Altered State
They Might Be Genius
Some things are worth the wait. Throughout their nearly 40-years, 22-studio albums, 9-live albums, 10 compilation albums, 7-video albums and 21 EPs, They Might Be Giants’ new album and accompanying art book, both titled BOOK (out November 12) are—whether we knew it or not—exactly what we’ve been waiting for. BOOK (the book) features original photos by Brian Karlsson and is a festival of absurdist delights page by page. Peppered throughout are TMBG song lyrics throughout the decades, arranged and hand-typed in the curiously artistic splay they deserve. This full-color, cloth-bound hardcover book brings the coolest art show you’ve been longing for right to your home. As with everything TMBG do, it’s meticulously designed, curated, and produced—without taking itself too seriously. B...
Death Cab for Cutie: How Dysfunction and Desire Fueled The Photo Album
“It was kind of a treacherous gamble to make,” says Death Cab for Cutie bassist Nick Harmer, reflecting on their third LP, 2001’s The Photo Album. “Making it, touring it — all of that felt really charged.” That’s putting it mildly. After the mild indie-rock breakthrough of 2000’s We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes, Death Cab suddenly had to meet an array of expectations: critics, their label, a rapidly expanding fan base, even themselves. “I was very stressed going into that record,” adds singer-songwriter Ben Gibbard. “I didn’t feel like I had enough songs. We were really burned out on each other from touring a lot. And we’d never found ourselves in a situation where we were pressured to get a record done. We Have the Facts didn’t sell super great at the time, but people definite...
Matthew Sweet on Girlfriend Turning 30: ‘I Still Feel It Very Strongly’
The late 1980s were rough on Matthew Sweet. After cutting his teeth in the Athens, Georgia college radio scene, playing in a ton of bands including Community Trolls with R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe, Oh-OK with Stipe’s sister Lynda, and the Buzz of Delight with Oh-OK drummer David Pierce, Sweet left the indie underground to sign with a major label, Columbia Records, as a solo artist. But his first two full-lengths, 1986’s Inside and 1989’s Earth, received mixed reviews and failed to meet commercial expectations. By the end of the decade, his career was in jeopardy and he was getting divorced. Then, out of that professional and personal tumult, came Girlfriend, an instant classic that redefined the breakup album. “It’s not just breakup,” Sweet told SPIN over the phone. “It’s also looking fo...
Mark Lanegan on His New Dark Mark vs Skeleton Joe Project, Why He Moved to Ireland
He doesn’t want to sound Aleister Crowley-mystical, but ex-Screaming Trees frontman Mark Lanegan truly believes that there’s a certain magical energy coursing through the sinister grooves of Dark Mark vs Skeleton Joe, his new full-length collaboration with former Icarus Line anchor Joe Cardamone, using the longtime aliases they’ve adopted for various projects and performances. Trouble is, that isn’t necessarily a good thing. “The ‘Skeleton Joe’ record was almost finished when I left Los Angeles, and I just had four more songs to sing,” Lanegan sighs, phoning from his pastoral new home in County Kerry, Ireland, where he moved in August 2020. A couple of months ago he put the finishing touches on the decidedly Gothic disc, letting his deep, sepulchral croon darken the Sisters of Mercy shadin...
Tom Morello Learned to Adapt and Thrive on New Atlas Underground LP
It all started at a cemetery. To kick off 2014, Tom Morello filled in for Stevie Van Zandt in the E Street Band on Bruce Springsteen’s Africa/South Pacific tour. During a night off in Perth, Morello wandered from the hotel to pay his respects to late AC/DC singer Bon Scott by visiting his gravesite. When he got back to the hotel, Morello found Springsteen sitting at the bar, so he asked the Boss if he thought AC/DC and the E Street Band overlapped. “‘I never really thought about that before, but I’ll think about it tonight,’” Morello recalls him saying. Soon thereafter, Morello’s suggestion trickled into the band’s soundcheck, with the group rehearsing “Highway to Hell.” Fast forward to a couple of weeks later at a Melbourne show, where Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder happened to be in attendance...
Tomorrow Begat Tomorrow: An Oral History of Soundgarden’s Badmotorfinger
By 1991, Soundgarden had reached a crossroads. All around them, things seemed to be in a state of flux. The Cold War had finally reached its decades-long denouement with the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, just as a new, hot one was about to kick off in the Persian Gulf. Hip hop was emerging as a dominant new genre, while hair metal was enjoying the last few flickers of its cultural relevance. And, after several years operating within the indie underground scene around Seattle, releasing cult-favorite records for Sub Pop and SST, Soundgarden were now major label operators, with major label pressures and major label headaches. “That’s probably one of the most tumultuous times in the band’s career,” the group’s guitarist, Kim Thayil, admitted. “There were struggles there, but creatively it p...
