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This Issue 10/26/2006

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If there is a white picket fence along the rock-star trajectory, Chris Funk has likely found it. The Decemberists' jack-of-all-instruments (guitarists first and foremost; banjo, mandolin, bouzouki, pedal steel, glockenspiel, and hammered dulcimer follow suit) has a few weeks to spend with his family in Portland, Oregon before casting off on full tours of the U.S. and Europe. His group's fifth album, The Crane Wife, has coveted celebratory reviews since its October 3 release, and defied the myth that going corporate is the ultimate indie death-sentence. (The Crane Wife marks the group's first release on Capital Records, formerly releasing on the independent Kill Rock Stars label.) Funk recently caught up with Street over the phone as he and his four-month-old daughter were out enjoying the changing leaves in the City of Roses.

Street: A lot of fans believe that when a band makes the switch from an independent record label to a corporate label that there is pressure on the band to have to compromise their image or style to the market, that the band may become 'less real.' Did you find that to be the case when you guys went to Capital? Were there those sorts of pressures or not?

Chris Funk: No, it's been the same. We've never put ourselves in situations where we have to have 'pressures' upon us really, that's not the kind of band we are. We've never tried to be a pop band, and when you hear bands dealing with that kind of stuff it's usually because people put themselves into that sort of position. They try to become this huge pop sensation, all of these people have expectations of them, they're not living up to them and all of a sudden you've got a fiasco. So we're always realistic with who we've become as a band, and Capital knows who we are as a band. It's been great so far, they're a great label.

Street: Has your life gotten any more glamorous now that you're on a major label?

CF: [Laughs] No, it's the exact same. I mean, I've done other interviews where people are like 'Oh I see you all own your own houses now, blah blah blah,' and I'll be like 'Actually, we all bought our houses when we were on Kill Rock Stars.' It's not any more glamorous at all, again, we're not that kind of band. We don't live in Los Angeles and hobnob with the flavor of the week. We live in Portland, two of us have kids now [lead singer/songwriter Colin Meloy has a seven-month-old son, Hank], we just make music, hang out with our kids, see our friends. No one's buying anything unusual, and so on and so forth. We're more the type that tries to plan for the future; hopefully we'll never have to work again when it's all said and done.

Street: You have other work outside of the Decemberists, correct? A side project called Knock Knock looking to make an album next year?