On March 10, I spoke with David Brewis on the phone in preparation for the article that appears in this week’s paper, which you can read here. The guitarist/drummer/singer/songwriter, of the currently-inactive Field Music, is visiting Portland tonight with his new project, School of Language. Despite my asinine questions and uncomfortable interviewing style, Brewis was remarkably friendly and willing to share details about his fantastic new record, Sea From Shore, and talked about the transition from being a member of Field Music to going out on his own. Here’s the complete interview. (Special thanks to Drew Gemmer in his assistance in transcribing this conversation.)

School of Language performs tonight, Thursday March 20, at Towne Lounge, 714 SW 20th Place.

As far as I can tell, I don’t think you ever made it out here with Field Music. Is this your first time to Portland?

BREWIS: It is, it certainly is, yes.

There’s a local band here, Menomena, who played some shows with you in the UK…

BREWIS: Actually, it was in the US. We did 10 dates with them in March last year, going from Chicago to New York. I enjoyed playing with them. I enjoyed meeting them. They were really nice guys.

I’m pretty excited you’re coming out here. I was a big fan of Field Music and was a little disappointed that didn’t last as long as it could have, but I got over that as soon as I heard the new record [Sea from Shore]. Were those songs that you had done demos for, or was it pretty much recorded as it was written?

It was pretty much… I’ve usually gotten the songs done, most of the songs written before I start recording. This is the first time I’ve recorded on the computer. And the idea was not really to demo things, or if I’ve demoed things then I want that to become the real recording at some point. And that seems a little bit easier to do on the computer.

So this was the first time you had done it that way?

Yeah. I’ve always been a little bit scared of computers, recording on computers, really. We used a hard disk recorder for the Field Music albums, but basically it was exactly like we would use a tape machine. Editing on it was pretty difficult, maybe not quite as difficult as cutting tape, but it was basically the same process. So this is the first time I’ve been able to, like, really incorporate sequencing into it, and software synths, and to be able to really play around with tracks. Rather than just saying, well, we’ve got 16 [tracks], let’s see what we can do with 16, and band stuff together if need be, and all that kind of thing.

Are you pretty happy with the way it turned out? Are you going to be experimenting more with the technology?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I feel like I’ve got a lot to learn, and then each new thing I do I’ll learn a bit more, get a little bit better with the recording. I certainly feel like in the past year-and-a-half I’ve learned absolutely loads. I just want to kind of continue doing, continue learning more, using whatever tools I’ve got at my disposal to make the best of whatever ideas I have.

So do you think you’re going down that long dark road of being the “studio geek”?

I’m not going to be too much of a geek about it. I, basically… I don’t have enough money to be a real geek about it. I enjoy trying to get the best out of what we’ve got. We don’t have very many mics. We’ve got, like five or six microphones, that are all pretty cheap, and we’ve got our practice room. We do everything we can in our little practice room. So, yeah. I don’t ever want to be a slave to the technological side to it. But I’m a studio person really, even if our studio is just a room. That’s the place where I have fun and experiment.

That’s the part of the process you like the most?

Probably, yeah. Well, or, I like the part of the process where I‘ve written most of the song. And I can tell what all of the song is supposed to sound like. And usually, that’s before I’ve start recording anything. But that point when I know what it’s supposed to sound like, is the best, the best, best. And after that, there’s lots of problem solving and things… but really, I’m a studio person.

When you’re recording, do you have an end result in your head, or do you get there by experimenting and then you’re surprised by what happens?

I’ve usually got an end result in mind. I might not be sure of how I’m going to get there, or there might be, like, little twists and turns it takes on the way, but certainly, what the feeling that I want the recording to have, I’m usually pretty clear on before I start recording anything. And then it’s just a process of trying to find ways to get there.

Would you say you’re successful most of the time?

I’m getting more successful. I kind of realized early on that you can never be fully satisfied with that part of it. Like, it’s never going to be exactly like you imagined. You can get it pretty close, maybe. But the best way to approach it is to have fun trying to get there. And if you have fun trying to get there, when you’re listening to the record later on, what you’ll hear maybe isn’t the fact that you didn’t quite get there, you’ll hear that you had fun trying to get there. So even if it doesn’t quite come off, as long as you have fun doing it, and you’re not listening to it and saying, “God that was a frustrating experience.” Then that’s usually satisfying enough in that sense. Like, I had a lot of fun recording it, I enjoyed the process of recording this record. From that point [of view], yeah it was pretty successful and most of them came out close enough to what I had in mind to be for me to really satisfied with it. I’m pleased with the songs. It’s nice that I’ve been able to do something… All I really want to do is keep writing songs that are better. Just keep getting better at writing songs. And it was nice to think, oh yeah, I’ve done a record that’s not a Field Music record and I’ve managed to write songs which I think are, like, as good as or better than the songs that I wrote for the Field Music records. So from that point of view, it really feels like a real success and a vindication, maybe, of not doing another Field Music record straight away. And also, I mean, Peter, my brother Peter just finished his record and again, you know, I listen to that, and just think, yeah, Peter, these are the best songs you’ve ever written. This is better than a Field Music record. And that feels like a great position to be in.

