This interview was conducted circa 1991, long before Soul Asylum hit the big time; in fact, they didn't even have a record contract, having just left A&M Records, and were in severe debt. I spoke with singer/songwriter/guitarist Dave Pirner at that time about where the band was and where it was going--neither of us with any idea that within a couple of years Soul Asylum would be very nearly a household word, nor that within another couple of years the idea that the band could be a potential source of interesting new music would be laughable.

Aaron: Well, the first thing I wanted to ask you about is why you're no longer on A&M Records.

Dave: Well, basically we kind of got tired of dealing with the label. The main reason is that the people who signed us to A&M and the majority of the people we had been working with at the label had left. So we were just like "What are we doing here? We don't even know anyone at this label anymore." The people who thought they could work with the band in the first place are no longer there, so that was a little annoying.

Aaron: It didn't really seem like A&M knew how to handle Soul Asylum.

Dave: No, they didn't have a clue. We tried it for two records, and they wanted us to do a third one, which was kind of...y'know, at least they didn't dump us, but we had to get out of there and try something else, or we'd feel like we had somebody besides ourselves to blame for totally fucking everything up.

Aaron: Did you have to break your contract to quit the label?

Dave: Yeah, we had to buy our way out of our own contract.

Aaron: Did that cost you quite a bit?

Dave: Heh-heh-heh, well, let's just put it this way: we're hoping that we're going to able to find a label that's willing to pay that debt off for us. So they'll get the extra bonus of having to pay A&M a bunch of money to get the band, which does not make us look so great, but we had to get out of there. We were ready to do it at any cost, because we just needed something new.

Aaron: That obviously says something about how important maintaining the integrity of the band is to you.

Dave: Well, yeah, it's not exactly the most secure thing in the world to do. For me, it took a big vote of confidence from the band, because I wouldn't have done it personally, but the rest of the guys were just like "We're out of here, Dave", and we think that the new stuff is good enough that we won't have any problem finding a new place to put it. I probably wouldn't have had the guts to do it, but it was sort of a band decision, and we were definitely feeling like there might be something better.

Aaron: So you have material all written for a new album?

Dave: Yeah, we've got about seventeen songs. We've been playing quite a few of them on the road, which might turn into a problem, because there are plenty of people that tape our shows, and when we play a new song people are singing the words to the song, and I'm going, "wait a minute, what's happening here?" The record's probably going to be out before we even get a label. We recorded demos for these seventeen new songs, and we pretty much learned them as we recorded them. There's something really great about the way that they came out, because for the first time we did it all live and we did it with a lot of acoustic guitars and whatnot. I just hope we don't beat the shit into the ground before we record the album. Everyone was pretty surprised by the demos, because they're really spontaneous-sounding.

Aaron: Have you thought about producing the record yourselves, rather than bringing in an outside producer?

Dave: Well, we sort of did that on our demo tapes, and I think we set a pretty high standard for the potential of the material.

Aaron: I mention it because Hang Time and Soul Asylum and the Horse They Rode In On sound very different from each other.

Dave: To me that's what makes the whole process exciting, and that's why we work with a different engineer and a different producer every time. I think producers are generally overpaid and underworked, but you can learn so much. I have the rest of my life to produce my own records, and if I can get some record label to pay someone like Steve Jordan or Lenny Kaye a bunch of money to work with us and hang out and have fun making a record, then we can draw from their experience. Steve Jordan's been in the studio with everyone. He's been in there with every producer and every artist, and he knows how everyone else works, so he's got a lot to offer as far as experience goes. That's what it comes down to in the studio, you just have to try everything, and he can help make that process more efficient with a little bit more experience. Every time I go into the studio I have a completely different attitude, and that's because of everything I've tried in the past. If it's not experimental, and it's not spontaneous, and I'm not working with someone new, and I'm not learning anything, then it lacks a really important element. There's got to be some sort of a wack creative process going on that combines a lot of strange chemistry. It's got to be fun, and you can't be thinking that you know everything when you go in the studio because you just don't. You walk in there with your own ears, and you're listening to everything that you've heard before. You've got to keep some sort of excitement going on, and some sort of assurance that you're not flaking out and being so self-indulgent that you lose track of what you're doing. There's no right or wrong way to record in the studio, I just think that the more you can experiment and the more fun you can have, the more that's going to come out on the record. Sometimes I don't even really expect people to notice what's special about any certain aspect of the record. This last record we made is all played live, and it's just the band and it all sounds pretty loose to me, and it all sounds like we were having a good time when we recorded it, and we were, and I can hear that. It's significant, it's a lot different than the previous record, which was a lot more articulate and went through a more perfectionist process. The next one will be something completely different.

