Menomena: Rub a Dub Dub, Trippy Indie Rock in the Tub

Photo by Alicia J Rose

(Published in The Mirror 2/15/07)
As recently as three years ago, the members of Menomena were hand-making their albums' packaging in their homes to distribute across the world. Only a select few knew how insanely promising their sound was.

Now, they're getting ready to tour the country, they're selling out shows and they, without a doubt, have this year's best album art. Their album sounds like 10 people are in the band, but there's only three. They write their songs independent of each other and then come together later to record them and learn how to play them. While these days it seems like success only comes to those who sound like everyone else, Menomena is a true phenomena.

I had a candid phone conversation with Brent Knopf (guitar/keys/glockenspiel) about the size of the band, a do-it-yourself approach to album making and their upcoming tour.

Sean: Where are you?

Brent: I'm in Portland.

S: I was hoping you'd be in Hawaii, I read somewhere that you've spent some time there. It's like 9 degrees here.

B: Actually that's Danny. He grew up in Hawaii and I grew up here in Portland.

S: I see. Well, you're a small band of three close friends. I see your whole feel as being very small-scale. What are the benefits of being that small, as opposed to, say, five or more.

B: (Laughter) I was thinking you were heading in the Broken Social Scene or Polyphonic Spree direction. But yeah, I guess it's the only way it can be. We have such strong personalities, and I guess that once you start getting more and more people - you know, already there are too many chefs in the kitchen. I guess that's one benefit, if you add any more people like us to the band, it'd turn into some sort of South Korean parliamentary first fight.

S: And you don't want that, especially if in a Portland band.

B: Yeah, um, I guess… (laughter)…yeah, I'll let it go at that.

S: Cool. And college life, you went to Dartmouth. Where'd the others go?

B: Danny went to the Art Institute of Portland, Justin graduated from PNCA, Pacific Northwest College of Art. And they're both art school grads and I'm a grad of Dartmouth.

S: I saw one of your animation videos online, and I don't know how. I think I just Googled your name.

B: Wow! Cool, cool. Yeah that was fun. That was for an animation class. That was a lot of fun.

S: Do you plan to incorporate that kind of stuff into music videos?

B: I had planned on that, I actually spent a month of two doing that. I was going to do a video for Strongest Man in the World. And then I had a very bad summer. Just ran out of money, gosh, last year was just really rough. And then we headed out on the tour and I had to pack it all - you know, we were ready to shoot and I had to just pack it all away. It's all in my basement, all these sets and storyboards and characters, and everything was all set to go. But now yeah, I'm actually thinking of resuscitating it to try to incorporate it into a music video. But we'll see, again, we've gotten so busy I don't really have time to do that. Unfortunately I don't have - well, I guess I could do a lo-fi animatation, with a mini-DV camera, but if I'm gonna really do it, maybe I should try to collaborate with someone who has a better camera and a better image-capture machine.

S: And who knows, maybe this album will get you there, right?

B: Ha ha! That's right.

S: So you guys are all art students. How do you incorporate that into a live show? Or do you?

B: Oh, interesting. I'd wager to say that it doesn't figure in that much. We're just all so different, you know? If I was doing a solo project, I would do a live show much differently. The ideas that I have that may be more theatrical, or may be more contrived, are frowned upon by my band mates. Because, for those same reasons. We just, when we get on stage, we're just ourselves. And I think the art school background probably enters in more to the artwork and our packaging and we dedicate a lot of time to that. And also maybe, songwriting. Maybe certain thought or techniques enter into that process. But in terms of the live show, we're not too theatrical yet. We don't have any props or any UFOs that fly away or an special lighting. It's pretty much just us and our instruments playing so far. Although, someone suggested to us that we add like a projection but we'll see what happens.


S: I was going to save this for the end, because it's so awesome. But let's talk about the album art.

B: You're right it IS awesome. And I can say that, because I didn't do it.

