Interview with Quasi
 
  

Dave: ___________ in New York City 1999. I’m here with Quasi today, and we’re gonna be talking about the music industry and independent music, where everybody’s at, and how things are going with the world.

Quasi: Hello. Hello. Hello.

Dave: Go ahead and introduce yourselves and tell me what you play in the band and....

Janet: My name’s Janet, and I’m the drummer, and I sing harmony vocals.

Sam: My name is Sam...

Dave: A little bit closer. Everybody’s too loud.

Sam: My name’s Sam, and I play the keyboard and the guitar, and I sing.

Dave: Also he sings. Let’s see, we were just talking about some of the interesting aspects of being in the music industry and what you have to deal with. What have you guys done as far as separating yourself from words like “artist development” and those are names that you should know.

Sam: Well, we haven’t had to do anything, actually. It just seems to be a natural occurrence with us.

Janet: Plus I think we surround ourselves, whether it’s by choice or not, with people who are normal as far as like the industry goes. You know, they’re not involved really with the industry to the extent that you might see at a festival like this. We don’t have a manager. We don’t try to sell ourselves through the channels that have been established by big companies or corporations.

Dave: But you’ve still been able to maintain a good degree of success.

Janet: I mean, I guess that’s relative, I don’t know. You know, I think we’re pretty lucky. We get to go on tour and make records and make the records we want to make.

Dave: Do you have a day job?

Janet: No.

Dave: Well, there you go. You’re winning as far as I can tell.

Janet: Yeah, I mean, we are extremely lucky to...it’s hard as well, and it has its drawbacks, but it’s what we want to do, so you can’t really ask for more than that.

Dave: You’re also in Sleater-Kinney. Sam, do you also have a project that you do outside of Quasi?

Sam: Not really. Sometimes I’ve done tours with Elliot, and Janet has done that as well. Elliot Smith. Other than that, it’s pretty much just Quasi.

Dave: Okay. As long as we’re talking about Elliot Smith, what has it been like to go on tour with him. He’s a little bit more of a high profile kind of guy. As far as the difference between touring with Quasi and touring with Elliot Smith, what have you noticed?

Sam: Well, I’ve done several tours with Elliot going back to when we were in the same band for a while called Heat Miser, and each tour that I’ve done has been different. Now that he’s gotten more popular, like the last time we went out in a bus, and other times, like with Quasi, we just drive ourselves around in a van. That’s the main difference. I don’t know. I would say that’s the main difference as far as the logistics of it go.

Dave: You drive around in a bus versus a van?

Sam: Ride around in the bus as opposed to driving around in the van.

Dave: That’s not too bad.

Sam: Otherwise, you just get up there and play and roll to the next town. It’s all the same.

Dave: Great. I’m going to get a little 90210 on you guys. I understand that you two used to be involved. Is it different to try to perform and write music with someone with whom you are romantically involved or otherwise?

Sam: Well, no. That was a long time ago. Years ago, actually. So any issues that were involved with that have been long since taken care of. We don’t think about it. Well, we wouldn’t think about it if we weren’t’ asked about it all the time. It’s not something that’s operative at the moment.

Dave: I’m sorry. I told you I was getting 90210. Alright. Do both of you write the songs for Quasi, or is that mostly you, Sam?

Sam: Most of it is written by me. Janet has written some of it. And maybe it’ll change. Some of my favorite Quasi songs have been written by Janet.

Dave: Janet, as far as being in both Sleater-Kinney and Quasi, is that a difficult thing to balance? Have you done tours with both bands at the same time or anything like that?

Janet: I mean, it is at times difficult to organize my time and make sure that each band gets enough attention, I guess. It doesn’t leave much extra time for other things. We’ve done some shows together. We just played in England at the Redding and the Leeds festivals. Both bands played on the same day. It’s like a special occasion like that where we get an offer to play at some strange festival in another country that I consider doing both on the same day, but it’s pretty exhausting. So we try not to do it too much. But I’m honored to be in both bands. I sort of go out of my way to keep both of them going, I think.

Dave: Great. I’m just going to ask you one more question, then we can do some station id’s, and then I know you guys need to get to the other side of town.

Janet: Alright.

Dave: One of the focuses of our radio show here, the show’s called Joe’s Blue Plate Special, it goes out to 600 college radio stations, and what we do is, we have about six independent bands, or unsigned bands, basically like tiny, little baby bands, and then one interview with a larger independent band such as yourselves, and I like to...

Janet: I thought we were one of the baby bands.

Dave: No, you guys are big. You’re well-known.

Sam: It’s a recent development.

Dave: And what I like to do is just kind of get your opinions on independent music versus signing to a large label, whether you guys would do that or not if given the opportunity, and what you see as the advantages of being where you are, and also just advice that you have for some of the baby bands.

Janet: Since we’re so old and crusty and experienced. I mean, I see a lot of advantages involving independent music. You know, the biggest advantage is that you get to play and create music and records free from outside influence and free from any sort of greater, like someone giving you direction or telling you what to play, or picking singles for the album. Basically, we make the record we want, and we turn it in when it’s completely finished. We pick all the artwork, the photos. We have control over most of it. And if that’s something that you find important...I mean, the music we listened to when we were younger was all centered around these ideals of doing it yourself and not having to sort of kowtow to a greater power. You know, some bands can make great records on major labels, like Built to Spill and Flaming Lips, so I’m not personally like against bands signing to majors, I just think it’s pretty dangerous and you can get swallowed up easily.

Dave: Sam, any feelings on this subject?

Sam: I guess the main thing about indy versus major is it doesn’t really matter. A lot of indy labels will meddle as much, if not more, than major labels and not have the resources to back it up.

Janet: ____________________

Sam: No, we’ve had none that we’ve worked with. We’ve been very lucky. The main thing is just to do what you want to do, and whatever is the best way to do it, you can determine that, but it doesn’t matter what label you’re on. It just matters if the music is good, so you shouldn’t really worry about...the main problem with being if you want to be on a major label, a lot of people will end up trying to gear towards that, and they’ll wait around to get some kind of a deal. You don’t need a deal to make good music. You should just go out and make it, and if some deal happens to fall into your lap, then that’s fine too.

Dave: Great. Thank you guys very much.

Janet: Sure.