I first met Dave Pirner in the mid nineties.I was introduced to him by our mutual friend, my then tour manager Lew Kiner. We were between Prevosts in a parking lot at an outdoor arena somewhere in the midwest. He was something of a big shot on the alt rock scene and i remember him being a lot nicer than he needed to be. I think his girlfriend at the time Wynona Ryder was also mooching about somewhere; impossibly good looking and equally pleasant. So almost twenty years later here I am, in another parking lot, outside another shed,with the same Dave Pirner, in a conversation, during which, he agrees to do this interview.My band Spacehog performed with Soul Asylum on 2014's Summerland tour.I was struck by the bands' timelessness and down right rock'n'roll attitude so i wanted our little talk to go on record for The Village Green.
JC: So the band has been together now, on and off since 1983. You must have seen some ups and downs on the Minneapolis music scene. What are your impressions of what is going on now?
DP: Well i defer to Michael Bland (Soul Asylum, former Prince drummer and Minneapolis native) on this one. He has more of a pulse on Minneapolis than i do because he lives there.(Pirner moved to New Orleans in 2002) But he came from a completely different camp from the one I do. The Replacements era being one camp and Prince being the other. So between the two of us we always knew someone doin' somethin'. There's a hiphop situation there with artists called Doomtree and Atmosphere.

As we delve further into our conversation it is revealed that Dave has actually been in the Big Easy for the last fifteen years and has developed a burgeoning interest in American Folk Music.
JC: Can you tell me a little bit about your experiences of New Orleans?
DP: After living in New York and LA from Minneapolis, i got kinda spoiled by that culture.
But whilst touring and visiting New Orleans we would always make sure we got a day off there. I just thought this is where i need to be, because there is a living history of American music here. I found myself staying in a hotel, and then an apartment. Someone in NY told me to go over to Kingsway studios because theres a bunch of cool people over there. The first person i ran into over there was the studio manager who is now my wife. So i cut my solo record there (2002's Faces and Names) whilst we were first dating. The studio was out of commission at the time but there were a bunch of producers and engineers there trying to figure out what to do next so i showed up and said lets make a record!. I was living in Bywater, (adjacent to the French Quarter). It was a neighborhood where there were always artists, musicians and drunks walking by the house. I loved it. Of course the other side of that is its a bohemian area where there are tourists and people just walkin around baked.
Dave has more recently relocated to the Tulane University area, a move many parents would identify with as they attempt to plug in their children to the better schools in any given city.
DP: I like the multiculturalism of New Orleans, the analogy they always make is of Gumbo. I have become this kind of rock guy in a jazz town. I learned alot from the jazz musicians, I played trumpet in junior high, and guys I play with here remind me of where I would be had I continued to play trumpet. These guys are much more musically sophisticated than me and I can't keep up. But they have enough curiosity in the simple ethics of folk music that when it does work out its kinda cool, in a way that is different from players in Minneapolis.
JC: How was your experience of Summerland overall?

DP: I was pleasantly surprised and i realised that about a third of the way into it. I was a little bit on the fence when it first came up and the other guys were like lets just go for it. So i said as long as you guys are in I'm in! Now I'm glad i listened to them because this is the first time that Soul Asylum are back to where we were before the shit hit the fan: Touring around the country like it was your day job. 'Cos once Karl (Mueller, bassist and founding member who succumbed to cancer in 2005) died, things just got kinda fucked up."
As he trails off and on researching this piece you realise the band has had more than its fair share of tragedies and Dave for his part has never been shy to stand up and be counted when it comes to helping those in need, through his music. In light of this its not surprising that he took great comfort from a long run of successful shows with no fatalities.
"I was like Holy Shit! I'm still doin' it! This is great! I couldn't believe we were doin' what you need to do to put on a good rock show. It helped to have the kind of team work that Summerland had: and i didn't expect that was gonna happen. I was not happy to play for half an hour but in retrospect you are playing to the strength of value: You get four bands in 3 hours and you're gonna be home by midnight. I liked hanging out in the parking lot and that would'a really sucked if it had been with a bunch of assholes y'know?
The band including Winston Roye on bass and Justin Sharbono on guitar just played Daves' adopted hometown show at the famous Tipatinas club which he was very relieved wasn't terrible.
The new album is in the can and Dave ran into an unlikely fan when looking for an image for the front cover.
DP: The photographer let me use the photo in return for music for his wildlife documentary:
that's the kind of bartering i would like to see in the intellectual property world instead of trying to turn everything into money and go through a lawyer in New York.
To that degree i'm excited about the new record because otherwise the industry looks like a barren wasteland, nothing like it was to make a record ten or twenty years ago. Trying to figure out how important the internet is and trying to re adapt to this scenario where people are giving their records away. I mean i dont think the music industry has found its new model, i just don't. In the meantime we are all gonna keep updating our software and re buying Jimi Hendrix catalogue for our new devices. It seems to revert back to what it has always been and that is Disney. Just goin out there and scouting kids for American Idol.