Perhaps best known to Madison as the eye-poppingly catchy opener for Wilco's show at the Barrymore Theatre two years ago, Frisbie returns to town tonight for a free show at the Rathskeller. Their freshman release The Subversive Sounds of Love artfully coalesced all of the band's pop influences, including the Beatles, Elvis Costello and yes, Big Star, to stand as one of the best pure pop releases of the last several years. Their affable frontman and namesake Steve Frisbie chatted with the Cardinal about a number of issues, not the least of which concerned a certain plastic flying object.
The Daily Cardinal: First question: Last time you were in Madison was about two years ago, with Wilco. What took so long to come back?
Steve Frisbie: When the record first came out, we went all the way to the West Coast and then back East, and then felt the need to do it again. Basically, we blew all of our time and money on larger tours. In retrospect, we kind of wish we would have stayed closer to home. Also, we had a show booked at the place that burned down.
DC: O'Cayz Corral.
SF: Yeah, we had a show booked there, and then it burned down.
DC: Fair enough. How many show did you do with Wilco?
SF: We only did a couple dates with them, Madison and Minneapolis.
DC: That must have been really good exposure for you.
SF: Yeah, it was great. The Barrymore Theatre crowd, in particular, was a great listening crowd. When you shut your eyes and imagine playing a show, you imagine playing to that many people.
DC: It's been over two years since The Subversive Sounds of Love came out. Do you have a new album in the works?
SF: Actually, we just finished three tunes, and we're getting them around to any label we think might turn us into Bon Jovi. If no one bites, we'll begin the rest of the recording after a year.
DC: One comparison that always pops up in your reviews is Big Star. Do you take that as an honor, or do you kind of get sick of it?
SF: What's more annoying is power-pop. I had a long conversation with someone about this the other night actually. It's the same thing as I don't think Wilco wants to be labeled an Americana band or a roots-rock band. At some point, and I think Wilco has achieved this, they're just Wilco. No one asks what they sound like anymore. They've become a measuring stick. We're not in the public eye, we're nobody, so we don't expect that. But when you're in the group, when you know what's going on, you don't want to be reduced to one word.
Being compared to Big Star, though, it makes sense, because on our record there's a lot of acoustic guitar, a lot of cleanly strummed guitar, and Liam and I can sing and we sing big harmonies. It's there to be said. It's not an inappropriate comparison for five, six songs on the album, but there's also a number of songs that have a rougher edge to them that don't have a thing to do with power-pop.
DC: A lot has been made lately about how horrible the radio is these days. Do you think your kind of pop music and you specifically still have a place on the radio?
SF: I agree with the criticisms of the radio. I think it's largely a function of the Clear Channel monopolization. Sometimes I think the griping is kind of childish, though, because we're all implicit in it. I think that those that are bummed about the radio is a small enclave of people that tend to access the independent stations, who tend to read the publications where the griping happens. I don't think that most people are really that bummed about the radio, though. And if they're not, then you kind of get what you deserve.
Every once in a while, we'll play Borders or something, an acoustic show before a nighttime club show, and people go nuts. That includes 55-years-olds and kids that you'd expect to be into Slipknot. These kids, they come up to us and say 'You're the best band I've ever heard.' And I'm not saying that to aggrandize us. It's just that that kid, according to what we would expect, shouldn't give a damn about us. People just like to hear people sing, and people like to hear good songs. So yeah, I think there's a place for us on the radio. As for the reality of piercing the skin of that beast, though, I don't know.
DC: There's a lot of great music out there, I think, that if it got exposure would catch on really quickly.
SF: Yeah, especially where the band is at right now, with the stuff that we just finished, it's a little punchier in the guitars but there's still the tight vocal harmonies. We're also doing some programming in the rhythm section so things bump a little harder. It's not as much with the acoustic strummed and swimmy. It's got a punch to it.
I can see how stuff like Wilco's new record doesn't get on the radio: because it's challenging. And that's one of my favorite records ever. With Wilco, too, that was a case of them even challenging their core fan base. And we're trying to do some pushing too. What we want to do is bring the party to the pop, bring a little bit of R & B to the harmonies and guitar.
DC: Have you ever been approached by the Frisbee toy company to do anything? Are you on their radar at all?
SF: After much deliberation about changing our name, we finally decided that if we were on [Frisbee's] radar, that we were on a radar, and we would like to be on a radar. But no, nobody's said a word. We even thought about preemptively contacting them saying, 'Hey, this is who we are, this is what we do' but then we said, 'We should just calm the hell down, this is stupid.' We went around and around trying to come up with a new name, but we could never agree on anything. But I also just think, it's my last name and it's spelled differently, so there shouldn't really be any problems.
DC: It's a cool last name. I find it hard to believe that it's actually your real last name.
SF: Yeah, it's real.
DC: What was your dad's name?
SF: Same, Steve Frisbie. My wife just informed me the other day that she hates it. I kind of suspected before, but now I know for sure.
DC: Tell her I think it's cool, if that helps at all.
SF: I'll tell her I'm leaving her, I've found a new man.
