| Morrissey once remarked that his reputation for being pop’s most miserable man was wildly inaccurate; that because he was able to exorcise his seemingly pathological depression in song, his life was perversely joyful.
"I couldn’t be happier," he said, shortly after the breakup of the Smiths. "I don’t want anything to interfere with this state of dissatisfaction."
The Joe Pernice that calls me from his home in Boston is nothing like Morrissey. He jokes, downplays the importance of his work, speaks in a laid-back drawl that suggests that he might offer to buy you a drink at any moment.
But Pernice the artist is very much like Morrissey – and not only because his forthcoming literary debut is a semi-fictional account of a teenaged boy’s obsession with the Smiths’ Meat Is Murder. In his former band, Scud Mountain Boys, and now in Pernice Brothers, his consistently dazzling songwriting might be described as an American equivalent to Morrissey’s quintessentially English tales of disenchantment and (near-) disaster. Love is always unrequited, leaving or left; luckless characters are only one disappointment away from giving up altogether; and the grass is greener everywhere except in the patch beneath the singer’s feet.
But because Pernice usually frames his heartsick words with some of the prettiest heart-in-throat melodies imaginable, the cumulative effect of his songs is uplifting, euphoric even. And the effect is such that you don’t have to be a self-dramatizing adolescent to want to lie Pernice down on the analyst’s couch (metaphorically speaking) to achieve a better understanding of what makes him tick. You could, for instance, be a music journalist.
"It’s kind of fascinating, really," says Pernice. "I was the same way… and I still am, kind of – I catch myself thinking about songwriters as the song, and that’s part of the romance and greatness of it.
"It’s not often that a person will have complete strangers trying to relate to you," he continues, referring to his ever-growing audience. "It’s something that one should keep in check or you could cultivate quite a huge ego. I’m not a rock star, but it’s not many people who will come up to you and say, ‘You know what? I think you really suck.’ It’s always someone saying, ‘Oh my god, this song changed my life.’ I take that in stride and I appreciate it and I’ve learned how to take a compliment. But it’s not me – it’s not the guy who interacts with my close friends, my relationships. I’m a different person then."
Pernice Brothers’ new CD Yours, Mine & Ours is – and this is a compliment – more of the same, only more so. Although not swathed in baroque string arrangements like its predecessors (1998’s Overcome By Happiness and 2001’s The World Won’t End), its 10 songs may be the most finely crafted work of Pernice’s career. On tracks like "The Weakest Shade Of Blue" and "One Foot In The Grave," the band also comes as close as it ever has to breaking into a running pace – the latter even features that most un-baroque of sounds, a fuzz bass.
"This is a guitar record," says Pernice. "There’s as much arranging… on this record as (on) the others, but most of the parts are done with guitars and some keyboards.
"I think we could’ve put strings on some of the songs, but for me – and I think I’m probably speaking for everyone in the band – it’s about my ear getting kind of tired of doing a certain thing. I wanted to just do something else, just to keep evolving, keep moving and seeing what happens."
Pernice’s romantic fatalism, however, remains intact, in spite of the initial distraction of the songs’ comparatively upbeat surfaces. "The Weakest…" is an invitation to enter into a mutually destructive love affair because it can’t be worse than being alone; the haunting "Number Two" is a devastating kiss-off to a "life-sucking power-monger," pairing the lyric "I hope that this letter finds you crying" with a melody you could whistle.
"Certainly, a lot of my songs have a lot of truth in them," says Pernice. "Some of them are autobiographical to the word – some of them, I have no idea who that person is."
As subtly subversive as their lyrics are, Pernice’s songs are pure pop at heart. But the songwriter doesn’t expect to infiltrate the mainstream anytime soon, which suits him fine. As well as being conscious of the limited commercial opportunities for a truly independent artist (Pernice has operated his own label, Ashmont Records, since parting ways with Sub Pop in 2000), he doesn’t kid himself about the wasted landscape that is contemporary pop radio.
"It’s not really frustrating, honestly," he says. "My records sell pretty well. I own my label, so I make pretty decent money, and I do it without being a slave to the things other people have to do to get those things. I always looked at it like this: I love what I do, and if something happens as a fluke, then that’s great.
"I don’t want to alienate potential fans," he adds, a smile audible in his voice, "but if 10 million people bought my record, would I like those 10 million people?" |
Copyright ©2003 FFWD. All rights reserved.