What’s going to happen with his record? Is it going to go out under his name?

I think that the record’s gonna have a name, possibly not the name of the band. It’s called the Week That Was. If you’ve got access to MySpace, he’s in my top eight, and one of the songs from it is on there. But it’s all finished--other than, I need to finish the mastering. Apart from that, it’s all done. It should come out, I think it’s coming out in August in the UK. Not sure whether it will be around the same time over here… but probably, it should certainly come out this year.

Was School of Language something that was premeditated, or was it started for fun and then you realized you had the makings of an album?

Probably, it was pretty premeditated. I wanted to make a record, I might not have had all the songs and it kind of didn’t, it might not have really mattered what I called it, although I had the name around, just thinking, yeah if I do something on my own, like the thing that I’m in charge of, then I’ll call it School of Language and that’ll be fine. Um, yeah. Um, occasionally I thought that it would be nice to record whatever I had around and not think about whether it was gonna go on a record or not. But I’m so much from the era of albums. I love albums. When I start to think about new songs, I tend to think about how these songs are going to slot together in an album. Sometimes in the past, I’ve had a group of four songs and thought, you know, this should be an EP. But it’s kind of difficult to get an EP together and get an EP out. It’s like, certainly in the UK, it’s just like a total non-format, which I think is a shame. Mostly, there’s going to be 30 or 40 minutes of songs which I’m going to want to have as an album and that’s… As soon as I started recording, I was hoping that it was going to come together as, like, a full 30 or 40 minutes.

Is this a long-term project, or a one-off and then you’re going to do another project under a different name?

I’m certainly planning to do another record as School of Language, and I think that…Yep.

Would you play all the parts on the new one?

Probably. I suppose my idea for School of Language, yeah, is this is the thing that I’m in charge of. I kind of like being in the studio on my own. I like doing it myself. And every now and again there’ll be something where I think, “Maybe I shouldn’t be the person playing it, maybe I should try to get somebody else to do it.” But yeah, the idea at the moment certainly is, like those School of Language records are gonna be me doing my little thing in the studio where maybe instead of going through the process of… I suppose, yeah, the thing is when I’m writing a song, I tend to have most of the arrangements in my head from very early on in the process. So getting other people involved would usually involve trying to explain to somebody what I wanted them to do fairly exactly. And that seems like a bad way to do a collaborative record, it’s just not… Like, a fake way to do a collaborative record. It’s probably quicker and less disingenuous just to try and figure out how to do it myself. Occasionally, there will be a part where I just think this is not a part for me to play, or what I’ve got in my head is something that someone else is going to play better. But that would just completely depend on what the song was.

There’s something about capturing the immediacy of it, too…

It’s weird to think I can be more spontaneous and make a more spontaneous sounding record if I do it on my own. I do it really, like, quickly as my ideas come out, rather than … whereas you might think the most spontaneous thing to do is have a band all sitting around, playing in a room and capture that like it is, but for me, for the way I write songs, that isn’t the way it would work.

Well, then let’s talk about the touring band. I guess you’ve got two guys touring with you. How does that work in light of what we just talked about, where you’re sort of doing everything? Are you dictating the parts? Is there collaboration?

It’s… for the live thing, I wanted to keep it pretty loose. I mean, there are certain things where it’s like, this is part of the song and those are the parts we’ve learned. But mostly as long as the song has the right momentum and the right changes and gives off the right kind of thing, then I’m less concerned. I really didn’t want to do something live where it was completely arranged. So this is, like, the three-piece rock arrangements of all of these songs, and it’s working out really well. I’m really enjoying it. I’m really enjoying being the guitar player in this band. I suppose with Field Music, the live thing was so arranged. There really wasn’t any fluctuation on how we’d play it. We’d play it more or less well. We’d do all of these tasks we’d have to do more or less well. I can’t think of a way we could have done that better, really, because it was just complicated stuff for three people to do. But I’m keen at the moment not to do things like that. I’d much rather do something where you have the prospect of reacting to what happens at a gig, or playing according to how you’re feeling at that time, or singing it according to what pops into your head at the time.

Is there any improvisation?

