![]() SPAZ: Has working on this project changed the way you will approach songwriting in the future? Will it have an effect on how you approach the next Nada Surf album? Just like so many pop songs using similar chords but seeming different from one another, every day is a fresh day in terms of how you think about getting music out there. Elvis Costello is a good example of that. Some artists release records one right after the other. I’m happy to say I don’t think there’s a rule book. MATTHEW: We’re not concerned about that at all. SPAZ: Are you concerned about issuing a new release so close to YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE? Most artists would hold the release for at least a year or simply release a Deluxe Edition of their previous album and add a bonus disc… PEACEFUL GHOSTS is trying to take you to a place of wider references and wider reflection, hopefully giving you impetus and room to bring your own thoughts and feelings. ![]() It’s trying to take you into an analytical frame of mind about our strange presentation and early courting rituals. MATTHEW: Yes! It’s so many worlds away from “Popular,” and let me be clear that I really love that song! It’s humor, bombast, social commentary and a little performance art. While the band has matured and progressed since then, do you think those people will be surprised by PEACEFUL GHOSTS? SPAZ: There are those that are unfamiliar with your catalog and they base their opinions of the band solely on “Popular”. A few examples: the outro of “Beautiful Beat,” the middle break of “Inside Of Love,” the almost destabilizing melodic swoops of “Animal.” SPAZ: Are there moments where the utter beauty of these arrangements surprised even you? ![]() It can have a stronger effect with a more powerful/expressive arrangement, but the central meaning may have been clear from the beginning. But the emotional core of a song can be there in the If someone feels a stronger emotional signal from one of these arrangements, the answer is probably yes. MATTHEW: Thank you, I’m so glad you like it! I don’t mean in any way to dodge the question, but that’s not for me to say. Do you feel that these arrangements reveal the emotional core of the songs that the released versions sometimes only hinted at? SPAZ: This release is a beautiful collection of great songs and performances. The first track, “Comes A Time,” is far from our best-known song, but it has so much sonic and emotional room that had been left open. That’s why some of our slowest and most spacious songs are on this album. I think the general idea about song selection was not to put together a “greatest hits” but rather to be led by how well the songs would work with an orchestra. He met with the composer Max Knoth a number of times to see how the arrangements were going. MATTHEW: Martin Wenk chose the initial list of songs and we made a couple of additional suggestions. SPAZ: How did you decide which songs to perform and how easy was it to essentially take them apart and reconstruct them into these slices of audio ecstasy? We’ve done many interviews there and have played a couple of their birthday party concerts, but we had no inkling that this request was coming! We have a pretty strong following in Austria and have played there quite regularly, and have had repeated contact with FM4. SPAZ: Was the request to perform the FM4 Vienna Radio Symphony concert a complete surprise or had you heard rumblings in the past about them asking you? Do you have quite a following in Austria? Two rehearsals after that the audience walked in! It felt like a distant concept and then, all of a sudden, there we were in Vienna playing these songs for the conductor. That entailed choosing the songs, choosing a composer/arranger and supervising the project’s development. We learned that Calexico had been asked the year before, which led us immediately to asking our friend Martin Wenk – one of Calexico’s two trumpetists and a Nada Surf collaborator who has played on some of our songs and joined us on many tours – to produce the album for us. When the offer came, we were right in the middle of finishing our most recent studio album, YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE, and didn’t have the bandwidth to focus on it. An orchestral album is something we never would have imagined doing. MATTHEW CAWS: It feels like a wonderful gift. How are you feeling about the journey to make the album and the way it turned out? STEPHEN SPAZ SCHNEE: PEACEFUL GHOSTS is just about to be released.
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