the making of diary by sunny day real estate - featuring jeremy enigk, Dan Hoerner and William Goldsmith

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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. 

Sunny Day Real Estate was initially formed by Dan Hoerner, Nate Mendel, and William Goldsmith in Seattle, Washington in 1992. When Mendel went on tour with another band, Goldsmith and Hoerner started playing with Goldsmith’s old high school friend, Jeremy Enigk. Enigk took over lead singing duties from Hoerner and when Mendel returned, they decided to continue as a four-piece. Despite having very little live experience as a band, they played a show in Seattle that Jonathan Poneman attended and he immediately signed them to Sub Pop. They went on their first cross country tour, landing in Chicago, where they recorded with producer Brad Wood at Idful Studios. Their debut album, Diary, was eventually released in 1994. 

In this episode, for the 30th anniversary, Jeremy Enigk, Dan Hoerner, and William Goldsmith reflect on how the album came together. This is the making of Diary. 

William Goldsmith: I am William Goldsmith and I am the drummer and rust repairer of Sunny Day Real Estate. 

Dan Hoerner: I'm Dan Hoerner and I'm the guitar player and sometimes backup singer of Sunny Day Real Estate. 

Jeremy Enigk: My name is Jeremy Enigk and I'm the singer, guitar player of Sunny Day Real Estate. I mean, absolutely, the entire record is inspired by a high school girlfriend that broke my heart daily.

William Goldsmith: (laughs) Yep. 

Jeremy Enigk: And I allowed it to happen. I need to take responsibility and credit for the fact that I just kept on going back, which also is, like a lyric in “Sometime.” You know, “Although you hit me hard, I come back.” And yeah, but that's love, you know. I guess that's love or obsession.

William Goldsmith: Infatuation, I don't know.

Jeremy Enigk: I'm sure we all have love stories that that hurt and you know especially coming from a young man so, you know, it's a timeless subject. 

Dan Hoerner: When Jeremy says, “pitiful boy,” it's like open heart surgery on stage in front of everyone, I mean it's, it's like, it's brutal. 

Jeremy Enigk: It's a self hatred for allowing yourself to let somebody do this to you, really. And it is very, like, open heart surgery. 

Dan Hoerner: It's insane. When we play it tonight, we'll play it tonight, I will be overcome from head to toe with chills on the “pitiful boy” bit, and I have been for 30 years. It is, it's just fucking brutally visceral. 

Dan Hoerner: It started with me and Nate in the basement of the house that we shared in Seattle, which is known as the Yellow House, and we were jamming for a while, and we liked what we were coming up with. And we wanted the best drummer in Seattle. And so we looked around and we went to a punk rock show and saw William and we looked at each other and we said, “That's the dude.” And then Nate at the time was already kind of a big deal in Seattle based on some of the bands that he had been in, Diddley Squat and Christ on a Crutch. And so Nate just approached William and used his great fame to say, “Hey buddy, you want to join our band?” And the rest is history.

William Goldsmith: Actually, so I was living at this house that was like a few blocks away from them, and Dan and Nate had never really come over to that house, and all of a sudden they were coming over there all the time (laughs). And hanging out, I was like, “Oh, that's totally, like, okay,” and everybody else that lived there was like, “These guys never come over.” And they were like, “Hey, you want to take a walk?” So then we went for a walk, and they said, “Hey, do you want to play music?” And I was already in three bands at the time, so I was like, “Okay, well, why not do a fourth?” We were instrumental for a long time.

Dan Hoerner: Yeah.

William Goldsmith: And then you know we wanted to have, you know, find a singer and then just because it was impossible to find one, Dan stepped up and, you know, took control. And he did a great job. 

Dan Hoerner: I was just an absolute novice on the vocals and I think it shows. I was passionate but not particularly artful. And the first time that I heard Jeremy play, he was actually playing on acoustic and just sort of hanging around the scene and I had seen him play and I just, it was just a stark realization of the difference between somebody who Is really good at singing and me (laughs). 

William Goldsmith: I wouldn't knock yourself that much dude. You did a good job.

Jeremy Enigk: But it is amazing, Dan’s vocals are great. Especially if you go back and listen to it sounds awesome. But I was stoked because they had put out the 7-inch, I think it was just the “Flatland Spider” 7-inch and I was like, “I want to sing to that.” Like, “I want to do that. The music is so good. I think I can do that.” So  I put myself in there. 

Dan Hoerner: Yeah it was a real revelation when it all came together. To hear Jeremy's vocals over the top of, of what we were doing was, I don't know, it was, it was just like a whole new world. It was incredible. 

William Goldsmith: Nate went on tour with his other band, Christ on a Crutch. And when he did that, the three of us started an experiment with Dan on bass and wrote a bunch of songs. And then when Nate came back, we kind of presented it to him and he said, “Okay, yeah, let's do that,” (laughs).

Dan Hoerner: We were conscious of the fact that we definitely didn't sound like what was kind of the mainstream popular music at the time but we were also definitely conscious of of our influences and we considered ourselves to be a, like a punk band or a hardcore band, and just, I mean, Jeremy could do it all. He could do a scream that was as hardcore as anything out there, but also he just had these other incredible capabilities and they just started to, you know, unfold over time as we, as we were playing together. And it just became obvious that the best thing to do would be to just allow it to go wherever it was going to go and not really try and be any particular thing.

William Goldsmith: Yeah, just allow what was to come out, you know, but it was definitely more of an, it was like an experiment, you know, going from hardcore, more like, you know, storytelling as opposed to just protest. 

Jeremy Enigk: It wasn't a grunge thing, but there was kind of a scene going on musically in the hardcore scene, in the underground. Where there were a lot of people starting to tune down low to D, which is like a really heavy expression of like post hardcore. And that was kind of bubbling underneath the popular scene in Seattle. But I think the melodic aspect is something new that we were kind of experimenting with. Typically there were bands like Chain of Strength, like these sort of emo, straight edge bands that were doing these really heavy riffs, but it was still screaming singing, but I was bringing in like a more melodic thing to that. 

Dan Hoerner: Yeah and I have to give credit to Greg Anderson from Sunn O))) and Engine Kid. He's the guy that taught me how to tune my guitar all the way down and kind of showed me like how to be that heavy, that heavy sound. There was definitely that grunge influence there and then just, you know, crossed over with, with, you know, more hardcore riffs and stuff. But I think we were also, from the very beginning we were very experimental, I have a very clear memory of me and Nate, in the basement in our early jams, when it was just the two of us, and we would try things that were really ethereal and with very strange chords and long, you know, open spaces. And, you know, very early on, we had a song called “The Onlies” that was like two minutes of just a bass riff with, you know, some vocals over the top. So just really sparse. And then of course the huge explosion of everything. So I think we were, we were definitely experimenting with openness and silences.

