Range Life

Scott Kannberg’s resume has a bolded header that slaps you right across the face: Founding member and guitarist of Pavement. There isn’t much need to explain, because that single sentence says a lot of things. But Kannberg is more than one arm of a multi-limbed rock ‘n’ roll giant. Over the years, he’s led solid outfits like Preston School of Industry and Spiral Stairs. The latter (also his longtime alias) is where Kannberg lands in 2016, polishing his first release (Doris and the Daggers) since 2009’s The Real Feel. Produced in Los Angeles by Dan Long, the forthcoming LP will at some point be touched by the hands of San Francisco mainstay Kelley Stoltz, and features well-worn players like drummer Justin Peroff (Broken Social Scene).

Spiral Stairs taps into the brilliantly loose mood that defined Pavement. It’s not sloppy, or undercooked—it’s something more akin to your most intelligent, good-job-having friend that shops exclusively at thrift stores simply because they prefer it. “Cold Change” is a prime example; a song that belongs to Spiral Stairs, yet just as easily could have been on Terror Twilight. And reminding people of Pavement is not a bad thing. It’s actually quite good. For all the ‘90s alt we look back upon with sheepish smiles (Pearl Jam? Soundgarden? Bush??), the lazy rock ‘n’ roll swagger of Pavement still stands tall. And Spiral Stairs, with a looming show at Sacramento’s Torch Club alongside Ian Moore, will showcase just that. Submerge recently caught up with Kannberg, who happens to be good-humored and an all-around nice guy, with a fuzzy recollection of Sacramento lore to boot.

So it’s been six years since the last Spiral Stairs record. Why now?
After the last Pavement tour I moved to Australia for a few years and had a kid and lived on an acre of land and kinda mowed the lawn everyday. I lost track of things and didn’t make a lot of music, so when I moved back to the States I just started doing it.

Has the lyrical focus shifted at all now that you have a family?
It was kinda weird. I had a bunch of ideas for songs. Not really anything about the kid; I’m not singing about my kid like Paul McCartney did, or whatever [laughs]. I guess it’s in there a little bit. But we were all set to record in Seattle last May, and the drummer I’ve had for years, Darius, passed away. Big shock. He just had a heart attack and died. He was 39, four days away from his 40th birthday. And like a week away from seeing the very last Rush show—of course a drummer’s favorite band is Rush [laughs]. So it was quite a shock, and I kinda refocused a lot of the songs [to be about] this guy, and loss and friends; life and death, really.

What’s behind the title Doris and the Daggers?
I’ve always had this fake band name, Doris and the Daggers. It’s like a punk rock, fake band from the ‘80s that you’d see at the Cattle Club. It’s gonna be weird playing Sacramento again. I went to school there and lived there in the early Pavement days. I guess the show got moved to the Torch Club, which is even weirder, ‘cause I used to go to that place when I was like 20 years old.

Is it ever a give and a take being inextricably linked to a name like Pavement? Are there times when you’re grateful and others you’d prefer the anonymity?
No, no, I’ve always been very proud of Pavement. I mean, it was my band, ya know? Over the years it’s become such a bigger thing and you’ve gotta respect that. I love it. It made me who I am today, besides my parents I guess [laughs].

I grew up in the ‘90s, and i think it’s interesting to look back at what was popular at what time, and what holds up and what doesn’t, and Pavement’s a good example of a band that has held up. Do you ever contemplate what it is about Pavement that lasts where say, Smashing Pumpkins doesn’t?
You know, I kinda look at it like R.E.M. and their career. When you really care about every record you do, and every single you do and you kinda have a sense of humor about it; you take it seriously but you don’t take it seriously. It’s only rock ‘n’ roll. And what we always tried to do was respect our influences. We didn’t try to say we were creating the Holy Grail. And I think people respect that and it resonates.

Have you ever come across somebody who turned out to be a big fan that you didn’t expect, and have it kinda blow you away?
We played a festival once in the mid-’90s or something, and I remember Oingo Boingo played. And I remember the guitar player came up to me and was just like, “Man, you’re my favorite band.” And I was like, “That is fucking weird.” [Laughs.] That’s just a random one. Probably the coolest one ever was Nick Cave taking me aside and saying, “I like you guys.”

