THE MAKING OF civilian BY wye oak - FEATURING jenn wasner and andy stack

Intro: 

Dan Nordheim: You’re listening to Life of the Record. Classic albums, told by the people who made them. My name is Dan Nordheim.

Wye Oak formed in Baltimore, Maryland in 2006 by Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack. The two of them had played music together when they were teenagers before starting Wye Oak as a recording project. They self-released their debut album, If Children, in 2007, prior to signing with Merge Records. Their second album, The Knot was released in 2009, followed by the My Neighbor / My Creator EP in 2010. Their third album, Civilian, was released in 2011. 

In this episode, for the 10th anniversary, Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack look back on how Civilian came together. This is the making of Civilian. 

Jenn Wasner: Hi, my name’s Jenn Wasner and I play in the band Wye Oak and I’m here to talk about the 10th anniversary of the Wye Oak record, Civilian. You know it’s interesting to think back on that record with the perspective that I now have because it’s impossible to separate my experience or for so long it has been impossible to separate my experience of that record, of the music, from the time of my life. It was a really difficult, really painful, really dark time for me. I was just running around in circles, working constantly, exhausting myself and putting myself under an immense amount of pressure and in some ways kind of getting the validation that I thought that I had wanted from outside, from external sources, through the record being so well received and things going so well from a career standpoint but I was miserable. And it’s scary I think when you get the thing that you want and you’re still miserable. 

Andy Stack: My name is Andy Stack and I’m a member of Wye Oak and I’m here to talk about the record, Civilian. When I think back to that period I think we were really smashing everything together with touring and recording and writing and we were, I guess we were in our early twenties and Civilian was our third record so we had done two records and an EP and I think right around the EP, like 2010, we started to get really, more substantial support tour opportunities and at that age, I think it was both our own internal idea and also what people were telling us like, we were like, “we need to take every single opportunity that comes to us.” And so we were taking all these tours that would be like, “here’s a support tour for like three weeks and it butts right up to another support tour,” and we would just be away a lot. And then somewhere in the middle of that, we were working on these songs for Civilian and finding some time to rehearse, we were rehearsing in the attic of my house mostly and as I remember it, we kind of snuck into the studio in between tours and then we were kind of back out. We wanted to just get the recording in wherever we could. 

Jenn Wasner: (laughs) It’s kind of hard to remember because so much of my life is kind of a weird blur. I mean I can remember I was living in Baltimore with my friends Jason and Katie in this sort of attic room, in a stone house in a neighborhood called Stone Hill and we had come back from a tour. I was experiencing that sort of post-tour, classic post-tour depression, malaise, lack of structure and I remember spending a lot of time in that room writing. I think the experience of writing has always been positive for me and I don’t think the actual writing of the songs was in any way stressful or unpleasant, because the writing process is my favorite part of the process. And that's the part where I find the most like catharsis and feel most connected to what I'm doing. It's everything that happens after that, that I think is where the struggle starts to begin.

Andy Stack: I feel like at every point in my life when I was like, 18, or when I was like, 20, or 25, or 30. At that point, I was always like, “Cool, now I'm an adult, and I have my shit together. Like, now I'm like a fully realized adult,” which is, of course, a ludicrous concept. And we were still, you know, (laughs) children ostensibly at that point. And we were on our third record, so I think, I don't know about you, Jenn, but for me, I think there was a little bit of a feeling like, “Oh we're now seasoned veterans or something like that and we know how to make a record, we know how to do it, you know, the proper way.” Of course, that's ridiculous.

Jenn Wasner: I mean, one thing I will say, though, is that it wasn't really until we started playing more shows and touring more regularly that we zeroed in on the configuration that became our, you know, the first iteration of our live set, which was, Andy playing drums and key bass, and I played guitar and sang. And at that point, we had been performing in that configuration for long enough that we sort of understood its advantages and understood its limitations and understood the roles that we played within it. One thing that I will say is that Civilian as a record was sort of like, I think the first record we made, where we had that experience under our belt of actually performing as a live band, and understood the palette that we had available to us sonically. And I still think of it as kind of like, the pinnacle of what we were capable of with that setup and with those arrangements within that configuration. However, because, you know, we're artists, and we have artists, brains that want to grow and change and evolve and expand, you know, when you feel as though you've reached the pinnacle of what you can do with a certain palette or framework of a thing. You know, it's hard to feel like you want to go back and mine the same area all over again. So it kind of presented us with a challenge as well.

Andy Stack: Civilian was the first time that we had a, you know, quote, unquote, producer who was helping with the mix. And I think we had definitely some trepidation about giving up control, I think there's been some element of that, at various points on all the records we've made, where we, we want to just like, grasp the thing, close and tight until, probably, in some cases, we like, suck all the life out of it. And so it was a valuable kind of education to give up control. When we were mixing the record, we would go we were we mixed it with John Congleton, who now lives in LA, but at the time, he was in Dallas, and he would work on a song for a few hours, and then we'd come back and then work collaboratively on finalizing mixes. And so he would like sort of banish us from his studio for several hours.

