Splendid: Sure. 
Glen Hansard: I kind of wonder to myself why we have to tour the rest of the country. I don't love America, I'm not passionate about being here, I'm not a young guy in a rock band in love with the world and in love with rock music. I'd much rather be in Europe or somewhere where I know we'd get better gigs. 

Splendid: Yeah. 
Glen Hansard: But I'm really enjoying this trip, because there's this certain mental state you get into, which is just "fuck it". If there's someone there, we'll play a good gig, if there's not someone there, we'll play a good gig. 

Splendid: Well, you're playing for yourself at that point. 
Glen Hansard: So we're doing the 28 gigs in 30 days -- "yeah, cool, let's do it". 

Splendid: Is this the first full-scale US tour that you guys have done? 
Glen Hansard: We did one in January, opening up for the New Pornographers. 

Splendid: Right, right. 
Glen Hansard: But it wasn't as full scale as this -- that was like 21 gigs. I see the word "gig" isn't used over here as much as the word "show", is it? 

Splendid: (Laughter) 
Glen Hansard: They said only jazz musicians use the word "gig". 

Splendid: I don't really think that's true. So, has it been mostly headlining for you guys on this tour? 
Glen Hansard: It's been all headlining on this trip, except for the very first gig in Detroit, where we were opening for the Waxwings because that's their hometown. 

Splendid: Maybe you don't know this, but the people who come out to the shows, are they longtime fans, or are they people who have just gotten turned on recently? 
Glen Hansard: It's been a really interesting mix. There've been a lot of people who have seen us in Europe, and are now living here for some reason. Or people to whom we've been highly recommended -- you know, people who are like "I got a call from a guy I know who implored me to come to your gig". Wow, that's amazing! It's amazing to me that people talk about us in a way that's really genuine, like "this is a really good band, you should go see them", or whatever. 'Cause the whole American club scene just reeks of apathy. Just reeks! Like you go to these clubs and...

Splendid: Nobody gives a shit. 
Glen Hansard: ...the guards are like "load your gear in there, get on stage, don't bring that cup outside, show me your ID, and get the fuck away from here by 2:00 in the morning." You know, these places, it's kind of hard, that side of it, like, "aw, fuck off"! I come from a country where, you know, you go in, you set up your gear, and people are cool -- where music's appreciated for something that's not...you know...I'm not here to sell jewelry. 

Splendid: It's kind of more than a job. It's something else. 
Glen Hansard: I think it's really good if you show up to a gig and someone gives you a cup of tea and says "hello". They don't have to fuckin' kiss my ass. 

Splendid: Well, that's what I've heard from friends of mine who have toured Europe -- that people are just so friendly over there, and the fans seem to be much more appreciative of the music, whereas here, it can be really hard. 
Glen Hansard: It's hard work to be a band in America! If you're an American indie rock band, you've chosen one of the hardest loads, certainly, in music. 

Splendid: Oh yeah, for sure. Well, that's funny that you should say that. All I know of your stuff is from an American perspective, which is fairly frustrating, because your records haven't been promoted here, and you've been mishandled left and right, and American fans of the Frames would probably say that you guys have gotten something of a raw deal all in all. Do you feel that way? 
Glen Hansard: Um...raw deal. I kind of think everything is how it's meant to be. 

Splendid: Well, are you happy with how your career has gone thus far? 
Glen Hansard: Well, you know, it could have gone better. 

Splendid: Sure. 
Glen Hansard: There could have been more money put into us touring. Every time we've toured in America, it's only been the East coast, or Chicago, but every time we've come to America, it's always been on money we've borrowed. Because the super-duper major label over here wouldn't give us shit to come and do anything. And being signed to the major label, we weren't even able to get our records on the shelves! I mean, we were one band in a roster of thousands! And yeah, it's a big label, and they promise you big things... 

