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.
Built to Spill formed in Boise, Idaho in 1992 by Doug Martsch, Brett Netson and Ralf Youtz. Their debut album, Ultimate Alternative Wavers, was released on C/Z Records in 1993. For their next album, Martsch changed the lineup to include former bandmates, Brett Nelson and Andy Capps and also started working with producer, Phil Ek. There’s Nothing Wrong With Love, was released on Up Records in 1994. Built to Spill signed with Warner Bros before beginning work on their third album, this time with Peter Lansdowne on drums and Martsch playing all of the other instruments. Dissatisfied with the results, Martsch brought back Brett Nelson and new drummer, Scott Plouf to record the album a second time. After the tapes from those sessions got damaged, they ended up recording the album a third time. Perfect From Now On was eventually released in 1997.
In this episode, for the 25th anniversary, Doug Martsch looks back on how Perfect From Now On came together. This is the making of Perfect From Now On.
Doug Martsch: Hi, this is Doug Martsch from Built to Spill and we're talking about Perfect From Now On. I think when we made Perfect From Now On, I had an idea that I was at least trying to make a perfect record, whatever that means. Well, when my wife and I were kids, we didn't know each other, but we both happened to do the same thing, which was tell ourselves that we were going to be perfect from now on. And that meant, you know, maybe no more swearing, or that we would like, do our homework every night or, you know, not get our finger pinched or something. And it was always an ideal that we kind of thought was real that you could actually do. And as you grow up, you realize you can't actually do that. But you can't really help but try.
It was the first time that Built to Spill made a record that we had time and the budget and expectations to make a good record. You know, everything I've done up until that point was just punk rock, you know, just going in there and knocking it out, and having more fun back then, because this was the first time that I made a record that I knew there was going to be an audience beyond my family and a few friends you know. And so there was a little, there's some pressure from that, you know, not pressure to like make a hit record, just pressure to make a decent record, you know, a record that deserved to be heard by strangers.
At that time of my life, and still to this day probably to some degree, I'm not a very good musician and not a very good singer. So being in the studio is a real struggle for me. And playing live shows, I just kind of let it go. And I'm pretty comfortable because for one thing, I can't really hear what I'm doing that well (laughs). But when I'm in the studio, I really struggled to like, try to get things to sound good, I would do you know, 30, 40 takes of a guitar riff or a vocal take, you know, and it's often really discouraging, laying down a track and then going into the control room and listening to it. I'm rarely ever not disappointed by what I've done. So making records has always been, you know, there's moments of it that are great and fun, like you would imagine them being you know, like what it looks like when you see a documentary about a band and how exciting it is. For me, there's moments here and there of that, but mostly, it was just a lot of pulling teeth.
When I first wrote the songs, I demoed them all out on like a cassette 8-track. And then when it was time to make the record, I basically wanted to do all the instruments myself and just find a drummer, which is the instrument that I don't know how to play at all. And so I found a drummer and we went and recorded stuff. And I felt like I really wasn't as good as I thought I was on the bass. And it felt like it wasn't congealing to me, it sounded kind of like a little bit of a mess. So we worked on the record, though, for I don't know how long, maybe a month or something, a few sessions. And we ended up actually using “Made Up Dreams” from that first session with Peter (Lansdowne) on drums and me on the bass and stuff, but then decided to get Brett Nelson, who had played bass on There’s Nothing Wrong With Love. And he's like my childhood friend who got me into playing music, a kid I grew up with and, you know, we had our first bands together and stuff. So I wanted him back in the band because he's someone that I could really lean on and trust. And then for a drummer, I wanted to just start, I wanted to start over. I think Peter did a good job, who played the drums and he probably did a great job, but I was so, I just wanted a clean slate. And so I wanted to get a different drummer and then that's when Calvin Johnson recommended Scott Plouf. And I didn't really think he would fit what we were doing, but I just liked him so much and then I really started to love his drumming. We rehearsed for a while, and we recorded the record, all the basic tracks in Seattle with Phil Ek. And then we decided to do overdubs in Boise and Phil drove down to Boise with the tapes, and we started recording and the tapes were kind of like leaving a little bit of dust tape dust on the tape machine. I guess it was, the tape was kind of shredding and slowly dying, you know. I guess we weren't really sure why or how exactly it happened, we thought maybe it was from him driving in a hot car, that distance, or maybe it was just the different tape machines or a bad batch of tape, we didn't really know. And we also weren't totally sure if the tapes were going to shred any worse, you know, but we just were afraid that they might and we didn't want to take a chance of doing a bunch of work and then the tapes not really working. And also, we thought at that time, too, that maybe we could do a little better job, you know, that was my thought was if we gave it another shot, having done it, and listening to it a bunch and maybe having a little bit more rehearsals that the band could play the songs a little better. So that's why we ended up scrapping it that second time. And then the third time, third time we just muscled through it (laughs).
