Sister Suvi

A conversation with Patrick Gregoire

(July 2009)

Interview by Adam McKibbin

Folks don’t know quite what to make of Sister Suvi and their debut full-length, Now I Am Champion – in a good way.  Every band likes to flatter itself by thinking that their sound can’t be reduced to pure mathematical equation by critics (often times while their own press kits attempt to do just that).  But of course, in a lot of cases, there isn’t anything especially ethereal or magical or mystical about it; it’s x + y = z.

Sister Suvi is harder to pin down.  By all accounts and appearances, the trio is a flourishing democracy where each member plays a key role.  They’ve been making some notable noise happen beyond the walls of Sister Suvi, too; Patrick Gregoire plays in the much-loved Islands and Merrill Garbus just signed with 4AD to release her solo material as tUnE-yArDs. In writing enthusiastically about Now I Am Champion, Pitchfork's Chris Dahlen compared the big-voiced Garbus to a circus runaway. Again, he meant it in a good way. Again, they're kind of hard to pin down.

So we went to the source to unravel the mystery of Sister Suvi - and, in so doing, left plenty of mystery intact. Patrick Gregoire talked about the "hybrid three-headed monster" approach of his band's sound, the challenge of choosing singles on an album with so much variety, and Sister Suvi's experience with selling music in the digital age (a digital download of Now I Am Champion is available "for whatever price you would like to pay").

Now I Am Champion covers a lot of stylistic ground – it’s pretty much impossible to pin down in a single song.  Is that the result of the combination of your songwriting styles, or if you all made solo records, would they be likely to each be similarly eclectic?

I don't think that it's necessarily one or the other, but more a hybrid of both option a) and b).  Yes, this band's broadness of stylistic interest is absolutely a product of the democratic fusion of three highly individual musicians and songwriters.  Our creative process is very much a collaborative one and generally consensus-based in terms of nothing really making the final cut unless all three of us feel happy with the output.  This means our music is less the focused oeuvre of one genius tete so much as a hybrid three-headed monster.  I sometimes think about us as straddling the deep intimacy but also the awkward closeness that is felt by conjoined twins (or in this case triplets).

But even within that dynamic, I think that each of us shares a commitment to diversity and a broad taste and love of all music.  Sometimes we lie in interviews and say that Merrill is the dancehall wildness, Nico the free-jazz experimenter and Patrick the rock commitment to strong pop structure.  But I think that this a gross simplification carried out for the sake of easy description.  There is violence inherent to writing words about an aural art form, but I guess it is somewhat necessary.

You each come to the table with your own set of influences – is there any genre that’s universally reviled by Sister Suvi?  Any style we know we won’t be hearing echoes of on future albums?

Hmm... Nothing jumps to mind.  I don't think it's safe to indict any single genre of music, because as soon as you do, I think you can eat your words very quickly.  That said, sometimes we will all be in total agreement about being thoroughly bored by something, though I'm hesitant to point fingers and start beefs.  Usually it has to do with conservative so-called “Indie” rock.   I think that word has become the current music industry's rehashing of the word “Alternative” from fifteen years back.  It is a clever, though somewhat transparent, way to co-opt and market sincerely-created music communities.

I don’t want to belabor the eclecticism point, but I do have a few other questions about it.  I was wondering how you decide which song(s) to send out into the public, and whether it’s harder given the way music is consumed these days, when there’s so much music at everyone’s fingertips and a lot of people make up their minds about a band based on a single MP3, or a 30-second sample on MySpace or iTunes.  

Yes, it is difficult to choose which song gets to be the “single”.  Sort of like choosing which one of your children goes off to war and which ones stay home to work the farm.  Perhaps we could be accused of singling out the more concise and less structurally ambitious songs on the album.  Is that dishonest?  Is it a false-sell to pull someone in on a three-minute punk song and then give them a record of rock suites? 

You're right that we are a culture of immediacy that demands soundbite-ready and easily summarized pop music.  I will not lie and say that is an easy thing to contend with when you are a square peg that doesn't quite fit into that round hole.  Still I think there is power that comes with all the new media that can help bands like us just as much as it can limit them.

One of my writers caught and reviewed your show with Thao here in LA.  Given the wide range of your music, have you played shows with a similarly wide range of bands? 

We've done a whole lot of DIY touring where there is little booking agent, and large promoter, involvement.  Instead you are going from city to city and accessing independent music communities that exist outside of that infrastructure.  When that is the case, every night is usually a totally different group of bands coming together.  It's a really rewarding thing because you get to see all of this music that you've never heard or imagined before that comes out of a place and culture that is new to you.  You also make a lot of friends and open yourself to a lot of possibilities that are excluded when it is a headliner with travelling support swooping into town without need for local openers.  And yes, to answer your question six lines later, part of that is playing with a wide range of bands in a very wide range of musical contexts.

You recently wrapped up that leg with Thao.  What’s up next?  What does the rest of 2009 hold in store for Sister Suvi?

We are taking a little break to recoup over the summer and re-energize ourselves after a really busy spring.  But we'll be getting back on the road in the fall for a couple of shorter stints out to the west coast and also the northeast.  I think those tours will be of the more DIY variety.  I'd like to do some touring with our really good friends and label mates Prussia who are a fantastic band from Detroit, MI. 

The new record is available at a “Name Your Price” rate for the digital download.  When Radiohead put on In Rainbows like that, they made a ton of money, and the average American listener (of those who paid anything) put up eight bucks, which is obviously way more money than a band would make per unit than going through the traditional CD distribution channels. 

But I talked to a number of people who said that philosophy could work for bands like Radiohead or Nine Inch Nails – bands with huge, loyal followings and long track records that made people confident in putting up a few bucks – but wouldn’t be feasible for smaller bands.  What’s your experience been so far?  Are people putting up a fair price?

Yes, people do generally put up a fair price.  I think part of what is happening right now with all of the so-called “music theft” going on is that there is a re-valuing of what is a fair price for music.  When there is no physical product that the listener takes away and no major overhead and distribution cost as is the case with digital music, then the amount that used to be charged for an album becomes an absurd amount of money to justify.  After being gouged for years by record companies over-charging on flimsy pieces of plastic, we are now going through a period of virtual looting where everyone is thrilled and delirious to now have access to whatever they want. 

I think that Pay What You Can releases are emerging as a less autocratic new model that is more of a dialogue between artist and audience about what is affordable and reasonable remuneration for an album.  And I think that kind of progressive thinking is something that can absolutely apply to any band, large and small.

We believe that, even in the case of Radiohead who made money, the “Name Your Price” rate for the download is less about making money and more about getting our music out there.

There’s a number of interesting stories on the record, and one that I was drawn to right away (also one of my favorite tracks overall) was “Claymation.”  Does that have a specific point of origin or is it more impressionistic in how it came together?

I think “impressionistic” is a good way of describing the lyrics of “Claymation”.  However, as with most of our songs, the lyrics do have a narrative structure behind them but I think we like to allow the listener freedom to create their own story or meaning.  While someone else might draw a different meaning from the song, for me "Claymation" is about creating for its own sake. Writing a song simply because it’s fun to do and not with any specific goal in mind.  The impressionistic feeling of the lyrics is a result of this goalless process.  I began to write the lyrics without knowing where they would end up and what story they would tell.