Interview by Phil Hunt
Dan Bejar's Destroyer isn't typical of the bands usually written about on The Odyssey. In fact, Destroyer isn't at all typical. Bejar is generally referred to as one of the greatest songwriters alive. If you're not familiar with Destroyer, perhaps you've heard some of his work with the New Pornographers. His primary project is quite different from the Pornographers, but he shares some of their forte for flamboyant, over-the-top musicianship. While he's better known for a sort of folky guitar rock, his latest, "Your Blues" is a huge departure. It's a haunting, uncompromising album of sparse, icy pop and orchestral sprawl.

Bejar answered some questions for an article I wrote for High Plains Reader. Here is the complete interview. I deleted a sentence or two where my recording went bad and I couldn't really remember what was said. Hope you can handle it!

My experience with Destroyer is that you have this really grandiose sound that in less capable hands could turn really ugly. But I think with Destroyer it sounds really great. Do you think "Your Blues" has taken that further than you have in the past?
Yeah. It definitely has. I think it's reached its apex. I'm going to try and naturalize a bit after this one, and take it down a notch and try to relax. It seems to play a role in some of the songs. I don't usually intend it to, but it ends up coming out that way with certain chord progressions and melodies that lend themselves to me just getting excitable. I thought I'd left it behind me but I try to court a certain amount of anthemic parts in songs. I like to have a good balance of songs that are sort of collapsing and songs that gather up their forces. And of course it gets grander in a synthetic way when you start trying one-hundred-and-one violins and french horns on things.

It seems like the bands from Vancouver have a quality where they take something to the edge. I'm thinking of the really upbeat sound that New Pornographers have, that huge sound that Superconductor had, the crazy energy that the Evaporators have. Then there's the sort of baroque quality in Destroyer. It's all different, but they all walk a really fine line between just the right amount of something and too much of something.
I think that's an aesthetic that Carl (Newman) and I shared in spots at least. Mine kind of strayed a bit from his but that's one point that we still kind of walk the same line. Obviously, with all of the bands you just mentioned there are all kinds of overlap John and Dave who are kind of the musical guiding forces in the Evaporators, they're the ones who recorded the bulk of Destroyer records including this one.

Yeah I noticed that most of those bands have a common thread in personell.
Yeah, I think that's true. In Vancouver people don't shy away from the dramatic. Or like that could be also something that comes along with being really steeped in classic 70s rock. For "Your Blues" I was kind of hoping that wouldn't be the strategy, but more kind of taking from the tradition of the pre-rock European scene.

The guitar almost plays a supporting role on this album.
Yeah the acoustic guitar is there on a fair amount of the songs but it pretty much acts as a rhythm instrument I think. The rest was done with MIDI, which is kind of a sound module. The fake orchestra took over, which was kind of the idea all along.

Did that confuse any fans or put them off in any way?
Yeah. I mean, some people. I think the fans are used to being put off, at least the people that are into Destroyer, there are lots of them that didn't didn't like the last record. This might confuse them. They thought it was meandering or tuneless or like unnecessarily bombastic in places and rambling in others. I'm sure there are a lot of people who liked that record who think "Your Blues" is this half-baked exercise, and all of the synthetic sounds are completely hokey and completely sabotage the legitimacy of the songs. But there is no ironical take on synthetic sounds. We got the best sound box we could find. We tried to find the closest sounds that resembled the orchestral sounds we were going for. So, it wasn't some stab at shitty 80s music. There is enough melodically going on that you should be able to appreciate the music whether you're really into the instrumentation or not.

Since you used the keyboards...
Actually we used a MIDI Guitar.

A MIDI Guitar?
It's a soundbox and you play the guitar, and the MIDI is a controller for the sound, or you can just draw the note directly onto the screen. The whole thing is like a weird voodoo.

Well, given that you used that as a means to get an orchestra sound, do you think you'd work with a real orchestra if you had the chance?
I think we were all novices at it you know? The whole idea of actually getting string players and writing out charts would involve us knowing what we were doing ahead of time. We didn't. We just get in there and sit down and come up with a part. I think that would have been doomed to failure on many levels. Aside from the fact that I didn't have enough money to pay anyone. At the end of the day I just don't care if it sounds like a real orchestra. To me that's just beside the point. It's more the effect that the melodies have, and the general frequencies they take up at the end of the day, and the big sonic picture. I think there's a wierdness to the sound of the record that the MIDI helped out. It's kind of hollow sounding in some ways.

Did you write most of "Your Blues" within a certain period of time?
For the most part, there are some songs like "Notorious Lightning." That was the first song I wrote after recording "Streethawk, A Seduction." I knew that I needed to compose it and control its progress because it's kind of a weird song. I didn't think it fit in to the songs we were doing on "This Night." Then for the most part, the rest of it is pretty new. "The Music Lovers" is a song I wrote in Spain maybe three years ago, but the rest of it follows kind of basic chronology.

