by Taylor Ruckle (@TaylorRuckle)
In my memory, all four hands of Quasi are a blur. Sam Coomes pounds at the keys of his churning Rocksichord organ. Janet Weiss pummels the drum kit, and you never quite see the sticks–just their afterimage. The Portland duo are playing a noise jam at the end of "Shitty is Pretty" from their tenth LP, Breaking the Balls of History, facing each other from opposite sides of the stage at DC’s Black Cat during a set that otherwise rolls like a freight train from one song to the next.
Through the hour, Weiss tosses her hair from side to side as if it was all the most casual thing in the world. The same easy attitude permeates Breaking the Balls of History. Who takes ten years off between albums and then comes back with a set of songs this taut and vital? If not for Coomes’ topical lyrics, taking tech billionaires to task (“Back in Your Tree”) and surveying the bleak landscape of post-2020 social media (“Doomscrollers”) you could convince yourself the last decade didn’t happen.
In actuality, the two have taken the time in stride, and their age is more than just a number. In between amassing two of the most impressive resumes in indie rock as individual players–you may have first heard them by way of Sleater-Kinney, or Built to Spill, or Elliot Smith, or even the Shins–Quasi has spent thirty years building unparalleled duo chemistry, and it shines in the sharp dynamics and effortless harmonies of their new LP.
After releasing Breaking the Balls of History but before the tour leg that brought them to DC, the duo talked to Post-Trash about their on-stage telepathy and the fun of making their studio comeback.
photo credit: John Clark
Ruckle: The tour for this record kicked off the same day as the album release–what was the first run of shows like?
Weiss: Good! We finished the first leg, and I think it really picked up a lot of steam in California, as well as we hit a lot of really crazy, tumultuous weather. But yeah, it all went pretty smoothly, especially the last weekend of shows in the Pacific Northwest. I think the Seattle show might have been our best show in the last while for sure.
Ruckle: Like a homecoming after being out in the southwest.
Weiss: Yeah! We played five shows in Texas, so there's definitely some places where it's low attendance, but I think the people who did show up were awesome, and we kinda just play the show that we play; it helps to have a lot of people there really enthusiastic and contributing their energy to the mix, but we I feel like we still can put on a good show to a smaller crowd. It was fun to get out there and be in some new places.
Ruckle: Quasi is such a live-oriented band, but this new record Breaking the Balls of History was made during a time when you couldn't perform live. How did that impact the way the songs came out?
Coomes: I think because we couldn't play live, we treated the recording process like a live show, almost. We focused the songs on how they were gonna sound in performance on stage. We rehearsed them that way, and we practiced every day as if we were on tour before we went into the studio. So it almost was like we were playing live, although there was nobody in the audience.
Weiss: Yeah, we mimicked the tour before the recording so that we would get in the kind of shape–I mean, I feel like we're in better shape now than we have been in a long time, but we did try to mimic a tour and practiced every day for three weeks. Not super long practices, but, like, an hour and a half, you know? As if we were playing a show, to try to get into that telepathy mode that we get into when we play every day, which I feel like we accomplished. You can kinda hear it in the record, that it's got this live energy. That was intentional.
Ruckle: You released the song "Rotten Wrock" originally as a quarantine demo video all the way back in 2020. What was it like sharing with people on that kind of basis?
Weiss: Well, we did that not-together–it's like the opposite of how the song ended up on the record. It's not optimum for us to not be playing in the same room, but we wanted to keep in touch with people. The video was kinda fun with the split-screen, but it's not as good as being together and playing off each other in the same room. That's far superior, but it was fun, I thought.
Coomes: That was a period when nobody knew when we would be able to play again, or if. In a way, it was a little bit grasping at straws, just trying to figure out a way to do some work, to have some contact with an audience. Ultimately that, to me, was unsatisfying. It's a poor substitute to an actual show. I think we did a couple songs that way, and then it was like we just shrugged our shoulders and hunkered down.