Wicked Pissah!
July 8, 20212:46 PM (PT)/5:46 PM (ET) “The Pixies name came about because it was going to be a challenge to make it good,” guitarist Joey Santiago explains over Zoom. “Because Pixies…that’s not a band. That’s not a rock ‘n roll name. Unless you know that they’re mischievous, that I liked. Now you could say that it’s a rock ‘n roll band, I guess…but you think ‘pixies’ it’s like a cute…it’s fucking… Tinkerbell.” While pixie folklore ranges across centuries and continents, it’s believed they originated in English fireside fables, linked to the faery family. Some are indeed downright evil, but for the most part, pixies are tiny tricksters who love to dance and sing in groups, especially at night. At first glance, they’re practically human, except for their immortality and ability to create mag...
Pearl Jam’s Jeff Ament Talks Anniversaries and I Should Be Outside
When I spoke with Jeff Ament a little over a year ago, he was as bummed as the rest of us. The pandemic was in its early stages, and Pearl Jam was one of the first bands to make the smart decision to indefinitely postpone their 2020 tour. That meant not playing shows in support of Gigaton, their first album in nearly seven years. The Pearl Jam bassist said, from his hideout in Montana, that he was in “Bob Pollard mode.” He’d been writing and writing and writing. Ament wrote about 70 songs during the lockdowns. The first result of channeling his angst into music was the hardcore-infused American Death Squad EP, a solo project released last July. Now? He’s onto his fourth solo effort, with a title so perfect that it echoes how most (if not all) of us feel: I Should Be Outside. Being hom...
Tom DeLonge Is Still Optimistic About the Padres’ Chances This Season
Earlier this year when we polled musicians about their predictions for the 2021 MLB season, few were as colorful (which honestly, really shouldn’t be all that surprising) as ex-Blink-182 and current Angels & Airwaves frontman Tom DeLonge. He had high hopes for his beloved San Diego Padres, who boasted one of the strongest rosters and best young players in baseball coming into the spring. As the season progressed, the Padres are in a dogfight with the San Francisco Giants and DeLonge’s hated Los Angeles Dodgers for the NL West division crown and the two subsequent Wild Card spots. However, as DeLonge notes, he’d rather win the division than play one of those two teams in a winner-take-all Wild Card. Early on the same morning when he was slated to take the Lollapalooza stage (and a day a...
Perry Farrell’s 5 Favorite Lollapalooza Moments
Lollapalooza has defied the old F. Scott Fitzgerald adage from The Last Tycoon that “there are no second acts in American life.” Since 2005, Perry Farrell and partners have hunkered down in Chicago’s Grant Park (for the American version) to bring the once-alternative playground that spit in the face of the mainstream more into the mainstream. Though this year’s fest’s impact is yet to be known, there’s no doubt in the festival’s 30 years (on and off at various points), Farrell has seen it and been through it. So, what better way than to get the best stories from Lollapalooza’s history than from Farrell himself? However, just as we got rolling, the Jane’s Addiction/Porno for Pyros didn’t pull any punches and came out of the gates firing. In fact, he blamed SPIN for him n...
How Jimmy Eat World Fought Their Way Out of ‘The Middle’
Jimmy Eat World were only two albums into their deal with Capitol Records when they were dropped by the label. After receiving little support for their third album, the now seminal Clarity, the band was hardly surprised when they were notified in August 1999. Most artists in their position would have viewed the rejection as a potential career-ender, but the Mesa, Arizona-based band took it well. In fact, they agreed with Capitol’s decision. “All big labels are extremely adept at pushing bands that are moving 20,000 or more records a week,” frontman Jim Adkins explains. “Capitol knew exactly what to do with that. But they had no idea what to do with bands like us that sold 10,000 copies between all releases. [Clarity] grew over time into what it is now, but that wasn’t the case back then. I...
Esteemed Grunge Band Deserved Fame
As mainstays in Seattle’s music scene, Mudhoney are used to looking back on their career. Whether it’s giving their take on the days of grunge or reminiscing about time spent with the late Kurt Cobain, Mudhoney aren’t opposed to revisiting the past. The band’s most recent project is one that finds them returning to the glory days of 1991, the year grunge officially broke. Mudhoney’s second album, Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge, celebrates its 30th anniversary with an expanded, deluxe reissue courtesy of their long-time label Sub Pop – but only because the guys in the band asked. “They weren’t paying attention so I had to raise my hand,” says vocalist/guitarist Mark Arm, who also works in the label’s warehouse. “I was thinking about the next round number for one of our Sub Pop releases becau...
