When we first called the K Records offices to speak with the label's founder, Calvin Johnson, we were told that he was out to lunch. When asked when he might be back, the assistant responded, "Well, it doesn't get any more random than Calvin." We finally did get a hold of him a little over a week ago, just before he went on tour with his newest band, The Hive Dwellers, who along with Chain & the Gang will be doing a Todd P show tomorrow night at 92Y Tribeca. Calvin has been attributed many titles over the years: frontman of Beat Happening and The Halo benders, president of influential indie label K Records, forefather of the DIY movement. So we asked him just what moniker he'd like to be credited for in this interview. He thought about it for a while and then simply requested, "Guide." It's a role the he's played for a lot of us.

What do you have to do to prepare for hitting the road? Well, we have various pieces of equipment that we use for making the music and we find appropriate cases for them, for the different equipment or instruments. And then we put them so that they’ll be able to travel safely. Then we have to arrange a place in our van for all the equipment to go and still have room for the people that are supposed to go too. So what they call logistics.

Is it pretty minimal personal belongings? We try to encourage that.

Is there anything else that you’re bringing along? Well I’m reading a book called Middlemarch by George Elliot. It’s very good. It’ll be the fourth novel I’ve read by her. And they’re all great. I think she’s amazing.

Can you tell me a little about the new band, about The Hive Dwellers?Yeah. We’re playing some songs that I made up. We’re doing mostly new songs, but we’re doing some from (my previous solo albums) What Was Me and Before the Dream Faded. And it’s gonna be a pretty rocking show I think.

How did this new incarnation of the band come together? We’re going on tour with Chain & the Gang. And so we’re sharing a lot of the same members.

Are you familiar with the other famous Calvin Johnson, the NFL wide receiver? Someone’s mentioned that to me, but I don’t follow professional sports too carefully.

Well he went to college at Georgia Tech. Oh, uh huh. That’s in Atlanta.

Yeah, and they’re the Yellow Jackets. And now you’ve ended up in a band called The Hive Dwellers. Who knew? The Lord moves in mysterious ways.

Are you celebrating any of the high holy days this week? I don’t really know much about them. I know that a lot of them are revolving around the death of Christ. And I’m very sympathetic. But it’s not something that I regularly partake in.

And tonight is the first night of Passover. Oh, far out. That’s good to know. Thanks for letting me know…So would you say “Happy Passover” or what would be the greeting?

I think Happy Passover would be okay because it’s not like a mournful holiday. Right. Cause you say “Happy Chanukah,” but there’s some Jewish religious days that they don’t really say “Happy (that).”

Right, like Yom Kippur. Yeah. “Happy Yom Kippur!” “I’m sorry, wait a minute.”

The tricky one for Christians is Good Friday. Cause it sounds like you would say, ‘Good Friday to you!’ But no. It’s a very Bad Friday. Well, you can’t win em all.

Are there any blogs you read? You know, I haven’t really paid attention to that either. It’s hard. There’s only so many hours in a day.

I know you used to read a lot of fanzines. Oh yeah, I used to read a lot of fanzines.

So I thought that maybe that would have transferred over, since blogs are often the same outlet for people that fanzines once were. Oh, I don’t know. That could be. I still like to read fanzines. People give them to me or there’s a store in Portland called Reading Frenzy—they carry a lot of fanzines there. So whenever I’m at Reading Frenzy, I try to purchase some new fanzines I didn’t know anything about just to check out what’s going on.

I’ve seen you sell mixtapes before as well. Will you be doing that again? Mmhmm, I make compilation tapes and I sell them on tour. The most recent one I made is called “The Cavern Stop” and it’s all 45s from England, like Beat 45s or R&B from ’63 to ’65.

Did you see Juno? I did. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I thought of Beat Happening because of all the success Kimya Dawson and The Moldy Peaches saw because of that movie. That seemed to work out.

Yeah, and The Moldy Peaches used to attribute a lot of their inspiration to you guys, to Beat Happening. Oh, that’s very kind of them to say.

What do you think of Mirah’s new album that K just put out? It’s very fresh. It sounds big and beautiful and expansive. It’s so catchy. Every song is just like, you hear it one time and you’re like, “Whoa!” It’s good. It’s just all-around good.

Looking forward to coming to New York on the tour? New York, nice town. It’s a good place to visit. Last time I was there was August. I’ve been doing some DJ tours with Ian Svenonious in the past and I was gonna come to New York for a wedding. A friend of mine was getting married out on Long Island. And Ian was like, “You should do some DJ nights while you’re here!”

How was the wedding? Lotta fun. Did some dancing.

Where do you turn when you feel lost? I don’t know. Do you mean spiritually or physically or what?

Spiritually I guess, like when you’ve fallen off a good path. Is there anything you do to get back, to deal? I don’t know. The only thing I can say is I just turn to rock and roll. We have this thing we call the oblique 45s. It’s a box of 45s in the studio. And whenever we’re perplexed about something, like a life problem or a spiritual issue. Or it could just be a vocal take on a song. And we just turn to the oblique 45s box and pick one out randomly and put it on. And when we listen to that song, it answers our question.

The first Hive Dwellers recording just came out, a Superchunk cover on this tribute to Merge Records for their twentieth anniversary. I think they’re celebrating it this summer. Well happy birthday to them.

And I just saw (the album you made with Beck) “One Foot in the Grave” is getting re-released for its 15th anniversary. I didn’t even know that 15 years was something we celebrated. Do you remember what you did on your 15th birthday?

No, I don’t. I don’t either. Oh yeah, I do. That was fun. But it’s hard to remember it exactly.

Sometimes I worry that we’ve arrived at a moment when we spend a lot more time looking back. I hope not. That seems really boring to me. It seems really pointless because why would you do that when anything that’s happening right now is more exciting than anything that’s ever happened in the past. So I’m looking forward to tomorrow when I leave on tour.

What did you do on the last great date you had? I guess I might’ve gotten a cup of tea.

What kind? It was black.

Honey? Milk? No, straight up.

Same here. Sometimes a little lemon. I guess. If you have to.

Well Happy Passover. It’s good that you reminded me about Passover because the K Records building is in a former Jewish temple. They left and they moved two blocks west, but they left their reader sign and all of their magnetic words, like Yom Kippur and whatever. So I try and go out to the reader sign and put up the appropriate greetings for the appropriate Jewish holidays. I didn’t realize that it was Passover, so I’m gonna run out and put a Passover sign up. Good thing you corrected me to say "Happy Passover."