Here’s my poor transcription of a brief interview Mark Wheat did with Low (who have a new web site, by the way) last week on The Current, 89.3. I didn’t really include Wheat’s questions or comments, so you have to read into it what was asked…
Alan: Well, gosh, surprise, surprise we’re gonna play a lot of new stuff. And we’ll probably play a few old songs— No. I don’t know. We’re excited about the new songs, we’re just leaving now on tour, trying to figure it out. A lot of these songs are pushing what we do and what we’ve been used to as far as how to play and how to put on a show. So it’s going to be a challenge…
Change it up a little bit. Not so much instrumentation, just these songs on the new record are so different. It’s a lot different way to be hearing, on stage, ya know…It’s just different, but it’s a good challenge.
Mimi: I have one more cymbal. I bought some new pallets.
Alan: Four pieces now that’s getting like Neil Purt.
Mimi: 100% more than I started out with.
Mark: Covers?
Mimi: Well, now that you mentioned it, I wouldn’t be surprised if we scrape something together.
Zak: What have we got though Mim?
Mimi: I don’t know. There are millions of songs out there.
Zak: I know but remember at the last practice I was like “Quick, we gotta work up an ELO cover and both of you looked at me like pshtt… Meh”
Alan: ELO was so last year, Zak.
Zak: Really?
Alan: Two years ago.
Zak: There were forever ago for me.
Mark: Dave Friddman?
Alan: Well, uh, I don’t know, people listen to The Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, Mogwai… The press picks up on him like this new instruments, orchestral, new psychedelic. He’s very good with that, he has a unique sound. But I had the sense that whatever we brought in he’d find some ways to push things. I don’t know, we tracked it and went in and worked on the tracks with him and mixed things and I don’t know, I was surprised, he actually took out stuff, instead of added stuff. We were a little, we didn’t see orchestration on this record but it was nice that when we got there and Dave put up the tapes we didn’t have to say that. He just immediately, he immediately seemed to get what we were trying to shoot for.
Mark: What were you trying to shoot for?
Zak or Alan: We’re kind of slowly, the past couple records, and the past couple years, we’ve just been slowly letting the lid off and letting ourselves do whatever we want. And I don’t know if we were just timid, or something before, but the last couple records we’ve just been getting our feet wet.
The last couple records, and doing the box set, we were looking at some of the chances we took. It seems to me that some of the stuff on the box set, that was really interesting to listen to after all the years, was the stuff where we were uncharacteristic. Something that went against what we thought Low should be.
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