one thing that I've realized both with Slater Kinney and with Portlandia like they're so singular and I to recreate that is almost impossible hello everyone and welcome to the great creators I'm guy Roz and this is where I have conversations with some of the most celebrated actors musicians and performers of our time we talk about creativity and the creative process and on the show today one of my favorite people all around people indie rock and sketch comedy Legend Carrie Brownstein so it is no
t an uncommon thing for a well-known actor to venture into the world of music or like a rock and roll star to try their hand at acting and you know often the results are well not that great that is unless you are Carrie Brownstein Carrie founded the band slitter Kinney back in the 90s in Olympia Washington she was named one of the 50 greatest guitarists of all time by Spin Magazine and she's also a songwriter and sometimes vocalist for the band she's written about music she's written about art f
or magazines and for journals she's also one of the creative forces behind one of the funniest and one of my favorite TV shows of the 2010s Portlandia so in my conversation with Carrie you will find out how Slater Kitty found the key to their sound in actually an Out Of Tune guitars you will find out about the moment of Crisis that led the band to take a year-long Hiatus and about how she got over her nerves and found her place in the writer's room at Portlandia so before we get into my intervie
w with Carrie here's what you need to know she grew up just outside of Seattle in the 1980s it was Suburban it was sort of bordering on Rural there was a feed store right across from the bookstore downtown but when she was around 10 years old in Office Park sprung up where a forest used to be in a new company called Microsoft moved in a few years later another shift happened in Kerry's own home that would similarly change everything you were 14 when your parents split up yeah and you and your si
ster went to live with your dad right yeah or we stayed with my dad actually yeah my mom moved out what did that mean I mean did did you see your mom like on weekends or regularly or or was she kind of out of the picture for a while she was still in the picture for a little while you know I it's now that I'm an adult I have so much empathy for her and for her experience and you know I can see probably the ways that being married to my father who didn't know he was gay but was gay and came out la
ter as gay like that must have been a lonely existence for her and she was you know battling a uh an eating disorder and um and depression so I have a lot of uh empathy for her but as a a child I was angry and confused you know to um to feel like she was choosing herself over us you know and it's more complicated than that but as a child you're just like I need a mom and now she's leaving so we didn't see her a lot um when she moved out she was kind of working on her herself and aiming to get be
tter so yeah it after that it was really just my dad and my sister and I and you were like as a kid kind of um like you were comfortable performing in front of other people like I right like you've talked about how you were like two plays with your sister and and just perform and did you not did you have like no uh I don't know um just like no fear of of just getting up in front of people and it's so strange because I yeah I was watching this video that my dad found that we had made for my grand
parents for his parents for their birthday one of their birthdays and you know they're videotaping us on this VHS camera and everyone's like sort of just giving this message to you know happy birthday grandma my voice is the volume of a football coach like I just feel like why am I so on right now like everyone else is just doing this normal thing and I just I enter the frame like you know I'm just like hyping up the team and I I couldn't stand it I was like I must have been just super annoying
but I think for me it was you know and I did write about this in the book just a way of it was easier I think to sort of operate in that mode in my family you know it was harder to be vulnerable and you know the The Quiet Moments and you know we're we're full of fear and uncertainty but performing just kind of Drew this boundary around all that was going on and you know I sort of understood the assignment it was like okay this is my job this is my task I'm here to perform or I'm here to entertai
n or I'm going to you know get my sister all the neighborhood kids to join me in this you know folly or the Strand ran cover band or whatever I was doing like that structure I think I really needed that because it wasn't really kind of coming from my parents and so I think it was just a way for me to kind of communicate and and survive and I it was the other moments that were a lot harder for me just kind of sitting in the in the Stillness and sitting in the kind of strangeness and just not know
ing really what was happening I think I was pretty scared um yeah but I was I would call it just spoilering on obnoxious but I think back to it but it was fun I mean it was fun I don't I shouldn't judge myself but it was it was loud yeah I mean and and I think I mean did you grow up I know you you got your first guitar when you were like 15 but did you grow up doing piano lessons or any other instruments at all yeah I took piano probably when I was eight or nine for maybe five years I really was
ready to move move on quickly from the Bartok and Beethoven to Madonna's Like a Virgin you know like I I always was world music and the Like a Virgin sheet music and you know I'm sure my piano teacher was like please let's let's work on this you know Bach and I'm like nope right can we can we do like a virgin so I really did enjoy learn it was a good foundation for just learning some basic you know music theory and it um I didn't love practicing but I loved playing you know the formality of it
was hard but I I loved it as a form of expression so when you um got your first guitar um was it was it I mean both my kids play piano and I think they started on violin um and that didn't last very long um and piano they've taken to sort of would you have to get on get on them to practice but did you like did you just connect to the guitar in a different with a guitar in a different way than you did with the piano yeah I there's a couple reasons for that now that I think about it one was the pi
ano was in you know a common area of the house there was sort of this sense that it was public and that you know people were listening to me for because I was practicing you know it was it like you're saying we got to get on the kids for to practice and I I did feel that whereas guitar it was like you take it and you bring it into your room and you're in your room yeah you're in this like private sanctum and even though it's loud just having the walls around me and and the sense of privacy which
you really need for creativity and expression and it um it also I think just aligned with the music I was listening to at the time you know it was by the time I got a guitar it was you know early early 90s I guess it was probably 1990 and the you know some of that keyboard piano music was sort of leaving the airwaves yeah yeah um and it just the guitar just has a different mode of expression you know the notes Bend so that they can conjure like sorrow they can kind of wail you know depending ho
w hard or soft you hit the strings like there was just it felt physical in a way I really needed and um also yeah I just aligned with the music I was listening to so it was different for sure what were you listening to I I remember that era so well obviously because I was alive and I just heard by the way just heard um everything counts by Depeche Mode on the on the radio and it's all synthesizers but man it's so good they were totally revolutionary and they don't get enough credit for what they
did because they were making so many they were basically an electronic music band in the 80s and they were making amazing music yeah those records still hold I think for sure they hold up all right so what so what what do you remember listening to in in around 1990 I think that's right when I got into High School and I kind of transferred friend groups at that point you know like I was I looked around and um I was like I guess I'm not you know you're just trying to figure out like Who Who Are M
y People yeah in in high school especially because it just like grades like suddenly everything counts in high school you're like I don't I don't think I can keep up with these these sort of popular kids which I definitely wasn't so I I started seeking out these groups of people who at the time were called Bat cavers and the bat cavers uh were it's I guess it was kind of a amalgamation of the the Rockers and the Goths and the punks um and so anyway we all had to hang out together because you kno
w there were yeah even though we listened to different kinds of music it was like well we're the kids that wear you know I black eyeliner and Dyer hair and you know wear cut off jean shorts and combat boots and um yeah so uh I had all these friends who listened to different styles of music I just I started this like it was just this huge tutorial for me you know and um it was like okay discovering the church and discovering Ministry and Depeche Mode but then also you know Ramones and Patty Smith
and The Clash you know I was just I just was voracious for I I just suddenly realized there was all this music that was happening at the moment but that I had also missed because of course in the 80s I was just listening to the radio yeah and you know and there were great things on the radio I mean that was the air of Michael Jackson and Madonna and there was incredible pop music but I didn't realize that at the same time there were bands like the Dead Kennedys or that you know this band called
television from New York or you know just all this music I had missed and so I I then spent you know sophomore and junior year of high school just completely immersed in the learning of of music and um and then of course there were things starting to happen in Seattle yeah mud honey Nirvana uh smaller bands like Hammer box um and fastbacks and beat happenings things out of Olympia and that's when that started for me um and I actually could listen to that sorry keep going no no go ahead yeah I m
ean the the year you graduate high school that was because never mind came out in the fall of of 91 and I mean the year you graduated in 92 like they were the big they were the biggest fan in the world they blew up Seattle was about to become like the the music capital of the world for the next few years yeah I remember that movie hype yes yeah that was such a weird yeah you know which was basically about that which just all of these like major labels like descending upon Seattle and just signin
g anybody with a pulse you know with a with a distortion pedal and a pulse they were like you're next um yeah I remember driving to school the morning that um Smells Like Teen Spirit came out and I was a senior and um the end 107.7 uh was like there this is the new song by Nirvana and of course for us they were just like a local band yeah that DJ played Smells Like Teen Spirit ad infinitum he did not stop I mean they're and this is a mainstream radio station he played it and then he played it ag
