An Interview with Low: Zak, Alan and Mimi

Before their packed gig at the ’Sco Friday night, senior John MacDonald got a chance to sit down with Minnesotan indie rockers Low. Between handling their young daughter and eating pizza, husband and wife Alan Sparhawk and Mimi Parker, along with bassist Zak Sally, managed to find a few minutes to talk about their new album, the "slowcore" movement, and just how similar a marriage and a rock band can be.

John MacDonald: Okay, I want to start off talking about the new album [Trust], if that’s not too much of a cliche. The new record has a much more fuller, reverb-drenched sound then the last one [1999’s Things We Lost in the Fire] and a new engineer/mixer [Tchad Blake]. Did you have some sort of distinct vision or sound in mind when you started working on it?

Zak Sally: We didn’t hit on that ’til later. I’m not sure how many huge goals we had, but after Things We Lost in the Fire we had a feeling that. . . the next record wouldn’t have as many indulgences to it - it would be a bit different, a bit harder sounding. We were just going to do it all by ourselves in the beginning, but probably thankfully, we decided to record it ourselves and have Tchad mix it later.

JM: What was the difference between working with Steve Albini (who recorded the last record) and Tchad Blake, ’cause at least from my point-of-view the sound is quite different between the two records? The last record was sparser, with less reverb and less use of found noises.

ZS: I don’t know. I mean traditionally, Steve is the kind of person that just records what you make. He records and gets it as accurately as possible. He knows his equipment really well and how to use it to get good sounds and stuff.
I think a big factor was the fact that we were recording [the new album] ourselves with this friend of ours. It’s not so much that we were being sloppy, as much as we were more open to accidental things and weird textures and using ridiculous sounds that were happening because of the space that we were in.

JM: Yeah, there’s some sound of something dropping or breaking at the beginning of “I Am the Lamb”. . .

Alan Sparhawk: Yeah, yeah. That was while I was doing a vocal take. This box that the headphones we’re plugged in to just fell down ,and we just kinda kept going, dragging it around the room the whole night.

ZS: Ya’ know, normally on a record, that’s the kinda thing you could get rid of on the tape — you could wipe it or something and fix the whole problem. We were just like, all those things stay and if we want to take them out later, we will. And when we got with Tchad, he was like
“That was great!”

AS: “I wanna use that!”

ZS: “Make that louder!”

AS: I mean, he kinda told us before hand. He said, “put down whatever idea you want, ya know, anything you want even if it’s something you’re not sure you’re going to use later.” Which is kinda weird, it seems contrary to the previous record where we did do that. Where we were like, “Oh, let’s put strings on that, let’s put this on that.”. . . Ya know, we kinda did the same thing this time around, but it was more just sounds instead of arrangements.
I think the biggest factor was actually just moving to a different space and kinda being left to our own to come up with how things were going to go, ya know. And I think that was probably the biggest factor in making it a different experience, so to speak.

JM: It seems like there are a lot more themes of spirituality in the new record, much more so then the last one and more clearly stated . . .

AS: That’s probably more accurate to say that they’re more “clearly stated.” I mean, to me it’s always been there, we just use a different language [from record to record].

JM: Is that a source of a lot of inspiration?

AS: Yeah, for me, for me it is. In that it’s a part of my life and my beliefs of whatever life is and everything, and certainly if you’re going to create something, those elements are going to influence you as much as childhood or whatever relationships you’re dealing with at the time. I mean, not to downplay it. I’m glad it’s a part of what we do, but it’s not something we’re trying to make an agenda out of.

JM: So how is it being in a band with a marriage? That’s a unique thing in a lot of rock ’n’ roll, at least from my point-of-view.

AS: I don’t know. What do you think, Zak?

(some laughter. . .)

AS: (sigh) Oh, I don’t know. . .. Well. . . (pause) Anybody
who’s in a band knows that there’s relationships within theband that can be very intense; they can be very satisfying, very frustrating. And also people who have been in personal relationships, ya know loving relationships with people, well then, that can also be very intense, positive and negative. When you put the two together, they just kind of amplify each other.

