By Mike Mettler
MM: Let’s start with the background of how you and Gord got hooked up originally.
DALE: Let’s see, how’d we get mixed up? We used to have a studio, Gas Station 1, in Toronto; now our studio is the Gas Station on the Island — Toronto Island.
MM: You mean The Gas Station Island Recording Club?
DALE: Yeah, that’s it. We used to be on land. I know Gord popped by the Toronto studio a couple of times because he knew my studio partner, Don Kerr,who played drums with The Rheostatics. [Don replaced Dave Clark in The Rheos.] And I think they opened up for a Hip tour, so Gord would drop by every once in a while.
I didn’t really know him very well, and I never really listened to The Hip or anything, but I knew "Gord Downie, The Icon." He booked the studio to record his solo record in June 2000, but just before that, we were given an eviction notice after 7 years of the studio being there. So I had to call Gord up and I said, "Hey man, we’re gonna have to cancel that session because we have to be out by May 15." He said, "That’s a drag." The he called back a few days later and said, "I don’t want to sound selfish or anything, but I’m wondering if there’s any time I can get in there right near the end?" And I said, "Yeah, it’s open." So I booked him for 2 weeks, the last 2 weeks of the old studio. In the meantime, I organized a demonstration gig in my landlord’s office at a club with my band, The Dinner Is Ruined. A demonstration in regard to us getting evicted, right? And Gord loaded in. His session was booked for a day after the demonstration gig. He saw us play, and the next day he said, "Hey man, I wouldn’t mind if you played on a tune." I said, "Sure." And I ended up playing on, I don’t know, 14 tunes or whatever, on Coke Machine Glow simply because he didn’t have a guitar player for it. I think Kevin Hearn was playing keyboards for the first day, and then he had to take off to California to record with the Barenaked Ladies. And Don Kerr was scheduled to be his drummer, but he could only record for the first day of the sessions ’cause he had to go to Nashville to record with Ron Sexsmith. And Gord needed another musician. I don’t know, we bonded over rock & roll and hockey.
MM: Two of my favorite things.
DALE: In a way, that’s how Clarkie got involved. Clarkie found out Don wasn’t gonna do the sessions, so he said to let Gord know he was available. And I thought, "Geez, I don’t even know this guy. Ok, I gotta do it." So I called Gord and said, "Just so you know, Dave Clark said he would be available as a drummer." And he said, "THE Dave Clark?" It just kind of morphed in a kind of organic way.
MM: And now you guys are a band, basically.
DALE: Yeah, yeah. It’s great. Good people.
MM: What’s your take on Gord as a songwriter and a collaborator?
DALE: As a collaborator, he gives everyone the green light. I don’t think there’s been an instance where he’s said, "Hey, can you play this like this?" It’s never happened. At first, I was a little concerned about being in the studio thinking that I don’t know what to play, or I don’t want to walk on these songs. You just feel it out, and after awhile, Gord was like, "Go further out there. Do what’s in you."
I think he’s got a lot of respect for the other musicians he plays with. It’s a taste thing. That’s why they’re onboard. He likes what they do. You kind of get carte blanche to do things how you interpret them.
As a songwriter, he’s great. The songs are so melodic, but there’s Definitely a bite to them. He’s a real word man. He’s a real people man, too, you know? I don’t want to sound like I’m buttering up the guy, but a guy in that elevated position, the upper echelon of rock, Can rock, world rock, whatever — he’s such a sincere people person. He’s concerned with what others think —concerned about their own lives, what they’re going through. I always thought it would be really easy for someone that successful to just not care. But he’s far from that.
MM: His melodic sense really comes through on this record. I can still remember "Pascal’s Submarine" from the four shows I saw in the summer of 2001. The melody stuck with me, as I hadn’t heard the song for a full year and a half until I got the record.
DALE: We did a live thing on TV about a year and a half ago, and someone came up and said, yeah, "Pascal’s Submarine." I was surprised that they even remembered the title.
MM: I really like the live feel of this record. It sounds like you guys are in a room, playing it out. I think of something like "Pillform #2," where he literally laughs through the word "ten thousand," something that could have been cleaned up and had a sheen put on it but was left as is.