Jenn Wasner: I'm so happy that you brought up Dallas because it really just triggered all these memories of like, ominousness, I feel like there was this real like sense of ominous energy around even just the mixing of that record and finishing that record. There was just this really weird heavy energy to it. Congleton tended to sort of want to have his privacy when he was working on his first pass of a mix. And so one of those times we went at the time, it was my first visit to you know, the grassy knoll, the site of the JFK assassination in Dallas, downtown, and the sky was really strange and green and yellow. And there was this weird stillness in the air and no one was around, and it just felt very spooky. But we, you know, didn't really know, we weren't really paying too close attention. We're just kind of looking around like, “Oh, look at this, there's that building, there's this.” You know, just kind of doing the touristy thing. At one point, I remember looking up at the horizon and just seeing a huge tornado touchdown, not that far away. And it kind of all clicked at that moment. And it was just like, “Oh, the reason why the sky is this weird, ominous color and no one's out on the street and everything feels kind of heavy is because there's a fucking tornado warning and we're supposed to be inside or probably in a basement.” You know, later on, we came to find out that that tornado had touchdowned very, very close to the hotel that we were staying and so it was just this real spooky kind of missed connection sort of, I don't know, it was just a very, I remember there being a lot of strange energy flying around during that that last visit that mix, that mixing visit. Yeah, his studio at the time in Dallas was an ex funeral home and he's a macabre motherfucker, he's a pretty morbid dude. And I think he loved that about it. But yeah, there was just like a real strange, spooky, kind of heavy energy to that time, if I can remember correctly.

Andy Stack: Congleton really has this ethos of first thought best thought of like, going with your intuition when you're working on a mix or working on producing a record, but that was jarring for us. And it felt, you know, he is not about polishing the thing to perfection, he likes to keep the raw mistake elements in there if they help to make the thing feel more alive and more human. And so we had a fair amount of conversations with him in the process of mixing the record where we felt like, “Oh, this, you know, drum hit is a little off or this guitar part sticks out a little too much.” And, you know, he'd be like, “Oh, that's the good stuff.”

Jenn Wasner: I mean, I feel like you're being very diplomatic. And everything you're saying is true. But there's also the side to it, where like we had come in, you know, we're a couple of ProTools babies and that's the way we make records. And we've always made records and kind of continue to because we're only two people, you know, we're not a band full of musicians in a room, capturing what's happening in real time. We’re a couple of producer weirdos who like to hole up on our little DAWs and move things around and like, create these spaces, which is, you know, sort of like a new, a relatively new way of creating music, that's more and more common, obviously. But Congleton was very much anti-recall, you know, he didn't want to work in the box, he wanted to mix to the board. And so basically what that meant for us, we didn't know this going into it, but what that meant for us was that we would have to basically commit to a mix, you know, on site, essentially. And then if there was something about it that we didn't like, the next day, like for example, you know, you commit to a mix, and then you listen back and you're like, “Oh, this is perfect, except, you know, the tambourine’s like two or three DBs too loud, tough shit, that's a full remix from scratch, because there's no recall.” And that was a really tough thing for the two of us to wrap our heads around. Because A, we didn't expect it and B, it's just so it was so antithetical to the way we were accustomed to making music and just sort of like, agonizing over things. I do think I understand, in many ways, the philosophy behind it. However, I'm pretty sure he does recall now, and I'll leave it at that (laughs). With that said, he does great work, and he's a brilliant, brilliant producer and mixer.  

Andy Stack: And he works faster than I think anybody I've ever seen. 

Jenn Wasner: Yeah, he's so fast. He trusts his intuition, he's got great intuition, and a huge part of the way that record sounds is owed to him. And I'm really happy with the way it sounds.

“Two Small Deaths”

Jenn Wasner: (laughs) I don't know what any of these songs are about anymore. It’s gonna be a great podcast (laughs). I do remember, if not the first time, one of the first times we played SXSW was the year Alex Chilton died. And I believe that Big Star was set to play that year at South By and I was really excited about it as a huge, longtime, Big Star fan. And yeah, I don't know, I think sometimes there are these little moments in your life that you're basically not connected to, in any sort of real or tangible sense. But it just sort of reminds you of your mortality and the very finite nature of existence. But at the same time, you don't necessarily feel that you deserve to be affected by the death of a person who, you know, in truth, like you only think you know, but you don't actually know. And so, and that's something that I still feel like a lot of people are dealing with is in regards to like feeling connected to, and really feeling like, they know, people whose art and work that they appreciate. But in reality, you know, their humanity is so much greater and so much more multi dimensional. And so I think that that was probably something that was on my mind at the time, if I had to guess if I had to, if I had to drop myself back into the brain of 25 year old Waz, you know, how trauma works where, you don't remember things? I have that.

Andy Stack: Yeah, the trauma of having to be at SXSW?

Jenn Wasner: Yes, precisely (laughs). 

