Charles Bissell knows what you're going to ask, and the answer is "soon." He understands why you might not take his word for it, but he's serious this time. Above all, he is genuinely grateful for your patience.
Bissell, the guitarist/vocalist for The Wrens, has spent the better part of a decade working on a follow-up to the group's 2003 album The Meadowlands — perhaps the most beloved indie album ever put out by a group of middle-aged New Jersey rockers. And while he's claimed for years that the album is basically done, he's really, honest-to-goodness finally finished...almost. Ahead of his "rare public appearance" at Union Hall on Friday, we talked with Bissell about what the hell is taking so long.
So, how's that new album coming along? Wait, when does the sun explode beyond its normal orbit and swallow the solar system?
Ha. You know that I'm journalistically obligated to get an answer out of you. OK, realistically, I'm sort of finishing up these last two things. I've got a couple mix-y things to do. If I get this all done and get it into mastering, even by the end of next week, and then that turns around quickly and everything's good, which, with this mastering machine, it always is, it's still... well, we're looking at Spring.
It would not surprise me if they were like, 'Hey we could get this out for like June 1st' or something. Or, we can just leap frog over the summer and come out in September. Because the summer is traditionally a no person's land for releases at a certain level. Maybe it's less true now, I don't know.
The weird part is, it's not far-fetched that I could get this all done even by like next week or get it in and then be like looking at almost a year from now, pending a release, which doesn't make me unhappy. It's weird because from the outside it looks like nothing happens, but because I've been working on this every day, I am so unthinkably fried on this thing. I really need some time off.
You've put out sort of an open-invitation lately for people to come check out the album. What's that been like? My motivation for originally doing it was sort of like as this art project thing, but over time it helped me actually finish. So, every time someone comes, I play them like the first four songs, which are set and done, and when they hear them they don't cringe or vomit. Then I always play one or two that I'm still working on — I'm going upstairs to put a vocal down on one I just changed when we get off the phone, which is always what happens. Eleventh hour stuff, although I seem to have a succession of 11th hours. But I'm sure you know how it is, when you're working on something, you lose perspective — you're like this is terrible, or good, or whatever.
Somehow, having a room full of people in a little studio off our kitchen is extremely clarifying about what's good or bad about the song in a way that I can't hear on my own. It doesn't even matter if they like it, necessarily or not. They're not like, 'Yay.' There are few standing ovations or applause. But, just that they're hearing it, suddenly I hear it in a way that's like, 'Oh, my word, that is not a good vocal. Or, why did I put that section back in?' That sort of thing.
I'll kind of politely excuse myself to the kitchen and I'll rattle a few dishes and clean up and put stuff away. But I can totally hear everything in the next room. It's like sort of pulling out some weird, nude, childhood picture of yourself and being like, 'Hey, check this out.' This is embarrassing for me. Everyone look at it, a group of strangers, come check this out.
You've also made yourself incredibly accessible. I think anyone who follows the Wrens online basically feels like they know you, personally. Yeah, well, we're not operating at like a Kanye-level or anything. So far everyone's been just unbelievably cool and nice. People tend to bring brownies, or bottles of whatever, beer and whatnot. The studio really is small, so it's six people comfortably. Ten is really pushing it. And no one ever knows anyone else, so it's always a mixed group.
You guys have this reputation as a Jersey band — I didn't realize you were in Brooklyn. We were all New Jersey folks. Fundamentally, we still are. Kevin and I pushed the boundaries of dorm living. I was living with him until my 40s. Just he and I in his house. He had a real job, so he actually bought a home, like an adult. And I moved out in 2005. So, I've been here, over in Windsor Terrace. It's cool.
What's the relationship like with the other members these days? I mean, it's always been sort of a weird thing. One of the reasons we even lasted this long as a band is everyone's sort of been allowed to do their own thing. With The Meadowlands, that was tracked as a regular band, and we put band arrangements together. Just like anyone, we rehearsed and recorded those, and that only took a few months. But then for like three and a half years it sat there, for better and worse, and we rewrote stuff, we re-recorded stuff. It's good and bad.
To me, the song that still works best on that record is probably "Happy," which is I think the only one where you sort of hear that it's a band arrangement. All those decisions were made in real time in the basements, like 'Hey, if you do this, I'll try this' and whatever. As opposed to like this solo, Spock-chess, thing, where you do all these things yourself across a week, only to find it doesn't actually work.
But for this record, we didn't do any band arrangements. My songs were just demos that over time I fleshed out and, a couple years in, had Jerry replace either my hand percussion or drum loops with like actual drums. The difference though, this time, is that Kevin, the other song-writer, singer, he stepped up and did all his songs, for the most part, at his house.
There was a good two years or something when Kevin — he was still working in Manhattan then — would come over like a couple times a week and we'd compare stuff. He'd show what he was working on and I'd show what I was working on and then we'd overdub some stuff and record, you know maybe crank out a rough mix of something. It was, in a way, more collaborative than the last one even though it wasn't full band, if that makes sense. Because those guys all, they all have real jobs and we all have young'uns at this point.
I don't know, I think I'm like 75 years old. I'm old enough I can no longer remember. I mean, I'm not sure, I think I was born in the '40's. I might've been at 'Nam.