William Goldsmith: Spaces. 

Dan Hoerner: I mean, Fugazi has that insane, like 10 second long break at the beginning of that, that one song, I can't remember the name of it, but you know, everybody knows the riff and it just stops. And it's like, so long. And then it's just like, (sings guitar riff) “duh duh duh duh.” 

William Goldsmith: Yeah, “Waiting Room.” 

Dan Hoerner: I mean, that was so influential. The idea of, “Oh my God, you can use empty space as this palpable hard hitting part of your music.”

William Goldsmith: So there was a period of time where all ages shows were illegal in Seattle. So that kind of made things difficult, but we would go to like Spokane and Tri-Cities and play shows there because that was the only place we could you know play a show and Nate had roots in Tri-Cities. I remember we went and played a show in Spokane with Lungfish and Jeremy opened up for us before he started playing with the band and he just opened up solo acoustic. But yeah, and then Greg Anderson again, was his band at the time, Engine Kid, was going to play a show with a band called Skirt at the Crocodile and they couldn't play and so he recommended to Eric Soderstrom, the booking agent, that this band, Sunny Day Real Estate, and this is when Jeremy had joined, play the show, so we played the show.

Jeremy Enigk: That was our very first show. 

William Goldsmith: Yeah, that was our very first show in Seattle, basically, right? Wasn't it? Or was that our very first? 

Jeremy Enigk: As Sunny Day Real Estate, as a four piece. 

William Goldsmith: As a four piece, it really was. Wow, that's so crazy. Wow. Then he said, “I'm gonna do something.” He said, “I kind of want to do an experiment. I'm going to put you guys on the, in the first slot for the Sub Pop showcase that's coming up and just see what happens.”

Jeremy Enigk: The following day. So we just left our gear on stage and just said, “Come back tomorrow and play.” 

William Goldsmith: Oh, I didn't realize that. That's crazy. Oh, really? Oh my God, I totally forgot about that.

Jeremy Enigk: I remember it as that the band that was supposed to play that second show couldn't make it or something. But maybe it was two lucky… 

William Goldsmith: Yeah, I don't know. But yeah, it was definitely like Greg Anderson, they had to cancel for the first one. But yeah, so then Jonathan Poneman ended up being one of the one or two people in the room. And I'm sure Eric probably said, “Hey, go check this out.” I don't know. 

Dan Hoerner: Also, I feel like I have a really clear memory of Dave from Sub Pop, the long haired dude. 

Jeremy Enigk: Dave (Rosencrans), Rich (Jensen). I think Rich was there. 

Dan Hoerner: Yeah and I remember looking out at the audience during one of our songs and Dave, so like emotional. You could just see it on his face that he was like, “Oh my God!” That was pretty cool.  

Jeremy Enigk: I think they were like the only people in the audience. 

Dan Hoerner: Yeah, no, it was like, it was like literally three or four people, but they were so stoked it made it like a good show for us.  

Jeremy Enigk: Yeah, I was screaming at them. I was trying to like, rip their souls out of their…

William Goldsmith: Heads? (laughs) I don't know, somethings. 

Jeremy Enigk: Out of themselves. 

William Goldsmith: But yeah, I mean, and then immediately after the set, Jonathan walked up to us and said, “Hey, do you guys want to make a record?” Like it was, he just walked right up and asked that. And we laughed at first because we didn't really know how to process it. And we were like, well, it was hard to sort of like accept it as a reality.  

Dan Hoerner: Yeah, I think it's, it's like hard to overestimate how insanely powerful Sub Pop was at the time. How like, they just had such a command over the scene and, and they were just the pinnacle. It was like, it was like the gods from Olympus coming down and saying, “Hey, you guys, we like your stuff.” It was really insanely a powerful moment.

William Goldsmith: And unexpected. 

Dan Hoerner: Yeah, very unexpected. Sub Pop loaned us a van. 

William Goldsmith: They did? 

Dan Hoerner: I think they did. Cause I don't think…

Jeremy Enigk: That was the loaner? That wasn't our brown? 

Dan Hoerner: I don't think we had the brown one yet. I think we got the brown one after. I think it was a loaner van for that first tour.

Jeremy Enigk: Oh really? 

Dan Hoerner: Yeah, and then we got the brown one and we built this bed in the back and  places to hide the weed (laughs). We'll have to cut that part out, my kids. 

William Goldsmith: It's legal now.  

Dan Hoerner: The first tour that took us up to recording Diary was a huge tour with so many stops and so many shows. And we basically, by the time we hit the studio, Diary was, most of it was,  just like muscle memory. And we were also just completely destroyed (laughs). Because it was so hard. I think obviously Brad had done some incredibly killer stuff. 

William Goldsmith: Liz Phair, Exile in Guyville had come out. 

Dan Hoerner: He did Hum.

Jeremy Enigk: Had he done Smashing Pumpkins already? Or was that after? 

Dan Hoerner: I think he had done something. He had a couple of credits that were like, “Oh my God, I can't believe we're getting, we get to do something with this guy.” And yeah so we were just like, “Yes, please.” That's all Sub Pop, that was Jonathan's idea. 

Jeremy Enigk: It was funny though, because it actually didn't really make sense for, like, the music that we were doing.Having listened to Liz Phair, Exile in Guyville, it's a really raw kind of pop record, and we were a punk band and wanted to be recorded like a punk band. But he recorded us, as he would, like, Liz Phair. 

Dan Hoerner: That's right. 

Jeremy Enigk: And it worked. 

Dan Hoerner: It worked beautifully.

“Seven”

Jeremy Enigk: Yeah, “Seven” was the very first song that we actually wrote with Nate. We were experimental, just a band just having fun together while Nate was on tour. We called ourselves Thief, Steal Me a Peach. It was just, the three of us, just to pass the time, and we had written a bunch of great songs already. And then Nate approved me being in the band, and I was very inspired, I was in a room with Nate Mendel. I didn't really know Nate at all, so I was kind of intimidated. I'm in a band with somebody before I know them, so I was nervous, but I was just so excited. And “Seven,” like, it just, for me, it just came together right there. And that riff, I remember playing the E minor and the G, it was very simple, and Nate had said, “That is so simple, but the coolest thing ever.” And I was like, “Yes!” And like all those songs just sort of wrote themselves. Yes, we put in a lot of time. We would practice six hours, take a dinner break, and go back for another three or four until, you know, we had to stop so we didn't piss off the neighbors. 

Dan Hoerner: And your fingers would just be like so insanely sore. 