S: Yeah, were you guys involved in the idea process at all?

B: We came up with a concept, and some questions and some themes that we wanted to explore. And we approached our friend Craig Thompson and said hey, is this something that would interest you, would you like to potentially design the artwork for our album?

S: And what a friend to have.

B: Phhhew. Holy Cow. I mean, I thought he might spend a couple days on it. He spent sooo much time on it. I mean, I don't know if they were eight hour days, but I know that he was working on it steadily for probably a couple months. Holy Cow. I just didn't - I had no way of knowing, or even imagining, how awesome his work was going to be. I knew he was amazing and I knew all his work, but I had no idea that he was going to take it so far, beyond how we imagined it and turn it into its own piece. I can not be happier. I feel so lucky that we had the chance to work with him.

S: Talk about making an impression.

B: (laughter)

S: I can't really think of anything on par with the whole system of layers and spinning the disc to reveal more layers, and flipping the disc over-

B: Oh! You got that! Wow. Well done, touché. (laughter) I applaud you.

S: Oh great. Will this artwork be a trend? And how often do you think you'll put out an album?

B: If I had a magic wand, we'd put out an album every year and a half, I mean every year. The realities of life, having day jobs and touring. I mean, we work really hard when we work, but we can also be kinda lazy. So, all those things combined conspire to a release schedule of no more frequently than a year a half between albums, unfortunately. I mean, boy, it's so hard to know what to do next. Once Craig's done this, it's scary to think of trying to compete with it.

S: It must be so strange to get this critical acclaim for the music itself, and then also the package itself. Especially in the digital age. People don't want to rip this CD, they want it in their hands.

B: Well, we just want our music to spread. We want people to have an experience that they don't regret having. Something that's meaningful in a good way. And so, we try to take a wide-eyed look at that experience, and realize that the packaging is an important component in that experience. And so if we are going to make a physical CD, and try to sell it in stores, that's an opportunity to do a piece of work and so we took that seriously and got really lucky with someone like Craig Thompson.

S: Back to live shows. You use looping in songs a lot, and that's been talked about enough in other interviews. But all the instruments and the thick sound of the album. It's like a mellow Mars Volta or a Pink Floyd with more lyrics and less guitar.

B: (laughter) Oh! I like that!

S: How do replicate that style on stage? Or do you try to?

B: Yeah, we try. You should check out some YouTube clips, although the sound is pretty crappy on that. I don't know, we play what we can and we try to stay true to the song the ebst we can. But, you know, it's always a challenge to translate the song from the record to the song live. We're a very peculiar band, in that, until the record's done we don't actually play the song together. Everything is sort of done in isolation. We're not actually playing with each other at any point during the recording. And so it's kind of a strange process to finish an album and then be like, oh crap! We have to learn the songs! Then we have to rehearse them, and learn them from scratch in a way, and get used to playing them with each other. We have to make all these decision about what to play when and if we have to trim away instruments, what instruments, what parts, what layers to trim away. So yeah, it can be a challenge.

S: Do you think about playing them live when you write?

B: No. I don't. I mean, sometimes I'll daydream. Say for example "Muscle and Flo," the first song on the record. There's those guitars that go - [Brent mimics the song. Really well.] Just kind of like, chunky guitar sound that's like on your left ear. And there's another one comes in on your right. And I would daydream and be like, oh that's going ot be so fun to play. That's about as much as I ever envision playing live. But we definitely don't, that I know of, constrict ourselves to only recording what we'll be able to replicate. And usually we just try to make the recording please our sensibilities and then later clean up the mess and be like, oh crap, we have to figure out how to do this.

S: You've used a live chorus before. Any other experimental ideas up your sleeve that you'd want to talk about?

B: Oh! Up my sleeve? (laughter)

S: Yeah, you know, or a pant-leg or something.

