Between Broken Spindles and The Faint, Joel Petersen Is a Busy Man
By Andrew Clayman
Published in The Cleveland Scene (Village Voice), May 2008
It’s a sunny Saturday afternoon in America’s heartland, but Joel Petersen sounds a little bit bushed. Then again, living a double life will do that to you.
As the bassist for Omaha dance-rockers The Faint, as well as the brains behind his own electronic project Broken Spindles, Petersen has essentially been living in the recording studio for the past year. His hard work is just now beginning to pay off, as both Broken Spindles and The Faint are preparing to end several years of relative silence with high profile returns in 2008.
“Yeah, I have definitely been busy,” Petersen says, chuckling at the understatement. This spring, within a one month window, he has already self-released a new limited edition Broken Spindles record, finished recording a new album with The Faint, and started the mastering process on the next official Broken Spindles release, due out later this year.
Agreeing to break down each disc one at a time, Petersen starts with Document Number One, the instrumental, highly cinematic Broken Spindles album he released under his own Kaput Pin label.
“I just didn’t feel like it was right to put this one out on another label,” he says. “I wanted it to be a more personal kind of release— limited edition, silk screened, and hand numbered. It needed to be on a smaller scale, without going through all the usual business channels.”
Petersen is careful to point out that he doesn’t see Document Number One as a proper follow-up to Broken Spindles’ last album, 2005’s Inside/Absent.
“Even just by giving it that title, I was trying to make it clear that this was something separate from the other releases,” he explains. “(Document Number One) was really about exploring the instrumental side of stuff, which I hadn’t done thoroughly yet. The majority of the music is on the cinematic side because it started off as score music to a friend’s film I was working on. So I took some of those ideas and made them into pieces of music I thought could stand on their own, without visuals.”
The result was an album far mellower and more ethereal than the usual Broken Spindles fare, which tends to be a crunchier concoction of electronic loops and beats circling around more organic guitar or piano lines. Also noticeably missing on Document were Petersen’s breathy vocals and unconventionally confessional lyrics. Apparently, though, everything will be back in its right place on Kiss/Kick, the even newer Broken Spindles album that’s slated for release on Bright Eyes’ Omaha-based label, Saddle Creek.
“(Kiss/Kick) is more in the tradition of my normal albums,” Petersen says. “It’s got vocals, and there are traditional rock instruments in there, as opposed to the more orchestral sounds. I think, over all, it’s actually more of a straight-up rock record than anything I’ve done before.”
Petersen is a tad more mum when it comes to the latest creation by The Faint. Tentatively titled Fascination, it’s the band’s first studio release since 2004’s highly successful Saddle Creek effort, Wet From Birth. Petersen confirms that the CD should be in stores by early August, and that The Faint are trying some “new things” this time around. But he’s not too keen on being specific.
Compared to the computer-based recording dictatorship of Broken Spindles, one would imagine that working in the studio with The Faint would have to pose a pretty major contrast. And Petersen would agree.
“I think that’s part of the reason why Broken Spindles exists,” he says, “just because I can work on things outside the confines of a five person band. It’s almost a necessity to have that difference. You know, it’s harder on your own, and it moves a lot slower—hitting my creative ambitions. But it’s been a great outlet for me just to get ideas going and keep my creative juices flowing.”
While The Faint are often referred to as a “retro” band for their throwback, New Wave sound, Broken Spindles tends to get the opposite sort of response. This electro-rock sound, some folks say, is “futuristic” music.
“I don’t necessarily agree with that term,” Petersen says, “but I don’t disagree with it either. You know, there are some bands you hear and you think, ‘oh, they’re trying to be T. Rex’ or something that’s obviously already happened. To me, there’s nothing like that for this music, where I can just to point to something from the past and say, ‘Oh, there’s Broken Spindles.’ In that sense, maybe, it’s futuristic. But I would probably see it more as being current than anything.”
Another factor that has likely fed the futuristic angle of Broken Spindles is the band’s distinctive album covers, which all feature a faceless, white figurine standing in an ultra-modern domestic setting.
“It’s actually based on something I did in a college pottery class,” Petersen says with a chuckle. “I was awful. I couldn’t make a pot or a mug to save my life. But years later, there was something about these figurines I had made that just seemed to fit with what I was doing with my music. I’m a big fan of consistencies, so I thought, I’m going to define this cover art for anything I do as Broken Spindles. And I’m glad to say I’ve stuck with it.”
Fan of consistency though he may be, Petersen is still eager to hit the road with Broken Spindles and snap out of his long running studio fatigue.
“This particular tour is very much a reaction to the studio process,” he says. “After going into the studio every day and being sort of meticulous about everything, I just wanted something the opposite of that. So, the show is about taking the songs and interpreting them with a freer spirit. There’s nothing prerecorded or sequenced. It’s all just live manipulations of things that happen in real time. I wanted to react to music again instead of studying it.”
The Faint:
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