Last night [May 24] in Chicago, you guys got cut off at 10 p.m. because of some curfew and took your instruments into a back alley to keep playing. What was that like?
It was one of the most surreal things that’s happened in a while. We had a lot more songs to play, and it was bumming us out as much as the people there to see us, so we just said, “We’ll meet you guys in back.” I didn’t think that many people would take me seriously, but the whole f--king room basically relocated to this alley. I’ve never seen that many people on a street before ... it had such different energy. There’s beautiful energy when people drop their guard like that. I didn’t think we were a big enough band to make something like that happen. It was one of those U2 “[Where the] Streets Have No Name” things.
Was drummer Nick Jago’s return to BRMC the primary reason new album Baby 81 revisits the band’s louder roots after 2005’s folky Howl?
We stumbled into it kinda by accident. We were in the studio finishing Howl, and Nick had just come back, and we had him play on the last song we needed for that album. And that same night we stayed in the studio and jammed out, just had fun and recorded it, and the first thing we played was [Baby 81 opener] “Took Out a Loan”—it was one take and it freaked everyone out. When we made Howl we were really trying to control the sound and keep an intimacy. We never really turned it up loud and tried to break much glass. But once Nick was back bashing away on the drums, it felt like a whole new world, even though we were in the same one. And it inspired us. We did [Baby 81 track] “666 Conducer” that same night, and we used those two songs as a blueprint for the next album.
Baby 81 has received some particularly nasty reviews, including a Pitchfork write-up that called you guys “a big, dumb band who writes big, dumb songs.” How much does that bother you?
It’s a strange thing with our band, really a love/hate relationship. Some bands inspire that in people, and we’re apparently one of them. I’m really grateful that most people seem to love it, but there’s a 20 percent or whatever who doesn’t. I can’t decipher it in my own head, but there’s something about us that bothers people as much as there’s something that inspires. It’s a fascinating thing to me, and I’m kind of proud of it, because you’re inspiring strong emotion. It hurts when it’s bad, but I guess you’ve gotta take the good with the bad, and the good is pretty f--king good.
With Eastern Conference Champs,The Cobbs. June 19, 6 p.m., $15. Jillian’s, 759-0450.