Jeremy Enigk: Yeah, I mean, but it really just, they came together very easy, but with hard work. 

William Goldsmith: It was many, many hours of several hours staring at the ground trying to figure out how to end the story that we were trying to tell. But yeah, it was a long, it was a long, long session of arranging. 

Dan Hoerner: My memory for me is that “Seven” is the one and only song that I've ever dreamed the riff that I had for the opening bit. And the first part was something that was ringing in my head in a dream, and I got up and did the (sings guitar riff). It's never happened to me before or since, but it did come to me, the little bit that I play, came in a dream, so that's what happened for “Seven.” The chorus of “Seven,” which is kind of a hopeful, almost like forward looking thing, and it felt to me like a culmination of everything that I had ever wanted for all the years prior, you know, hoping to one day be in a great band and like just looking around and thinking like, “All these guys are like the best in their fields really that I had ever encountered.” And I couldn't believe that we were there together and the chorus honestly felt like just like a backwards looking thing and also a forwards looking thing of you know, “You'll taste it in time,” and I felt like this was the moment that it all came together. 

“In Circles” 

Dan Hoerner: “Seven” forever was way out in front of everybody because “Seven” was our first single and we had the first video and everybody knew “Seven,” you know the iconic opening riff. So it wasn't until a considerable amount of time passed that that “In Circles” caught up to it and I think they're neck and neck for a long while and “In Circles” is probably, now probably considered to be our definitive, you know, number one song off that, off that album. 

William Goldsmith: Jeremy had it. Jeremy brought it to the table, finished, and then we just adapted it to being more like a full band thing, you know. Jeremy brought it, it was a completed  piece of work already. 

Jeremy Enigk: I mean, almost. Initially it was an acoustic song. Originally, I was going to be the first artist on Sunny Day's record label, One Day I Stopped Breathing, which I was very excited about. And “In Circles” was like one of the songs that I was excited to be like the thing. It was an acoustic song, it was very soulful and direct from the heart and I recorded it for that. The entire song had been written except for the bridge. And I remember you just playing it for you guys and Dan just said, “Nah, that can't be solo, that has to be the band, sorry.” I was like, “But it's like a soft thing and it's supposed to be really soft and and sad.” And then we go into the room and it's just William’s drums, like, explosive and everything's distorted, I'm like, “But, but…” But it was amazing. 

Dan Hoerner: A beautiful, beautiful song from Jeremy that he had recorded on a little, little boom box thing. And then of course, you know, we had to insert triumphant hugeness wherever we could and luckily at that point I was still in a position where I felt like I really wanted to sing on every song and probably like bulled my way into singing on a song where otherwise I probably wouldn't have. And so, you know, there's a pretty big chorus to “In Circles” that I think a lot of people can sing along with that is kind of a special, special thing that just could only have happened in that, that time when it all coalesced, you know. I don't think today, if Jeremy brought a song like “In Circles,” I would dare to have the temerity to say, “I'm also gonna sing on this song.” But back in the day, it just all came together, and I think it gives a, I think there's something there that a lot of people can sing along to, a lot of people can vibe with in the choruses. 

Jeremy Enigk: And then I also remember, Dan, you kind of being stumped, you're like, “I don't really know what to do,” and I was like, “Well, I have this little part that it's just really just a rhythm in the background.” It's supposed to be the background guitar line that's in the demo and it goes (sings riff) “dee da dee da dee da dee da dee da.” And it's just supposed to flow and Dan's like, “Oh, well, I'll try that,” and he turns up because his guitar to max, he goes, (sings loudly) “ne da ne da ne da ne da ne!” And it was like a siren. And then he's like, “How about we start the song with that?” He had like I remember you had like an epiphany of starting this song like that. I'm watching this song being made and destroyed (laughs). But for the better. That was my memory of “In Circles.” 

Dan Hoerner: I think that there's also because of the tenderness and the quiet of Jeremy's version, that informed the entirety of Sunny Day's future because I always wanted to be like, “When it's the quiet part, it has to be so quiet. It has to be so beautiful,” because I wanted to have those moments where we could capture the sweetness of Jeremy's quietness and his, the tenderness and the simplicity. And you know, I'll always remember being like, “William on this part, you have to play so quiet and that's always very difficult” (laughs). But it informed our sound and I think, again, for the better. Yeah because we were able to to seek that that quiet, super quiet, super intimate, super exposed and then immediately launch into the stratosphere with everybody turned up to 11. 

Jeremy Enigk: And then, of course, you know, the song had been mostly written, but Dan, you were probably the one that was like, “Well, let's make it, like, substantially longer and add, like, a bridge.” 

Dan Hoerner: Yeah. I was always the dude that needed a bridge, because I felt like there's gotta be that moment. And I think the bridge is so, so cool. And I miss the ding. 

Jeremy Enigk: We need the ding. 

Dan Hoerner: I miss the ding. 

Jeremy Enigk: But the ding doesn't happen anymore.  It has something to do with the ride. 

William Goldsmith: Oh yeah, yeah, my aim is terrible. That's what it is. 

“Song About an Angel” 

Jeremy Enigk: This is actually a huge lesson for me early on in the band is, you know, when I write songs by myself, I'm filling all this space with an acoustic guitar or a guitar. But I had to learn very quickly, and it's at the very beginning of “Song About an Angel,” that I'm not playing guitar at all, because the drums are filling that space, Dan's guitar is filling that space, and the bass. So I could lay out, and I did this a lot on Diary and in early Sunny Day, is play less and allow the band to fill that space, because it just got too busy. 

William Goldsmith: This was the first song that we wrote, right, when it was just the three of us and Nate was gone. So this, it was, I think it was the first song that we had written as Thief, Steal Me a Peach, that experiment.

Jeremy Enigk: And that really started as, I think we just wanted to play as a jam, just to have fun, and then very quickly we learned, “Oh no, let's, let's turn this into a song. Let's actually write a song.” And Dan, again, you were like the ringleader there. You were like, “No, let's write a song.” And I was like, “I just kind of want to jam,” you know, and just play. But we had formulated it to be a complete song that first practice. It wasn’t even a practice, it was just friends getting together to have fun. And it became, you know, a task very quick and yeah. 

Dan Hoerner: Yeah, I was on bass for that and if you listen to the bass line, I mean obviously Nate took it to a place where I shouldn't even talk about it, but I was the bass player for the song when we wrote it and it just has four notes and it's just an absolutely simple step down, and then there's a heavy bit in there. The words bit where I would, I was actually playing a bar chord on the bass, like a guitar player. So like (sings riff) “duh nuh.” That was all a bass line, actually, and then Jeremy was playing guitar and howling and it was fucking cool. I loved it. I was very, very into it. 

