Wes Morden of The Middle States
After five years, the local power-pop combo returns with a great new record.
Francine Anderson
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If the release of Chinese Democracy did anything other than earn a lot of people free Dr Pepper, it made it possible for any band with anything less than 13 years between albums feel a little better about a long hiatus. Wes Morden’s Middle States released its debut EP, Great Portland Street, in 2004, but it’s taken the band a good five years to follow it up with the full-length Happy Fun Party. In terms of the length-of-wait vs. quality-of-album ratio, they’ve certainly got G n’ F n’ R beat by a mile. The album’s strong power-pop lean is immediately evident on leadoff track “In Charge,” with Morden channeling Matthew Sweet’s gritty shine, but over the course of the record, there’s enough of Robert Pollard’s darker side and the occasional country twist (as on “Tumbleweeds,” which comes off like an Uncle Tupelo B-side) to keep things interesting. Like the best devotees of sturdy, garage pop, Morden keeps the music propulsive and lets the lyrics undercut the sunniness. And while many long-time-coming records can teeter under their own weight, Happy Fun Party has aged like wine, its 10 tracks each feeling essential and lived in. Decider caught up with Morden in an appropriately divey Minneapolis bar to talk about the long road to the release of the new record. The Middle States play a CD-release show for Happy Fun Party at Stasiu’s on Feb. 6.
Decider: You put out an EP in 2004, but it’s been five years now. What happened?
Wes Morden: A lot of things happened, and the band almost died. The record almost died. Just prior to putting out that EP, I became a father and then when we went to start making a new record, I found out it was a lot harder to do all the overdubs at home with a small child in the next room. The band petered out over about a half-dozen gigs over the summer [of ’04], and we actually lost our bass player and then the drummer followed, so we had no rhythm section.
Wes Morden: A lot of things happened, and the band almost died. The record almost died. Just prior to putting out that EP, I became a father and then when we went to start making a new record, I found out it was a lot harder to do all the overdubs at home with a small child in the next room. The band petered out over about a half-dozen gigs over the summer [of ’04], and we actually lost our bass player and then the drummer followed, so we had no rhythm section.
We did two gigs between 2004 and this past November with some guys filling in, but all the while, we were slowly working away at the record, not sure if there was going to be a band. In summer of 2007, I found out that the studio I’d been using, Tom Herbers’ Third Ear, was being demolished and I had to decide if I was going to try and finish the record in six weeks or was I going to try and finish somewhere else. So I decided to go for it, and then immediately got pneumonia. So for maybe four out of the 10 songs, I sang the lead vocal while recovering from pneumonia.
I finally got all the tracks mixed and mastered by about this time last year and sat around with a finished album but no money. So I scrimped and saved and put it all together and now we got our drummer back and a new bass player and we’re going to go for it.
D: A labor of love, then.
WM: Yeah, it could have easily disappeared, but I thought there was some pretty good stuff there. I mean, most musicians want to have their music heard—although there’s a tendency for them to be self-critical and pre-judge—but I got tired of having that attitude. So damn the torpedoes and full-speed ahead.
D: A lot of records made in 2004 might sound dated if released five years later, but the sound you’ve got is a really durable, melodic, power-pop sound that has a timeless quality to it. The immediate things that come to mind are Big Star, Matthew Sweet, Teenage Fanclub, and Guided By Voices, but do you have any other influences that aren’t obvious?
WM: Well, my tastes go kind of far back, but everything from early R.E.M. to early Pink Floyd might make it into the same song. I’m just trying to, in some way, encapsulate some of the intensity of that feeling you might have had towards certain music when you were 15 or 16. There’s a buddy of mine who, right when Jeff Buckley came out, conveyed to me that that’s what that music felt like to him—that emotionally overcharged intense thing that got you into it. I want to try to communicate that. I think most people get a lot of their musical roots implanted between 12 and 17. So for me: The Who, The Kinks, The Beatles, and all that stuff.
D: Given the arduous process of pulling it altogether, it seems like Happy Fun Party is a kind of odd title. When did you decide on it?
WM: I think pretty early on. I can be kind of a cynical person and I think that bands that have a certain commercial, polished sheen that’s so perfect are bogus and kind of pretentious, so I just wanted to make light of the, well, bullshit. [Laughs.] The songs are not really happy fun songs—they’re about the struggles that people go through. It’s not about being, well, what’s the contemporary term for cool? “Jiggy with it”?
D: Are you going to take another five years to make the next one?
WM: We’re hoping that this record takes us from oblivion to obscurity, and we can maybe get enough attention to get a label to take some interest. If that part happens, and there’s money coming from somewhere other than my own pocket—other than from my own sweat and blood—then things should happen quicker.
D: A labor of love, then.
WM: Yeah, it could have easily disappeared, but I thought there was some pretty good stuff there. I mean, most musicians want to have their music heard—although there’s a tendency for them to be self-critical and pre-judge—but I got tired of having that attitude. So damn the torpedoes and full-speed ahead.
D: A lot of records made in 2004 might sound dated if released five years later, but the sound you’ve got is a really durable, melodic, power-pop sound that has a timeless quality to it. The immediate things that come to mind are Big Star, Matthew Sweet, Teenage Fanclub, and Guided By Voices, but do you have any other influences that aren’t obvious?
WM: Well, my tastes go kind of far back, but everything from early R.E.M. to early Pink Floyd might make it into the same song. I’m just trying to, in some way, encapsulate some of the intensity of that feeling you might have had towards certain music when you were 15 or 16. There’s a buddy of mine who, right when Jeff Buckley came out, conveyed to me that that’s what that music felt like to him—that emotionally overcharged intense thing that got you into it. I want to try to communicate that. I think most people get a lot of their musical roots implanted between 12 and 17. So for me: The Who, The Kinks, The Beatles, and all that stuff.
D: Given the arduous process of pulling it altogether, it seems like Happy Fun Party is a kind of odd title. When did you decide on it?
WM: I think pretty early on. I can be kind of a cynical person and I think that bands that have a certain commercial, polished sheen that’s so perfect are bogus and kind of pretentious, so I just wanted to make light of the, well, bullshit. [Laughs.] The songs are not really happy fun songs—they’re about the struggles that people go through. It’s not about being, well, what’s the contemporary term for cool? “Jiggy with it”?
D: Are you going to take another five years to make the next one?
WM: We’re hoping that this record takes us from oblivion to obscurity, and we can maybe get enough attention to get a label to take some interest. If that part happens, and there’s money coming from somewhere other than my own pocket—other than from my own sweat and blood—then things should happen quicker.
