In the late '90s, Califone formed from the ashes of the respected blues influenced indie-rock band Red Red Meat. Since then, the band has been building up a loyal following, independently releasing albums on frontman Tim Rutili's record label, Perishable. The band's upcoming excellent album, Quicksand/Cradlesnakes, their first released by the seminal Thrill Jockey record label, is a mellow symphony of piano, strings, banjos, distortion and laptops that fans of Wilco's Yankee Hotel Foxtrot should feel right at home with. The Cardinal recently talked to Rutili about the band's new album and upcoming tour with label mates the Sea and Cake.
Was the song writing process any different for this new album?
Well, this time I'd bring in the songs, and well, there were more people around. This was a group record. There were more people to mess with the ideas; the last one it was just Ben and me and Brian the whole time.
Was there a specific sound that you were going for with this album?
No. I just wanted to have good songs. I mean, you can come in the studio with a song and do about 25 million different things with it. We just wanted to take these songs where they wanted to go.
How did you end up on Thrill Jockey records for this release?
Well, we were going to release it ourselves, but then we thought about it and we wanted to have more time to tour on this record. So we talked to Thrill Jockey about it, and they were into licensing the record for us.
How did the tour with the Sea and Cake come about? Was that a result of being on Thrill Jockey?
I don't think so, I think that we would have done this anyway. I don't know how this came about, I think that their booking agent called ours.
How did you and the band end up playing with the Secret Machines on their album?
Well, we have a studio here, and they were making a record. So a lot of times if people are using our studio and we're around they'll say, \Hey, want to do a guitar part?""
So you're still around your studio a lot then?
Yeah this is were we work. Joan of Arc has been in here a lot lately, and we're really excited about that. Their new album that's out now on Jade Tree they recorded here.
So it's probably no coincidence that that's easily the best album they've recorded.
Yeah, it's a great record. They recorded it here, and the same guy who engineered our record, Graham, engineered theirs. We all played on it a bit. And then there's another record that they did which we're putting out on our label, Perishable, in the spring.
And Jade Tree doesn't have a problem with your label putting out releases from their bands?
No, not at all. We put out the weird ones. [Laughs]. We have another Califone record that we're going to put out through Perishable too. It's coming out in May and it's going to be instrumental and limited pressing. Half of it was recorded in the studio, and half of it was live.
How does that work?
Well, we do these shows sometimes where we'll play with films. We did another record like this too. We'll play in a movie theater and there will be two projectionists in a booth with film loops that they've put together. They'll go back and forth between those two projectors and we'll react musically to them. One film was called ""The Mascot,"" and it's this weird animated film from the '30s, like puppet animation. We just create the score live.
Is there anybody that you guys want to record with or work with in the future?
Oh, there's too many to even mention. I don't know, I kind of want to do everything. But there are a lot of people out there doing great stuff. The last thing I saw was Richard Buckner doing a solo show here in town, and if the opportunity ever came up I would love the chance to be his backing band.
It seems like in today's music environment there's an audience for those kinds of collaborations; you'd get the Buckner fans, you'd get the Califone fans.
Yeah, and it would be really fun to do. It would be great to act as someone's backing band and get out of my own head a bit.
Do you know what to expect from the Sea and Cake show? Do you think you'll collaborate at all?
I'm not sure what's going to happen. But we'll see. Last time we did a tour with Wilco we ended up playing on their sets and they ended up playing on ours, so we usually like to mix it up with the bands that we're touring with. It should be an interesting show.
