March 16th, 2007
Interview/editorial by: Jemayel Khawaja
Menomena's Danny Seim is as unassuming as you can get at 6'7". Disarmingly genuine and mildly insecure to the degree of endearment, he loped and I followed to the outdoor smoking section in the rear of Los Angeles' Echo. Fellow band member Brent Knopf joined the conversation somewhere past the middle. He's intelligent and particular. He gives off the impression of always thinking about something warranting meticulous calculation. He's the brains behind the operation and the creator of Deeler, the digital looping program that is at the core of all Menomena songs.
I caught Menomena at an interesting bisection in their career. Their third widely released studio album Friend and Foe has critics and fans alike fawning (again) over their ability to create cogent songs while retaining the high level of uniqueness that has set them apart since 2003's I Am The Fun Blame Monster. The characteristic elements of Menomena are still evident: lazy slide guitar, syncopated bass lines, saxophone, uninhibited song-structure, and multi-instrumentalist Brent Knopf's higher-pitched, tense voice twining with also-multi-instrumentalist Justin Harris' sweeter vocals. The band has grown musically, though. Friend and Foe goes more places than any of their previous releases. Certain moments on the album are more conventional in their structure, but the methods in which they are put together and the many nuances of those parts have opened new avenues for Menomena to explore sonic adventures. Believe it or not, they even have a couple of ditties you can dance to. A majority of the inhabitants of The Echo were, in fact, dancing during the performance.
After the set, the audience resolutely and unabashedly demanded an encore, despite the lack of any reoccurrence of band members on stage. Eventually Harris returned, but only to explain Menomena's no-encore policy. Still, though, the audience wouldn't leave. In the end, the band capitulated. This incident and portions of the interview led me to believe that the band isn't actually knowledgeable of how fond people are of Menomena. They are able to do their ambitious recordings justice during live performances; the album's varied instrumentation and ambitious scope do not overwhelm their capacities. The current tour may be a revelation both to fans and the band themselves.
Hate Something Beautiful: Do you do most of the interviews?
Danny: No, no. Can you tell? We split them up. Everything is a democracy.
HSB: And at this point, have you had more interviews than you care to deal with?
Danny: (Smiles)That's an awkward question. No, I love all of them! I'd rather do this than play shows.
HSB: I'm sure something you've had to talk about more than you want to in interviews is the technique of digital looping that you use during songwriting. I still want you to talk about it, though, because I think it's interesting.
Danny: It's Brent (Knopf), I can't assume too much, I dunno. He's more of a computer dude, a nerd if you will. He writes software using this thing called max/MSP. It's kind of a blank palette, you can build anything from create pedals to run lighting rigs for shows. You can do a lot of things, really, using this crazy code that only Brent knows.
HSB: So how many Menomena songs are written using this process?
Danny: All of them. The thing he did, more or less, was create a looping pedal. We can just pass a mic around a room and record snippets. Then, at a later date we can take all of these snippets and rearrange them into different parts. Most guitar pedals, when you have a loop thing you can play through something and loop it and you can only create on top of it. It creates like this wall of sound, but you can't extract any loops.
HSB: Has Menomena always used this technique exclusively?
Danny: Well, when we first came together we all had our own little solo ideas because we all write independently as well as a band. A lot of those, we tried to do the singer/songwriter thing and teach the other guys. It wasn't working because we're such control freaks. This Deeler thing is a great way for us to contribute equally and not feel like any of us have the spotlight. It's all really collaborative.
HSB: So how did you all come together?
Danny: As a band? Well, I've known Justin since high school, so it's been. Oh, jeez. I think we met in 1994, 1995?
HSB: How old are you?
Danny: I just turned 30. It's pretty scary. Justin turns 30 on the 28th(Of March, 2007). And then, Brent's the youngest guy; he's 29.
HSB: So how long has Menomena been a band for?
Danny: Since, well, probably late 2000. We played our first show in 2001.
HSB: How much material did you have before I Am the Fun Blame Monster! ?
