Parallel Stride: In Conversation with Doug Gillard

For a generation, Doug Gillard’s fingerprints have been all over indie-rock. Since 1997, the New York-based guitarist has been a vital pillar in Guided By Voices, however Gillard’s journey began long before being Robert Pollard’s right-hand man.

Spending years ploughing his own furrow, firstly in Death of Samantha, Cobra Verde and Gem before landing in the GBV sphere and later with Nada Surf, looking back at Gillard’s stellar career, and it’s surprising that he hasn’t released more solo material.

While dabbling in experimentalism – Creative Process 473 (2003) – the trio of Salamander (2004), Call From Restricted (2008) and Parade On (2014) saw Gillard shift from stage left into spotlight. And that continues on Parallel Stride – Gillard’s most accomplished release to date.  

Parallel Stride is Gillard on autopilot. Laden with hooks and the kind of cohesiveness tailored to play on a loop, after speaking with Gillard over Zoom last month following the release of Parallel Stride, the picture became clearer. Inspired by late-’60s, early-’70s AM radio, Parallel Stride sees Gillard dragging pop through the rugged terrains of indie-rock to create songs that bake deep into mind.

The effortless opener, Face of Smiles, brimming with melodies and rhythms that are like an endorphin rush. The eponymous song, a collision between The Who and Big Star (“It’s a rail car baby / It’s a parallel stride”), while the slow burning Yes She Loves Me, Until I See You Again and New Vista are like lost gems you think you’ve heard before.

Between dialling it down (the Dennis Wilson-inspired Lost Alarmists) and the big-hearted showstoppers (Saving My Life Every Day and Cannons), the biggest moment on Parallel Stride comes via My Friends. With the same melodic panache that has made his alliance with Pollard so strong, thematically, My Friends sees Gillard crystallising the perilous nature of these times (“Power doesn’t show / Stealth control”).  

All told, Parallel Stride is built for loud volumes and the open road. Remember when music really mattered? That’s the feeling you get after listening to Gillard’s latest release. How did Gillard reach this point? At the end of our conversation, he guides me through briars, and listening to his story, it’s amazing how the dots connect.

“Chris Brokaw is great,” says Gillard, recalling how they met as DJs together at Oberlin College. “I was just finishing high school. He had a campus band called Pay The Man who Death of Samantha ended up playing with. We had them come to Cleveland and play a couple shows to open for us… they’d stay at my place.”

Talk then drifts to 12XU – Gerard Cosloy’s label which is home to Brokaw’s latest releases. “He signed Death of Samantha to Homestead Records,” says Gillard of Cosloy, whom he rightfully refers to as “A taste-maker for indie-rock.”

Cosloy, also responsible for many of Matador Records greatest moments, and Guided By Voices almost signed to the label for 1999’s Do the Collapse. “Matador heard it, they didn’t like it, but they said, ‘We’ll still put it out’, but they lost their distribution deal with Capitol Records,” explains Gillard. “TVT became interested, they were a large indie, but without overseas licensing. So, we were on Creation in the U.K. and Flying Nun in New Zealand. I mean, how much better can you get than that?”

Smiling, Gillard recounts those days. “That was an amazing period. Bob and I were in at the Creation offices for a week, hanging out to do press,” he says. “We got taken to a Kevin Rowland show happening at Scala. It turned out to be the My Beauty release launch party! A lot of Creation luminaries were in the crowd and milling around afterwards. I got to meet Bernard Butler, and talk to Kevin himself, just for a second.”

It was around this time where Guided By Voices played their only Liverpool show. “That was ’99 it was some kind of BBC affiliated thing. I think Steve Lemacq hosted it. The first band was Coldplay, then we came up, and then the headliner was Gomez.”

Hard to fathom, but in some ways it sums up the left-field moments and hairpin turns of both Guided By Voices and Gillard’s journey. Which also includes Bambi Kino – Gillard’s Beatles covers band that also features Nada Surf’s Ira Elliott, Cat Power’s Erik Parparazzi and Maplewod’s Mark Rozzo. “We regularly play in Hamburg. I don’t know why we haven’t done Matthew Street yet,” says Gillard, which feels like the band’s next logical move.  

