The day after the royal wedding, the Decemberists hit Stubb’s with The King Is Dead, the most recent from the Oregon-based quintet in a career embracing elegiac folk, classical pop, and traditional Americana. The future monarch of England notwithstanding, bassist Nate Query called from Portland to give his own King’s speech.
“It seemed like King Is Dead was going to be a big change from Hazards of Love, but it’s not that big. It’s very different because Hazards took a lot more preparation musically and the light show was more involved. Because we’re doing so much back catalog stuff, we still bring lots of equipment and crew guys. We thought we’d be able to strip that down, but the reality is, even if you’re doing just a couple songs from each record, you still need the instruments for it. It’s still complicated.
“At a festival, you play lots of upbeat stuff because people are standing around and the second they get bored, they are off across the field to see the circus or something. Festival sets are often shorter, but we approach them the same. We’re like, ‘Screw it, we’ll challenge the fans,’ and play mellow songs or more intriguing songs that involve more attention span and less kick drum. Just put the songs out there and let them fall where they may.
“Our show tends to be pretty dynamic. We have high highs and pretty low lows but in general we have more fun when people are standing up and energetic. In Portland, we made everyone stand up and my poor 100-year-old grandma had to stand the whole show. But they did all right!
“Playing [Austin City Limits Music Festival] in the rain was awesome. It was really cool because there was so much water through that record Hazards. I just saw the singer who played Margaret in L.A., and she talked about that show, how beautiful and amazing it was. One of the favorite moments of that tour.
“Austin is such an easy place to go for a quick gig, but once you’re in Texas, we get over the freeways and into the attitude. Both Portland and Austin have that ‘Keep ___ Weird’ thing and there’s such an obvious connection, the Willamette Week pretty much stole your SXSW idea and we still have Music Fest Northwest every year around the same time North by Northwest used to be. It’s really different from SXSW; it’s turned itself into a real community thing. NXNW was really cool but only happened twice.
“John and Colin are more about the British folk thing and can talk more at length [laughs], but I came to it because of them. Like, the first song on Hazards of Love, I approached the bass, thinking I’d do a Danny Thompson thing. He played bass in Fairport but he was basically a jazz bass player, and I studied jazz, so I became a big fan even if I didn’t know that stuff as well before. So that ended up being my approach to it, a nod those guys.
“What makes the Decemberists interesting to me is how much what everyone knows converges like that, so while they’re into Fairport, Jenny’s more into Jethro Tull and Chick Corea, and I’m more into Thelonious Monk and Charles Mingus. There’s a lot of great music in a lot of different genres.”
This article appears in April 29 • 2011.