Toronto Sun 5-6-98




Wednesday, May 6, 1998

New Orleans feeds Soul Asylum
Dave Pirner experiences a great awakening after a visit to Dixieland
By JANE STEVENSON -- Toronto Sun
Soul Asylum frontman Dave Pirner has been on a rock 'n' roll journey for the
last 17 years with his Minneapolis band, which has enjoyed major hits in
recent years with Runaway Train and Misery.
But nothing, it seems, compares to Pirner's travels along the Mississippi
before making Soul Asylum's new album, Candy From A Stranger, which hits
stores on Tuesday.
"I met my mentor in New Orleans," says Pirner, 34, relaxing in a hotel room
prior to his acoustic show tonight at the Horseshoe featuring guitarist Dan
Murphy and him. "I've really kind of become a kind of student of his."
Pirner's mentor turned out to be an old, blind piano player by the name of
Henry Butler and Pirner's entire New Orleans' experience has changed him.
"The music industry cannot penetrate that place and the musicians never leave
town because everybody comes to them," he says. "Some of the most gifted
players in the world are playing for four bucks; they're just doing house gigs
every night and it's no big deal. To understand where rock 'n' roll comes from
sort of helps me determine where I want to take it. It affected this album a
lot."
There was also upheaval in Pirner's professional life. Candy, recorded at
Criteria Studios in Miami, was the last album that Soul Asylum drummer
Sterling Campbell made before leaving the band because he disliked touring.
"He has my blessing with whatever else he wants to do -- he should be playing
in my band, though!" says Pirner. "He's just discovering Eastern philosophy.
My joke about that is why didn't he read Siddhartha in high school? I'm like,
'Sterling, c'mon! It's Buddhism man. You can spend your whole life trying to
get enlightened, it doesn't happen overnight.' "
Waiting in the wings is an unknown drummer who was plucked out of a house band
from a British TV show and will be rehearsing with Soul Asylum in Minneapolis
before a club tour. After that, the group will headline their own tour or open
"for some band that's huge that we don't like" according to Pirner.
"Depending on if people like the record or not, that will pretty much decide
what venue we're going to end up in," he says. "We're either going to be in a
little tiny bar or the enormo-dome opening for Billy Idol or something."
Pirner was originally going to be joined by Murphy for this chat but his
bandmate was suffering with a 104-degree temperature and sore throat at the
time.
But Pirner, a friendly and funny interview subject, is doing just fine on his
own. For example, he bursts into the Love Boat theme when asked about a story
that Soul Asylum was on board to do a new version for the relaunched TV show.
"I'm still not quite sure what that was all about," he says. "I went out to
dinner with a bunch of people and one of the guys started making some joke
about the Love Boat and I was like, 'That's pretty funny.' Somebody told me
about this thing in USA Today and I was like, 'What the hell's going on?' And
you know, it's such a Hollywood mentality. They plant things in papers to get
publicity. So they used me, basically."

Pirner is used to appearing in newspapers with the wrong information, given he
was a gossip column regular while dating actress Winona Ryder in the early
'90s. He even had a bit role in Ryder's film Reality Bites, playing her
boyfriend. But despite maintaining his Hollywood connections -- he wrote the
score for Kevin Smith's Chasing Amy -- Pirner has no desire to be in front of
the camera again. "I don't like acting at all. I don't like making videos.
It makes me really uncomfortable. I mean the whole immediacy of the rock show
is what I'm in it for. You're not going to be held accountable for it tomorrow
and you leave town."