ain and then I so the whole way to school the whole soundtrack was one song and I just remember thinking oh I think the whole the weather has just changed like it really like I didn't know what was gonna happen but I was like this is unprecedented when has a song ever been played so much but it was like a shock to the system and then of course they completely blew up but I I remember um also that year a little ad in the in the rocket which was Seattle's like music paper advertising a show is Bik
ini Kill mud honey and Nirvana and of course it had been booked before the album was released so it was that like the more the more Theater which holds like you know 1500 people and that was the show that was going to be that fall and then um at the beginning of in 1992 when I started college in in Bellingham which was Western Washington University uh mud honey were playing and like that September like right at the beginning of school and then we heard like oh Nirvana's gonna do a surprise show
so I went to just a show at the basically College gymnasium where Nirvana opened for mud honey just because they were all friends wow and it was probably one of the best experiences of my life you know this was a band that globally was just taking over and here they were hanging out with their friends up in Bellingham a small town you know right on the border of Canada just playing to a bunch of college kids that of course at the time just had no idea what it would mean or you know that yeah tha
t Nirvana were about to just be the biggest band in the world and one of the most influential bands to come around but yeah they played and then but honey got on after them it was so weird it was a crazy time did you did you did you like the music that was coming out did you like um because you know obviously there'd be sound garden and obviously Pearl Jam and um um got him flanking but um yeah mud honey and um so many others I mean did you were you into that music did did it resonate with you i
t did I think that I don't know I mean I think I just was I just had that porousness that openness at the time to try anything you know that if yeah if I went to see a band you know I'd treat people which were the band that Doug Marsh was in before Built to Spill you know that you know they would play or um I remember this band called crevice from Vancouver they had like eight guitar players just eight female guitar players just a total cacophony but I just was I was willing to experience whatev
er and I would buy the seven inches and you know Seven Year or um the kits like they were just a ton of cool bands but uh yeah I mean Soundgarden it's weird because I do remember at the time even though these bands were certifiably amazing with you know amazing singers like Chris Cornell or Eddie Vedder I was still seeking out like I was like but where are the women like I still wanted you know so I was like drawn to Olympia which you know Bikini Kill and Heavens to Betsy and all these other ban
ds were kind of happening concomitant to the Seattle stuff so even though I I loved Soundgarden and Nirvana and knew they were great at the time you didn't you know you don't know that these bands are gonna disappear yeah you don't know that tragedy will befall them or that they're not going to be around forever so I'm like yeah yeah Nirvana Pearl Jam Soundgarden they're cool but what about this super obscure band called rap mobile out of Olympia so you know I just I yeah I liked it all but I I
definitely was kind of seeking out something that spoke directly to me at the time as like an 18 or 19 year old like you know Bikini Kill when I first heard their music I just thought oh I mean someone is saying out loud the things that I've been feeling for so long and that is a much more radical life-changing feeling I want to ask you about that um and getting to um to Olympia and and to Evergreen State College but before I forget like in high school you were also I think like definitely like
the last year of high school you were also kind of like a theater kid like you were like a drama nerd right you were the star of the high school play right and I mean when you say the word star we should we should you know explain that you know being a star of a high school play that the English teacher wrote you know um which when I think back I just I love the hubris of that like oh there's all of these plays we could do but I have a play Let's Workshop it you know what and uh um yes so I was
in that play and I I was the lead um but yeah I really did enjoy that and in middle school as well I I loved theater and um did drama and improv and all that stuff was really fun but when music came along it just had a more immediate sense of gratification and also it just lacked that kind of formalism that you know when you're doing a play you're still there's sort of still this like top-down hierarchy and you've got the director and you've got all this stuff which of course is great but I just
wanted to be like on my own terms on my own time as loud as possible you know that just was so appealing to me so music took over for a while one of the things I'm curious about is because you got to you you eventually went to Evergreen State College you transferred there and and you would get there at a time which you wouldn't have known at the time but but now we know it was like this kind of historic moment in in in in the history of music I mean you had I mean corn Tucker Kathleen Hannah uh
Toby Vale Becca Albi all these people you'd collaborate with they were all there Kathleen Hannah of course a Bikini Kill who started this whole Riker movement but before I ask you about that I'm curious because Our Generation right the most egregious sin you could commit was earnestness right it was like the worst thing you could be you you had to be ironic or just it was you know sort of dismissive of everything do you know what I mean it was like that was a thing especially at that time in ou
r lives do you remember that yeah for sure I mean you know if you just watch Reality by it's like to me that's such a distillation of what you're talking about that that Ethan Hawke character or the Jeannine Garofalo you know character but yeah there there was definitely there was so much rejection of things you know including yeah or Ernest earnestness was kind of anathema you know you just you really moved through the world with just kind of a a disgust and a an eye roll an eye roll yeah it wa
s just yeah it was it's strange to think about now because I feel like earnestness is so valued and authenticity is so valued right but at the time you know that just that didn't feel like something that you could really Embrace although I guess ironically like there there were sort of these rules to that though you you know you you had this sense of irony but then you really had to take seriously other things like selling out was something selling out was the worst thing that would do the worst
thing you could do the worst and and now that concept I mean barely exists if at all you know every celebrity has a Cosmetics line now yeah so that there were there were a lot of rules to follow I guess when you were at when you got to Evergreen State in 95 I'm sure there were lots of people like Nirvana sold out they've sold out right like that was a thing that people would say or like all those bands they've sold out yeah for sure and well you know it's interesting because Nirvana had a very
close ties to Olympia you know they had grown up in Aberdeen which is actually much closer to Olympia than Seattle um Kurt had you know girlfriends and friends in Olympia um you know they played at the the mods which is a housing um complex at Evergreen you know they and so I think there were there was a lot of sympathy for Nirvana I don't think I actually don't remember people calling Nirvana sellouts I think it was more of a almost a cautionary tale like everyone knew how special they were and
how special their music was and I think it was more witnessing the pain of what that could do to someone you know that yeah it was so sensitive and suddenly up against people or he had a sense that you know his audience was different from who he was and didn't understand and I think I think it yeah it operated more as just kind of a warning than um then it wasn't met with criticism but there certainly were bands that came after that you know if you sign to a major label you know then you were s
uddenly too commercial yeah and you know the goal was not to be commercial I mean I remember when Slater Kinney wanted a publicist like there was a woman Julie Butterfield who had moved from the big city of Minneapolis to Olympia and you know people that come from bigger cities are like hey you guys we could be doing this we you could actually hire someone to try to get your songs on the radio or to send your album out to a journalist and we were scared to hire a publicist because you know Riot
girl had basically done a media blackout it was like we're not going to talk to the media yeah so even just the idea of promoting yourself was selling out I mean it it's hard to explain how strict and strident those rules were how codified and how I mean this was a conversation that was was constant and and treacherous um yeah it's it was hard I lived in Washington DC in the late 90s so there's a a DC Olympia Riot girl connection because I think Kathleen Hannah spent some summers in DC and like
performed with a lot of musicians there and so that whole movement was very present and especially in like the alternative weekly magazines newspapers that I wrote for um was tell me about that I mean you get to Olympia and like Kathleen Hannah's there and bikini kills there and you're a musician and and you know what what like were you immediately drawn to to those women to be around them to be around what they were trying to build yeah I mean it's half the reason well actually no it's 99 of th
e reason I went to Olympia because when I was at Western uh Heavens to Betsy which featured Corin Tucker and Tracy Sawyer but Corinne is who I formed Slater Kinney with they came to Bellingham to perform I went up to Corin afterwards and she literally said you you should just move to Olympia and it was I was like yeah I guess I should so I you know I really was moving there yes for college but also because it just felt like that's where I would find my people and I wanted to be you know immersed
in this music scene so yeah when I got there I arrived during the summer I had about two months before school started and I just tried to go to every show which literally were happening all the time in bands would who were like a band like rancid who um were getting pretty big at the time or jawbreaker yeah Mary Lou Lord Elliott Smith they would they would play these basement shows you know so they would or you know Beck was recording an album with Calvin Johnson at the time you know people wer
e would stop in Olympia despite playing big places in Seattle or then San Francisco and they would just hang out for a few days they would play these basement shows and you know maybe record a seven inch with with Calvin at his studio and so I just had access to so much great music just in the in a basement and so yeah I I really just spent so much of my time just as a student really of of performance and Sonics you know I would look I was so up close to you know what someone's amp setting was o