“We’re friends with Mark Lewisohn, who sang on one of our songs. It was a wasn’t even a Beatles song,” Gillard admits. “There was a wacky British film in ’63 called, What a Crazy World. Joe Brown and the Bruvvers did the theme song [What a Crazy World We’re Living In], sung in sort of a Cockney accent. So Mark did the vocals for that.”

There are other collaborations, too. Gillard’s involvement in the excellent Flowers Destroy – one of many bands formed by Cleveland lifer, Matthew Wascovich. “I can’t remember if it’s Century Whip or another one that’s not out yet,” says Gillard of yet another new band. “He has the musicians sort of write the music first. The couple that I was tasked with, he said, ‘Can you write something that sort of sounds like the first Saints album? I’ll be darned if I can’t remember what project name that was, but you’ll hear it,” he smiles.

For now, though, it’s all about Parallel Stride, and Gillard offers more insight into the release, his creative process, and more.

From All Ways: In Conversation with Crooked Fingers’ Eric Bachmann

Sun 13: Was there a specific point in time that you can frame where you wanted to be a musician?

Doug Gillard: “I think it was just an ongoing thing. Ever since I was very small, I was playing stuff. I was beating on cans and pots and pans and watching TV and having toy guitars. My dad had a real guitar. The radio was always on. It was AM radio that we’re talking, late ’60s, early-to-mid ’70s. All the pop and bubble gum hits. Some glam in there, a little bit of Motown. So it was just always around.

“I started making up songs. First, just on a snare drum with some lyrics about animals, and then rudimentary toy guitar stuff, and taping them. We had a tape recorder… I don’t know that I was determined to make that my life’s work or vocation. But I knew I loved watching The Monkees on TV and The Archie Show because they were in a band between their adventures. The Banana Splits were a band of costumed dogs or something… Hanna-Barbera, they had records you could order from a cereal box. My sister had Beatles records and The Monkees albums and Paul Revere & The Raiders and few other things. I was always playing those to death.”

S13: Who were the first bands from Ohio that really spoke to you?

DG: “I really loved hearing The Raspberries on the radio when I was a kid. There were lots of things that I heard that were influential, like the James Gang, they were major on the radio, and I just thought that was kind of untouchable, you know? I didn’t really know if I was aware they were from Ohio until I was a little older. But when I was eight, I was hearing those things on the radio.”

[Pause]

“I don’t really know it was… a combination of The Pretenders and Devo. A little after that, I learned about Pere Ubu. I lived not too far from those guys. But they were much older, of course, by the time I was making music and just finishing high school.

“I was listening to a lot of local college radio in Cleveland. They had four great stations, as well as the Oberlin station, which was nearby. There’s a band called The Easter Monkeys, and they were on a show where you could just play in the studio at the radio station. I heard that when I was driving one time, and I thought that was really great. I ended up in a band the next year that opened for them once. Easter Monkeys had Jim Jones who was in Pere Ubu later, and by that time, probably by ’84 I was in bands that were playing in Cleveland. Death of Samantha was one of those, so I was kind of chucking myself into the fray, as it were.”

S13: Was there any other fallback plan to pursue if you weren’t going to be a musician?

DG: “I told myself I was going to take chemistry, and I was going to try to major in computer science, or computer data learning. I would have been disastrous at that. As it turns out, I think I was shooting for a degree in communications, and I took film classes, which I really loved. I loved all the music education classes. I took a course in electronic music with an electronic music guy who was around during the Moog years, Rudolph Bubalo. He was a professor at Cleveland State, and that was really a learning experience. Because we worked with reel-to-reel tape machines and patch, cord, synths and stuff. This would have been still around the mid-to-late ’80s, but he was still around. It was nice to learn from someone who was there in those heady days of the mid-to-late ’60s as a music concrete composer that he was.”

S13: Was your recording process to Parallel Stride any different from your past solo records?

