Creating Utopia: An Interview With Jason Falkner

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Jason Falkner: It was difficult. There was one song that I started but which just wasn’t working. If you’re doing a record of ten songs and one of them you have to scrap, those are pretty good odds. I started doing “Day Tripper” and I made it this weird, bubbly electronic thing but it just didn’t work.

Popshifter: “She’s Leaving Home” was my favorite Beatles song when I was a small child. I liked all the ones with silly lyrics, so I don’t know why I liked that one so much. I would make my mom play it and then I’d cry and she’d ask, “Why do want to hear that?”

Jason Falkner: (laughs) I know! “What are you doing to yourself?” It’s really sad but it’s just shockingly beautiful, the melody of that and the melancholy energy of it is just amazing. But you do kind of wallow in it.

Popshifter: You had said with Volume I that you were uncomfortable with even doing Beatles covers because you don’t always like it when people revisit The Beatles. Is there a reason you feel The Beatles specifically shouldn’t be revisited or is that just your general feeling with bands that you admire or who have influenced you?

Jason Falkner: It’s kind of (b). It’s a general rule of mine, but at the same time, in the pantheon of bands that I just worship. . . I kind of feel like it’s a religion. It would be like rewriting the Bible, and who’s allowed to do that? I think the Beatles are at the top of that list, so that’s why I’m so vehement about that. (laughs)

But at the same time, I just would never cover a Beatles song in my rock band. And it’s the obvious thing as well; like, don’t even try that. They did it as well as it could be done; nobody will ever make an impact like The Beatles, Stones, The Who, Bowie, The Kinks, all these bands that I love. So just leave it alone.

And in fact, you guys, too. In the Beatles. Leave it alone. Don’t regroup, don’t do it again. You can’t do it again.

Popshifter: (laughing) Right.

Jason Falkner: But being that this is such a different interpretation, with a different intention, it was a lot more acceptable to me.

Popshifter: Are there any Beatles covers that you like, that you think add a different spin to the original?

Jason Falkner: Nothing springs to mind. I can’t even say I like any of the Moog records that cover The Beatles.

Popshifter: I’ve never heard those.

Jason Falkner: They’re not very good.

Popshifter: (laughs)

Jason Falkner: In a weird way, that’s kind of what my Beatles covers are like because it’s so synth-heavy.

Popshifter: But not like those elevator music covers from the 60s and 70s, like “Blue Velvet” where they would sing one line of the chorus and just hum the rest. I’m glad you didn’t go that route.

Jason Falkner: Right. In that genre, there is generally like a humor element, where it’s kinda funny, and then you never want to hear it again.

Popshifter: (laughs)

The Phantom of the Paradise, 1974

Jason Falkner: It’s like a one-listen joke. I just don’t feel like doing that to anything that I love. I know a lot of people who do, who are really campy. I mean, I love campy stuff. I love Phantom of the Paradise and a lot of glitter rock—I adore The Sweet—but it’s not good in this context.

Popshifter: You put out I’m OK. . . You’re OK in 2007. There is a keyboard motif on the song “Say It’s True” that reminds me a lot like “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” Was that intentional or not?

Jason Falkner: No, it wasn’t intentional at all.

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Click to read more from Jason Falkner on. . .

Revisiting The Beatles
Ripoffs and references
That “Power Pop” thing
“It all boils down to Bowie.”
A pre-Internet world
The dumbing down of pop culture
What’s next for Jason

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