“The Alter”

Jenn Wasner: This song, “The Alter,” now, I don't actually have much memory of the way the song came to be. But I do know that I think a lot of people make the mistake, that it is “altar,” like an altar in a church, but in reality, it's “alter,” like an alternate. You know, I've done a lot of thinking and I still I think a lot of the work that I do, and a lot of the writing that I do has to do with sort of exploring the multitude of selves, that comprise our one capital S self that we kind of lead with and think of, you know, as being our core identity or essence, that like all of these multitudes, these parts that comprise our being. I think that this song was maybe one of the first times I can remember digging into that concept, and trying, I guess, to make peace with the fact that I wasn't ever going to be one dimensional. And that in a lot of ways, the choices that I was making in my life were such that as time continued to pass, I would inevitably become further and further removed from the lives of the majority of people that I knew and cared about. And that continues to be true. I think Civilian, it's funny that I was having these thoughts when I was a 25 year-old, because having these thoughts as a 35 year-old as fewer and fewer of my friends. You know, I mean, I'm a single person with no children living alone. And I like that. I'm, I'm very pleased with my life as it stands. But there are certainly moments, you know, like, for example, during the global pandemic (laughs), where it feels a little bit strange and odd and sad and lonely to not have that sort of domestic sense of home and family that a lot of people my age at this point, the majority of people my age have. And so I think that was, it's interesting to sort of like think about the fact that I was beginning to contend with that reality when I was 25 and I'm still contending with it now.

There's a line in it specifically about that. I can't quite remember what it is at the top of my head, but I know panic is mentioned. And yes, this was the time in my life where I was most consumed with anxiety. Because I was at my most unhealthy and I was at my most overworked and God, when I think back on how terribly unkind to myself I was, it makes me so sad. It's taken me, it's a journey, you know, it's something of an unfolding path that I think I'll always be, hopefully growing and learning a little bit more about how to exist in the body that I have, and how to make peace with myself and my brain. And to make the choices that give me the best chance to not be a miserable wreck. But at the time, I just had no skills. I didn't have any tools in my toolkit.

That's sort of like our dub song, you know, and there's, there's a lot of like, studio dubbing of tracks and vocal to sort of create that kind of washy atmosphere that you hear. So yeah, I think that that, like those effects had a lot to do, and also kind of went above and beyond the typical role of a “ mix engineer.” And I think that was another thing we were learning, too. I mean, I think going back to that time of my life, I think I still had a lot to learn about, what stage of the process a record needs to be at to be ready to be mixed. I think a lot of mixers probably would have been like,”This is something that you should have done before.” Like, “I'm just here to mix. I'm just here to even all the levels out.” Unfortunately, that's not really the way John works, either, you know, he likes to have a creative hand in things. And so, you know, there's a lot of fun stuff like that unfolding. Yeah, I mean, he's really got an ability to sort of saturate a sound to the point of like, beautiful ugliness. It's sort of a signature of his that I really admire. And it sounds, you know, his mixes sound like him, which I think is like a really cool quality, when someone has like a real stamp, and a style and a voice in something like that.

“Holy Holy”

Jenn Wasner: I'm definitely a person who believes in the power and magic of the universe. And I respect all sorts of religious traditions, as you know, as a framework for people to sort of explore their own spirituality. But I think the more poisonous aspects of religion, of organized religion, are sort of the cause of much of human suffering, and pain and violence. And not even if you want to, you know, just talk about on a personal scale, rather than a global scale, shame, shame, it's just a source of so much shame. And that feeling of “I am bad, I am wrong.” And a lot of what I'm talking about, what I'm exploring in those songs on this record has to do with deconstructing my own relationship to shame and where it came from. And, you know, there was definitely some religion in my upbringing. I wasn't in the most strictly religious family, but it was there. And also, it's just sort of, it’s ambient, it's in the air, like we pick it up, you know, it's around. So I think that there's a lot of, like, in a song, like, “Holy Holy” or in this record, and in a lot of my songs that are sort of exploring where that shame came from, and how it operates unconsciously to rule my life in ways that I sometimes don't realize and can't control. Andy, correct me if I'm wrong, but I  feel like that the inspiration for the song was actually “Cold Blooded Old Times”, the Smog song. Does that ring a bell? Or am I just making that up?

Andy Stack: I mean, when I hear our demo of it, that's immediately what I think, that we're just copying Bill Callahan. Which is not, if we were getting into pop music at this time, then that was clearly not one of the pop influences. I don't know if the demo of that song, I don't know, if we were specifically like, “This is the thing,” or if it was just like, “We're in like an attic, and we have a limited palette.” You know, when I hear demos from that era, it doesn't feel to me like we were consciously trying to make it sound like a thing, it was more meant to be like a document for posterity so that we could work through song forms and figure out what we're doing. And in the process of that, because we were in this, like very cramped little attic room, with a dinky little practice amp, and a dinky little drum set, everything sounds smaller and more bedroom-like as a result, which actually is very charming to me, when I go back and listen to it. Now it feels like, it just feels like a totally different way of experiencing those songs.

Jenn Wasner: Yeah, I mean, I like those weird little demos. I mean, they're sloppy as hell, I never would have imagined in a million years that I would have ever let anyone hear them. But they have a certain, they have a certain energy to them that's sweet, that I like.

