Dave Pirner of Soul Asylum is on the phone to talk about his past -- namely, the twelve years chronicled on the newly released Black Gold: The Best of Soul Asylum -- but his mind is clearly more focused on the now and the future. Earlier today -- 8 a.m., to be precise -- he finished a remix of a track for his upcoming debut solo album. And in a couple of hours -- 6 p.m. -- he's due for rehearsal with Soul Asylum.

"We're rehearsing and recording tonight, working on some new material," Pirner explains, adding that the group (which includes veterans Dan Murphy on guitar and Karl Mueller on bass and relative newcomer Ian Mussington on drums) -- has been doing gigs throughout the summer. "We're heavy at it -- I'm busier than I've ever been. I've got two projects I'm working on, and I'm doing some production work with some people in town."

The town in question, of course, is Soul Asylum's home base of Minneapolis, though Pirner notes that for the last three years, he's been living in New Orleans. "New Orleans has been very good to me lately," says the singer/songwriter/guitarist. "It's the right place for me -- I really like the atmosphere and the attitude, and the music is really inspirational."

Pirner says his solo album is nearly finished. "With the solo stuff I try not to rely on the loud electric guitar as a crutch," he explains. "It's just a little more groove-oriented; I don't want to say R&B influenced, but it's a little something like that." The Soul Asylum album is still in the demo stage, with no release date penciled in yet. The band is currently label-less, having parted ways with Columbia last year after a seven-year run that produced three albums, beginning with 1992's multi-platinum Grave Dancer's Union and ending with 1998's Candy From a Stranger. The new anthology was part of the group's settlement with the label.

As contract-obligation albums go, the nineteen-track Black Gold boasts respectable scope. It draws heavily from the group's Columbia tenure, including their 1992 break-through hit "Runaway Train" and the wry "Misery" from 1995's Let Your Dim Light Shine, but also reaches back to the band's two albums for A&M and even touches on one from their early Twin Tone days, Made to be Broken. Pirner is particularly pleased that the collection includes two unreleased tracks from the modest-selling (and under-appreciated) Candy From a Stranger, including the title track. "It's so like us to not put the song on the record that we name the record after, but it's become kind of a live favorite," he says. "It's a real fun song to play and the crowd seems to dig it, so we're like, why the hell didn't we put that on the record? But there's not a lot of time to sit around and examine your mistakes when you're moving that fast. But who knows . . . the best of Soul Asylum to somebody could be a whole different bunch of songs, and hopefully they've got those already."

Although Pirner says Soul Asylum will likely be playing "out and about" on the odd gig in the near future, he says the band will hold off planning a full tour until they've finished their new album. And as excited as he is about his solo album and the new musical directions it has allowed him to explore, he's in no hurry to mount a solo tour.

"The solo thing may help me realize how lucky I am to have a band," he laughs. "Because you have to seek out musicians, and you have to pay them a lot of money to fly them from one place to another, and this that and the other thing. It's a lot of extra work that's just putting a band together all over again. I spent eighteen years putting this band together, so it's really something that's not to be taken for granted. It's something that we can fire up at any second, and go play at any time. That's a good thing. I need that."

RICHARD SKANSE
(September 29, 2000)