Gearing up for the release of his latest full-length album, Destroyer's Dan Bejar treated fans to four solo acoustic shows across Nova Scotia and Ontario. But there was one problem: fans didn't get to hear a single note of new material.
"I couldn't picture a lot of the ones that I try and do now on an acoustic tour," Bejar tells Exclaim! "The acoustic sets lean pretty hard on old Destroyer songs, because that's when I played guitar."
This leads to a second problem. Bejar originally wasn't even certain he'd be able to perform songs from the upcoming Dan's Boogie (out March 28 via Merge Records) during a North American theatre tour in February, when he and his band acted as openers for Father John Misty. Reflecting on the recording process for the nine sonically studious tracks that comprise Destroyer's 14th LP, Bejar reveals, "I had no idea how the band was even going to play these songs."
Working alongside longtime producer and on-again-off-again New Pornographers bandmate John Collins, Bejar has once again transformed the otherworldly ideas and swirling lyrics churning about in his head into masterful recordings. "I generally don't play instruments whatsoever, but when I force myself, I sit down at a piano," he says. "The band doesn't learn the song until the record's been done for ages and it's time to get on a bus to go on tour."
That's why it's so remarkable that the album feels so cohesive and fully realized. "Maybe part of that is because I had, before I had anything, a song order," says Bejar. "And we stuck to that from the very beginning to the very end, which is the first time that's ever happened."
Bejar's Destroyer bandmates — a seasoned sextet of mostly Vancouver musicians who've been with him for more than a decade — played a major role in reviving the symphonic sound last heard on 2015's Poison Season. "I thought the bombast was behind me, but it's still there in a way that I'm not totally against," admits Bejar.
Songs like opener "The Same Thing as Nothing at All" and the title track, "Dan's Boogie," showcase Bejar's brooding lyrics and singular sing-speak delivery set against a wall of sound. Elements like Ted Bois's jazzy keyboards, Joshua Wells's thunderous drums and Collins's waxy basslines ebb and flow beneath the song's melodies. "I didn't predict that this would be as much of a band record, because the songs in their initial stage were just dry," says Bejar. "I wanted to keep things kind of spartan. I wanted it to sound aged."
While he keeps his vocals perceptibly tempered, tracks like "The Ignoramus of Love" and the first single "Bologna" (a duet with Fiver's Simone Schmidt) find Bejar slipping into new modes of delivery. "There was some kind of switch, and I got more into space and music and tone and mood," he notes. "I became more interested in just singing as opposed to delivering words. It probably had something to do with starting to listen to a lot of jazz singers."
For those seeking a narrative in lyrics like, "Didn't want to look up, but I did / The sky hid / Who knows what's out there, really? / X marks the spot, the whole thing's an X" from "The Ignoramus of Love," Bejar has news: "I definitely know I wasn't talking about Trump. There's no code to be cracked. I don't approach language that way." But the fact that he focuses on abstract language rather than a clear-cut narrative doesn't make songs like "Sun Meet Snow" ("The family curse was our signature scent / The world ran from it holding its nose") / You on cataract time?') any less provocative.
Building on the spontaneous delivery of his previous LP, Bejar freestyles the lyrics to conclude the brooding and adventurous "Hydroplaning Off the Edge of the World," which stands out as a highlight. Reflecting on the similarities between that track and 2022's "June," Bejar explains, "I did something similar on this record. It was more of a juggling act really than a straight rap, but there's some similarities."
While many of Bejar's contemporaries are busy repackaging and touring legacy albums, Bejar remains dedicated to creating some of the most exciting and genre-defying music of this generation — a vision he continues to realize with Dan's Boogie. "What I can do is make records that interest me and try and go out and play music in front of people in a way that pleases me and feels like there's some kind of conviction behind it," he says.
But one question remains unanswered: will audiences eventually be able to hear these songs in a live setting? Bejar promises, "The band's smart, they'll figure it out."