r how someone played guitar it was you know I was just under the tutelage of this kind of collective force of of artistry and yeah I mean I kind of was just a puppy dog I really would just follow people around it this you know you talked about me being sort of gregarious and confident as a kid but I really this was certainly this the shyest most diffident time of my life and I I think to some extent after my mom left there was a huge dip in my confidence and self-esteem so when I entered this wo
rld I really was looking for some kind of foundation and solidity and just guidance um so I was just an observer for a long time there um and eventually started a band with Becca Albi xq17 but I I just I spent a lot of time watching and listening so there wasn't like um you wouldn't sort of go up to to people you met and say hey do you wanna like just you know play some music together you wouldn't just sort of do that you would literally you wouldn't like imagining like you wouldn't like walk ar
ound town with your guitar like waiting to find people to jam with you would just kind of observe other people well I oh sorry to interrupt you I was no I was making friends but those you know you kind of had to find people who weren't already playing music that was hard everyone all already had a band or five bands so I remember uh yeah when I met Becca who was a visual artist and conceptual artist and you know but she played music she played guitar she was from the East Coast so she was bringi
ng in all these interesting um influences like you know the throwing Muses or uh you know just things that um mission of Burma just you know everyone kind of brought in their own sort of field of expertise music-wise and so yeah I think I would never have gone up to Kathleen and said let's do you want to play music but I would you know I I found people who were sort of young and up and coming and I was less afraid to to play with them what did it mean to be like I mean was was I mean there was a
movement called Riot girl it was there was a Manifesto there was a like an ethos and an aesthetic and what did that mean to you did you did you feel like you were formally part of something did you hang out with people did did it feel like you were in that world or that scene or or was it just less specific and more abstract I think for me it was the latter but I you know Corin Tucker who at the time was in Heaven's to Betsy and then would be in Slater Kinney with me she was much more um a part
of right girl there were there was if you know there were Z fanzines and meetings and and things that you could engage in more directly um and that had happened a little bit before I arrived in Olympia so when I got there there was definitely yeah the ethos of right girl and it but it had already kind of become this thing that the the media the mainstream media had latched on to and again at the time once the mainstream media got a hold of something it was just dead to us so you know we were al
ready trying to extricate extricate ourselves from something that had sort of been been poisoned you know and also I think there was just that that sense of um just rejection of this idea that Riot girl was a music genre because really it was describing so little in terms of what the various bands sounded like you know it was hard to kind of pinpoint what is a riot girl band so people were starting to to sort of find a work around but I think it definitely informed the way that people thought ab
out politics in Olympia you know there was a a very matriarchal thread you know there were a lot of women even before Kathleen Lois mafeo and Stella Mars uh who had you know really yeah made their Mark in terms of just you know how Olympia would be structured Candace Peterson who is running K with Calvin so it was it was a very special scene so that that had already kind of that was sort of already in the water there percolating but it was it was not as much um described within the scene as Riot
girl it was just part of the politics and how we talked about things when you and coren Tucker got together to form Slater Kinney in in 1994. um I was a side project for I think for her for both of you kind of but how did you start to form the sound that you would eventually you know expressing your music because certainly I mean especially in the 90s it was so distinctive I mean the the guitar and her voice and and your harmonies and and backing vocals it was just so different how do you remem
ber like workshopping workshopping might not be the right word but just like grinding through the sound that you would put together yeah that's that's a good question because I there definitely was not a lot of forethought it was not something that we sat down and said okay this is these are influences here's our skill set you've got this voice I can sort of play guitar you know like it just it really was just the Alchemy I think uh when it started to cohere with more intention was strangely whe
n we went to Australia which is if as a listener I'm sure people are like why did you go to Australia and that is the question I can't fully answer but we you know corn was graduating and I was able to basically take like a quarter of like independent study so I went to Australia supposedly to study but really corn and I just went there and kind of more officially started Slater kidney there at that point our other bands were kind of dissipating and it was in Australia yeah that we had never so
in corin's earlier band Heaven stabezi did not have any other guitarists or bass players it was just her and a drummer so she only tuned to her voice she never had a tuner so you know I'm sure some days she was in E other days she was you know potentially was tuning down to drop D or who knows where just um so obviously when you start playing with another stringed instrument you have to tune or any other instrument if you have anybody else playing along with you you gotta figure out the tuning u
m yeah so in Australia one day we just thought well we're very Out Of Tune so let's just figure out what the tuning is by accident or this is where her guitar was on the day it was C sharp so that's you know when it has stepped downs one and a half steps down from standard e-tuning but it definitely creates already this this this dissonance this kind of murkiness and I think a little bit of mystery it's just it has a a different feel for sure and I think that was one of the first things that rea
lly created the sound of Sleater Kinney you know it it forced corin's voice into this range that was a lot higher and uh at the time we kind of yeah just cobbled together two different guitar parts but so there was that moment and then a moment in our practice space where we were I'd been writing this thing that would turn into I want to be your Joey Ramone which was a song on call the doctor and I just remembered we were facing each other in the practice space which was a storage space By the w
ay a storage space aligned with uh carpet and mattresses and for soundproofing and she started singing the chorus and I just started doing this kind of like squeal like and it was just this weird back and forth thing and I we suddenly realized like oh okay well I mean I couldn't really sing I still can't really sing I'm sort of a personality Punk singer but you know I was just trying to find my way into the song and we we just realized we had this weird dynamic that we could employ over and over
again and then we really got into that as a as a way of you know working through the songs so those are the two biggest moments was that Joey Ramone and then the c-sharp tuning when you um You released your first record um the first record called Slater Kinney it was reviewed by Robert criscoe who gave a really great review the first one the cell titled one yeah oh I didn't know that she didn't know that you didn't know that he gave it a great review maybe he did it years later I don't know I m
ean I came out years later I know he was a fan because I remember meeting him during the call to doctor tour but I didn't know that he had actually reviewed the first album so when you came back to Olympia I mean you still had another two years of college and you had this band you were now in a band that was getting some attention and people were talking about were you like all of a sudden like a campus celebrity no not at all uh no not at all really no I mean again like there was it was almost
scary to get attention there it's kind of that tall poppy syndrome where you know right so much you know you would know this from DC too like there was just always a sense that everything had to go back to the community you know back you know like yeah we were all sort of part of this movement no one was any more important or you know more I don't know crucial than anyone else yeah um so I think if anything we just kind of kept our heads down and uh yeah we didn't it didn't really seem to affect
anything in Olympia I think except to maybe make me feel a little more self-conscious and at the time coren left which you know she went to Portland which is the big city at the time and I I think part of it was just that feeling that Olympia was was small and could have that kind of deleterious effect of just not allowing one to sort of even enjoy you know these these moments where you should be sort of feeling proud or celebratory um yeah so it was it was scary I guess to have any attention o
n oneself you made three records in three years because you you made I mean basically three records while you were still in college while you were just like doing your degree yes so why would you go back yeah we recorded very good no I was gonna say I mean I think call the doctor we recorded in five days and dig me out in ten so you know it's not taking up a lot of time well but you were writing music and you were like trying to work out the song so it was it was like the recording is one thing
but putting those albums together is another thing um and so was corn coming up from Portland because she'd graduated already she had graduated yes she was coming up by the time we were doing dig me out she was living in Portland and and coming up to Olympia for us to to write um and then yeah and we were writing a little bit in Portland as well I'm curious about just the business side of this for a moment because we you know we we hear like music from artists we love and I think we make a lot o
f assumptions about what that means that there's riches and there's you know nothing to worry about um and everything's sorted out but I wonder like how did that work did you I mean you were assigned to a label and um I guess it's like a book that you get in advance and then you make the records and did you did you think that um I don't know did you feel like okay we're set like we've got a record contract like we're we're good to go like that you imagined we had a record contract because I don'
t think we ever had I don't think we ever had a formal contract with uh kill rock stars um we did have a 50 50 profit split which is rare but was more common with especially independent labels and was one of the things that created that dichotomy between Indian major you know where yeah ostensibly at the time if you were on Independent label you felt like you had a little more control and that you might make a little more money um so we basically split the expenses up front but then what it mean
