Pseudosix has gone from a trio on Days of Delay to a six-piece on the most recent album. How has the increased number of musicians helped or hindered your songwriting?
It really lends itself to new doors as far as songwriting goes. When more people are brought in, there's more to work with and more options made available. I always want to create these crazy vocal chants and rounds and harmonies and now there are actually enough people to do it and do it well. Plus, they're all great musicians with great ideas. So it gives me more time to concentrate on the overall song structure and count on them to give it the grease. I'm the protein in the trail mix. They're the candy part.

Just for background, what was the exact band lineup for Pseudosix? I've got both Emil Amos and Dan Wilson jotted down as guitarists, but Amos was only on Days of Delay, no?
On the album the exact band lineup is: me (guitar, vocals), Emil Amos (guitar, vocals), Brandon Barnhill (bass), Jake Morris (drums) and Kate O'Brien (strings). But Emil is no longer in the band. So the current lineup is Dan Wilson on guitar (also of joggers fame) and Jay Clarke on keys (The Standard, Dolorien) and everything else is the same. The current setup is the most fun I've ever had playing music. I feel like our live shows are a lot more powerful and exciting.

Is Pseudosix still more or less an ad hoc collective, or has it morphed into a band with full-time members?
A little bit of both. We kind of swap in and out depending on the situation. That's the cool thing about having such a dynamic setup. If we're missing one instrument, one or more of us just pick up the slack. It makes things interesting. Plus, it keeps the music in the moment.

Why the move from 54º 40' or Fight! to Sonic Boom? Has the label transition gone smoothly? On the strength of your two albums have you had interest from any majors (say, joining fellow Portlanders The Decemberists on Capitol), and is it something you'd even consider?
54º 40' or Fight! was good to us. Steve Brydges is a dedicated man. But we wanted something a little more local. Closer. And it's worked out well. Sonic Boom is a hard-working label and has gone above and beyond in their support for us. As far as any interest from major labels? Not really an option right now. Labels like Capitol don't give two shits about anything but moving units. And we would have to do a lot more of that before we even begin to show up on their radars. Until then, we're perfectly happy where we're at.

You say you wanted "something a little more local" when it came to labels. Why was that important to you?
When things are on such "hand shaking" terms between a band and a label, it makes sense to me that the two should actually shake hands … often. And maybe laugh. Drink a beer together. Hug? It should be a more intimate thing. Also, I felt that a label that is working with us should have a good understanding of the locality in which they are dealing. They should have firsthand experience with the clubs and bars and record stores in the area. Stuff like that. I think decisions should be based on a mutual awareness of what's going on.

How much were Jay Pellici and Jeff Saltzman responsible for the more lush sound on this disc?
I think the album turned out more "lush" than I had planned. I wanted a recording that would resemble some of my favorite seventies albums (Neil Young, Lou Reed, David Bowie, Bill Whithers, etc). Mostly, I was interested in a very dry drum sound. I had heard a lot of Pellici's work and knew him personally through 31knots here in town. So I suckered him in. He's amazing, and a great engineer to work with. I think Saltzman is the man responsible for the lushness. And I really like his work as well. But I think overall the album ended up sounding a little too glossy for my liking. Next time, I want to rough it up a bit.

You want to "rough [the sound] up a bit" on the next record? Does that make it more authentic somehow?
What I meant by that was, I think I'd like to record in a fashion that lends itself more to the raw and clunky sound that we tend to create naturally. That's what we are. In the process of trying to capture that dry seventies sound on Pseudosix, I think things ended up a little more polished then anticipated. It's a fine line. And it's hard to tell when you're in the thick of it. But it's not a big deal to us. We're proud of the end result. But there's a lot more room for improvement.

It seems like you pored over the sequencing of Pseudosix for a long time, fitting the songs together like puzzle pieces. Did you give it much thought? And, since first impressions are so crucial to up-and-coming bands like yours, were you wary of starting off the record with a ballad?
Actually, most of the sequencing was a no-brainer for us. We tend to think in terms of transition and connectivity. We try and make our sets really seamless too. So the order of songs was something we'd already been through in our minds before the album was finished being mixed. As far as starting the album off with a ballad, I didn't give it a second thought. It's funny, I've been asked about that a lot. I think what a lot of people don't understand is that our decisions regarding the order of songs had nothing to do with which songs we thought were the strongest or the most likely to be well received. It was more about the album as a progression. "Some Sort of Revelation" sets a thematic tone both lyrically and musically. And then it spirals into this crescendo that throws you into the rest of the album. It had to be the first song.

