After Sleater-Kinney broke up in 2006 I had very little desire to play music. It took well over three years before picking up a guitar meant anything to me other than an exercise.
I'll admit that I'm not quite certain how to sum up an entire year in music anymore; not when music has become so temporal, so specific and personal, as if we each have our own weather system and what we listen to is our individual forecast.
Well, in some ways I had sort of the opposite experience of other people that are sort of dreaming of being in a rock band. I was dreaming of like corporate lunches and just like, and I'm not really joking. Like the whole idea to me was really appealing.
With Rock Band, you can play along to Black Sabbath or Nirvana and possibly find new ways of appreciating their artistry by being allowed to perform parallel to it. Rock Band puts you inside the guts of a song.
For film and television, it's interesting how fans feel that their particular ways of manifesting their affections are the correct ones. It's not just about being a fan, it's about how you perform your fandom. That's always been interesting to me.
I read a lot; fiction and non-fiction are the mediums I find most edifying and inspiring. I watch movies and listen to music and take lots and lots of walks. Nature is a nice reset button for me, it's how I get a lot of thinking done.
I wrote so much about fandom and participation for NPR that I eventually realized my most fertile way of participating in music is to actually play it, at least in a way that made the most sense to me.
It was writing about music for NPR - connecting with music fans and experiencing a sense of community - that made me want to write songs again. I began to feel I was in my head too much about music, too analytical.
Over the years, music put a weapon in my hand and words in my mouth, it backed me up and shielded me, it shook me and scared me and showed me the way; music opened me up to living and being and feeling.
To really be tortured by a song, it needs to be more than just something you don't like or don't get; it has to make your skin crawl by getting under it. Strangely, that last clause could describe provocative or daring music, as well.
With Portlandia, I don't think our intention is always to find something funny. Sometimes the humor comes from taking something really seriously. We're okay with making somebody feel uncomfortable or uneasy.
Chemistry cannot be manufactured or forced, so Wild Flag was not a sure thing, it was a 'maybe,' a 'possibility.' But after a handful of practice sessions, spread out over a period of months, I think we all realized that we could be greater than the sum of our parts.
With Sleater-Kinney, we did a lot of improvisation in our live shows, and even our process of songwriting involved bringing in disparate parts and putting them together to form something cohesive.
