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getting for reals with built to spill

Doug Martsch doesn’t mean to be a harsh critic.
“I don’t listen to much new music. Part of what is great about music is that you learn the world through music. Like books, and movies and television, and as you get older it’s hard to be inspired by young new bands. Because you feel like: what do these young people have to offer me that’s new to my life? I listen to old things because even though they were younger than I am when they were making it, they are kind of older to me,” said Built to Spill’s mild-mannered and candid founder and front man Doug Martsch.
If you haven’t heard the faint and sometimes faltering chime of Martsch’s voice as his sing-songy melodies dance across the dense layers of the guitar rock force that is Built to Spill, you need to make a point of going to builttospill.com and giving their music a listen. Even before they released their Warner Brothers debut, Perfect from Now On in 1997, Built to Spill was the hottest indie band rising out of the Northwest. And this bearded songsmith wasn’t coming from Seattle, Built to Spill is from Boise. That’s even stranger than Omaha.
By the time 1999s Keep It Like a Secret came out, every indie rocker in the continental US was required to purchase the album. After their 2001 release, Ancient Melodies of the Future, Martsch took a year off. At that precise moment his old friend Isaac Brock, founder and frontman of Modest Mouse (arguably Built to Spill’s indie rock nemesis), helmed his band into mainstream pop success. At the crossroads of that occasion Modest Mouse and Built to Spill performed together for two nights in Atlanta. Built to Spill performed the extended version of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s ‘Freebird’ and it was dazzling. Skynyrd didn’t play it that well in 1976.
“Freebird isn’t really that great of a song. Some people think it really sucks. But you have to be moved by that guitar playing. We played the live version too, which keeps going on and on.”
I first met Martsch after that performance. He graciously hung out with fans behind the venue where the busses were and he said that he was going to take some time away from Built to Spill. In 2002 Martsch released a solo album that was more stripped down, blues-influenced acoustic music.
“It was sort of a fluke. I didn’t mean to make a record, it was an anomaly and I doubt I’ll do anything like that again.”
Built to Spill got back to work quickly in spite of inordinately rough times. They were forced to cancel many of their performances, including their South by Southwest (SXSW) show due to Martsch’s retina coming unattached while on tour. He toured his eye out.
In 2006 Built to Spill released You in Reverse, a return to Built to Spill’s cheery melodies and catchy guitar pop woven through occasionally dense guitar interludes. So when EU heard Built to Spill was playing at the Freebird Live again on his way back up north after a performance in South Florida’s Langerado Music Festival, we simply had to call him and catch up. I was impressed with his affinity for the phrase “for reals.”

EU: How’s your eye?
Doug Martsch: It’s okay. My vision’s pretty weird, but it’s healed up.

EU: How is the name Built to Spill perfect for your brand of music?
DM: All too human. I don’t know if it was our intention or nature’s intention. The name was just a silly thing and the definition came much later.

EU: Will you be covering a Lynyrd Skynyrd song at Freebird Live?
DM: I don’t think so. Originally we were going to do that because Bob Odenkirk and David Cross were doing the Run Ronnie Run movie and they were going to do a soundtrack with indie rock bands doing classic Southern songs, but that fell through. We learned it note for note. The solos in that song are what is amazing about it. For me it was rad listening to it and seeing the crowd react to it in Atlanta.

EU: Do you write music around your lyrics? Do you spend a long time laboring over lyrics?
DM: Mostly the latter, but there is a little of the former. Some things just come. ‘Twin Falls’ is a rare example of a song where I stick to a topic. Usually the whole song doesn’t stick to one thing. It’s more about the meter and vowel sound, but it has to have something going on; total nonsense doesn’t work. It’s a thing you stumble upon and sometimes it has to do with how much time you spend on it. It’s a hard thing, I don’t even understand how it goes. Sometimes the words aren’t that good but you get used to them. Then you like them later on as they start to take on new meanings. Right now I am writing lyrics for five or six songs all at once. That is not very cool.

EU: You recently took a year off, was that helpful? What did you do?
DM: It was. I was just burnt out on Built to Spill. I got into the studio with some friends here and just took my mind off of Built to Spill itself. It was a year-long break, but it was really fun to get back together. It had to do with my musical tastes at the time and being more into simple music than the stuff we were doing. After a year I got my equilibrium back and found my happy medium between my new interests and the older style.

EU: Are you getting into reggae?
DM: I was really into reggae. I haven’t been listening to it for the last year or so, but for a few years that’s all I was listening to. I got an iPod, so I’ve been listening to a lot of stuff. Mostly old bands that are new to me, Wire and Love, things that I’ve meant to get around to listening to that I’ve thrown onto my iPod.

EU: I’ve noticed that some of the more organic indie rock bands are often put on festivals that traditionally only showcased the more hippie jam bands, is indie rock the new hippie music?
DM: Music is music. If it sounds good it sounds good, none of that really matters. I’d be glad to do those things. We’ve done a couple and they’re fun. People are receptive. I think that music is basically good and over the last 50 years we’ve learned that you have to be careful about what’s not good. So much has been driven by market economy and so much stuff gets shoved down our throats, it’s hard to tell what is for reals and what is being fed to us to make a buck. It’s hard to throw yourself into someone’s music.

EU: How did you hook up with the Meat Puppets?
DM: We recorded some stuff last fall in Austin and they were working at the same studio. On our last day we met them briefly, but when we were going to do this tour I called the studio and they hooked us up with the management. It was a long shot and it just worked out. They were one of my favorite bands growing up. We just did some shows with Camper Van Beethoven, and those shows made me realize that those things happen. It is ridiculous to have these bands opening for us, but that’s just how it is now. Maybe someday we’ll be doing that for some as-yet-unheard-of band.