I mean, it's funny, because I'm still writing songs about surrender and control, like the most recent song that we just released, called its way with me that came out just a couple weeks ago, is all about surrendering to the forces of the universe, and making peace with the fact that like control is an illusion. And that line from Holy, holy, you know, it is madness seeking mastery is basically the same concept, like, there are forces in life that are bigger than us. And to think that we can somehow avoid being controlled by them, these very, like real and human parts of like, the experience of being alive is foolish, you know, to say that, you know, I mean, that's partially why I think I struggled so much with the idea of marriage, for one example is like, I just don't believe that human beings are capable of making that kind of promise. And in genuine is not to say that I like I look down on people who make that choice, or I think, you know, I don't think it's very beautiful and brave to know that and make that choice anyway, because I do. It's a wonderful act of like bravery in the face of uncertainty and lack of control. However, you know, I think that, you know, what is the same, the fool is the one who says he knows and the wise person is the person who says he doesn't know, something like that. It's like it's out of our fucking hands. And, and to pretend otherwise is, is just a bit silly.

“Dogs Eyes”

Jenn Wasner: This was sort of one of my angrier songs that had to do with people growing to attach to stories and guiding their lives by stories, rather than letting their hearts and their intuition and their empathy, and their care for real people in real time, dictate their choices. You know, I think that there is also that, whatever that impulse is that I think some people have a really hard time being like, “I'm not an animal, you know, I'm something else. We're not monkeys.” You know, that thing of just like, “Oh, you're just afraid. You're just afraid to die, like you're afraid that you will waste away into “internity” (sic) “Internity” (laughs). I like that though. You will waste away into eternity, like every other living creature on this planet. I think now I have more compassion for it, I think at the time I was angrier, I was just an angrier person in general. I think now it's just like, easy for me to be like, “Yeah, of course. People need religion. They're scared shitless and life is terrifying. It's just a series of losses, one after another after another.” So like, if that helps make you feel better, I love that for you. But yeah, I mean, I think that there's also some frustration and some anger. 

Andy Stack: With “Dogs Eyes,” with the coda, I guess you would call it on “Dogs Eyes,” we definitely wanted it to sound probably more than any other moment of the record, we wanted it to sound really fucked up and busted. And we made a lot of choices in the mixing with John Congleton to try to push it in that direction to make it feel like the song was just breaking apart. And I remember, in that pause between the second verse and the last chorus, we just didn't quite have it yet and we were like, “I don't know, John, like, we need some kind of, it needs to feel very menacing like this storm cloud is coming in.” And we were kind of at a loss with it and then, a total John Congleton thing, he's like, “bleep bloop, bloop,” like five seconds. And then there was this, like, I don't even know what he did, some kind of bit crushed reverse bass part where it's like, this, ramping up, doomscape thing that happens in that break. And it just appeared out of nowhere and we had no idea, we were literally right there in the space with them. We had no idea what he had just done. And it was this revelation, like, “Okay, cool, we're dealing with a real monster here.” So he did that. But yeah, we wanted it to sound really fucked up.

Jenn Wasner: With this record, and with this, you know, with the song “Civilian,” it was about contending with not living the life of this, you know, so called, “good woman,” or not relating to these normative ideas of what relationships should look like, or what a life should look like. I think now I'm celebrating that, I think at the time, it felt very dark. And it felt very confusing and it felt like my path was very murky and dark, and that I didn't really understand or have any idea of what it held, because of that.

It was this concept for me of trying to perform goodness, whatever that I had internalized that meaning, and then also just not being able to pull it off entirely, because it wasn't authentic for me. And I think at the time, I had internalized the idea of goodness, as staying in one relationship until you die (laughs). And that's just not something I have been able to do in my life. And only now, at 35, am I starting to begin to unpack the layers and layers of shame that I've internalized from that reality for me, that that was never going to be the thing. I mean, I don't necessarily feel like I understand all of the reasons why that is, but it's part of who I am. You know, I think I sort of am in many ways, fundamentally, alone. I think my autonomy is really important to me. And then I think I also value and treasure intimacy, but it's like, “You come meet me where I am for as long as the connection exists, and then if it doesn't exist, I move forward, and we separate.” And so that's sort of the way that I've lived my life, but I think that there's so much shame for me around that being making me bad, like I'm a bad person for like, not being able to stick it out and make it work. Like all my forebears did and they were so happy. God, they were so happy, weren’t they, they loved every minute of it (laughs). So yeah, I think that that was a lot of what was beginning to become clear to me. And I was just the tip of the iceberg as I later found out in the resulting decade of my life.

When you make a choice about how to live your life, inevitably, there are possibilities that you leave behind. And I think I made the right choice for the person that I am. And also, I honor the fact that I as a woman, who, you know, was born in a time in history, where I actually was able to make that choice. You know, I think my mother's generation, and certainly my grandparents’ generation and beyond, you know, the option of doing what I'm doing with my life now. And like, not having a family and not having to sort of run a household and be essentially an unpaid domestic servant was not an option for them. And it is an option for me. And that doesn't mean that there are times in my life where I'm like, “Wow, I really feel my I feel my otherness” or like, I feel alienated or I feel scared of being alone or what have you. But the choice was there to make and so it's sort of like, and I knew, I think I always knew intuitively that it was the choice that I needed to make for me, and that the path for me was sort of like an artist's path. And that was what was gonna make me actually feel happy and fulfilled.

