People cried supergroup when the Sea & Cake appeared pretty much fully formed 14 years ago.

It shouldn’t be a surprise that the word is such a damning indictment given there’s an almost universal understanding that music shouldn’t be put together by the Machiavellian forces of whoever. Music is something accidental and special. But this bunch of friends winding up in a group together a decade and a half ago was every bit as wonderfully serendipitous as any others and the fact they were in a string of bands before then is just extra.

Art school freed Sam Prekop and Archer Prewitt to mess about on stage, in Shrimp Boat and The Cocktails respectively. When Shrimp Boat imploded, Prekop and band-mate Eric Claridge invited Prewitt and John McEntire into the new group, The Sea & Cake. Somehow Prekop and Prewitt, two guys with no musical training and definitely no background in jazz, wound up critical players in Chicago’s post-rock and freeform jazz scene.

The number of bands and collaborations and creative projects they’ve embarked on since is overwhelming. It flashed through my mind, listening to Prekop’s latest solo album squeezed onto a Tokyo subway, on my way to interview the pair at their hotel. Offbeat, warmly intimate jazz pop of elegance and soft beauty, it’s a long way from the avant rock and wild jazz squeals of his Chicago contemporaries, but dig below the surface and it’s all there. We – me and half of Tokyo – file out of the train and head into a blustery afternoon.

[While the duo were in Tokyo for shows in a range of configurations (The Cocktails, Chicago Underground Duo, Sam Prekop, and Archer Prewitt), I lined up an interview with the pair for a magazine at home. But the story didn’t end up running, and the transcript’s been sitting on my laptop ever since. With the Sea and Cake in Australia this week I thought it was high time.]

Jet-lagged and stuck between a string of Tokyo interviews, Prekop was dazed and laconic, Prewitt was reserved and interested.

Prewitt: Are you from Canberra? I know a girl from Canberra, maybe you’ve met her?

No, it’s odd because Canberra’s one of those places where you do actually meet everyone.

Prewitt: She’s in Melbourne now though, I just wondered if you grew up there or something.

What’s happening with Sea & Cake?

Prekop: Nothing right now, probably in the fall we’ll start writing some songs and thinking about making another record, he says in a laconic voice.

Have you taken time off from the band to work on other projects?

Prekop: Yes, when I decided to do this latest solo record, I never planned on it taking up as much time as it actually does, ‘cause now it’s already been a year ago that we recorded it. And I’m still, like dealing with this record, this is still part of the tour for this. So that’s the time, it’s always like double what I think each project is going to be, and same with The Sea & Cake, you do a record and it seems by the time you’re done with it and finished touring it’s been two years.

Does that drain your enjoyment of the release?

Prekop: A little bit. Actually I didn’t really finish this record until I think it was October actually. We finished the basic tracks about a year ago, but then I spent the summer working on the lyrics and then mixing it. So actually it’s not as old I just made it seem. Yeah I’m prone to getting pretty restless with whatever I’ve just done and I usually like write it off immediately, like ‘oh it totally sucks, time to do something else’ y’know? (snaps his fingers twice briskly), it’s moving on! Or whatever.

Is that feeling of being ‘over it’ after an album’s release why you pursue so many different projects (comics, painting, writing, photography, as well as music)?

Prewitt: Like a restlessness? [Prewitt chimes in often with some thoughtful comment, but rarely says much unless specifically asked.]

Prekop: It has its advantages, and disadvantages, but I mean it’s a, it is a nice sort of ‘out’ for each, you know, if this doesn’t work out then I can always fall back on this other thing. I’ve never actually abandoned a project like mid-term or whatever, he laughs, ‘nup not working, gotta do something else’ but there is a certain safety in that aspect to it.
Plus it also is facilitated by this you sort of end up agreeing to all these deadlines,

Is that deliberate, do you sign up to do a record or a gallery show for a deadline to work to?

Prekop: Right, I wish I could break that sort of habit, not to be flippant about it, but now I long for [the time] when I had no opportunities and I was just waddling in this sort of expressive creativity with no direction whatsoever (laughs through his nose, both of them chuckle). No deadlines because nobody cared.