t was if we started to make a profit we were getting 50 instead of just points which is you know one or two percent maybe up to five percent of the profits of course if you get points you also get in advance which is nice because you get a check and you can live for a while and use that money to you know pay the rent while you write songs so you know there's pros and cons but at the time people did buy physical albums records and CDs and so even for us you know I think dig me out when it first c
ame out it was actually sold out immediately like they didn't press enough but it did yeah sell you know it started to sell 50 60 000 records which I think it sold like almost 100 000 copies it did eventually but that you know so suddenly I was we were actually getting checks and they weren't huge but at the time for someone who had never made any money except working like crap part-time jobs it was amazing and it wasn't a lot but it was definitely surprising and it yeah it was I mean just the f
act that you could make money from recording and touring which I think is a lot harder now to do for any on any level yeah so when you graduated I mean you were I mean you guys had three records out you're in a band that was getting a lot of attention um and touring and what do you remember about that I mean you were like 23 you know 24 probably when when The Hot Rock came out which I mean that record is all those records are amazing and by the way he I have a question I'm curious about this bec
ause the hot rock for example that comes out when you're 24 right and when I go back and I read this stuff I wrote when I was 24 for the Washington City paper I'm like oh God this is horrible or I feel but at the same time like it I'm really proud of it at a certain level because I was that was I was it was what I was you know what I was doing was still at the top of my abilities at the time but I listened to Hot Rock now I'm like this is something could be released now and it's amazing when you
hear that record do you hear yourself like less evolved version of yourself or do you hear that and say that was a great album well to be honest I haven't listened to that record in a long time but I guess if I did no I am proud of that record there is something very strange and mysterious about The Hot Rock to me because it was so different that dig me out and I do remember that we purposely yeah did that despite you know me saying that there there weren't a lot of things that we planned at th
e beginning we didn't have we didn't have like a 10 A Five-Year Plan or a 10-year plan you know we didn't think about a lot of things that bands and artists just have to think about now or you know there's something always a little understated about things from the Pacific Northwest you know there weren't a lot of logos necessarily like you know we were just different than bands from LA or New York so but I will say that we did I think have enough wherewithal and we felt a lot of scrutiny after
dig me out that we just made a very different record and it was for all the ways that dig me out had this kind of like condensed like just it was so fast and just kind of real unrelenting you know hot rock just it was all the it was like two conversations at once it was as if we just took all of that energy and kind of made it like diffuse and strange and more about exploration and so I don't know quite how we did that record honestly it all the songs to me are a mystery on it like get up such a
strange song I don't know how um but yeah I don't I I do like that record I think it's really hard to play live I we never that was never a record that we could play live very well I think there's only like two songs on it that were conducive to playing live because it's just so labyrinthine um so yeah I'm I'm I'm proud of it I I don't know but I don't it's like I don't have a sense of it I it is weird to me that I was 24. when you start to get attention um for your music I mean even before you
graduated college um I mean and you write about this like there was an article in spin that talked about um a song in on on dig meow and and in that in that song you referenced a brief relationship that you and corn had and then spin wrote about it and that was like the first time anyone had ever heard of it and your dad called you I guess and was like hey what's this like tell me first of all when you start to get attention for being you know for making music and getting mainstream like attent
ion from spin rolling certain other places um what do you remember about like about your dad or your mom or like just how they reacted to that did they just were they just blown away by it were they like wait what this is incredible you just graduated college and you're like in Spin Magazine I think a for my parents particularly my dad and my grandparents were still around at the time I think they were still a little confounded by this choice you know I growing up in a in a family everyone you k
now everyone were everyone they were professionals you know and I think that my dad especially kind of kept waiting for me to sort of grow out of this kind of you know musician phase and I think at the time I was still really certain I would go to graduate school and do something else um so I can't remember what it was that really cemented for my grandparents it must have been something like you being in the USA Today you know you got it right you got it you gotta get into it you made USA Today
all right or Time Magazine I think they're amazing yeah things like that those are the things that really help Translate for your for your parents at the time you know because it was pre-internet um so you needed those like old school Publications to to give you that validation so yeah I mean everyone was supportive no one was ever no one in my family ever said like you need to quit or anything but I think they just weren't sure of the longevity of it even though they were all coming to the show
s and were excited I don't know how much they loved the music but they they were supportive it's funny I just interviewed Issa Rae a couple days ago and she said the first time her father who was a a pediatrician ever was like you know just acknowledged her work was was when she she was interviewed on NPR he's like you were on NPR I heard you on NPR like she's been on HBO for two years you know yeah no that it's very true he's like you have to be on like one of five things and then your parents
are like aha I get it it's you know what it is it's something that they have to be able to tell their friends that's what I realized like NPR is something that you know someone my daughter was on NPR yeah did you Robert Siegel talk to her talk to Carrie exactly yeah oh man yeah I when I when I started out on NPR my parents would say oh so because they didn't ever I didn't grow up listening to it we didn't grow up and they would say when are you gonna be on television um so they would ask me back
in the in the early days um so all right so this this is interesting because this isn't like 97 this article comes out you know when you talk or talks about this brief relationship that the two of you had and then like a year later your dad would come out like all of these things were happening so um first of all I mean when your dad came out to you was it like a relief like oh my God this is or or was it a shock to you were you surprised what would you remember about that it was very surprisin
g you know I think people assume that there would be clues or that you know right that we always would have you know guessed uh for one like in the in the suburbs and in like when I was in school nobody came out in you know as a kid like you just if you even knew what it meant to be queer and which a lot of people didn't I truly didn't even really understand what that was um it just wasn't talked about so that vocabulary really didn't exist uh obviously by the time my dad came out you know I had
been entrenched in a scene that where there were a lot of queer people and that was you know much more like normal and common but yeah anyway so with my dad you know he had been this very like Suburban kind of suit and tie wearing corporate lawyer um you know like I said big Duke Blue Devils fan just soccer soccer coach uh you know just as as sort of like classic art type of dad as you can get yeah and and even after he and my mom split up he had girlfriends you know and in fact he when he came
out he had I think was maybe still dating uh someone a woman um or had just broken up with her there were no clues at all nothing yeah I mean I you know looking back I can definitely see moments like there was this catalog that would arrive at the house it was a it's a men's underwear catalog called international mail and I don't know why we had it but all it was really and it was titillating for me as like an adolescent it was just like you know bare-chested men and like little like Speedos an
d stuff yeah and I I was just like gosh I mean how did this end up at the house like um and I actually don't know I don't know what my dad or whoever ordered but like that to me and then you know just just other little things that I'm like okay maybe I remember one time I said the word penis in the car like which is obviously it's it's a normal it's an it's a word it's a anatomical it's a word it's a thing it's a part it's a part and it's actually the kind it's actually the most scientific word
you could use you know it wasn't but anyway my dad got so mad at me and for saying it as if I had said you know like a swear word or something so there when I look back I can see like oh my dad must have been very unconsciously struggling with something um but yeah I wasn't people always think like oh you must have been so psyched when your dad came out I was like not really like I was just kind first of all it's strange I think or surreal when when basically someone reveals to you that they are
only now the person who they wanted to be you start to think oh well then who were you when I was a kid if you know it it really has this way of reconfiguring your own sense of history and The Narrative of your family and there's kind of almost a sadness to think like oh this person that I was growing up with wasn't themselves they weren't their fully realized you know self or able to access all the parts of them that help them feel alive or connected and yeah so there's almost like a grieving
process collectively when you're just thinking oh like okay if you weren't you then who was I and who am I now so it it really um I don't know there's kind of an existential questioning and in crisis that that kind of set into play and also you know he just was a different he did start to become a different person and ultimately in ways that were only better for you know his relationship with his friends and his relationship with his family including me but there was still I still had to sort of
let go of the version of him that I knew but also find ways of drawing a thread between the old version and the new version and I think he did too you know that he had to sort of embrace the present without fully rejecting who he used to be because to reject who he used to be also would be rejecting like the dad he was or is so it was it was complicated I think it's it's easy to just assume you know oh that's so wonderful and so freeing but I think within the context of families and interperson