When we signed to Warner Bros, I was definitely conflicted about signing to a major label. And for different reasons, you know. Yeah, I mean, part of it was that I wanted, like the money we made to be in our community, to make money for friends. And part of it was, making sure that we got a decent cut of our money. And part of it was just the, yeah the idea of being bought by a corporation, that really doesn't care that much about art on a level, you know. So I talked to a lot of people and got people's opinions and stuff. And again, Calvin Johnson was another person that I went to, and he was for me doing it and that was kind of a big thing. But the bottom line was, once I saw that I could get enough money to quit my day job by signing to Warner Bros, it was pretty much done at that point. We signed right when, like the year that my son was born. Or I guess maybe the next year. Yeah, at the time, when I signed to Warner Bros, my thought was that I didn't want to go on tour, I wanted to stay home. And I thought with signing to a major label, I could afford to stay home and make records. And that'd be my livelihood. At least for a while. This was something I didn't think was going to go on for, you know, I didn't think I was gonna have a career, I thought I was gonna have a few years to be able to, you know, try this out until they realized I wasn't gonna sell enough records.
That was definitely something that was a conscious thing, for me was to not sound like grunge or other things were going on at that time. And that was the case with the first Built to Spill record and There's Nothing Wrong With Love was definitely all about not wanting to sound like grunge. And this record was as well, not wanting to sound like other bands in the 90s, trying to do our own thing.
This record had long songs and ambitious musical goals. Partially because I kind of wanted a record that was not going to be commercially successful or in a way that a corporation could like which shove music down people's throats. I didn't want him to try to sell our stuff to people I wanted it I wanted our music to grow in a you know, natural, organic way. And for people to hear us because someone recommended us a friend recommended us and they heard something and thought it sounded good. I didn't want them to listen to us because we got played on the radio 50 times in the day and then in people you know, eventually like okay, I've heard this so many times, I guess I like it. And then I've heard the song so many times I don't like it anymore. You know, I wanted to our music to get into people the way that the music I love got into me, you know, not being shoved into our throats through radio and MTV or whatever. There was definitely a conscious decision to try to make a record that wasn't going to go too far. So in a way it was that in a way it was a way it was just like what I wanted to do musically the music guys listening to things I liked. And part of it was just like having a budget and and having an opportunity to experiment and try some things. like this. So, this a few different things that lead to the kind of music that ended up on the record
“Randy Described Eternity”
You know, I feel like for some reason that I always knew, “Randy” was going to be first, like from the get go. Well, the song had the working title “Unwound” for until the record was ready to go because to me, it reminded me of the band Unwound, just this sort of, kind of pretty but dissonant, simple little guitar line. So yeah, “Randy Describes Eternity” is the way that a youth group teacher, religious class thing I went to when I was a kid in junior high school, just describing eternity to us, and just the image stuck with me. And I've heard from other people since then, that it's, you know, there's slight variations on that metaphor for different religions and stuff. And that song too, is like, you know, Brett Netson plays guitar on, all the wah guitar and that really…We finished the record, at some point and decided we need some help on this, we need something to push it over the edge. And that's what Netson did.