Splendid: And they fork over a bunch of money at first... 
Glen Hansard: And we've always been uncomfortable with that route anyway, because when you play that game, it's all about the pyramid theory, which is "there's only room for one at the top", and the whole idea of success, the whole idea of pop music, is that the moment you reach the top, it's over! You know, the whole idea is that the very minute you hit the top, it ends, and I've always been much more interested in the idea of a career in music. So the concept of pop music to me is that a bubble rises for a long time from the bottom, and it hits the surface, and the moment it hits the surface, it explodes! And that explosion is what people celebrate. They celebrate the death of something, rather than its formation and its growth. So in a way, you see it with bands when it's like "bang!", they're there, in everyone's face and in the media, then "bang!", they're gone! And I've always been excited by the idea of bands like REM, or bands like the Cure, or bands like the Pixies if they hadn't split up, God, why did they ever do that? You know, bands that were just great, great bands, who were sustaining and enduring. For me, it was always a career, it was never a case of "we'll have a hit, I'll make some money, and I'll get married!" It was never about that, it was like "this is monastic. Heading out on the road again." 

Splendid: Labels don't seem to believe in artist development anymore. 
Glen Hansard: Well, that's what they were telling me when I was 18, and I was signed, and they said "We see you as a sort of Van Morrison type of character. We'd like to develop you over five albums, and maybe then we'll start demanding that you have hits." You know, "but up until that point we'll give you freedom." And I thought that was amazing! 

Splendid: Yeah! Sounds great! 
Glen Hansard: And then the guy who spieled all that to me left the record company the next day! 
AUDIO: Headlong

Splendid: (much laughter) That's classic, that's beautiful. Do you know the band Spoon? 
Glen Hansard: I know of them. 

Splendid: It was pretty much the same exact story. 
Glen Hansard: No matter how you look at it, the bands are being shafted 99 percent of the time.

Splendid: Yeah, really, that's all you need, and anything else is just money spent that didn't need to be spent. 
Glen Hansard: Absolutely. We're not a glamorous band. I'm not James Dean. We don't have the "sell, sell" angle. We never have had. It's always been about songs. If we can get the songs to do the work, then we're golden, but the only way to get the songs to work is to get them in front of people. And the radio, we've never depended on. Maybe we have, maybe we haven't written "radio records", but it's never been a concern of the band to do that. We've always hoped that the music would sell us...and obviously it's a bit more than that. 

Splendid: It's always a bit more than that! So, does being in the Frames pay your rent? 
Glen Hansard: Being a songwriter pays my rent. Being in the Frames doesn't. Being in the Frames is an expensive...

Splendid: ...proposition? 
Glen Hansard: Yeah. Basically, touring a five-piece in America is like dragging a whale around. You have to hire a van, pay a sound engineer -- for us, those luxuries we afford ourselves. At home, we can all play a gig and split the money and pay our rent, there's no doubt about that. But being able to go on tour on my own is where I actually get to pay the rent. And that's something I do at home, or in Europe, and I can earn money that way. But I can't do it with the band, ironically. 

Splendid: How do you like the dynamic of solo versus playing with the band? 
Glen Hansard: I love the difference, because I get to bring the song wherever I want to bring it in the moment I'm in. 'Cause a lot of playing for me is renditionism. You know, you take the song somewhere, and if it feels good in the moment, you take it somewhere else. And so doing the solo touring, for me, it's just an opportunity to take the songs and tell stories about them. It's much more of an intimate experience. With the band, I can go off on a bit of a spiel here and there, but more often not. It's pretty set, a pretty focused concept -- "the gig". 

Splendid: Have you considered putting out a solo record? 
Glen Hansard: Yeah, but it would have to be a live one. I couldn't really see going in and spending a lot of time in the studio, 'cause I'd want the band on it. And if I had the band on it... 

Splendid: It may as well be a Frames record! So, you guys are recording a new record now, right? 
Glen Hansard: Yeah, we're in the middle of a new one. 

Splendid: Each new record of yours seems to get quieter and quieter. 
Glen Hansard: Yeah. 

Splendid: Is this one sort of following the trend that way? 
Glen Hansard: No, this one will...we've started out with this one trying to capture some real violence. Not to make rock music, necessarily, but to make violent music. And I don't mean that in a sort of "rock out" way, just to make something that sounds -- 

Splendid: -- more dissonant? 
Glen Hansard: Not even dissonant. Just...emotionally violent. That was kind of one of my tips at the start. I said "I don't think we're going to pull it off". 