How much has that change over the past 10 years affected the way you and your Chicago contemporaries collaborate? I guess when you started you had a lot of time for each other.

Prekop: I was talking about that earlier. Like with the Sea & Cake we’ll probably end up working toward a record right away, but I was thinking it’d be nice to not do that, but [instead] act as a band, write songs, play them live, do some shows and just not be so project oriented. But we sort of have to regiment it just to get it done, but it’d be nice to write songs just because you can and not just for a certain record. I think it would make for a different kind of material and ultimately a different kind of record.

Is that what you were originally aiming to do with your solo albums? Or was it about creative control over the project?

Prekop: No, for the first record my idea was to try and do an actual solo record where it was just me doing everything but I hit a total impasse, which presented a revelation that I’m much better at getting other people to do good stuff in the name of Sam Prekop (his head rocks back as he laughs) so I decided that’s one of my better skills as a facilitator, and then I quickly panicked and put together the band that’s on the first record. That’s sort of how the Sea & Cake started as well. I was writing tunes for something (he pauses) and it wasn’t quite happening, so I enlisted other people into the project, that became a band and this became a band too.

(Sam Prekop backed by Rob Mazurek on cornet and Chad Taylor on drums)

Why put out a release under your name when there’s a band involved?

Prekop: I just couldn’t come up with a band name, sorry! But I was like, I could call it a band, but if I just put my name on it it’s sort of easier to figure out. It is different, because it’s definitely a band through the bulk of it, but after we did the basic tracks, I was the one that dealt with making sweeping edits and mixing and making the broader decisions. You know, there was a drum part on Dot Eye, Chad was playing drums on the beginning and I just cut him off, took him off the tune. I didn’t call him up and say is this OK? Whereas that would not have happened on the Sea & Cake, it would have all been conferred and decided, I would have still got my way probably (laughs).

Archer, is it true you’re often disappointed in the results when Sam adds his songs to Sea & Cake recordings? (When recording, The Sea & Cake lay down instrumental songs in the studio, then Prekop takes them away and adds his vocals over the top.) I’ve noticed that when the vocals aren’t there it really changes the feel/mood of the music, from pretty dark at times to a real light contented kind of feel.

Prewitt: I just find it interesting that that’s the way that Sam likes to work and I think that in a lot of ways it’s really refreshing, because after all the work is finished with creating music that would be essentially background music for the voice to work over, to interplay with, we get to hear this whole new way of listening to the song through Sam’s ideas of phrasing and vocal melodies and things like that, so it’s interesting that it’s after the fact of creating basic track, something that’s sort of a fascinating way of approaching, when I write songs I sort of integrate vocal melody or lyrics at the outset before presenting it to the group so it’s pretty interesting. It’s not that I don’t like it, just something to get used to.

Bossa nova plays a part in your music; especially in Sam’s vocals where you get the lightness of Tropicalia. How important was it early on?

Prekop: I think I was working along similar lines before I was fully aware of all of that Brazilian material, basically when we discovered it it was sort of this weird confirmation, it certainly illuminated certain things that I felt like I was doing already by accident. That I could hear in the real stuff, sort of set a different light on it, but I never it’s not something I consciously went for. I really got into that music and it sort of seeped in properly, I was steeped in Brazilian music for a couple of years.

I’m a fan and that’s sort of my take on it, I don’t claim to have any real expertise with Brazilian music, but it’s certainly had an effect. With this record, I’ve tried to sort of not steer totally clear of, but just be aware that it’s something that I’ve already done a little bit and I don’t want to just keep reviewing that sort of strategy.

Sam, where did it all begin for you, with music?

Prekop: I started (picks up Shrimp Boat CD) in this band. I mean playing/musical experience or whatever I just had no innate musical ability, it came up in an art school environment so even though I didn’t know how to play anything we were just sort of egged on and encouraged despite ourselves and that’s what sort of set me up.

