40 Years On Soul Asylum’s Dave Pirner Still Writing and Rocking

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He started by pounding out angst-ridden teenage punk in a Minneapolis garage and eventually landed in heavy rotation on MTV. He’s headlined festival-sized amphitheaters and is now playing intimate venues as the music industry emerges from the pandemic. To be sure, Soul Asylum’s Dave Pirner’s had a wildly successful, widely varied career. But he’s not resting on his laurels.

Nearly two years after the release of Hurry Up and Wait, Soul Asylum—which also includes drummer Michael Bland, lead guitarist Ryan Smith and bassist Winston Roye—is out on the road in support of their 12th studio album. They stop in Milwaukee on Friday, May 13 at the Northern Lights Theater.

The Shepherd Express talked with Pirner about the new record, his songwriting and more.

You’ve been in the music industry for more than 40 years now. What do you feel has changed the most over that time as a musician and / or a live music fan?

I think what’s changed most is the advent of digital recording and listening to digital music via Spotify and other services. I’ve always had a recording space in my basement and a studio in my back yard when I lived in New Orleans—but it’s so easy now. From a live perspective, not much has changed. Although everybody has a phone and is taking pictures—that’s different. But we’re back playing the same clubs we played 40 years ago …

You released your 12th studio and latest album Hurry Up and Wait in 2020—a fantastic record that stands alongside anything you’ve done. What’s been the reception of new Soul Asylum music and what drives you to continue to write and record when many other bands seem fine with just playing their hits live?

I think the response has been real good—the downside is that the album came out right when COVID hit, so we weren’t able to go out and properly promote it and let people know it was happening—that’s been frustrating.

Touring has always been what the job entails. It’s a natural ebb and flow—you tour, and tour, and tour and then you come back and make a record and go back out and tour to support that. There isn’t as much pressure to crank out records as there used to be but creating new music is something that I have to do to stay relevant to myself.

Many consider you one of the strongest songwriters of your generation. You recently released Loud Fast Words, a very cool career-spanning book of your lyrics. How has your songwriting evolved over time?

The first few songs I wrote were inexcusably juvenile —kind of primitive and lacked a lot of the aesthetic I’ve become accustomed to. I’ve come a long way, I guess. I’m facing the challenge of working with the limitations of my own brain, but I’m older and wiser and have seen more things and had different experiences—all of that is encapsulated in a record. The process of writing a song is different every time I do it—sometimes the music comes first, sometimes the words come first—but each song is a little bit different evolution.

With such a rich catalog to choose from, how do you pick what you plan to play live? Can Milwaukee fans expect any surprises at the upcoming show?

Michael (Bland), my drummer, usually makes the setlist and he’s recently pulled out six songs that I haven’t played in 20 years—it’s really fun. I had a hard time remembering how they go—so it was like playing a new song. There will be some surprises, depending on how many times you’ve seen us. For people who’ve never seen us, I hope they’ll be pleasantly surprised that they weren’t in the loop earlier.

As for our most popular songs—I went through a period when the band was not playing those songs and we got feedback from people who said “I drove 10 hours to get to the show to hear ‘Runaway Train’ and you didn’t play it”—so that was kind of stupid. So, I like playing those songs. There was a moment there I thought I could explain why we weren’t going to play “Runaway Train” but by the time I got done with that, we just could have played it. I look forward to being in Milwaukee. It’s where my dad is from and where I went to visit my grandma all the time, so it’s always been a special place for me.