Feisty Soul Asylum Thrashes Closer to Mainstream

Most bands would be honored if session-slick producer Nile Rodgers, best known for the high-tech rhythmic gloss he’s lent the likes of David Bowie and Duran Duran, just happened to drop by the studio for a visit. Soul Asylum--Minneapolis’ highly regarded and highly melodic yet highly charged thrash-pop quartet, who headline the Roxy on Thursday and play as part of a Jesse Jackson benefit at the Palace on Friday--were merely amused.

“He and his friend were laughing at our ancient recording techniques,” exclaimed guitarist Dan Murphy. “They said, ‘You guys all stand in the same room and play? This is how Elvis Presley made records.’ They were completely amazed that people still made records like this.”

“Well, how else do you do it?” interjected bassist/vocalist Karl Mueller. “I have no idea.”

Referring to Rodgers’ penchant for utilizing the latest electronic hardware, lead vocalist Dave Pirner sneered from under his ragged mop of blond hair, “Needless to say, we all didn’t go out and buy sampling devices after that.”

Even so, Soul Asylum--which also includes drummer Grant Young--is being judged within the shadow of the mainstream with its new album “Hang Time.” After nabbing a cult audience with two albums, an EP, and a cassette-only sampler on Minneapolis’ feisty Twin/Tone label, the group is now signed to A&M.;

“Hang Time,” an album of spine-rattling, guitar-whipped pop, was recorded in New York City over a six-week period, an eternity compared to their previous crash-and-burn recording style. They even got to play Ping-Pong on the table that Mick Jagger bought for the studio. But the heart of Soul Asylum remains as blissfully anarchic as ever.

On stage, they are still as likely as not to throw in brash versions of such pop mainstays as Bad Company’s “Feel Like Making Love,” Mott the Hoople’s “All The Young Dudes” or Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing.” An EP of covers, “Clam Dip and Other Delights” (a takeoff on Herb Alpert’s 1965 LP, “Whipped Cream an Other Delights”), has just been issued in Europe.

Nevertheless, in America at least, Soul Asylum is showing off a slightly more serious side. On a track such as “Ode,” from “Hang Time,” the band tells the story of a perpetual loser who wins the lottery but finds his life doesn’t change.

“The songs are much more serious than the attitude of the band,” Mueller said. “When you’re putting stuff on paper and then recording it in the studio, you have to take it seriously. We’re not just going in the studio with a couple of guitar riffs and some drum parts. These songs are really fretted over a lot.”

Soul Asylum’s true intentions get a better hearing on “Hang Time” than on 1983’s “Say What You Will” or three 1986 releases--”Made to Be Broken,” “While You Were Out” and the cassette-only “Time’s Incinerator.” Producers Lenny Kaye (Patti Smith, Suzanne Vega) and Ed Stasium (Ramones) have given the band an edge that had been blunted by their former casual studio approach.

“I think this one sounds more like the band live,” observed Mueller. “That sounds like the most basic thing to get but it’s hard. It’s the first record we’ve made that I put on now and again.

“Kaye and Stasium had the right kinds of backgrounds for us,” Mueller said. “They spent time with us even before we went into the studio. Lenny came to Minneapolis for a week and just sat in this dinky little practice room.”

“It was not a big deal for anybody,” confirmed Pirner. “(Former producer/Husker Du member) Bob Mould gave me the confidence to take control of it ourselves. If anything, he assured us that a major label will back off if you tell them to. You take control of the situation and do it the way you want to do it. They’d just as soon let you try it, at least for the first record, to see how it works.”

Still, because of the band’s cleaned-up sound and major label connections, no doubt there’s some grumbling among longtime fans that it has sold out. But Soul Asylum isn’t taking any of that talk too seriously, claiming some people never want to see their favorites mature.

“You have to laugh at anything like that,” Pirner said with a smile. “That’s like ridiculing someone for going on to college.”

Murphy summed up the situation in prime Soul Asylum fashion. “Before he invented the theory of relativity, Einstein sure was a cool dude,” he said with a straight face. “When he couldn’t do 12 times 11, he was great.”