CAROLINA LIAR Was the song “Show Me What I’m Looking For” an allegory for what you were looking for at the time? “Well we’d been getting into the California thing of people always looking for some sort of new answer. Everything is a new solution, there’s some new religion, new yoga class, some work out phenomenon that’s going to change the world or new drug that’s going to open up something fantastic. And that’s all we really did, shot all that down really quick, and that became the song.”
What role does “Daddy’s Little Girl” (eighth track on second album, Wild Blessed Freedom) have on the identity of “Miss America” (opening track)? “The idea of ‘Miss America’ was originally just about the country itself falling apart. But the idea of ‘Miss America’ actually being a physical person and being tied to ‘Daddy’s Little Girl,’ you can see the connection...” Then, as the phrase “daddy’s little girl” more often than not implies something inappropriately sexual and Oedipus Complex-influenced, Chad delivers the anecdote I was more expecting: “The true story behind that lyric itself is a bit dirty… My friends and I were out one night, and there was this young lady who had these amazing knee high boots on. Fantastic rider boots, like Chanel, something really expensive and worthy of appreciation, and so I just complimented her. I honestly wasn’t trying to hit on her. I was like, “My God, you have some amazing boots on.” She looked at me like she was about to slap me in the face, and I was like, “No! I didn’t say you have amazing boobs, I said you have amazing boots on.” So that night kind of just kept going on from one thing to another. We were laughing, hanging out, and at some point she was like, “You look a lot like my father did at your age,” and I was like, “That’s cool... That’s a very, that’s a nice thing to say.” But it’s kind of a strange thing to say too, because she started holding my hand and getting physical with me, and I was thinking this is really weird, and then she said, “Think of me as daddy’s little girl.” From that moment on, I’ll always see that phrase coming from this woman who was
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kind of attractive to me, and then she thought I looked like her father, and I just was like, this is odd.”
How often do you take words from other peoples sentences and make them lyrics in your head? “All the time. That’s one of the best things about hanging out with Swedes, they use the language in such a different way. They’ll say things that aren’t necessarily normal English things to say [like] ‘Peel me off the hook,’ (a lyrics in the song “That’s Something to Die For”). What does that mean, dude? I like it. What can we make that mean?”
When writing music, which of your senses inspires you most? “I’m a big nature dude, I love that sense of freedom. Even being in Stockholm and thinking about the little apartment I lived in, the cracks on the floor, the texture of the apartment, that kind of thing. The smell of that place, like when the rain would hit the wood, that old, old place was build in the 1500s so you just kind of get the sense of all the lives that had been there. It kind of overwhelms you, and it puts you in a different sense of travel. Your mind is open to travel and space, and you know, just trying to keep track of time. I love to eat too so that’s an inspiration. A bit of wine is a wonderful thing to write on, you put your feelings down pretty well.”
What’s your favorite alcoholic drink? “I’m a red wine guy. The first time Peter and I had written together, he cooked this crazy dinner and brought out this crazy wine and we stayed up all night eating, drinking and writing. He had his wife and family, one kid at the time, but she was out of the house. The song, “When You Are Near,” came from the idea what when she wasn’t home, her essence was still in the room. I don’t think any of that would have opened up, we wouldn’t have explored a world like that if we weren’t comfortable.” Chad stops, and then, perhaps the best part of the interview, continues. “I had a phase where it was all tequila for a while, but I ended up one evening just kind of losing