Ruckle: What about feedback from social media? Were you at least able to hear from people what they thought about the songs early on?
Weiss: I actually don't really remember what the response was.
Coomes: Neither do I.
Weiss: People are always really nice, I feel like, on Instagram. It's a positive space for a lot of people. I don't think it was the best representation of what the song became; it was a demo, like it says. We were still kind of working it out. A lot has happened since, and we've had a lot of contact with a lot of people, and face to face reactions, which for us are the best. When you can see someone's face and talk to them after the show–it's the easiest to comprehend how your music is being digested when you see it, and you're all in it together, so the live performance is really the place where we can tell, "Oh, this song is really getting to people, and people are screaming at this song, they love it!" Also, we can change the songs a little bit, and react to the people in the room in a way that's more meaningful I think than an online interaction.
Ruckle: Tell me more about the practice space where you were working on these songs.
Weiss: [laughs] It's very small and there's no windows. We just face each other. It's tiny, there's a crummy PA. You know, it's a group practice space, there's all kinds of other bands practicing at the same time. It's a very rock and roll practice space, but yeah, I think the insular nature of it helped us to focus on the task at hand. There's no distractions, unless the next-door neighbors are practicing at the same time, and then it makes it pretty tough. It's in town, it's close to our houses, it's easy to get there. It's on the first floor, so we don't have to load up any stairs.
Coomes: There was a period where an experimental metal band moved into the room next door, and they were one of the loudest bands I've heard in a long time. And we're not a quiet band, but we could not practice when they were in there. [laughs]
Weiss: Yeah, we would just have to come back. It didn't happen that much because during the pandemic, we were practicing in the daytime, even on the early side. All these young rockers, they wanna practice at night, so if we can practice in the day, it saves us another trip, having to reschedule.
Ruckle: Is that the room where you're playing in the "Nowheresville" video?
Weiss: Yeah, that's it.
Ruckle: You ended up recording this album at Robert Lang Studios. Had you ever worked there before?
Coomes: We did a few songs there on Field Studies.
Weiss: We did the songs that Phil Ek produced on Field Studies, and I think they were the songs with strings, so we wanted to go to a room that had a nice natural sound, 'cause we used real strings on a couple songs. I think "Smile" was one, and I don't remember what the other one was. I do remember doing "Smile" in that room.
Ruckle: What was it like this time being back there, just the two of you?
Coomes: It was still sort of a quarantine time, so it was very isolated. It was just Janet and myself and John Goodmanson, and no visitors, no hanging out, so it was very focused.
Weiss: I think it allowed us to get a lot done quickly. It took a couple weeks total, and I think the tracking was, like, five days or something for the basics. It is kinda nice to not have people coming and going. They actually have a school upstairs that would have probably been watching and observing. That didn't happen, I think because of the pandemic, so it allowed us to have more time to just work on the music, which in the end I think was advantageous.
Coomes: It's an audio engineering school, so yeah, they sometimes come down and ask questions, but it wasn't really happening at that time.
Ruckle: "Long Last Laugh" opens with this softer intro where it's just vocals and toms, and then it kicks in really hard all at once–like you're throwing open the door, turning on the lights, here we go, we're back. What was it like putting that opening together for the record?
Weiss: When we record the music, we don't really know the sequence yet. As a person who's really interested in sequencing, I feel like you don't really know the character of the songs completely until you hear the tracking and how they change when you record them. But I love when I'm sequencing a record when there's something that really sounds like an opening, you know?
I feel like the lyrics have to be really intriguing at the beginning to catch people's attention. Basically, you want an attention-getter. I remember taking a Shakespeare class, and they talked about how Shakespeare would put something kind of shocking right at the beginning, 'cause people are eating their picnics and talking, and no one's paying attention, and you have to get them to listen, you know? So something should happen in the first couple seconds. That song just sounded like it had those elements of surprise, and also the lyrics–you kinda wanna lean closer to hear what Sam's saying, and then you lean closer, and then you get pummeled. [laughs]
I love when people ask about the sequence, 'cause it doesn't happen very often, and it means so much to me to do it.
