Tortoise on Evolution, Falling Asleep in the Studio, and Surviving the Future

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OK, let's get down to business: Tortoise released Touch, their first album in nine years, at the end of last month; it's as exploratory as ever, and even in the moments where you think "This sounds like a Tortoise record," it also sounds like the seminal post-rock legends are constantly pushing themselves into new and exciting directions. I was extremely honored to have John Herndon and Doug McCombs hop on a call earlier this fall to talk about all things the new album and much more—check it out:

It's been nine years since the last Tortoise record. Was there ever a period of uncertainty that you guys would make another one?
John: I was certain we were going to make another record.

Doug: Yeah, me too. I never doubted that. The reality of the situation is, each time we make a record, it gets incrementally longer between the records. It's been proven by science. We go through a touring cycle and then try to figure out when we're gonna start working on another record, and it's always just a little bit longer each time. This time, we may have started earlier, but then the pandemic happened—but that only accounted for a year and a half or so.

What was the pandemic like for the two of you?
John: Well, I got on the dole and realized that I made more money on the dole than i did when I was just living and not doing Tortoise tours, which was weird.

Doug: I also was on the dole. It gave me a lot of time to reflect on what I should be doing and and how I should be doing it—and as soon as I was able to, I started working on as much music as possible, because I was sitting at home with nothing to do. I was writing more music than I have in years and making plans to get it moving.

I'd love to hear you guy stalk about what you did for money when just starting out as musicians.
Doug: Just to compare notes towards being on assistance during the pandemic—I've definitely been much broker and much more unemployed in my life, and I didn't go on public assistance for some reason. The pandemic made me aware that I could get public assistance, so I did.

Before I started playing in a touring band and getting my shit together, I didn't really plan it as a career. I just wanted to play music with people. Once I was doing it and still not really making money, I realized it was the only thing I wanted to do, so I just kept making arrangements so I never had to stop doing it. I just always wanted to be able to play music, go on tour, and travel around. That was my main goal.

John: I always made sure that, if I did have a regular job, it was flexible enough that I could take off whenever I needed to pursue playing music. Over the last 10 years and change, I haven't really had a regular job. I've been cobbling a living together by making music and artwork and just scraping by—but it's always been just above the poverty level.

I did a lot of bartending while I was in Chicago. Doug and I worked at the same bar—the Rainbow Club—for a long time. I probably worked there for another 10 years after Doug stopped working there. The woman who runs the Rainbow Club, Dee Taira, always has a policy that if you're a working artist and need the time off, you could take it off. It was always super helpful to have someone like that in your corner.

Defining the sound of Tortoise has always been very slippery for me. With every successive record, I've found myself surprised by what I hear, but there's always something recognizable about what you guys do as well. Tell me about the evolution of the band's sound from your perspective.
Doug: One of the goals of our group is to not stagnate or use any cookie-cutter formats to produce music that we think is interesting. Every time we're working on music, we're conscious of trying to push things in directions that may not already be represented on a Tortoise record somewhere. But regardless of what the music sounds like—what new colors or textures we're using—there always seems to be a quality to it that is constant, which is something that you can't define. It's all of our personal sensibilities combined, and each one of us has a writing style. When you mix and match those writing styles, it becomes this weird soup that has touchstones but is also different every time.

It's almost impossible to nail that down and say what it is, but there's a sensibility that runs through everything we do that's a collage of all of our personalities. It's also all five of us trying not to repeat ourselves—to do something different every time. It's okay if it does fall back into some common themes, as long as we try to push it somewhere.

Have there been any misconceptions or surprising characterizations that you guys have witnessed in terms of what you guys do and the music you make?
John: It's been a long time since we've had a record out, so I've almost forgotten what it's like to read reviews and get a sense of what people think we're doing.
But I try hard not to pay attention to that stuff, because I think it gets in the way of doing what we want to do.

In regards to your last question—I'm a drummer. I don't play guitar or keyboards very well. So I'm often making these clunky beats with maybe some chord changes, and I'm always almost hesitant to bring them to the band because I feel like they're such good songwriters. But it's something that we all have to do, so I do it. Luckily, all of the guys in Tortoise make what I bring to the table much better than it would ever have been if it was something that I was just trying to finish on my own.

Doug: I disagree with John a lot about his abilities as a composer, but he is right about how the thing that makes us interesting, to me, is that we're not a single-voice composer situation. All of us make each others' compositions better just by committee, because there's so manygreat and different perspectives within the group. If I have an idea that I'm not quite sure what to do with, I'd bring it to Tortoise, because those are where the interesting things happen.

How do you guys work through creative conflict?
Doug: I wouldn't even say that we have that many disagreements. If somebody has a really strong opinion about something, it probably means that we should pursue that idea because they've seen a way forward that maybe the rest of us haven't seen. Sometimes, that doesn't work out, and we go in some other direction—but I wouldn't call it conflict. We try to explore as many ideas as anybody has.

John: Sometimes, we'll be working on something, and somebody will play something on it that will be surprising to me—and I'm so happy and welcome for those things that change the overall direction. That's one of the things I value most about our collaboration—the unforeseen changes that happen.

