Q&A with The Dodos’
Logan Kroeber

Ladies and gentlemen of Madison: the Dodos have thrown down the gauntlet. They challenge us to make this one of the most memorable events of their tour. After hearing about all the enthusiasm they have for the music they make, it’d be impossible not to rise to the occasion.

The Dodos have been nothing short of prolific since they formed in 2005. After breaking through with Visiter in 2008, The Dodos, which consists primarily of founding members Meric Long on guitar/vocals and Logan Kroeber on drums, have quickly become a well-oiled machine that has been capable of creating new sounds for every album. Such drive for innovation, on top of the energy that they put in to each performance, makes them one of the most exciting bands to hear and watch live.

The release of their fifth full-length album, Carrier, came after several indelible life events for Long and Kroeber, including the death of the band’s touring guitarist Christopher Reimer. It’s a testament to Long’s and Kroeber’s talent as musicians that they are able – nay, determined – to carry forth the fiery torch of their creative endeavors as The Dodos, as long as it continues to burn.

I recently got a chance to chat with Kroeber in anticipation of their opening show for Neko Case this Wednesday, May 14 at the Orpheum. We talked about the band’s new (unreleased) album, their new touring member, and the band’s overall desire to keep going as long as they and their fans continue to find the fun in it. Challenge accepted. 

How is the tour going so far?
“It has only just begun, but this is the second leg of the tour. We did a week with Neko Case in the southwest already, and now we’re going to head out and meet her again in Albany. So I guess the tour has officially started, but we had 10 days at home so it feels like a restart. The first leg was awesome! We’ve been doing some solo shows on the way out to Albany. St. Louis and Cincinnati are going to be Dodos shows, and then we’re doing a big whole chunk with Neko getting back to the west coast.”

You guys have toured with her before, right? When she was with The New Pornographers?
“Yeah, but it’s a very different situation touring with her solo. Her band is completely different, the crew is completely different. So we were friends with Neko, but she has a whole different team of people that we get to meet and hang out with now.”

When you toured with her last time, is that what sparked the collaboration with her on No Color?
“Yeah, yeah, miraculous collaboration. It’s crazy the way these things work out. We got very lucky, and it seems like a long time coming after that first encounter when we toured with The New Pornographers in 2010. I’m glad that we’ve remained in touch because it’s really fun touring with her. Her crew and her fans have been really receptive with us opening the show so it’s a win-win.”

Do you guys have any other plans to collaborate with her now that you’re on tour with her again?
“I mean, there’s nothing that’s being talked about, but even if it was just for fun like when we had her in the studio for No Color, I felt like the way an army general might feel when he gets to play with like a new weapon. Like, she just wields a flamethrower into the studio [with her voice], and she’s like ‘Well, what do you want me to do?’ And we’re like ‘why don’t you put some flame thrower over here, and she just fucking blasts her voice.’ It was really fun. Even if we never made anything that people could hear, it would be fun to go into the studio again.”

Does she ever go on stage with you guys?
“No, not so far. The possibility is there, I guess.”

I would suggest definitely doing it in Madison if you get a chance.
“Oh yes. Oh man, we had a very memorable show with The New Pornographers in Madison.”

What made it memorable?
“Our third member at the time kind of went off the rails. When we would go on stage with The New Pornographers and shake tambourines and sing along on a big chorus, I think he was little too enthusiastic that night. The tour manager after that show banned us off the stage. There’s more to that story, and I remember it fondly although it was obviously not the best outcome.” 

I just wanted to ask about Carrier. I really liked it because it had a lot of elements that I really like about a lot of your songs, but in a lot of ways it’s really different. How did the approach for writing the songs on that album reflect that difference?
“Well, forgive me, we are putting the finishing touches on a new record right now, so let me just activate the memory back and think about Carrier. I know it only came out in September, but it seems like longer than that. I remember ‘Confidence’ in particular. I knew early on, I remember telling Meric, ‘I think this is one of my favorites or maybe my favorite of the new stuff he was showing me,’ but I didn’t know why because originally the beat that he wanted me to play in the first half of the song was really funky and really hard to play well. It was very difficult to do it, and we ended up simplifying it, and it’s much more fun to play now. Even though I was struggling with the early version of the song, the feel of it, the melody and everything, I knew it was a winner.”