Ruckle: I also wanted to ask about "Riots and Jokes," where Janet, you intro the song, like, "'Riots and Jokes,' let's do it!" What do you remember about the studio session for that song? It sounds like it must have been a blast.
Coomes: You know, we could have cut that out, but I think–we were talking in between songs, as bands do, and most of the time it's not interesting, but in that case, that is sort of the essence of the live approach that we were taking. It's just, like, a wide-open song. We had to do a couple takes to get it.
Weiss: That's actually the first take.
Coomes: Yeah! Right. So we did do a couple takes, but we used the first take.
Weiss: We definitely did more takes, but the first one was the best one.
Coomes: But that's a song that you really have to throw yourself into, and we've got it a little bit more down now, but at that time, it could go off the rails at any moment, and you have to play it on the edge for it to feel like it needs to feel. So yeah, there was a little bit of, "Alright guys, we're hitting the court, it's time to give 110%" kinda pep talk going on there, 'cause it's that type of song. It's a swinging for the fences sort of thing. I'm mixing my sports because in basketball, you don't swing for the fence, but I'm sticking to sports, at least.
Ruckle: You can swing for a fence in basketball, it's just going to be a longer shot, I think.
Coomes: Yeah, I don't know where the fence would be. Maybe outside the arena. No points there.
Ruckle: This record is very direct in speaking to the moment when it was written, and at the same time, there's a real playfulness to it with tongue-in-cheek lyrics and things like the sound of the toilet flushing on "Rotten Wrock." How do you balance those elements of what Quasi does?
Coomes: We just schlep into it. I think we're conscious of trying to bring different elements into it, but we don't take notes and work from a careful plan. We're kinda winging it, but rock and roll is supposed to be fun, in my opinion. It's not just about being fun, but if it's not fun, why would you listen to it? You might as well listen to Beethoven or something. You gotta have a good time because that's when the music feels fun, and at the same time, we have some ideas that we consider serious.
Weiss: That song also has silverware and pots and pans overdubbed at the end–we're sitting on the floor with silverware and pans and plates and cups, and we're just making a bunch of racket. I think stuff like that is fun for us. [laughs] You know, and not to take ourselves too seriously in there. You're trying to capture the song in the best possible way, but sometimes the best possible way is to not worry about it so much, so keeping it kinda light and having a good time in the studio will benefit your music in the end. Getting too heavy and serious doesn't always make the music better. We've made so many records that I think having a good time while we're doing it is important.
Ruckle: Whose floor was that? Where did you record that?
Weiss: That was in our overdub studio. We tracked at Robert Lang, but then we went to a place called–
Coomes: Electrokitty.
Weiss: Electrokitty, also in Seattle, to do the vocals and a couple overdubs. We just were like, "We need some sounds," and that's the same place we did the toilet.
Coomes: We just went into the bathroom, stuck a microphone down there, and tracked. [laughs] Yeah, they had a little kitchenette with a bunch of silverware and plates, and we basically were dropping them onto the floor in front of a microphone.
Weiss: I think there is a toilet flushing in another Quasi song as well. I'm not going to tell you which one it is, but it's a sample.
Coomes: The previous one came from a sound effects record, but we decided to go for full realism this time.
Ruckle: Speaking of fun, I love the “Nowheresville” video, where Sam, you're in the gorilla costume. Where did that concept come from and what was it like shooting that?
Coomes: Well, we had a more elaborate idea for the video originally. It did include the gorilla, but we had some semi-scripted stuff. The day of the filming, we all tested for COVID because we were all going to be in close proximity, and just wanted to make sure everybody was fine. I tested positive, so we had to bag the video until I got over COVID. I wasn't really sick, I just had it. I had a little cough or something.
By the time we were finally able to do the video, we were under pretty extreme time pressure. We filmed it in one day and Janet edited it together the next day. We turned it in the day after that, I think. We were just winging it. We trashed the more elaborate plan, and the plan became, "Put on the gorilla suit and walk around, and we'll film it and see what happens."
