The New Pornographers' Kathryn Calder: The New Gay Interview

I think I have a crush on Kathryn Calder. This is getting out of hand. (photo from MySpace)

The New Pornographers play tonight and tomorrow at the 9:30 Club. Both shows are sold out.

(To celebrate The New Pornographers' two soldout shows at the 9:30 Club, I have interviewed two of their members. Tune back in tomorrow to read an extensive conversation with Carl Newman. )

Though the music of The New Pornographers is instantly accessible, their mercurial line-up requires NASA technology to keep track of. The Canadian quasi-super group is made up of one full time frontman/song writer, Carl Newman, and 7 other Canucks with their own careers. Co-songwriter (and alleged weirdo) Dan Bejar helms Destroyer, vocalist Neko Case has a successful solo career and all the other members only do time in TNP in between their main gigs. For this reason, It is rare to get all of them onstage at the same time. The feat was managed at their last 9:30 show in October, but this time around they'll be sans Dan.

Kathryn Calder joined the band in 2005 to provide an alternate female voice for their third album, Twin Cinema, and has since become an integral member. She plays keyboard, sings and often takes the unenviable task of filling in for Neko, who is said to have the best voices in contemporary music. And adding to the band's complicated dynamic, Carl is her long lost uncle. Is this convoluted or what?

Full interview below the fold.

Kathryn, whose main band is Immaculate Machine, has no trouble holding her own onstage. While TNP's first three albums were wall-to-wall blast of sunny power-pop puncuated by the occasional low-key number, their newest album "Challengers" is their most mournful. The band's last show at 9:30 featured a good mix of all their albums (and fucking rocked) so those of you that heeded my warning should get your glasses blown off tonight.

The New Gay Zack: So your tour manager told me you're calling from a different number than usual because you have a Canadian phone and can't buy minutes in the states. Are there any other unseen complications that come with touring in America?

Kathryn Calder: It’s just really the phone thing. And there’s always the border. I haven’t had any horror stories but I’ve had a few “spending a long time at the border while they ask you for the eighteenth time if you have any drugs.” And you go, ‘no, I’m not dumb.’ No real horror stories, but some annoying stories certainly.

TNG: Sweden is getting a lot of attention for its imports, but it seems like the Canadian music scene is really getting big here too. Why now?

KC: The nice thing about Canada is that you get money from the government if you’re a Canadian musician. Some bands get money to go places, it makes it a lot more possible. If you’re a small indie band and you wanna play a festival in Europe they give you showcase money. It makes it easier to do that.

TNG: I’ve noticed that your videos have been made with the grants like that.

KC: They’re supportive, it’s nice. It just makes it that much easier, I’m not sure that the band would’ve decided to make videos if we had to make for them by ourselves. We’re not really sure what good they do other than being fun to make. I’d rather put the money into something cool like flying to Japan, but we’re getting money to make videos. People like them.

TNG: How much is The New Pornographers a collaboration between its members versus Carl directing all the operations?

KC: This is how last record worked: Everyone was scattered all over North America, so we had the harp player sending us stuff from St. Louis. Kurt [Dahle] did drums in Vancouver. Neko was sending in stuff from Tucson, then she flew to New York, then all the guys from Vancouver flew in separately. It was a coordination nightmare but I think it worked out.

TNG: With that many people in a band, how can you possibly create one unified album?

KC: I think the real key is that Carl is really the mastermind so it all ends up sounding like Carl. If we’d been a band that really had to practice together and collaborate together it wouldn’t have worked so well. Having no rehearsal time and people living everywhere it would’ve been a mess, but sounding like Carl it’s cool. And Dan. It sounds like Carl and Dan.

TNG: How much is Dan involved?

KC: He comes on tour occasionally, but it’s hard to get him on tour. he doesn’t really like touring. We have to drag him on tour, saying “OK this is a big one,” or if he’s playing at the same festival we can get him onstage to play a song. It’s special when Dan’s on tour. I love him and love when he’s on tour, but he doesn’t like to do that. He does his own thing and that’s cool, we love him anyway. [Editor’s note: This paragraph wins a prize for most uses of the word “tour” in TNG history.]

TNG: Is he as difficult a person as he appears to be? When I saw you back in October, he only came onstage for his own songs.

