Soul Survivors

YOU’VE HEARD of the Singing Nun and the Country & Western Gynaecologist, now Hot Press is proud to introduce the Post-Grunge Antique Dealer.

“Shit, that’s my street cred right out the window!” laughs Dan Murphy before adding rather more seriously, “Times were hard, there were bills to pay and I thought, ‘hell, rather than sit here and starve, I’m going to do something about it. So, I started my own antiques store and even though things are going a bit better now, I still go to auctions whenever I can and pick up stuff to sell on. I’m not a major player – normally I’ll spend a couple of hundred dollars on a piece and try and double my money but it’s great escapism and I’d recommend it to anybody.”

Could it be that antique collecting, rather than comedy, is the new rock ‘n’ roll? Let’s face it, we’ve all heard about the Regency dining-table that Kurt and Courtney lovingly restored during their honeymoon and Lemmy is reputed to have a very nice Elizabethan bureau stashed away in his study.

“It was 1990,” continues the guitarist oblivious to my pathetic attempts at humour, “and we’d kinda reached a crossroads in our career. Soul Asylum & The Horse They Rode In On had come out and it was obvious that bar a couple of people, everybody at A&M hated it. Maybe it was symptomatic of our overall relationship – the head of the company (Herb Alpert) had no idea who we were and we were starting to feel extremely unwanted. I know the rule-book says you don’t give up but we’d been travelling in vans and sleeping on floors for six years and it didn’t seem to be happening.”

This rather puts me in mind of the Irish band – sorry, no names – who ‘phoned up their American record company only to find that their A&R man had been fired and no one else in the building had heard of them.

“Sounds kinda familiar!” he chuckles wryly. “No, to be fair, we had some good friends at A&M who worked extremely hard on our behalf but they were limited in what they could do.”

Mr and Mrs Murphy’s boy wasn’t the only one who had to swallow his artistic pride and nip down the job centre. Bassist Karl Mueller became a short-order cook in a yuppie bar while drummer Grant Young resumed his janitorial duties at a high-school. Crucially, singer Dave Pilner managed to avoid the drudgery of a 9 to 5 and locked himself away in his bedroom with an acoustic guitar.

“It was a very uncertain time,” Dan reflects, “but what it boiled down to is that we had two choices – either split up or buy ourselves out of our A&M contract and start again.”

Soul Asylum opted for the latter, a rather expensive arrangement whereby the band still have to give the label a percentage of their royalties even though they’ve signed a new deal with Columbia. Considering that Gravedancer’s Union is now well on the way to going double-platinum, that’s a nice little earner for Herb Alpert and his shareholders.

“Yeah, I can’t say I’m overly thrilled having to give them money but at least there’s the consolation of knowing that they’d be getting a lot more if we’d stayed put. We ran into a few of the A&M guys at an awards show recently – we didn’t say anything but just flashed them these self-satisfied smiles.”

So, with Dan buying chest-of-drawers, Karl cooking eggs sunnyside up and Grant unblocking sinks in the boys’ locker-room, what happened next?

“Well, we heard the songs Dave had been working on and realised they were a bit special. It wasn’t a case of, ‘’Runaway Train’ – yeah, that’s a number one!’, but we knew it’d be stupid not to try ‘em out in rehearsals and see how they sounded.

“We definitely approached this album differently. Instead of practising in our rehearsal space with really loud amps, we went down to Dave’s basement and played with two acoustics, a small bass amp and Grant using brushes on the drums. We were more like a lounge band than a rock group! The good thing is that we concentrated more on the material and less on the sonic factor. You could actually hear the lyrics whereas before it was basically two guitars and cymbals.”

Gravedancer’s Union was released in September 1992, alternative radio bit immediately and after the slow but sure transition to the mainstream, MTV jumped on board and Soul Asylum were being pumped into the nation’s living-rooms 12 times a day. Voila, overnight success in nine short years!

“Yeah,” reminisces Dan fondly, “we were on the road touring as the filling-in-the-middle between Screaming Trees and Spin Doctors and suddenly everyone wanted to know who the hell Soul Asylum were.

“We’ve been accused of ‘selling-out’ and going commercial but, you know, when we were recording the album, Nirvana and Pearl Jam were at their peak, so you could say that by broadening our sound and creating different moods, we were being deliberately uncommercial.”

Whilst conceding that suffering for your art is a grossly over-rated concept, you only have to look at River Phoenix’s tragic demise to appreciate the dangers of being thrust into the spotlight too early. With the benefit of hindsight, is Dan glad that Soul Asylum cracked it as battle-hardened thirtysomethings rather than starry-eyed teenagers?

“Absolutely,” he nods in agreement. “I started this band when I was, what, 18 and we did everything the hard way. We’d go out and get fucking wasted before gigs just to calm our nerves and if we’d have had enough money in our pockets and people telling us how great we were, we’d have done some serious damage.

“I’ve got a 4-year-old and that’s the best reality check possible. Kids of that age aren’t impressed by rock star bullshit which is cool because it keeps you in the real world.”

Does Dan ever envy the celebrity Dave Pilner has achieved through dating Winona Ryder?

“God, no! Singers usually get most the attention because they’re the ones centre-stage but in Dave’s case he can’t go to the bathroom without somebody taking his photo. To his credit, he accepts it as part of the job and tries to smile when the flash goes off. I’d hate to feel, though, that I couldn’t walk to the shop or take my kid to the movies, so from a selfish point of view I’m glad it’s Dave getting his face splashed across the papers and not me!”

And how have their Minneapolis mates reacted to them becoming flash bastard rock stars?

“To be honest,” Dan resumes, “I’m not sure. This is the first time I’ve spent more than a few days at home since the album took off and I haven’t seen too many of the guys. I know that I haven’t changed and I suspect they’ll be kind of pleased for us. There have been so many great Minneapolis bands – The Replacements, Husker Du, The Jayhawks – who’ve never gotten the recognition they deserve, so hopefully we’ve redressed the balance a little.”

The Soul Asylum live experience is known to be a fairly raucous affair but you can expect proceedings to be extra rowdy when they make their Dublin debut at the National Stadium on Paddie’s Day.

“As you might suspect from a name like Daniel Murphy, most my family are Irish and I’ll be looking to you guys to see how St. Patrick’s Day is celebrated properly.”

Okay, we’ll meet you at the White Horse for breakfast, on to the Docker’s for lunch and, after that, who the fuck cares?