Are you now playing more songs from Carrier or songs from the new album on tour?
“More from Carrier. We’re teaching our new third member right now the new material. Tonight will be the first show that we play some of this new stuff with him.”

Are you nervous about that or looking forward to it?
“I’m nervous for him. It’s second nature for Meric and myself at this point, but it’s fresh for him. But you know, I guess I’m nervous for all of us. It’s going to be super fun! I’m so excited to have some new stuff to play, and we taught him some older songs that he doesn’t know yet. We taught him ‘Companion’ from No Color and ‘Ashley’ from Visiter, and yeah, it’s going to be rad to have some stuff we haven’t played in a while with great people.”

Does he bring a new vibe to the stuff that you’ve played before?
“Yeah, for sure. It’s weird. It’s really fun. Music is fun for that reason when you let people have even just a smidgeon of creative input on a song that you’ve played before, even if it’s very close to how somebody else does it. It’s amazing to watch people’s styles develop or just how people would approach something that in your mind should be very similar between people. You think, ‘Oh anybody would play it this way,’ but they don’t, they play it their own way.”

Does that spark a new idea in your mind for how you should be playing in the future, too?
“Something sparked the other day. I forget what song it was; I think it was one of the new songs from the new record that is not quite ready to be played live yet, but it’s close. I think playing it with Joe [Haege, guitar/vocals], our new third member. Something in it reminded me of ‘The Season’ which is a song off of Visiter, and that song, Meric and I ended up sort of letting that be more of a jammy moment for us in the past, and we don’t have a lot of songs like that. I think for this new song, I was like ‘Oh, shoot, with Joe maybe we could open this up a little bit’ – but it’s just a hunch, I don’t know if it’s going to work out.”

So did you guys record the new album in Portland or in San Francisco again?
“San Francisco. Furthering what we did with Carrier, we worked with the same people in the same studio and went deeper down that rabbit hole with that group of guys. When we recorded Carrier, what ended up being great is that we ended up finding a sound between us and [Jay] Pellicci who recorded and mixed Carrier, and this next time around we took that knowledge and went deeper and tried some new stuff. I’m pretty excited for this new record, but you can be the judge for yourself!” 

I had read in a lot of interviews that it seemed like for a while The Dodos weren’t even going to be The Dodos anymore.
“There was a time where at least we were forced to ask ourselves that question. It’s not like a negative thing. It could have been, but there was just a lot of stuff happening in our lives where it’s like, ‘is this happening?’ To me, Carrier, like, through the process of writing those songs and recording them, it was like re-affirmation of the musical connection that we have, and all the songs on the new record I feel like came really easily and came really fast. I think whatever sort of fears we’ve had in the past have been squelched for the time being.

“Why would we stop doing something that is working out and is fun to do? We’ve been doing this for a while now, and I can see that maybe the cycle will continue and that energy might run out, but we just need to be honest with ourselves and right now if I’m being honest, I’m having fun.”

Is Joe going to be a lasting member of the Dodos?
“We were just talking about that today, not specifically in relation to The Dodos but he’s got a bunch of life goals that might take him to live in Europe for a while. That doesn’t preclude him playing music with us, but he lives in L.A. right now which is a lot closer. We sure like having him around.”

You would never do that thing where he would record something and then send it over to you? You’d prefer that he be there?
“I don’t know because at this point he hasn’t written anything with us yet. We haven’t had the opportunity to do that with him because he has a ton of other musical projects that he does all the time. He’s got like, two active bands, and he does some weird shit on the side. I don’t know if he’d be interested in contributing, but I hope he would.”

Had you always seen The Dodos expanding, besides just you and Meric?
“Well, you know, Meric and I have always through various events it’s never panned out. Keaton [Snyder], the vibraphone player that we played with around Time to Die, was the closest we came where we were able to come up with vibraphone arrangements with him. And on No Color there were a few songs where we started getting creative with him but then we parted ways. So we’ve come close in the past, but we’ve never like gone full on with someone else in the band and maybe that’s not in the cards. It’s working out so far.

“I’m just excited to go back to Madison because, like I mentioned, during The New Pornographers tour something very memorable happened, and when we played the university there on the lake back in 2008, that was another very memorable experience, and I would like to keep that streak going.

“So I’m laying down the gauntlet to the people of Madison saying: ‘Let’s see what you’ve got.'”