He’s not the hardest working man in indie rock. In fact, he claims not to work that hard at all. But the fact remains that as one-fifth of Wolf Parade, one-third of Swan Lake and the main songwriting force behind Sunset Rubdown, Spencer Krug has been consistently putting out brilliant albums at a head-spinning rate over the past half-decade. Sunset Rubdown’s last album, 2007’s Random Spirit Lover, was a meticulously wrought work of genius, but the sheer weight of musical and lyrical density made it a sometimes inaccessible listen. After taking a break to tour and to record with other projects, Sunset Rubdown returned this year with the masterful album Dragonslayer, stripping back the layers and giving listeners the clearest view yet of the inside of Krug’s head.
Dragonslayer is a much more open record than Random Spirit Lover. Did you make a conscious effort to avoid making something as dense again?
We weren’t trying to avoid anything per se. I think we wanted to try working a different way, so a different-sounding album came out. Random Spirit Lover was made in the studio, a track at a time, figuring things out slowly and ending up with that lush, dense sound that you’re talking about. Dragonslayer was almost completely written and toured beforehand. We did it like a live record where you throw up mics and everyone plays their part and there are no overdubs. So it ended up feeling more open and less conceptual.
When you read your lyrics written out, they can almost read like short stories. Do you think of yourself as a writer?
I don’t really think of myself as a writer. I do try to write short stories, and I’m not very successful, but I’m not trying to write a short story when I’m writing lyrics. I try to have certain elements of poeticism in there, as bad it may be. I try to keep it interesting for me to sing and for people to hear, so for that reason I end up using a lot of metaphors, and it reads like a weird, half-baked short story. I’m just writing the emotions the music invokes in me. I’m thinking as much about the melody, the cadence of the word as its literal meaning.
What’s the idea behind the mythological and animal names in your songs?
Those are just concepts and images that kind of interested me. They’re not meant literally obviously. I end up using a lot of animal imagery or mythological imagery because I guess they’re kind of fascinating or really lush. But I’m not literally singing about a leopard or whatever.
I’ve seen you described multiple times as the hardest working man in indie rock. What do you think of that?
I don’t work that hard. It’s not really work. There are hundreds of seventeen year old kids in their bedrooms making twice as much music as I am, but maybe for a smaller audience. This “hardest working man in indie rock” thing, there are so many parts to that sentence that are annoying to me. Even the indie rock part is annoying to me. It’s just bullshit, you know? I’m just making some records.
So when you’re writing, do you just write songs and divide them later, or do you write with the project in mind?
It’s more like, if Wolf Parade are active that day, then they’re somewhere in the back of my head when I’m writing music. I try to write these songs so I can sit and play them by myself, and if they sound okay that way then you know they’re probably not going to get a lot worse if you add these other instruments. It doesn’t take a lot of conscious deliberating deciding where songs will go. When I get asked about it I have to start analysing it, and then it starts to sound clinical.
You seemed to enjoy playing Dublin with both Wolf Parade and Sunset Rubdown. Do you have any impressions of Dublin as a place to play?
The first time I went to Dublin with Wolf Parade I really loved it, and I’ve loved going back every time. It’s got a chill atmosphere. I love going to the pub and seeing fucking high school kids, sitting around smoking and drinking. It’s not something you really see in America. A sense of tolerance. For partying I guess. It’s a pretence a lot of places try to nurture, but it doesn’t really feel true. It feels true in Dublin.
Sunset Rubdown slay dragons in Crawdaddy on the 12th of September. Win tickets at www.totallydublin.ie/blog
