An Interview with Scott Hefte of Seymore Saves the World on 5/29/08

By: David Rachac

Seymore Saves the World

Scott Hefte fronts the piano-rock band Seymore Saves the World, in addition to playing in a multitude of other projects. In this interview, he talks about his early music training, putting together a band to realize his musical vision, and the Triple CD Release party (with Zibra Zibra and Middlepicker) at the Varsity on Friday, May 30.

HowWasTheShow: When did you start playing music?

Scott Hefte: When I was 4 years old, my parents forced me to begin taking piano lessons at MacPhail Center for the Arts in Minneapolis. I hated it—every lesson ended in tears, mine or my teacher's. I actually had vivid dreams about destroying my parents' piano with a hatchet. However, I soon began to discover the joy of making up my own songs, or "goofing-around" on the piano, as my parents called it. My parents hated this, but when they weren't around, I would spend hours upon hours just creating nonsense songs on the piano or playing my lesson songs really fast so they sounded like rock songs. Eventually, when I was in high school, I started listening to jazz and played trombone in the high school jazz band. So I really got into playing simple jazz songs and even convinced my piano teacher to let me practice some jazz piano pieces for my lessons, which was cool.

HWTS: Did you play in a lot of bands in high school and college?

SH: I went to high school in Mound, Minnesota where a lot of cream of the crop musicians grew up: Chris Morrissey of Ben Kweller/Mason Jennings fame, Jake Hanson of Halloween, Alaska, Cowboy Curtis and 12 Rods and Nate and Neal Perbix of Cowboy Curtis. I was in a keyboard rock/fusion/jam band with Chris Morrissey and Nate Perbix, our current drummer, in high school called The Custodians. We had two very well-attended shows in our high school theater, which kind of fueled the fire for wanting to be in a rock band.

I went to college at Luther College in Decorah, IA, where I majored in trombone performance and music education. To my surprise, I began missing taking piano lessons, so I started up with some of the college professors. No jazz this time, heavy on Beethoven and Debussy, which at that time was cool with me. I got really into it, but I still spent most of my time in the practice rooms making up my own songs. I also took some classical guitar lessons there, which I faked my way through, because I never practiced for them. I was in a couple of short-lived bands my senior year playing bass. I met Shawn Neary and Michael McGregor, the previous drummer for Seymore, at this time. We played together a bit, mostly in "jamming" situations. I was a little too into jam bands during college, but it was really cool to meet Michael and Shawn and we had a lot of fun playing music and we clicked really well right away when we played.

Then I graduated from Luther and had a little bit of time in Minneapolis. This was about the time that Cowboy Curtis (now Wishbook) formed. This band had all my friends from high school in it, and I was totally jealous. So, I started writing a bunch of songs which never really came to much at the time, I played them for people, but it never really went farther than that. I then went off to graduate school in Bowling Green, OH in 2001. I kept writing songs—continuously being in college kept nice grand pianos at my
fingertips, as long as I was daring enough to sneak into practice rooms in the music building. The songs I wrote in graduate school became songs for the Seymore Saves the World project. 

I didn't have anyone to play with in Ohio, so it was mostly in idea form. I came home one summer and Jake Hanson and Nate Perbix helped me record a long-lost Seymore Saves the World song. But both these guys were busy with Cowboy Curtis, so I went back to grad school without any hopes of making the project a "real" performing band. But during my second year of college, another high school friend, Caleb Rick, who had been bumming around in Colorado skiing, picked up the guitar and basically told me I had to head back to Minneapolis to start a band with him. So I did, and this was the group Superdanger, my first legit rock band.

HWTS: So how did Seymore Saves the World come about?

SH: I played bass in Superdanger, but I still had all these pop piano songs I was sitting on, so I started slowly looking for other people to complete the group. I found that Shawn Neary and Michael McGregor were playing in a band called the Glad Version in Minneapolis, so I kind of stole them from that group. I don't think there were any hard
feelings between us and The Glad Version. The Glad Version has a great lineup currently and we've stayed pretty close as bands go. They are a great band and great guys.

We had our first gig at the 400 Bar with the Solace Brothers, who had toured extensively with Built to Spill, and it was incredible. Right away, Seymore Saves the World was just a very fun, positive band to play music with. For the first year or so, we just had fun; we did some DIY recordings and gave them out for free. We tried to play about once a month, but didn't take it very seriously. Then the guys from Royalty Etc. Records started hounding us about making a "real" record with them. We fought them quite a bit, but eventually we gave in and recorded our debut self-titled album. We got some decent press for this album and a not-so-decent Pitchfork review, but it was enough to get us excited and build some momentum for the band. So the label sent us out on our first east and west coast tours.