On all the old records, I wanted everything, every instrument to be clear to be able to hear what everyone's up to. But I don't know if that aesthetic really makes that much sense, or is that important. The older that I get, I think that the way things blend together and things disappearing into each other is just as interesting as being able to clearly hear what everyone's up to. Another thing with this record is I think that if it sounded the way that I wanted it to sound, it might actually be a more boring record. I think that part of its, you know, what sets it apart is the weirdness of it, the shortcomings. Like people say like the things that you can't draw very well, those are what make your style. And I feel like that's kind of the way it is with this record and my music that the things that I'm not very good at are kind of what make it interesting. I think Scotty is a really great drummer, I always kind of wanted to push him into being more of a classic rock drummer and putting in more rolls and stuff. And he always kind of thought that was sort of show-offy or something (laughs). And he would just keep things really basic and you know, just keep, not basic, but he was just into doing patterns and not really doing too much extra fills and stuff. And I think that gives it a cool, I think that's a really cool part of it. At the time I was a little disappointed but looking back I think it gives it a you know, it's another one of the weird things about it that makes it interesting. Yeah, I think that if I made it the way I wanted to be it would sound like Oasis or something, which is not (laughs), not really what I want to sound like and what I want my music to be like. But just what I think would have just been more conventional. Like a more conventional sort of big pop production, you know.
“I Would Hurt A Fly”
“I Would Hurt A Fly” is one of my favorite songs for sure. It seemed like it kind of came pretty naturally as a written song. It's kind of based on sort of a weird chord shape, sometimes that's enough to make a song interesting to me. I don't know, I always kind of imagined it like a lounge song or something or like a, not a lounge song but like, you know, Tony Bennett or something singing it. It kind of reminds me of that sort of a song.
That was a song that I think the bass part is, Brett plays bass, but I think I wrote all the bass parts because I had written it for when we did it, you know, when I did in the first place and had like really specific bass parts that I wanted. There's a few songs on the record that I wanted Brett to play the things that I had written, but most of it is Brett coming up with his own stuff, Brett Nelson. You know, it was one of the songs I guess that we needed some help. So John McMahon and Brett Netson came in to help that song out a lot. John has that incredible cello solo, really kind of strange dissonant notes and stuff and then Brett has his kind of bluesy wah that helped the song a lot.
Kind of a little bit of nonsense and just you know, obviously a really, a really kind of obvious turn of the phrase. The lyrics I like the best are the “let you go to sleep, feeling bad as me,” those are the lyrics that I thought were really good to me, that's the most powerful part. I like that part too, because again, it's the chord shapes, the chord shapes that are the main part of the song and then it's a variation of those chord shapes that came up with that really pretty chord progression and melody. Sometimes I stumble across something that just sounds really nice to me and that's one of my favorite ones.
I think actually another reason why the songs became kind of longer and ambitious in that way was because I felt like I had certain parts that didn't warrant making a whole song out of. I’d stick them into a song and a lot of them grew into long, drawn out weird songs. Just because I didn't think any of the parts were good enough to carry a whole song, but if you threw them all together, it made this interesting kind of almost collage, kind of song.
“Stop the Show”
Yeah, “Stop the Show,” that's a song that we're playing currently. And, to me, that was, the beginning of “Stop the Show” was kind of like, to me the coolest sounding thing on the record, like this is what I want our music to sound like.
I don't really remember how the songs came together. I know that when I write songs that are long like that, now, I take a bunch of little ideas that I have, and just try them out with each other. So I'll have all these different ideas, I try them out with each other and change the key or the tempo, or the time signature of one part to see if it'll fit in this other song. It's just a bunch of that, I think that's probably how all these songs came to be, all the long ones. I think it was really difficult for Scott and Brett to wrap their head around what I was trying to do with these songs, and they did a really amazing job. They learned the songs pretty quickly and that's where I think that the second recording with them really benefited was that they had some time to really live with the songs and get them into their heads and not be thinking about when the next parts coming but it coming more naturally.
That song was called, “Nirvana.” Because it sort of is like a rock song. To me, it was like a grunge song. But it was also a Beatles thing. You know, that was a song that I wrote the bass part for, when it goes into the verse that kind of, you know, walking, bubbly kind of walking bass part there might even be totally ripped off from a specific Beatle song, I can't think of what but this record was probably more influenced by Beatles than anything.