Dan Nordheim (Interviewer): It definitely seemed like there was a particular relationship that was maybe ending or had ended when you were writing for this, but it sounds like a pretty heavy relationship. Maybe kind of unhealthy. I don’t know if you want to talk about that.

Jenn Wasner: It wasn't unhealthy. It was our relationship. It was mine and Andy's relationship. Which I think is maybe not something we've ever really talked about. Nor do I really feel like, particularly thrilled to talk about it now. But it's the truth. You know, it's like, it was really heavy. I mean, we were in the band together, we were in a relationship, and it was ending, and we didn't want to lose everything at the same time. And so we chose to do the hard thing, which was, let the relationship evolve into something else, while trying to maintain our connection as friends and people who care about each other very deeply, and people who want to make music together. So that was what we were going through, and we really never stopped. We never stopped being in a band. We never stopped touring, you know?

Andy Stack: Yeah, we went out on a tour, like six weeks after we broke off our romantic relationship. And yeah, we never really took a break from the collaborative relationship. But I think something that we felt was that we were processing a lot of the end of that at the time, you know, prior to even splitting up so by the time we ended up ending our relationship, we had already, you know, made peace with ourselves. And then it was just making peace with the rest of the world and making everyone else understand that we were okay and that we were going to continue to be a band.

Jenn Wasner: And also be like, in each other's lives. You know, Andy is like, it's funny, because I say this, I know you won't be offended by this. But like thinking about dating you, thinking about it feels like thinking about dating my brother. Like because like you are, I've known you since I was 15 years old, you know, you're like family to me. And I think that in many ways, the time that we were together romantically was much less than the time that we have been dear close friends and collaborators. And so it's just one of those funny things where it very much happened, but it's also like, it's tough now, it's sort of just like, “Yeah, but Andy, he's like my brother, he's like my oldest friend.” And I'm proud of that. Like, I'm really proud of the fact that we were able to navigate. In many ways, I think it's easier to just sort of like, put your hands up and be like, “Nope, can't. It's too weird, too much.” You know, but I'm really proud that we were able to sort of navigate that transition, I think as gracefully as we did. It wasn't always easy, but we're still here, you know, we're still, in some ways, although the collaboration has evolved, the relationship has evolved. But we're still doing this in some form, in some capacity, which is something that is a point of pride.

Dan Nordheim (Interviewer): Man I gotta take a second. It just changed my concept of the album, I guess. That it was the two of you, that's really fascinating. 

Jenn Wasner: (laughs) I feel like everybody knows that. But I guess that's not really something we really ever talked about, was it?

Andy Stack: No, we were very, we very consciously omitted that information at the time because it felt too fresh and too personal. So we definitely kept that out of it. And that was also you know, aside from being that a lot of the record was about our relationship, I think it was also at a time, Jenn, where you were really opposed to having your words printed or analyzed really directly. And you wanted the song to be the song and not to be written words, not to be a poem, not to be a conversation about it necessarily, but let it just stand for what it is. And so, there was a little bit of like, cloaked meaning that I think you especially like were very intentional about when we were rolling out the record.

Jenn Wasner: Well, I still feel that way, to a large degree, philosophically speaking. That's absolutely how I feel about songs and songwriting, where like, I don't believe that they are necessarily meant to have the words and the music, be separate from one another, because it's not about, yeah, it's not about reading words and determining a literal meaning. It's about creating a sonic and emotional landscape and having an experience. And the ambiguity, that results in not really understanding exactly what I'm saying at every given moment, is the very thing that allows the listener to develop a relationship with the song and insert themselves into it and hear what they think they hear and make what meaning that they need to make out of it. I feel like I've always gone out of my way to leave that space in the songs that I write because I believe that that is sort of part of what makes songs universal, and what makes them for others, and not just specifically a document of my experience, which is why I sometimes forget the origin because it's really about creating this space for others to sort of experience their own selves and their own thoughts and their own minds and feel their feelings. And yeah, so I think that that was something that I really was a stickler about, not printing my lyrics, not having them printed anywhere, and leaving that sense of ambiguity. I've kind of loosened up about it, because I've loosened up about a lot of things, because I'm older now, and I just don't really give a shit (laughs). And also, because people want to know, and I'd rather them know what the real thing is than to sort of like, I don't know, it's fine. If people want to know, they should know, I don't need to be a pretentious dweeb about it. But that is true, that is how I feel.

Jenn Wasner: I'm pretty sure that's just Andy playing. I don't think I played the guitar solo on that record at all. I mean, I certainly played a shit ton of guitar solos, after the fact for years and years and years until I never wanted to hear the words guitar solo ever again. But I'm pretty sure that, correct me if I'm wrong, Andy, that's you, right?