Aaron: What about Clam Dip and Other Delights?

Dave: That was kind of a hodgepodge of events.

Aaron: Is there some kind of a story behind it? Because from my perspective, I saw the video from the EP first...

Dave: The black and white thing?

Aaron: Yeah, the "P-9" video.

Dave: You should see the other video from that record. It's for "Artificial Heart", it looks like a hacker movie. It's like a war film. I made it with a couple of friends of mine.

Aaron: Anyway, I saw the video and then I had a really hard time finding the EP.

Dave: Yeah, that's the miracle of Twin/Tone Records, heh-heh-heh. What happened with this record was...if I can remember, and I'm not sure I can...it was stuff that was demos for Hang Time. We had a bunch of extra songs that we weren't putting on the record, and we tried to record a few covers, which is something that is always interesting to try but is never quite as gratifying. It's kind of not worth trying to ruin somebody else's song, somebody else has already spent a lot of money trying to record it. We wanted to go into the studio and make our own record just for the fun of it, and we had the whole concept of the record cover and everything, and we were just sort of poking fun at the major label. We released it in Europe before Hang Time came out, and it had two different songs on it: a Janis Joplin song and a Foreigner song, if you can believe that. Then Hang Time came out, and we then took Clam Dip back into the studio and remixed it and remixed it, and put two new songs on it. I'd been working on this thing, "Artificial Heart", which was probably one of the most gratifying studio experiences I've ever had. It's sort of my monster, my Frankenstein song. I was kind of hell-bent on executing this song, I was sort of obsessed with it. I felt really good about being able to go into the studio and execute that sort of a thing and have it work. And that was it for Clam Dip. The rest of it's kind of funny and kind of not, I don't know what that record is exactly, I don't know how people perceive that record.

Aaron: So what record labels are you talking with now?

Dave: Any old label. We're pretty much just throwing demos around and seeing what comes back. We seem to be getting a pretty good response, and we're sort of trying to incite some competitive interests, but I don't know if that's going to work or not.

Aaron: You mean like a Soul Asylum bidding war?

Dave: Well, more or less. I hate to say that, it sounds really sleazy or something. It's kind of interesting. For me, everything that happens outside of the music is kind of, uh...

Aaron: Incidental?

Dave: Yeah, I guess that's the word I was looking for, something like that. I don't really care about it, but I sorta get a kick out of it, and it sort of amuses me.

Aaron: So you don't take the business end of things very seriously?

Dave: Well, no. I don't take it seriously because then I'd just get too wrapped up in it, and I just don't have that sort of a brain. I don't think that way. I get a kick out of it when I see these people trying to get all fuckin' serious about a song. If it's yourself that's the subject of these bizarre exploitation tactics or whatever it is, you can't help but learn a lot about it. And if you can't laugh at it, you're fucked. I think if you don't have a sense of humor about all that stuff and how completely irrelevant it is to the music you're making, you're really going to get mixed up. You're going to get your business mixed up with your pleasure, and you're going to be in bad shape. I take it all with a grain of salt. My biggest problem right now is that I want to get a record out as soon as possible, and that is going to be a problem because we're trying to make smart decisions and we're not really smart business-wise, I don't think. So you end up having to trust somebody else, which is always the wrong thing to do in the music business––which is too bad, because you would think that people would have their hearts in it a little bit more, to the point where they were really looking out for the band, but it just doesn't work that way. People are always looking out for themselves, and they're more worried about how it's going to make them look rather than how it's going to reflect on the band's ability to function as a musical entity.

Aaron: Well, you know that Bob Mould's just quit Virgin Records, and he says what fucked up his relationship with the label was his manager lying to both sides, both Bob and the label people, about what the other side said and wanted.

Dave: Yeah, she traded away some part of his publishing or some shit like that. It's really a bad scene, y'know, you're fucked. You're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. Now he's going to try to manage himself, and that's a job that Bob can do, and that's not a job I can do, because Bob has a business mind, and Bob can be on top of it. He ran Hüsker Dü for years, but I don't want to think about that shit all the time, because it bores me to death, and it distracts me. I want to think about music, and I want to be a musician, and play. But, I think Bob can do it, and I think it'll probably be better for him.

