"Making Something Genuine": An Interview with Shipping News' Jeff Mueller

by Scott Thill

It's hard to describe the Shipping News, although Jeff Mueller has a favored designation you can use at the end of this interview. But everything from their sound to their name is fluid, open and dynamic, something that is rare in times like ours. What's even stranger is the long, strange road they took to get to their latest release, Three-Four, a culmination of two years work over the course of three hard-to-find EPs, with a few new songs thrown in for additional measure. For the EPs that comprise Three-Four, each member -- Jeff Mueller, Kyle Crabtree, and Jason Noble, who have also starred in bands such as Rachel's, June of 44, and Metroschifter -- was called upon to record one solo song per release, playing all the instruments without outside help and working within a very short time frame. Although there was a little cheating along the way, the idea was to dissolve the obstacles that so often complicate a song as it travels from conception to the production stage, and the result is a dazzling, eclectic collection of emotional beauty ("Sickening Bridge vs. Horrible Bed"), disturbing electronica ("Paper Lanterns") and poignant craftsmanship ("Everglade"). In other words, it worked like a charm, even though the dark cloud of 9/11 and political instability hung over its conception, serving as a reminder that introspective music like that of Shipping News is sometimes the only salve that can heal the wounds of Everyday Life.

Scott Thill: Every song on this album sounds different. It never gets redundant.
Jeff Mueller: Thanks! The way it was approached is that each song was kinda handled on an individual level. In fact, all except two or three of the songs were completed in a solo style. Quickly, in fact. I live in Chicago, and Jason and Kyle live in Louisville, but we still wanted to make a body of music. The album collects a series of EPs that we recorded, and each of the EPs was put together in a fast recording and songwriting climate. We were trying to keep it spontaneous, and I think that made the record pretty eclectic. Some of the songs are about as stratified as you could imagine. But it's interesting, because when we sequenced it, we grappled with the way we wanted to put it all together, what direction we should take it in. After we arrived at the final sequence, we realized that it somehow all fit together. It was a weird thing.

ST: It's interesting because while some bands want to tear all the rules and restrictions down, you guys placed restrictions on yourselves and achieved the same creative effect. Is there a sense that limitations get rid of all the tinkering that goes on?
JM: Yeah. That was part of it. It's how we also approached our previous records. Not to say that we stifled ourselves creatively, but we would spend so much energy with arrangement and getting the right sounds that our production would sometimes get stagnant, you know? So the pretense with the EPs was to limit our time writing the songs as well as being in the studio to push ourselves creatively, rather than capitalize on our time in the studio and all the tricks we might be able to use while recording.

ST: Is this approach something you're considering using from here on out? Or are you going into the next album in a more conventional way?
JM: I think we're going to use both ideologies, actually. We're trying to be a little less restrained, but at the same time a little less cautious than we were on the EPs. Because when we were working on the EPs, we were by ourselves. We could do whatever the hell we wanted to do. Which is great, but when we're working collectively, it makes it harder to be that controlling. Whenever you collaborate, those basic levels of communication chew up time, but it's necessary. We started playing with a fourth person -- for the past six years, we've been a three-piece -- so it's also been interesting learning how to play with another element.

ST: Was it hard not to collaborate on this? Did you ever get the urge to cheat and call someone up for help?
JM: Yeah! [Laughs]. I'm not gonna lie; it was totally strange. We did at one point or another, but cheating makes it sound like a test. And even the rules were expandable; we just wanted to approach things from a different standpoint. We played on each other's songs once in a while, but it was a mish-mash. Things happened with a kind of immediacy.

Three is not a crowd. "I think we all had our moments, but the foundations for each of the songs remained similar somehow. And at the end of the day, they all matched up on the record."

ST: What did you learn about yourselves and your approaches to composition?
JM: The cool thing is that we each had a similar experience with it. Despite the fact that we were all working separately, we each kind of had the same compositional approach to the songs, the same ideas. Just on a raw, physical level, we each started with a bed of sound, or a restricted time, or a loop, and then we would build on top of that. Personally, the immediacy of everything that was happening in the world during the year and a half that the EPs were being recorded and released made me dig deep into my weird pathos or emotional side. I think Kyle probably discovered that he could write a song by himself, which I don't think he ever had experienced. That was a pretty enormous epiphany for him, I think, finding out that he could play guitar, drums and sing on a record. I think it gave him a certain amount of confidence. And for Jason, it enabled him to employ all of the music that he's involved with; he makes electronic music, he makes rock music and he makes classical music with the band, Rachel's. So I think we all had our moments, but the foundations for each of the songs remained similar somehow. And at the end of the day, they all matched up on the record.