Doug: It's especially great when something does start to come together in a way that you didn't plan—and then you can see it, which makes it exciting.

Describe to me a moment like that that you guys had while making this record specifically.
John: "Layered Presence" was something that I had brought in. I had these chords going, and then Jeff was like, "What if we change this chord and make it a minor chord so the whole thing isn't just a major progression?" We futzed around with it and figured out the chord, and then they kept playing and I was like, "Oh hell yeah, that's way better."

Doug: That song in particular blossomed in an interesting way that I did not expect. Currently, I think it's probably my favorite song on the record. When we sat down and started working on the original idea, we were all like, "Well, this sounds cool, but what can we do with it?" It was one of those things that ended up being transformative.

One thing I noticed in the album bio was a comment from you specifically, Doug, regarding the "tortuous" feeling of when the band doesn't know what to do next with a specific song.
Doug: Well, that's the other side of the coin. You have to develop this bulletproof patience—like, "Alright, this is not happening, I don't know what to do with this thing. We should just leave it alone for a while." When you don't have any idea what to do with it, it's not productive at all. I've personally developed this thing where, if we're mixing a song for four hours or something, I'll pass out. I'll be snoring or something, and then I'll catch myself snoring and I'll wake up and I'll be like, "I've got it. I know what to do."

John: This just might be my personality and the darkness that I go into, but a few years ago I was like, "Damn, making artwork is like flying a plane." You're constantly trying to keep it from nose-diving, and eventually you catch it and start ascending again. Hopefully, at the end, you're back to smooth sailing.

This was also the first time that you guys engaged in some remote work when it came to putting a record together.
Doug: In the past, a really important part of making any Tortoise recording, for me, was the part where we're sitting in a room mixing it. Mixing for Tortoise can mean a lot of things: Rewriting, adding new parts, developing the tonal palette, trying to make everything fit together in a way that's interesting. Often, it can mean reworking an entire piece of music.

For me, that part where I'm falling asleep on the couch is a really important part of the process. We didn't have as much of that this time. We did it for a little bit, but then we were evaluating the mixes and making suggestions long-distance. That was really different this time, and I was apprehensive about that.

John: That was definitely different. I think things turned out OK. It also goes back to trusting bandmates, and I trust John to get it right. We've worked together for so long, we all trust his sensibilities, and he trusts us enough to weigh in when he sends a mix and somebody goes, "The drums sound like they're too flat, take some of the compression off and let it breathe a little more." He'll make those adjustments and send the mix again and then go back and forth. It was just about trusting each other remotely for that portion of the record.

You're heading out on tour next year. Tell me about how you guys feel about touring at this point in your career.
Doug: I mean, we're going out on tour because we want to make money, right? We plan the tours so that they will make money. We can't afford to go out and lose money. That aside, I am looking forward to going out and playing a lot. We still have to learn the songs, which is what we're starting to do next week. But I'm looking forward to getting some of these new songs going.

The other part of it is that my stamina isn't as great as it used to be. I can't go out on the road for more than a couple weeks without getting exhausted, so we're planning the tours to compensate for that. I personally have other things to squeeze in between the Tortoise tours too, so I'm trying to take all that into consideration.

John: We've all done this for so long that a lot of us aren't interested in getting in the van and playing 100 shows in 98 days or something. We're just trying to plan it so that it's fun, it won't lose money, and everybody feels happy with the way it's going.

You guys have been putting out records for a long time. Let's talk about what's changed when it comes to the business aspects of music over the years. Obviously, there's a lot that comes to mind.
John: I mean, the obvious thing is that people don't buy records like they used to. That's a weird one. If you want to make money, you have to go out and play some shows because you're not making money selling records.

I heard a story the other day about a hard rock band from England—one of the guys posted a thing on Instagram or Twitter, or whatever bullshit asshole millionaire oligarchs are calling it these days. He was like, "I just saw that an AI band that was modeled after our band has now overtaken us on the charts. Everybody should fucking wake up to what's going on, or bands like us won't be able to exist." They're a fucking huge band playing festivals, with hundreds of thousands of followers on Instagram—and there's an AI band that overtook them on the charts. I haven't seen a Tortoise AI band that can take us, because we'll go fucking toe-to-toe.

Doug: Who knows what the future of this will be. I'm only interested in going out and playing music for people. As the world steps in front of me and makes that more difficult, I have to figure out other ways to get around it, because it's the only thing I care about. Humans are adaptable. We'll figure out something.

John: I agree with that too. It initiates some sort primordial fight-or-flight thing that's maybe more dramatic than what the outcome will be. But who knows? There are certainly enough people with enough money throwing everything at it to fool the masses. But it could also be like the Y2K bug.

I remain optimistic. I think people aren't as stupid as others think they are.
John: Artists, musicians, and creative thinkers have had to deal with how power-hungry rich people are for thousands of years now. We've weathered the storm every time, to some degree, and I don't doubt that we will weather this one as well.