The Destroyer Sessions

Outtakes From Billboard.com's Interview With Destroyer's Dan Bejar Re: Swan Lake's Debut Album, "Beast Moans":

You guys have been all very busy over the last several years. How did you find time to write songs together? Or was it a back-and-forth type thing, or did you meet in the studio?

We didn't really write songs together, though there is that one part in that one really pretty Spencer song where Carey busts into some sultry Q-Tip-style shit, something about a "boyfriend"... The core of the songs (lyrics, chord progressions, main vocal melody) usually came from one person beforehand. But the piecing together and blowing up of things... Thanks guys, by the way...

Looking at the lyrics, it seems a bit conceptual. Yes/no?

I'm not that familiar with lyrical concepts, but I won't speak for those other dudes... Actually, I will speak for them... No concepts!

Were there any specific ideas / directions that you all wanted this record to go, sound- or recording-wise?

I think Carey wanted the record to swirl around a lot, lots of musical pratfalls and rugs being pulled out from under you, but melodically really strong, which is one of the best ways to get away with that sort of stuff if you're really going for it in trying to make a "headphones" record.

I think he wanted to bury me in a shitstorm of sound and notes, and I wanted to bury me in a shitstorm of sound and notes cause the vocals and lyrics are always so front and center in Destroyer songs, and he wanted to do the same to himself and I wanted him to do the same to himself, not that you can ever really tell what he's saying in a Frog Eyes song anyway -- it just sounds like some kind of Russian no russian has ever heard of (except for the Frog Eyes album he just finished, which kills by the way!).

Being an actual musician, Spencer's take on it is probably a bit more complicated and effective... I know we wanted to lift the veil on Spence as a first-rate balladeer and writer, and not just some whiz-kid instrumentalist or yelping prog freak-show... Of course, the Sunset Rubdown LP came out and beat us to it...

Anything in the works for a follow up to "Destroyer's Rubies?"

I'm trying to record some songs here in Spain, but my clarinet sucks, my harmonicas are a complete bewilderment, my sax is OK at best and the neighbors are supposedly sensitive. "Rubies" comes out in Europe in six weeks. I might play a solo show some time in the next six months to support it.