Jeremy Enigk: The U2 influence is so engraved in me that it's in everything that I did at that time. 

William Goldsmith: It's in his DNA. 

Jeremy Enigk: Absolutely. And especially the passion, that Irish passion that I got from Bono and Sinéad O'Connor. That are able to emote so much pain or joy, especially Sinéad, was able to emote through singing, anger and sweetness and softness, all of the emotions on the spectrum.

Dan Hoerner: Yeah, if I was good enough to play Edge riffs exactly the way that Edge played them, I would have just done a U2 cover band and Sunny Day never would have happened because I would have been perfectly happy to just play U2 songs. But of course, it's impossible to replicate the Edge’s stuff because only he can do it, but the influences are absolutely undeniable. And I never had a delay pedal though or the ability to use any of his incredible electronics. So I had to develop a picking style that would mimic the delay, and the effects that he was doing, but just be, because I only had an amp, and a volume pedal, I didn't have any effects, so I basically just, a lot of my style is, is trying to emulate the Edge’s delays, and his verbs and stuff, just physically.

William Goldsmith: Can I add a wrinkle? I just remembered, I often forget about this. So they didn't have distortion pedals, they both had volume pedals, the exact same ones, and then they had coins that were taped to this exact right height too, so where they would step on them and go to the quiet part, and then they would just step on it, you know, and like turn it up all the way for the loud part. So that was kind of our first sort of version of distortion pedals, kind of. 

Jeremy Enigk: And we used pennies, but I think nickels would have been better and more effective, but that was kind of a lot of money for us. 

Dan Hoerner: Yeah, yeah, yeah nickels were way too much money. 

Jeremy Enigk: Pennies were the most cost effective. A quarter of it would have been the best of all.

William Goldsmith: Yeah it had to use a lot of duct tape with pennies. 

Dan Hoerner: Yeah duct tape and pennies just to get the perfect, the right pullback. 

William Goldsmith: Yeah it was frustrating because they'd have to like kind of duct tape it down and then try it out and have to not, it wouldn't be right so you'd have to take duct tape off and then add a couple. It was a process. 

Jeremy Enigk: Yeah, I don't know if I should say this, but like it was inspired by, for me like those chords were like an R.E.M. song. Like based off like an R.E.M. and one little moment that Michael Stipe does with these chords that are happening on, I think it's “Hairshirt,” from Green. 

Dan Hoerner: (sings) “So I say.” 

Jeremy Enigk: Yeah, and it's one little moment that he does. And I just vocal melody-wise made the entire verse that, and I think Peter Buck even was commenting on at one point, like, “Hey, that's an R.E.M, song” (laughs). 

Dan Hoerner: Peter Buck has accused us of stealing multiple R.E.M. songs. To his credit, he's absolutely right. We'll get to it. No, we won't get to one in this. It's actually “Rodeo Jones,” even though we wrote “Rodeo Jones” about the same time. But there is a lick in “Rodeo Jones” that I do, and Peter Buck took me aside and he's like, “You stole that lick from me.” And I was like, “Yeah, bro. I totally did. Because you're my favorite guitar player.” Peter Buck, also, is the person I will credit for drastically changing our whole stage presence and our performance. Because, for the longest time, we would have Nate ring a harmonic on his bass, and then we would tune to his bass. And we would do this on stage. Like, full volume, and make people just listen to, (sings) “boi yoi boi yoi boi yoi.” Brutally!

William Goldsmith: I remember. 

Dan Hoerner: Brutally!

Jeremy Enigk: And you would go, and then it was my turn. 

Dan Hoerner: Yes.

Jeremy Enigk: So it was three minutes each of tuning. It was so bad. 

William Goldsmith: When I found out about stage tuners, I was so upset. 

Dan Hoerner: Well, the story is that Pete took me aside, and we were sitting at the bar after one of our shows and he's like, “I'm gonna change your life right now. What you gotta do. is get this thing called a stage tuner and you step on it and it silences your guitar because you're torturing everyone.” So again, Pete Buck, like literally taught Sunny Day how to tune our guitars on stage and not kill the show, not kill the audience. So thanks Pete, I mean, for everything, thanks for like the riffs and for learning how to tune on stage. 

William Goldsmith: Unfortunately though, because I saw some footage from the last show we played before we broke up, like at the Black Cat in D.C. and it's still going on. So we didn't, we didn't implement the stage tuners until we got back together. 

Dan Hoerner: I mean, it took a really long time because they're so expensive. 

William Goldsmith: Well, there's that too. 

Jeremy Enigk: And like, we, I remember like a rebellious, like, “We don't need that. Like we just need our guitars and our hearts.” 

Dan Hoerner: I think also we had this thing where we really only would, we would literally, we'd be the headliner and we would play like five or six songs, six songs.

William Goldsmith: 30 minutes, like that was it.

Dan Hoerner: So we padded a lot of the set with just making people stand around and listen to us fuck around on stage to get ready. 

“Round” 

William Goldsmith: I have vague glimpses and memories, just quick flashes of writing that song and I have no idea how we did it. 

Dan Hoerner: I think that it's undeniable that “Round” was heavily influenced by a Seattle band called Treepeople. Because of the licks and kind of the way that it's put together. “Round” was one that kind of, we wrote, we got really good at it. We played it a lot on that first tour, we recorded it, and then we like, walked away from it for 30 years and never looked back and never played it again. I don't know, I mean I love it now, I love playing it, but it was just kind of like, I don't know, there's some parts of the song that I think were just sort of like, put in because we just needed to complete this whole thing. It's very busy, there's so much going on. I think we just felt like our songwriting demands that we have X number of parts and X number of changes. And we just sort of did it, and really, honestly, like, it really didn't seem like us that much. I think that's probably partly why we kind of walked away from it. But now, I absolutely love it, and in this new album that we did with it, for me it's kind of one of the standouts, cause it's so fun, and it's fast, and kind of pop, power pop, and sort of dorky. 

Jeremy Enigk: Yeah, “Round” is fun. I mean, what I remember from it, and being a little bit worried about at the time, was the main riff, which is inspired by the Treepeople, is actually very similar to a riff, from a song called “Baby, You're a Rich Man,” on Magical Mystery Tour. And Dan and I were like, “Are we going to get in trouble for this?” Cause that's kind of close, (sings) “How does it feel to be one of the beautiful people?” And that's exactly the, it's like, “Oops,” but we're not big enough to ever really offend the Beatles.  

Dan Hoerner: Also we added on the (sings end of riff) “ba ba ba ba ba,” which was like…

Jeremy Enigk: In a court of law, that would be different. 