al Dynamics it's a lot more complex and confusing than that and you were also 24 when you found out so you were at a different phase in your life it's it's interesting because you you alluded to something about your mom earlier and I completely relate which is as I get older I really understand my parents and how they parented much more because I do it myself you know I understand the the things that seemed um um you know harsh or or the the things that I remember that that I didn't like now mak
e much more sense and in your dad's case like you could interpret his decision to remain closeted as weirdly like an act of Love at a time when that may have maybe he was worried that it would have brought harm or disrepute or ridicule on you or something like that you know for sure and but on top of that I really think he didn't know it was so repressed it was just not a part of his his world at all you know he just he really did not have the language or anything reflecting back onto him who he
was and I think it was a scary exploration for him and obviously a fulfilling one but it was yeah so it wasn't easy for him and I do definitely have empathy for that like the fact that he early early days again of the internet you know he was in these sort of chat rooms uh first internationally you know just like chatting with you know men in Europe or Asia just and then eventually in the US and then eventually in Seattle and I just think of even what that Journey must have been like you know e
ven though you're ostensibly Anonymous as you log on to these chats but just even to explore something that must have felt so scary and forbidden for him um does seem very brave for me because he he could have I think easily just as easily continued to to deny that you know or not allow himself to even look for it and I'm glad he did and that it found him and that he found himself all right meantime you've got this like you know you're part of this this band I mean you're you're you're in this b
and that is really kind of blowing up and this is going to be and I know you you said earlier like you didn't have a plan no one really has a plan I mean I guess some people do but most of us didn't um but still it was that was like I mean you know 98 99 the hot rod comes out um you've got this band you're touring um so was it clear to you that this was like your future you were only 24 at the time but I mean I'm thinking when I was 24 I was grinding away at the Washington City paper trying to b
e a freelance reporter for NPR like but I still like I thought my future was going to be in as a reporter or something like that is that kind of how you saw your life that this band or making music was was what you were gonna do and it was just gonna become bigger and bigger and bigger yeah I mean I didn't really know how big it would get or how much bigger we wanted to get again that there was still that idea that that was antithetical to you know I don't know the ethics at the time are sort of
the the belief at the time but I did I I thought that I would continue to to play music it did start once I graduated from college and moved to Portland it did feel like music is what I would continue to do uh for the foreseeable future and did you I mean I obviously you you acted in high school and so you were interested in acting and you did a couple of like things here and there um in the early 2000s did you also was that just kind of a fun thing to explore or were you seriously try sort of
thinking maybe I'll I'll do some some acting I I would actually say that writing was the thing that felt like it was kind of encroaching or sort of like starting to approach in the on the periphery that I was like oh wait a second you know other forms of writing are are something that I want to explore and what started happening was I think people started asking me to write things about music or about slater Kinney and and that was fun for a while but then almost became it was too meta for me li
ke I just felt like well I just want to be playing music like I don't also you know simultaneously want to be explaining what it is or you know sort of put that kind of critical political hat on and you know dissect it I just want to do it and so but I I was like but I do like writing I like you know thinking about things and I also that sort of started I guess my interest in just bringing something else into my life besides music and um but yeah I always did like performing as well but I really
think it was was the writing that kind of just introduced a different world for me and I thought okay well this is similar but different from music and I can kind of write my way into performing or into a different sphere I mean you would end up writing for the believer you had a Blog for NPR music for a few years which I loved um that you and and when you started to write and put your stuff out there um did you how were you do you remember feeling ever feeling self-conscious about what you wer
e writing like oh God people are going to read this it's not good enough or were you comfortable with just putting it out there and and experimenting I mean a little of both I think I I was self-conscious I mean especially less so with the blog I mean you know that's sort of the beauty of yeah of blogs is that there's a sense of impermanence or a sense of like okay this is always a work in progress you know there's kind of a fluidity to things that sort of exist in that Medium where you can corr
ect and retract and be engaged I guess with an audience in a way that feels very alive and mutable um but when something was published in The Believer you know I I definitely had that sort of imposter syndrome of you know being you know the other writers putting out novels and all these you know I know that around 2003 was the first time you met Fred Armisen he I guess you were in New York doing a show Slater Kinney was playing a show and and what happened did he reach out and invite you to come
to like a Saturday Night Live after party or something what do you remember about that yeah I think Fred and I had we'd been in the same circles for a long time because he was part of you know he was in a indie rock band called trench mouth and I even stayed at his apartment one time when he was out of town he um but I knew Damon his roommate who is also his bandmate in trench mouth so it was like we were adjacent but not we never admit and then I think Janet Weiss the Slater Kenny drummer knew
Fred and so Maria we in got invited to he had just started on SNL he was like a featured player or whatever the The Supporting Cast is so we played a show I think at Irving Plaza and then we went to the after party after our show the SNL after party and it was uh Jennifer Garner and Beck uh were the guests that night after party yeah and after at the after party and so I met Fred and you know he was he was wearing a little pin with my face on it um these are pins that you would sell at the show
s like yeah right yeah yeah so that must have been what album it was either one beat or all hands on the bad one we had put out these little kidney pins where there was photos of each of us with a koala that we had taken in Australia and he was wearing that that pin and did you know he was a super fan no I didn't I mean I have no idea well well I mean when he was wearing the pin I guess it was I started to have a clue that he was a super fan but uh yeah he I mean to this day he still loves Slate
r Kinney uh he's he is a Super Fan about a lot of things I mean he's just you know he he carries that enthusiasm with him uh to this day about a lot of things so you meet him that night and it would it would be another eight years before he would do Portlandia which we're going to talk about in a minute but did what what happened did you guys say you know let I mean what do you remember about that conversation was there ever like any like we should do something together one day like we should re
ally do something figure something anything out I think not that night but definitely like it must have been just the next year because it was the um 2004 election and Fred had been asked to make a video it would have been for John Kerry like it would have been that would have been the election that year right 2004. yeah yeah and uh so he I don't know if specifically he wrote the carry campaign or just I don't even know what it was it was all dubious but he said I need to make this video and wou
ld you want to be in it I'll come to Portland and I just thought and it was it was it was a comedy video or was like a music it was a comedy it was a comedy video he was playing this is so Fred he was playing Saddam Hussein who um who was hiding out in his bunker but he imagined that Saddam Hussein he played him like he was like Paul Weller he was like a British rocker yeah I've seen that video it's so weird it's it's talking like uh yeah and you were interviewing him like in an Earnest way that
was so that was the video that he was asked to do for the carry campaign yeah so we I mean there's no way that if I mean first of all I I might I might have my facts wrong because I also do not imagine that the John Kerry campaign was like now this is a video we should use this is the one yeah this is the one um and so I played Cindy Overton at a host of a show called boink which is basically just like a basement you know sort of like cable access show and I got like the first bunker interview
with Saddam Hussein who then gives all these PSAs like don't do drugs and you know oh I just it was very talking about like corporations and how evil they are like all these things is so weird so weird so that's where we that was that was the first thing we did and then slowly we just started making like whenever we could whenever we sort of you know our free time aligned he would come to Portland although I think one time we I went to New York once too and we would just make these little videos
and we called them we called our Duo Thunder ant and we just put them up online sent them to our friends and eventually we sort of had you know five or six videos and they were starting to get kind of specific and we were developing this before and they had a certain sensibility and you know that was the foundation of Portlandia but did he when he started to just he say hey I'm gonna come out to Portland let's make just some video because really it was for the two it was just really just like s
cratching an itch like it was just for fun did he have like I know that because if you see them because you can find them online like the production values are very low but obviously it's Fred and you and so it's really funny like there's one sketch where like you go to a one-man show in Portland that's just you and the like he's like yeah you'll be on the on the guest list and you go to like will call and they're like no you're on the guest list and then you're the only one in the theater watch
ing him in this one man show um but but like did you have did he get like somebody he almost gotten somebody to film it like we're using a Handycam like how how do you how are you making them yeah I mean it was all very just fly by night like he would show up we would go to Goodwill and get what would you know be our costumes we would come up with an idea yeah we would ask uh one of our friends still a friend to this day um our friend Patrick he would you know take time out of his day and film u
s and then we would we would have someone edit it and it was It was kind of I just assumed when Fred first you know wanted to collaborate with me that we were going to do music but then when I when we realized that this was something that we wanted to do just for fun I really enjoyed it like it was just a way of sort of I I like friendships like that that are sort of like Project based yeah how did he know I mean if you if if somebody knew of you they would have thought of you as a musician righ
