Drama King

The Decemberists' Colin Meloy sets his characters free.

by Patrick Rapa

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Colin Meloy, with his lyrics about chimney-sweeping naifs and seafaring scoundrels, takes a lot of crap for being, you know, "theatrical" and "pretentious." Like, a lot of crap. The Decemberists — whom Meloy and Co. first envisioned as a soundtracking ensemble for silent films — are well aware of their dramaturgical rep. On their new A Practical Handbook DVD (Kill Rock Stars), they have a little fun with it. In several vignettes, each no longer than a minute, they improvise wee skits based on Meloy's more memorable (and over-the-top) lyrical fables from the Picaresque album. There's a humiliated soccer player, a grieving barrow boy, a coupla bus stop tramps, etc. Most satisfyingly preposterous is the brooding sailor, surrounded by oversize fishbones, wondering out loud, "Will I be forever stuck in the belly of this whale?" The rest of the disc is decent enough: a full concert, a half-hour origin-story documentary, a few videos and some funny Easter eggs. I caught up with Meloy by phone last Friday afternoon; he was enjoying his final few days at home in Portland before heading out on the cross-country tour that brings him to Philly this weekend.

City Paper: The star-crossed lovers song "Valencia" from The Crane Wife: Is that about a town or a street or what?

Colin Meloy: I wish I could just tell you definitively, but initially I had it as a Latino gang drama in San Francisco, you know, Valencia being a street in San Francisco. But then my girlfriend, who's spent a lot of time in San Francisco, said that no, no gang activity would ever happen on Valencia. But I'd already kinda come up with the chorus so I couldn't change it, so I said, well maybe it's the name of the girl, or maybe it's the town in Spain. Then I found out later that there's actually a hospital on Valencia where they take in a lot of gangland victims, so maybe then I was right all along.

CP: You recently wrapped up your "green screen contest" — made famous when Stephen Colbert called you out as copycats — and the winning video has "Valencia" re-cast as a love story between a woman and her TV. How do you feel about that?

CM: I feel fine about that. That was the idea all along — that people, regardless of the directness of the narrative, the clarity of the narrative, would interpret songs an entirely different way. So it's cool that there's room to do that; [director Kurt Nishimura] had the imagination to find another story within that story.

CP: I saw there are Decemberists ringtones?

CM: Oh yeah, I think those have been in existence for a while now. You'd be amazed at how quickly people — regardless of being on a major or indie label — jump on it, on the old ringtone bandwagon. 

CP: Is it something that you personally work on?

CM: No, they just have people working in little sweatshops, just listening to music and streaming out crazy, terrible mono midi versions of the song so people can hear that song "ringing" when their phone rings.

CP: Do you know which songs have been made into ringtones?

CM: I don't. I'm terrified to find out.

THE DECEMBERISTS, Tue., March 27, 7 p.m., $28.50, with My Brightest Diamond, Tower Theater, 69th and Ludlow streets, Upper Darby, 610-352-2887, www.livenation.com