ADVERTISEMENT

    Concert Preview: Dan Wilson and Semisonic Co-Headline the “Last Summer on Earth Tour” Friday at KEMBA Live!

    “Prepping for this tour with Semisonic is a lot of like, ‘Oh, I forgot about that.’ All the sort of logistical questions that come with being on tour like, ‘Where do you do your laundry?’” singer, songwriter, and producer Dan Wilson shares about the band’s upcoming Last Summer on Earth outing with Barenaked Ladies and Del Amitri.

    ADVERTISEMENT

    “The basics of life on a bus are just different. And, so, I’ve been sort of suddenly realizing a lot of things about touring as I’m packing my stuff,” Wilson explains during our phone interview. “But, you know, we have our rehearsals coming up, and the last time we did that was in January, and it was super dreamy. And we have a couple of new songs. It’s going to be really fun.”

    Like their touring contemporaries, Wilson and Semisonic (which also includes bassist, keyboardist, guitarist, and backing vocalist John Munson, and drummer, percussionist, keyboardist, and backing vocalist Jacob Slichter) have been making music for decades, interspersed with side projects, production and songwriting work, book authoring, and teaching, among other activities.

    The Minneapolitans are best known to most for their ubiquitous 1998 Grammy-nominated single “Closing Time” (which played reliably, and very loudly, at the conclusion of nearly every college house party, concert, and pub night I attended in my early 20s), but their catalog runs three studio albums, three EPs, and nine radio hits deep – including their most recent release, 2020’s You’re Not Alone.

    On his own, Wilson has become one of the most prolific pop songwriters of the past twenty years, amassing a mind-boggling list of compositional collaborations with Adele (“Someone Like You” and “Don’t You Remember”), The Chicks (“Not Ready to Make Nice”), Taylor Swift (“Treacherous (Taylor’s Version)” and “Come Back…Be Here (Taylor’s Version”), Chris Stapleton, Weezer, John Legend, P!nk, Spoon, Panic! At The Disco, Vance Joy, and Keith Urban among dozens and dozens of others.

    On Friday night, Wilson, Munson, and Slichter will be on stage together at KEMBA Live! as the Last Summer on Earth Tour launches right here in the Arch City.

    GRANT WALTERS: I have to share that I laughed a little when your publicist, Joe, got in touch with me, because he asked so kindly and earnestly if I’d “consider” an interview with you. You are absolutely one of my favorite songwriters and I’ve really wanted to have a conversation with you for a very long time, so I’m very glad this is happening.

    DAN WILSON: Um, wow. Thank you for saying that. That’s really, really nice of you.

    GW: Well, let’s start by talking about your work with Semisonic. You’ve been together for 28 years, many of which you’ve spent on the road. I’m assuming all this time down the line that it’s still very much a joyful experience for you, John, and Jacob to tour even when the band isn’t putting out new music as frequently?

    DW: Yeah, it’s really nice, we’ve been friends and very much present in each other’s lives this whole time. I hadn’t written any good new Semisonic songs for a long, long time until we made “You’re Not Alone,” and then in 2021 and last year especially, I wrote tons of songs that sounded like the band. And, so, we’ve been just having the fun experience of exploring that sound we make when we’re together. We have a good time. It’s a spirited discussion sometimes, but good vibes.

    Semisonic’s most recent single, “You’re Not Alone” (2020) (Pleasuresonic Recordings)

    GW: I’m curious how those spirited discussions might play out between the three of you. Are those different in 2023 than they would’ve been 20 years ago?

    DW: Let’s see…I mean, in a way it seems like we have similar roles. I think I’m most comfortable in music when I’m sort of generating material, creating rhymes, creating melodies that indirectly addressing themes in my life or events or situations with people that I love. Things like that. Well, not indirectly…but addressing them through the medium – the words, the notes, the melody, you know?

    And John and Jacob have very different focal points. John is the most likely to just have a “good feeling” about a song, or a “bad feeling” about a song. Like, “This is the wrong approach and I’m not gonna explain why.” Just a kind of a more intuitive connection to the music, and a sense, I think, on John’s part that it’s partly his job to be the one focused on “is this giving me the right feeling? Does this have the right vibe?”