B: Boy, yeah, we performed a CD release show in Portland and we had that 25-person choir singing with us. And that was absolutely amazing. It was just the most fun we could ever have. Unfortunately, we have neither the resources nor the adequately-sized bus to train them with us anywhere. Most of them are in really awesome Portland bands themselves, and are obviously doing their own things.

But anyways, boy, what was I saying? Yeah, anything up our sleeves. No. Let's see. We should probably start brainstorming, because that's probably something we could improve on, is the live show, in terms of - how can we make it as compelling as possible. We're doing our best, but still have a ways to go. It took us a long time to just get confident playing the songs and now that we're getting there, it's probably time to start coordinating, you know, pink leotards or something like that.

S: Perfect. So, you've got a tour coming up.

B: Yeah it's going to last slightly over a month. It's going to be a big figure-eight across the country.

S: Wow. Have you done that sort of thing before?

B: Yeah, we have. But not with so few days off. So this will be an intense experience. There are a couple drive-days, where we drive for eight or 10 hours. I don't know if that counts as a day off or not. But yeah, we're pretty much playing a show a night, for about a month. I'm really looking forward to it. We'll be playing South by Southwest [a 5-day music/art/film festival in Austin, TX] and up to Chicago and up to Toronto and Montreal and Ottowa and then down the eastern seaboard across Birmingham, Little Rock and over to Denver, so I'm really looking forward to it. Hopefully the band holds up.

S: Yeah. Serisouly. And about the label change, tell me some big decisions you guys had to make as a band. Clearly it was a good decision to go to a larger scale, right?

B: Well, I don't subscribe to the idea that bigger is always better. However, Barsuk has been a uniquely wonderful - well, I don't know about unique, because it was really good working with FILMguerrero, the small Portland label, as well. So, I guess working with Barsuk has been an entirely positive experience for us. And I think that's more due to who they are as human beings, and not as much about their distribution deal or something like that. Although that's an important component, what's made it such a wonderful experience is how wonderful they are as people and how supportive they are with what we're doing and how easily they are to collaborate with and bounce ideas off. They don't blow smoke, as far as I can tell, and I just pretty much love them all. We're really luck to have been able to connect with Barsuk, because I think they're a really special label. I get really turned off by really cliquey scenester stuff and I never get that vibe from them. Although, they do have great taste in - well, I mean, I was going to say they have great taste in music but that might sound weird. I can't say enough positive things about them, so I'll just shut up.

S: Main influences. Would you compare yourself to anyone?

B: Well, for my influences, definitely Weird Al Yankovic is the most significant influence. Growing up, I didn't have the permission or the money to buy any quantity of secular records. And since he was kind of a parody and his records weren't all about sex and drugs something like that, they're usually about food and surgery. It was OK to buy those records. And by having Weird Al Yankovic records, you get to know all the great pop songs of the previous years, re-done in his way. And so I think I probably learned more about pop music by listening to him than anybody else. I think he's great.

S: I work at a video store in town. Do you have any favorite movies?

B: Ha ha, definitely "UHF" [starring Weird Al Yankovic] Oh boy, there's so many films I like. I mean, I do have an answer for this, I'm just blanking right now. I could list about 20 movies I love, but probably one or two that I really think are really special. I mean obviously, there's Spinal Tap. That's an incredible movie. I'm a big fan of documentaries, and also so many things. Let's come back to that. (And we did…) Oh I know what one of my favorite movies is - Alien. I'm looking through my collection of movies.

S: People are always looking for some great new music or some great oldies. What are you listening to now?

