Duluth trio Low has been tagged as "that slow, quiet band" for most of its 14-year career, but that's only part of the story. On recent albums like 2005's The Great Destroyer and the new Drums And Guns, Low has found ways to capture a bigger, denser sound without sacrificing a minimalist ethic. The A.V. Club spoke with singer-guitarist Alan Sparhawk, drummer (and Sparhawk's wife) Mimi Parker, and new bassist Matt Livingston about Drums' take on violence, the band's 2006 hiatus, and the experience of eating an entire cake in three minutes.
The A.V. Club: Every song on the new album is, in some way, about violence and war.
Alan Sparhawk: It's not really intentional. I think we recognized that a lot of the songs were dealing with that as we were getting ready to record. I remember being somewhat surprised afterwards.
Mimi Parker: It's a reflection on what's going on, maybe. [Laughs.]
AS: It's kind of impossible to simplify it and be able to point to things like, "OK, this influenced this, and this song's this, and this must have been because of this experience." It comes together as it comes together, and normally I tend to write songs a certain way. Over the years, we trust that whatever we come up with is going to be something we care about enough that when we record and play it, we'll still like it.
AVC: Did global politics play at all into the inspiration for the album, though?
AS: It must have. There are definitely songs in there that as I was writing them, I was getting images or thoughts along that line. I have a hard time calling it a political or social statement; I feel like it's kind of beyond that. It's more questions like, what is man, and who are we that we kill ourselves and kill each other and wreck everything, and is there any way to get beyond that? Is there any way to answer that, and is there any way to go beyond it if there is no answer? Some of the songs are angry. "Murderer," for sure, was influenced by world situations. I remember watching a documentary and being very angry about it. It was about this violent gang in Mexico that tortured women and just… I don't want to go into it. But it just makes you so angry. You're thinking, "What would I do in the presence of these people?" I hope the song is larger than my little petty feeling. But if there's any specific example from the record, I guess that song is the most obviously influenced by seeing something that was going on in the world and opening up a window to this whole question of, "What happens when you feel justified so much that you're willing to come before God and stand as a murderer or someone who will exact vengeance on someone else?"
AVC: Like you say, the album doesn't have a lot of direct political commentary; you don't mention Bush by name. It seems to be more about the metaphysics of violence.
AS: I hope so. I really think the problem is unendingly larger than just George Bush. He's certainly a factor that has the power to change things—his removal or not existing anymore would certainly change things. But I think focusing one's frustration onto something as simple as one person or one philosophy, or one group of people, is grossly inadequate.
AVC: Drums And Guns is less loud than Great Destroyer, but there's still an edginess, maybe even a harshness, that makes it distinct from the earlier Low records. What kind of sound were you going for?
MP: We knew we wanted it to sound different than Great Destroyer and Trust, but honestly we went in just with that thought. It was almost like a hunt-and-peck. We brought out a couple machines we had that we're not really masters of, to see what we could come up with. I guess it might sound harsh or maybe even, what's the word? Amateur-ish, maybe.
AS: The way we put it together was very simple. We were working with just a few elements. We've come to an age where any sound is possible, and you have immense control digitally over what something's going to sound like. Unfortunately, I think that process tends to create a certain kind of music, and the process seems to dictate what you come up with. And I think that the fact that we've never really been record-on-the-computer or editing people… Some people said, "Oh, you've made an electronic record." Well, we don't know how to make electronic music. The way people make electronic music is vastly different than the way we did this record. Traditionally on a Low record, we would set up our live thing [in the studio], play and then embellish it, and then mix it. This time, we didn't do that. We just said, "Well, we've got to record this song, but we can't use the instruments that we had been using up until now."
AVC: Looking back on when Low began in the early '90s, how do you think you have grown as performers?
AS: I think we're pretty much exactly the same. By the time we were done with our third tour, we were pretty much playing the same way. Just as shaky, dropped just as many clams, and we fight about the same exact crap.
MP: Yeah, but that's just because we're married. It's okay to fight about the same crap.
AS: [Laughs.] What does that say about us?
AVC: Well, take the satirical sense of humor you display in the video for "Breaker," where you eat an entire cake in three minutes. It doesn't seem like something the 1994 version of Low would have done.
AS: You do it this long and your perspective changes, you know? There's lots of stuff that you wouldn't have caught me doing 14 years ago. We've always had the same sense of humor. Maybe it's just taken us this long to carve out enough space to feel like we can be funny with it without being detrimental. You can make jokes with the language that you have made. If you take someone else's language and try to make jokes, it usually doesn't go so well.
MP: We're bolder. We're less cautious about things like that. When we first started, we were more concerned about smaller details that we thought were bigger than they were. And now, we just realize that no one pays any attention to that crap. No one hears that. [Laughs.] Let's just go out there and have fun.
AS: Yeah, let's have fun. Let's play something that's interesting. Yeah, we probably wouldn't have done that in '94.
MP: I didn't bake as many cakes back then. That's why. [Laughs.]
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