{"id":25738,"date":"2023-08-04T05:30:51","date_gmt":"2023-08-04T09:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=25738"},"modified":"2023-07-31T09:40:46","modified_gmt":"2023-07-31T13:40:46","slug":"say-what-you-will-dave-pirner-and-soul-asylum-part-2-of-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2023\/08\/04\/say-what-you-will-dave-pirner-and-soul-asylum-part-2-of-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Say What You Will: Dave Pirner and Soul Asylum (Part 2 of 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One\u2026<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

The momentum of Grave Dancers Union<\/i> helped propel Soul Asylum’s 1995 follow-up, Let Your Dim Light Shine<\/i> even higher on the U.S. album chart, and its lead single \u201cMisery\u201d soared to the top spot on the alternative chart. But overall sales figures were less impressive than before, and critical praise was muted.<\/p>\n

The band would release one more album on Columbia (1998\u2019s Candy from a Stranger<\/i>), but it was a commercial disappointment. To the wider public, it appeared that the group disappeared soon thereafter. (Pirner notes that Soul Asylum continued to play gigs during that period.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Soul Asylum resurfaced in 2004, releasing a well-regarded live album (After the Flood<\/i>) and a studio set, The Silver Lining<\/i>. Neither record set the charts on fire, but they signaled the return of a creatively rejuvenated group. Save for a revolving-door approach to drummers, the band\u2019s founding trio of Pirner, bassist Karl Mueller and guitarist Dan Murphy stayed together until 2005. That year Mueller succumbed to cancer. \u201cWhen Karl died, those were some fucking dark times,\u201d Pirner admits.<\/p>\n

By that time, Pirner had moved to New Orleans. He became a father, \u201cspent some time rethinking things\u201d and made a solo record. Others have sometimes characterized that period in the Soul Asylum timeline as a hiatus, but Pirner never thought of it that way. \u201cI just wanted to recharge and get a new grip on things,\u201d he says. He formed a group called The OGs, laying down his guitar in favor of a seat behind the drums. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t trade that time for anything,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

It would be four years before another Soul Asylum album appeared: Delayed Reaction<\/i> was released in 2012. Mueller\u2019s replacement Tommy Stinson and Murphy both quit the group shortly after its release, leaving Pirner as the sole remaining founding member.<\/p>\n

Throughout the years, Pirner \u2013 who has written the lion\u2019s share of Soul Asylum song \u2013 has inevitably matured as a songwriter. But his early songs still resonate with him. \u201cIt’s pretty easy for me to sing a song that I wrote in high school,\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ve still got that weird sense of\u2026 whatever it is. If it\u2019s a good song, I\u2019m like, \u2018Hey, fucking 20 year old Dave, not too bad!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Delayed Reaction<\/i> also marked the start of what would in retrospect look like a pattern for the group: a new album every four years. Change of Fortune<\/i> was released in 2016; Hurry Up and Wait<\/i> \u2013 its title perhaps a wry commentary on the band\u2019s pace of releasing new music \u2013 hit shelves in 2020. Critics have had good things to say about most all of those releases, but in keeping with rock\u2019s general commercial decline, chart success has proven more elusive.<\/p>\n

No new music has been forthcoming from Soul Asylum since Hurry Up and Wait<\/i>, but it looks as if the band\u2019s 21st<\/sup> century pattern will hold. \u201cI just got done with four days of pre-production here in Minneapolis with Steve Jordan,\u201d Pirner says. The choice of Jordan \u2013 who is Charlie Watts\u2019 replacement in the Rolling Stones \u2013 brings things full circle for Soul Asylum. \u201cHe produced our second A&M record,\u201d notes Pirner.<\/p>\n

And the straight-ahead, no-varnish attitude that earned the band its slow-burn success promises to be a defining characteristic of the upcoming album. \u201cWe\u2019re going to go for a no-bullshit approach,\u201d Pirner says. \u201cGet in the studio and play together, all at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n

After being a gigging and recording musician for most of his 59 years, Pirner still loves what he does. \u201cI’m sure I fucked things up in a million different ways,\u201d he says with a laugh. \u201cBut that I’m still doing it is pretty rewarding, I’ve got to say.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One\u2026 The momentum of Grave Dancers Union helped propel Soul Asylum’s 1995 follow-up, Let Your Dim Light Shine even higher on the U.S. album chart, and its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25745,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,62],"tags":[5206,3944],"class_list":["post-25738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-rawk","tag-dave-pirner","tag-soul-asylum","cat-41-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25738"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25738\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25747,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25738\/revisions\/25747"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}