B: Let's see. I like The National. I like them a lot. I was listening to their record yesterday when I went on a walk and, boy, that just put me in such a great mood. I listened to their album "Alligator." That's another group of people that are just fantastic people. We went on a short tour with them a year and a half ago, or whatever. In terms of other stuff I've been listening to, when we were making "Under and Hour," I listened to a lot to Cat Stevens. I went through a big Cat Stevens stage. I'm trying to think of what I was listening to for "Friend and Foe." I really wasn't listening to very much, if anything. Let me try to look through my music folder real quick, to give you a real answer. You know, I think the Arcade Fire record is just incredible. I think they deserve all the hype that they've gotten. I think it's been a while since a record has really captivated me. There's a little bit of Animal Collective and the New Pornographers. But yeah, I haven't really freaked out over a record in quite some time. I'm paying more attention to old stuff that's sort of in the musical canon that I should have listened to and I never did. How about you?

S: Well, I started to do the same thing with Bob Dylan.

B: Oh yeah, actually. My friend gave me some Bob Dylan about eight months ago. I never liked Bob Dylan and I started getting into that for the first time ever. What do you think of Bright Eyes?

S: I've heard a small amount of stuff, and I like it. I think he's got that singer-songwriter thing down to a real cool, weird way. Raw stuff, you know?

B: Yeah I hadn't really heard his records, and I knew nothing about him, until I saw Austin City Limits. Ad he got up there, just him and a guitar. And man, I just thought that was really brave. It's basically just what people are doing in coffee shops across the country, just their voice and a guitar and that's it. And he was up there just voice and guitar, and I thought, man, that's pretty intense. To just be up there alone, just nothing but your voice and a guitar. But yeah, it reminded me a little bit of Bob Dylan in some ways. But I only saw a couple minutes of it. I'm not an expert.

S: Well, what do you think about pop music these days?

B: Well, the stuff today that actually crosses over to wider appeal so often, you know, stuff like Nickelback and Jessica Simpson or stuff like that - I guess I have a lot of respect for the music that is true to itself and not as much respect for the music that's true to what marketing executives are trying to get it to be true to, or whatever. So, I have a real hard time with certain "pop music," but I also, in my heart, have a real soft spot for what I believe true pop music to be. And I don't see any reason why something cant be both popular and very meaningful and very fantastic and wonderful in people's lives. I guess, the recent songs that, to me, are etching that - hopefully we're headed back to a place where pop music is both things is: "Hey Ya," by Outkast, was a really great pop song. I think that "Eight Mile," by Eminem, was a really great pop song. And I think "Crazy," by Gnarles Barkley - I think that's a great pop song too. I don't know, though. I don't know where we're headed. I think everything's getting distilled and getting more homogenous with the whole conglomerate, the whole consolidation of media companies. And at the same time it's getting more disparate and it's getting more specialized with the proliferation of internet radio and blog sites, so it's a really complicated time we're living in. And to try to describe music in any sort of general term, I think you're just doomed to inadequately describing what's really going on.

S: With more distribution through Barsuk and going to a bigger scale with your influential reach, more notoriety, do you guys ever think about what that means?

B: One thing I think Menomena lacks, and Danny and Justin may kill me for saying this, and I adore their voices, there's a little bit of the record label CEO in me that recognizes that there isn't a Bono or a Sarah McLachlan or a Bonnie Raitt or a really distinctive voice, that can carry it, that can be THAT voice. And I think they have fantastic voices, but I sometimes think we will never become that popular because we don't have a great formulaic sound like that.

S: What do you think about the popularity of a band like Modest Mouse, though. The singer for that band has a very serious lisp.

B: Actually, Modest Mouse is very popular, aren't they? That's a good question. I mean actually, I really appreciate you revealing this question to me, and wondering about it so openly. Some people just shed themselves behind a smoke screen of, oh I know everything, I know all the answers, but that's a big, that's a great question you're asking. And I wonder, how would you make the distinction between an artist that is doing good work, and an artist who has lost sight of what they should be doing. Like, what is an artist to do, what is the artist's responsibility? What is an artist to do? Because on one hand, you want to give people the chance to listen to you, so that means doing interviews. That means touring, or whatever. But on the other hand, you can definitely get over-exposed. And so, how do you draw the distinction? What's the rule of thumb that you think artists should live by?