Splendid: Well, your stuff has always been really intense, especially the early stuff. 
Glen Hansard: Yeah, but I don't want intense, 'cause when I listen back to that guy, I think "Jesus, poor kid!" 

Splendid: (laughter) 
Glen Hansard: Shoutin' his head off, you know? I don't miss him. I don't miss that young fool, because I'm not him anymore, and that's the other thing that's really been nice about making music, is that you're only ever where you are. You're never anywhere else. When I was making that stuff, that was the best I could do, man! And I still play those songs -- we still refer back sometimes, but I don't miss that yokel at all. 

Splendid: There's so much more experience that you gain just in living your life. 
Glen Hansard: I always think, for me, that we'll make another record, hopefully people will like it, then we'll make another one and hopefully people will like that -- but for me it's always a personal thing. If I think it's better than the last one, I think it's worth releasing, but if I don't think it's better than the last one, then we're just going to spend a longer time making it -- just get it until it's right. And at the same time, part of me is like "be flippant, just let the records come out". If we were really flippant, we would have made a bunch of records by now. A whole bunch of records. But I'm always like, "aww, it could be better. We should hold off". It's more a case of me wanting to release a good record rather than just a fresh record. 

Splendid: Well, Bob Pollard, the singer/songwriter guy -- his whole thing is just writing hundreds and hundreds of songs... 
Glen Hansard: I have a friend in Songs:Ohia, this band from Chicago. Jason releases like three records a year. And I think to myself, "wow, that's a fucking amazing amount of output!" But that's how the indie rockers survive, because every record that Jason releases, he'll definitely sell 15,000 copies of. He won't sell any more, but he'll definitely sell that many. So if he releases three of them a year, you know, he's doing alright. 

Splendid: In the case of Guided By Voices, it's like Bob Pollard has a bunch of "side project" bands, and he releases solo records, and all this stuff, and the problem is that the Guided by Voices stuff is usually really good, but the other side-project stuff is mostly really bad! It's like he can't separate the wheat from the chaff 
Glen Hansard: I think that if you're a dedicated fan, though, or if you're the kind of musician who inspires dedication -- and which there aren't that many, I don't think, who inspire real fans, someone who will fight for your corner -- then you have the opportunity to make a living off anything you release. But then you're just being unfair. 

Splendid: Yeah, it's true. 
Glen Hansard: Rule number one is "don't take the piss out of your audience". 

Splendid: Don't take them for granted. Definitely. Are the Frames' songs your songs, to which the band adds parts, or is the songwriting process more democratic? 
Glen Hansard: Predominantly they're mine. I'm like B.A. from the A-Team. Collect all the rubbish and have the band put together the vehicle -- then we go save the day. (laughter) Yeah, it's primarily my ideas. It's all mine. When I say it's all mine, though, I don't mean to say that I'm the Sting in the band. The Frames are definitely a band. 

Splendid: Well, the distinction between The Police and Sting's solo material is pretty dramatic. You look back on the old Police stuff and think "Damn, Andy Summers was great! And so was Stu Copeland!" 
Glen Hansard: Yeah, bands have a chemistry, you know. 

Splendid: Exactly. You've had a lot of lineup changes over the years. Do you think that's had anything to do with holding you guys back at all? 
Glen Hansard: Oh, no, no, it's always been a very positive thing, thank God. Because it always pulls the music in a different way, depending on which musician's playing on it. I think you can get very, very bored if you're playing with the same musicians for ten years. All the moves, all the positions, you've got covered after a few years. But then again, you get into that classic situation where you just read each other. Me and Colm, we're the only two original members now, and me and him, we don't even have to look at each other. 

Splendid: Was that kind of the case with David (Odlum) leaving? 
Glen Hansard: With Odlum? Yeah, that was hard. That was the hardest. 

Splendid: 'Cause he was there from the beginning, right? 
Glen Hansard: Yeah, he was there from the beginning, and also he was like my right-hand man. I bounced everything off him. So him leaving was fatal. Well, almost. It almost made me pack it in. 

