The Customers are great guys, great musicians and play solid music that tells a story and make you want to dance. The last album featured so many local music heroes; the new album, Living Like Gods, celebrates the band, selected from the band of heroes. It just sounds right! You can catch them at the White Squirrel on August 16.
Last time we spoke, you were releasing your first album in 20 years (Sweet Fatality) that was two years ago and here you are with another album, Living Like Gods. Do you feel like you’re back in the groove or is each album it’s own baby? How does it feel?
It does indeed feel like we’re hitting a really cool stride with this EP. Getting it finally out has been a bit of a rough go- for a lot of different and uninteresting scheduling/housekeeping reasons; I mean it feels like forever since we recorded the damn thing. Also, during the “Sweet Fatality” sessions I didn’t have a band to speak of so I had to really go for the jugular to get the best music guys in town- and it’s certainly true that the players on that album were very much of a “who’s who” I guess of what you might call the “Minneapolis music scene.” And don’t get me wrong on this, because it was a super fun process, and answering the ubiquitous question of “How the hell did you get such and such to play on the record?” never got old (and oh, the answer to that one is simply “I just asked.”), but there’s really nothing that can replace having a band, which we are now, and have been for maybe three years. So, we worked on the songs as a unit, recorded them as a single entity, and we can play them at shows with at least a modicum of replication as to how the record sounds.
You’ve spent time in the Twin Cities and Los Angeles; King of the Lake seems to speak to your time in LA. How do the music scenes differ between TCs and LA?
It’s been a minute since I’ve been back to L.A. but these days with social media and an always ravenous internet machine it’s pretty easy to keep tabs on what the happenings are, if one is so inclined. In terms of the music scene out there I suspect it’s actually fairly vibrant- much like Minneapolis but probably in a more intentional fashion. I follow Peter Jesperson and he has yet to steer me wrong on some really extraordinary bands, and of course being on the West Coast those shows are probably much more on the precipice of whatever the “magic hour” of recognition might be than perhaps we are here. But good music everywhere is great for everywhere where music is played. As to your observation on King of the Lake, yes, that song is a not so serious tale of what the scene was like in the very indie-sheik music scene of Silverlake, Los Angeles circa the middle ‘90s. They had a weekend fair of sorts called the “Sunset Junction” (I believe they still do?) And it was a heck of a lot of fun to take light-hearted lyrical jabs at the notion of “shoegazing,” “backpack girls” and “polyester.” Back then, the really cool club was called Spaceland, though I think now the place to go is called The Echo.
I just love Loser Friendly. It’s a driving song with all that guitar but the vocals also hit just right. I’d like to know more about the song. I’m trying to decide if it’s biographical, autobiographical or pure fiction.
Thank you! We’re kinda proud of that one, and honestly most of the heavy lifting on the song really goes to Producer Daniel Murphy and Terry Fisher. Those two really know how to throw a guitar party! And when the drums and bass guitar at the outro hit their speed, well, that is the most fun of any set for myself, personally. As for the lyrics, like everything I do, I suppose, there is an autobiographical component, not so much in a literal sense, but rather perhaps (and forgive the drama here) an emotional state of hopelessness, and the reckless sense of being that can often accompany such a season. A suitable postscript here might be that possibly my favorite lyrics of the record- “You’re and indie rock chick/ I’m a pop rock whore” are on that little diddy.
The imagery in Point the Way is so clever and seems to encapsulate the adage of talking to yourself like you’d talk to a friend. What was the inspiration for the song?
That one just began with a little progression I brought to Dan one day while we were working on something else. I don’t have the guitar vocabulary that literally every other person in this town who has ever even LOOKED at a guitar does, so I’m always a bit reticent to bring stuff out- especially to someone of his prominence, but I liked it because it seemed to have a bit of dissonance cloaked in a pop sensibility. Lyrically I am always hoping to veer away from the idea of obvious imagery, and not be afraid of opaque visual thinking, so this was relatively new and admittedly interesting- the idea of self-reflection and positive illumination. But that’s all I had, so when over the course of about three and a half minutes Dan came up with this very simple musical chorus, and words that really put a bowe on what was until then kind of a mish-mash of thoughts dancing around the age old focus of believing in oneself, well, that was pretty cool.
Please tell us about upcoming shows and how best to connect with you for updates.
We are putting a show together at White Squirrel 8/16. It’s an afternoon one, which I’m sure will have an awesome and relaxing vibe. The wisdom now on it is to make it a kind of country folk rock affair. Contrary to what might be believed of us, we do in fact have some Hank Sr. to us, with a couple of more such songs in the works for this show.
Mostly Minnesota 