Is there anything specific that influenced the new album?
I wanted to not make a rock record. I wanted to distance myself from rock music for a while and not be afflicted by it. It was an idea I'd had for a long time. There were a lot of records I've listened to plenty and I've always really liked the sound, and it wasn't really a reaction against anything. I just knew that if I got John and Dave on board, then I could just sit down and make this kind of record and try my hand at composition. I mean there is also ways that my initial vision of the record was quite a bit different from the way it turned out. That's usually the case. It never turns out quite like you think it's going to. It's like a style of music that I like and I kind of thought it would work well with some of the songs, so we gave it a shot. It's usually not that deliberate or self-concious how these records turn out. It's more like an idea that blends into some kind of triumph or tragedy.

You said in a previous interview that "This Night" was "the sound of the band waging war on the songs." I was wondering if you maintained more control over this album?
In some sense John and Dave had a big part in how the record ended up. Dave in a sense that he was this shit-hot guitar player, who on the MIDI, could do this crazy ascending and descending arpeggiated strings. And also he's this natural melodicist and he can come up with this catchy shit no matter what. Because in the end this record is way more poppy than I thought it was going to be. Maybe partly due to that and maybe due to my own predispositions and just bringing a batch of songs to the table that were a lot more sprightly compared to what I pictured in my mind, and compared to some of the templates that I wanted to use as far as production goes. Yeah I don't know. John is a sucker for editing things on the computer and arranging things, and giving instruments a purpose and a frequency for them to occupy. And he's also a sucker for the new-age synths. So they had a big hand in it just by the way that we made control, editing and arranging a part of it. "This Night" was the exact opposite, it was like going in with a vague idea. Mostly that was that you're loud and you're ragged and just throwing shit at it and coming up with a functional mix while embracing a certain amount of murkiness and a lot of strings and threads showing at the end. All of the collaborators have always had a big role in how things turn out.

Is there anything that inspires your lyrics? What are you reading right now?
Yeah always I guess. Not maybe subject matter. The way I write is pretty fixed these days. I don't think I'm aping other writers the way I once did when I was younger. I find that reading something that I really like inspires me to write. Seeing a film I really like inpires me to write. Hearing a song that I think is really amazing. Those are the kinds of things that get under my skin. I don't know if you mean any specific things, but to be honest I can't think of anything recent. I know there has been.

Can you tell me a little bit about Frog eyes?
They're a band I'm kind of hard-pressed to describe. I find their sound so singular. I can just say that there is a certain amount of dramatic flair to what they do which is part of the reason I asked them if they would do these songs and come on tour. Also, in a similar way that I described the "This Night" band, I knew I would be doing it with people who had this strong musical vision, and they would disregard the songs and not try and do half-baked versions of the album. We really threw out the album right away, and do a lot of renditions that have nothing to do with the album. They've kind of rearranged things so the songs have a new life, actually. It's pretty exciting. It's one of the things that are making me look forward to touring.

Is there any type of specific changes that you'd be able to describe?
There are changes in the basic ways, like having a brash, kick-ass rock band play the songs, the synthetic, orchestral record and the airiness and openness of it is kind of thrown out the window. If you see us play it will take you about 5 seconds to figure it out.

I notice you'll be on tour for over a month. Is it the longest excursion for you so far?
Yeah definitely. I think with "This Night" we went out for exactly four weeks and this time we're out for thirty-seven days. I'm not really a road warrior. I get tired and don't really like hanging out at rock clubs every night where you have a tendency to overdrink. So it can be sort of a drag, but maybe I'll be a seasoned veteran at the end of it.

Some of the Destroyer songs have a sort of sinister quality, and the mood overall is a bit more complicated than the New Pornographers. When you're working with the New Pornographers stuff is it a nice change from Destroyer?
I guess with Electric Version, I really had nothing to do with that record. Carl picked the songs and two of which dated back to 1997, and one of them was kind of chugging and upbeat in a way that I didn't think Destroyer could use. But I went in to sing them one afternoon and drank beer, played a game of ping-pong, and left. Then the next time I heard them was around the same time that you probably had them. The fashion and the sound has got very little to do with me. That being said, yeah. I like the way they come out. It's pretty cool. There is a fair amount of rock momentum and lots of cool bells and whistles attached to the songs. I really trust Carl's instincts and the way that he approaches melody. That element is kind of cool, but at the same time it's really separate from what I do. It's not a concious move on my part. I'm not in the studio spreading sunshine around. I just kind of get to sit down and hear the final product and be totally surprised.

Do you plan to stay peripherally involved with that band as long as they'll have you?
It's not up to me. You know, they wanted some songs for the last record. I think they were just pulled from some old tapes that Carl has of mine and I offered up a couple of songs, one of which they recorded. One we tried and it didn't really work. Maybe we'll try it again. If they want to repeat that process that's fine, but if they don't that's also cool. They've got a lot of songs kicking around.

You mentioned that you might move away from the dramatic element of "Your Blues." Have you had any time to think about the next album?
I've got some old faces that I have my eyes on. People who played on "This Night" and "Streethawk" and "Thief" records. I think it will be the opposite of "Your Blues." We'll start out with a relaxed practice schedule and put a simple band together and play a bunch of songs that we could maybe record live off the floor and call it an album. So that's one idea I have but it's still pretty early on. Things always change drastically from when I first come up with an idea to when we actually hit the studio. That's the one I've got right now.

For more information on Destroyer, visit Merge Records.