William Goldsmith: It wasn't an intentional swipe.

Dan Hoerner: It was just different enough. 

William Goldsmith: It was a subconscious swipe. 

“47”

William Goldsmith: Flashes of us working on it in the basement. 

Dan Hoerner: Well, you remember you wanted me to wear a cape. 

William Goldsmith: (laughs)

Dan Hoerner: And like, have the wind blow on me. 

William Goldsmith: Oh that’s right.

Dan Hoerner: (sings guitar riff) “Doo doo doo doo doo.” But I think there's a good story. There's a good story behind “47.” 

William Goldsmith: It's true. 

Jeremy Enigk: Well, I mean, writing it, I don't really have a lot of memory of how it came about. But I do remember, you know, playing one of our first shows at the Crocodile. And Peter Buck was like part owner of the Crocodile, so he was at a lot of our shows in those days, and was a fan. And, you know, here is a musical hero of all of ours, and he's at our shows, and the very first night that we play and I meet Peter Buck and he wants to sit down and talk to us afterwards after the show and I am absolutely in love with this girl who I won't say her name and she was behind him and he was talking to me, and I just kind of didn't really know he was, and didn't really register, cause I was just focusing on her the entire time. And that is who the song is actually about. And I was like, “I'm sorry Peter, Mr. Buck, but I am in love and I can't,” and then he was like, “Oh, of course. Yeah, that totally makes sense.”

William Goldsmith: “Go write a song about it.”

Jeremy Enigk: I mean, here I should be, you know, in a conversation with a musical hero, but the beautiful woman always wins.

Dan Hoerner: Love conquers all. 

Jeremy Enigk: So that must've been before we recorded it. 

Dan Hoerner: Oh yeah. No, “47” came later. “47” was like one of our last ones before Diary, I believe, and it kind of came together. I think it came together on that tour, really, or maybe right before that tour. 

William Goldsmith: So, the mythology is as such (laughs). Like “Seven,” “8” and “9” were the 7th, 8th, and 9th songs that we had written since we had started with Jeremy, and then “47” and “48” were the 47th and 48th songs that we had written since we had started the entire project even before Jeremy. But we ditched the other previous 46 songs (laughs). So that's the mythology, but, you know, I think there's even more to some of the titles than that, but that's pretty much the story behind them. And also making the mistake of asking the drummer what we should call the song. 

“The Blankets Were the Stairs” 

Dan Hoerner: It's a studio creation. 

William Goldsmith: Really? 

Dan Hoerner: Uh, yeah, I mean, I think it came together in the studio. 

William Goldsmith: Okay. I'm seeing it in the basement. The initial, the, like, I remember specifically wanting to write a drum part that was sort of counterintuitive, but still heavy.  

Dan Hoerner: I think the original riff that the song opens with, I think had been floating around for a good long while, but there's a lot of complexity to the song, especially in the chorus, where Jeremy has just layer upon layer of vocals. And my memory is that it didn't all come together into a coalesced song until we were in the studio, but maybe I might be wrong. What's your memory?

William Goldsmith: Could be a mix of both. 

Jeremy Enigk: I mean you had come up with that original riff. I never really felt comfortable with the song. I didn't really know what to do vocally or even guitar. And so I just played simple chords, I just didn't connect to the song. But it was a great riff, and it was a very powerful drum thing, and everybody, “No, we have to figure this out, come up with vocals in the studio, just like ‘Grendel’ as well.” And I had written all of these sort of stream of consciousness words and lyrics. And I just went up to the mic and just put, you know, my heart on my sleeve and just screamed all of this stuff in a sort of impromptu improv moment. And, you know, to this day, I have a very difficult time singing it because it was singing at the absolute peak of my vocal range and screaming at the same time, so it just shreds my vocals. So over the years, I've wanted to opt out of ever playing this this song live. And it's not a song that has a melody. It's just ripping out my soul in front of everybody. 

So it's always been very difficult for me, but it's on Diary and it's there. It's been captured and I have to do it (laughs). 

Dan Hoerner: I think that “Blankets” is a good example of Jeremy and I, like, honing in on some lyrics out of this, like, explosion of just kind of stream of consciousness stuff. Like, we invented a Greek character named Astyocles, that, like, fits with what he was saying, and a lot of the lyrics for this song, I think, sort of formulated out of, like, “It sounds like this.”

Jeremy Enigk: “You drink like Astyocles.” 

William Goldsmith: Yeah, “drank like Astyocles.” 

Jeremy Enigk: You said, “Do you, did you say, do you drink like Astyocles?” And I was like, “No.” And then yeah Astyocles was created from that, which is a great Greek hero that drank an ocean or an ocean of alcohol or something, I don't know. 

Dan Hoerner: They only exist in our minds. And then I do have to give, I'm not really hugely influenced or really particularly love the Smashing Pumpkins. I like the Smashing Pumpkins just fine and I think they're great and they were huge at the time. But I do have to give just a slight credit that there's a verse part where there's a droning guitar line that is very, very influenced by the Smashing Pumpkins. So there's just a little guitar riff that I would say I definitely stole that from those guys. Yeah, it's got that heavy low droning D and then it's coupled with a higher, a dissonant actually, A flat. Well, it wouldn't be A flat, it would be G, it would be F sharp, actually, this weird combo that makes a particular sound. And if you listen to it in absentia of anything else, you'd go like, “Oh, that's definitely, definitely sounds like something from that first record.”

I would say that Jeremy is probably the greatest natural lyricist and just like, just a poet of just like spontaneous beauty and just this flow. That is, I mean, I just stand back in awe of it. And then I am more cerebral and like the dude who will make like six pages of notes about one line. And so Jeremy would just do these incredible, just off the cuff sometimes, sometimes from deep seated places of, you know, his own poetry. And then, you know, sometimes I would be like, “What I hear you saying is this.” And it might be like a word or two different, and we would sort of like hone in on like, “Oh, that's like an incredible phrase,” you know. So I've always felt like in Sunny Day I had the the best and easiest job in the world was to like listen to this incredible poet just say these beautiful things and then just be like, you know, help sort of like land the plane. 

Jeremy Enigk: Yeah, like I would say things that I didn't find to be very profound at all. And then, Dan, you would see it from a different perspective and add that one line or that word and it would just open it up until like, “Holy shit, that's actually very profound and it sounds like I'm really deep” (laughs).

“Pheurton Skeurto” 

William Goldsmith: It's actually stemmed on a language that Jeremy and I used to sort of like use to speak. 

Jeremy Enigk: Yeah, it is pronounced, “Fjertan.” That is the correct pronunciation. But yeah, “Pherton,” it was based, the title was based off, just like a character or a language, a silly just sort of language we used to speak to be funny. And we just thought it'd be really funny to name this little studio experiment, “Pheurton Skeurto.” 