DG: “Not entirely. I did the other ones at studios as well. There’s always a mixture of a little home recording and the studio, especially the last couple. This one, I did it mostly at Tom Beaujour’s studio. One song was recorded with Travis Harrison and set aside a few years ago, My Friends, but the tracks I did at home I brought to Tom’s and gave him the stems, and we mixed everything at his studio. I don’t know how different it was. It’s always a mixture of creating in the studio and also writing at home. Sometimes you’re writing and revising in the studio.”

S13: Does the music come before the lyrics?

DG: “With me, usually it’s always music before lyrics. Lyrics are the last thing, and I struggle to find the proper words to fill out the syllables and make it seem meaningful. But I got it done. Occasionally a song will come to you automatically, like when you’re waking up. In this case, [it was] Until I See You Again. I just woke up thinking of that melody and maybe a couple key phrases in that song, like ‘until I see you again’. I knew that it had to have that feel. That Phil Spector sort of thing. I didn’t even know if I was behind the idea or not. But I had to document it, you know?”

S13: That’s an interesting song, because the other one I was thinking about was Saving My Life Every Day. Do you think that’s a song a younger version of yourself could have written?

DG: “Possibly, yeah. Because I used to make things too long, and I think I could have trimmed some fat out of that one, but I had an eye towards completing the album. That’s one I did during the pandemic at Tom’s just because I had a couple things I wanted to get down. Why not start a few songs, and who knows what’s going to happen? That one’s from when I started that route in 2020. As time rolled on, I figured I might as well try to finish an album here.”

S13: Had you written the song before coming up with the album title?

DG: “Yeah, the song was written before I pulled that as the title of the record. The music of that song was written before the lyrics and it was just an instrumental called Creation Jam, because to me, it put me in the mind of the British mod band, Creation, from the ’60s. I couldn’t think of any better comparison and that was the nearest one I could come up with.

“I was a little hesitant to pull that as the title, because it’s ripping off a John Cooper Clarke line. But it’s not the title of any of his poems, it’s a line within. I was really digging on some of his stuff couple years ago.”

S13: Faces of Smiles is one of the best songs you’ve written. Was that done early in the process or was that one of your 2020 ones?

DG: “No, that was just last year. It was from a sketch I had and voice memo-ed. I can’t remember if the riff or the chord progression came first, but yeah, maybe the chord progression.”

S13: Do you always have a notepad or voice memos on hand where you’re writing things down and then trying to marry them up? Is that how you generally work?

DG: “I kind of jot things down in notes on computer or the phone, like the note app. Sometimes, to finish a song, I struggle and don’t have things in notes and handwrite things down to complete the song before crossing things out, and then think, ‘Okay, well, that’s good. I think that’ll be it’. I don’t have a lot of lyrics stockpiled, sometimes phrases or maybe some ideas here and there.”

S13: Is the objective always the same with your solo records, or are you looking to capture and achieve something different with each release?

DG: “You know, not really. I don’t really think about that. It’s just kind of a collection of stuff that I’m presenting in the moment. It’s not a conscious decision to do this, but I’ve always liked records where songs sound different. They sound like different sessions on the same album and not a homogenous production style. A lot of records in the ’80s and ’90s had that. But I like things that sound like there’s different snare treatment, different guitar timbre, this and that. I don’t know what’s a good example of that… maybe the first Pretenders album with different sessions and sounds.”

S13: A lot of Guided By Voices’ work could be construed that way…

DG: “Especially the earlier stuff, which is what I always really loved. Different sessions and different 4-tracks. Some are a little more mid-5, high-5. I really love that sort of stitchery going on.”

S13: But then you had something super cohesive like Mag Earwhig!…

DG: “That one was going to be more Cobra Verde. We recorded a whole album as that line-up, and the label told Bob, ‘It sounds like Cobra Verde backing up Bob, it doesn’t sound like Guided By Voices. So why don’t you go and find some old shit from the other lineup, and throw that in. You must do this’. And Bob said, ‘Well, okay’.