ST: Talking about the political situation, people sometimes think that when you're working in isolation, you block out the outside world. But was there a sense that now the world has even more of an effect on the process of creating?
JM: Well, there were certain things that were just hard to avoid. On the first EP, which was released sometime in October 2000, the music was pretty mellow, pre-September 11th stuff. The biggest crisis up to that point in the modern world was dealing with Bush and the false election. So we were just floating around doing things like we normally would have. Then September 11th happened, and during the following weekend, we had all of these people come over and help us put the EP together. I'm not sure if you've seen the original three EPs, but my girlfriend created this elaborate packaging for them. It just this crazy insert that unfolds into an 11x20 poster, and it's got a hand-sewn pocket that the CD fits into. But we invited all these people to the house to help us work on collating the finished EPs, and that weekend itself delineated my ideas for the next EP. Because everyone was completely glued to their television sets, waiting for the next thing to fall out of the sky. But it was a solid thing to happen in the middle of all that stuff, to have everyone over to eat a bunch of food and stick together for a couple of days. And what's interesting is that I had written a song, "Diamond-Lined Star," for the second EP, and I was kind of afraid to leave some of the words in because they had this weird impact on what was to come. So it was interesting. But I think Kyle and Jason would agree that the current political environment is so upside down that it's affecting the way we're thinking about making music. More than ever, people need to be out there making something genuine.

ST: It seems that when the sociopolitical situation is volatile, like it is now, it sometimes spurs people to creative lengths that they might not have gone to before. But that seems to be the sad byproduct of a society that is getting more Orwellian. Now you're second-guessing your lyrics, etc. It's a really weird time.
JM: You're right, it is a really weird time. You have to be more cautious, you know; you don't want to imply something that might be misinterpreted. I mean, we're not writing political manifestos; we're not trying to be U2. We're not that politically savvy, but we try to keep up as best we can.

ST: Well, the fact that you guys are even interested is awesome. Not to overdramatize the situation but I do think that nowadays some people are afraid to talk about these things with each other.
JM: Yeah, I think so too. Some people are intimidated by it because their breadth of knowledge is limited. Unless you look into it every day, you don't want to appear uninformed. I think there's also this undercurrent, certainly among the people I hang out with, that we feel somewhat stratified from the decisions in world politics, you know? I probably feel less connected to it, although I know more about it, than I did when I was 15 or 16 and playing a more active role, like going to protests and marching. The more information you have, the easier it is to get sucked into the idea that it's impossible to have this subterranean world that me and most my friends live in. We live in this place that will exist regardless of what's happening. Unless of course I die. [Laughs]

ST: There's always that!
JM: You know what I mean? Like all the NEA cuts, all this shit with the Fifth being constantly in question, all these things. I feel like it's important to be informed, but I'll always be doing the things I do. I've never been dependent upon anything to do my music and my work.

ST: That the great thing about art. You're informed and involved, but there's also this sense of getting away from everything and just being creative. Like your acronym, RMSN. Can you explain that?
JM: Uh. I wish I could.

ST: You're not going to tell me.
JM: [Laughs] RMS is a system that they put on the back of amplifiers, and we just put the "N" on it because it looked more cryptic. But then, by talking to nice people like yourselves who wanted to know the meaning of it, we found out that there is also a Railway Mail Service and News that exists in Britain. So the acronym is tangible, but it's kinda loose. I'm sure if you looked in a book of acronyms you would find it.

PICK UP THREE-FOUR HERE

ST: Now I just gotta find a book of acronyms.
JM: And you can appropriate it for whatever you want. My friend Naomi came up with, "Real Man Smell Now". Or "Raunchy Mouth Smell Now".

ST: I read that the name, Shipping News, came from Proulx's novel, but you can never believe what you read nowadays.
JM: I think Jason was reading the book, and I think that does have some merit. We've always included maritime themes in our records, so I'd say it's probably pretty much appropriated from the book title.

ST: Are there any artists, not just musicians, that influence your work?
JM: It's pretty broad. For myself, it's Nina Simone and Willem De Kooning and Ray Charles and Johnny Cash and Beethoven; those are some pretty broad strokes. Jason and Kyle are the same. We all just listen to and draw inspiration from so many different things. We've all been listening to a lot of Nick Drake; I've been listening to Dave Brubeck, and Kyle's been listening to a lot of Pink Floyd.

ST: I know categories can be sometimes reductive, but what kind of music would you say Shipping News produces?
JM: Rock music. But spelled R-A-W-K.

19 March 03

Scott Thill usually finds the time to write on everything that does not include those fearsome words, "boy band". He's also a gainfully employed editor who writes for XLR8R, Popmatters, All Music Guide, AOL and others. His first novel, The Dangerous Perhaps, should be done by the time the War on Terrorism is over.

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