Dan Hoerner: Yeah well, “Skeurto” is also like, kind of a bastardization of a musical form. It's like a scherzo, like, you know, like some kind of a thing.

Jeremy Enigk: That was never my intention.

Dan Hoerner: But accidentally, though, it is kind of like that. Yeah, so it's like a, it's like this weird, it made perfect sense to us at the time. 

Jeremy Enigk: But yeah, it was just, “Pheurton” was just a studio experiment. I was getting really into, like, 3/4 time, whimsical. So, you know, I think Tom Waits was a guy who was doing a lot of 3/4, like, carnival-esque kind of circus things, and I was listening, of course, to the Beatles,  whatever record that was, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which, “Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite,” has that sort of carnival-esque thing, and I was getting into that realm, and just played the piano that was at, Idful Music, Brad's studio in Chicago and was just messing around with this little waltz. 

William Goldsmith: And you and Nate just all of a sudden started messing around and then Nate started playing bass to it. 

Jeremy Enigk: And we wrote this quick little cute little thing and for me It was an amazing departure for the record because here we are like an indie band where we're writing these songs, but there was a depth to Sunny Day that we all knew about but we hadn't really like revealed yet. And so putting “Pheurton” on the record was perfect because it just shows a different dimension of the band that we're capable of doing other things and we're influenced by other things that are outside of this indie thing. So it didn't really, for me, it was a departure from being pigeonholed into this one concept thing, and it showed a deeper dimension. 

Dan Hoerner: I think, lyrically, “Pheurton” is one of our greatest triumphs because it is a perfect encapsulation of what we were experiencing at the time. We were the darlings of the music industry in Seattle and major labels were pursuing us like vultures, coming to every show, giving us treats beyond measure, showing us like the entrance to the Willy Wonka factory and promising us millions and pursuing us. And all we wanted to do was write and play music, preferably in our basement and preferably just with each other. And it was this juxtaposition of these desperate, hungry, seeking pursuers and us, just like these kids, not even knowing what was going on. But we were conscious enough of the experience that if you look lyrically at the song, it is It's an absolute takedown of these hungry devourers chasing young talent, and I think it's the perfect encapsulation of what it is to be kind of the thing of the moment, and to be pursued by the machine that desperately wants to monetize and turn you into something, and the lyrics capture that just absolutely perfectly. So I'm incredibly proud of the song for how aware It was at the time and how it still resonates to this day. I mean, it's just such a great way to look at it. And there's some really funny, there's a lot of humor in it because Sunny Day is funny and we laugh all the time. And, like, there's a lot of comedy in everything that we do. And “Pheurton” is full of comedy from the lyrics to the title, to the presentation, there's tons of inside jokes and, you know, I'm not going to get too far into it, but there is a moment in there where, where Jeremy says “ten for some grapes,” And it is a, like for us, there's so many layers to this one simple phrase. I'm just gonna say that, that one little phrase, it references like this kind of out of touch, clueless A&R guy that was with us and he was like, we were going to the store and he was like, “Go, you know, get me something. Get me a bag of grapes,” and and we were like, “okay,” and he's like, “What do you need ten bucks?” And to us, at the time, it was hysterical because grapes were like 50 cents and to give somebody ten bucks to get grapes is like just so clueless and so like extravagant and for us it, like at that moment, it was hilarious and it's funny because, you know, years later, the incredible Arrested Development has this moment where the rich lady is like, “Get me a banana. How much could it cost? Ten dollars?” And like, I, when I saw that, I saw that line, I was like, “Oh my God,” you know, “we did that ten years earlier with our thing.” So anyway, I think “Pheurton” is really like one of our greatest, greatest offerings. 

William Goldsmith: And now grapes really are $10 (laughs). 

“Shadows”

William Goldsmith: Again, I just have these flashes in the basement. Again, so, I know that you guys came up with that, the main beginning riff, right? 

Jeremy Enigk: It sounds like “Shadows” would have started with a Dan riff. Yeah and that I adapted my guitar around it, and it might have been, like, a very early discovery of how our guitars interact together, which informed what we did later on with these sort of, like, tinkly magical things, how they complete each other's thoughts and like one guitar line on its own is very cool, but it really doesn't define the beauty without the other guitar. And it sounds like, from what I remember, “Shadows” would be, like, one of the first that we were starting to discover that magical connection. 

Dan Hoerner: Yeah, I totally agree. And I think there is a lot of experimentation with openness and “Shadows” has a lot of open string business going on. I have a very clear memory of playing that riff, which is very simple, on my part, and then Jeremy wove into my riff, this incredible line that went two times around my part, if you know what I mean. Like, his musical thought was like twice as long as mine, but resolved the phrase so perfectly. And I just remember, “Shadows” is very much one of those moments where I was like, it's like, “God, this connection, this two guitar connection is beyond magic.” 

Jeremy Enigk: It's also like “Round,” another pop song. To me, “Shadows” is a pop song. And not so much an indie thing that we were doing it, which is fun. I love playing it every night because it is a pop song and I want to look at it as a pop song. And I wish that it would have reached the pop charts (laughs). 

Dan Hoerner: It could have been a single if we would have kept working singles from the album, for sure. It was a contender for a single and it has a big, a big chorus that actually. I think, again, just is a great visualizer of William's genius on the drums because it's unlike anything, like, it's this pop song, this driving thing, and then it goes into these (sings drum beat) “duh nah nah, duh nah nah.” These breaks where William just kind of explodes and, like, it turns into this complicated kind of glowing sort of series of silences. 

William Goldsmith: It’s a punk rock approach to being orchestral, I think. 

Dan Hoerner: Yeah, very. It's an incredibly complex chorus, and also there's a bridge in there that's really like another complex melange of, you know, music. 

“48”

Dan Hoerner: That's what I remember about “48” is how just being able to connect with another person so viscerally on guitar, on like, incredibly hard hitting, powerful things, but like, just being so in sync with someone else. 

William Goldsmith: Is this another one that you had really like worked on on your own, right? That didn't you kind of bring us to the table? 

Dan Hoerner:  I feel like this was a band 

William Goldsmith: Really? Okay. 

Dan Hoerner:  …moment. That opening riff of, yeah that was definitely at least a kind of a cornerstone starting thing. And then Jeremy with this beautiful, very simplistic, but kind of droning thing, just kind of added this layer of beauty to it. And then of course, I think it just took off from there. This to me though, is one of those moments where Jeremy and I, we've got this, there's this breakdown bit where we're both playing guitars at the same time. And these really hard hitting staccato, jagged riffs, and just another example of these two musical like minds blending into like one seamless, incredibly hard hitting thing.

