See? Simple as that: a rock band playing rock songs, doing its job while Schnapf did his. Easy.
The rest of it, though, well, that's complicated, still, always. It's not just Pollard's marital status, or the band's ever-shifting lineup, or being able to play all the songs people want to hear in one night, or finding enough time to fit in all of Pollard's ideas, or trying to accommodate the band's occasionally too-vocal fans and critics. It's all of it, each affecting the other, a jigsaw puzzle with too many pieces, half of which aren't even in the right box.
All hands on deck: This is by far the best band Ive ever had, Guided by Voices Bob Pollard, with his feet up, says of the latest incarnation of his band. Its where I want to be.
Clay Patrick McBride
Do it, Ric: GbV, just after they did the Collapse with Ocasek
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April 13
Gypsy Tea Room
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Some of them are good problems, such as the fact that 12 albums in--and that's not counting all the various EPs, singles, compilation tracks, alternate versions that show up on live albums or last year's Suitcase: Failed Experiments and Trashed Aircraft, a stand-alone, four-CD boxed set that adds another 100 previously unreleased songs to the total--there just isn't enough time in the day or night to play every song fans want to hear.
"It's...." Pollard lets out a long sigh before starting again. "Well, we have to play for, like, two-and-a-half, three hours. We do. And I've got a solo album in the can, and I've got an album that I finished with Toby Sprout in the can, so we're going to be putting a bunch of that in. It's gonna be ridiculous. Eventually, it's going to have to be just An Evening with Guided by Voices, you know; we're not even going to need an opening band. It doesn't make any sense, because we need to play for a long time.
"And there's things, like, you know, where you take songs out of the lineup," he continues, "but now it's gotten to the point where there's nothing we can take out; we really like doing all these songs. So we have to just keep adding on. We probably do about 50 songs when we play."
On the flip side is guitarist Gillard's awkward acceptance by some fans. "Some Guided by Voices fans think that Doug kind of ruined us," Pollard allows. "Which is totally wrong. Doug added a complete new dimension to us that's enabled us to become a much better band. I love it now, because when I write songs--I play acoustic and sing into my boom box--I send them up to Doug and he does all his guitar parts on his four-track and sends it back to me. So I can hear the song in progress. Which, before, we were never able to do that."
Ah, before. That's where most of the other problems, good and bad, come from. Before when guitarist and songwriter Tobin Sprout was still in the band, a time that certain fans long for. A little too tenaciously for Pollard's tastes. The duo's been working together again lately (Sprout added piano to one song on Isolation Drills, "How's My Drinking?"), resulting in a forthcoming album. So shut up, already.
"We call ourselves Airport Five, and since we have a band name, and since it turned out really well, we're gonna start working on something else, probably this summer," Pollard explains. "We'll probably do a couple of albums a year now. And our fans will be all happy with that, because they've been wanting me to get back together with Toby forever." He pauses. "I mean, to the point where you get sick of hearing it," he adds with a laugh.
Though that will quiet followers and fans, it doesn't come close to satisfying Pollard. He's got ideas, new songs to write and record--which to him is almost one and the same--new bands to form, if only to use a good new name he came up with. (Suitcase features a few dozen of them, in fact.) He's a singing, songwriting version of a Native American tribe; everything is to be used, consumed, put to work. Nothing is trash.
Thanks to his overactive imagination and a creative contract with TVT Records, Pollard is free to explore anything, everything. Every scrap of an idea can be released via his Fading Captain Series project, distributed through longtime friend Pete Jamison's Rockathon Records. As Guided by Voices releases (official ones, at any rate) slow down--Pollard has hinted there may only be time for one more--Fading Captain records multiply exponentially. It is the only way to keep everyone happy. Well, everyone, but mainly Pollard.
"If all I could do is make one official Guided by Voices album every two years, I would go insane," he says. "So with that, I can be involved in the creative process constantly, year-round. The Fading Captain Series, we've been pumping out five records a year on that. We've got a schedule coming up where there's a single in May, a single in June, my solo album in July and the album I did with Toby in August. And then I'm gonna be working on an album with Mac McCaughan from Superchunk. So, like, I'm just going to keep cranking that stuff out.
"And you know, thing is, some of it's sloppy, some of it's experimental, but I like having that side still," he continues. "My next solo record, I did it with [former GbV members] Greg Demos and Jim MacPherson, and we didn't even practice--and it's really kind of complicated songs. So, it's sloppy: Drums come in late, and there are mistakes all over the place. But I kind of like that. That was, at one time, a trademark of Guided by Voices, that we just leave the mistakes in, you know? It's good to be able to do that, and it's good to be able to move on in a more professional direction with Guided by Voices."
