Quasi has had a way of intriguing listeners over the course of its last four albums with its strangely happy melodies and frequently dreary lyrics, in combination with a sound heavily dependent on the Roxichord, a vintage keyboard best described as an electric harpsichord. Perhaps more famous for the history of its band members'an ex-husband-and-wife duo consisting of keyboardist/singer Sam Coomes, who also played in the band Heatmeiser with Elliott Smith way back when, and drummer Janet Weiss, perhaps better known for her percussive contributions to Sleater-Kinney'Quasi has received both critical blessings and an appreciative fan base. Coomes took a few minutes to chat with Cardinal Arts prior to embarking on a North American tour to promote their new album, The Sword of God. Look for the band in Madison Sept. 25 at the Annex, 1206 Regent St.
How extensive is this tour?
It's a national tour'it's relatively brief for a national tour, it's about one month, but we're playing 26 shows'it's pretty intensive
How has reaction been to the new album?
I don't know. I've been pretty busy. We were actually in England when the album came out, and we got back a couple weeks after. I don't know, it comes out, some people like it, some people don't care, some people don't notice. It's the same as any other time. You know, it's not like the new Britney Spears album ... it's not like a saturation bombing of the music listeners out there. We put the record out, we throw it out there, try and direct the people's attention to it so they can check it out and see if they like it. It's not going to change the world'that's not the intent.
This is your first album on Touch and Go Records'how's that working for you?
They're awesome. When we had to get a new label they were ... the only people we actually talked to, and they were one of only two or three people that we even remotely considered. ... So we were happy that it worked out. You know, in just a matter of a couple of weeks or so after we met with [Touch and Go president] Cory and decided we wanted to go ahead with this record, he got in a massive motorcycle accident. ... He was in the hospital for months, which is strange, because really the reason we had to move on from our last label, Up Records, [was] our friend, Chris, who ran the label, died of leukemia, so it's kind of a weird thing [laughs].
Did that set the recording of the album back at all?
No, fortunately Touch and Go seems to be a pretty well-oiled machine and people were able to step up and take care of whatever needed to be done.
So on the tour, do you have a backing band?
No, we play as a two-piece. ... Occasionally we have people maybe, not very often, and we haven't made any plans on this tour, but occasionally people come up and play bass or guitar on a couple of songs. And we are travelling around with an opening band for the entire tour [the Magic Magicians], so maybe we'll get them up there at some point to add little touches, but usually we just play as a two-piece. We're just stripped down, and it sounds a little different when we play live.
How's the Roxichord holding up these days?
It broke a little while back, and I got a ... regular, modern electronic keyboard that has a Roxichord sound programmed into it, and that's what I've been using. ...I used it on the record. It sounds pretty close to what the Roxichord sounded like, it's slightly different, but the Roxichord was completely dead. I actually sold it to the Experience Music Museum in Seattle, strangely enough. I don't think it's on display. I think they're thinking 'If he gets in a plane crash or something, then he'll be famous and we can put it on display.'
So you're fine with just the keyboard'you don't miss the Roxichord? You're obviously not sick of the sound...
Yeah, actually I am a little bit sick of it. Because when we play live, stripped down as a two-piece band, it's such a loud and full sound'you know we've come to really rely on it'but I think I'm starting to think that I might not want to use the sound as much as I have been ... for recording. But live it's helpful, because in a way it's like a Hammond organ or something like that'a lot of frequencies kind of leap out of it. It's even more percussive than an organ, so I'll probably continue to use it when we play live.
So for the live tour we can expect to hear a lot of it, but perhaps the next Quasi album to come out, maybe scaled down as far as the Roxichord goes?
Yeah, I don't really know. We haven't started planning another record yet. I just started thinking that it might be'see, now I have this electronic keyboard that has over 1,000 sounds on it, whereas before I only had one sound. So now I have the capability of using more stuff. I don't know if I necessarily want to use a thousand sounds, but maybe more than just one.
How did the Roxichord break?
I used to jump on top of it, kick it around. It seemed pretty sturdy, so the shows would get a little bit physical at times and I just didn't feel like I could break it. But I did several times and eventually it just wasn't repairable.
So are you treating the new keyboard a little better?
The good thing about it is if it breaks I can buy a new one. I put it in a big wooden case, partly to protect it from just carrying it around, and partly to sort of support my body weight if I in fact got carried away to the point where I jumped up on top of it. But it just doesn't have the same feel. The Roxichord used to make all kinds of strange sounds and physically sort of react in a way when you started pounding on it that this keyboard doesn't really do'it just sounds like it's not working. I would like to sort of get whipped up into that sort of frenzy, but the keyboard just doesn't respond in the same way.
How long were you recording The Sword of God?
It took about four months. ... We never recorded our own album before, so a lot of it was time spent making big mistakes and bad results. So eventually, after maybe a couple of months, we figured out what we were doing to the extent where we were somewhat satisfied with the basic sound. It seemed like it was a long time to work on a record, but we were pretty much down to the wire. At the end, we were still mixing like two hours before Federal Express closed on the day we had to mail the tapes off.
Have you been to Madison before?
I've never been to Madison. Janet has, and she quite enjoyed her shows there, so we tried to make it a point to go down there. It's strange that I haven't been to Madison, because I've done so many tours, and I've played in Beloit and even more obscure places in Wisconsin.