Michael, our former drummer, couldn't go on tour, as he is a very busy guy, so we asked Nate Perbix. Nate and I went to high school together, played in many bands together and have been great friends since as far as I can remember. Nate is an excellent, solid drummer who has been a great addition to Seymore Saves the World. Michael McGregor will always be a great friend and I have had the pleasure of playing music with him a bit lately in Shawn's new project The Wapsipinicon.

HWTS: At what point in time did you decide that you wanted/needed to write piano-trio pop music?

SH: I guess the first time I heard the first Ben Folds Five album kind of did it for me. I was in high school at the time and the album completely floored me. That's about the time I started my first band. I just had to play piano-rock; it was just so interesting with no guitar and having the bass play lead lines and all those cool spaces for harmonies. I couldn't get enough. I would spend hours writing songs trying to copy Ben Folds' style and keyboard riffs. I've gotten away from that now, but I have to say that Ben Folds really showed me how cool piano-led rock could be.

HWTS: Has there been a push for you to add a guitarist and become a more traditional four-piece?

SH: On our tours last summer, whenever we set up people who hadn't heard of us before were always like "Where's the guitar?" Then after the show, they would be like "Oh, I get it" and then they would usually compliment us on how full the sound was without the guitar. It was pretty funny how consistent this was. So, yes, there is usually a push to get a guitar player, until people see us live, then it is usually taken back.

Seymore Saves the World poster

HWTS: Talk about your new disc and how it differs from your previous one.

SH: One of the main new features of the new disc is the addition of Nate on drums. Nate is a solid, rock drummer and has turned us into a real "rock" band. Michael was a great stylistic drummer with wonderfully interesting patterns and our first album was definitely an indie-piano-rock album, if there is such a thing. Our new album is more rocking and edgier with a real confident feel. Also, we really set out to make an album of solid pop rock songs. Most of the songs on our new disc are short, sweet and to the point, whereas our last album had some stretched-out epic type pop songs. We recorded with Mike Wisti again—he has an all analog studio which is amazing to record in , and this time, we did some mastering with Bruce at Magneto.

Another difference with the new album is that it came out really quickly. We released our first album just over a year ago and wrote about half of the songs on the new album on tour last summer. The other half of the album is songs that no one has heard yet, which is exciting and scary at the same time. On our first album, we had been sitting on the songs forever and had actually released many of the songs in a variety of forms previous to the album coming out.


HWTS: Your CD release party on May 30th at the Varsity Theater will be amazing—a triple CD release show, with ZibraZibra and Middlepicker also releasing CDs the same night. How did this come about?

SH: Yeah, we are really excited about this show. The main reason that we are all doing this together is the incredible vision of our record label, Royalty Etc. Records. Seymore, Zibra Zibra and Middlepicker are all on the label and all happened to be ready to release some material at the same time. Royalty Etc. decided to make one big event out of it. I actually was lucky enough to do a lot of keyboard work on the Middlepicker release as well, so I am doubly excited for this night. Solid Gold and The Wars of 1812 are two favorite local bands of ours, so we are really excited to have them be a part of the night as well. Playing at the Varsity Theater is always amazing which will be an added bonus. We released our first album there and it was a wonderful experience.

HWTS: What are your plans for the road this summer?

SH: We are planning on doing two weeks out East in early summer. We'll return to New York City for a few shows and hit many places along the way there and back. Then later in the summer, we are heading back out to SnowGhost studios in Whitefish, MT, that recently recorded the new Stephen Malkmus album and did some work with Death Cab for Cutie. They have been doing a lot of sessions with some killer bands such as Dan Deacon and Matmos and many others. We went out there last summer and it was an honor to record in such a beautiful studio in such a beautiful area of the US. The guys at SnowGhost were some of the greatest guys ever and they really made some great recordings and videos of our music that you can check out at snowghostmusic.com.

On our way out to SnowGhost, we'll be doing a week and a half tour of the West Coast, which we are excited about. It's a great area out there to the west, HUGE area, but beautiful all the same. Nate got us a band van, so we won't have to tour in my Dad's pickup truck anymore, which was a real problem last summer. It's funny now, but at the time, it caused a lot of interband tension.

HWTS: You actually were just involved in another CD release show—SKIRT, for whom you play bass. What is it like alternating from being the focus of attention to being just one in the band?

Artist Info: Seymore Saves the World

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