Andy Stack: Yes. (laughs) Yeah, I mean, I do think that that guitar solo is me on “Civilian,” but I think that in the studio, there was some back and forth of like, trying to figure out what the energy of the thing should be. And it started out with, you know, Jenn playing some stuff and then I took the guitar and then went back to her and then you know, as we sort of pared it down, as often happens in the studio, you know, it ended up being that that was all me, but that happens pretty often. You know, not just on that record, but whenever we're recording where it's like one of us has an idea, and the other one…

Jenn Wasner: Is micromanaging the shit out of it (laughs).

Andy Stack: Exactly. Yeah. And has whatever kind of skill set, whether it's on, you know, keys or on drums, or whatever to execute what the other person is hearing, just like a little more cleanly, or with a little more of whatever we're looking for.

“Fish”

Jenn Wasner: The song “Fish” is about. It's about grieving for my family. Which, you know, I've always said that that's not really my story to tell. But there's a certain amount of trauma in my upbringing involving addiction and mental illness. And I love my family very dearly. And fortunately, the parties in question are all still with us, at this moment, at least. But it's been to say, the least, a bumpy ride. There are many, many songs in my catalogue that deal with processing the grief that comes from watching, the people that I love the most in the world suffer greatly, and not be able to do anything about it at all. And that's one of them.

“Plains”

Jenn Wasner: When you tour in America, which we are just starting to do more and more at that time in our lives, we spend a lot of time driving through the American Southwest. And you know, we're both from the east coast, a place with hills and mountains and trees. And at that point in my life, I hadn't spent too much time in these absolutely vast, wide open desert spaces where you can really just truly see the world play out in front of you for miles and miles. And in many cases, one of the most interesting things that happen in those landscapes is being able to see these weather patterns moving in long before they reach you. So you can kind of catch these clouds and these storm patterns at, you know, tremendous distances. One of the reasons why I love to drive so much, fortunately for me (laughs), is you really sort of get to immerse yourself in the landscape, and reflect on it and sort of be in motion, but also be still, which is such a specific feeling. And so the song “Plains” is really about using that phenomena of being able to observe this weather pattern, imminently, before it reaches you, as a sort of metaphor for that sense of foreboding, and dread that I think a lot of this record is permeated with. This feeling of there being something wrong, or something bad that's going to happen, or some sort of tragedy or catastrophe that is afoot. And you can sort of sense it before you can see it. And so that is the sort of the central metaphor, that desert landscape and the approaching storm.

Well, you know, so like, the metaphor being that there's a sense of foreboding dread. And then there's like, the thing that happens, and so those big bursts, those big, unexpected moments like those, those big hits that happen in the song were sort of meant to feel abrupt and unexpected because they don't necessarily happen when you're thinking that they will. And that, you know, it's like a sonic representation of the metaphor. It's like you can sense that something's coming but you don't know exactly when it's going to come. The groove sort of lulls you into this sense of unsettled but patterned security, and then there's like a moment where like a bang, that kind of shakes you out of it. And so that's sort of what the song was built to represent.

Andy Stack: The drums on “Plains,” I think, was maybe one of the first times we ever messed around with some more deliberate processing, like delay processing on drums. I think the drums and the bass both have these kind of dubby delays that come in, in between the verses when there's a sound of like crickets or reeds, or something, some kind of field recording that I made that that sweeps up in the middle of those moments, and really kind of puts you in the space. It's like, you're sort of being projected into the desert in those breaks. And there's also the bass and the drums both have these dub delay swells that build up. Yes, so I guess that's like a smaller version of the really extreme hits that we're talking about at the ends of the verses. It's like, I know that we wanted that song “Plains” to feel really expansive, and wide open because of the lyrical content.

“Hot as Day”

Jenn Wasner: I love the song “Hot as Day,” I think maybe lyrically, it's one of my strongest. I remember very specifically being in this very hot attic bedroom of the house that I was living in, in Baltimore, in the summer. You know, I had this shitty little window unit that barely cooled the space. And the song was about absence, the song was about longing and missing someone. Just because they're not present doesn't mean that the longing disappears. And, you know, obviously, the central metaphor there being like, you're in this space, and it's sweltering, and it's hot, but the sun goes down, and there's just no relief. Even in those muggy, Baltimore summer nights, where you just can't escape the oppressive heat and humidity, and you're dying for a break from it. But it's just hanging in the air all the time. And I remember very specifically being in that space. And then using that as sort of a metaphor of, you know, when someone isn't present in your life, but they take up so much space in your brain. And just because you can't see them doesn't mean that their presence isn't felt, and about sort of longing, and missing in that way.

I have a lot of songs and non standard time signatures, but I think this might be one of my only songs where the verses are in five and then the coda is in six. Which means nothing to anyone really but me. I don't know why I care. But it feels nice to be able to make something that's catchy and askew. And I'm pleased with myself when I managed to do it (laughs).

