Interview with Jason Stollsteimer (Von Bondies) – Part 2

Jason Stollsteimer and his Von Bondies return to Detroit to play St. Andrew’s Hall with Millions of Brazilians on Saturday, March 28th in support of Love, Hate, and Then There’s You. Here is the second half of MCR’s interview with Jason, conducted just before the band headed out on tour (check out the first part of MCR’s interview here).

What about recording another album? It’s not going to be five years for the next album, is it?

Before we went to Canada, we were practicing playing the songs and I started playing this riff that’s really anthemic, really ballsy. Don just started playing along, and we looked at each other and said we’re going to have to wait a year for this to be heard by anyone, so let’s just remember it and not play it right now. Later that week we were at MTV Canada doing a sound check and I started playing that song, and everyone asked, “Are you doing that song tonight?” We said, no, no, no, it’s not even a song yet. So we made a demo and sent it to our new label and said, “This is the single on our next record.” Now I realize whatever songs I write, I have to hang on to them forever. When we did this record, I wrote probably eighty songs, and kept ten. Don wrote eight songs and we kept two.

So your new guitar player, Christy, is from Minneapolis? Is she living here in Detroit now? Is she liking it?

She’s at my apartment right now. The weather there is even worse… but they did have The Replacements, which she talks about all the time, she’s a huge Replacements fan. She’s great, Marty from SSM recommended her, because they knew her when they toured out there. Leann [the new bass player] was from Ghost City and The Sirens, Jim Diamond recommended her, but we didn’t know if she could sing. So she came and tried out— she sang in high school! She has a really strong voice.

Hopefully, now the backing vocals are the best they’ve ever sounded. On the record, they doubled my high falsetto going “c’mon, c’mon”- that’s me singing “C’mon, C’mon”, as women! I’m always there, at least doubled, and then the girls back that on them. Except for “Not That Social”, every song that you think is all girls is me doubled, with two girls. I don’t mind singing like a female— it gets the job done!

Could you see writing songs with these new people, like a foursome-type collaboration?

No… when I start writing songs, I’m not a good person. I do it by myself. It’s like you turn on switch, like on game day when a football player turns into a freak, when off the field he’s like a nice teddy bear.

What about a solo career in the future?

It’d be silly. I did this band called Jason and The Hounds Below a while ago. It was Roy Orbison type stuff. That’s my normal singing voice, but I can’t do that with loud guitars. If I was going to do something solo, it’d be something like that. I’d have to go backwards.

Brian Vander Ark [from The Verve Pipe] has been solo for a long time. The Verve Pipe are kind of similar to you guys in that Brian and the drummer Donny Brown have always been the heart of the band even though the lineup changes.

Well, we have another funny connection with The Verve Pipe. Jerry Harrison [from Talking Heads] produced Pawn Shoppe Heart but not really “C’mon, C’mon”, and also The Verve Pipe’s Villains but not their hit “The Freshmen”. The Verve Pipe wrote “The Freshmen” before they got signed. As I was told, the version you hear on the single is the original demo, not from the record. We finished the record with him and then I wrote “C’mon, C’mon”. It’s funny.

When I listen to the last record, Pawn Shoppe Heart, and I listen to The Verve Pipe’s Villains, there is something in the fabric of the sound that is similar.

I love Jerry Harrison. He’s great, but this new record didn’t make sense for it. I didn’t have any money, either. People are saying this record sounds way bigger than the last record. It’s like 1/20th of the price.

To the average ear, you can’t even tell that it was recorded at that price, or that it was recorded four years after Pawn Shoppe Heart.

There’s two songs that sound different, “Chancer” and “She’s Dead To Me”. Those were recorded at The Tempermill. The first session was in Connecticut, we walked away with “21st Birthday” and “Modern Saints”. That was in like 2006. Then we went to L.A. and did three songs. Then we went to Chicago and did “Only To Haunt You” and “I Don’t Wanna”, and then we did back to L.A. and did three songs, and in Detroit we did two. We did more songs, but those are the ones that made the record. We mixed it at The Tempermill with Paul Kolderie, who helped produce Radiohead’s The Bends and a bunch of other Radiohead stuff.

So the future of The Von Bondies – is it a little bit of a question?

Only if you buy this one. Seriously, it’s not about making money– enough people have to hear this for me to go through all this again. I’ll write the songs again, but I might just put out a 45 instead of a whole album.

My goal is for this record to sell x-amount. My goal six years ago was to headline a place like The Magic Stick, and it happened in a year. I wanted to go to Europe. We’ve done Big Day Out in Australia, we’ve done Japan. I need goals to keep my ADD in control.

Every record should be your last. You shouldn’t be writing your next record while you are still writing your current one. You should be using that– because anything could happen. And the best record should be the record you just did.