Do you have any old, dusty Sac stories? Maybe spin a yarn or two?
Geez. So long ago … my memory’s terrible. It’s basically where Pavement kinda started. I mean we did start in Stockton, jamming and recording, but I was living in Sacramento after the first single. We were around that town when there was nothing going on. But there were great shows; Cattle Club was a great club. And then before that, Club Minimal is basically where we grew up. It was where all the punk rock bands came. I did my first stage dive at Social Distortion when I was like 14 years old.

It was a big part of my life, that town. I went to Sac State. I didn’t finish. I was actually about a semester short of finishing, and Sonic Youth called us up and said they wanted us to tour and open up for them in Europe. So Steve [Malkmus] called me up and said, “Can you put off school for a little bit?” And I never went back [laughs].

I think you made the right decision.
I think so too! My urban planning teacher was like, “What are you doing?” I was working at this door and bathroom hardware warehouse, and I remember telling the boss, “I’m goin’ off, I’m gonna be a rock star.” And he was like, “Alright, good luck with that, we’ll see you in a month!”

Spiral Stairs’ tour with Ian Moore comes through Sacramento Jan. 30, 2016 at The Torch Club, located at 904 15th Street. Admission is $15 for this 21-and-up show, with things getting started at 9 p.m. Find more info at Torchclub.net.

STILL BARELY SCRAPING BY IN TOUGH TIMES
Words by Mickie Rat

I first heard of Swingin’ Utters in 1992 during my time as a DJ for KSSU, a fledgling college radio station at Sacramento State. They sent us a 10-inch record entitled Scared, which listed the name of the band as Johnny Peebucks and the Swingin’ Utters. The whole staff laughed at the name, but no one had any desire to listen to it but me, the station’s token punk rocker. I instantly loved it. I still do. I wish I knew where that 10-inch was now. I could go look in the station’s music library but I’m sure some college poseur-punk has stolen it and sold it for clove money on eBay in the 17 years since I used to play it on my show.

I really can’t blame them. Times are tough. Seventeen years of being in my own DIY punk band with limited success has taken most of my time and almost all of my money. Hell, I would probably sell that album on eBay if I still had it just to pay my dental bills. One would think that the with Swingin’ Utters being on the Fat Wreck Chords label now, with a fair amount of success, that they wouldn’t have to worry about finances. My recent telephone conversation with frontman Johnny Peebucks has shown that they are still struggling just like the rest of us in this 9-to-5 petty wage economy.

Hi Johnny, thanks for talking to me today.
Yeah, sorry I didn’t pick up right away, I was cooking some fish for the kiddos. I’m ready to go, though; I can keep an eye on the fish.

What kind of fish are you cooking?
Salmon.

Salmon sounds delicious. OK, first question: I imagine after 20 years or so the Swingin’ Utters must have a massive amount of material recorded. How did you decide what tracks to put on Hatest Grits: B-Sides and Bullshit?
Darius [Koski] our guitar player did most of the decision making. He’s sort of a packrat so he has kept everything we’ve recorded, even some of our first practices on cassette. He’s the main guy that went searching through all of it to figure out what should go on the CD.

Who wrote most of the new songs on the CD?
I think it’s sort of a split between me, Max [Huber] and Darius.

Darius is the main songwriter for Swingin’ Utters. Since you’ve been in Druglords of the Avenues and Filthy Thieving Bastards have you been writing more songs?
Yeah I think I have a little bit more freedom with those other bands because the Swingin’ Utters got sort of pigeonholed. I like having the freedom of writing whatever I want in Druglords of the Avenues and Filthy Thieving Bastards, any style of music I want. I think with the Swingin’ Utters’ records I kinda just lean toward punk automatically because it’s been around the longest of all my bands. We sort of stick to the punk formula. Darius is the best at writing songs out of every band member, so he writes the majority of that stuff, but I’m gonna try to pitch in on this new one and we’ll see how it goes.

So Swingin’ Utters are recording another full-length soon?
Yeah we have something in the works for maybe early December, it should be a “low-budge” type album just because the way things have been going lately with Fat Wreck Chords and with us not touring that often. We just wanna get in there and get it recorded and get out so it doesn’t cost that much.

Do Swingin’ Utters have plans to tour more after the next new CD comes out?
Yeah as soon as that record comes out I’m sure we’re gonna have to go out in support of it. I think I overheard Darius mentioning something about Europe; we kinda wanna go over there because we haven’t been in a while so we’ll probably do something like that. Then maybe we’ll do some two week chunks here and there that cover the States, you know we gotta keep our jobs so we can’t be taking off for months on end.