Splendid: Well, you're still here, so... 
Glen Hansard: Yeah, and the guy, Rob, who's covering for Dave, is really really good. 
AUDIO: Rent Day Blues (live)

Splendid: That always helps. 
Glen Hansard: Yeah. But it feels really good. It's an omen. For me, it's always a case of The Frames are in good shape if we're playing well or we're writing good songs. If we're not writing good songs and we're not playing good gigs, then we're not a good band. There isn't any other way of looking at it. And right now we're a good band, so it's okay. 

Splendid: So he left to do more production stuff, was that the case? 
Glen Hansard: Yeah, well, he fell in love with this girl Janna, and he made her record with her and now he's living with her and touring with her. And so, yeah, he just fell in love. It's the one get-out clause, isn't it? (Laughter) You know what I mean? "I been with ya for twelve years, and I love ya and you're my best mate, but look, man, I'm in love!" (much laughter) If he'd have told me anything else, he'd have been a bastard! 

Splendid: Yeah, that's a tough one. Have there been other times when you've been ready to just say "fuck it" and throw in the towel? 
Glen Hansard: Oh, yeah. Actually, the only other time I ever left the band...well, I didn't leave the band this time, but the only time I ever left the band was just before For the Birds came out. I thought it was the worst album we'd ever made. I just thought "Jesus"... 

Splendid: Was that before you got Albini in on it? 
Glen Hansard: No, just the day before it was released! 

Splendid: Oh, okay. 
Glen Hansard: We were in Amsterdam. We were opening for the Tindersticks, and I had a total fuckin' nervous breakdown. I just thought we'd made the worst album of our career, and that this would be the one that would make us lose everyone. And losing everyone, for us, meant losing a fairly small number of people. 

Splendid: Did you have any kind of reaction from anyone about it before it was released? 
Glen Hansard: No, we didn't play it for anyone. We were very good with it. Maybe a few close friends, whose opinions I trust, but don't value. Because they're my friends. 

Splendid: And they're not gonna tell you your stuff is shit. 
Glen Hansard: Well, they are -- they'll tell you "You did really good on that one and maybe not so good on that one" -- but I'm kinda like "Lads, fuckin' tell me straight!" I guess your best friends' opinions are important, but I didn't think it was good, and that was the most important thing of all. 

Splendid: But you like it now, right? 
Glen Hansard: Now I'm proud of it. Now I'm proud of the fact that we did something, got it out of the way, now it's time to move on. 

Splendid: I was really kind of shocked by it. In the first place, I hadn't heard anything about you guys having a new record or even having a record deal, and then I get this record in the mail, The Frames. Okay. Then I see "Steve Albini". And I'm like "What the fuck", 'cause he's about the last guy in the world I would have thought you guys would work with. 
Glen Hansard: We're the only band I know of who have recorded with both Trevor Horn and Steve Albini! 

Splendid: (Laughter) 
Glen Hansard: The two fuckin' extremes, man. 

Splendid: That's awesome. 
Glen Hansard: Within a year. 

Splendid: So how did you come to work with Steve? 
Glen Hansard: I had spoken to Steve years ago, when we were recording Fitzcarraldo, our second album. I had wanted him to record our first one, because I was a big Pixies fan from the beginning. That's what ruined our first album, because it would have been a real folky, country record, actually, if I hadn't discovered The Pixies, like, a week before we started recording! And then tried to stick on this bunch of songs. I used my first electric guitar in the recording of that record. Learning to play electric guitar is very different than acoustic guitar, but I was treating them the same. 

Splendid: Yeah, it's really loud. 
Glen Hansard: There's a couple of moments on it that are sad. They're not sad, actually, but unfortunate. They're the sound of a young lad trying to emulate something that he needs to grow up into instead of...you know. It's a difficult record for me to listen to now, but there are some parts of it that I'm proud of. 

Splendid: Well, there's a lot of heart in it. It's very earnest. 
Glen Hansard: And the irony is that all the faster songs that are on the album, I actually scrapped, but the record company was like "Well, this is the fast, uptempo pop music that we want!" So we ended up having to go with those songs. The final draft of Another Love Song is sort of a folky, country record, but they went for all the sort of unfinished songs. Like if you listen to the fast songs on Another Love Song, there's no lyrics, 'cause I just didn't write any! Cause I was basically just jammin' the stuff out in the studio. 

