of the Corn?

_____: No, but if that started, that would be awesome. I'd like to start getting mistaken. Actually I had a friend in high school by the name of Malachai, and this is before I saw the movie, so I didn't get the irony, but apparently everyone else did. And he was a freak.

_____: Not that much of a freak.

Dave: Actually, I've got one more question for you if you don't mind. Why don't you do the i.d.? [end of Side A]