    Jacob is also very different because he tends to want to say, “Okay, how do these songs all fit together? What is the larger story that we’re telling with this? Does this all make sense as a body of work? What does this say about us? How does this relate to our lives?” He’s more likely to look at it in those terms.

    So, I think between the three of us, we have super different perspectives, right?

    GW: But those all seem to sort of come together and eventually mesh. And I think it’s great you recognize how you’re different and what contributions each of you make in the bigger picture.

    DW: It’s funny, because I only really thought of that description of our three kinds of characters just now. It hasn’t really been in my mind before that, but I like making stuff, and I like making stuff with other people. I love making music. John and Jake are amazing musicians. We get along great. I love making music with them, so that’s why I’m happy that I wrote a bunch of songs that sound like the band, because then we get to do that. I just like to do that with them.

    GW: If you’re okay with it, I’d like to shift gears to discussing your songwriting. What was the first song you remember writing, and do you recall what it was about?

    DW: The first time I wrote a song, I was with my brother Matt, in the Northwoods of Minnesota. My parents had given us a guitar to share, and so we were teaching each other and learning about chords. I remember learning one of the chords – I can’t remember which one it was – but it was a kind of chord that wasn’t among the first four that you might learn. And I’d realized that I had heard it in some George Harrison songs, and I was really excited when I played it for Matt on my guitar and I recognized it. It blew my mind.

    I immediately tried to write a song that sounded like George Harrison using this chord. The song was called something like “Walking Down the Road,” or “Driving Down the Road.” I think was 13 and Matt was 11. But I just felt like I had somehow unlocked the key to being my favorite Beatle, and it was very exciting.

    GW: What songwriters appeal to you the most, or what ones have an ethos, or maybe even a worldview, with which you can readily identify? Ones that have made you think, “Yeah, their approach to the craft really resonates with me and I want to emulate that in what I do”?

    DW: I think Joni Mitchell would be the most like that. I discovered her when I was 17 or 18, and it was that sense of the singer telling you stories from their recent adventures – you know, their recent life. That sense of like Joni Mitchell having a kind of beautiful bird’s eye view on life, or perspective on life, or philosophy, but always told within the context of stories about the recent adventures, or recent travels, or a recent relationship. I really love that approach to songwriting.

    I can appreciate John Lennon’s “Instant Karma” or “Give Peace a Chance,” or things like that, but those are more impersonal to me. Joni taught me with her albums, just as a fan, that songs could be about stuff that’s just been happening lately in your life. And I really love that.

    And, you know, I’ve been able to work with artists like that as a songwriter. Adele is like that. It’s not really philosophy about how life works, it’s about “What you said to me recently,” or “What we did together,” or “Why we’re not getting along anymore.” That super personal approach is still very meaningful to me.

    GW: If you’ll allow me to indulge a bit, I really loved one of your more recent solo songs, “Dancing on the Moon.” The lyrics, the melody, and your vocal are all just very lovely, and it felt like a deeply personal song when I first heard it. As you now mention that idea of a composition reflecting a present happening or feeling, I’m not wrong in thinking it’s a good example within your repertoire, am I?

    DW: Yeah! Thank you, Grant, for mentioning that song because I love “Dancing on the Moon” a lot. Yeah, that feels like a really personal song where I don’t really feel the need to explain in the lyrics, or make sure that everyone understands what the references are, or whatever. I’m fine with it being a little unexplained, but that song is definitely very much what it was like for me and my family in 2021, you know?

    Dan Wilson’s “Dancing on the Moon” (From 2022’s Dancing on the Moon EP) (Ballroom Recordings)

    GW: One of the things that I’ve learned about you after following you for so many years and hearing you discuss how you work, Dan, is that you have a glorious lack of cynicism. You’re collaborative and you exude openness, and you seem to balk at the idea of competition. How do you preserve that in an industry that, to me, seems like it’s perpetually cynical? What allows you to stay above it and sustain all of these different paths and relationships you’ve built?

    DW: I like that question a lot. I feel like there are a couple of ways to become cynical. One of the tried and true methods is to focus too much on capitalism and what turns you into a competitor with everybody else in the whole world. And if you’re too focused on capitalism, you can feel like you’re winning and losing all day long, and the losing part generates the cynicism. And I don’t know if the winning part really generates optimism or openness. I just think capitalism is a great machine to generate cynicism. So, for me, I just have never been that focused on competition.