It occurred to me that 7 years passed between Seacaucus and Meadowlands, and it's been 14 years since Meadowlands. So at this pace, the next, next Wrens album won't come for another 28 years. Right, so that's like 2040 something? I think Blade Runner will actually be happening. And we'll be like, 'There's a new record.' And, they're like, 'The robot mind does not care.' Oh, crap.
Maybe you guys could switch to EDM? Yes, finally.
Moving beyond the production stuff, it seems as though you changed your entire songwriting approach between Secaucus and The Meadowlands, with the latter being much more personal and confessional. Is that something we can expect on the new record? Yeah, I think so. And, like the production, Secaucus was definitely much more of a band thing. But that was also like, what 22 years ago. Even though it's only two slots back in the old discography, that's a long time.
What do you say to people when they ask what's taking so long? The funny part is that, when you're working on something this long — we're going on seven plus years now — everyone understandably is like, 'Oh, it's seven years, they get together when they can.' And, it's like, no, this is like every day for me.
It's been kind of telling. I've had to face this: I'm just not that talented. Because if I was, it would not take seven years of literally constant work to end up with what I've got here. Which I know, you haven't heard, but it's sort of become like a running joke.
I know quite a few people who'd disagree with that assessment. Now, when you say you've been working on this bit-by-bit, everyday, is it this same collection of songs? Or is there a trove of other Wrens material out there? A little of both, but mostly just the same batch of songs — that's sort of what The Meadowlands was too. I think maybe we tracked as many as 20 and then sort of quickly made a working list of like 15 or so which seemed to be the best ones. Over time the other ones just fall by the wayside only because they're not nearly as complete as the ones you're working on. You know what I mean? It's like, 'Oh, yeah, that's a piece of crap.'
It's sort of the same thing this time, even though I vowed, going into this record, I was not going to make a record the same way. It's a really dumb way of going about it, where you're like, well these songs aren't that great and they're not working, so rather than re-record different versions of them, or do new ones, I will just musically bang my head against the wall for, I don't know, three quarters of a decade and see if that helps.
So, it's really an asinine thing. It would be better to be like, 'Hey, you know what? Let's record a full band version of this one. Everyone let's figure out a schedule and go in the basement, and arrange it the way it should be, and track it, get a better tempo, whatever.' Instead, it's become easier to at 9 o'clock decide that I'm going to put in three or four hours tonight and at least go do that and see what I come up with. You can always incrementally sort of make changes and vague improvements until you're like, 'Oh, that's definitely better.' Then you do that for like a month, and you get to a certain point with a song and you set it to the side, and go on to another one.
Next thing you know, you do 15 songs and it's a year and a half later. The individual folders for each song, sometimes, are 15, 16 gigabytes. It all started from the same original demo but then sometime the root forks off this way, but then you abandon it, and then place something else in and go back to an earlier version and proceed from there. It's all variations, if that makes sense? Or different versions of the same demo or take or, I don't know, we need a new terminology.
Would you say you're experimenting more this time around than you did on Meadowlands? Well, we made the jump to recording on a computer. Meadowlands was on these ADAT tapes. So yeah, especially initially, the songs were definitely more sonically, I don't know, diverse. Suddenly I was on the computer with plugins. I could do all these crazy whiz bang sounds and stuff. Then [Kevin] would show up with his songs, with these wonderfully recorded acoustic guitars, or pianos, or whatever, just done in his house. And so, to a certain extent, that steered the direction of the record, but there's still plenty of studio trickery and, actually some weird time signature stuff. But it's definitely more toward a real sound. I think, if Kevin hadn't been here, I would've somehow taken even longer. To me, it feels the same, or like a logical extension from last one.
Does it surprise you that your fans seem to have stuck around — to be seriously waiting on an album — all these years later? Does the constant 'are you done yet' line of questioning ever get annoying? Yes, it's infinitely surprising and it's never annoying. Sometimes it's hard because I feel bad that I'm taking so long and I feel beholden to sort of explain. But, even as I'm typing any explanation, I'm like, I have typed these same exact words two fucking years ago. It's almost done. I'm mastering this last thing. I'm going to have chocolate now.
The other thing that's sort of stuck me is how the bulk of the folks that are replying online, or coming by, are considerably younger than myself. That might also just be who has time to go hear some band's record in their basement. That's sort of a self selecting thing, but yeah, if you're asking if it's surprising that people are still interested in us: Yes very much. It's crazy. Even at the tiny level that we operate at, yeah it's crazy.
Do you ever worry that you'll never be able to hand this thing off? That, like, even after you finally finish, you're going to wake up in the middle of the night with an urge to just tinker with one more thing... See, you would think that there's a constant perfectionism operating at some level here. But to me, when it's done, I always sort of know, and then I am more than happy that it is done. I don't ever have to hear it again.
Even when I play these songs for folks here at the house, it's sort of a litmus test. I know when I play the first few that open the record, I don't cringe. I hear them and I'm like, 'Yep, they're absolutely, completely done.' There's always things that I could change but part of it is that I don't actually want the extra work, even seven and a half years into it. I am very happy when I hear these. I don't even know if it's good. But, somehow, it's crossed this line where, for what it was, or what it's ended up as, it's definitely done. I don't have to ask anymore, myself.
I'm sure it's an enormous weight off your shoulders. It's sort of like the world's shittiest recipe. Add guitarist. Bake seven and a half years. Serves one. Enjoy.
Charles Bissell, Friday, October 27th, Door at 7 p.m. // Union Hall, 702 Union Street, Brooklyn // $10