In what we’re doing now? Not in any great way. Not like we’re extending songs, or… Just all the subtle little things. Like I said, I’m really comparing it to Field Music, and Field Music was just so arranged. This is slightly looser. But it’s… and yeah, I’m not really dictating the parts, which is a nice position to be in. But I couldn’t imagine not working for me in the studio.

Are you pretty much just doing the new record? Any newer songs or older songs?

Mainly just doing stuff from the new record. I mean, we’ve been doing a Roxy Music cover, which is something that I’d recorded for a B-side. Other than that, it’s just the new record. We haven’t had a lot of time to practice. We had, like one and half practices in Chicago before the tour started. Haven’t had lots of time to work on lots of material. Actually, yeah, we had one and a half practices and then we had a gig in Princeton, which was, like, our dress rehearsal.

Where are you now?

We’re in Philadelphia. At a friend of ours, who’s let us stay, and we’re going to head off to D.C.

What sort of reaction have you gotten to the news that Field Music isn’t active any more? Are people upset about it, or sad, or indifferent…?

I think people who, most people who know what we’re doing aren’t that sad about it. Because, you know nobody’s saying we’re not going to do a Field Music record, um, we’re just saying this wouldn’t be a very good time to do a Field Music record, because that’s not the best way of getting our ideas out at the moment. And I think when people understand that, and lots of people have seemed to understand that, then there doesn’t seem to be any problem. People seem quite excited that there’s going to be lots of other things going on. And I think a lot of people are just kind of… Some of the reactions have been quite angry and skeptical, like “Oh, so what are you doing? Are you splitting up or not? Or, what’s all of this… ‘Doing it in a different way,’ what the hell does that mean?” At first, it’s just like, well… How a group of musicians making music work together can be as complicated or as simple as you like. This situation is just slightly complicated. And the three of us are still making lots of music together. But just none of it’s going to be a Field Music record in the near future. For me, a band isn’t a particular set of people. It’s a set of ideas that can change from one thing to another. Some people say, you know, if you do a band where it’s just the three of you again, why wouldn’t it be Field Music? But you know, Field Music has, in some sense, become defined… there’s a definite thing which is Field Music, some nebulous set of ideas. Or, in some senses actually, it’s a really defined set of ideas. Field Music is basically mine and Peter’s songs, where we help each other arrange it. But, essentially one of either of us is in charge of the song and we use, like, all our skills to try to get it out. I mean, we’re doing the keyboard player Andrew’s record at the moment. You know, just the three of us doing it. But it’s Andy’s songs, and it sounds slightly different. There’s lot of similarities, because we’re all playing it and arranging, but just to me, it doesn’t sound like a Field Music record.

Do you think that Field Music had accomplished what you had set out to do? Was there a feeling of frustration and you wanted to get away from it?

I’m pleased with the records we made. And that’s the ultimate, kind of, goal. Just to make records that we enjoyed. The live situation is slightly frustrating. I hadn’t really learned what I wanted to do.

Because it was so orchestrated?

I didn’t realize how frustrating I would find that. And like I said, there didn’t seem to be another option given at the time. I mean, it’s frustrating and it’s hard to make a living from it. But, I mean, on one level, that’s just completely irrelevant. Because even if I couldn’t make a living off it, then we would have still been trying to make those records. It would have taken a lot longer, and they would have been slightly different. But yeah, I mean, we achieved making those records. And, you know, we managed to do records together, which is something which for a long time, I didn’t think that me and Peter would be able to do. I didn’t really think that we’d be able to do a collaborative record like that, because we are both quite sprawling. But we managed to come up with a compromise which meant that we could do two records together. And we’ll probably do… well, we’ll certainly record together again, but whether… We’ll probably do a Field Music record again at some point.

Is there someone whose career you look at and think you’d want to do something similar? Someone whose path they’ve carved for themselves is something you respect? That’s kind of a generic question, I know.

It’s kind of important because if there’s no… it’s hard, when you’re trying to do this, it’s hard to find like a real… it’s hard to find a place in the music industry when you feel about it the way that I do. Someone like Nick Cave or Brian Eno or Sonic Youth, they’re just continuing to be productive. Just being productive and trying to find new things, all the time.

So it’s the discovery…?

Regardless of, like, fluctuations in popularity or fashion, they’re just, like, out there, always trying to work, always trying to do new things, always trying to get better at what they do, and not being afraid to say, “yeah, we’re trying to get better.” Not just like “Ah, well, you know, we just do whatever we do, and it’s just magic, right?” Someone like Nick Cave will be honest enough to say that he is trying to write better lyrics, or he’s trying to write songs in a different way, and that’s a great thing. And that’s… All I want to do is just keep getting better at what I do.