Say Hi

A conversation with Eric Elbogen

(March 2008)

Interview by Adam McKibbin

Synth-pop wiz Eric Elbogen has been going through changes: leaving behind New York, surviving some personal shakeups, and deciding that his band name really isn't the right place to be talking about your mom.  Formerly DBA Say Hi To Your Mom, Elbogen (essentially a one-man band) has returned this year as simply Say Hi, a winsome collection of grown-up tales about relationships and loneliness.

Elbogen talked to The Red Alert about his prolific writing tendencies, his decision to keep flying solo, and his experiences with Northwestern girls.

I understand that you stick to a pretty regular work regimen when writing an album.  Do you hit dead end days where nothing is coming or nothing is working - and, if so, do you call it a day or do you find some way to push through and stay productive?

Yeah. I hit dead ends, for sure. More so the longer I’m working on a record. I usually work  on a song until I get stuck, then move on to working on a different song. Usually, when I go back to the previous song, there’s some clarity and I see what I missed before. If there isn’t, it goes to the trash or is revisited when making the next record.

At what point when you’re working on these songs all by your lonesome do you bring in an outside set of ears?

Sometimes never. If I do, it’s the day before I sign off on the final mixes. I’m nuts doing that, I know.

You sing, you play the guitars, you man the machines - are there times when you feel limited by the DIY approach, like you’d add a killer saxophone solo if you could only play the sax (ha), or is the one-man approach pretty liberating all the time?

I like it. I can do things my way, instead of trying to coax something out of another musician. I appreciate the limitations of being a one man band, but the good outweighs the bad for me. So far, at least.

You’ll be out on the road for a good while.  For listeners who are enjoying the new record but have never seen a Say Hi show, how do the two experiences differ?  What sort of a travelin’ band are you touring with this time around?

I’ve always thought of the records and the live shows as two different things, and I think they sound that way. This time around it’s live drums / live guitar and a bunch of synths.

The new record chops out a few things from the equation that had been points of fascination in the press - the cheeky band name, songs about vampires, etc.  Was there a deliberate evolution to those changes, or didn’t they necessarily go together?  Sometimes artists react negatively when the press uses words like “evolved” or “matured”.

Well, a ton of stuff happened between the last record and when I started recording this one. A move from New York, turning thirty and the demise of some personal relationships. It seemed like a good opportunity to go with the band name change I had been planning for a while, especially because the record touches on some of those things. So, no, in summation, I don’t think maturity is a problem. It’s probably best I’ve grown from being a man-child anyway.

Did you wind up with a lot of songs that fell by the wayside while writing The Wishes and the Glitch, or did you wind up using most of the tracks?

I write hundreds of songs for each record, but only the 10 or 11 that make it on the record are developed beyond the rough demo stage. The decision about what songs will appear on the record is made fairly early in the process and most of the rest end up gone forever.

You’ve addressed free/illegal downloading in the past - it even appears in the FAQ on your website.  Obviously the Radiohead release was one of the big stories in the industry in the last year - do you find the “pay what you want” idea intriguing or does it reinforce the idea that music can legitimately be obtained without charge?

Hm. I think Radiohead could make it work because they’re Radiohead. Even if 100% of the people who downloaded their record didn’t pay a cent, they’d still be well off financially from past royalties and touring income. Most bands don’t have that luxury. It took balls, for sure, but that’s part of what makes them the best band in the world.

Now that some time has passed since you wrote the song, have Northwestern girls become any less charming?

No, they’re still pretty charming. That song was actually about one in particular, and I don’t see her very often anymore, which is a drag, but she was too young for me anyway …

What’s the process behind your album artwork?  Is it collaborative? 

Yeah, there have been a bunch of different artists who have drawn the robots on the various covers. I’ve always requested a specific thing for the robots to be doing.

I was reading something online and you mentioned David Foster Wallace - probably my favorite writer, if I had to choose - as an influence, in addition to more prototypical indie rock influences like Pavement.  Do you see Wallace as a direct influence, or is it more like general inspiration?

More of an inspiration so far, but you never know what sort of influence I’ll pull in the future.

And do you have a favorite Wallace book (or story or essay)?  Any particular reason?

Infinite Jest. I’ve had a hard time enjoying anything else since I read it.