Alicia J. Rose
Colin Meloy, in front, prepares to launch into "Dixie."
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As songwriter for Portland pop band the Decemberists, Colin Meloy has spent the last five years writing twisted Victorian tales about drunken mariners, prostituted mothers, and promiscuous chimney sweeps set to jarring pop orchestrations. After Kill Rock Stars released Castaways and Cutouts in 2002, the Decemberists found themselves with a devout fan base and an unfairly pretentious tag: literary pop. But long before he penned his first tall tale, the 30-year-old Meloy grew up in Helena, Mont., spending his formative years writing plays and listening to mixtapes his uncle Paul brought him when visiting from the University of Oregon, as recorded in detail by Meloy in his book about the Replacements' Let It Be (released last year as part of Continuum's "33 1/3" series). Meloy quickly cut his music snob teeth and found a home for his Chicago and Robert Palmer tapes in the trash can.
On March 22, Kill Rock Stars will release Picaresque, the Decemberists' third album, which sheds much of the band's curious whimsy for a darker humor. Songs like "The Engine Driver" and "Of Angels and Angles" show Meloy as a heartbreaking balladeer, while the lyrical wit of "Sixteen Military Wives" puts him in company with his hero Robyn Hitchcock. Also, his band gets compared to Neutral Milk Hotel. A lot. The Jukebox took place on the sunny all-season porch of Meloy's Portland home.
R.E.M.: "Voice of Harold" (1984) from Dead Letter Office (I.R.S.)
Colin Meloy: "Voice of Harold." I love this song.
Seattle Weekly: You were a big R.E.M. fan, and your first band, Happy Cactus, used to cover them. . . .
Meloy: Yeah, that band was all about late-'80s ecologically minded college rock like R.E.M., 10,000 Maniacs, and other things like that. It worked in some places and didn't work in others.
SW: Do you look on your time in that band fondly?
Meloy: It's a little painful. It's not something that I would want to put out into the world again. If you listen to it, it's obviously just me trying to get my footing. It was the first time I was doing any real songwriting. I was, like, 15 years old.
SW: When you first started writing songs, was it difficult?
Meloy: It came pretty naturally. My first attempts at it seemed kind of difficult, but when I started to get more playful with it, things started to work a little bit better. I think that being able to approach songwriting with a sense of humor makes it easier.
SW: Does everyone in the band share that approach?
Meloy: Well, I tend to hang out with people who have an ironic sensibility. But we did have a guitar player once who didn't quite get it. I remember showing up for a show and Carson [Ellis, who illustrates the band's albums] had painted a little ship on my guitar. I was so excited about it. I showed it to the guitar player and was like, "Don't you think this is cool?" He was like, "I think that's cheesy." And then he was like, "But, then again, I don't know what's cool anymore," and I was just like, "You are such a loser." He left the group shortly after that. Anybody who's offended that I painted a boat on my guitar is not going to fit in with us.
Waterboys: "Church Not Made With Hands" (1984) from A Pagan Place (Island)
Meloy: This is the Waterboys. Which album?
SW: A Pagan Place.
Meloy: I don't have this album. I don't know why I haven't heard this. But I don't have [any Waterboys] until the mid-'80s or so.
SW: The Big Music movement that Mike Scott started sits comfortably beside the Decemberists' music. He really knew how to throw together an ensemble with the fanfares and the pop orchestration a lot like you do.
Meloy: To be honest, some of this doesn't really hold up very well. I play some of the early stuff for my girlfriend and she despises it. Some of it's a little over the top, with the saxophones. But for all of his missteps, there's such a truth and earnestness to Mike Scott's singing and songwriting that you can't fault him. He approaches music in a very spiritual way, and even though my approach to music is very secular, you can't not recognize the emphaticness and the passion in this music and [not] be moved by that.
SW: Do you feel like you're able to do that with your music without the spiritual aspect?
Meloy: I might be too much of a cynic to really have all of that good stuff. I really feel the need to weigh all my heightened transcendental moments with low, dirty ones.
Cheap Trick: "Southern Girls" (1977) from In Color (Epic/Legacy)
Meloy: Oh wow. I haven't heard this in so long. Can I see [the lyric sheet]? I probably get all the lyrics wrong.
SW: You cover this song fairly often. Why?
Meloy: 'Cause it's great. It's just an awesome song. The lyrics are completely vapid.
SW: Well, it is a Cheap Trick song.
Meloy: Yeah, but they mastered the art of creating something meaningful out of nothing. Like, what does that mean, "Ooh baby, need some brand-new shoes"? Maybe it's just like he needs some new shoes to impress the girl or whatever. I think I just sat down one day, and I really wasn't that big a Cheap Trick fan, but you can't help but know this song. And I played it, and when you're playing a song on guitar, it always takes on a bit of a melancholy air. So I sang it as a country ballad, and it seemed to work pretty well.
