The Dismemberment Plan

If there is in fact a dismemberment plan, it is far too complicated for mere listeners to comprehend. So far we're talking about an indie band that's logged nine years, four albums, a major label signing and a major label dropping, a European tour with Pearl Jam and a style that veers from the stuff of a funky punky party band to introspective art-rock pioneers.

Lately on a "Death and Dismemberment Tour" with emo faves Death Cab for Cutie, DC's the Dismemberment Plan are on the road in support of their recent aptly titled release Change (DeSoto). "There's no spastic freakouts on it," says drummer Joe Easley about the new record. "That's why a lot of people come to see the shows. That's why they like the Dismemberment Plan, because they're just like this big freaky fuckin' mess."

Spastic freakouts were ample on the Plan's '95 debut album "!" and much more so on '97's followup, The Dismemberment Plan Is Terrified, often referred to as their "party record." The Plan's early sound was funky postpunk with anthems you could shout and tempos that progressed like a soundtrack to a video game's increasing levels of difficulty. The spastic freakouts were the signature. Chord changes that could only have been inspired by a car losing traction on an icy road. Says Easley, "It's like four dudes with ADD got together and wrote a record."

The Dismemberment Plan Is Terrified was followed by 99's Emergency & I, which could be called The Dismemberment Plan Takes Ritalin. The freakouts are there, but they're controlled enough to maintain complicated compositions that blend a wild variety of influences into something both eclectic and infectious. Compositions that do justice to singer/guitarist Travis Morrison's increasingly introspective lyrics.

Emergency & I was paid for by Interscope but was released on their current (and former) label, DeSoto. The Plan was lucky, so to speak, in that they got dropped by a major but managed to take their record with them. I ask Morrison whether he would ever consider going to another major label.

"People like Missy Elliott should be on a major label because she has visions, she has grand visions that require $500,000, and I think that the world is much better for the video for 'The Rain.' I mean, it's art. It's just unbelievable. So, is that us? Probably not." He adds, "I just wanna act like a damn adult and I don't wanna be in a situation where I'm like, I don't wanna be on Loveline! That's all they can do! I mean why'd you sign to a major if you don't wanna be on TRL or Loveline?"

But Travis has no regrets about the decision to go with Interscope. "At the time, Interscope was the most interesting label around. It was like Primus, and Drive Like Jehu and Dr. Dre. I mean, come on, that's a lot more interesting than, ya know, Sub Pop."

Cyndi Lauper's She's So Unusual comes blasting through the green-room door and Easley's face lights up. "Have you heard this record recently? Dude, our engineer plays this at every soundcheck and it's getting better. Like I'm like totally enjoying this record. It's totally sticking to me."

I suggest that perhaps we might find a little "Lauper" on the next Plan record.

"Man, you never know. I'm gonna go buy an electric drum kit. Travis is gonna sing about how we only wanna have fun?"

It would not be a surprise. Everyone in the Dismemberment Plan writes his own parts for the songs, and among the four of them the list of influences includes Talking Heads, Steely Dan, the Meters and Stravinsky. All are welcome on a Plan record, and everyone seems to get along swimmingly. Says Easley, "I think that a lot of people who try to categorize us have a problem."

Never more so than on 2001's Change. One problem with categorizing the disc is that when I put it on, I forget to try to pin it down and I just start listening. It's not immediately catchy, but it lingers with me and I find myself wanting to get home and put it on again.

The control they had on Emergency & I is now a precision, which Easley attributes to producer J. Robbins' demand for extensive preproduction, something he learned from his days in Jawbox under producer Ted Niceley. "[Niceley] just about made 'em cry, made Jawbox cry. Making them do preproduction until they couldn't take it anymore. And practicing the songs they already know hours and hours every day again and again." The rigor paid off in the end. "The thing is when you're done and you go record the record, you can record the record in like a week because you know your fucking parts, and more importantly, it sounds good."

The sound of Change is stark. Cold, not inhuman, but the way a bitter, silvery February day can make you kind of quietly consider some stuff you might have been avoiding.

According to Easley, the band had a hand in mixing the album this time around, a chore usually left to Robbins and coproducer Chad Clark. "Travis does this thing where he drops out a lot of the lows and the mids. And the way the mix happens it keeps everything really airy, like airy and cold. So you get rid of all that warm fuzzy bass." The result, according to Easley, being a record that sounds like "a silver plate sliding across the sun. It felt cold. It's more lined up with what the songs were about."

And what are the songs about? "A silver plate sliding across the sun" pretty much sums it up.

When I offer my "cold and stark" interpretation to Travis Morrison, he appears to blanche a bit. But we are trying to conduct the interview while Death Cab's soundcheck pours into the green room, so our faces are just a few inches apart and we're screaming at each other. And when someone's screaming in your face, "YOUR LYRICS ARE COLD!" you can't help but recoil a bit.

"A lot of the lyrics are about, like, emotional isolation," Morrison offers. "Self-imposed emotional isolation. Ya know, a lot of the people my age [29] are kind of reaching the point where they kinda have to face the fact that they're the only constant in their lives. Ya know, you've dated enough people, the relationships all went the same way." He grimaces. "And the album is about that kind of thinking. That's a very trivial example of it, but on all those kinds of levels."

Despite their tendency to fiddle in the studio, the Plan is definitely a "live band." "I've kind of come to a conclusion over the years," says Travis, "that I think we put a lot more thought into our live performance than other people do. I think it's a real craft. I don't see it at all as something where you just kind of shamble up onstage and say hi and start a song."

He seeks out tapes of other performers, the most recent being a tape of Jackie Wilson. "I was ashamed for me and I was ashamed for the entire world of performers I know. Like this guy was so dedicated to what he did and he was like the most explosive dancer, the most incredible singer. And I was just watching him, like, What am I doing?"

I ask Easley what the reward of playing live is. "The reward is all these kids who aren't standing there just like blinking eyeballs in the audience."

Later, at the show, we're only at the fourth song when Travis sends a call out to all the "90-pound indie rock girls. And indie rock boys who also weigh 90 pounds." He reminds anyone who's game that no matter what we weigh or what patches we have on our saddle bags, deep inside of each of us is "a black man in a satin suit." We are invited to the stage to dance.

"'Cause this is 'Ice of Boston'!"

It's a Plan tradition. When they play "Ice of Boston" everyone jumps onstage. The Plan sets off on a groove that's conducive to a little bit of head-nodding or a whole hell of a lot of ass-wiggling, depending on how shitty your day was. Twenty or 30 oddly shaped boys and girls form a scattered kick-line flanking Travis as he launches into his spoken narrative about being alone in Boston for "another goddamn New Year."

They're dancing poorly and they're dancing joyously and if you're in the crowd and you don't have just the most enormous stupid grin on your face then you're a fucking asshole. The narrator of "Ice of Boston" is naked, alone in front of his kitchen window on New Year's Eve and drenched in champagne when his mom calls to ask him, "How's Boston?" The big fat kid with shoulder-length blond hair to Travis' right pumps his fist into the air as he and Travis scream in unison, "AW FINE MOM! HOW'S WASHINGTON?" At the far end of the floor, I am dancing.

"Sittin' in the back, watching all the butts dancing in front of me," says Easley, "that's the reward, that's totally the reward. I'm fucking psyched to see that."