And yeah, again, it's one of those songs where I had a lot of little ideas and didn't really want to make a whole song out of them. Like the kind of the end part, the “after a while they know your style,” that whole part. You know, that was just like, “This part's cool, but I don't want to make a whole song out of it.” By the time I was working with those guys, even by the time I was working with Peter, the songs were pretty set. I mean, there might have been a few adjustments later on a few edits here and there. Definitely like the end of “Stop the Show,” you know kind of disappears and comes back with some weird sounding drums and whatever. That was something that was some later on edit-type of situation. But for the most part, the songs were pretty well established as far as the parts go and then and then it was a matter of like, just coming up with overdubs and things like that, but you know, the structure of the song was definitely there.
Yeah those guys did a really great job because, you know, I had sort of a little bit of a vision not super detailed, but I mean, I had an idea of what the songs felt like. And those guys, you know, they didn't really know, there's so many times where, by the time the record’s done, and they're like, “Oh, that's what this song is, I had no idea. I didn't know that this is what you're going for, this was the feel of it.” Those guys learned the songs from me just showing them to them, they didn’t learn them from these demos. I didn't let anyone hear them. They were just for me. You know, around the year 2000 maybe, I did a cleaning and just through out tons of cassettes. And somehow I kept a few cassettes but I threw those away, I threw out the masters and the mixes just like, “I never want to hear this again, these are horrible.” And I think it'd be pretty funny to hear them again but yeah, I threw it all away. One of the few things I regret in a weird way just because I think they'd be interesting. I know I did a lot of weird stuff on like, there's some drum machine stuff and making sounds with my mouth for instruments, just to have ideas of things. I mean, we made this record, we spent all this time and made this record that’s so much better than these demos were, I don't want to hear these and no one would want to, there's no reason for these demos to be. And then you know, now I have an appreciation for crappy versions of things and demos and stuff. And I think it would be interesting because they're so different, you know, but anyway, they're gone.
“Made-Up Dreams”
Another thing is Built to Spill didn't really have a sound, I didn't have a sound, I didn't have an amp that I used or guitar or any kind of pedals that were like my sound. Every record was different, you know, the first record to the second record to this record, I didn't want them to sound the same. And I didn't have a way that I wanted a guitar to sound. I liked all different kinds of guitar sounds. So, you know, it took a while to figure that stuff out and sort of fine tune it. It's something where, you know, I didn't know what I wanted, but I could tell if I was what I didn't want, and had a vague idea of what I wanted it to be. You know, Phil, the producer, was really helpful for that stuff. Yeah and again, that was mostly Phil. I mean, I really didn't know how to dial up a guitar tone, you know, or know what amps do what. Other than just like the most basic things, distortion and delay or whatever. But yeah, the record before that, all the stuff before it, I was basically just using the studio like a 4-track and I didn't even care about having reverb or having things feel like you're in an environment or anything. You know, to me, it was almost, direct, like There's Nothing Wrong With Love, I don't think there's any reverb on that record on any instrument at all. And that was kind of my weird choice that Phil somehow went along with, but on this record, yeah, we want it to be more atmospheric and I don't know, I can't really remember how we did it, but I know that mostly was Phil dialing in guitar tones, moving microphones, little tiny bits and stuff. I couldn't even tell the difference. You know, it's like the more you turn it up, the better it sounds to me (laughs).
“Made-Up Dreams” is a song that was one of the songs that we recorded that was on tape that we thought might be damaged. And that's what makes me unsure if the tape really got damaged, you know, because we were able to work on that song and mix it and it worked fine, you know. And, that's another one of my favorite ones. That's a song that we're not playing currently, but it's a song that the band always has played live. It's got that Rob Roth Mellotron on it, that's really a nice part of the song. Some of the words are nonsense, the beginning is just a bunch of nonsense, just something to sing. I like the chords and you know, there's some of my favorite words, the title was a friend of mine, gave me some song titles. And then I wrote a song around the song title. Yeah, my friend Wayne Flower, he was the drummer in my band Treepeople, he was in the Halo Benders a little bit and stuff.
