It’s a guilty pleasure for young bands to head to their
local record stores on the day of their albums’ release dates
for the sheer novelty of seeing their own music on the stands.
Colin Meloy, singer and chief songwriter of the Portland-based
group The Decemberists, has no such recollection when it comes to
the group’s widely hailed debut “Castaways and
Cutouts.”
“I remember walking around, going from record store to
record store, and not seeing it anywhere on the day of its release,
and just shrugging it off,” he said. “It was sort of
funny.”
Meloy can look back at that album’s less-than-humble
beginnings and laugh it off with ease, especially now that the
group is finally getting the attention it deserves. With a nervy,
nasally voice and a knack for writing lyrics that are at once
emotionally grounded and blissfully surreal, Meloy and his
bandmates are playing to crowds that have just started to discover
the group’s ramshackle folk-rock sound. They make a stop at
the Cooperage tonight as they kick off a tour for their recently
released full-length “Her Majesty The
Decemberists.”
Recorded without any label backing, “Castaways and
Cutouts” started as a simple first attempt to get the newly
formed band’s sound on tape. Meloy, fresh from Missoula,
Mont. where he had attended college and earned a degree in creative
writing, hooked up with Portland musicians Ezra Holbrook (drums),
Nate Query (upright bass), Jenny Conlee (accordion) and Chris Funk
(theremin and pedal steel) to form the band in 2001.
“Castaways” was picked up by the aptly titled Hush
Records and released in May 2002 without the slightest fanfare.
At a makeshift record convention called
“Rock-and-Swap,” Meloy played a solo acoustic set to
about eight people, one of whom happened to be Slim Moon of the
Olympia-based label Kill Rock Stars. The coincidence ended up being
the turning point for the band. Moon signed the group soon after
and re-released “Castaways” on Kill Rock Stars this May
““ just four months before the label put out The
Decemberists’ second record, “Her Majesty
“¦”
Meloy doesn’t consider himself primarily a musician
(“I’m a consummate rhythm guitar player,” he
says), but his approach to narrative-driven lyrics is also
light-hearted and playful.
“There’s an immediate gratification to it ““
it’s sort of like writing a short story because you can
involve characters, dialogue, a structure that’s usually
present in short stories,” he said. “But you can also
mess around with alliteration and consonance ““ it’s
like writing poetry, but not so highfalutin.”
Meloy’s songs are often informed by a sense of place.
“Los Angeles, I’m Yours,” an ode to our bustling
metropolis, conveys the “sickly sweet” feeling Meloy
gets every time he comes here, akin to taking a shot of honey.
Other times Meloy focuses his attention on the fictional characters
that spring from his overactive imagination.
“Usually it’s the really crazy ones that delve into
narrative-driven songwriting,” he said. “The ones who
don’t feel like they have anything to lose, those are always
the most rewarding, I think.”