Splendid: Interesting. I wanted to ask you about a few songs specifically. What is "God Bless Mom" about? 
Glen Hansard: Ehh. It's kind of about my mother basically staying with my dad when she shouldn't have. My mother and my father haven't been getting on for, you know, a couple of decades, and it was kind of a case where my mother always went back to him. And it was kind of saying to her "you're amazing!" 

Splendid: So it's pretty literal, then. 
Glen Hansard: Yeah. 

Splendid: The juxtaposition between the verse and the chorus is really interesting -- where the chorus is loud and emphatic, and the verse is so quiet as to be almost inaudible. 
Glen Hansard: Well, that version was a total concoction made up by Trevor Horn. The album version's the worst version. The best version of it is on an EP we released, I don't know if you have it, called I Am The Magic Hand. 

Splendid: No, I don't have that. (NOTE: I have since acquired this version, on the UK Headlong EP, and Glen's right -- the album version doesn't hold a candle to it.) 
Glen Hansard: ...which was the version of the song that we wanted to go on the album, but it wasn't "intense" enough for them, so they didn't go for it. It's the version we play live, though, so you'll probably hear it later if you stick around. 

Splendid: Yeah, definitely. 
Glen Hansard: It's a different version than what's on the album. Just very slightly, but you'll hear it. 

Splendid: So, some of the songs on Dance the Devil are really tweaked out sonically, like "Hollocaine". Was that more the producer's doing? 
Glen Hansard: Naw, that was just us goofing. I had a Public Enemy record, and I was just home, and it's like...aww, fuck, I'm trying to remember the name of the song. I can't remember it. Anyway, there's a Public Enemy loop, on their second record, I remember just really liking it and playing acoustic guitar over it and coming up with "Hollocaine". Total jam. Bitsy little weird jam. And then going and putting it on the record. We called the publishers, basically we called the Public Enemy people, and they said "well, we stole that loop from some '70s record, so you can't have it, 'cause we never got clearance for it either, and if you use it and find success with it, then we're in the spotlight, so fuck you!" (Laughter) So we had to scrap it and rebuild the loop, with sort of My Bloody Valentine-style guitar loops. "By the Time I get to Phoenix", that's the name of the song. So if you ever listen to that Public Enemy song, that's the loop that Hollocaine was based on. But it was just a jam, and actually I don't like the lyrics on it -- the lyrics are really crap. It's like "Got no need for the bible, it's all in here, it's all in here / All I need for my survival is hollocaine, hollocaine", which is actually the word "Hollow". It's a very sad lyric, because it means nothing -- it just means nothing. I find it's one of those times where the devil got the pen and wrote the lyrics. 

Splendid: To do it themselves? 
Glen Hansard: Yeah. Basically, careers have been ruined by some young guy in Sony liking a friend of mine, signing him up for whatever amount of money, spending three years making his first record, and then dropping him. My friend could have made two records, and could have building a really healthy crowd to support his music, and that's kind of what's been happening with a lot of our friends. The Frames survived the major label existence twice now, and now we've been more successful as an independent band than we've ever been, which is partly the result of being a major label failure. 

Splendid: Well, you've got a lot of experience under your belts. 
Glen Hansard: We're older. We're definitely of the older generation of bands in Dublin. We never asked to be that, but that's what we are. Now we're sort of like...people gauge their career moves on our path. You know, we'll talk to anyone who wants to talk about it. We're not bitter. And that's the one thing I'm really proud of, is that we're not scowling and calling people names. 

Splendid: Well, you're still out there playing music. 
Glen Hansard: Exactly, we're still doing it. And basically, to avoid cynicism has always been my personal hope. Not even goal, just hope. And I'm cynical, but hopefully to a healthier degree. I think cynicism's very important. I mean, I go through times where I think "Fuckin' hell, man, I'm 32, what's going on with this?" But then I think, "Fuck it, man, I'm going to be doing this when I'm 60, whether things will be better or not." I've no choice in this. I put all my eggs in one basket when I was 14. They're still in there, you know? I haven't broken too many!