    And I think the another similar thing is treating music or the arts as a winner-take-all battle. It’s a surefire way to become very cynical because you ain’t gonna win because someone else is always going to come along. If you can’t figure out a way to just love them and be grateful to live at the same time they do, you’re gonna start to get cynical.

    I feel really lucky because when, when me and my cohort were coming up in Minneapolis, we had Prince on the scene, you know? Prince was like a beautiful winner who didn’t inspire competition amongst any of us. We just were, like, “I want to be more like Prince. I want to do what he’s doing. Let’s be Prince.” And I think that’s carried me through. One of the reasons I’m a good collaborator is because if I meet someone brilliant, I don’t feel mad at them for being brilliant, or like I’m missing out on something.

    I just want to bask in the glory, you know? I just want to hang out with them and be nearby when then have great ideas.

    GW: Is there anything of yours you feel the need to protect, though? Are there boundaries you draw artistically when you work with so many people?

    DW: I feel like in a way, my childhood and my upbringing was very much all about protecting your private side, and all about presenting an acceptable facade to the world – a hiddenness of one’s internal life. I realized, though, when I really wanted seriously to become an artist and learn now to be great, if I could possibly be great at writing a song, I realized I had to be dangerously unprotective of my inner life for that to even work, right? I had to be willing to embarrass myself, or reveal an unappealing side to myself, or just spill the tea on myself in a way that was not consistent with my upbringing.

    And I kind of feel like if there’s anything I want to protect, it kind of goes back to that question you asked about cynicism. If I’m in a session and things start to go down a road where I feel like people are just trying to manipulate the audience in to liking something? Yeah, that bums me out and I don’t want to protect myself from that. I don’t want to be okay. I don’t want to strain myself to thwart the audience and try to trick them into liking something. That, to me, is just deadly.

    Dan Wilson – Photo by Yazz Shervin

    GW: I want to ask you about your Words + Music in 6 Seconds project, which is this really beautiful little package of cards with thoughtful advice you’ve assembled for other artists and creatives from your life’s work. One of the cards has a quote that says, “If you’re totally sure of yourself, you’re heading for heartbreak, or trouble, or both.” I think about legacies like the one you’ve built, and I’m guessing there needs to be some level of uncertainty you have to harbor as a musician so that you’re driven to try new ideas or take risks despite the fact you’ve accomplished a lot of really wonderful things. Am I framing that right?

    DW: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I feel like, for me, part of the job of the leader of a band is to go, “Let’s do this! It’s gonna be great!” You know? Yeah. Right. And like it’s, you know, “Here’s my idea. I know it sounds crazy, but…” I think you almost have to have a split personality, because then late at night, you’re going, “Am I nuts? Am I just completely wrong and this is actually not gonna be great?” It’s just a natural thing, spending the day whipping everybody up to try something really farfetched, or exciting, or fun, or new, or different, or whatever. And then late at night, you think, “Uh…this might be a mistake.” You have to be able to do both, I guess.

    GW: I think a lot of artists get asked about the advice they’ve received throughout their career, so, instead, I’ll ask you: what is a piece of feedback someone has given to you that has been really instructive or helpful to your work?

    DW: I have a couple of those. A friend of mine is a playwright, his name is Craig Wright, and I had written this song for Semisonic early on and showed it to him. And it was a very dark; very kind of, speaking of cynical, it was dark, and cynical, and kind of violent-minded song.

    And Craig was, like, “Wow, Dan. Can I be honest?” And I said, “Sure.” He said, “Well, okay. It’s a really good, dark, bloody-minded, cynical song. But the fact is, we don’t need that from you, Dan. We don’t need that from you. We get that from other people, and that’s not the thing you do that we need.” And I just thought it was amazing. Way to put it. I just liked that perspective. It’s something I’d never thought of.

    And then other is when I was at a lecture by Frank Stella, who’s a painter I really admire, and there was a Q&A at the end. So, I got up and asked a question, which was, “What do you think about the fact that there are so many terrible paintings in museums? How does that happen? How do they allow them to get into museum collections, and why doesn’t somebody prevent it?”