Danny: We recorded that and released it in May of 2003. So those first two or three years were spent doing the deeler looping thing or assembling tracks, not really thinking of releasing them as a record. There's probably about, it's hard to say 'songs,' they're more of less sessions. There's like 50 or 60 of these Deeler sessions out there that we just haven't arranged into linear song format.
HSB: Do you prefer I Am the Fun Blame Monster or Friend and Foe?
Danny: Wow, um, I dunno. I guess I preferred the experience of Fun Blame Monster because we didn't really have any aspirations of becoming some touring band playing in Los Angeles on a Saturday night. I dunno, that was kind of cheesy. But like, at the time we just wanted to get these songs out there. You've seen the packaging, right, the whole flip-book thing? We had no idea we were going to have to mass-produce them. I was doing them all by hand, like "Oh, I work at Kinko's, it'll be no problem". And suddenly we're getting these large orders and I had to mass-produce them and it was a pain in the ass. I preferred that process because there was no pressure. The Friend and Foe thing is like our 3rd official album, like "better nail this one, boys!" Not that we were feeling pressure from the label, we just felt like we had more to live up to.
HSB: Do you plan on being a professional musician for a long time?
Danny: (laughs) I don't think we are yet, actually. I'd like to be one, I dunno, It's weird to discuss goals, because every guy or girl in a band wants to eventually do it for a living. But the second that you say that is the second you jinx yourself. I guess more or less the goal would be to create, hopefully, things that are compelling to people and good songs. If that helps us to make a career out of it well that would be awesome.
HSB: How long are most of your tours?
Danny: This is by far the longest. This is almost five weeks. Brent and I are both married back home and we all have day jobs that we can't just up and leave every time we feel like rocking out. Five weeks is by far the longest. We've told the label and the agent and made it so that we're not gone for more than three months out of the year so we can still make money back home and don't get fired or divorced or anything.
HSB: This might be kind of an unfair question. Do you prefer playing live of putting together a song in the studio?
Danny: Wow, I dunno. It changes. Last night I felt really bad about the show, we hadn't practiced in a while and all this stuff was coming at us at once. Under those circumstances I'd much rather be in the comfort of my own home writing songs on the computer. But then sometimes when shows go well, you can't really compare that thrill of seeing people actually somewhat excited be what you're doing.
HSB: Have you noticed an increased or amplified reaction from crowds as you've gone along?
Danny: Yeah, it's weird because people actually know some of the songs now. So there's a lot more pressure not to fuck up. We all kind of feel that. When we actually notice people's mouths moving to the lyrics it's like, "oh my god, better not botch this one". That's definately something we've noticed, but there aren't like these huge 3000 person sing-alongs.
HSB: Does touring get stressful? I mean, I know it does for every band, but what is it like to be on tour?
Danny: Well, the first tour we did was in this crazy 1977 RV. We all had this really idealistic thing, like, "we'll bring our house with us!"
HSB: Was it all of your first tour?
Danny: Yeah, yeah, in 2004. It was my uncle's RV that had sat in his garage for years. Justin's pretty handy with tools and stuff so he was like, "Oh I'll just build the insides as we go. I'll build beds and microwaves and whatever". We were stopping at every Home Depot down the I-5 and he's buying more plywood. The first thing he did was hook up the outlets so he could use the electric saw in the back. There was sawdust flying everywhere. Then we had flat tires, engine fires, brakes going out. It was so awful. That tour we were just stressed out over just surviving from venue to venue. It's become progressively less stressful.
HSB: Do you think that after this album you could feasibly have Menomena be your main source of income?
Danny: Well, that's hard to say. Of course, it would be nice. Was it Andy Kaufman or someone who continued to wait tables even though he was still extremely successful in his creative career? As long as you don't plan on, like, making it big and just letting it happen organically. At this point if it happens or doesn't happen, we still have lives back home that we could fall back on.
HSB: What is the dynamic of personalities between members of the band?
Danny: That's a good question. Um, I know that Justin and I are probably bigger in the procrastination department. I feel bad for Brent, because he's so smart with that sort of stuff and so on top of things and on time, he gets stuck with all the shitty jobs like accounting and doing taxes. He knows that if we do it, it will never get done. We all get along really well.
