Siberian: Interview - Intelligent Evolution

Three of Siberian's 5-piece (Finn, Colin & Zach) joined me backstage.

Someday Lounge, Portland, May '08

ZM: Surprise or Anticipation?

Zach: Surprise.

Finn: Why?

Zach: The things you anticipate are more expected, muted.

Colin: [Colin said something here that was my first exposure to his multiple mindset, postulating about six sides to every viewpoint. Naturally my notes were as surprised as I was]
Zach: Yeah, I agree [with Colin], it made me think of going into work that day with a hangover.
Colin: It's a perspective shift.
ZM: Your going into work with a hangover was a surprise or anticipation?
Zach: I anticipated the hangover, I was surprised how pleased I was that day.
ZM: OK, what do you find ironic about the Alanis Morissette song "Isn't It Ironic"?
Zach: [in a flash] There's absolutely nothing ironic about it, not a lick.
Colin: It should be called "Isn't it unfortunate".
ZM: What do you always forget to take on tour?
Zach: Your passport [to Finn]
Finn: Yes, going into Canada...
Zach: Our dignity and self-respect
Colin: Not for me, I'd rather it [touring] be an extension of my regular life, not something else that I'd have to crash back out of.
Zach: I actually had the idea that I would transform myself on the tour [just finished], of course I didn't.
Finn: We had an insane response, there were small crowds but people were so amazing, like in Phoenix, I'm surprised how supportive and nice people are.

Finn, despite being the front man and writing all the songs, is quiet and unassuming (at least in the company of the band's keen-witted guitarists). His relaxed nature seems to stem from being born and brought up in Hawaii, which he still misses.

Although Finn writes the lyrics and base melodies they all emphasize the collaboration on song structure and sound:
Building songs to crescendos was conscious, as Zach put it: "We like loud and emotional music as much as anybody, but now we're as interested in space, in dropping things out."

ZM: So Finn, where do these words come from? (Islands Forever opens with "On the coastline, under moonlight, we'll drive our cars into the lake and drown")
Finn: I don't know, I listened to Leonard Cohen a lot and somehow it comes through, but not directly, I don't... perhaps in the melody or feeling...
ZM: I think it's in the timing, the delivery of words.
Colin: His words are moody, bordering on the dark, we add the atmosphere.
Finn: I write around moods, I prefer something that explains... but not too literally, so people can interpret it, imagining some kind of image, but not from nonsense.

The band is critical of their 2007 CD 'With Me' but many critics, including myself, rate it as one of last year's best. They're looking forward though, to the next recordings, still evolving, into potential.Finn: Islands Forever was the last song we recorded and is more the way we're evolving. I put it down to communication inside the band.

Colin: Being together for 4 years is working. We trust each other.
Zach: Yeah, you can't just take a sonic idea in your head and tell everyone do this, do that. It doesn't work.

ZM: Given free unrestricted travel, where would you go?
Finn: Africa.
Zach: Prehistoric Africa. I want to go to another galaxy. Back in Time, or forward. I don't know, maybe I'd just like to go to yesterday and know what's going to happen and fuck with Colin's head all day.
Colin: That would suck.
ZM: So what would you do?
Colin: I don't know, for the band? Is it one choice? Can you change your choice every day? It always changes, how long does this last?

ZM: Colin, What do you remember from when you were nine years old?
Colin: What grade was that?
Finn: Twelve is six.
Colin: On that prompting, my teacher, my classroom, but nothing really - something I realised when I was 18-19 was that I hardly remembered anything about my childhood...
Zach: It gets blurred, like that Oliver Sachs documentary where he's going month to month documenting everything he remembers from '82 onwards...
Colin: Yeah - and that character Sachs studied - who can conduct a whole orchestra but doesn't remember 7 seconds later... and there's some woman, she remembers everything, they're studying her...
ZM: It sounds like your tours are spent listening to the BBC & NPR [National Public Radio]
Colin: Yes, yes! We're very boring.

ZM: What are a few of your favourite things?
Finn: Sunshine....then a list of...music, experience, headaches(?), beautiful women ,

A Siberian Woman

scotch (meaning Scottish Whiskey), change, Taco Bell... religion...
Z Religion?
C Yes, no. We have fun, no we ridicule it but we discuss it too.
ZM: Are any of you influenced?
Colin: Ah, yeah, I was raised Jehovah's Witness
Zach: [Emphatically] It's a blight on society and we all know it.
Colin: It's a ridiculously easy way out.
Finn: Freud said it was a way to console yourself with fate.
ZM: I don't think we'll bother to try and make that scan...

ZM: What's the best use for WD 40?
Colin: Spraying in UB40's eyes.

ZM: Colin, tell me about Mexico & you
Colin: [Momentarily lost for words]... I had a friend who went there.
Zach: That's great: "I had a friend who went there"!

Finn's voice: Was the thing that most impressed Zach, even in a garage. Colin too, until the CD recording when Finn swayed a little towards that Tom Yorke slur... that's never happened before or after said Colin. I asked Finn if he imitated? Was he good at Karaoke? "No, I'm terrible at Karaoke, I'm self-conscious and get a little subdued."

ZM: Do you know how to dig a pony?
Colin: Dude, no. There's no way to dig a pony, it wasn't meant to mean anything.
Zach: I dig ponies, little horses.
Colin: There's that thing about the tramp in Lennon's garden who thought it was all written for him, and Lennon saying it was nonsense. It's a language problem - look how frustrated Gertrude Stein became, she wrote books with the intention of not making sense and still people found meaning in them.

ZM: Best Gig you ever were at?
Colin: What pops into my head is Andrew Andrew Bird at the Showbox in Seattle.
Finn: I was going to say the same thing, but otherwise Fugazi, in Hawaii.
Zach: I saw Robert Pollard recently and it was certainly memorable - he drank at least ten beers and 3/4 a bottle of tequilla and was staggeringly incoherent, except when he sang then it was perfect pitch.
Colin: It's like another Oliver Sachs thing; about the man with no memory (7 seconds in fact) who can still conduct orchestras.
Zach: Yeah, that could be what's going on, an automatic musical memory.

ZM: Finn, did you ever think the moon really was made of Cheese?
Finn: No, but I thought there was a man on the moon.
ZM: You mean the face or an actual man?
Finn: A man, an astronaut.
Zach: What do you mean, you think they just left one behind?
Finn: Well, I was 12.

ZM: So how are you feeling about tonight's show?
Colin: I have no expectations, not low expectations - no expectations, I don't want to be disappointed. It comes back to that anticipation/surprise thing... anticipation limits your potential experience.

As it tuned out the show was even better than expected, Someday Lounge soundman Ryan Oleson balanced things expertly, matching the punchy rhythm against the searing harmonics, all the musicians and vocals stood out. I didn't hear any copycat Yorke drawl the band is wary of, maybe an occasional Lloyd Cole-like inflection, and I'm still unsure what it is about Siberian that differentiates, maybe it is just the underlying intelligence. Go see Siberian live, I say... but then I shouldn't be building up any expectations should I, in case that anticipation factor spoils everything...

Siberian are: Finn Parnell (Vocals, Rhythm), Zach Tillman (Bass, Vocals), Colin Wolberg (Lead), Aaron Benson (Drums), Adam Galbraith (keyboards)