    And Frank Stella said, “It’s not your job to go out and find the art you don’t like. It’s not your job to go out and get angry at the bad art. It’s your job to go out and find the art that speaks to you and inspires you, and to learn from that.” I thought that was great advice. Like, just get me off a whole thing of “This stuff sucks,” and think more like “No, it’s a quest. It’s a search for things that are inspiring.” And I just found it to be super helpful.

    GW: I’ve talked about something similar in the past with regard to music writing. If I hear something I don’t like, or it doesn’t resonate with me, I’ve tried to reframe my thinking by saying, “You know what? That music wasn’t made for me. It was made for someone else. And it’s okay that I don’t get it.” It’s probably why I would never make a good critic [laughs]. I’d much rather find music I love and get all the joy from writing about that. Frank gave you a great answer to your question.

    DW: Yeah. I think when it comes to writing about art, historically speaking, I would say most of the good writing about it is appreciative. “You’ve got to check this thing out – it’s the best thing ever!” Or “This next batch by artist ‘A’ is miles ahead. And it’s incredible!” You know, telling the public they’re wrong about something is, I’m sure, gratifying. But to come out and say “This hit album sucks and here’s why,” I would say for the writer – that’s a very, very temporary hit.

    GW: And it often doesn’t age well, either.

    DW: Yeah, I totally agree with you. Those things date themselves really quickly.

    Semisonic’s “Closing Time” (from 1998’s Feeling Strangely Fine) (Geffen Records)

    GW: When you’re not writing or making music and sharing your gifts with others, what record would you put on to sort of recharge your batteries and feed your own appetite?

    DW: Mmm. I don’t know if I can do one, but I’ll tell you two or three. Hmm…I’ll do three. Hejira by Joni Mitchell, Bright Size Life by Pat Metheny, and Ballads by John Coltrane.

    GW: Oh, that’s a great album.

    DW: Yeah. I love that. So comforting. Such good company. It’s like you’re with someone brilliant who just keeps saying beautiful and brilliant things. It’s just so cool.

    Semisonic will stop in Columbus on Friday, June 2, for the first date of the “Last Summer on Earth” tour with Barenaked Ladies and Del Amitri. Show is outdoors, rain or shine, and doors open at 6 p.m. General admission lawn tickets are still available at $39.50, plus applicable taxes and fees. Ticket holders should check all venue information and policies before they attend the show.

    Additional Reading: Concert Preview: Barenaked Ladies’ Last Summer On Earth Tour Rolls Through Columbus Friday

    ADVERTISEMENT

    Subscribe

    More to Explore:

    The Confluence Cast: Grave Matters – Unearthing the North Graveyard

    There is often a complex interplay between preservation and progress. A year into his exploration, Columbus Underground reporter Jesse Bethea continues to sift through the story of how the removal of remains from what was once the North Market parking lot unfolded. From the contentious removal of centuries-old graves to the forensic analysis of unearthed remains, today’s episode navigates the ethical, legal, and emotional complexities surrounding the issue.  In the quest to honor the past while embracing the future, we examine what lies beneath the surface of urban development and confront the ghosts of history that still shape our city today.

    Photos: Two Door Cinema Club Plays to Sold-Out Crowd

    Northern Irish indie-rock three-piece Two Door Cinema Club stopped...

    Photos: Brit-Rock (And More) Invades The Newport

    Post-Britpop radio-hit wonders The Kooks returned to Columbus on...

    Concert Preview: On the Record with Sara Watkins of Nickel Creek

     Bluegrass evergreens Nickel Creek are touring in support of...

    Photos: Pierce the Veil at KEMBA Live!

    The temperature may have plummeted outside, but inside the...
    Grant Walters
    Grant Waltershttps://columbusunderground.com
    Grant is a freelance writer for Columbus Underground who primarily focuses on music and comedy. He's a Canadian transplant, born and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and schooled in Vancouver, British Columbia. Grant is also the co-author of two internationally acclaimed books: "Decades: The Bee Gees in the 1960s" and "Decades: The Bee Gees in the 1970s." He has also penned numerous articles and artist interviews for the nationally recognized site, Albumism.
    ADVERTISEMENT