What’s the trick to getting a job that you know will still be there for you when you come back from tour?
Yeah that was the main reason why we didn’t tour for a while. I got laid off a while back, and this job just kinda fell in my lap. This guy owns a business and he’s been in punk bands in the Bay Area. so he knows that every once in a while I’m gonna need a couple days off to go on tour, so it worked out well since I started working there. It’s tough; we’re barely scraping by. I think everyone is right now, so I’m just thankful that I’m able to do stuff like that, and I’ll never take it for granted because times are tough, everyone knows that.

After 20 years of “barely scraping by,” as most punk bands do, do you think it’s become easier or more difficult to be an independent band?
It hasn’t gotten harder, because we haven’t been touring that often. But if we tried to make a go at it now, it would be insanity. There’s no way I could do it. I couldn’t bail on work that long, and the kids and my wife. I like my home life and I don’t wanna bail on it that often, so it would be really hard to actually try to make a living at it. You gotta tour to make a living off of music, obviously. Right now we have a good balance.

Swingin’ Utters are now in the “elder statesmen” position of influence over new fans that are starting bands of their own. Is it odd to you to be looked up to as an influence by newer bands?
Yeah that’s insanity. That’s the reason why you get in a band, and if that’s happening, that gives me the chills. I mean it blows me away that people would even want to make a tribute record or are influenced by us; even older bands would tell me that. It’s always gonna blow my mind, and it’s very flattering and I never thought it would get this far so it’s not strange; it’s kind of awesome you know?

Do you have any idea when that Swingin’ Utters tribute might be coming out on Red Scare?
I just sent out the artwork that I did for the cover not too long ago. I think they’re waiting on maybe one or two bands but they’re getting down to laying it all out. They needed the artwork just a couple days ago so that means that they’re probably on the finishing stages.

For people who might be unfamiliar with some of your other bands, what would you say are the main differences between the Swingin’ Utters, Druglords of the Avenues and Filthy Thieving Bastards?
Filthy Thieving Bastards is more leaning toward folk, and it has some psychedelic leanings as well, but I think that’s the most experimental out of all three bands. Druglords of the Avenues is sort of a bizarro Swingin’ Utters, played by a bunch of young kids with me writing nutty lyrics to it, so it’s not really that different from Swingin’ Utters, but you can tell that it’s not played by the same kinda guys. But they’re great kids. They’re really talented. But we’ll be hitting the Pixies, the Breeders, rockabilly and so far a lot of different styles of music. I let them write all that music, and then I just plug in some weird lyrics.

Is there a song that all three bands could do and make it their own?
Druglords of the Avenues do the actual song “Druglords of the Avenues” by Filthy Thieving Bastards, Swingin Utters does another Filthy Thieving Bastards song, one of Darius’, I can’t remember which one. It’s on the Dead Flowers, Bottles, Bluegrass and Bones album.

So the different bands like to cover the other bands’ songs every once in a while just to mix it up?
Covers are fun to play; I mean we started off as a cover band, so we sort of got that out of the way early on. But I’d like to do like a weird Elliott Smith cover or something like that, sort of bring up the pace a little bit and make it our own. I’ve been listening to him lately and have been really into it. That’s what I really wanna do but I’m sure there’s other band members that will wanna do other shit, but we’ll see.

Every once in a while, the Swingin’ Utters will play at a tiny bar called the Distillery in Sacramento, and it gets so insanely packed that there is barely room to move. Are those shows fun or do they drive you crazy?
That’s fun. I love shows that don’t have stages and you’re in everyone’s face, and they’re in your face and yeah, it’s a little dangerous, and as I get older I’m a little worried about my kneecaps being shattered and stuff like that.

Or your teeth being smashed in by the mic?
Yeah exactly. But it’s exciting and fun. I mean when there’s danger involved your adrenaline just goes crazy. I enjoy that more than stages. I enjoy being on the ground. In the Druglords of the Avenues, if there’s a small stage, me and the guitar player will drop down to ground level and just play from there because it’s a lot more entertaining; it’s fun. People seem to be smiling a lot more when you’re down there.

Those are all the questions I have for you today. Thanks for the interview, and I hope you didn’t burn your salmon.
No, but thanks for asking!

Swingin’ Utters will be played in Sacramento at the Blue Lamp on Friday, Oct. 30 at 9 p.m.