DALE: I like the humanity of that, the laugh. It’s like, hey, there it is — you gotta use that one, man. Other people would clean up the laugh.
MM: It just makes sense for the feel of this record. Other times, we can hear you guys talking on tracks. I think it’s great.
DALE: I’m curious how the general peeps out there are going to interpret it.
MM: I call it the "punk family album."
DALE: Family album, yeah. I got a feeling — I listened to it the other night with Dr. Pee — and I got a feeling that’s one of the last times I’m going to hear it for a long time. Then I’ll go back to it 6 months later and really enjoy it.
MM: I guess it’s been a long time in the oven.
DALE: Yeah, it’s been fermenting for a bit.
MM: What kind of gear did you play on the album?
DALE: What I played? The mixing board, guitar. I played bass on "We’re Hardcore" and "Pillform #1," calimba on "Who by Rote," guitar on "Figment." The first tune, "Into the Night," is Gord on acoustic guitar, Dave on drums, and I’m playing the other stuff, like a guitar through a Leslie, a Wurlitzer, and a bit of an acoustic guitar.
MM: Speaking of "Who by Rote". . .
DALE: There’s a sample on there, yeah. Guess the Who sample.
MM: I listened to it on headphones quite a few times. I know you didn’t take it from Monterey. Is it Live at Leeds?
DALE: I think it is.
MM: It sounds like the beginning of "We’re Not Gonna Take It," messed around a little bit.
DALE: I think it’s "See Me, Feel Me" — the end of it. It’s really funny. When we were mastering the record, I said to everybody, "Guess the Who tune." And no one could get it. Everyone was yelling out all these Who songs for 10 minutes, but no one got it.
MM: So when Gord says, "like The Who by rote at good ol’ at Monterey," technically, it isn’t.
DALE: Oh, did he say Monterey? I thought he said Leeds. (laughs) He misread his lyrics, I think. (laughs again)
MM: That’s what happens when you’re improvisatory by nature. . . Let’s jump into some of the other tracks. "Figment" is a nice punk-out kind of piece, where you get to do some Neil Young-like riffing there.
DALE: Oh, I hope I don’t get crucified for overplaying on this record. It’s really loud.
MM: No, I like it that way. There are certain songs that need to be louder than others, and the record ping-pongs between precious tunes like "Into the Night" and "Figment," and "More Me Less You."
DALE: Now I know what I played on that one: I played a pump organ, an acoustic slide guitar, a slide accordion, and harmonica.
MM: "Steeplechase" is another one of my favorites. I like when the vocals stop and your minute of transition comes on. That’s pretty muich your section there.
DALE: Yeah, that’s a bowed guitar at the start. Originally it was an elongated version. Gord was going to edit it out,then he thought, "Yeah, eave it in." And I think it’s pretty good, a good middle piece on the ecord. It does set things up pretty nice: "I’m here," then rrrrrrr — you’re not.
MM: I like the general cacophony that you create in the middle.
DALE: That’s pretty cool, eh? Some of that came from a live sample of one of the shows that summer [of 2001], floated on top.
MM: I liken it to the build up of The Beatles’ "A Day in the Life" meeting The Velvet Underground’s "The Black Angel’s Death Song."
DALE: That’s good. I love the low end in that one. Josh’s bass, and Dr. Pee on the keys, the Hammond [B-3]. The riff Josh is playing is so good.
MM: I like the decision to have both "Pillforms" on there. I get the feeling that was something you pushed for.
DALE: Well, I like it because — the last one actually goes on longer, but I like the fade on it. I heard that track and thought it’s so heavy. There’s something about it — it’s so tribal, it’d be a shame to not be on there. I think Gord thought early on he wanted to have both versions on there, and I thought, "Geez, I don’t know." But it makes sense. One is light, like a Billy Ocean version (MM laughs), but it’s got a beauty to its lightness. Then the other is just really heavy. I think it works having both versions there.
MM: When Gord and I were talking about conventional sequencing, the opposite idea came up: "Why not? Why not include both? Why not put ‘Into the Night’ first?"
DALE: I think it’s so cool that he put it first. That totally surprised me, and it makes complete sense. Then it goes into a total wall of sound after that.
