 |
Joe Pernice answers to one person, and one person
only -- himself.
|
There was no lack of soul-searching in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. And singer/songwriter Joe Pernice was certainly in line with the rest of America.
"We flew to Europe on 9/11," Pernice says from his New York apartment. "We came back after the tour and everyone was depressed. I considered quitting music. I thought 'I don't want to do this anymore. What's the point?' like everybody else was with their lives. But we did a U.S. tour right after, and it was actually kind of nice to travel around America and be home."
Pernice's malaise continued to lift until January of last year, when he felt the familiar tug of a new Pernice Brothers album. His previous two releases -- the PB's acclaimed The World Won't End and his solo Big Tobacco -- had been his first post-SubPop ventures, and he was anxious to further explore his artistic and commercial freedom. But Pernice was confronted with an odd situation.
"I was looking at the songs and I couldn't recall writing them," Pernice says with a laugh. "There was a list of like 25 songs that I had to whittle down, and I knew that I'd written them in that last year. I was like, 'Where the fuck did these songs come from?' It was a nice surprise that the songs were ready."
With Pernice's automatic songs in hand, the band retreated to the Vermont woods to begin Yours, Mine and Ours, the latest Pop epistle in Joe Pernice's canon which began with his Scud Mountain Boys Folk/Pop work in the early '90s, continued with the 1998 debut Pernice Brothers album (the Pop masterwork Overcome by Happiness) and expanded with The World Won't End and a couple of interesting side bets (the Big Tobacco and Chappaquiddick Skyline projects). Since starting Ashmont Records with former SubPop honcho Joyce Linehan, he's seen a steady evolution in the way he and the band put together a new album.
"When we did Overcome by Happiness, we did it in a conventional way," Pernice says. "We paid to rent out a studio. It was done with a record label's money. Even though it was somewhat relaxed, there was still a bottom line, so to speak. We knew we were on someone else's dime and we had a finite number of days. You had to make decisions really quickly."
Pernice savors the new freedom that label ownership affords him.
"There's nobody to answer to," he says simply. "My partner (Linehan) signed me to SubPop. She was the head of A&R; there and was always on my side, but at the end of the day it was somebody else approving the record. It might not sound like a big deal but when you're making a record that some recent college grad is going to approve or have some say on what they think is going to sell, that's just a drag. I know that's the business I got into and I can't really bitch.
"But now that I don't have to deal with that, it's so much better. Knowing that when I think it's done, it's approved ... that's a big deal."
Although Pernice has rarely strayed from his avowed influences (Jimmy Webb, Burt Bacharach, Odessa-era Bee Gees), he's continuously stripped away the gloss and concentrated on the essence of those influences while absorbing and translating them. Yours, Mine and Ours personifies this process as the arrangements are powerful but open and airy, the instrumentation muscular but not showy.
Although Pernice references his previously established Pop majesty (the melancholic tang of "How to Live Alone," the shimmering twang of "Waiting for the Universe," the withering beauty of "Water Ban"), he does get in touch with his rockier side along the way (the Smiths-tinged "Sometimes I Remember," the insistent cool of "The Weakest Shade of Blue").
As the Brothers Pernice continue to tour, plans call for the recording of new Chappaquiddick Skyline and Pernice Brothers albums, both of which could see release next year. As the new album's great notices continue to accrue and given Pernice's new sense of liberation, it might seem natural for him to coast, just a little, on his relative fame and cultish success. Coasting is not a part of Joe Pernice's game plan.
"I've always been amazed that people all over the world come to the shows and buy the records," Pernice says with honest humility. "I try not to forget that. Like I'm in Spain and some guy in Cadiz comes up and he's psyched and I've made his day and he loves this song that I wrote on my parents' back porch or something. Just to think about that minute -- from my life to that guy's life -- it's a strange kick to have connected with all of those people. And I don't connect to that many.
"I'm just a small-time guy. It's a trip. Beats breaking rocks."
THE PERNICE BROTHERS perform at the Southgate House Sunday with The Ass Ponys and Peter Bruntnell.
Printer-friendly version
