Pitchfork

Scott "Spiral Stairs" Kannberg must be sick of talking about the possibility of a Pavement reunion. But when Pitchfork got him on the phone to chat about the forthcoming deluxe reissue of Pavement's third album, Wowee Zowee (due November 7 on Matador), we had to ask.

So, Spiral, is there going to be a Pavement reunion?

"I guess, yeah, we'll see."

Um, what?

"[Laughs] I mean, I can't tell you. I don't know. I mean, yeah there's been some talk over the last year about kind of getting together eventually. But I think it makes more sense to let more time go past, you know? It would probably work well for a 20 year anniversary or something like that. But I don't know. I'm going to Steve [Malkmus]'s wedding, I think, so we'll see, maybe we'll have a reunion there."

And there you have it. Unless you've got an invite to the Malkmus nuptials, the chances of witnessing a Pavement reunion anytime before 2009 (the band formed in 1989) are slim.

In the meantime, we'll have to tide ourselves over with the Wowee Zowee reissue, a project Kannberg was intimately involved with, and quite proud of. "Because we did it all on real tape, the sound quality is amazing," he said of the reissue. "I had to bake all the tapes again."

Bake?

"[It's] something to do with these TDK tapes back in the 90s, basically no matter how well you store them, they deteriorate over time. Basically what you have to do is stick them in an oven and bake them on low heat. It's a really weird process. The tapes all stick together over time, so it gets that away, and takes that off. But you only get like one or two passes at recording it. Basically for [Matador's 2002 reissue of 1992's] Slanted [& Enchanted] I did that, and for [Matador's 2004 reissue of 1994's] Crooked [Rain, Crooked Rain], I did that. So we've been able to transfer everything over to make sure that we have it forever now. But listening to the Wowee things on the tape, they sounded great. A fuller sound than I remember."

Wow, that is some hardcore lo-fi action right there!

So how did it feel to listen to the 11-year-old album again? "Well, I think it's good," Kannberg said. "I mean, you know, I haven't really...I listened to it when I put all the tapes together again, and I definitely like it still. I think the songs on it are pretty great still. I guess the joy kind of comes more from other people who I've met over the years who keep saying that's their favorite Pavement record. It was kind of the one for me when we did it, it was more of not really an album you know, it was kind of an album and B-sides. But listening to other people and hearing their take on it has made me think, 'Well, you know, it still stands out, I guess.'"

Kannberg said that compiling the reissue's massive amount of bonus tracks was easy. "Basically, it's just all the stuff we had. The idea behind the reissues has always been to kind of put together everything that was recorded at that same time. So going through the tapes, there wasn't really much for outtakes or whatever, because we kind of put everything on the record, or put it on compilations and B-sides. So all that stuff is on there.

"There's a few extras that I found that are kind of cool. There are some radio sessions that are pretty amazing. There's one from Holland we did and then there's one from Australia we did. The one from Australia is pretty cool, because I think it was right before we recorded the Wowee Zowee record, and so a lot of the songs are really kind of raw and stuff. It's all there."

As for Pavement's cover of "It's a Hectic World" for a Descendents tribute album, Kannberg said, "I don't know, I think Steve [Malkmus] did that. It was probably just somebody writing to him and saying like, 'Hey can you do a song for this Descendents tribute,' and Steve probably did it in five minutes, and just sent it to them. We were fans of the Descendents for sure."

Kannberg added that the band and Matador plan on reissuing the remaining albums in Pavement's catalog (1997's Brighten the Corners and 1999's Terror Twilight) in a similar fashion. "I mean, there's so much stuff," he said. "We did a lot of B-sides, and the next two records, there's definitely a lot of stuff there that we haven't released before. So yeah, I think they'll be nice packages at least. The kind of fun part is going through all my archives and stuff and getting pictures and all the old tour stuff together and putting them in little packages, putting everything into a historical context. So yeah, I think so, I think we're going to do the next two.

"But we're a little off in the years now. I think Wowee came out in 95, so we're a little off. I wanted to do it for the 10 year anniversary of every record. So I kinda have to get going on Brighten the Corners here. So maybe that will come out next year."

Kannberg also filled us in on his non-Pavement-related musical activities, including his solo project, Preston School of Industry, which last released an album in 2004. Music hasn't been his first priority lately, as he's gone back to school, and is currently studying urban planning at the University of Washington.

But, he said, "I'm working on a new record, just haven't recorded anything yet. Don't know when it's going to be released. Just taking my time, nothing special. I've got the songs, I just haven't figured out how I want to do it yet. This winter, I'll probably get it done."

He added, "I've got another project as well. This project called Ben Her. So I'm kind of doing both things. I've got some friends involved and, you know, more of a collaborative thing. [We've recorded] just bits and pieces. But nothing to be released yet. It's kind of more, I don't know, I guess stripped down, early Flying Nun, like the early Clean stuff. Pretty cool, but nothing to record yet. You know, recorded to computers, but nothing set to tape yet. It's just basically a sit-in-the-basement-and-play project."