the LOW commotion- continued

Furthermore, Zak adds, “I never got the sense that he was steering us into anything, like he had a preconceived notion, like he even said 'look, this is your record! I'm not doing anything on this record that you guys are not into.' He's got the aesthetic and the skills, but he had no interest in rolling over us.”

“Yeah, he's like 'what kind of record do you wanna' make? What can I do to help you make the kind of record you want to make?' Alan adds.

“More than that, he listened to the tracks we brought and said “I understand the kind of record you're trying to make and I'm really into that!” Zak adds.

So, what did the band make of the Cassadaga experience, working at Tarbox Road studios in the boonies of Western New York? “It was nice!” says Mimi. "A nice studio for a band with a family. It was really good, and he's so easy to work with.”

“It was kind of good for us to be out in that cabin,” Zak adds. “It was all we were doing all day, working on the record.”

Alan believes, "It's nice, for part of the process, to go somewhere separate from your normal life. There's not so many distractions.”

Zak agrees, “Theoretically, it was like, well, if we record at home it won't be as fresh. When you're at a studio, no matter how relaxed you are, you're still paying money to be there. Maybe we'd get a little frustrated and then if we spent some time working on something and it wasn't working out it wasn't like 'awwwh' it was like, 'well, let's try something else.'”

Alan sums it up: “It was relaxing to be there, probably the most relaxed working situation I've ever been in.”

The other change came with the band leaving Kranky, their label since leaving the Virgin records off-shoot Vernon Yard (which was also home to the Verve and Acetone) back in '97.

They were not yet with Sub Pop when they recorded the album last summer (2004). “We were still with Kranky,” Alan explains. “We had gotten a manager by that point so we were kind of interested in looking around a little, and Sub Pop seemed most interested. We liked Kranky, we really had a good relationship with them. I guess it was like, the word was out, and 'it's not going to hurt to look around.' Nobody else was that interested though.”

“Yeah, we got a couple of free dinners though,” adds Zak. I recount how they've gone from a quasi-indie-major label to an indie-indie label to a quasi-major-indie label.

“We're moving UP in the world!” Mimi exclaims.

“We're moving sideways,” Zak corrects her.

“Very lateral,” Mimi concedes.

It's ironic how, in '94, when grunge was huge, Low was the furthest thing away from grunge and now, a decade later, their grungiest record finds its place at Sub Pop, the home of grunge.

So, from where they started out, have things ended up better than they expected them to?
“Yeah, I'd say much better,” says Alan. “We were just playing songs and we thought it would be funny to play one show in Duluth and see what happens.”

They never pictured a career in Low's music? “Well, you know,” Alan recounts, “it's not the same as when you were 14 and wanted to be a successful musician. But yeah, who wouldn't want to get to travel the world and make records, but I've been in bands a long time, it's a lot of work, and as far as I was concerned the be-all and end-all was playing in a punk band with 15 or 16 kids freaking out. That was the only thing I ever dreamed of. When we started this band there were no expectations, even now, I look ahead and think 'Five or ten years? What the hell are we gonna be doing in five or ten years?' I have no idea. I'm amazed every time we get done with a record and I actually start writing more songs, because my body and my soul and my mind feel like 'well, that's it!' I hope that's all you had to say, because you may never get another chance.”

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