KC: Oh my god no, he’s the greatest, he’s just shy. His stage persona is absolutely nothing like his personality offstage as far as I’m concerned. I left his computer behind in Tucson one night,one of those expensive new macs. He said ‘it will be found, don’t worry about it.” Sure enough, one of the other band members was staying in town overnight so in morning he stopped by the venue and grabbed it. It was just sitting on stage. Dan was fine with it, as a band we couldn’t have picked a better person to have left his computer behind.

TNG: A lot of people think that Neko Case has one of the best voices in music right now. Is it daunting to sing her parts when she’s not around?

KC: Yeah, I always feel like I have something to prove at the beginning of the night when I come and everyone’s like “There’s no Neko.” It’s a weird thing, you think it will be this big massive deal but a lot of people can’t tell the difference. A lot of people don’t know what Neko looks like and in a live situation you can’t always tell what peoples voices sound like, so a lot of people think that I am Neko. Not so much anymore, but it happens from time to time and I think it’s really funny.

TNG: Did you know what you were getting into?

KC: I said yes without really thinking about what it would really mean. I said ‘Yes, that sounds fun, I love this band and would love the opportunity to sing” without really realizing that of course everyone will miss Neko and ‘Hey, who is this chick coming in thinking she she can sing?” I had never seen this band live before I joined, so I had no idea what what Neko did. I just had to listen to songs on the record and interpret them how I wanted to, that make it easier too. I’m not trying to copy her, I’m just singing. That’s what I do.

TNG: Do you ever get audiences that really just wish Neko was there?

KC: I think people are understanding. The situation is such that Neko is just really busy. She would love to play all the shows with the band if she could, its just impossible to have two successful careers. I hope people understand too that I’m there not because I’m trying to take over, but because the band would like to play live and it’s impossible to schedule eight people to play live every single show.

TNG: On Challengers you sing lead on “Failsafe” and “Adventures in Solitude.” Will you be doing that more often in later records?

KC: I don’t know what the plan is for that, I take what I can get and I’m happy for it. I sing a lot more in the new record than in Twin Cinema and it think they’re a lot more obvious parts. Although I can’t tell which is Neko and which me when we got it recorded.

TNG: Is Carl actually your uncle?

KC: The story is complicated, but he’s my long lost uncle. My mom [who was adopted] applied to find her birth mom , and then Carl’s mom -- my mom’s birth mom -- [also applied to have the adoption records unsealed.] They found me when I was in my mid-teens. There’s this whole family, six of them, uncles and aunts. We spend Christmas together now, it’s like a hallmark commercial.

TNG: Is it weird being in a band with your uncle?

KC: It would be weirder to be in a band with an uncle that I’ve known all my life than with one that I have a different relationship with than a regular niece and uncle. I just know him as Carl. I call him "Uncle Carl" sometimes as a joke.

TNG: How is it being one of only two woman touring with an all male band?

KC: These guys are all cool. I’ve never been on tour with anything other than just guys, I’ve never been in a band with a lot of girls or anything, so I wouldn’t know the difference. We got Neko, when I’m with her it’s good, there’s no problems. Being on tour is being on tour.

TNG: Doing the same songs night after night, how do you keep it fresh? Is being onstage actually as much fun as it looks?

KC: On this particular tour we’re playing with Okkervil River, they have a really energetic live show. I go out and watch them and get all revved up. I feel like I have to be a little more energetic on stage because of them, we have to at least match them. To have a band you really like play before helps to get you into the show. And my new drink is whiskey ginger, that helps.

TNG: I interviewed Carl right before you. He said that on a recent, show, for the first time, everyone was sober at the end of the night. Is it really the end of the New Pornographers’ partying days?

KC: I think you go on tour enough and the drinking booze every night really stops being a huge priority. It starts to wear you down, you start hating waking up in the morning hung over and feeling gross. It takes you the whole day to feel normal and then you go and do it again. And four weeks in a row, that’s really hard living. There’s a point when that stops being fun every night. Most people would go out on weekends and do that, but if you do that every day isn’t it basically alcoholism? But socially acceptable alcoholism because everyone loves seeing drunk people onstage. I like drinking before a show, but only sometimes. I don’t like dying, I don’t want my liver to go out on me on tour.TNG