There's some stuff that I'll pain over and a lot of songs too, I’ll write like a lot of lyrics and try it out with a bunch of different things and then eventually come up with some other lyrics. And every once in a while, I’ll hear some old demos of something that I've worked on and I even forgot that I had totally a whole different set of words for the whole song. Sometimes you just sing a line, and it doesn't really mean anything or make much sense, but it just sounds right, you know, like the Beatles or something where it's like, it just sounds right. Just the way the vowels and consonants come out of your mouth. My whole thing with lyrics has always been that you just don't want to write horrible lyrics. If they're not horrible, then the music will give them strength and they will resonate with people, even if they don't mean anything, as long as they're not a drag or offensive or whatever. But at the same time, of course, who doesn't like a really good lyric too, if I can come up with one of those every now and then to you know, hold it all together, or steal one from one of my friends or my wife. To my mind, there isn't like a theme or a thing that I was going through at that time. But of course, there sort of was, you know. A lot of stuff I wrote with my wife like the album title is something that we both kind of came up with and it was something that we both did when we were kids where we’d just decide, “Okay, I'm gonna be perfect from now on.” And she kind of had that same feeling growing up and so and you know, there's a lot of her lyrics and just things that came out of discussions with her that ended up on the record.
“Velvet Waltz”
Yeah, my main memory of “Velvet Waltz” is there's like a vibrato or tremolo guitar going through the whole song. And we had recorded the drums and bass and so we wanted this tremolo guitar going through it and we didn't record to a click track. So keeping the tremolo to be in sync with the drums and bass was really tricky, and we just had to like, piece it together and it took hours of me just playing the guitar. And there's just a limited amount of tape space, so we couldn't use a bunch of tracks and have a bunch of tracks or playlists or whatever to choose from or move things around on a computer and line it up. It all had to be kind of just done live. And for a lot of it, my good friend, Chris Takino, he ran Up Records, and he was in the studio sitting there like turning the knob on the tremolo pedal, trying to keep it in sync with the song.
This was before digital was really being used to make records. I mean, digital was being used for mastering, and the editing and sequencing and that kind of stuff. But as far as for making, doing the recording, the multi-tracking, it wasn't really happening back then. I mean, maybe Michael Jackson or someone was starting to do it that way, but no it wasn't, this was the way records were all made at this time. Yeah, recording on the tape made this thing really complex. And so a song that's like, twice the length of a regular song, it doesn't take twice as long to work on, it takes like ten times as long. Because you have to start sharing these tracks. So many of these songs have like, you know, the first half of the song, there's a guitar on this track and then the next part, there's some percussion, and then another part of the song, there's another guitar track, that's totally a different sound and needs to be panned to a different spot, and EQed differently or whatever, so there's a lot of like moves that had to be made. And this was the first record that we made that we used an automated mixing board, because it was just so complex that things had to be, not every track, but many of the overdub tracks would be like yeah, guitar on one part, vocal on another part, a backup vocal or something, and something else here. Trying to keep that all organized, you know, we have all these pieces of paper with all these things written on it, trying to keep it all organized, me and Phil both, trying to wrap our brains around what was even there, you know.
It's called “Velvet Waltz,” because there's no hi-hat on it. And that's like a Velvet Underground thing. And this was a song to me, that had a working title, “Velvet Waltz,” like “Unwound” and “Nirvana.” Like it wasn't really a title and I wanted to change the title and then just sort of like, “I can't think of anything good, that seems alright.” In fact, the record, I wanted the record not to have any titles, any song titles, and tried to do that and just realized it was going to be too much of a pain in the ass to try to not have any song titles on the record. You know, I was inspired by that Butthole Surfers record, Hairway to Steven. And instead of song titles, they just had pictures on the thing, like one was some picture, two was another weird picture. I can't remember why I thought that it couldn't be done. Like I was just thinking maybe like for getting played on the radio or, you know, for the CD and there had to be something that showed up in the thing and then I think Butthole Surfers did put names to those songs, you know, or I know that they did. Eventually, it's like, I don't know, for some reason, I just thought it was going to cause more trouble than it was worth and just, you know, in a way it seemed kind of like people would think it was annoying or bratty to do that (laughs).
And this is a song again that Brett Netson plays an epic guitar solo at the end of it that really, to me, just makes the song. And a little bit of John McMahon on cello. It's another one that we got both of those guys to come turn it into something special.
Just Netson ripping, I don’t know what he was thinking. Brett, I feel like Brett just came in for a day or two and just flew in and just laid down all his stuff. He laid down a bunch of stuff and then I kind of just picked and chose what I thought was cool. From what he laid down, he played a lot more than what ended up on the record. I can't think of me playing any wah stuff on this album. I think it might be all him. There might be a thing or two of me but yeah, anything that sounds like Jimi Hendrix is him.
