New Pornographers on Neko & Brooklyn Show

Pitchfork: So Neko Case is also going to be coming back for that tour after playing some shows without her. How was it adjusting to her absence?

Newman: It was only in June that we started playing shows without her. For obvious reasons, the first couple shows seemed weird. We thought, “What are people going to think? Are people going to throw stuff at us? What if people only like us because Neko is in the band?” And then after a couple shows, we realized that wasn’t the case. And it helps that Kathryn [Calder] is just really good. She’s a great singer and also a great piano player, so musically she makes the band a lot better because we’ve got this extra virtuoso musician. Did you go to that Brooklyn show?

Pitchfork: Yes, I did. I thought that it came out pretty good.

Newman: That was fun. It just seemed weird that this was the biggest show that we’ve ever played, and we were playing it with this new lineup, and it made us realize that we can function as a band without Neko.
We always want to have Neko around to play with us, but I think that whole little trip was like an experiment because we had to start playing without Neko. If we were always waiting for Neko to play, then it would be another record that we didn’t support and didn’t tour. Neko knew all of this, so the whole situation works out pretty nicely.

the whole interview at Pitchfork who gave New Porn’s latest album a 9.0.

Previously
Neko Case Playing Joe’s Pub | New Album