Though Newman may still be in thateuphoric, sleepwalking state that follows a practicing musician who becomes aworking musician, to indie-pop audiences his work is satisfyingly real. With aformula of ridiculously hooky musical composition, smart lyrics and the one-twoknockout punches of Newman’s own quintessentially quirky voice paired withalt-country goddess Neko Case’s soulful tones, The New Pornographers carved outa nice little niche for themselves with their first release, 2000’s Mass Romantic.
Newman explained the band’s dense,hyperactive pop sound to Pitchfork in a 2001 interview almost flippantly: “TheNew Pornographers sound developed out of fucking around.” After thatplayfulness partially disappeared from the band’s feelings-laden, introspective2007 release, Challengers, the groupdecided to backtrack, leaning more on upbeat pop for their fifth, most recentalbum, Together.
“Togetheris more of what people have come to expect from us,” Newman says. “With Challengers, some people thought it wasour best record, some people thought it was our worst. I like that. It’s thatreally thin line between love and hate.”
Along with fellow songwriter Dan Bejarof Destroyer, who contributed three of Together’spoppier tunes, Newman strikes a balance between the soul-searching and theexuberant on the album, wavering back and forth between heady energy and wrywitticisms woven with strings, brass and giddy, choral vocals.
Writing Together held a lot of stops and starts, Newman admits. “SometimesI have 20 melodies for one song and it’s really hard to not go back to thoseand want to use them all,” he says. “I’ve often thought about releasing B-sidesof those songs with different melodies. I think Guns N’ Roses have one of thosesorts of B-sides. It’s cool to see I’m on the same wavelength with Axl Rose.
“Sometimes the band just doesn’t knowwhere the song is going,” he continues. “For example, I won’t have the vocalsdone, and they really don’t quite get it yetthey still have it in their mindsthat it’s just an instrumental song. I add the vocals; then they get it.”
To add to the interpretive,seat-of-the-pants recording process, Newman and company invited guest musiciansto the roster while at Brooklyn’s SeasideLounge Recording Studios.
“There was no conceptual reason foradding guest musicians; we were just almost done with the recording process anda lot of the band mates had already gone home,” Newman explains. “We wanted toadd more parts still, so our manager said, ‘Why don’t you call Annie [Clark]from St. Vincent to fill in on some guitarparts? I wasn’t really happy with what I had originally been adding in onguitar, so we went for it. Same thing with Zach Condon of Beirut; I called up Zach to add some trumpetand he came in right away and played.
“The only musicians we had planned toadd were The Dap-Kings,” he says of the Sharon Jones horn players whocontributed to two tracks. “I’m not sure if they really enjoyed playing ourmusic or not, but if they didn’t, they never let on.”
The band plans to continue their guesttendencies on the road for their Togethertour, where they’ll be joined by The Dodos and The Dutchess and the Duke.
“It’s looking like The Dodos might havea trumpet player, so we’ll probably have him play with us at our show,” Newmansays.
And will the band be ready for theirfamous group-whistling stunts? Newman is pretty confident.
“I’m getting used to it,” he says ofwhistling. “On my last solo tour, I did it a lot; in a big group it’s a biteasier, actually. If a few people drop off, it’s cool.”
Newman pauses to give quick props to afellow indie-pop whistler. "I don't know how Andrew Bird does it," hesays admiringly.
He should give his New Pornographersjust as much creditsounds like they could give Bird a run for his whistlingmoney.
TheNew Pornographers play the Pabst Theater on Saturday, June 12, with The Dodosand The Dutchess and the Duke.