MM: I wasn’t expecting that kind of start the first time I listened to it.
DALE: "Into the Night" is so cool. It’s just him and Dave, and it’s the end of the night, and Gord was catching a cold. . .
MM: And his voice is cracking. . .
DALE: You gotta keep that, man. The voice is so vulnerable, right? And that one is so human. It offers a glimpse right there. It’s so perfect.
MM: Sometimes you sing your voice out for 10 takes to get to this kind of roughness in your voice.
DALE: That’s the great thing about Gord. A lot of other singers might have wanted to redo that.
MM: They’re too precious about it.
DALE: He knows what’s wrong and right.
MM: Dave told me there’s a different-tempo version of "Christmastime in Toronto" as well.
DALE: Yes, from a totally different session. And, to be frank, I prefer that version more, because it’s a different song, even. I hope it comes out at some point. It’s a toss-up. There’s another version of "11th Fret."
MM: That’s the saddest of all frets, you know.
DALE: (laughs) I think it’s THE 11th fret, as in "don’t be fretting." The other version is totally smoking. Gord looks at it more as a tone poem or something, but I think this other version is great, really tribal, even African at times. Hopefully it sees the light of day at some point.
MM: I like the fact that this a very economical record, coming in at 37 minutes and change, the way records used to.
DALE: I’ve always thought that bands like The Beatles or The Who, the Classic bands when rock was young, had a hard time making records that were 40 minutes long. These days, everybody puts out records. There are so many records, and they’re all 73 minutes long. If John Lennon and Paul McCartney had a hard time, then come on, you gotta condense it. Maybe at the end of "Pillform #1" we could have put, "If you want more, go buy a Dinner Is Ruined record," and have Gord do a voiceover. I wonder if it’s too late to put that on.
The best rock that I like isn’t clean. There’s a certain freeness and Abandon about it that it could derail at any second, but the thing is, you continue. Hopefully something gets pulled out — from yourself, something you didn’t think you had. It’s a little magic dust that gets on a track and it’s, "Ah! There it is! That’s what I was looking for!" That little intangible.
MM: Speaking of getting onstage, it sounds like you guys are going to do a bit more touring this time around.
DALE: Yeah, I hope so. I’m chomping at the bit. I think we’re all willing. I hope I can speak for everyone, but I had a blast. It’s a great group of people. It’s so great having Julie and the female touch; that’s really important. When she straps the bass on, it’s really heavy. She’s good.
And there are lots of jokes, too. Lots of fun. I know Gord has said he Wanted to make fun #1.
MM: That was obvious at the shows we saw in 2001 — during songs, even Between songs.
DALE: As long as you can combine the levity and humor in the music as well as deliver the goods when it’s supposed to be heavier, there’s a certain magic in that. We’ll do that again. Gord is talking about learning more covers, too, so who knows. I’m of the mind if anyone has a suggestion, let’s try it. Let’s do it. I don’t remember Gord ever saying no to anything. He wants to have fun and explore areas he may not have been to. So who knows. There could be anything coming out of that hat. Or his touque.
MM: Maybe something from Dylan’s Infidels.
DALE: Ah! It’d be great to do a Dylan tune. Well, on the last tour, we did do those Neil Young tunes ["Tonight’s the Night" and "When You Dance I Can Really Love"]. I guess it might be a bit too in vogue to do a Clash tune. Joe Strummer was an influence for a lot of people. After The Stones, The Clash are my favorite band.
MM: Final thoughts on Battle of the Nudes?
DALE: Call me in a year and ask me what I think of it. We put that baby to bed, and let’s move on and get on to another one. It’s a little moment in time. It’s not like one song. It’s a body. So wake me up in one year.
I mentioned to Gord the idea that we bring along an 8-track Tascam and some digital mikes and record every show on this tour and record in hotel rooms, whatever, when we’ve got downtime. I’d like to make a quieter, intimate record, with the same intensity, but harsher. Who knows what will perspire.
MM: There’ll be plenty of perspiration.
DALE: Yeah, off Gord’s dome.
MM: Yeah, he’s a sweater. He sweats for his art.
DALE: My parents have seen him on TV and they’re like, "Wow, he really sweats! He really works out, doesn’t he?"