Jeremy Enigk: Also, just to talk a little bit about the writing on that. I, for me, like our little breakdown that we do with guitar is always, it is a moment that I feel inspired by Fugazi with the way that Ian and Guy would, if I'm pronouncing that right…

William Goldsmith: Yes, yes.

Jeremy Enigk: …would do these octaves. And I think we were experimenting with how octave guitar lines would work with each other in harmony with each other. And it's one of my favorite parts of the set as well. When we have that connection and yeah the crowd always seems to enjoy it. It's a cool moment. 

Dan Hoerner: It's incredibly fun. You know, it's got one of the greatest choruses we ever came up with. 

Jeremy Enigk: Cause early on, I had so much to prove to the world that I would every night self-destruct and sing and scream and not really knowing that it would permanently damage my vocals. And so, yeah, I pushed it really, really hard. I had also quit smoking. And as your body is going through that healing process, it actually breaks down. And my vocals actually got worse for a period of time. And I had to rebuild them up, it took years. And I finally hit the peak at How It Feels to Be Something On, where I had healed and kind of discovered a new way of singing.  But yeah, they were pretty shredded and it was pretty emotional for me to sing especially a song like “48” was very difficult for me to sing. And I was in the vocal booth, I could not sing the song, I didn't think I'd be able to pull it off. My voice wasn't doing what I had written and Brad just stopped the music and just told me stories for like an hour as I just stood there in the booth. And then by the end of it, he had inspired me so much that I just screamed the chorus for “48” and got it out and that's what we hear. And yeah, managed to do it, thanks to Brad. That's a true producer, somebody that can inspire you. 

“Grendel”

Dan Hoerner: I have always been drawn to trying to create feedback of, you know, beautiful feedback again inspired by The Edge to sort of like sing along with the song. And I think “Grendel,” I think this was one of the very first ones that kind of opened that door for me, which I now, I mean, I pretty much put it wherever I can on every album (laughs). But yeah, I think that it was like the perfect thing. 

William Goldsmith: Dan, take the reins. 

Dan Hoerner: Well, I mean, you know, obviously the passion and the emotion is entirely born from Jeremy's performance. There's no doubt this came together in the studio. Jeremy was in an incredibly dark place trying to make this work and I think failing for a while.  

Jeremy Enigk: I mean, that's one way to say it.

Dan Hoerner: Yeah, just like, I mean, it's, again, you know, he was searching and trying to find. That song's kind of ambiguous, you know, as far as like, it was difficult to figure out which way to go vocally, I think, right? 

Jeremy Enigk: Well, it came together in the studio. It didn't exist until, I mean, we never played it live until we got in the studio. 

Dan Hoerner: The opening riff I had for a good long while, and there's a very simple guitar line that has a pretty nice circular flow to it. And of course it's based on the book by John Gardner. There are lyrics that Jeremy honed in on that basically is a description of the internal monologue of the monster and then he also threw in some incredibly creative like lyrics that were like born of this Greek phrasebook that he had. But I'm not going to talk too much about Jeremy's aspect, I'll let him talk about that I just want to say that again, Fugazi was a huge influence there, the bit, there's a bit in there where they're very staccato, Fugazi-like guitar line, and it was a big, it's a big song, big emotions, but, you know, I think we need to let Jeremy sort of describe his process of how the vocals came to be, because the vocals make the song.

Jeremy Enigk: Well, I mean, initially, for me, “Grendel” was another one of these songs, like “The Blankets Were the Stairs, where I could not connect vocally to what was going on. It felt to me like a caricature of Sunny Day Real Estate. We were getting to a point where we were getting really good at writing Sunny Day Real Estate songs, and while it was awesome, there was something generic about it to me. And of course the guys were like, “No, this is great. We're going to stick with it. You're going to come up with it in the studio. We believe in you. You're going to do it, it's going to be great.” And I really just wanted to toss it aside with self-doubt. And I just remember being in the studio, in another room, and just sort of resisting the idea of working on it. But Dan, you were like, “No, I'm gonna try some stuff on it.” And I was like, “Okay, cool.” And then suddenly, I hear something coming out of the other room that just sounds beautiful. And I don't know what it is, and I always think of this, you know, of like those old cartoons where there's a pie in the window and you can see the set and then Popeye or whoever floats toward the pie, that was the music. It just drew me into the room like a like a cartoon pie. 

William Goldsmith: (laughs) That’s a good one. 

Jeremy Enigk: And I walk into the room and Dan was creating this feedback in harmony with the music that was singing to the music and it just opened up the floodgates of the song for me, it just, and I didn't know that it was possible to do something like that with drones. It's the first time that melodic drones, it taught me a powerful lesson that you could sweeten a song with melodic drones. And it was so beautiful. And then suddenly, at that point, it was about going in and just exploding all of these ideas. I still didn't have a formulated or time to formulate a melody, so I just sang melody after melody. Brad recorded all of it, and then he had the bright idea of, “Well, let's just grab all the best parts and throw a crazy effect on there and just have them all at once.” And so the song became a recording in the studio project much more than us actually working at the vocals in a jam space. Which actually created a whole new dimension of what Sunny Day was capable of doing. Where we could now be a recording band, and not just an indie band and also there's this idea of doing this impromptu improv thing, you know inspired by “Elvis Presley and America”  from an album called The Unforgettable Fire by U2, where Bono is doing, like, I believe, Latin or maybe Irish. He's singing in a different language, and he's just kind of feeling it, and I always connected “Grendel” to that song. 

Dan Hoerner: And the last thing I'll say is that I think some of the vocals were even finished in Seattle, if I remember correctly,  Maybe, because I remember, I just, and this is a very sketchy memory, but I remember Jeremy, like, in a totally black room, huddled with, like, a mic, like, broken in a corner, literally. 

Jeremy Enigk: His descriptions of me sound really dark and sad (laughs). 

Dan Hoerner: But you were so, you were, it was like a dark and sad thing, I mean, you were just trying so hard and I remember like Brad was at the thing and I tried to say something to him and he was like, “Fucking shut up. If you're gonna be here, don't say anything.” And Jeremy is like in the dark.

Jeremy Enigk: Like Gollum. I was like, “Ahhhh!” (laughs). 

Dan Hoerner: No, like a guy struggling to find something, you know? And anyway, I mean, to me it was, it was so emotional. And that the emotion that's in “Grendel” is a real emotion. There's no artifice to it. The absolute pain, there's a scream in there that kind of sounds like somebody being killed. That's all real. That's all, like, actual emotion from Jeremy. 

