Dismemberment Plan disappointingly lacks dysfunction

When I read the Pitchfork news brief about the breakup of the band Dismemberment Plan, set to visit Boston yesterday, I could feel some obscure blunt thought lodge itself in the deep recesses of my subconscious. Further investigation and a few nights' sleep revealed this thought to be something I've heard people say before, some sort of clich?© or adage. For the next few days, random clich?©s ran rampant through my head. On Tuesday, I found myself in Western Political Thought II thinking: Nietzsche says god is dead... no spring chicken... waste not want not... as cute as a button?

In an indescribable moment of transcendence, I finally realized which clich?© I'd been thinking of: beating a dead horse.

The idea of touring with your band while knowing exactly when you're going to breakup struck me as the ideal illustration of the aforementioned clich?©. "What's the point of being in a band that you know is going to break up?" I thought. "Why would you drag yourself back on stage, night after dull, endless night, coked to the gills and barely strumming your bass if you knew the end was imminent? And even if the dynamics between you and your band mates don't sound as if they'd been inspired by wee-morning hours of Behind the Music and Spinal Tap, even if you do it for fun and not for the drugs and the hot girls, there must be something almost unbearably bittersweet about having to go onstage and be enthusiastic about something you know is planning to implode."

Well, apparently I was wrong. And it was Travis Morrison, the lead singer of The Dismemberment Plan, who proved me wrong. I called him up on his D.C.-area-code cell phone and caught him for a couple minutes before his phone battery died. What follows is the conversation we had, in which I learned that band members can have healthy, mutual break-ups; punctuation alone can be a viable form of expression, and grown men can like ska.



Tufts Daily: How does it feel to be in a band that's breaking up?

Travis Morrison: I don't know. It's a little strange. We feel pretty good about the decision.



TD: What are the other members going to do after the break-up?

TM: I can't really speak for anyone else. I think everyone's gonna indulge in a little uncertainty. One guy is going to go to the University of Maryland. But no one's particularly worried.



TD: What are the dynamics like between you guys now?

TM: Well, the tension emerged from all of us feeling our next album would not be that great. People were getting older and losing the energy that's needed to be there day in, day out. The motivation to make another album wasn't there. But we still love playing shows.

But also, I think it'll be a great tour... Now that I'm thinking about it, we've been more awake onstage during this tour than we've been in a long time. The shows have been fantastic; we've been having a lot of fun on stage. Once there was that release _ I mean, it's the same as the release in a romantic breakup _ and if you're walking away with some modicum of respect for each other...it can be the most fun part of the relationship.



TD: So, what made you write Ice of Boston?

TM: Well, it's funny, because that [situation described in the song] never happened to me. I wrote it right after my twenty-second birthday. I had a lot of friends that moved to Boston right after college and had difficulties relating to each other, especially in the new environment. I mean, at twenty-two, people are getting out of college, starting adult lives with a fair amount of ineptitude, and... of course it falls apart.

Interestingly it's an error I never made. Whenever people hear that song and assume it was about me, I think, 'Man, people are gullible!'" I mean, I would never tell anybody if I did something like that.



TD: Your first album was titled ! What do you think about bands like !!! and the use of punctuation in general?

TM: I like !!! like them a lot; they remind me of early Red Hot Chili Peppers. I like punctuation. Actually, I was raised by two journalists, so grammar and punctuation were always very important to me. It was like my test for liking girls _ whenever I got a note from a girl with really bad punctuation, it was like what they say about kissing a smoker _ you're just disgusted. You know, girls who would end questions with a question mark and two exclamation points? Abuse of punctuation is a terrible thing.



TD: I read in Pitchfork that you like ska. How did you get into ska, and why aren't you ashamed to admit that you like it?

TM: Well, ska's like any genre. And I refuse to have shame about listening to anything; I refuse to have "guilty pleasures." Ska was really, really accessible and dynamic and public. And there was no neurosis or whining. I was really into ska in high school and early college.



TD: I've read that you like The Slackers. They're my favorite ska band.

TM: Oh, well, we're actually sort of buddies with The Slackers. They've come on tour with us a few times. I think it's a good test of the indie-rock-snob crowd to put a ska band in front of 'em, you know? Oh, and I just want to say, I love Sublime! I need to say that. They're fucking incredible. Wrong way. Amazing song.



TD: So how's the weather treating you now? Ice, cold?

TM: Yeah. This winter's been a little intense. But I have relatives in St. Paul, Minnesota, so this is nothing compared to that.



TD: You're not still angry at Boston or anything, are you?

TM: [Laughs] No, of course not.



Well, it's good to hear that Travis doesn't hold a grudge against Boston or the Bostonian ice that depressed his friends. And though the band is breaking up, hopefully they can still be friends. Especially since it's so hard to find a grammatically correct relationship these days.