The start of Soul Asylum's summer tour with the Meat Puppets could not happen at a better time for Dave Pirner.







"There is always one more tweak. I keep working on it and coming up with new parts. If this record doesn't come out before tomorrow, tomorrow I'm going to add on something. I'm afraid to listen to parts of it now, because it is, like, ‘Shit, I've got to stop. I got to stop.' We have to put this record out because I just keep working on it."







The tour will pull Pirner and the rest of Soul Asylum away from the studio where they have been at work on the band's new album and first since 2012's "Delayed Reaction."









"There is nothing similar about being in a studio as there is to being on tour with the Meat Puppets. It is like the difference between being in the wild and being in the zoo."





The Swerve Magazine talked with Pirner at the beginning of June as the band was wrapping up work on Soul Asylum's 11th studio LP and getting ready for the tour with the Meat Puppets, that will stop June 13 at Mr. Small's, will keep the band on the road through July.







The Swerve Magazine: The start of this tour will act as sort of a imposed deadline for you with tweaking the new record?







Dave Pirner: The fucked thing for me is that people give me fake deadlines all the time. Sometimes it really works and all of a sudden I'm ahead of my game. I don't realize it because people are fucking with me. Then there are other times when I show up on time and it is actually 20 minutes early. Everyone will go "Oh sorry, we just figured that you were going to be 20 minutes late.







SM: How did the summer tour with the Meat Puppets come together?







DP: By proxy, I've known the Meat Puppets forever. I have a friend in Minneapolis, who was the only friend I made in college, and he is now the Meat Puppets manager. To the effect that I have always been their biggest fan, it is a thrill. I think that they are at the top of their game right now. It is pretty cool. I think that (Soul Asylum) is at the top of our game. I've been on tour with the Meat Puppets in Europe when they have had an additional guitarist. I always think that they are a trio, but they have always wanted another guy in there. Now they have Elmo (playing) Curt's kid and it is perfect. It sounds better than ever.







SM: Speaking of the Meat Puppets being at the top of its game, do you think this lineup (drummer Michael Bland, guitarist Justin Sharbono and bassist Winston Royce) is Soul Asylum at the top of its game?







DP: Yeah I do. When I began my search for a drummer, which was fucking 20 years ago. When I finally found Michael, he became a partner in crime. He became the other half of my Soul Asylum brain. He knows where to push and when to back off as far as keeping the locomotion happening. He is very proactive. We both have decided that this train is powering through and either you're on it or off it, which is different from a few years back.







(Long-time bassist Karl Mueller died in 2005 of throat cancer) and it puts a fucking downer on the whole thing and you are in a position where you don't know if you are going to continue or not. Just making it through all of those hard years, I think, is something that has made us stronger and more determined to carry on for those that are no longer with us.







Where you have Tommy Stinson playing bass on the last record. This one we have Winston really stretching out as far as what he can do. To me, it is ridiculously noticeable.







It is what is odd about the whole spectrum is I'm not going to Tokyo with a shitty drummer. I need to bring Soul Asylum and I need to bring it hard. I think that the record embraces all the different sides of music that I have been affected by my whole life and that is a big step in trying to find the circular nature of the whole of it.







SM: Are you going to preview any new material from the upcoming album on this tour?







DP: We are bringing new songs and they are sounding really good. It is fun to be playing new songs again.







But again, it is kind of this weird thing where you don't feel so self-assured about going out and playing a song that is unreleased. Mostly because you may fuck it up and somebody is going to be filming you fucking it up and you are shooting yourself in the foot because they are going to put it up on YouTube. You are going to fuck up your new song and now no one wants to hear it. I don't know. It is a lot of psychology, but it is also a lot of ‘Fuck this, I'm not going to take the risk of having my pants fall down and having it on YouTube. So fuck it. Let's not do this new one because I'm not sure I'm going to get it right.' So, we sneak in (the new songs) and if they fall apart, we don't play them again the next night.







It is a pretty goddamn good balance of material. Michael has really been getting the band to explore the past repertoire while bringing in new things. It has finally come to a point where we are competent enough with a big batch of material that spans the entire lifetime of my songwriting.







SM: Do you find with this lineup of the band, the older material now takes on a new life?







DP: Absolutely. There is some material in the catalog that was never played right as far as I'm concerned. I always have wanted to hear it played right, but it just didn't happen. Lo and behold these guys will pull out something from 1987 and start playing it and I'll go ‘Holy shit! There it is! I never heard it ever and there it is for the first time." That is a fucking thrill. I had totally given up on this song every sounding like it is supposed to and it does after all these years. It is such a release.







SM: That has to be rewarding in the end







DP: It makes me know that I'm not crazy. It makes me understand that what I envisioned in my head is possible. It is music. It is not rocket science.