William Goldsmith: Nobody got killed. 

Dan Hoerner: No, nobody got killed. But like, there's a realness to “Grendel” that is born from how hard Jeremy tried to make it come into being. 

“Sometimes” 

Dan Hoerner: It was Sub Pop ultimately that helped craft the sequencing. And, you know, we always obviously have had very passionate, very strong opinions about the flow of an album and where the ebbs need to be and where the triumphant ending needs to be. But Sub Pop, especially for Diary, was very instrumental in sort of helping us kind of craft the right presentation and they did other things too, like on some things where we would have maybe like an extra verse or an extra chorus or something. There's a couple of instances where Jonathan and Sub Pop would be like, you know, “You guys like trim the fat a little bit, this might be better.” And then we'd be like, “Oh, okay, that makes sense.” But sometimes we'd push back and be like, “No, this song needs to be six minutes long.” 

Jeremy Enigk: This is our art. How dare you?

Dan Hoerner: How dare you try and make it better? 

William Goldsmith: How dare you take away our right to be redundant? 

Dan Hoerner: So it's credit to Sub Pop for helping shape the track listing, which I think is really, it's very solid. It works really well. “Sometimes” there's an ender. There's no, even like when we would play it, like in like together, just alone. There's not a lot you can do afterwards. 

William Goldsmith: We would end the set with it often.

Dan Hoerner: It leaves you, I mean, it leaves me completely drained and totally rung out. 

Jeremy Enigk: Originally, that was another song that I had written and brought to the band with that lead riff. And I'd even played when I opened up for you guys. “Sometimes,” it was one of like my favorites to play. It was a lot faster. And I used to sing with a falsetto if you remember.  And then bringing it to the band, we slowed it down and to me now it had more of like a, it has more of a Slint Spiderland sparseness to it. 

Dan Hoerner: Very much so. 

Jeremy Enigk: That the band brought to it. And yeah, just another brokenhearted love song, slowed down and altered by the band.  

William Goldsmith: Yeah all the pain was authentic. There was no fabricated emotions, that's for sure (laughs). 

Dan Hoerner: Yeah, “Sometimes” is a song that can make me ugly cry listening to it. Just pure streams of tears running down my face and I think recently Dan when we were recording it re-recording it for the new 30th anniversary thing when I was doing the vocals.

Jeremy Enigk: I think there was an emotional reaction in the room.

Dan Hoerner: Yes. 

Jeremy Enigk: Because it is a true emotion. 

Dan Hoerner: Yeah, Jeremy did one pass through and like right about three quarters of the way through, I had to leave and go because I just started bawling and I had to like go be in the bathroom. I couldn't even like, I could hear it through the walls and I just had to get away from it because I was crying so hard. 

There's a little twinkly riff that I do in there that Is just one of those bolts from the blue moments that like, I couldn't write if I had to, put a gun to my head and said, “Do this.” But it just like happened. And I think it's one of the most beautiful moments that I've ever just like accidentally lucked into in my life. 

Jeremy Enigk: Every record that I've ever been a part of I don't want to listen to it mixed ever again (laughs). I am so done with listening over and over and over again that I usually, you know, I'm out of the picture by the mix. That's my personal thing is I've heard it too many times. So let's trust somebody else.  

Dan Hoerner: I would listen to Diary like maybe five or six hours in a row and just have the hairs raise on my arms and the back of my neck and be blown away that I was a part of it. And I thought that it was,  I thought that it was a masterpiece and I have loved it ever since the very first time I heard it, the final product. 

William Goldsmith: Yeah. I mean, I'm always amazed at the sort of like creating something from nothing like air sculpture, you know, like just, and how songs come into being. There's a mysterious element, you know, there's definitely a conscious effort, but then there's also other elements that are like mysterious to me. But, you know, in time, I kind of like, there's a lot of things that I would have liked to have. Done differently or improved upon or not been as nervous  when I was a kid. We were all kids sort of but, you know, it's a moment in time for sure.

Dan Hoerner: We sort of had kind of a slow dissolution. I mean we knew that we were going to break up for quite a while, but we still work together and I think that, you know, there was just so much love there. But also so much pain. I mean, it's just young, we were so young and it's so hard for people, even mature, you know, fully formed people to get along and to overcome problems and to be able to ameliorate your own personality defects so that you can get along with other people. I think that it's inevitable that young people will tear themselves apart, especially when the project is, “Okay, let's examine the deepest, darkest parts of ourselves and let's, like, write art about that.” Yeah, and then have to do it over and over again. I'm amazed. I'm amazed that we stayed together. The first tour that took us up to recording Diary was a brutal, I mean, I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy, to put people through that. We had no idea. We had no idea what we were doing and what we were getting into. And all I can say is that the love between us has proven itself. We're here 30 years later, with a whole discography beyond Diary, of incredible art and incredible friendship. And, you know, Jeremy said the other day, “We've never broken up. We just have to have to take some time to like collect ourselves in between things, sometimes a decade.” But it's absolutely true. In my heart, you know, I never felt like Sunny Day broke up. I always felt like, you know, there was a moment when we would come back together once we all could. 

Jeremy Enigk: Yeah, I mean, Diary, I'm absolutely proud of it.  It has given me so much. I never expected it to be what it is. And I, all I can say is that I'm proud of it because 30 years later, we're able to, to play these shows and have sold out shows, have people show up, sing along. It was really just an expression to bring chaos into order for me, my own emotional chaos, to sort of bring that into order and here we are 30 years later being able to, to continue to, to play it. 

William Goldsmith: Yeah I mean, Sunny Day has always managed to honestly document the human experience musically, so that's something I've always been very proud of. 

Outro:

Dan Nordheim: Visit lifeoftherecord.com for more information about Sunny Day Real Estate. You’ll also find a full transcript of this episode and a link to purchase Diary. Instrumental music by Feverchild. Thanks for listening.

Playlist of music mentioned in the episode

Credits:

“Seven”

“In Circles”

“Song About an Angel”

“Round”

“47”

“The Blankets Were the Stairs”

“Pheurton Skeurto”

“Shadows”

“48”

“Grendel”

“Sometimes”

All songs written by Sunny Day Real Estate. Lyrics by Enigk/Hoerner.

Published by Ironic Superlative Music administered by Bug (BMI), Mr Blue 72 (BMI), Northern Clam (BMI), and Ebot Music/Universal Music Careers (BMI).

℗ & © 1994 Sub Pop Records

Episode Credits:

Intro/Outro Music:

“Altering a Memory” by Feverchild from the album, Altering a Memory

Episode produced, edited and mixed by Dan Nordheim

Additional mixing and mastering by Jeremy Whitwam