t unless they knew you in high school and you was an actor and you had done some acting a little bit but how did he know like because you would have thought when he was like because he's a musician he would have been like let's do something together let's make music like that's what you would have thought would have happened same here that's what I thought I think what happened was we made that first piece you know the boink piece or whatever you want to call it and at that time I was you know I
wasn't playing a musician but I was playing someone that was kind of hosting a music cable access show because also Saddam Hussein of course was a guitar player in uh Fred's logic of this so I think what happened was we did that and then Fred thought oh like you're you know how to do this like this is something that you know you're enjoying and that we kind of have a chemistry so I don't think I think it sort of was one step at a time where we did that thinking it would just be this fun one-off
and then we just really enjoyed it and he realized that I was sort of at the time able to keep up with him and then you know of course I learned how to keep up with him better and better over the years but yeah so I don't think when we when we did the first video that he thought okay well yours he just thought well this will be fun and then we'll see what happens from there because he he always is CL I mean he is such a collaborator he's always you know yeah working with Mark mother's bar or do
ing something with the B-52s or you know just he's just all over the place with that stuff so I think he just he has an appetite for it he has a curiosity and he just he I think he's always looking for people that aren't the most expected you know sort of interlocutors what's amazing about it is like you start making these videos in 2004 right and you would do it for like four or five years and there was no like there were no agents there was no infrastructure there was no complexity it was just
like hey it was not like it wasn't even hey let's Workshop this and one day maybe we'll make a television show it's like this is f I think right like he was like this is really fun I like you I think you're fun and interesting let's just do fun stuff and who knows what the purpose of this will be is that what it was yeah and I think for me that was probably the only way I would have understood kind of how to how to do that because it was so analogous to the organic nature of Slater Kinney you k
now that it had it grew out of friendship it grew out of a like-mindedness and same with Sunder ant and working with Fred you know it just we were friends and we enjoyed doing this thing and we weren't you know there wasn't just this ambition that well this is our end goal um and I think we were really lucky in that way that we were able to kind of like develop it out of the purview or Spotlight or Judgment of you know a producer who was trying to push it in One Direction or another I mean that'
s very rare and I I think it's happened with other people too you know you like Issa Ray for instance you know or a Broad City like a lot of things have come out of like a more organic starting place and it's it's YouTube yeah yeah and so yeah I think it's just yeah I feel fortunate but it also was familiar to me you know I think if if it had been like structured as like okay well my agent is going to reach out to you and there's this producer Network that's interested it would never happen woul
dn't have happened they would have replaced me in a second with you know one of his SNL co-stars or you know it did and which I still can't believe you know that that Lauren Michaels who was the executive producer of Portlandia never said like hey you know we're so glad that you have this friend Carrie but let's bring you know Kristen wiggin or Maya or you know I mean it was a leap of faith I think and what's amazing about that too is it gave you a chance to kind of Workshop to become a comedic
actor like you really had like on the one hand what what I find so remarkable about this period because it's like six seven years is you weren't doing it with Fred thinking I think thinking this is going to lead to a show where I'm gonna be a lead in this show with Fred it was like this is fun and I'm just stretching a different part of myself and I'm having fun and then I'm just kind of getting better at this thing exactly that it that was the only goal was the enjoyment of it collaborating wit
h a you know a director a friend of ours or an editor friend and you know getting to hang out you know a couple days of the year with with Fred and and kind of learn how to do this and it was there was no money you weren't like doing it for money there's no money it was just you're just putting it out there it was like probably didn't cost that much to make there was no money we definitely weren't making money and I was I didn't have enough money to I mean Fred it was self-funded by Fred you kno
w just yeah yeah it was it was just for fun and I think you know that that is so crucial it's so it is so rare as well you know to just have totally the luxury to do something that isn't about like how can we monetize this uh you know that that does not happen very often I think almost any time now you you have an idea you're thinking what's the next step how can we make this bigger how can we grow our audience yeah uh which is fine but I just it literally just wasn't what we were thinking of at
the time you know it wasn't about capitalizing on it which is why the ultimate result of it which was not part of the plan was amazing but what was before I I asked you at Portlandia what what I also find remarkable is that because around this time 2006 Slater Kinney goes on Hiatus indefinite Hiatus and you you were you were dealing with a lot of a lot of personal challenges like I mean and I've talked about this like depression anxiety and um just like I mean even to the point where you were y
ou were getting panic attacks like um at shows before shows after shows what was going on what do you remember about that time because I mean you guys were so acclaimed so critically acclaimed I mean you had such a devoted fan base you still do but you were really like you know on one level you'd sort of made it as this really renowned Indie band and on the other hand you were like internally just kind of a a mess so what was going on yeah I'm you know I think a lot of it was just that I had nev
er taken the time to sort of deal with my childhood with my Mom leaving with this anxiety and depression that was just so permeating and sometimes very debilitating and I think until that point this is right around when I was 30 music had been a way of working through those things you know that and and Torah was a way of of staying busy and you know I was I was kind of able to like spin these plates multiple plates at once and not really notice as much that you know there was something there was
a sadness and a tenderness and an anger that I had had not really dealt with except through music which is sure a great way of of processing that but it's not a permanent solution you know and and I think eventually that caught up with me that I just needed moments a moment to just actually explore this in a way that you know wasn't about being on stage or writing songs and you know escaping it through tour I was never someone that relied on drugs or alcohol thankfully you know I just but in in
side of me yeah I just was very very anxious and it was just getting darker and darker um and yeah I think I just I really needed a break from the band at the same time I think Corin did as well she was she had a kid and it was hard to tour and you know it came the the break was natural but it was also really difficult because suddenly I was just Thrust out into the world not really knowing who I was or what my identity was or if I wanted to continue playing music but uh yeah I started going to
therapy and taking medication for depression and anxiety and just kind of sorting things out in a way that was more intentional instead of just assuming that you know you could kind of get by with these like moments of reprieve or with distraction or avoidance yeah that definitely catches up to you and I will say because I see people with debilitating anxiety and depression and when you're around someone who's anxious that is the only energy that's allowed in that room you know you are just at t
he mercy of that kind of erratic unpredictable behavior and I you know I just I don't I it's hard for me to be around it now when other people are exhibiting that and I'm and I think it was hard for for my bandmates to be around my my anxiety Then you know it just was very very chaotic so it was good that we stopped yeah that point that you make about um about it kind of it it it it kind of takes over everything for you I mean yeah I mean similarly I I had a similar experience where you know for
several years also I was outwardly like you know successful and on CNN and as a reporter and inwardly just tormented and I couldn't totally explain it um and and I I think what um you know medication helped but also I think it's a lot with a lot of people don't know when they're going through it is that there is a for most most of the time there's a light at the end of the tunnel like it will you will get through it you know yeah for sure and I think that is a common age like they're sort of yo
u know these periods like late teens and late 20s I think is is very common for for that depression to kind of rear its its ugly head and uh yeah I've I definitely found the other side of it and it improved a lot of my my friendships and just my ability to kind of be be present with people and so that was good so you later on like if you're wondering how sad I was um that the year that that we stopped touring I was also the Oregon Humane Society volunteer of the Year award in 2006 because you go
t really into like taking care of like fostering dogs right and not fostering but I was yeah so I started volunteering at the Oregon Humane Society in Portland and I just dove headfirst into that I mean I got in there and I was like we need to start some new programs let's start the grade eight the great eight was me highlighting the dogs they ate dogs that had been there the longest and I would spend I made a whole Banner so when you walked into the to the shelter you would see this this giant
like display I had these cute pictures of the eight dogs and a little description and then on their kennel it would say hi I'm part of the Great eight and then I was also walking dogs I was um well hosting in the lobby so when people came in I would have a dog out there to greet people I started doing dog training wow and this was what was so weird was that I was still doing dog training when Portlandia started wow so I was I was the assistant dog trainer at a private facility oh my God and at O
regon Humane Society and people would come into class and be like aren't you the are you on TV like are you in a band and I'm like yes now sit down get your dog into us you know you're like I mean I of course all I can think about is Cath you know what my friends have been really making fun of me lately because I have fully cath was always as our almost any Portland character up a small part of who I am or could be right but kath is someone who has unfortunately I find myself turning more and mo