“Out of Site”
The song, “Out of Site,” I like the song pretty well except there's a funky part that I'm just a little bit embarrassed about. But I like the intro, those weird chords like a major chord going to a minor chord, kind of a cool Beatles thing. That's kind of the best part of the song to me is just the major to minor, simple chord thing. And just a lot of nonsense words on this one (laughs).
I like this song except I don't like the kind of funky part. It's like the…(sings) “I know that you'll get yours when you get something.” I don't know, just the funkiness, just the kind of and I know there's a little there's a little bit of that too on There’s Nothing Wrong With Love, there's some kind of stuff like that. It was kind of before I had an aesthetic against funky white music (laughs). And I like the punk part but I never felt like we did quite a very good job of it or I couldn't sing it very well and stuff. It was so hard to sing, it killed me trying to sing this song.
“Kicked It in the Sun”
To me, the lyrics to “Kicked It in the Sun,” like the lyrics that begin the song are just about hanging out in Boise. Like, “There's a feeling from Ada to Irene,” those are a couple of streets in my neighborhood, like stretching 10 blocks or something. And it's sort of like just being, just living in Boise and staying up late at night writing songs. That's kind of what the beginning of the song reminds me of, and maybe some nonsense to sort of throw it together.
And then the “kicked it in the sun” part is nothing, just some words that sounded good. A phrase that just popped into my head for no reason and it sounded kind of musical. I think it has that connotation of like relaxing in the sun, but I don't know what it means, but to me, it didn't mean that. It meant more like kicking something into the sun like just yeah, like destroying something.
When we made the record, I was like, so self conscious, and did not want anyone from the label coming down to the studio to hear what we were up to. Because it was, it felt like we were just like, didn't know what the fuck we were doing. And just like, I don't know, like the stuff was taking a long time to take any kind of shape that sounded like a good record. And so the guy who signed us, our A&R guy, Joe McEwen, he was a really cool guy, and just let us do it the way we wanted to do it. And then he came in to listen to it. He just came to Seattle, and we had finished mixing and we were like in our last day in the studio or something, and he came down and we just played him the whole record. And he just like, I think he stood there the whole time, listened to the whole record, stood there and kind of played some air guitar (laughs). And then at the end of it was like, you know, “That's great!” That was kind of it. You know, I don't know if anyone there even knew about us except him (laughs). I don't know if anyone had any kind of expectations in any way. I think we really, we flew under the radar at Warner Brothers. I don't think people paid that much attention to what we were doing. And the people that did were like, people that were our, you know, music people that trusted us and didn't expect us to do anything except what we wanted to do. Yeah, we stayed within our budget. But instead of pocketing a little bit of money at the end of it, we just spent the whole budget on the record instead of having some money left over.
At some point, I can't remember what it was in reference to but my wife said, “Well, we're special in other ways, ways our mothers appreciate.” And yeah, I thought it was hilarious and I thought it would make a good lyric in a song. And then the end song that it goes into, the other lyrics sort of go along with that theme of like, I can't remember the album lyrics. It's something about being mediocre, you know, like, “His master plan was mediocre,” just like, you know, just trying hard to do something rad and, it's just okay, you know, we do the best we can but not all of us are capable of doing amazing things. Yeah, artistically and maybe in other parts of our lives too, trying to just do something incredible and amazing and inspiring. And then coming up with something that's pretty good, you know, because you're trying so hard, you're shooting for such a high ideal. You're not going to get there but you're going to do something that's you know, pretty good. If you don't, if you're not shooting for that super high ideal, you're going to really suck. So you gotta shoot for that really high thing in order to do something that's passible. And that's just the best that most of us can hope for. You know, the best that most of us can do. There's a handful of people that are geniuses that just really for whatever reason can do things that are amazing, but for most of us it's trying, you know trying to get some joy out of trying.
