Chad VanGaalen Goes Soft

Most people who have a kid slow down a bit, take some time off and start building the family. Chad VanGaalen, on the other hand, is releasing two records this fall.

The first is his third Flemish Eye album (it's on Sub Pop in the U.S.), Soft Airplane. The singer/songwriter's stab at pop still comes across as eccentric indie rock and likely won't dull the ever-increasing buzz around him.

The other disc is a collection of his electronic work, which he plans to release under the Black Mold moniker.

ChartAttack spoke with VanGaalen this summer while Eric's Trip dropped by his place to meet his new son and jam in the woods.

ChartAttack: Is the kid slowing you down, work-wise?
Chad VanGaalen: Pfff. Man, everything slows me down work-wise. Right now, I'm apparently supposed to do a full-length animation in two weeks and it's not gonna happen. I've been going camping and doing everything but that. But things are going good, whatever.

Are you still doing all of the recording in the basement?
Oh yeah, totally. I just finished my record about a month ago now, and I was working on that Women record during the winter. And now, I'm trying to finish this Black Mold record that I'm gonna put out, hopefully in a couple weeks. It's been going on forever.

Is that going to come out digitally?
Yeah, I'm gonna put out a limited run of these crazy CDs and then vinyl for the other half, and then just have it as a free download.

Are any of the electronic sounds on Soft Airplane evolved from Black Mold?
Yeah, I've been building a lot of synthesizers and drums machines. But the Black Mold is completely electronic and almost like Vangelis, like Blade Runner, just string pads and lots of orchestration and noise. I've always crossed that stuff over into my solo stuff, and now it's nice that it has a home and I can just kind of put out pop solo records. There's like one noise track at the end of Soft Airplane that's representative of what the Black Mold stuff is trying to get at, but it's a little more synthetic.

I guess what I mean is if any of the electronic-sounding songs on Soft Airplane are evolved directly from stuff that began as Black Mold material?
No, those were still songs. Most of those songs started out one-man-band acoustic guitar songs, and then I just decided to back it up with whatever drum beats, electronic beats. But most of those evolved from acoustic guitar, whereas the Black Mold stuff is born out of the electronic realm and then lives out like that.

Is the recording all you, like in the past?
Yep. I mean, there was various people putting stuff into it along the way, but unfortunately a lot of that stuff didn't make it on. Julie [Doiron] and Fred [Squire] did a couple of tracks with me, and those didn't make it on. Julie Fader from Great Lake Swimmers made it on "Willow Tree," and Matt Flagel, the bass player in Women, made it on. My friend Eric, who pretty much plays with me all the time...

So it was a little more involved.
Yeah, but this one is stripped down to just me more than any of the records. I mean, along the arc of songs, I kind of weeded out the tracks where other people were involved, not because other people were involved, just because the tracks were weak.

You've been playing some of these songs for a long time. Is it strange that they're just getting out there now?
I'm kind of used to it at this point, and I don't think I'd have put the songs on the record if I didn't really love playing them. There was a lot of songs I'd been touring for a year or so that didn't make it on that I was just kind of like, "Well, this doesn't really apply to what's going on in my mind anymore."

What happens to that stuff? Does it just fall into the void?
Yeah, that stuff seems to get lost in space.

Lyrically speaking, Soft Airplane is perhaps your darkest record. Any idea why that happened?
I don't really see it as dark. I'm a pretty peaceful guy when it comes down to it, but death is this constant theme that I'm working with all the time. I don't even know if I'm spending my time doing that in a good way. It seems to come out like that all the time. I guess I am focusing on it a lot. What lyrics in particular?

Well, like on "Molten Light," "I'll find you and I'll kill you," et cetera.
Oh, well that was just more like folklore, like a Cain and Abel sort of story that I just made up.

Here are VanGaalen's Canadian dates:

Oct. 1 Quebec City, QC @ Attenne-A w/Women
Oct. 2 Ottawa, ON @ Zaphod Beeblebrox w/Women
Oct. 3 Montreal, QC @ Ukrainian National Federation (Pop Montreal) w/Women and Julie Doiron
Oct. 4 Toronto, ON @ El Mocambo w/Women
Oct. 9 Vancouver, BC @ Richard's On Richards
Oct. 10 Victoria, BC @ Sugar Nightclub
Oct. 17 Edmonton, AB @ McDougall United Church
Oct. 25 Calgary, AB @ The Uptown Theatre