music just kind of took over...
An interview with
Pernice brother Joe
Since the release of the Pernice Brothers' The World Won't End (Ashmont Records) last summer, the band's front-man, Joe Pernice, has been busy. He embarked on his most extensive tour to date, earned critical accolades from all corners of the globe and published a book of poetry. As if all that activity wasn't enough to make a lesser man desperately need a vacation, Joe also managed to find time to write another album's worth of songs for the next Pernice Brothers album.
This is great news, since The World Won't End was easily one of 2001's finest releases, blending melancholy, poetic lyrics with soaring, string-laden melodies, played by a versatile and powerful group of musicians. If Pernice's status as a great songwriter was already in place as a result of his previous work with the Scud Mountain Boys and Chappaquiddick Skyline, then The World Won't End has established the Pernice Brothers as a great band.
"The response [to The World Won't End] was great," Pernice said via cell phone from Champagne, Illinois. "It was definitely better than we expected, and that album has outsold all my other records by far." He was in the middle of a brief east coast/mid-west tour with Pernice Brothers guitarist Peyton Pinkerton (also of New Radiant Storm King). "We're doing the stripped-down thing, just two guitars this time around," he said of the tour. "I like doing it for a change, but I wouldn't want to do it all the time. I like having the whole band with me."
Following the tour, Pernice plans to head into a Vermont studio with the same stellar band that played on The World Won't End to record a set of new songs. Though he was reluctant to reveal too many details about the album (expected to be out early next year), he did claim that a few changes in the band's basic sound may be in store: "I'm not sure how much orchestration will be on it. I might move away from there being so much emphasis on the strings." He also said that Pernice Brothers bassist Thom Monahan will again be handling the production duties. "I usually have a pretty good idea of what I want a song to sound like when I write it," Pernice said of his approach to studio work. "But there's always a bit of an unknown, too. The song will be pretty well mapped out, but there should always be some excitement. You should always leave at least a little room for spontaneity."
Besides this upcoming work with the Pernice Brothers, Joe has also been turning some of his attention to the literary world. "When I signed my first record contract, I was finishing up my MFA at U-Mass Amherst in writing," he said. "So that's what I wanted to do initially, but music just kind of took over." Last year, Pernice's label released his aforementioned volume of poetry, Two Blind Pigeons, which is available through the Pernice Brother's website.
As a result, he has been approached to do some other writing projects. "I've been returning to writing in the last year and I might be kicking around working on a short novel," Pernice revealed. If Two Blind Pigeons is any indication, he has as much skill with words as he does with songwriting. "Songwriting and writing poetry and prose are completely different experiences to me," he said. "I love doing both, but they are totally separate."
A week after I spoke with Joe, he was wrapping up his tour with a show at the Middle East in Cambridge, MA, on a rainy New England night. Accompanied by guitarist Pinkerton, he played an hour's worth of tunes stretching from his first record with the Scud Mountain Boys to The World Won't End.
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| Photo by Dulcie Faison |
Tyler Wilcox
May 2002