“Untrustable / Part 2 (About Someone Else)”
Yeah, the first part was something I remember just kind of, that was one that I wrote a lot of the bass parts and it’s something I remember just four-tracking and putting together. And yeah, lyrically, “Untrustable,” it's one of the few songs that kind of like sticks to one subject through the whole song. Kind of talking about a person and just just how flawed people are, I guess, you know, myself, maybe other people but yeah, it's just about people. I mean, it wasn't, I wasn't, you know, nothing serious about myself (laughs). Just just people, just the way that people are, you know, just the limitations to our humanity or something.
The chorus of “Untrustable” is a J.D. Salinger, Franny and Zooey story where it’s like, sort of the ending of the story, where Franny tells Zooey that the you know, the person that she was performing for is God. And it's not a religious thing, it's just like, God is in, you know, what matters, who matters.
I think the second one, I can't remember how they got connected. But the second part of it is like, the less interesting song, maybe even something we just sort of tried to see if it would work. It's like a really untypical song for me to write because usually my thing with writing songs was about coming up with sort of an original kind of chord progression, or melody or whatever. And to me, the second part of that song is real conventional, like, it's like a blues thing. I think it's like a, you know, I, IV, V chord progression-type of thing. But I don't remember what I liked about it, or why I thought it was a good idea. And I like it fine, but it just seems so foreign to how I usually make music or what I like about music. For some reason, it was satisfying in that song to me.
That was more about my wife, and just struggles with being like, too compassionate. It's like, “Why can't you apathize with Jesus’ point of view, like, why can't you be less compassionate, and just kind of let some things go? Why do things affect you so intensely?” That's what that song is kind of about, like her suffering because she has too much compassion and love for people. I think I'm also compassionate, but I wouldn't let compassion, like control me in that way. I wouldn't let I wouldn't let my compassion ruin my day. Sometimes I would, but for the most part, I'd be like, “Well, that's just the way it is. It sucks, but you know, I got to live my life and be okay, be okay in this world.” Yeah, I think it's hard. I think it's harder for everyone now than ever, you know, just watching how horrible things have gotten, watching people suffer and you know, you feel guilty, you feel like you want to do something. But you also just have to keep existing, you know.
I was talking about some personal things, but I don't know that it was ever, like, helpful or, you know, I don't feel like it was ever an avenue to a dialogue for us or anything, it was more, you know, we'd more talk about it, like, what was a good idea for for a song, just what made sense artistically. You know, she was someone that I always would run everything by, you know, every every idea I had, and see what she thought of it. Because she was the person that I trusted more than anyone about my music. I felt like she got it. And also got music, you know, in general. I met her when I was in high school and she dated Brett Nelson. They lived in Twin Falls, and I moved up to Boise and so I met her through him. But we were always really close. And so she was like one of the ten fans of Farm Days, me and Brett's old band. You know, we were teenagers in high school, we had a band called Farm Days, we lived in different cities, but we’d get together once in a while and make songs and so she knew my music well from the get go.
After we made this record, I was going to switch up the lineup, but I just loved playing with these guys. I loved hanging out with them. And I also had just a different idea about what I wanted the band to be. I wanted the band to get really good and be like a proficient band where we all grew together and became, you know, just super tight and really had a sound that was us. And these were the guys I wanted to do that with. And then I also wanted to collaborate with them, you know, this record, I'd shown them all the songs but I wanted to make some music where they were writing their own parts because I thought a lot of the bands that I thought were good at that time were doing that, you know, like Modest Mouse and Unwound and stuff. Where they'd go into a jam room and you know, everyone would contribute to the music equally. And that's what we did, we made Keep It Like a Secret, which was very much based on us all jamming together a bunch.
And then, and then the big circus ending (laughs). For some reason, we made some circus music at the end. At the time I thought it was killer, but you know, I mean maybe it's a little bit like that funk part and I don't know about funk music and circus music and stuff. I like like the part where we sound like the Velvet Underground, that's what I think that's what I wish that I'd done with my whole career was made stuff that sounded more like that. And not made these sort of musical decisions that were just sort of weird directions that I don't care much about these days.