Aaron: Did the people at A&M ever try to fuck around with your music at all?

Dave: No, they didn't. That's one thing that I can't hold against them. I can say that they had a lot of respect for us in terms of a hands-off sort of policy. I think they signed us because they thought that we knew something that they didn't, and that's true to the point where they still don't know anything, but they were really good about working with whoever we chose as our producer, and they were good about giving us more money to do something if we felt that we needed it. There's a point where you want your record label to be involved with the band, enough so they feel like they're involved and they're going to feel like they have something to push for, to fight for, because they had something to do with it. And that didn't really even happen, we didn't even have anyone that felt like they had…I don't know, I think, much to their credit, they were very good about not trying to make us do anything we didn't want to do.

Aaron: The publicity they put out for you was kind of strange...

Dave: Well, publicity is a whole other bag of bullshit.

Aaron: Well, it was strange in that the publicity for Hang Time was like some Soul Asylum was some neo-metal band, and for And The Horse They Rode In On it was like "Hey! It's those wacky guys, Soul Asylum!"

Dave: Yeah, there's probably a name for that. It's probably something really crass that you'd never want to hear said about yourself, like "product continuity" or something. But, y'know, I'm kind of irritated when people try to describe the band in a way that is silly, but I can't describe it. If we were projecting a really strong image that the record label could pick up on and run with, and we had a master plan, an ulterior motive, and a look, and, y'know, outfits or whatever, we'd be giving them something to work with. I think what you see there is the fact that we don't have that sort of thing, and I think that's probably as much the band's responsibility as it is the record label's. That's why you have bands like Jane's Addiction and the Black Crowes doing so well, because they've got that all worked out. They've got their image, and they've got their look, and they've got their credo, or they've got their whatever the hell they have. I'm not going to fucking develop an image just so I can sell records, but it's hard to get down on the record label for doing what they do. They could be a little more creative, I'm sure. Maybe they could turn that into something, because I always thought it was kind of righteous to not be trying to push some sort of an image on people. I'd rather put the way it sounds in front of the way it looks. It's tough for record-label geeks to deal with something that's not spelled out for them, they don't know where they should go with it. So, I don't know, we have an image problem, heh-heh. But, fuck, I don't care.

Aaron: Yeah, it seems like the people I know who are into Soul Asylum like the music and will talk about the music, whereas with other bands who have the big image thing, people who are into those bands will be as apt to talk about their latest haircut or whatever. It just gets out of hand.

Dave: Sure, I mean, fuck, it worked for the Beatles, it worked for everyone that's successful. I feel incredibly righteous about what you're saying, that people that like us, like us for the music we play and not the way we look. That makes me feel really good, and that makes me feel like I've actually accomplished something! It's too bad that, I don't know, I don't fuckin' care, I just want people to hear the music, and however that's going to happen, it's going to have to find its way into everyone's hearts, heh-heh, in its own sort of heartwarming way.

Aaron: One question I wanted to ask you is why doesn't Dan Murphy write more songs? [Dan has only written two songs and co-written one song on the last two Soul Asylum albums.]

Dave: Well, the way he puts it is that he has sort of a quotient: he writes two songs a year. That's all he's good for. I can hardly tell him to get off his ass and write more songs, I might as well tell Karl the same thing.

Aaron: What do you plan to do after you finish your summer tour?

Dave: Well, we're going to go out to New York and fuckin' schmooze and try to weed out all the, um...heh-heh-heh, I don't know what the word is. We're going to try to find somebody that cares, somebody that gives a fuck about us, and we're going to try to work with somebody in a way that's going to work for us, in a way that we can feel good about ourselves and feel like all the work we put into it is actually getting us a little bit further down the road. You've got to keep moving, 'cause if you're not moving, you're fucked. That's not what it's about. You've just got to keep changing, keep developing, and keep, y'know, playing the next dump down the road.

Aaron: Do you have any idea who's going to be opening for you on this tour?

Dave: Well, I know that for the second half of the tour the Jayhawks are going to be opening for us, who are probably, um...heh-heh-heh, I don't know what to say about the Jayhawks, 'cause one of them's my roommate. One of them is probably the best singer and best guitarist in Minneapolis. They're a fantastic band, they're probably my favorite band in town. They just finished making a record for Def American, and it's probably going to be huge. I think it's going to be a really big record. I mean, I hope it is, y'know, because they're really, really good. I like 'em a lot.

Aaron: So are there any other good bands in Minneapolis that have caught your eye?