“We Were Wealth”

Jenn Wasner: “We Were Wealth” in my mind is sort of about self control. It's about learning what it means to grow up. And you know that line like, “I'm living like a child” or “I'm grown, I'm living like a child.” And you know that obviously there's a lot of shame in that, just sort of like when my life doesn't look a particular way. I assume that that means that I am somehow, like I lack emotional development or I'm living on borrowed time in this weird way. And I think there's also some references to dealing with not being born into, like generational wealth essentially, and sort of having to care for myself and make my own way in the world, from a pretty young age, to have to support myself and learn how and also to have to do that in a field where it's sort of notoriously difficult to succeed. Even if you do succeed, doesn't necessarily mean that you make money. And so the fear of just sort of being like, “Oh, I'm walking this weird tightrope. This is my calling, and I'm going to pursue it, but I don't know how I'm going to pull this off.” And then that's sort of where the title comes from. It's like “We Were Wealth,”  it's sort of like, “What do you truly value?” Like, “What are you fixing as a priority in your life?” And “Why are you making the choices that you're making?” And if you're prioritizing the acquisition of capital, you know, like literal wealth, then you're probably not in the right line of work. And if you're prioritizing a depth of experience, and connection to other human beings and connection to your creative practice, and a sense of like satisfaction in the universe, then your wealth is the wealth of experience, a feeling of love and connection. It's sort of about making peace with the fact that those things that I would prioritize in my life are not necessarily just the acquisition of material gains.

Andy Stack: You know, playing as a duo in that setup, we could put a lot of volume out but we can only go so far in terms of density. And “We Were Wealth” is all about this sort of like Phil Spector-style density at the end, like wanting to just have like, all of the things chugging all at once. Until last year, when we played as a five piece for some touring right before, you know, the pandemic, we had never really played that song in a live setting.

Jenn Wasner: I think we knew at that point that the song “Doubt” would be the actual final track. But that song is so minimal, that it's sort of like, I think of that as this sort of conclusion, like a concluding statement. And it's sort of just this gentle hand on your back. But “We Were Wealth” is the final full band moment. It's the exit of that, that sort of full palette, and then sort of “Doubt” is kind of just this gentle afterthought.

“Doubt”

Jenn Wasner: I'm still really proud of that song. I do remember writing it and I remember finishing it, I remember knowing, I tend to have these experiences with writing where I know, like, “Oh, this is an opener,” or “Oh, this is a closer.” Like, it's when you think about records as a whole, needing introductory statements and concluding statements. There's just a sense that you get like, “That's the one.” And I still really feel connected to that song, which I can't, certainly can't say for all the songs I wrote, you know, 12 years ago. That song popped into my head, this is gonna sound so fucking narcissistic (laughs). But you know, when I was going through this breakup this year, it was a really hard year, you know, I made a whole record about it, it was like a thing (laughs). But I remember when I was in this sort of in the thick of that, and I was doing a lot of journaling, and sort of just processing, and I had this moment of being like thinking of the line, “What I have learned of you does not assure you bow before my will.” And being like, “That's cool. What is that?” And then being like, “Oh that’s myself” (laughs). So embarrassing. But you know, I think it's really a point of pride that that song, the fact that it still resonates with me now and it's something that I would write today, makes me feel as though it must have tapped into some kind of truth, which is kind of the whole point. And so it's nice to have that validated from a decade into the future. And as a completely different version of myself, to be like, “Oh, I still connect with that, I know what that means. It still resonates with me.”

We can connect, we can meet each other in these shared spaces, but at the end of the day, fundamentally, we are two autonomous beings with worlds and lives of our own, you know, and like, all the love in the world, and all the knowledge in the world does not ensure that you have this control over how the situation plays out. That you can control how your feelings change, or how people's lives and needs change. You know, it serves a purpose, it has a meaning, but that doesn't mean that you get to force it into, to unfold in the way that you would have hoped it would. Again it's like surrender. It’s surrender, and the fact that control is an illusion, but like making peace with that in a way of allowing yourself to be free and allowing the other person to be free to be who they are.

Andy Stack: I have never been vain enough to make any presumptions that these or any other songs were about me, in fact, Jenn, like for you to say that earlier on in this interview, it kind of felt like news to me in a lot of ways. Because I think, I don't think of this record being about that relationship. And it's not in totality, right?

Jenn Wasner: It's not in totality. No, there's a lot more to it than that. It is, in some ways, a document of that time. But again, it's like, kind of going back to what we were saying before where it's like, records aren't literal. You know, they're not literal and autobiographical, they're a documentation of a feeling. And so there are certainly things in the record that are inspired by and specifically relate back to our relationship and the demise of it. But there's a lot of other shit in there too, that has nothing to do with you. Yeah I've just never been the kind of person to be like, “This song is about this person, or this thing.” It's like you're drawing from all these experiences in your life, and you're sort of filtering them through the prism of like, an idea, a central idea. And the idea is bigger than you and it's bigger than your life and it's bigger than one relationship. And that's what a song is, like, I wouldn't say that this song is quite literally and specifically about just you. But I would also say that it's inevitable that every relationship that I've ever been in and lost has contributed to the experience and the knowledge that was necessary to be able to create this thing. So in a way it is, you know. 