You know, when the record came out, I don't really remember how I was feeling. I think I mostly felt like I was just moving on to the next batch of songs. You know, we'd already started writing Keep It Like a Secret songs and writing together as a band and I remember being really excited about that. And not really thinking much about Perfect From Now On anymore. And yeah, we toured right after the record came out, and we did none of the songs, zero of them. We just didn't, I didn’t have it in me. Just didn't want to at all. Like none of it sounded any fun at all. But mostly I just didn't want to hear those songs again, I was so burnt out after making that record. And you know, I was burnt out on it, but at the same time, I was both proud of it. And you know, like I said, everyone that I worked with was great. There's no way I could have done it without Phil, he was incredible. I mean, he's such a good producer and I trust him so much with making things sound good. And his musical ideas. And he was also just really supportive and really, like, enthusiastic. And he was like me too, you know, we had some points where we’re just like, he was as done as I was, burnt out. You know, he'd never done anything like this before, either. He'd never spent this much time on a record or done a major label record, either. So we were both, you know, had a lot of burnouts. But, you know, he cheered me on through the whole thing, really supported me and was enthusiastic about it. At the very end of it, I'm trying to think of the name of that song, the song that was left off the record. And when we were mixing the record, and we finally got everything mixed, I was like, “What about whatever that last song is called?” And he's like, “Oh, man, I don’t want to do that.” And we kind of got in a fight because at the very end of it, because he didn't, I was mad at him for not wanting to just like, you know, muscle through this very last song.
When we finished the record, the thing that meant the most to me about the record was, I came away from it thinking that I could make a record no matter what. That no matter how hard it was, or, you know, whatever challenges, that in the end, it could get done. And that was something I don't think I knew for sure, when we started. Mostly it was just doubts about whether or not I'm really a musician, you know, like, this might not be my calling or a job for me, this might be just harder than what I'm capable of. And, you know, maybe I can make, some punk rock records or make some home recordings and stuff. But I don't think I really am, like, cut out to be a professional musician. And by the end of it, when it was done, I was like, “Oh, yeah, I can be a professional musician. I can do this.” Because I felt really, I had a really strong confidence. Like, “If we just work super hard, and you just keep going and when you don't want to do it, you just keep doing it. You can, you know, we can do this.” And that was a real thing. Like a really empowering thing for me, finishing that record.
Like I said, I don't really look back at it very often, but just sitting here now, looking back at it a bunch, I feel really proud of it. You know, it's like, getting feedback from people like you that enjoy it, means a lot to me. That's what makes me proud of it is that people enjoy it, you know. And over the years people have told me how much they like it and I don't know, I just feel really really lucky for that. Because it just as easily, I wouldn't be surprised at all, if no one really cared about it or it was a fine record or whatever. So, just the fact that some people really like it is unbelievable to me, you know.
Outro:
Dan Nordheim: Visit lifeoftherecord.com for more information about Built to Spill. You’ll also find a link to stream or purchase Perfect From Now On. Thanks for listening.
Album Credits:
"Randy Described Eternity”
“I Would Hurt A Fly”
“Stop the Show”
“Made-Up Dreams”
“Velvet Waltz”
“Out of Site”
“Kicked It In the Sun”
“Untrustable / Part 2 (About Someone Else)”
All songs written by Doug Martsch. Published by All Smiles ASCAP.
© 1997 Warner Bros. Records Inc.
Produced by Phil Ek
Recorded by Phil Ek at AVAST! Recording Co. Seattle, WA
Assistant engineer: Kip Beelman
Mixed by Phil and Doug with help from Chris Takino at Stepping Stone Recording, Seattle, WA
Assistant engineer: Sam Hofstedt
Mastered by Howie Weinberg at Masteredisk, New York, NY
Scott Plouf: Drums and percussion, piano on 1, Moog on 3 and 7
Brett Nelson: Bass, Moog on 8, Optigon on 7
Brett Netson: Guitars on 1,2,3,5 and 6
John McMahon: Cello 2,3,5,6 and 8
Robert Roth: Mellotron on 4,5 and 8
Peter Lansdowne: Drums on 4
Karena Youtz: Title and some words on 5, 6 and 7
Doug Martsch: Vocals and guitar, Moogs, Bass on 4
Episode Credits:
Theme Music:
“Winter Cold” by North Home
Intro/Outro Music:
“Fly Too Low” by generifus from the album, Back In Time.
© 2012 Sultan Serves Records
Episode produced, edited and mixed by Dan Nordheim
Additional mixing and mastering by Jeremy Whitwam