It’s no secret that Colin Meloy is the focus of most attention paid to literate indie folksters The Decemberists, but he is only one of five members who contribute to the band’s acclaimed sound. On a break between shows on their Crane Wife tour, Decemberists guitarist Chris Funk recently took a moment to speak with Harmonium about filesharing, signing to a major, and the way a Decemberists song is put together.

Harmonium: Has the increasing success of the band changed your life?

Funk: Not really. It’s progressed so slowly over the past several years…it’s not like we signed to Capitol and then there was all this new attention. People have been coming to our shows in greater numbers over time, so it pretty much feels the same.

Harmonium: Was recording for Capitol any different than recording for Kill Rock Stars?

Funk: It’s pretty much the same thing. We just handed the record in to Capitol and they were OK with it. I think a lot of the horror stories about bands having to change their material are about the contracts they have, but we were very careful about making sure we had our bases covered.

Harmonium: Have you started to feel any of the inevitable indie backlash that comes with signing to a major?

Funk: Surprisingly not. We’ve been a band that’s considered “indie,” whatever that means, for a long time, but since signing to Capitol we haven’t really felt any backlash. People seem to like the record, and that’s what counts. That’s the case with a lot of music; if it’s a good record, people will find it. I suppose there are fans that initially discovered us and feel some ownership, and who now feel that we’ve strayed from that sound, but for the most part people seem to enjoy what we’ve been doing, at least based on what the fans say on the message boards and what we hear at shows.

Harmonium: Speaking of, you all seem to be fairly active members of the message boards and post there yourselves from time to time. What motivates you to be so involved with the fans?

Funk: We started small and we’re humble people, so we feel like we have an interest in posting on the message boards since that’s how a lot of the fans seem to get together. It’s fun to communicate with the fans and hopefully people want to hear from us as well, so it works out for all of us. Between the message boards and things like Myspace there are a lot of avenues for us to interact with the people who buy our records.

Harmonium: Do you feel like Myspace has led to some of your recent success?

Funk: Not sure if I can gauge that or not, but I do think it’s great. If Myspace had been available when we started out, we would have been all over it. It makes it possible and really easy to have a webpage for a band that can’t really afford it otherwise. People write in and say “I just heard about you on this page” all the time, and it’s amazing. Back when I was younger, growing up in Chicago, we had fanzines and flyers at record shops to expose us to new music, and some people are sort of nostalgic for those routes to discovering music, but for people now it’s a great way to hear new things. The Internet in general is a great resource for discovering music and it should be applauded for that despite the obvious downsides.

Harmonium: Like online music trading, right? I take it you’re not a fan of filesharing?

Funk: How I really feel about it doesn’t matter because it happens. It’s not my job to figure out how to keep people from taking our music, but online sharing definitely has its plusses. I’m sure some record companies are leaking albums intentionally now because they know it will build word of mouth, and if you get a few large blogs talking about your record, people are more likely to spread the word. But it’s sort of like debating abortion; you have two sides and no real middle option, and there’s no way one point of view is going to really understand the other. I used to download music myself in the past and I don’t anymore, not even iTunes, because it seems like record stores are going away and I miss the social interaction of discussing and picking out music, and I don’t want that to go away.

Harmonium: Do all of the Decemberists have a hand in the creative process?

Funk: Definitely. Colin brings in the initial songs and ideas and we just start recording and putting down the first idea, start arranging from there and writing parts from there. We’ve been doing it for four or five albums now so we have a pretty good rhythm going on. There are times when people are more active and times when they step out of the way, but it’s hard to sit back and look at a whole album and say how one person dominated it in any way.

Harmonium: The Crane Wife mines a lot of its themes from classic folk tales, which dovetails nicely with the literate image the band holds. What inspired you to take that route?

Funk: With this new album we said, “let’s try something slightly different, maybe something set more in reality rather than pure fantasy.” But with each record we try something different. Picaresque was definitely a new approach with all the varied instrumentation, and maybe next time we’ll go the stripped-down route, less like some of the more ambitious stuff that’s out there—not really to be contrary, but to challenge ourselves a little bit and limit ourselves with a new approach. With each record you have to try to break down what you did last time and create something new.

-- Jedediah Gilchrist

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 26th, 2006 at 12:00 pm and is filed under Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Edit this entry.