- SEMISONIC CLOSING TIME EVERY ENDING IS SOME OTHER HOW TO
- SEMISONIC CLOSING TIME EVERY ENDING IS SOME OTHER PROFESSIONAL
STEREOGUM: Having read Mike Doughty’s book, it was so fraught in Soul Coughing that I don’t know if it was easy or difficult for him let another person into the songwriting process again. I think a lot of artists who may have been predisposed against it 10 or 15 years ago are now saying, “Yeah, of course, I do that all the time.” I didn’t have any kind of stigma about co-writing because it was just part of my band life and my band history. I tried to get my friends to write songs with me because I had always done that in my band, with Jacob in particular. WILSON: I think when Semisonic were very active, my peers had a kind of a stigma against co-writing songs in general, and I made a major effort during those Semisonic years to write songs with my fellow bandleaders. STEREOGUM: Having been on both sides, do you feel that the landscape of being in the studio with an artist now is healthier than it was at the time when Semisonic were on the charts?
SEMISONIC CLOSING TIME EVERY ENDING IS SOME OTHER PROFESSIONAL
A lot of times when I’ve gone into a session with an artist, it’s been incredibly helpful that I’ve lived through all the same bullshit and excitement and worries that the artist is going through, so I can really relate to them and they can relate to me more than if I was just a professional who had never stepped foot outside of the studio. So it really got out of hand in a really wonderful, amazing way. I assumed I would always stay in a band and that writing for other people was something that seemed really interesting I’ve always liked being helpful in life. WILSON: I thought songwriting was gonna be kind of a new side thing that I did to perhaps have another outlet for my other songs, or extra songwriting energy. STEREOGUM: Did you feel like you’d artistically fulfilled everything that you wanted to do with a band, or were you unsure if this was actually gonna replace that for you yet?
There wasn’t really a great model for it because none of my other rock musician friends had made a transition like this, but it turns out a bunch were doing it around the same time as I was: Linda Perry, Kevin Griffin from Better Than Ezra.
SEMISONIC CLOSING TIME EVERY ENDING IS SOME OTHER HOW TO
And while I was home a lot more, I turned my attention to songwriting and thinking about how to become a songwriter for other people. The baby ended up driving the bus for a while in that way. I had a personal change my wife and I had a daughter who was born into a set of disabilities that were pretty complicated and I needed to be home more than I was able to when I was touring. I wasn’t tired of it, but I’d had a lot of it. WILSON: When Semisonic stopped touring, we had been touring for seven or eight years and I’d had a lot of time in front of big audiences singing the songs that I wrote with my band. STEREOGUM: Tell me about the transition between fronting a rock band and chasing stardom yourself and becoming a more behind-the-scenes person, taking a backseat to your own songs.
Not necessarily in a bad way, but I was kind of overwhelmed by my own past. WILSON: I didn’t think it would be a big deal, but it’s been a very powerful experience. STEREOGUM: What was it like looking back at your whole career in macro on Re-Covered? Now 56, Wilson spoke to Stereogum about what it was like making the leap from a face on VH1 himself to a behind-the-boards role on a few of the biggest songs in recent vintage. With Semisonic, Wilson was one of the brainier and warmer voices to share airspace with Matchbox 20 and Creed at the tail end of the ’90s the onetime alt-rocker’s songs now effortlessly veer from John Legend albums to Dierks Bentley albums to Josh Groban albums. Wilson’s new solo album Re-Covered (out this month via Big Deal Media/Ballroom Music) may help bridge that divide, as he interprets his own tunes for other artists, effectively making sure that any interested parties know he’s the only person ever to work with both Taylor Swift and ex-Soul Coughing frontman Mike Doughty. Most of the world is familiar with Adele’s brokenhearted new standard “Someone Like You” and the Dixie Chicks’ Bush-era Molotov cocktail “Not Ready To Make Nice.” But people may not be aware that the guy who sang the ’90s’ last-call epic “Closing Time” is behind them. The public isn’t unaware of Dan Wilson’s exploits over the last decade and change. Welcome to the second installment of “ Tracking Down,” a new Stereogum franchise in which we talk to artists who have been out of the spotlight for a minute.