Why Scott Kannberg No Longer Fears His Own Honesty

It's been eight years since Spiral Stairs (Scott Kannberg) dipped his toe into the music business, and a lot has been going on in the interim. "This record went through a lot of different phases," Spiral explains. "It's been quite a long time since my last record. After the Pavement tour, we moved to Australia and had a kid, and I always meant to make more music but everyday life just kind of got in the way.

"We ended up moving back to the States, and then I think that's when I started to get the itch again to write songs. So I was ready to do it again and booked some time at a studio in Seattle with the Preston School Of Industry band and then about a month before that happened my drummer died unexpectedly. So then, after we recovered from that, I kind of went in a different direction... I started taking it a lot more seriously and put a lot more effort into it than I originally intended to."

"I was worried about having a such an honest song about my kid on there … it's not very indie-rock to do that."

Kannberg recounts these stories with a matter-of-fact tone, and the songs on Doris And The Daggers share that lived-in quality. On the record, he favours quirky slice-of-life vignettes over raw emotion. "I think these songs were kind of an antidote [to the uncertainty]," he says. "When I was younger, I was afraid of my lyrics, so I would shroud them in mystery because that was more fun than just talking about mundane, everyday things. But, this time around, it was very helpful to just be honest about what was going on in my life."

There's a lack of pretense to Spiral Stairs, to the point where Kannberg has a song like The Unconditional, which is the most literal definition of the term 'dad rock'. "I was worried about having a such an honest song about my kid on there," he laughs, "it's not very indie-rock to do that, but you know, I think when you get older you're a little more transparent about that stuff. Everything can't be a mystery and hidden in lyrics. It's weird being 50 and trying to write songs like I'm 20 again... I just can't do it."

While Spiral Stairs is in the forefront of his mind for now, the affable Kannberg is happy to oblige with some good news for diehard Pavement fans. "There will be [another reunion]. I can't tell you when but everybody has said yes they will do it.

"So, hopefully in the next couple of years is what we're trying to do, it's just a matter of getting everybody's schedule's together."