Was that the first time you picked up an instrument?

Prekop: Yeah.

And what was that?

Prekop: A guitar.

When did you start singing?

Prekop: At the same time.

That sounds so intimidating, playing an instrument is one thing, but putting your words out there seems pretty brave.

Prekop: When we started, we didn’t play in public for quite a while. I mean we were hardly accomplished when we played our first shows. What helped I think was Ian [Schneller] was actually pretty good at playing guitar, so we could hide behind him a little bit and the mixture was quite exciting, I mean I was just blown away that we were doing this stuff and it sounded like music. I had always been into music, of course, I just had never played it. And the people that would come to see us were prone to being open to whatever’s going on. At the time in Chicago there was a lot of performance art stuff happening and just very open-ended attitude towards going to see people. And then that small crowd grew a bit and that encouraged us to keep at it. Still hasn’t stopped.

Archer, did you find it difficult when you first arrived in Chicago?

A: In a lot of ways it was similar to the music environment in Kansas City, I think there was just more, people with more skill and maybe a little more breadth of knowledge. More music passing through town, more to see and be inspired by.

Sam and I started learning guitar at 21, so we kind of got into it late and I think that’s why we sort of operate in similar ways as far as the self-taught vocabulary and the chord choices, we both went to art school, so somehow it just aligned in a nice way when we started working together in the Sea and Cake’s early days. Sam, like he said, used to work with Ian Schneller, who’s a pretty accomplished guitarist and then switching to work with me and I keep things pretty minimal and do a totally different type thing. In that way, the very early beginnings of that band gelled in a very interesting way, like right off the bat it felt like something exciting was happening.

On record too, right from the start it was a very distinct sound.

Prewitt: Right, it was also fortuitous that John [McEntire] was working at the studio at the time and when things weren’t quite happening drum-wise, he stepped in and that’s when it felt like the whole, in a very short amount of time the whole thing made sense.

Sam, I’m interested in your writing technique. I’ve heard that you set out ideas and material into ‘lyric situations’ and then just let it out.

Prekop: I’ve always felt loose and reckless with words. I’ve never felt tied down by them, they don’t have to make too much sense. I’ve always taken the same attitude, I mean my style has been refined over the years, but I use similar techniques that I always have. I don’t always have stuff written down when I’m beginning, often I’ll just start singing, whatever, and in a recordable situation. So I’ll be singing along with these basic tracks that we have and then listen back to whatever gibberish I’ve been singing, going out and then coming back and I’ll hear certain couplets, write those down and add to that and try to sort of link things together and develop a theme, at least an impressionistic theme.

It’s very evocative, with the muted style and phrasing, specific words seem to be invested with more meaning, despite the difficulty discerning an objective meaning for the overall stream of words.

Prewitt: I think the phrasing adds a lot to the meaning, or the melody of it. When I used to go see Shrimp Boat, it seemed to me to be the first pop skat singing. Essentially he was just, I thought it was pretty brave of him to get in front of a bunch of people and basically sing whatever came into his head and even if that meant nonsense words or sounds.

Prekop: Yeah, at that point I was full on improvising live.

Prewitt: But every now and then, even if the song had been recorded and had sort of established things going on, it was pretty exciting that the lyrics could change at any time. Especially now that Sam and I have been doing these duo shows where you can really hear the vocals and when he walks the plank lyrically and just goes off on a tangent it’s pretty exciting stuff.

Prekop: There’s this one Sea & Cake song, which we do now fairly well as a duet, and there’s this long end part, where I have certain lines that I’ll definitely use in this end but I go at it as if I’m messing with the melody quite a bit and it’s pretty much different every night.

Prewitt: It’s kind of like a guitar solo. To me it’s nice that there are similarities each night, but there’s also stepping off into space, see where he goes with it is pretty fun stuff.

How difficult is it working with different people, what challenges do you find in collaboration with so many different people?

