When Rhett Miller of the Old 97's decided to make a solo album, he picked Jon Brion (Fiona Apple, Aimee Mann) to produce it, and the two adjourned to a North Hollywood, California, studio to plot their attack. Miller arrived with a few dozen songs, but Brion demanded he write more. Recorded over four months, with guests including Robyn Hitchcock, John Doe and Jim Keltner, the twelve-songs that make up The Instigator are Miller's bid to prove that solo album does not equal singer gone soft.

When we talked before you went into the studio, you had about fifty songs set aside for this album. How many of those made the record?

None. "Things That Disappear" was the closest but that was from a couple years ago. It was an outtake from [the Old 97's 2001 album] Satellite Rides. I hadn't really finished it, so we didn't even rehearse it for Satellite Rides. Jon heard it one day when I was hanging out at his studio and he said, "Dude, I love that. Let's finish it and record it." And we did and made it onto the record, almost as is.

What happened to the ones you set aside, like I know there was a song "Haphazardly" you were excited about recording.

The Old 97's actually liked "Haphazardly" also. It just didn't make it onto Satellite Rides, because it got beat out by some other songs. So I imagine "Haphazardly" is going to wind up on the next Old 97's record. There's a few of them that I thought would be on this record that wound up sounding like Old 97's songs when we started. I didn't want the record at all to sound like an Old 97's record, so I figured I'd just save them and keep them for next year, when we hopefully do an Old 97's record.

You got some unusual sounds on the album, like the popping at the beginning of "Point Shirley" and the warbling sound that goes throughout.

That sound is named Jim Keltner [Bob Dylan, George Harrison], the greatest drummer who ever lived. That guy was a freak, in a really good way. We would call him "God." Jon and I would say, "So, is God coming in today?" He played on two songs, "Point Shirley" and "Terrible Vision," and they're both very untraditional drum set-ups. At one point I think he was holding a little handheld radio and moving it close to and far from the microphone, waving it around in front of the microphone, and you hear this sort of voice emerging every once in a while, crazy squawks, beeps, whistles. He can make music with anything. That was sort of the reason I wanted to make a solo record to begin with: to play with a million different people and try a million different sounds.

Which of these songs wouldn't have fit with the Old 97's? Are there songs on here that you know the guys wouldn't have agreed to play?

Most of the record I really feel like that about. Although, in the last few years the parameters of the Old 97's have widened to the extent that they can play a lot of stuff, and they're willing to play a lot of stuff that in the early years they probably would have said no to. There's songs on this record that could have been Old 97's songs, and really the only reason they're not is just because I decided to put them on a solo record. There's also a few that I listen to and I go, "That would have gotten vetoed in a heartbeat." But the biggest difference wasn't so much the song selection, but the process. The Old 97's are a garage band and we rehearse and rehearse then record them, and this was total anarchy -- all experimentation and inspiration. "This Is What I Do" would never have happened. I just don't think anybody in the band would have gone for the sort of disco drum beat, and if my whole record was that sort of backbeat dance sound, I would hate myself. Actually I even think on some of the records I love by Damon/Badly Drawn Boy, I kind of think he uses that too much, but he's in England where they all take ecstasy and dance at raves or whatever. And then "Your Nervous Heart," I don't think the Old 97's would do anything that sparse, although [Satellite Rides'] "Question" was very sparse, but that was just me. So I don't know, it's tough to say. I had a jock on the radio in Chicago really go aggro on me. I played some song off the new record a couple weeks ago and as soon as it was over he goes, "Why isn't that an Old 97's song?" And I hemmed and hawed and then realized afterwards that I should have said, "Because I said so, asshole."

You've got some guests on the album like John Doe and Robyn Hitchcock. Did you write those songs with them in mind?

I never write things with anything in mind. The only way I can write is if my mind is a blank slate. But "Point Shirley" seemed like a natural to invite Robyn Hitchcock to sing on because I had that response line. Actually originally I thought about asking Fiona Apple to do that response line because I heard it as a high part. And then I realized Robyn was going to be in town and then I realized, "Oh, no, it needs to be creepy." And also having him sing the line "These stones are not a home," It's the most perfect Robyn Hitchcock line ever. That's his thing he says [imitating Hitchcock's low-pitched delivery] "cones, stones, moans." Having John Doe sing on "The El" wasn't a big stretch either. He and I actually we went skiing at the Sundance Film Festival. I played him that song and he suggested some changes but said he really liked it. It was the most sort of Old 97's or X-ish song on the record so I asked him to sing on it.

A lot of these songs are inspired by literature, like "Our Love," "World Inside the World" and "Point Shirley." What about what you're reading inspired you for this record?

That's always been the case, maybe it pokes it's head out more now, because I don't have three other guys vetoing all literary references that aren't incredibly oblique or obtuse or whatever. I love to read. I don't listen to music that much. I don't find a lot of inspiration in music beyond what happened in my formative years, and at this point it just seems a little weird, like it would be inbreeding, listening to music to make music. But I do read a lot and I find that as a medium or as an art form you can find a lot more honest sentiment and a lot more heart and a lot more depth [in literature] than you can in music these days. Because musicians are so undercompensated and songwriters are so undercompensated, instead of the primary motivation being to create something really great and really complex and really beautiful, the primary motivation is to sell records. So people are making music that's cloying and catchy, but it doesn't really give you anything. It's just like fluff. I know my record obviously has a lot of little hooks in it and I write pop songs and I do the exact thing that I'm saying other people do, but hopefully I can throw in enough of my honest emotion to balance out the hooky, poppy lightness of it. Literature is sort of my first love, and I'd love to someday become a writer. I don't think you can do pop music forever.

COLIN DEVENISH
(September 25, 2002)