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Behind the SXSW Buzz: the Thermals
Former Austinite and Spoon front man Britt Daniel lives near Hutch Harris’ Portland, Ore. residence. The Shins crooner James Mercer recently moved in not too far away. Throw a stone, and you might break a window belonging to a member of Sleater-Kinney, The Jicks, The Decemberists or Modest Mouse.
No wonder Harris is so proud of his adopted hometown.
“I’m not native but I’ve been here 11 years in May. That’s longer than I’ve lived everywhere else,” said Harris. “I totally feel like Portland is mine, and it’s hot right now.”
Not literally, of course — as Harris speaks over the phone from the City of Roses, it’s a nippy 49 degrees. But it’s also a Pitchfork wonderland, where the brightest-burning stars of indie rock have congregated on the east side of the Willamette River that cleaves the city in two. And Harris should know — as front man and one third of the alternative rock trio the Thermals, he is the hipster Kevin Bacon: a connected talent who’s never more than six degrees of separation from every other connected talent. The band’s videos have featured cameos from Colin Meloy of the Decemberists, they’ve recorded with Jinks, Quasi and Sleater-Kinney drummer Janet Weiss, and their previous album was produced by Brendan Canty, drummer for legendary hardcore band Fugazi.
In some ways, he owes it all to another Pacific Northwest band: Nirvana.
“I think my Dad got me a guitar when I was 15. And it was the early ‘90s, which was a really good time to be a kid learning guitar,” said Harris. “After all those years of metal, you had a band like Nirvana come along. Their songs were great, but they were incredibly simple to play, too. So anyone learning to play bar codes could learn those songs.”
After graduating high school, he met Kathy Foster in San Jose. The two formed an instant connection, and each independently decided to move to Portland. In 2002 they formed the Thermals, a blistering alternative rock trio that played lo-fi, three-minute grunge anthems with all the restless energy of a bag of cats. Over a series of three albums from 2003 to 2006, their sound grew more refined and their songwriting more targeted.
“We started consciously in a place where we’d have a lot of room to grow. So we started recording, with the first album, on a 4-track cassette. You can’t get much more lo-fi than that,” said Harris. “We take small steps sonically each record. Each one we do sounds like we’ve made a lot of progress, sonically, because each is a little more produced.”
That process culminates in the upcoming “Now You Can See,” planned for release in April and the band’s slickest effort yet. Where 2006’s acclaimed and ambitious “The Body, the Blood and the Machine” told the Orwellian story of a young couple fleeing a dystopian near-future United States governed by religious fundamentalists, “Now You Can See” deals with broader themes.
“We thought (“The Body, the Blood and the Machine”) was like a reaction to growing up and having religion and Jesus pushed in your face, as well as the direction the country was taking at the time. We felt like we were pushing back,” said Harris. “We purposefully didn’t sing about religion and politics on this record and I don’t think we will for a while. We don’t want to get stuck being known as a politically or religiously obsessed band.”
Which is not to say the new album’s lyrics are devoid of deeper meaning — many of the songs deal with death, appropriately for the follow-up to an album that ended with a nuclear holocaust. But if the record’s cover — a solitary flower growing defiantly out of a pile of ash and rubble — is any sign, The Thermals have found new reasons to look on the bright side.
“I’m optimistic,” said Hutch. “I still think there’s a lot of room to grow.”
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