Looking back, you know, it obviously is really rewarding to have had such a great critical response to the record. But at the time, I was so caught up with my own guilt and shame and fear and self-loathing that it just didn't really connect with me. And it's sad, I'm sad for myself now that I wasn't able to really be present for that and appreciate it as much as I would have liked to, you know. Because you only really get that kind of breakthrough moment once. We've been lucky enough to have a long career and to continue to be able to have the privilege of making music and sharing it with people. And I hope to for a very long time, but you know, that first breakthrough moment only happens once and I wasn't there. I was somewhere else. And so, you know, like I mentioned before, it is helpful to sort of learn in that moment that that's not it. You know, that's not enough. That external validation is never going to be a replacement for the validation that you get from yourself, really believing in yourself and what you're doing and the work that you're doing. Now, I wish that I could have felt that way at the time and by many counts, I should have been in that headspace. But it was almost as though I needed to have that experience to find my way back to myself, as much as it is sort of in the abstract, nice to be like, “Oh, yeah, you know, people really like the record.” It didn't really connect with me very much at the time, because I just wasn't really like home to receive it.

Andy Stack: My experience was pretty different than Jenn's through that, but I don't think that means that I was fully cognizant of the impact that the record was having, you know, I feel like it took years. I mean, it's still happens, where it's like, you know, there's people I know who I'm dear friends with, who I met years later, who are like, “Oh, yeah, that record meant this to me,” or you know, whatever it is. And I don't think I fully at the time, I had any conception of the reach that it was having. We were touring some and doing our thing, but we were so young. You know, we were living in Baltimore so our community was very insular, like, a very tight little community in Baltimore, the music community there. And for me, it didn't have to do with any personal strife or pain, it had more to do with just being a kid, you know, just being like, immature and not fully aware of the world.

Jenn Wasner: And maybe like, a little bit naive, in a way of being like, “Well, this is just what it's going to be like, all the time.” (laughs)

Andy Stack: That too, yeah, I mean, you know, records that we've done, since then, we realize how extraordinary it is to have a moment like that record has, because you realize that everyone and everyone who works for everyone is constantly, you know, clawing their way to try to get that moment of what we had. And that what we both sort of, in our own ways, kind of took for granted.

Jenn Wasner: But I'm also glad we took it for granted, because I think we needed to throw it away. I think when you start chasing that, that's how people lose it, you know, you lose your way you start making things that are the things you think people want to hear from you, rather than trying to stay in touch with what you actually want to make. And people can tell, I mean, I think it shines through when someone's making something that's genuine, versus when someone's just trying to like, be the thing that they think everyone wants them to be so they can have their little moment in the sun again. You know, I think that it's good that we took it for granted, because I think we had to throw it away.

Andy Stack: I love this record Civilian, and I don't think I ever stopped loving it. Even when it was, you know, there was a problematic relationship to it as a band, or even as we made choices to move away from it, I still relate to it, I still stand by the musical choices in it and just enjoy it. And I'm also really grateful that we took the risk of, for lack of a better word, abandoning it, after we made it and growing into something else. Because I think it was the high point of a certain version of ourselves. I'm really grateful that we continued to grow and that we pushed ourselves off balance to allow ourselves to try new things like we continue to do now. After this record, when we were starting to really change our sound, one thing that, I don't know how much we ever talked about this, but one thing that we really felt at the time was, it was either that we made a big change or that we would not be a band anymore. It was either something really different, or the end of the thing. And that was really scary and painful at the time. But it also led, you know, it led us on a path to something that's much more rewarding in the end. Paradoxically, I feel grateful for this being the end of that thing. But I also still love the thing.

Jenn Wasner: I think I related to this record for many, many, many years as an albatross. As a thing that was a burden, as a thing that I was sort of stuck with. It's this reminder of a time that I wanted to move through and a person that I no longer was but was expected to continue to be. But I think looking back on it now, I can see it for what it is, and I’m proud of it. You know, it's really nice to be able to experience this thing with a little bit of separation from the baggage that it held for me for so long. I love the career that I've built for myself, I love the relationship that Andy and I have with each other and the things that we make, I'm proud that we've managed to let it evolve naturally and protect it in the ways that we needed to. And I can hear the record again, as just a document of a moment in time and I think it's a damn good one.

Outro:

Dan Nordheim: Visit lifeoftherecord.com for more information about Wye Oak. You’ll also find a link to stream or purchase Civilian including the 10th anniversary deluxe edition. Thanks for listening. 

Credits:

Wye Oak:

Jenn Wasner - vocals, guitars, keys, bass, percussion

Andy Stack - drums, bass, keys, guitars, percussion

Songs by Jenn Wasner

Produced by Andy Stack & Jenn Wasner

Recorded by Chris Freeland and Mickey Freeland @ Beat Babies in Baltimore, MD, and by Andy Stack @ Poole St. in Baltimore, MD

Mixed by John Congleton @ Elmwood Funeral Home in Dallas, TX

Mastered by Alan Douches @ West West Side

© 2011 Merge Records.

“Two Small Deaths”

“The Alter”

“Holy Holy”

“Dogs Eyes”

“Civilian”

“Fish”

“Plains”

“Hot as Day”

“We Were Wealth”

“Doubt”

Episode Credits:

Theme Music:

“Winter Cold” by North Home

℗ Meladdy Music (ASCAP)

Intro/Outro Music:

“Broken Home” by The Blanks

Episode produced, edited and mixed by Dan Nordheim

Additional mixing and mastering by Jeremy Whitwam