Prekop: What’s weird for me is I’m often thought of as playing with a bunch of different people all the time, which is not actually the case. It’s basically the Sea & Cake and this group. And the thing with me is that whoever is playing with me it sort of has to be on my terms a little bit because it’s all I know how to do. I can only play this way or sing this way. I don’t think Chad and Joshua would have played like this before this, so I’m flattered.

It was interesting to hear your piece with Scott Herron on the Prefuse 73 album, it was quite different from any of your previous stuff, your voice straining against his cut-up beats.

Prekop: Yeah. That was a little weird because what he gave me to work with didn’t really have anything to do with the final track so I barely remember what it actually sounded like, so when I did finally hear it sounded like something else entirely. So we didn’t really collaborate on every step, which made it sort of interesting, he was using me more as raw material, but a lot of my melodies were somewhat intact. And then he augmented it, accented it, edited. The music all around it, I didn’t hear any of that when I was coming up with it. What he gave me was a beat with some piano chords.

Do you not like being out of control like that?

Prekop: Not at all.

You were saying before that you always add your vocals to Sea & Cake at the end.

Prekop: Well if I thought that it really didn’t work then I might have a different attitude.

Are you interested in following up those kind of collaborations?

Prekop: Since that I’ve had other like ‘hip hop’ dudes call me up, I don’t know, I’ve sort of always blown them off. I got an email from umm Goldie the other day.

Prewitt: For real?? (laughs) that’s hot.

I was listening to One Bedroom on the way over here, to me that sounds like a broken beat track, except with lower drums. With a lot of that stuff the vocals never quite work that well, it seems as though yours intuitively does that.

Prekop: umm. I would be up for something.

Archer, could you tell me what the idea is with the Cocktails dolls?

Prewitt: The first thing we did was a cloth doll and it was kind of an extension of what I was doing with my own art, which was, there was a show I did right before the cocktails made cloth dolls where I made a huge pegboard piece with like hundreds of cloth dolls for $5 a piece within a fine art context. They all sold out, people thought it was really funny and it sort of lightened the mood of the gallery situation, which is kind of what I wanted to do. That’s what I like about printed books and comic books and things like that is that it’s portable and it’s art if you want it to be. we just thought that would be fun to continue, to put that idea towards the band and just sorta heighten the live show experience. And take it to a comedic fun level, while still commenting on consumerism and I think at the time there was some boy groups that were having dolls made of themselves. We were just like that ‘oh my god, we gotta do dolls’

I quite like that aspect, I was reading you studied bookmaking/printmaking and it came out an interest in art that’s more accessible.

A: There was a number of us in a group that were printmakers and we all liked the idea of demystifying the art of it and just sort of having it be kinda crude and accessible and fun. So it was something we could silkscreen and do ourselves, at some point one of our housemates had a letter press print, so we stepped it up a bit and made it look a little nicer. So we’d come up with an idea, laugh about it, shake on it and make it happen.

Looking at some of your visual artwork, it has a similarly hazy feel to your songs. There’s a bit of detail, a bit of landscape, but it’s quite abstracted as well.

S: Say the same for the music in that it’s always one element counterbalancing another element that might, it’s always this interleaving of delicate contradictions one after the other, which I always like.

What was it like getting the Cocktails back together?

A: it was actually pretty enjoyable. Because I’ve always been friends with them and it ended amicably so as far as the music goes it was fun to just reinvestigate it and see it 10 years on and it sort of held up pretty nicely, and plus I just love playing drums, so for me it’s a real pleasure to play drums again. A little out of practice but I do enjoy playing drums. It’s fun to be around them in a musical complex, when we were going to do this Japanese tour we recorded some music for it, an EP for these shows, and that was really enjoyable, even though I didn’t get to be around for the whole process, I definitely wasn’t around for the mixing of it, so I haven’t even heard the final thing. It was just fun to know that it’s open-ended and it’s not really a band, but we can interact and it’s been pleasant.

How were the shows received?

A: really well, people yelling ‘we missed you’ and applause, made us feel really good about it. Especially in Chicago, just really friendly crowds and we did this one show where we opened for The Pixies and we thought their crowd would hate us, but there was a lot of old Coctails fans.

