Image by Kirstie Shanley
Kathryn Calder
Balancing two bands is tough, but the newest Pornographer is up for the 'challenge'
By Laura Leebove
Published: August 2nd, 2007 | 11:14am
Onstage at Pitchfork Music Festival in July 2007, it’s hard to tell that Kathryn Calder is standing in for an alt-country queen. Her clear alto voice blends perfectly with uncle Carl “A.C.” Newman’s baritone, making it easy to tell she’s been doing this for a while.
But when Calder joined the New Pornographers two years ago to play keyboards and sing the parts of leading lady Neko Case on tour, she had never even seen the band live. The Canadian group — fronted by Newman — had already released two albums, and she had big shoes to fill. “I had no idea of what Neko looked like onstage, or what she did. Even though I was sort of stepping into that role, I had no idea what had come before me,” Calder says on the phone. “People had told me she had great stage presence, but if I had really seen it, I would’ve been far more intimidated than I was.”
After joining the band on tour, Calder went into the studio to play keyboards and sing on 2005’s Twin Cinema and the band’s fourth album, Challengers, both on Matador Records.
Calder says it’s hard to differentiate between her and Case’s vocals on some of Challengers’ songs, even though individually they have distinguishable sounds. “On this new record in particular, there are some parts that [Neko] and I are the backup parts. She and I are singing together and it’s really hard to tell who is who,” she says. “I know what my voice sounds like, so I can pick it out, but there are times on the record where I’m thinking, ‘God, did Neko sing that or did I sing that?’”
The album, released August 21, 2007, is quite a departure from the Pornos’ first three — there are less electronics and the songs are generally slower — so for Calder, it’s exciting to be playing new material. “I think the songs are really solid on this new record, and I mean, I love Twin Cinema too, obviously, but also from my perspective, I’ve been playing those songs for a couple of years now, so it’s fun to be playing these songs live and learning new songs,” she says. “I like the new record a lot.”
When I talk to Calder, she’s in London, serving double duty with the New Pornographers and her other band, Immaculate Machine, which just released its third LP, Fables, on June 12, 2007. Calder says it gets crazy balancing both bands, but she doesn’t mind. “I’m doing what I love, so that’s OK,” she says. “The scheduling is a little bit crazy — trying to figure out who gets me when, basically. It’s a little bit nuts.”
Though Calder is loyal to both bands, she says playing in each is a completely different experience because she writes her own music for Immaculate Machine, but Newman writes most of the parts for the New Pornographers.
“It’s a lot more nerve-wracking, actually, playing with my band than it is with the New Pornographers because Carl gets all the heat … and they’re his songs so he feels it, you know?” she says. “And I’m kinda like, ‘Oh, they don’t know what they’re talking about,’ and I can just brush it off because although I’m proud of the New Pornographers and the songs, and I love the songs, I didn’t write them.”
She says for Immaculate Machine’s first two full-lengths and two EPs, the band focused more on writing songs that could easily be played live with three people, but Fables was recorded with a different approach. “We just had a lot of fun arranging for this record, which I think we didn’t do as much on the first couple. But this record, we were really making a [conscious] effort to … make a difference between the live show and the record,” she says. “We were really concerned with making sure we could play the record as it was live, and you don’t have to do that. It’s a record, people know that it’s a recording, and you don’t have to mimic it exactly in a live situation.”
While it may be more stressful to perform her own songs, “it’s also more rewarding when people say they really love them too, you know, like, ‘Oh, that’s a song I wrote!’” Calder says. “One’s a creative band and the other’s the band that I get to have fun and sing.”
Issue #25
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