re into um it's this very stentorian uh sort of Personality um but yes Kath it was a great dog trainer great doctor all right so during that period I mean you know it wasn't like you were kind of not doing anything you were doing a bunch of different things and you were doing these these things with Fred and these videos and you were doing a lot of writing and I mean even some of the characters that you would eventually would eventually be on Portlandia or developed during this time like Tony an
d Candace I think when you and Fred were making these like informal videos that you just put up that was how you developed those the the for people who don't know I think most people listen well no the feminist bookstore owners that's that really started on Thunder and right yeah I think it was the second thing we did after that weird boink video or maybe the third thing we did like a bicycle rights thing and then we did Tony and Candace at a bookstore yeah and then they became you know characte
rs that we you know had all eight seasons of the show how did the idea for for Portlandia come about I remember I interviewed you when I used to work at NPR um when when wild Flags record came out and I I read the transcript was a little embarrassing because I'm like you've got a super group and you're like I don't know if I'd call it a super group um but uh anyway it was great album and it was a fun interview but that was right when Portlandia was starting I didn't know it yet um so how did the
idea come about like was there a point where after just a few years of making these videos one one of you guys said the other like okay I think maybe we should make a show I I will credit Fred's manager at the time who then became my manager Tim Sarkis uh he said to Fred like you guys this is a show why you know like you you've done six or seven videos you have a chemistry and a dynamic it's starting to feel specific and interesting and I what if you guys why don't you guys film almost like a a
pilot episode or just sort of you know do like a five to ten minute sort of pitch video and and we did and what happened was because Fred was under contract at SNL he was required to show it to Broadway video which is Lauren Michael's production company he assumed that Lauren would say this is great this is not for me you have my blessing go and try to take it out to someone else but instead Lauren and Andrew singer who runs the television department at Broadway video said no we we love this we
'd love to to help you out and produce it and so then we went out with Broadway video and pitched it and uh yeah I remember we pitched it to Comedy Central and they said uh we are just no one does sketch shows which of course after Portlandia came out Comedy Central and the Schumer show but um that's fine uh and then IFC at the time were just starting to move away from you know the independent film Channel showing you know Tarantino films or whatever and they were like we're gonna do original pr
ogramming it kind of just timed out you know they were and again it just it all just felt so uh familiar to me like IFC were kind of like an indie label you know this is they didn't they just no one was doing original programming there we were such an experiment it felt it felt so much like deja vu to just you know and they were great they were super supportive and you know definitely it found a home there but you know we we definitely were not signing on with some established Network it was you
know everything felt like a startup and it was a slow burn like people Everyone Knows Portlandia now but like for the first few years this was like before viral videos were really you know so it was like a couple years before you know it would really take off even though the people who saw it loved it it was acclaimed but right it was it was it was not like a massive hit right away no and I think it's it's still one of those shows and many shows occupy this space where you know the critical rec
eption was largely good it had um you know it it sort of entered the Lexicon whether it was you know put a bird on it you started you started seeing other you know article headlines put a blank on it yeah exactly there was it it sort of crept into popular culture but I think the actual numbers the amount of eyeballs on the show was relatively small you know and it wasn't until Netflix started airing it um that it it became something that more people saw I mean IFC was sort of deep on the on the
cable you know package and um yeah it was a little bit of a slow burn um before I keep going it's 11 I was meant we were meant to finish this interview 20 minutes ago but I have another probably 15 minutes but I don't wanna I wanna be respectful of your time um how are you I just have something at 11 30 so if I could finish at like 11 15 so I can have a snack or something okay yeah I'm sorry no no it's fine we totally it's it's nice it's so natural normal to talk to you plus we just vamped for 1
5 minutes at the top I'm sorry it was my I yeah okay all right I'm gonna be disciplined so you know one of the I mean one of the amazing I've watched a lot of videos of you and Fred kind of talking about your creative process and how you think about sketches but it's still remarkable to me when I watch that show just all of the intricacies involved in every like every little detail like let's just kind of break down you know like one of this like just a random sketch right um did you read it it'
s a famous one if anyone who's seen Portlandia knows those kids did you read it did you read it it's you and Fred in the cafe and you're like yeah I just read this article in the New York Times oh I read that did you and then Fred's one up so I just said this piece on the New Yorker I read that or you know did you read it and then and then it just keeps getting more and more obscure until in the end that you're just like going through the phone book did you read it yeah and then and you're rippi
ng up the phone book and it's just and then you get hit by a car you're just both flat on the ground dead um how do you how did like help me understand like The Germ of an idea into a sketch that just feels so tight and like everything from the costumes to the location to the dialogue to the music used how did how do you put all those pieces together so that's a sketch from the first season I was very green as a writer and I always credit a woman named Allison Silverman who we brought in she had
come from The Colbert Show she is a just a very experienced writer uh first in that context but now all over um a ton of comedy shows that people have seen most recently Russian doll and she you know I was very nervous in a writer's room I even though it was just me and Jonathan kreisel who was our director and co-creator and Fred and Allison I was still nervous I mean Fred knew how to pitch and you know Allison obviously had been in writer's rooms so I remember saying that you know I was like
I have this idea you know people are always one-upping each other with you know did you read this did you read that and you know and I because I didn't know how to pitch it just sort of and you know someone wrote it on the board and then I remember Allison came in like you know we came back the next day and she said I I think I really like this idea of carries and she sort of she was the one that really turned that into a sketch you know I just had the idea and she's like it it would escalate li
ke this and you know she she just was so helpful and so instructive to me early on that I'm always grateful for her so anyway so that's how it kind of went from just an idea like which is often what it is you know an observation an anecdote a phenomenon that you know we've been witnessing and then how do we turn that into something and the if there was a formula I thought think for Portlandia the most successful one was a grounded idea that becomes absurd that becomes surreal that's that's sort
of the best version of it and so that's exactly what that is you know it's it starts out with a very real conversation yeah which you know we all we find ourselves doing or we witness and then yeah it gets to something absurd and then at the end it's just Bonkers bizarre and then you know I remember that specific one it was at the end of the day we had a grueling production schedule we were sometimes shooting four sketches a day and this is a huge task for our production designer for our costume
hair and makeup for the entire crew it is it's really difficult so I remember it was like six o'clock and we we Fred and I were like let's just not do it let's not do the sketch like please like it's just everyone's tired and Jonathan our director was like no no let's let's do it and yeah we we just went into that cafe and we sort of had this is when we were doing mostly improv like very Curb Your Enthusiasm where you sort of just had a here's like the story arc and yeah and later it became a l
ittle more scripted but we sort of had these prompts we had like okay here's a list of things that you might read and you know we were drawing from our own lives and then also this very loose script but a lot of it came together in the editing you know just that um we had great editors um at the time Doug loosenhop Dan Long Gino I mean they just really wanted things to be percussive there was always a musicality to Portlandia yes especially those early Seasons you know whether it was a Fred on t
he bike you know going through town uh or did you read you know there's there's just this this Rhythm to it this percussion and that sketch really has that like you can almost it almost seems like a drum uh improvisation you know you can just feel that beat come in um anyway that's that's that so you would record you would film a scene and and basically just just go and then they would they would edit it down and and allow those moments to just kind of that did you read this did you read that bu
t then they were because I imagine to film something like that especially in your first season when you're still feeling a little nervous um you know I don't know did you have to do multiple takes of of sketches we did multiple takes we also you know we Cross covered which basically just means that instead of shooting directionally like okay we're gonna shoot this actor and then we're gonna turn around and the camera's gonna get the other actor right the problem with that with improv is that if
you're only on Fred and I say something funny or that works when we turn around the script supervisors has to say okay and then you said this thing do it again yeah so what's nice is you know you're also everything's digital now or you know some films are on film but everything's digital you can do these long takes so we would just do these long takes we're both on camera and you know then we cut and we might repeat something or we might just try a whole other thing so there was a looseness to i
t that was nice that um and we weren't limited by you know okay well this take is only going to be 30 seconds like we could there were takes sometimes not on that sketch but other sketches 20 to 30 minute takes where Fred would just run off on some tangent and I'll you know all of a sudden it's like oh we thought the sketch was about that but then now this sketches about this whole other thing that Fred just came up with I feel like so I mean I can we can talk about Portlandia for for hours and
