The first album by Retribution Gospel Choir came together in a hurry in 2008, but Alan Sparhawk’s Low side project took its time honing songs for the follow-up.

“The first record was pretty early in the band and we were still trying to figure out what was going on,” he tells Listen, Dammit. “This time we had a lot of time to tour and find our voice, figure out what the possibilities are.”

The result is “2,” out today on Sub Pop. It’s an intense record that veers between accessible pop melodies and bursts of rugged instrumental thrashing.

Here are three facts we learned talking to Sparhawk:

1. Different band, similar themes: Although Retribution Gospel Choir doesn’t sound much like Low, “It’s still me, in maybe a different way of saying what I’ve always been saying,” Sparhawk says. His songs comprise “this constant back-and-forth argument with myself and what appears sometimes to be what’s outside of me: the concept of religion, of God, love, fear. Depression. Hope. That’s what I’m always sort of grappling with. I’ve learned over time that you definitely are influenced by what’s around you, but at the time you’re writing, it always feels like something very random coming in.”

2. Your surroundings make a difference. Sparhawk grew up in rural Minnesota, before moving to Duluth 20 years ago. Both have helped shape his music. “Growing up on a farm sort of has its effect on you: the isolation, only getting little snippets of what was going on in the outside world, and then the cold, the long winter, the dark,” he says. “But yeah, Duluth is interesting. It’s on the tip of Lake Superior on the western end of the Great Lakes, and there’s this harbor and if you’re on the edge of the lake, you look out and it disappears on the horizon. It’s like looking at the ocean, but it’s calm. You get this sort of infinite horizon like you get at the ocean.

3. Team sports are fun. Sparhawk loved playing football in high school, and says he’s keen to try coaching. “I’d like to coach a 9-man high school team. All Indians,” he says. “When I was growing up, we used to go up and play Redlake, on the Indian reservation. They would kick our asses so hard, and they fought and were scrappier than shit. They just would aggravate the crap out of you, because they were playing borderline dirty and stuff. But they were the most fearsome dudes ever.”

— Photo by Cameron Wittig

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January 26, 2010 at 8:30 am | Share |