Why did the band move from Kill Rock Stars to Sub Pop Records?
We had left [Kill Rock Stars] a year earlier and were looking for a label; Sub Pop seemed like a logical progression. It’s a much bigger staff and they work with a lot of people we know. It added more background to us and gives us a little bit more physical support. For The Woods, you had Dave Friedmann (the Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev) produce the record. Did he have a hand in shifting your focus a bit, making the album more sonic? He’s responsible for creating those amazing sounds you hear on the record. He took our idea and ran with it, pushed it a little further. The general feel of the songs were there when we went to the studio, but he tried to make it sound different than we had sounded before. Were the Hendrix-y guitar solos a conscious decision? That’s just how they unfolded in the basement. We just stretched out a little bit, put more space in songs. We used the space in a different manner for us. There are a lot more instrumental passages in parts of songs that aren’t vocal ba