Weiss: But that being said, I did scout the locations. I had already done this preliminary looking-around for stuff, so it wasn't like we just went out and walked around. I did actually pick those spots, and I thought they were cool. I work in movies and TV as a locations person, so it was really fun to find the locations and then I got to pick the shots. Usually, I find the location, someone else films it, and I'm like, "Well, you didn't even film the best part of it!"
I think it's a good thing that we ended up simplifying it. I didn't know that Sam was gonna be such a great actor in that gorilla suit, so it was really easy to edit 'cause there was all this funny stuff. It is true, we just winged it in a few places, like where the security guard came and tried to kick us out. So yeah, It was pretty fun actually, and it turned out to be better, I think, in the end. Sam's COVID really helped the video.
Coomes: I've had that gorilla suit for years and years. I've worn it on Halloween. Kids hate it. [laughs] My wife actually made it for me and gave it to me for my birthday or for Christmas many, many years ago. I think Todd Haynes actually made a short film with it one time. I remember that, 'cause he returned it, and it had all kinds of leaves and debris in the fur–we had to clean it up. There's a lot of accumulated mojo in that suit over the years.
Ruckle: This is maybe too cute a segue, but there's a lot of accumulated mojo in the two of you, with 2023 being the 30th anniversary of Quasi. What is it like looking back here from your 10th album?
Coomes: I don't really look back very much. We're still working, and…yeah. [laughs] Maybe at some point I'll look back and say, "Yeah, that's neat," but I'm still trying to look forward.
Weiss: I'm not very nostalgic, and I'm really trying to be more in the present. The coolest thing about it is what we can do on stage after 30 years–the telepathy and the language and the way we can pivot. There's lots of other good stuff, and there's challenging times, but to me, that's the frosting on the cake, is the way that that works on stage is really unique to us, and I feel like it came out of all those years of just doing it, you know? I'm really appreciative of that.
Ruckle: Let me ask a better question then: what do you see for the next 30 years of Quasi?
Coomes: I'll be dead before that.
Weiss: [laughs] You don't know that!
Coomes: That's a pretty safe bet. I mean, in a way, when you're younger, you do look for the future. You think, "I'll do this now, and it'll pay off next year, or in five years," but now I don't really think that at all. This is the future. We're doing what we're going to do right now.
Weiss: The good thing about getting old is that you let go of all that, like, "Yeah, when we grow up, we're gonna be able to do this, and we're gonna be able to do that!" It's like, "No, the time is now, so you have to make it happen now, the things that you want to do.” And if you don't want to be doing it, then you shouldn't be doing it, you know? There's no point, really, in just suffering through something for the sake of what it's gonna be like when you get old. We're old now. [laughs]
I don't know, not in regards to Quasi, but the idea of projects–I really embrace that now. It doesn't have to be a lifelong pursuit for it to be worthwhile, and life could end tomorrow. Like, we're old, so let's live it up and enjoy what we're doing, or we'll do something else. That's really important to me personally, but I do think Quasi comes and goes. It's not like there's a lot of pressure on it to be a certain thing. We just want to play our best shows and make the best music we can, and if we don't feel like we're doing that, we probably won't do it.
Coomes: We're still physically able to play high-energy music every night for weeks on end at a very high level, and that's a gift. We're definitely enjoying that part of it, and that won't last forever, but for now, we're comfortable and happy doing that, and we're gonna just continue that way.
Ruckle: I was researching for this interview, and I didn't know, Janet, that you played drums on "Simple Song" by The Shins. That's the song my wife and I walked down the aisle to at our wedding, so thank you for that!
Weiss: Shut up! Wow, that's so nice to hear. Yeah, that's me! That's the only time I've ever broken a stick while I was tracking. [laughs] I was trying to jack that song up. It was probably an old stick, but still. Usually I get new sticks, and so they don't break, but I was really going for it on that one.