Mimi Parker: Like fire and gasoline.

AS: (speaking loudly so as to make fun of the cliche) Fire and gasoline.

MP: (laughing) That’s exactly right.

AS: (jokingly) You have to watch out ’cause you’ll get burned.

(laughing all around. . . )

AS: Naw . . . it has, just like those two things by themselves, they have potential to be very positive things and they have the potential to be very frustrating and difficult things. And ya know, we’ve experienced both, and, ya know, we’re still at it so I guess, so far so good.

JM: In the same sense, it seems like Duluth (in Minnesota where the band is from) is not a town one normally associates with a thriving rock ’n’ roll scene.

(some laughter. . . )

I mean, in the popular consciousness people don’t think of Minnesota.

AS: Well yeah, it’s no Seattle.

(some joking goes on. . .)

JM: . . . it seems like your music has a lot of cold
imagery . . .

AS: Well, if you’ve ever been to Duluth, it’s cold and it’s isolated and you kind of have to make your own fun. . . . But,
there’s actually a lot of good things happening in Duluth . . .
There’s enough people that care about making something
happen that there’s actually a pretty good scene there.

JM: Did you guys grow up there?

AS: Eh, sort of. We were a couple hours out in the
country. . . Mim and I went there to go to college.

JM: Now, you’ve been associated a lot with the "slowcore" movement (including bands like Idaho and Codeine). Do you think of yourselves as part of that? Do you associate with those bands? Or do you think of that label as something that was tacked on to you?

ZS: Well, I don’t know. . .

AS: The term just seems like something someone made up one time.

ZS: . . . It seems ridiculous ’cause a lot of the slowcore bands, I guess at the time it seemed like a thing, but, and it is descriptive in a certain way, these bands are no slower then much of the things you might hear on an adult contemporary station. It’s no slower in any way. It’s fine, but it’s nice that it’s a term that seems like it’s on its way out.

AS: Yeah, they didn’t call Metallica slowcore when “One” (from their 1988 album ...And Justice For All) was their first hit.

JM: I happened to see you guys in London when you played at the Union Chapel last Fall. So how do your songs get translated or changed when you play them live? How do you think about them differently, or do you?

AS: Ummm. All different ways. I mean, usually when we write a song we’re very specific, we’re like “Okay, this is the way this song needs to be done”. . . I mean we spent a long time coming up with the arrangement and trying to figure out like “Okay, this is how we get into the song and here’s where this happens and. . .” We don’t, ya’ know, we don’t deviate from that very much as much as other bands [who] will take a song and play it different every time.

ZS: We tend to get to know the song better the more we play it, though. I mean, there’s some stuff on this record that we’re still figuring out. While we’re recording songs, we’re thinking of ways to play them live . . . But after years of playing [a song], you think you’ve pretty much figured out everything [you’re] going to know about playing that song live.

JM: What are some of your favorite songs to play live? What songs keep coming back and sounding interesting?

AS: I don’t know. . .

MP: Once you play a song 50, 60 times. . . I kinda looses its. . .
AS: A little bit, yeah.

MP: . . . excitement, anyway.

ZS: You can get it back. I mean, you can lay off it for a good long time. After we’ve toured with a song, you kinda, like I said, at a certain point learn everything there is to know about the song, and after that it’s like the law of diminishing returns. But that song, if we go back to playing it 3 years later, all of a sudden you’re like, “Ah, I love this song! This is great!”

MP: But usually new ones tend to be more. . .

AS: . . . more exciting . . .

MP: just because you’re kind of on the edge. You don’t know what’s going to happen. (laughs)

AS: I think probably one song that seems to be consistent for [us] is “Two-Step” [from 1999’s Secret Name]. I don’t know, it seems like no matter what’s going on, we can play that song and 99 percent of the time it feels good. .. . even if we’ve played it a million times. It’s always’s nice because it’s quiet, and you know, after all the racket, it’s nice to sing a real simple song.