Dave: Well, there's a whole new flock of bands. I think this kind of thing happens in generations, at its own pace. I'm actually in the process of catching up. I just saw a band last night that I hadn't ever seen before called Walt Mink. I thought they were really great. They had a whole thing all their own, which is really great. Fucking loud guitars, and it's kind of obnoxious, and it's different, and it doesn't sound like anything else that's come out of Minneapolis. Of course, someone from someplace else would probably say, "Oh geez, they sound like all these other bands from Minneapolis", but they don't.

Aaron: Yeah, I keep reading about how all these bands from Seattle supposedly have this "Seattle Sound" or whatever.

Dave: It's just pathetic. That's all those outsiders trying to categorize things, that happens every time you turn around. It flows down, y'know, we get compared to all the bands that came a year before us, and all these bands that came a year after us get compared to us all the time, and that gets really tedious. There's a band called Zuzu's Petals in town that's a girl band, and I think they're great. Of course, Babes In Toyland & Run Westy Run are both great.

Aaron: Did you ever get any help from any of the other Minneapolis bands?

Dave: Any help?

Aaron: Yeah.

Dave: No, I do the helping. Hah-hah-hah! There's a band called the Coup De Grace that just put out a record, they sound a lot like Metallica, and I produced their record. They're really exciting, I think they're going to be something. They're really good. I try to work with bands when I can, or I ask them if I can, or they approach me, and I try to help get them gigs. There's a band called Arcwelder that's actually really cool, and they just opened for us the other night. So, there are a lot of good groups, and y'know, you've got to return the favor. The bands that had us opened for us, and what comes around, goes around, or however that stupid cliché goes. Basically there's a pretty supportive, um..."rock community" here in Minneapolis, and everyone knows everyone else that's in a band and everyone wants everybody else's band to do well, I think. I like to think that way; maybe it's a little bit idealistic, but I think it's true. There's a lot of support and a lot of basically good attitudes about, y'know, "being all you can be", that whole bag of shit. It's a healthy competition, it's not a stinky competition where everyone wants to get ahead of everyone else, and everyone wants to showcase their band and get a deal and be the biggest superstar in town, I really don't think that's part of our problem here.

Aaron: It seems like in a lot of places, it's hard for local bands to get anyone interested in them and no one's going to remember them if they don't do Zeppelin covers or whatever.

Dave: Well, that's typical. I think that's the same everywhere you go. That's what happens when you live in Columbus, Indiana, or the suburbs of Minneapolis, too. I think it takes a certain sense of, um...I don't really like to use the term 'scene' because it's so overused, but I think that when a few people take a little initiative and use a little inspiration and come up with some of their own ideas, that can be really contagious, and once it becomes the cool thing to do, then people are going to support it. People are going to want to be there, even if they're just there to be cool. I guess we're lucky to have that here, I guess the city is big enough, or cool enough, or whatever the hell is going on, but there's been a standard set for bands. You've got to write your own songs, and you've got to play the guitar, and you've got to have fun and not be a jerk about it. There's a band playing tonight that's made up of guys from the Jayhawks, Run Westy Run, Danny Murphy (from Soul Asylum), and Chris Mars, the old drummer from the Replacements. It's just a pickup band, they play all covers. I'm going to sing a song with them tonight; they're called the Golden Smog, and it's a great time. It's a lot of fun, and they do great. A lot of people come to see them, and it's all off-the-cuff. If it ain't fun, it ain't worth doing, I don't think.

Postscript: I talked briefly with Dave again following their show at Bogart's in Cioncinnati a few weeks after the interview and he told me the results of their trip to New York were very little. Apparently, they met with representatives of six large record companies and didn't like any of the people they talked to–they were just more "record-company geeks". Dave's attitude towards the band's situation at the time was evidenced by a couple of comments he made to the audience during the show: in reference to the acoustic instruments they were using for a few songa, “It’s a little different–that’s why we like it. I can tell, you’re out there, you want to hear a little fuckin’ punk rock or whatever the fuck you want to hear. I could give a shit about what you want to hear, actually. That would be adult of me, wouldn’t it?” Later in the show, after they screwed up "Easy Street" so badly they had to stop in the middle of the song, Dave explained, "Sorry about that...I took a tab of acid before the show and it's starting to kick in." Of course, eventually Soul Asylum signed to Sony/Columbia and released the huge-selling Grave Dancers Union. And they all lived happily ever after.

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