I imagine there’d be a lot of overlap.

A: yeah it was nice. We thought noone would even see our opening act. but there were all these people crowded into the front.

I can imagine that, because it was always a fun band, the music is infectious.

A: that’s what I find, because I tend to write music that’s more melancholy in feel. Even in the Cocktails I was the one to write the more dark tunes. just sitting on the drums and a lot of the time the songs are so dopey, I just crack a smile, because it’s sorta hilarious that some of these little melodies are so quirky and odd that I just start laughing. But really it’s an extension of all our humour. While I do find they’re pretty goofy songs, there’s a depth to the humour that I think we all share.

Are you a fan of The Pixies, what were they like?

A: I do like their music, I didn’t get to meet them they didn’t come back to say hello.

Your solo releases have been quite different to the Sea & Cake and the Cocktails, it’s more of a folky feel especially the latest one that gets into Cat Stevens territory and Jackson Browne.

A: well I think a lot of it has to do with just the acoustic guitar being in the mix more now than in the past, I think a lot of people draw those comparisons. While I do like Cat Stevens and I don’t like Jackson Browne, I don’t really listen to them as much as I would other records say from a similar time period. For me, the choice to use acoustic guitar was when I was listening back to my other records I noticed that the electric guitar occupied a lot of space in the mix, so I decided acoustic sits better and kind of it’s prickly and rhythmic and then the music comes up under the bass and the drums in a nice way where it hints at the changing chords without it sorta hammering you over the head the whole time. so it was more of a sonic choice, I wasn’t necessarily trying to make a folky sounding record.

A lot of your guitar playing in the past used a lot of effects.

A: I like that too, trying to come up with something that would excite my ears and augment the song in a nice way, but not overtake it. I like to work in an ensemble way rather than, I’m not really a soloist.

That gelled with a lot of the electronic stuff that was bubbling below on Sea & Cake tracks.

A: yeah, I mean as far as keyboards and things like that it’s sort of nice if whoever comes up with an idea that seems right, that part that gets used, it’s not like one person plays the keyboard part in the band, so that’s a nice point of musical collaboration. It could be John who comes with something, or Eric, Sam or I, so it’s just sort of whoever comes up with the melody that seems to lift the song up a little bit and change it up.

What made you start writing comics?

A: I just always liked them and I think after art school was up I kind of gravitated back towards baser arts and I’d done so much printmaking that had a cartoony look to it, I think it was just naturally coming back to something, leaving the gallery scene and thinking more about books and serial imagery and when I settled on doing Sofboy I was coming to grips with life in the big city, coming from a small town, and sort of addressing some of those urban tensions I was feeling in a humorous way, it helped me laugh at things that were getting me down.

It’s pretty different from other comics – it’s very grainy and real.

A: I must say the first issue is kind of in response to a lot of what seemed to be happening in comics at the time, it was becoming very sorta arty and heavy and I want to poke a little hole in that and throw a real slapstick thing into the works. A lot of the comic books I was into as a kid made me laugh and I wanted to do something that’s funny. So I did this little tiny book, I wanted it to be really garish colours and just dopey and funny and about visual humour. Initially it was a response to the raw art and the coffee table books that were coming out at the time.

Where did the characters come from?

A: just sketching, without a lot of thought about it, just seemed like something that was funny to me and I never really wanted to investigate what he’s made of or why he exists, I just sort of presented it as something that is a reality in this cartoon world. There’s no Origin of Sofboy issue in the works or anything.

It can be funny, but there are edgy elements as well?

A: I’d say, yeah. I’ve had people write me specific letters that Sofboy is very disturbing for them and they cry when they read it, I’m fascinated that someone could sort of get that out of it, because I think primarily I’m going for humour. I know that there’s a lot of melancholy and sort of edgy qualities to it, just below the surface, you know it can be a really quick read or you can slow down until it’s decipher some things.

I think you both, with your lyrics, don’t tend to say anything too overt, the meaning is often in the turn of phrase or snatch of lyrics.

