The Thermals

A conversation with Hutch Harris

(April 2009)

Interview by Adam McKibbin

When we last heard from The Thermals, they were raising a ruckus about the separation of church and state; the ruckus was called The Body, The Blood, The Machine and it solidified the Portland transplants as one of the big buzz bands in a city full of them. Their fiery subject matter appealed to those suffering from Bush fatigue, but the boundless energy of tracks like "A Pillar of Salt" was enough to inspire jubilation in the face of depression.

Since then, founding members Hutch Harris and Kathy Foster have found themselves a new drummer, a new producer and a new label (Kill Rock Stars, replacing Sub Pop). Their new album, Now We Can See, is their most accessible and clean-sounding album to date. Harris took some time recently to talk about all the recent transitions, the perils of writing songs about a president, his luck with local mentors, and the real deal about parting ways with Sub Pop.

You guys returned to SXSW this year for the first time in several years.  What were your highlights?

The highlights for us were not the shows. [Laughs] It was sitting by the pool. We live in Portland, so it rains most of the year, so it was nice for us to just get out of here and get somewhere sunny. But, yeah, it was a really good year – I talked to a lot of people who thought it was a really good SXSW this year. We hadn’t been in four years and usually we’d come and play one show, like the Sub Pop showcase, and then head out the next day. This year, we were there four or five days and did eight shows.

It seems like bands are playing more showcases every year. I heard about bands playing like sixteen, seventeen shows.

I know – it’s stupid. [Laughs] I thought eight was a lot! But I heard that, too, and I thought “That’s ridiculous.” Eight was fine, but I wouldn’t have done any more.

Even right when your last record came out, you were already saying that this record wouldn’t be about politics or religion.

Yeah, we were already sick of it. You think it’s out of your system because you put it out there and expressed it. It was cathartic, but then you’re stuck talking about it and singing about it for the next two years.

Some of those songs are still in the set lists. Have they lost the urgency?

No, because for a lot of people who come to our shows, those are their favorite songs. So those are still fun to play because people sing along and go nuts when we play them.

And the subjects are still pertinent – those songs aren’t dated in the way they would have been if they’d name-dropped Bush.

Totally – you can’t use proper names. Like those punk seven-inches from the ‘80s about Reagan, they lose so much of their meaning now because they’re stuck in that time. It’s hard to find them useful anymore. A lot of the death [on “Now We Can See”] is the death of the last eight years, and trying to move past all the fear and hate of the last eight years.

When you were writing the songs, though, we weren’t quite out of the tunnel yet, right? There was still a chance that it would come out under Vice President Palin?

I know! We were like, “Well, this record is either going to be the soundtrack for the first four years of the Obama Administration or the first four years of the McCain Administration!” Thankfully it’s not [the latter]. Most of the writing was finished before we even had the candidates chosen. We had no idea; I was expecting Hillary to be running against… I don’t know who. We’re quite glad Obama won, for sure. But we recorded the album in August, so we really didn’t know what the world was going to be like when the record came out.

John Congleton produced the new record, continuing a tradition of having “name” producers, or “names” in the indie world, at least.  What do you look for in a producer?

Yeah, we only record with people in bands, so far.  We recorded with Chris Walla (Death Cab for Cutie), Brendan Canty (Fugazi)… Janet Weiss (Sleater-Kinney) did a little recording for us, and Joanna from the Jicks has recorded us. We haven’t recorded with anyone who isn’t in their own rock band.

And pretty damn good bands.

Yeah, I know! It was really cool working with Congleton because he contacted us – he got in touch a year ago or so through Sub Pop. He really liked The Body, The Blood, The Machine and he wanted to record the next Thermals record. The fact that he came to us really enthusiastic already – that was really appetizing. We got along really well. John’s the exact same age as Kathy and I, so we really could pull all the same references.

A number of bands that are called “Portland bands” aren’t really Portland born and bred. Is there any concern that it will reach a saturation point? Any pushes for immigration reform?

I don’t think there are enough natives to start something like that. None of us are from Portland; Kathy and I have been here for 11 years, which feels like forever at this point. The bands that were kind of old school at that point – like Quasi and Sleater-Kinney really reached out to us and made us feel cool and part of the scene. I think the older bands really nurture the younger bands here, and that’s just one of the great things about Portland.

Those are some great mentors to have.

Totally. The bands that we toured with when we started – we toured with Death Cab for Cutie a few times, we toured with Sleater-Kinney a few times. To watch those bands every night! Bands that are totally rad and have major credibility. They put on amazing shows. I remember watching Sleater-Kinney every night and being like “OK, this is a punk band, but they’re so professional!” They would get up there and not miss a note – and just kick ass. When I say “professional,” I mean they knew exactly what they were doing up there. That was really inspiring to see.

There are some differing accounts in the press about how you parted with Sub Pop. Some say it was an amicable parting where the deal ended and you went off to a new team like an free agent in sports, no big deal. There’s another side that speculates that maybe Sub Pop didn’t work the last record hard enough, and bands like The Thermals fall through the cracks in comparison to bands like The Shins.

[Chuckles] I didn’t say that. I don’t know who said that, but I didn’t say that. It was totally amicable. We’re still friends with them and still working with them. We’ve still be licensing songs with them from our last record. A lot of the business we’ve done with them has been in the last year, when we’ve been off the label. It just came down to the contract; we wanted a contract with more rights and more ownership. We talked to like every awesome indie label in the country, and most wanted to take us, but really Kill Rock Stars had the best deal and they’d just moved to Portland, so they were just perfect.

The U.S. government just allocated 230 million dollars for thermals – rifle and machine gun sights and so forth. There’s a lot of bureaucratic mismanagement, so if that money winds up accidentally going to the band Thermals, how do you start spending? What’s the Thermals stimulus package include?

[Laughs] We’re going for drinks first! We’re going to get margaritas, then we’ll discuss from there.