The album has all the hallmarks of a post-breakup catharsis. Is there any truth to that observation, or do you just find a rich vein to mine in the mood that characterizes a lot of post-breakup releases?
Honestly, the only song on that album that has anything to do with a girl is "Paltry Remains." And even then it hints at something that I think is bigger: the inability to give something up or let it go even long after it becomes a dead horse. And this doesn't just apply to bad things, but good things too. Like ideas and aspirations and outdated revelations that worked out so well at one point, that we never stop to ask ourselves if they still work in the present moment. I tried to touch upon this in "A Million Shards." I guess I was thinking mainly of art and music when I wrote it. How sometimes the individual can become trapped by the very ideas that once liberated them, because they haven't allowed themselves to move beyond that point.

I say "post-breakup," but then I start picking apart the lyrics to "Apathy and Excess." A politically-minded song, by any chance?
" Apathy and Excess" is a very political song. It's about valuing the concept of "progress" at the expense of other people, ideas, and the world around them. "Enclave" is also a very political song. Although it was written partly tongue in cheek. Portland is, in many ways, its own little bubble in which a certain set of core values are shared by most. But once you travel a couple minutes outside of town, a whole new set of bumper stickers start showing up. Yet, as I watch the country I love continue to head in a very unfortunate direction (despite my own personal efforts) I find myself sometimes just wanting to embrace this bubble along with other like-minded people and tell the rest of the world to fuck off. Yes, it's a knee-jerk approach. And no, it doesn't solve any problems. But when you're feeling helpless, it makes a lot of sense.

Portland has been a musical powerhouse for a long time now, turning out a number of extremely talented bands and solo artists that seems disproportionate to its population. Why do you think Portland's musical culture is so strong, and where does Pseudosix fit into all of it?
Well first off, the quantity of bands in this town is very disproportionate to its population. And for that reason, it's a tough city to make a name in. I think that people living outside of Portland have a tendency to glamorize the town. Especially the media. But a lot of these bands that people talk about (The Shins, Spoon, Malkmus, etc) were already established long before they moved out here. On the other hand, I think a lot of artists and musicians love this place because rent is (or was) relatively low. In bigger cities, one has to work all the time just to pay the bills. Here, people have enough time to cultivate their art (and go to tons of strip clubs).

I noticed Pseudosix has got an upcoming tour scheduled with David Kilgour. Is that just a pairing planned by promoters, or do you count The Clean as a musical bedfellow?
We like The Clean! But I would definitely not consider them a musical bedfellow (as I'm sure they wouldn't either). Recently we got connected with Satellite Booking. They knew we wanted to get out and hit the road as soon as possible and support this album, so they put us on the next possible tour they could – which happened to be David Kilgour. So it wasn't planned. But we are very excited nonetheless.

I'm always curious as to why bands like Broken Social Scene, The Charlatans, etc., title their second or third album eponymously. You'd think it would be their debut: "We're here; this is us!" Why did you decide to make your sophomore album self-titled? Was it because you felt Pseudosix had finally found its feet, its sound, or was the reasoning more mundane?
I don't think anyone of us in the band could have predicted what this album was going to sound like before setting out to record it. It took on its own energy. And in the end, it had as much of a hand in telling us what to do and who we were as we did telling it what to do and who it was. It's a thematic album. But we didn't want to spell any of that out. Instead, it just made more sense to call it what it was.

Along that same line of enquiry -- and it might seem a bit premature, given that Pseudosix has really only just hit the shelves --, have you already started working on future material?
Yes, I'm always writing songs. But it's less a future thing, and more a present thing.

What do you think defines the new album, both by itself and in the context of the band? To put it another way: if you were an outsider reviewing Pseudosix, what would your closing assessment be? And then, speaking as the band's frontman, how does the album fit into what you've done so far and what you've got planned for the future?
Hmm. I think that once you put music out there, it's fair game for other people's agendas and preconceptions – no matter how far off the mark we might think they are. I mean, that's an integral part of the conversation between the artist and the listener. Believe me, it's not always easy to be on the other end of the comparisons and critiques. But I'll shut up now and answer your question. What do I think defines the new album? I think there's a weird mix of meticulous songwriting and spontaneous playing on this album – which kind of sets it apart from other stuff I'm hearing these days. Usually it's either one or the other. There's a sort of sloppy musicianship going on here. And I think that that sort of vibe, combined with the carefully crafted song structure creates an interesting tension. Also, I think even though Pseudosix is loaded with darkness and despair, it's ultimately an album of hope and optimism. It's pretty laden with contradiction, actually. And I think that some people who have reviewed the album don't really pick up on that.