A: I feel uncomfortable telling a story or following a thread of thought throughout the song. For me it’s like, the way I’ll write a song is sort of an amalgam of chords and sections. And so accordingly I like to develop little (tape ends) … nothing too specific, so I try to just allude to things. I’m not trying to keep it universal, I’m just trying to impart something without being too overt.

You do get some feelings.

A: yeah, this is the most uncomfortable record for me to write, lyrically.

It was for your father, right?

A: he sort of comes in and out of the record as far as what I’m touching on. There’s a number of older songs on the record that I never seemed to get lyrics for, so I kind of put them to the back and for some reason I started to approach them again with ideas that I think stemmed from his death. It started having this cohesive feel lyrically.

Was that because it was engrossing your thoughts at the time?

A: yeah I was just thinking a lot about family and a lot about our lack of interaction and yet we did have, there was a real depth to how we communicated with each other and there’s a lot of similarities with our personalities, so I was just thinking a lot about life at the time. it’s a pretty intense period, my wife would go away to work and I’d just sit with a guitar and you know it was the only time I really sorta dealt with those emotions, so it was good to delve into that. But again it was the most uncomfortable record to make.

Do you find it tough performing those?

A: yeah. Sometimes. More in a solo situation than when I’m with the band, ‘cause I tend to hide behind their sounds and then I don’t really concentrate on what I’m singing as much, but there’re points where the band comes together and it’s like this crescendo and it’s a little overwhelming sometimes. (looks at Sam and asks) Do you want to pick up where that left off?

S: Nah, I’m just trying to stay awake.

Is there much emotional content in your songs Sam?

A: I think this new record is very emotional.

S: (looks up bleary eyed) I’m tired now, but I’m too, too hyper. I usually don’t work from specifically emotional content. I’m trying to be as expressive as possible and that can be emotional but it’s really the actual content.

It’s not so much a narrative?

S: No.

A: I sense there are narratives within the songs sometimes.

S: yeah, I mean, I think I’d have to listen back to ‘em,

A: I’d have to try and piece something together. The lyrics continuously evolve as I sing em live whatever meaning I thought wasn’t there crop up later on, certain things will start to resonate that I could not have recognised at the point when I actually wrote it. I think those things happening are important to writing good songs. That’s how I want to do it, I don’t want to know everything, cause I don’t know what a lot of the lyrics are literally getting at, through time different interpretations present themselves.

It’s difficult to pick up explicit meanings, but you definitely get a mood.

A: I mean I appreciate the singer/songwriter tradition and well-crafted songs that are lyrically cohesive, but I also like a more poetic, impressionistic where there’s more possibilities for myself and I think Sam definitely writes in an open-ended poetic way. (lots of laughs, and jetlagged kind of exhausted smiles)

Any plans to head to Australia?

S: I would love to, there’s just never enough money so it’s always trying to do it in concert with coming to Japan. I went once about five years ago, it was great.

A: I’ve played there a lot.

S: I played totally solo, which I’m not sure who was trying to get me to come this time, I can’t remember, there was some label…

Aaron at Spunk?

S: yeah, and he was trying to get me to come totally solo and I’m like ‘maaan, that’s no good, I don’t like it, nobody else’ll like it’

A: that’s not true

S: but I like doing the ‘dowhat?’ thing, so it would probably be like the two of us and we have this show with two of us playing guitars and that’s great. I think it’s on par with the full band, it’s totally different, but me totally solo… It’s not great..

What sort of work are you putting together for the show in September?

S: It’s painting. The theme of the show, it’s a landscape show, a group show in this museum and we each get our own biggish room and I’ll have about 10 paintings. In davenport island(?)

You were saying you might do some recording after that?

S: the other thing I’m doing is a book of paintings, so that’s taking a lot of my time, or will be. and also archer and I are doing another short tour of Europe and Spain.

The Sea and Cake have a new album, Everybody, and an Australian tour this month, and if you can make it I’d suggest you do.