What have you learned from your years in the music-making industry?

Jesus, I don’t think I’ve learned anything. I’m just kinda rolling along. Learned how to use monitors, which takes a couple of years. I don’t feel like a seasoned veteran, although I probably have learned more than I know.

Probably more than you’re admitting.

It probably just seems like that. I’m constantly like, “What the fuck? I’ve been doing this for this long, and I haven’t figured out this yet?” It’s always like that.

So no life advice?

I have no advice. [Laughs] Get lucky, I guess.

What’s going on with the new record? Some of us nerds are getting anxious.

Oh, good. Well, we just got done a few moments ago with a few days of practice. And we’re just trying to figure out where to record and whether we want to record to tape or digital. Some of us are still a little distrustful of the digital technology… [Another] concern is tape is supposedly not very good quality these days, because all of the plants closed down and got reopened. I’ve just heard from a few sources that the tape is not that good, that it shreds and bleeds onto itself.

Are you still living in Boise? What’s going on there, you keeping tabs?

Oh, not much. There’s a community radio station. Finn Riggins is a band I like a lot. We’ve played with them a couple times, brought them to Seattle a while back. Brett Netson has a new band that I haven’t heard, but I’m sure they’re good.

Oh yeah, what are they called?

I think they’re called the Brett Netson Band. I think it’s basically Caustic Resin. He’s got a record coming out soon, too. I can’t remember the record label. I think it comes out in the middle of November or something.

So this is your only show this year?

Well, it was when we set it up. And [the publicist] asked if he could say something about it being our only show. But a few weeks later we got some more offers, so now we’re playing a couple more shows. I told [the publicist] I was really sorry. Then I told my booking agent and he said, “You should never agree to something like that.” And I said, “You’re right. I should never talk to anyone and let you talk to everyone.”

Can you tell me about “Velvet Waltz”? Because it’s one of my favorites.

Well, it’s hard to know what to say about it. It was a long time ago. I can remember not wanting it to have cymbals. And that’s why it was called “Velvet Waltz.” That to me was the Velvet Underground, they had straight-up pop and rock songs that didn’t have any cymbals, and I didn’t really know of any other bands that did that. It was one of those songs where we did it and it didn’t seem very good, and so I had to have Brett Netson come in and bring it to life. All the wah guitar is Netson, as well as the big solo at the end, as well as other parts of it. That to me was the magic of that song—bringing Brett in.

He’s like your secret weapon.

Um, [laughs] well, he’s a member of the band, so he’s not that secret.

Would you call him a weapon?

Well, I would say he’s the best guitar player alive right now, I would totally say.

So what can Seattle expect from this show? You’re not going to do an improv jam of one song the entire time, are you?

Uh, well, we’ll see. [Awkward silence] Probably not, though. We haven’t been around for more than a year, so we haven’t had any time to learn any new songs, or even any old-new songs. I think the show will be fun because of its newness. I really like the first few shows of a tour, and this one will be even more so ’cause of how long it’s been. The first few shows of a tour have a really fun energy, because there are going to be fuckups, but there’s more experimentation. We’re not as familiar with the material, but over a tour you get tighter. But sometimes not being tight is great, too. You might flub some things, or you might do some things you wouldn’t usually do, and rhythmically you listen a lot closer, but towards the end of the tour it becomes this muscle memory thing. So [at the beginning] it’s a little looser, and hopefully cool in that way.

So you haven’t been touring as much lately—

We took a year off, on purpose.

Okay, so you took a year off. What does the average Doug Martsch day consist of? You can be as detailed as you want.

[Laughs] Well, I’m not gonna be very detailed, ’cause there’s not a lot going on.

You could get detailed about not much, and I still think it’d be interesting.

I wake up, make some breakfast. I’ve been spending time with my wife and my dogs. My Maltese dogs.

Tell me about your dogs.

They’re these little white dogs. They’re like Paris Hilton dogs, or something. So I hang out with them. Sometimes I get to go play basketball, spend some time working on music. And then there’s the little business-y shit that we still have to do.

Like this.

There’s a little bit of this. But lots of looking into studios and putting together the shows. And getting plane tickets. I don’t really have anything interesting that I do regularly. I’ve been screening shirts. I don’t do that regularly, but I’ve been making my own screens and screened some shirts of basketball-related images. The most interesting thing to me right now is the radio show. You can stream it live on the internet at www.radioboise.org. My show is on Wednesdays, 8:00 to 11:00 p.m. Mountain [time zone], so 7:00 to 10:00 your time. And then Brett Netson has a show Friday nights from 10:00 to 12:00 Mountain. We both just play whatever we want, like college-radio style. So that just started about six months ago, and I was really active at the beginning, helping build up their library and putting together logs for automation, before they had DJs, and for overnight playlists and stuff. Back in basketball season I played a lot of fantasy basketball and watched a lot of basketball on TV, so that kills a lot of time.

Who’s your team?

Portland.

Yeah, have they always been your team?

Yeah, but I’m pretty new to basketball. I’ve been into it a little over 10 years. When I was a kid I didn’t give a shit, or when I was in my 20s.

Okay, last question. What’s the status of your beard?

I don’t know. My beard is probably three-quarters white. [Laughs]

Is it still giant?

It’s not giant. It’s definitely past itchy stage.

Anything else we should touch on?

I’m really looking forward to playing with Disco Doom.

Okay, I’ll go type this up and make us sound smart.

Good luck. [Laughs] recommended

This story has been updated since its original publication.