SSLYBY's newest album to be released April 8

Half of the band's newest album was recorded in a closet.

By Kelsey Whipple

Published Jan. 25, 2008

Somewhere between Polyvinyl and Pitchfork, things got a little serious for the four members of Someone Still Loves You Boris Yeltsin—although you'd never know it from their frontman. If there's one thing Philip Dickey has learned in the past six months, it's to not chance an ollie over a stack of paper towels. Add to "sprained singer" six months of Red Bull and passive aggressive infighting, and you've got the makings of Pershing, the forthcoming sophomore album from Springfield, Mo.'s chief indie pop export. It's hard to know what to make of SSYLBY, but it's not hard to like them.

Case in point: Pershing follows the band's trend of honoring what Dickey calls "guys you never think about anymore," although he admits this one, a World War I general from Missouri, probably killed people—"which is never a good thing." The singer can make almost everything a laughing matter.

"(The songs on Pershing) sound like a party—but a nice party, where no one's injured, no one's trying to put roofies in your drink, no one's trying to demand all the attention—not even us," Dickey said. "The first album was kind of staying inside because it was afraid."

With Pershing's April 8 release, the foursome will be two albums into a career spent deftly navigating the void beyond the twee pop-by-numbers of their peers and the cult blog-hype all their own. It's a career they've recently become acutely aware of.

"Broom was weird, because we didn't really know we were making a CD people would actually buy," Dickey said. "If you're in a pop band, your main goal is to have people like you and to start a fan base while still being inspired, which is kind of a big conflict. The world doesn't need us to be rocks stars and look cool. It's kind of a fun dream, but it's not real."

In real life, all four members of SSYLBY work second jobs they're not planning to leave anytime soon. The same goes for their hometown, where the album was recorded not far from the Weller Street address that gave birth to Broom's lo-fi sound.

"We were going to record at (guitarist) Will (Knauer)'s house, but the neighbors called the police every time we made any kind of rock 'n' roll noise," Dickey said. "We recorded it in Will's aunt and uncle's house instead, and we went all over the house finding places that sounded cool, like closets and bathrooms. The drums on half the CD were recorded in a closet."

The tracks were laid down in typical SSYLBY fashion: low-key, quirky and slightly chaotic.

"Jonathan is kind of like the engineer—he records things," Dickey said. "The rest of us just argue. It came down to someone saying, 'F' you, this is how it goes.' It sounds funny, but in reality it hurt."

When the guys aren't arguing, researching Kurt Cobain (ask Dickey about it) or cashing in on their moniker to play in Russia like they did last July, their days are spent on "Buss," a "big, friendly" 15-passenger tour van.

"Basically, we wake up in some kind of filth, because you're either sleeping in the van or on the floor in someone's dirty laundry," Dickey said. "Then there's confusion, because you don't know how you got there. Later, you play a show until you're so tired you think you might have cancer or something."

The cure? Home.

"I've been in the band since 2000, and two things haven't changed," Dickey said. "I live in Springfield, and I play in a band. That's it."