“I’m grateful because he put Jane of the Waking Universe on that. I think that was from the Under the Bushes sessions, and that’s the classic lineup. We got to play that live and everything. But some of those other ones aren’t Cobra Verde and those castoff songs ended up on EPs, B-sides, CD single B-sides and 45s. Those are all really good songs, too. It was such a jarringly different approach and sound that the label freaked out. But that’s what Bob wanted to do at the time, and they wouldn’t accept it. That was Guided By Voices, so whatever.”

S13: Has your songwriting methods and approach altered over the years?

DG: “I think a little bit. I’ve always had the same sort of melodic sensibility. I’m always pretty particular about how the guitar sounds and drums sound in each song. But as far as writing, I think I’ve become more economical. I try to write with an eye towards economy and not having an intro go for too long, which I used to do when I didn’t know any better in my ’90s bands.”

S13: In your work with Robert Pollard over the years, how much do you think you’ve influenced each other’s work in your respective solo endeavours?

DG: “I’m not sure. [Pause] I don’t know that I’ve influenced him at all, but I’ve probably taken from him in that sense of economy that I was just talking about, and possibly the notion that an album doesn’t have to be so precious and you just move on and do another one. I don’t have to have a huge booklet with this. Maybe I should have? I don’t know, but I guess it gave peace of mind to not spend too much time on the cover idea. The thing I spend more time on is the recording and a little bit of the mixes.

“Over the years, I think that’s one thing that’s changed. I’m content with spending less time on poring over the mixes. You don’t have to hear something for more than one day all day! (laughs) It doesn’t have to be an ongoing perfection type thing. Maybe the stakes are different than they used to be. If you were on a major label that wanted a certain thing, then maybe you had to make sure the pitches were perfect, or the rhythms were perfect. So it’s a little freeing when you know you’re not going to get on major radio.”

S13: Speaking about that, with Guided By Voices and the projects outside of that, the melody transcends. For instance, I was listening Speak Kindly of Your Volunteer Fire Department the other day, and it still holds up…

DG: “On Speak Kindly…, the melodies are all Bob’s. Even though I did write four of the songs musically, he then added the vocals, the melody, the lyrics and the title. Pop Zeus, for example, was one that I had the instrumental all completed and written, and I was going to give it to a Cleveland singer to see if they wanted to collaborate and do something with it. It was just a bit of music that I did shortly before recording that album. I don’t know if Bob wanted four more songs, but I sent those down to him, and he said, ‘I’ll put these on there!’ And so we sang over those instrumentals that I set down.”

S13: Do you feel as if your formative years in Ohio are still ingrained in the music you make, or do you think New York’s more of an influence now?

DG: “There’s probably definitely some Ohio in there. I don’t really know… it’s just kind of making music that’s in your head. It might subconsciously come through. New York, I don’t really take much from, I’m not conscious of drawing from the New York musical history, although that’s there… the bands that happen to have been from New York that you’re influenced by. But maybe the franticness of the street… you go outside and there’s people. Even in Queens where I live, there’s someone barrelling down the sidewalk as soon as you leave your building. It’s very densely populated. That might be an influence.”

S13: Looking back at the past, do you have fonder memories of certain releases than others?

DG: “I think there have been things I sort of regret not fixing or doing the right way. But I usually forge ahead and say, ‘The hell with that! Who cares?’ (laughs) I kind of wish I’d paid more attention when I was doing the Gem Hex record from ’95. Just to make it a little more, not produced but a little more pro. That songwriting thing we’re talking about, some of those introductions were too long before getting to any verse or lyrics.

“Aside from that, I think the only thing on my second record, Call From Restricted, the first song, Time is Nigh, and the very first line; I really wish I could have fixed the pitch. When I say fix a pitch, I don’t mean artificially, I mean singing it until it’s right, you know? Because it’s a good melody, and not one of those talky singing shouty things. The liberty of artistic license doesn’t apply there, because it sounds like I’m trying to hit a note. So I could have maybe done a little better job on that opening line, because it’s a good song.”

S13: Where do you think Parallel Stride will sit in your mind in five years’ time?

DG: “I don’t know. Hopefully I’ll have another one out by then. I waited too long to do this one.”

Parallel Stride is out now via Dromedary Records. Purchase from Bandcamp.