Let’s get some stuff out of the way. Pavement is my favorite band of all time. So it was a pleasure and honor to interview ex-Pavement guitarist/Preston School of Industry frontman Scott “Spiral Stairs” Kannberg. In recent weeks, not only has Spiral’s new record (his first in five years), The Real Feel, come out on Matador, but his old band announced their reunion for what is gearing up to be a lengthy tour of festivals, and spattering of other dates.

So please enjoy a sampling of our chat:

TNG: This is your first record you have recorded using your own name, rather than Preston School of Industry…

SS: It’s just the name, it is still basically me.

TNG: Why did you choose to go by your own name instead?

SS: It’s been a long time since the last Preston record and I kind of went through a lot of personal things since then. I didn’t really do music for a while. I decided I wanted this to be under a different name, even though that was my name I’ve had forever. I just felt like I was a different person, band and songwriting. To me it just sounds a lot different.

TNG: You had mentioned that you were inspired by both “divorce rock,” like Fleetwood Mac, and Australian bands like the Go-Betweens and Nick Cave’s work.

SS: Yeah, I love the Go-Betweens. Actually I was just in Brisbane when they renamed a bridge there the Go-Betweens Bridge.

TNG Rohan: You are moving to Australia soon?

Spiral Stairs: Yeah, I’m moving there in the New Year. I’m getting married to an Australian girl, gonna move to Melbourne.

TNG: You had some fun collaborations on this record. Jon Auer of the Posies, and Kevin Drew is on it as well, correct?

SS: No, Kevin doesn’t play on it, it’s just his grandmother. They got the press release wrong. I played on Kevin’s solo record, and he originally wanted his grandmother to introduce me. She says, “Ladies and Gentleman, Spiral Stairs,” and I was supposed to come in with this great guitar solo. But my solo wasn’t as great as Kevin thought it was going to be, so they used the solo but they didn’t use his grandmother’s introduction. So I asked him if I could use it on my record. And for some reason people thought he played on the record. I did do a project with him and the rest of Broken Social Scene a few years back.

TNG: What is the touring situation for this record? I know you are on a short West Coast tour…are you going out any other dates?

SS: That’s the idea, probably January we’re gonna do some dates. The Pavement stuff, rehearsals start in February, so it’s gonna be kinda tricky to figure out when we’re doing Spiral dates. We’re gonna fit them in for sure.

TNG: How quick does it take an interview to turn into a Pavement discussion [I waited about 8 minutes]? Do you feel as if there may be less momentum behind this record, because of the Pavement mania?

SS: Oh, I don’t mind. I don’t feel like my record is being pushed to the back burner. I think my record would’ve gotten the same amount of coverage anyway. A lot of people don’t know that Spiral Stairs equals Pavement. Or Preston School of Industry equals Pavement. So I think it is gonna probably help more than anything. At least finding my record. Maybe it can get to the point where I can play some shows. It’s a different landscape out there right now for people touring. It’s a lot harder than it used to be. And I’m older too. I don’t want to spend 30 days on the road playing to ten people. I would’ve loved to do that when I was 22 years old, which I did. I think I kinda of have to let the record grow before I do anything.

TNG: With the dates you already have lined up, are you only playing songs from this record or will you dip into Preston School of Industry tracks?

SS: Yeah, we’ll do half Preston, half Spiral stuff. Probably not gonna do any Pavement songs anymore, because of the reunion, and people can wait for that. We used to do Pavement songs.

TNG: Which ones?

SS: I used to play “Kennel District” a lot. I used to play “Date with IKEA” a lot. “Two States” a few times. Some songs we didn’t really play in Pavement live.

TNG: Speaking of Pavement, you have been really involved in the remastering and reissuing of the records. Will there be a Terror Twilight reissue? Is there enough material left over?

SS: Yeah, there’s definitely enough material for Terror Twilight. There are b-sides and there are some outtakes we never really put together. There are some radio sessions and TV appearances and stuff that has never been put out. It’s not gonna be as comprehensive as the others, but it’ll definitely be a cool package. And we’re also talking about putting out kinda a “best of Pavement” thing, which we’re gonna try to make kinda cool. There’s gonna be a lot of stuff out there. When we do the tour we’re gonna do some really cool merch. We are gonna bring back some old t-shirt designs. It’ll be fun to sort through all that stuff.

Watch Spiral’s new video “Stolen Pills”