hours because I I just think the show is so smart I mean you know Amy Mann as your cleaning lady or um or or like the the one where like you discover that your Uber driver can rate you and I remember discovering that the thing like oh my God I'm I'm rated on Uber and you weren't happy with your your rating and then you end up with a with Steve Buscemi was the driver and he takes you to a gun store and you're like yeah sure I love guns but but every moment and every sketch seemed so well thought
out like um you know one of the famous ones what about men it's a music video and you guys are like riding bikes you're like yeah there's no movement for men you know there's all these movements for other groups but what about men and and but but in the video like there's moments where you're wearing costumes of like the founders and there's a just a a split second where you're holding a birdhouse and you're like we invented this too and um there's a wrap with a bull horn and um what about Denni
s there's like just like just randomly what about Dennis and it strikes me that that you're the theme of your life and careers also really been about collaborating with smart people like just finding people that you really just there's an energy you know like whether it's Slater Kinney and you're making that music or it's Portlandia and all these people coming together to just create these tight moments and I I I just I guess that that really is like how you approach things it's it's finding oth
er people and just building something together yeah you know I think so much I do love collaborating I mean I I think you know this idea of the the lone genius I think is is a little uh strange to me I mean I think it's something that people have been kind of chipping away at and dismantling and realizing that most things most so much in our world is a is a is a group effort you know is a lot of people coming together to make something and while there might be a central figure you know it takes
a lot of people to to put things out in the world and I just like that as a way of connecting with other people you know I there are some things I do by myself like write a memoir but I really enjoy that way of communion and and just and and connection is is to get into a room and to think about things and to dissect and examine and and also just to find joy and levity in it and I yeah I it's one of my favorite things to do and I really thrive on it um so yeah I would say collaboration is probab
ly the common the common theme and um it's also just it's probably I think we when we know you were we were talking earlier about that time in my life where I was very anxious or depressed and I think that there is a vulner there are collaboration artistic collaboration was kind of the first time I was really able to be vulnerable yeah you know I spent so much of my childhood like sort of building a wall around myself to sort of protect me from a lot of sadness and hurt and so when I was doing m
usic with Slater Kinney or you know working in a writer's room on Portlandia like that's when I could be like sensitive and to show who I was and to allow people in and of course now I can luckily do that in the rest of my life but I think I really valued it as um a sounding board a way of of trying out how to be more human more compassionate you know more just open and so I returned to collaboration over and over again because I think you always find something about yourself and you also learn
that it takes sometimes it takes someone else to better your idea and that's okay you know that's that kind of cooperation is is really I think the ideal way of moving through the world we just we aren't autonomous beings we need each other and and I don't I don't mind making art from that place you know I think that's um yeah I don't I don't need to be standing alone on a on a pedestal I you know I'd rather sort of have a lot of people around me and and feel like I'm part of something and feel
like I Belong One of the very remarkable things you've managed to do and very very few people creative people get to do this or figure out how to do this is to embody completely different worlds right like you know if you're if you're an amazing musician like people think of you that way or or you know but you have this Portlandia world right and then you go on stage and I mean you're on tour now and people go to those shows and they see you as this performer guitarist musician but then um like
you can see you in a completely different context as this comedic actor and also a writer first of all had like did you have any was there any like weird sort of transition to with fans or people like wait that's you too like or did it did it just feel natural to people what do you what do you remember about how people responded to you seeing you in this role on Portlandia well for one I think I went the right way it's easier to go from musician to something on film and television than the other
way people I think less so now because you know there's people are very um just for forgiving and accepting of things and you know polymaths but again sort of that that mentality that from which I came which was a little more strident and you know it was like okay you can go from musician to actor but actor to musician no you know like it's just there's a much more skepticism you know when when people go that way so I had that but then I think there was a little bit especially Sleater Kinney it
means you know one thing that I'm so grateful for is it is a band that means a lot to people the people have a very personal connection to and almost a sense of ownership over you know and and it's it's something that they feel yeah they just feel protective of so I think a little bit there were some people that were sort of worried that as I ventured into a different context or a different world that that might you know sort of affect that sanctity I guess of of music but for me not only did i
t not but I it is just kind of exploring two sides of myself I mean I I think there is not a version of Slayer Kinney that you know sort of Revels an absurdity you know there's it's always there's something that's going to be Earnest about it and something that is very sacred to me but yeah I also think that you know the lens of absurdism is sometimes how I have to process the world and I think a lot of people you know have to make sense of the world is through the ways that it it doesn't make s
ense that it that it's surreal and strange and defies our expectations and you know so that comedic part of myself I think was important too for just you know comprehension and making sense of things but I do still get a lot of people just realizing oh you're the same person which I don't mind like okay you know I I uh it all makes sense to me but it's fine if it doesn't make sense to other people I know that you are you're like involved in directing a film and um and you were doing some writing
maybe like working on a biopic of heart I I know I don't know if all those are on but can you tell me a little bit about I mean can you imagine doing another comedic series like another television show can you imagine or is there is that even an ambition or when you think about some of the other things you want to do where does your like what does that lead you to I think one thing that I've realized both with Sleater Kinney with Portlandia like they're so singular and I to recreate that is alm
ost impossible and I just feel fortunate that I've had both you know I think it getting to do a TV show for eight seasons is unbelievable you know and and that it started out the way it did and I just met so many wonderful people like I I don't think I'll have that specific thing again I also am not someone who is trying to build an Empire needs a you know an overall deal somewhere or you know but I I like I just I'm drawn to things that where I get to work with people whom I admire and um who I
like and I would like to do another TV show eventually but I also I've been directing TV and I am supposedly maybe going to direct a movie I I like kind of being behind the camera or in the in the background a little bit I don't I don't mind that I like the rigor of it and I I like working with a team of people you know a crew so I'm not exactly sure I mean honestly I would be fine to just like live out on a farm and um you know do dog agility or something like I just as I get older I feel more
content almost returning to that place of being an observer you know being a witness just enjoying things and not feeling like I'm just you know trying for the next rung on the ladder like that's not as interesting to me as just engaging with people around me and trying to be a better person and do good things like that's that's just as important to me and and that kind of involves just being where I am outside of LA or New York so yeah I'm not sure but um I'm sure there'll be something else bu
t I wanted to have meaning to me and not just be for the sake of content I love that Carrie thank you so much thank you guy it's been a real pleasure hey thanks so much for watching my conversation with Carrie Brownstein we'll link to some of the music and comedy sketches that we talked about in the show notes just go to the great creators.com Brownstein and I highly highly encourage you to check out the two minute Portlandia sketch called did you read it it is so funny just trust me all right f
or more videos like this one please be sure to click the Subscribe button somewhere below my fingers and if you want to be notified when we drop a new video also uh please just adjust the notifications in YouTube tap that little bell icon thank you for listening thank you for watching check out all of our interviews thegreatcreators.com I'm guy Roz you've been watching the great creators and I'll see you here next time
Comments
I love words and Carrie Brownstein is one of the wordiest of wordsmithers. I never travel far from a notebook and a pen and thankfully so, as Carrie's vocabulary rivals the SAT. I am in love with her for all the best reasons, and anytime I write or say -- anathama, diffident, deleterious, interlocutor, and labyrinthine -- I will fondy think of her.
"I didn't love practicing, but I loved playing" I totally relate to that
This was an amazing interview/talk. Well thought-out questions and felt super comfortable :) Congratulations!
Portlandia is one of the greatest.
I adore her
Carrie, come to Welcome to the Batcave festival in Wrocław, Poland!! We need you here :D
Swoon 😍
It's funny that she compares herself to a football coach. It matches some of her acting in Portlandia. I've never seen acting like hers, loud and kind of aggressive, she's great
I remember that Hot Rock tour and I am pretty sure they played the hell out of those songs.
Aye!
💜💜💜💜💜
Those days are gone
Energy thing
Hype was a big thing. Like I remember those guys from Japan putting on the leather jackets and dancing. I was like: you see that? While swing dancing was the thing. Go see hype…!
Carrie needs a bigger mic. 🙂
Caravaggio I dunno…
Kid A
Carrie claims to not be a singer, but I actually prefer her voice on a lot of the SK songs. Especially "Modern Girl". She has this really retro vibe among other things in her vocal style that I love.
Is it Brownsteen or BrownSHTAAAAIN?
Oh yeah marijuana too 🙄