Soul Asylum – Interview with Dave Pirner

By Ron Senyo:

Soul Asylum – Dave Pirner

Soul Asylum, the Minneapolis based alternative rock outfit best known for their early 90s commercial success in the era of Nirvana and the grunge movement. Soul Asylum concurred rock radio with the tracks, “Run Away Train”, Black Gold”, and the ambitious rock anthem “Somebody to Shove”.   The band has weathered line-up changes and label troubles, but has managed to survive all that the industry could throw at them and have seen the release of their new album Change of Fortune in March of this year.

Empire Extreme got to hang with singer Dave Pirner before their set at the Soundstage in Baltimore Maryland.

Empire: How’s the tour going so far?

Dave: It’s kind of gotten off to a funky start, because we had to go through Toronto , where Justin [Sharbono] (rhythm guitar) wasn’t with us. Then we played a show back in Minneapolis. Then we played Kansas City at 1:30 in the afternoon, and we have been driving ever since. The show last night definitely came together. That’s’  kind of what I expect; the bands find a groove three or four shows in. Then we settle into our thing as it was.

Soul Asylum – Change of Fortune

E: Your new album, Change of Fortune came out in March. How was the process of recording that?

D: It’s like we are getting better at doing things ourselves. For sure, between me, Michael, and Jon Fields our producer it’s pretty fluid. Were able to make a record and have it sound just as good as we made them 20 years ago for fraction of the cost. It’s the mother of invention kind of thing. Everyone has home studios now.  You can part it out. Record the live things, then add background vocals in your basement or whatever.

E: Who inspired you to be a musician?

D: Usually I blame my older sister on that. She had this ability to pick up my trumpet and play it better than I could of even though. Her instrument was saxophone; she could kind of play everything. I had a best-buddy who was second trumpet and I was first trumpet. He was better and I knew it. I took lessons from his older brother and one day he brought Jimi Hendrix Are You Experienced and lent it to me. At that point I was like trumpet it too hard, I want to play guitar. So I can blame Jimi for that. When I heard the Ramones I was “Oh man I can do this”.

Soul Asylum – Dave Pirner

E: You’ve been doing this for 35 years hows that feel?

D: Holy shit! It feels pretty hard on my back, but it feels great to be still doing it. I love it! I doesn’t get any easier.

E: How do you feel being classified as Grunge, when you were before the scene?

D: Its never a great thing as far as I see to be limited to a single spectrum of music. I think that starting out as a punk band then sort of making our way to a major label, that’s when they started coming up with expressions like “alternative”. That meant it was alternative to what the label understood what and how to promote. They couldn’t figure it out, so the stuck in the alternative section. Over the years I’ve seen that term kind of morph into a good thing. It didn’t use to be a good thing. It’s something other than the usual which is good. I like being associated with outsiders, that sounds about right. So many rock bands were having some sort of success then. It was a nice time, my friends in the Meat Puppets were getting a deal, Butthole Surfers got a major deal, and that something you might not have seen happen otherwise.

E: Do you ever get tired of playing Runaway Train?

D: I think when the record came out after Grave Dancers Union I stopped playing it. [That song] became more of a thing people saying “I drove all these miles and paid all this money to come to see you, why didn’t you play the song we came to hear”. I felt like I could explain this for 10 minutes. I’m trying to challenge the band, come up with new material people are interested in, and eventually the explanation took longer than playing the song, so I was “ah.. I’ll play it”. I enjoy playing it and I enjoy people seem to like it. I wrote it I might as well play it.

E: You guys played Bill Clinton’s inauguration. How was that?

D: It was surreal, it was funny. It was a lot of “Wow how did we get here?” It was really cool because it felt like were part of something. What kind of administration embraces a rock band? We ended up playing four different events for Clinton’s run. I gave him my harmonica when he left office. It was kind of flattering and interesting, you get to have the Secret Service tell you where you can smoke and stuff like that.

E: How was it working with Kevin Smith?

D: I loved working with Kevin. He is really spontaneous, really articulate, and really funny as he is always on. He’s just a really smart guy. Working with him was really fun, and I hope I can do it again sometime.

E: Do you ever thinking about growing back the dreadlocks?

D: That was interesting. I remember black folks going “Whoa man look at that hair! How did you do that?” I was like “I don’t know I stopped washing and combing my hair and turned in those hairballs” like a cats and then turned into dreadlocks. I was kind of surprised as anyone. It was never really a fashion statement. If I tried to wash it I smelled like a wet dog, there were pieces of carpet from peoples floor I had slept on. I don’t know what was in there.

E: What was the best show ever throughout your career?

D: The rock and roll hall of fame stuff was kind of fun. I met Al Green, Johnny Cash, and James Brown all these people” I was like “Wow”. You kind of get to meet your idols.

E: Any new bands you been listening to?

D: Ya, I like this band Cage the Elephant. I think they seem pretty cool, like a rock band with all the right stuff going on. I like this guy Sufjan Stevens, there’s a metal band called The Sword. There’s a rapper called Lizzo from Minneapolis, I like her. I’m pretty open minded. There’s also a band from Minneapolis called Bruise Violet, they are a girl rock band. I think their name comes from a Babes in Toyland song. They are great.

E: Anything else you want to say to the fans?

D: ehh, not really… (laughs)  Keep on Rocking Kids.

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Ron

Ron has keen eye for new talent, a love for the underground, and a tremendous passion for music of any genera. You’ll probably bump into him at a horror convention or some seedy club checking out the next need-to-know band.

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