HSB: Your old website {http://www.menomena.com/menu2.html}, it looked like it was designed by a five year old girl on crack.
Danny: Yeah. That's me. I'm her.
HSB: You made it? I thought you weren't the nerdy one in the band
Danny: Well, I copy and pasted the html from like a 5 year old girl's AOL homepage. That's off the record, by the way. I don't steal.
HSB: Speaking of stealing, how do you feel about filesharing?
Danny: It's weird. As we progress into a band that signs contracts with labels-- At first it was great; a lot of people heard about us that way. As long as people keep it honest, I mean, I always steal music. But if it's really great, I don't want to steal from these starving artists so I go and buy the album.
HSB: Is Barsuk doing anything to work with the new environment?
Danny: Actually, one of my friends is a journalist. He got a copy of the new Modest Mouse cd. They used a CD-R that's super-encrypted so it only works for like five listens and then it self-destructs or something. You can't rip it into itunes. I don't think Barsuk does anything like that, it's definitely an independent label. There are no major label ties.
HSB: So what are your ties with Film Guerrero at this point?
Danny; Film Guerrero is great. It's just one guy in Portland: John Askew. We became really good friends with him because he wasn't forcing us to sign any contracts. More or less, he put is in contact with Barsuk. We kept him in the loop, he's gonna release our vinyl records. We're definitely still in touch with him and still good friends
[Enter Brent].
HSB: How did you guys meet Craig Thompson (designer of Friend and Foe's album art)?
Danny: We were playing a show in a little venue in Anacortes, Washington called the Department of Safety. It's a youth hostel slash venue. It's crazy. Craig was there because he knew John (Askew of Film Guerrero). This was close to three years ago. We just kept in touch, became close friends, and then proposed the idea of him designing our CD packaging for the new album.
HSB: How has the reaction been, both historically and with the new record?
Brent: Los Angeles has always been great. The crowds have been so supportive. Compared to Seattle, at least, we've had a rough time in Seattle until pretty recently.
HSB: Why do you think that is?
Brent: It's hard to say, I don't know. I could speculate…Seattle thinks of Portland as its, y'know, chunky little brother. We had a hard time in the Seattle press, too. We'd only had distribution for our record for like 6 months and the Seattle press was like "Menomena's still supporting their debut record." Anyway, I shouldn't complain. We had a really, really fun show there recently.
HSB: Are you guys sensitive to the press you get?
Brent: You better write good things about us!
Danny: Or we're gonna cry
Brent: ...And then i'll crush you.
Danny: At first we were mailing out our own press CD's to all these websites. We were kind of our own publicists, of course I'm totally rationalizing it…We had to follow up, like if any feedback came in it was largely because we sent it.
HSB: Well, Pitchfork loves you guys
Danny: (laughs) Yeah
HSB: Have you read their reviews yet?
Danny: …Not more than twice a day. (Brent laughs knowingly)
HSB: What would you do if you guys became one-hit wonders?
Danny: If? The golden gate bridge, I hear there's a 100% chance of death if you jump off of it..
HSB: What if Britney Spears came to one of your shows?
Brent: That'd be the one hit.
Danny: What era of Britney Spears, current era or former? If she came right now it would be pretty rad.
HSB: Like her post-breakdown re-emergence as a musically conscious underground showgoer?
Brent: Oh, she lives around here, huh?
Danny: (Laughs) Yeah. Do you ever see her around? Or like Mel Gibson walking by, yelling at people?
HSB: No man, I don't see either of those people. L.A is huge.
Danny: I'm so fascinated by celebrity culture. Do you watch The Soup? I love it. That's as far as I go. I don't read OK Magazine every week, whatever that is. There aren't many celebrities in Portland other than Everclear or the Dandy Warhols or Gus Van Sant. If they walk by, people's jaws wouldn't drop or anything.
HSB: Do you ever get noticed?
Danny: Yeah, all the time. Every time I go outside, people notice me. "Get out of my way! Are you still wearing flannel?!"
Brent: "Hey, you're really tall!"
HSB: Do you want to be famous?
Brent: No
Danny: Any more famous? That's impossible. I don't know….No.
