Well before the first time the chorus kicks in on "Chemistry," the lead track and single from Semisonic's third full-length album, All About Chemistry, the song sounds like the kind of can't-miss hit that will dominate the airwaves well into summer. But Dan Wilson, the frontman of the Minneapolis-based pop rock trio, knows better than to assume such things. Sure, "Closing Time," from the band's last album, 1998's Feeling Strangely Fine, catapulted Semisonic into the mainstream, but two years before that the band debuted with an album chock full of songs twice as immediate and catchy ("Down in Flames," "If I Run") that failed to find an audience beyond a devoted batch of "musos" and critics. And even as "Closing Time" and it's follow-up singles "Singing in My Sleep" and "Secret Smile" pushed Feeling Strangely Fine to worldwide sales of two million, MTV tried to bum rush Semisonic out of their fifteen minutes by featuring them in a special devoted to one-hit wonders. So much, apparently, for the afterglow.

It's too soon to tell whether or not "Chemistry" will catch fire and make a mockery of those choosing to bet against Semisonic, but either way, All About Chemistry hardly sounds like the work of a band struggling through career anxiety. Apart from the eager-to-please rush of the lead single, it's a remarkably relaxed affair, self-produced by the band and as coy in revealing its melodic charms as its two predecessors were unabashedly brazen in flashing theirs. If there's a chemistry at work here, it's the potent mix of hard-earned confidence and the newfound freedom, as the amiable but unapologetic Wilson puts it, to "do whatever we want to do."

All About Chemistry is the big "follow the hit" album for you. Did that affect you going into the recording?

Yeah, I think it did. I had to figure out some way to deal with it because I don't think there was going to be any pretending that nothing had happened. One thing I had to deal with on this new album was, all the people that once thought we were cool because we weren't popular now don't think we're cool anymore. So I'm not serving them. Not that I don't want to, but they don't want or need service from us anymore. And because "Closing Tiime" kind of put us up among the midst of all these other pop artists of various types, it made me feel free to simplify my songwriting more than I had before. It's not like I'm obsessed with cred, but you can't help being affected by the "avoid this sound, avoid that sound" thing when you're in that sort of indie, do-it-yourself circuit. Once we had the album that was so big and got played on the radio so much, there was no turning back and saying "we still have an indie rock mentality." I think that was kind of liberating -- now we can do anything that comes to mind.

Your first album, Great Divide seemed packed with songs that could have been hits. After "Closing Time" hit, did you ever feel like, "This is nice and all, but we released this great album two years ago and nobody cared..."

Yeah, it was a little bit like, "What exactly has changed?" I don't know if it's me and my band -- I think we'd been trying the same kind of thing, and people might not have been primed for that when Great Divide came out. I have to say when we finished that album, I listened to it and thought, "Wow, this is a great album...maybe a lot of these will be hit songs." And when none of them became bonafide hits, I felt very stunned by it. So I just decided to not really think about that stuff anymore, writing hits. On the second album, I was thinking, "Ok, this is going to be the art project." [Laughs]

But it was kind of painful to think that we'd made this smash, and then it turned into a boutique thing that only a very small, select crowd liked, because I've always wanted to write things that everybody could relate to. It was never that important to me to be beloved by hipsters.

Fess up, though. Did you ever get sick of hearing "Closing Time?"

[Laughs] I never felt that way. It is my song, after all. But certain relatives of mine would say, "I do love you Dan, but I really hope I don't hear your song again." There was a time when you couldn't get away from it.

Apart from the mainstream hit, what do you think distinguishes your work with Semisonic from the music you made with your previous outfit, Trip Shakespeare?

With Trip Shakespeare, the direction was more of my brother Matt's. He and I just have real different ideals. He used to say that I listen to the radio too much. It was like he thought I was too familiar with pop music that was going on, and it would infect what I would write with currentness. He was obsessed with writing something that stood on it's own completely, untraceable. I always wanted to make something that was of now. Whatever inspiration was out there now I wanted to take it, reform it and send it back out there, transformed, but still now.

Speaking of inspiration, Prince seems to be a big one for you - it's evident in concert when Semisonic covers "Erotic City," and particularly on this album's "Sunshine and Chocolate."

Yeah. That and "Bed." I hear it a little bit in "Follow" but I don't think it's obvious.

Does a song become funky just by having the word chocolate in it?

[Laughs] Oh, that's excellent! Man, I wish I had said that. I'm going to take that and use it. "You know, you put 'chocolate' in a song, it becomes funky."

Have you met Prince?

Yeah, briefly, once or twice. He's a reclusive dude. He doesn't hang out at the same bars that I do.

Lyrically, you've always seemed more in touch with more down to earth types. "Erotic City" is a far cry from "Bed," which is about a guy attracted to a woman who doesn't want to jeopardize their friendship. It's kind of like the bane of the sensitive man.

[Laughs] Yeah, that's about it. Because everybody's been there, where it's like, "What do you mean you don't want to ruin the friendship? If I'm attracted to you and this is good, it could be even better, right?" And the other person goes, "No it's perfect the way it is!" [Sighs] Oh god. But . . . some of that obsession on the album with getting to bed is me just wishing I could get to bed myself, because I was spending a lot of time not in bed -- my new daughter had just come home from the hospital and was keeping us up for pretty much the whole year. I was a like a zombie.

Either lyrically or musically, do you ever write songs you feel are too accessible? To the point where self-consciously try to twist them a bit?

I don't think I've done that. My thing is I'll write something and think, "This is a total haiku, the simplest thing in the world." And then I'll play it for somebody, and they'll go, "That's the most clever, inventive, different thing!" So I never have any idea. I never think anything I've written is too easy for people to understand, because there's always someone who says, "Oh Dan, this is really clever!" I hate that, myself.

On the topic of general cleverness, your bandmate Jacob Slichter has a peculiar talent for playing drums and the keyboard at the same time during Semisonic shows. Does he have any new tricks?

He did all the string arrangements on this album, but he won't be playing the orchestra onstage. [Bassist] John [Munson]'s been surprising us though -- he played the trombones on "Chemistry." And now he's bought himself a theramin, so I don't know what's going to happen, but look out. There's going to be a lot of squeaking and squealing from that side of the stage.

RICHARD SKANSE
(March 15, 2001)