By Ian KammererQuasi is a Portland-based rock duo with Sam Coomes and former Sleater-Kinney drummer Janet Weiss. I first came across their music in 2019, deep into my Elliott Smith emo phase in high school. In interviews, Elliott would often say Quasi was his favorite band. He would cover their 1997 song “Clouds” at some shows and Janet and Sam served as his backing band during the Figure 8 tour around 2000. Quasi has 9 albums and one compilation of early recordings. Their most recent album from 2023, released a decade after their prior album, Mole City, and is titled Breaking the Balls of History. The album is an ironic, raw, and blunt reflection on modern life, politics, and middle-aged angst. Boasting self-reflexive lyrics to catchy guitar riffs and bouncy drums, the album is easily one of my favorites from last year. Sam, the primary lyricist, sings with a tinges of both honesty and humor. Janet keeps the songs energetic and grounded with her masterful drum lines. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Quasi twice in the last few years, once at the Rickshaw Stop in SF and once at Third Man Records Cass Corridor in Detroit. Both intimate venues, it’s a joy to watch these two play together. They sit slightly facing each other, Janet on the kit and Sam on the Rocksichord. They play off each other’s energy and Sam often makes witty quips in between songs to give the shows a welcome air of comfort, feeling like you’re watching the band at a house party or garage show. Their sound is hard to describe. Some of their albums sound like Modest Mouse, Pavement, or Built to Spill, but not quite. Their newest album is fun and youthful, but some of their older works speak to a more serious and self-deprecating tone. Such is the indie rock scene of Portland in the 90s. “Gravity”, from their new album, is a ballad-like song communicating feelings of being lost or insignificant in the larger scheme of things: “You can walk on water if you so choose / And you’re made in USA, concrete shoes / Gravity don’t care at all.” Other songs like “Doomscrollers” have a more critical, Covid-situated stir-crazy energy that speaks to how we were all feeling in the uncertain and bleak times of 2020-2021 when the album was written: “All the kids in their virtual classes / Stuck at home sitting on their asses / And all the houses lost to fires / The anti-vaxxers and the climate deniers.” One of my favorite songs from the album, “Rotten Wrock” is jumpy, anxious, and full of brilliant metaphors: “So what exactly is a human being? / A little button on a touch screen?” It’s a wonderful album, and Quasi is going on tour this year to commemorate and play their 1998 album Featuring Birds. I highly recommend checking out their show across the Bay in SF at The Chapel on July 27. I had the pleasure of interviewing Janet and Sam last year about Breaking the Balls of History, their onstage dynamic, Portland, and their thoughts on vinyl. Enjoy! First off, congratulations on Breaking the Balls of History! It’s an amazing collection of music and is as cool sounding and fresh to me as your other albums. (Janet) Thank you! This is your 10th Quasi album, first on Sub Pop, and comes after a lot of major events for you and the world beyond: the Portland BLM movement, the Trump and post-Trump political climate, Covid, and Janet’s accident. My question comes in three parts. What felt different about making this record (if anything)? (Janet) For me, this record follows a period of great personal upheaval. The accident was a real shock and it put my ability to drum in serious jeopardy - I wasn't sure I would be physically able to play in the manner to which I am accustomed. And although the ordeal was really scary, the love and support that came pouring in was so profound. Really for me, everything felt different this time around. I felt a new, immense sense of gratitude as well as a desire to play and sing at my highest level. Did you feel there was something beyond just music at stake? (Janet) A lot of people helped me get through a pretty long recovery. I wanted them to know I took their aid seriously, I felt that debt that could be repaid by making a really great album. In your lyrics you tend to blend political commentary with comedy. Is this something you consciously think about as you’re writing a new song or is it just your nature as a person+songwriter? In a broader sense, Do you think comedy is an effective tool to work through the unsavory parts of life or to deal with volatile political climates? (I’m thinking about “Shitty is Pretty” / “Doomscrollers” / “Breaking the Balls of History” with this question). (Sam) Really I just write how I feel, try to make it rhyme, & it winds up being humorous to the listener. I do like to play with absurdity sometimes, & that can also seem humorous. So, I guess you’re right about it simply being my nature, rather than a conscious thing. I do think that juxtaposing opposing elements in music & in creativity in general is a central idea in what we do, so uniting seriousness & humor, or other dichotomies like light/dark, hard/soft, etc is certainly part of our process. The lyrics on this album are overtly political in a lot of songs. Do you think these events changed what the instrumentation sounded like? (Janet) We were going for a live, raw, stripped down and punchy sound from the get go. Sam usually has the lyrics pretty much completed when we start working on the songs, so yes they definitely affect the sound. This record is rebellious and fiery in both lyrical and musical content. In your live shows, because it is just a two person set-up, you both appear to be super locked into each other and to be playing off of each other’s tempo/improvisation. How do you two feed off of each other during live shows? (Janet) The live show is where we really excel. Sam and I have an unspoken musical language that has been developing for 30 years. The way we set up on stage, almost facing each other, allows us to incorporate lots of visual cues. We watch each other, especially during improvisations, so that we can make something unique in the moment. The moments when we lose the script are the most exciting. Both of you have had various projects and bands within the Portland and Pacific Northwest. How do you think Portland has changed since you’ve lived there? How do you think the Portland music scene has changed? How do you think this may have affected your musical projects? (Sam) I’ve lived in Portland forever, & I’ve actually lived in the same neighborhood for over 25 years - so of course it’s changed a lot. When I leave my house & walk around it feels to me like I’ve somehow moved to a totally different city, without even leaving home. But now there’s a new level of change- first gentrification, but now there’s the widespread homelessness & bad street drugs…of course they’re related, as gentrification pushed housing costs beyond the means of so many people. The music scene…I have to admit losing touch with it over the years, but recently, as I started going to shows again after Covid I’m seeing a bunch of great, young bands e.g. Yuvees who we’re on tour with at the moment, Sea Moss, Spoonbenders, Shaylee…. But at this point I don’t think any of this affects our work at all. We’re pretty much on our own path. I’m glad to have live local music that I can get into just as a fan, though. What do you think has changed (if anything) from how you played together live in the 90s to now? (Janet) We are better communicators than we were back then. And I think we both appreciate Quasi and each other more as we get older, knowing that we are lucky to still have the band, and to be still creating music together that feels vital. Domino reissued three of your 90s albums last year and this year for Breaking the Balls of History Sub Pop had a pink vinyl for pre-order and to buy now. Do you prefer vinyl to other mediums of listening to music? If so, why? Do you think fans should invest in listening to Quasi albums on vinyl instead of solely streaming? (Sam) Vinyl is what I grew up with, & so for me the album experience isn’t just the music- it’s the artwork, the liner notes, all the info…it’s a musical experience & also you get cultural history & technical knowledge, etc. Streaming is just one dimensional. Also, streaming as an economic model completely shafts the artist financially. Strictly speaking economics, the CD format was most favorable to artists…but aesthetically it’s a step down from The LP. So yeah I would absolutely encourage fans to listen to vinyl rather than stream…everyone gets more out of it.  Quasi at Third Man Records Cass Corridor. Photo by author.
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