Scott Kannberg—Spiral Stairs if you’re browsing the bins—named his solo album like a mid-century B-movie you swear you saw at 2 a.m.: Doris and the Daggers. “It came from this woman in Sydney who owns the Hollywood Hotel,” he says. “We were there one night and came up with this funny thing—she’s Doris, backed by the Daggers. I’d had it in my notes forever and thought, that’s the album.” If Pavement were the band that never tried too hard, Spiral’s the guy who tries just enough.
At first he wanted to cut it like the old days: a week in the room, bash it out, sing, mix, go home. “Garage-rock style,” he says. “In my head we’d be the Daggers.” Life, as it does, swerved. “Our drummer died unexpectedly,” he adds, softening. “I used to call him ‘Doris’ as a nickname. It all kind of came around full circle in a gnarlier way.” The record became two-sided on purpose: a flip built into the storytelling and the grief. “Five songs that flow, then the second side as its own thing,” he says. “Like vinyl. You get a break. Those old Beatles or Beach Boys records—35 minutes—perfect. Seventeen a side, then you breathe.”
He’s still a sequencing romantic in the streaming economy where albums are long because the algorithm likes it that way. “Today it probably means even more,” he says. “You’ve got so much taking your mind away from listening.” Spiral’s antidote is modest and stubbornly analog: set the table for 17 minutes, make you get up, then serve the rest while it’s still hot.
Openers should announce themselves, so “Dance (Cry Wolf)” barks orders like a Teutonic drill sergeant. “Definitely Bowie and Iggy in Berlin, ’76,” he grins. “Mixed with a little Roxy Music.” If it feels more command than invitation, that’s the joke—you’re dancing because the song told you to, not because it smiled nicely.
Geography stalks these songs, too. He moved around a lot, including a long Australian chapter that doubles as a love letter to the world’s most consistently underrated rock nation. “Australia’s always had a vibrant music scene,” he says. “Every pub has a band, and they start young—no 21 rule. Midnight Oil, INXS—that’s where they came from. I used to go down, see my favorite bands in Melbourne, like The New Christs or Beasts of Bourbon, and there’d be 500 people in a pub. So cool.” He’s bullish on the modern wave as well: “Courtney Barnett, The Twerps, Blank Realm—really cool—like The Fall meets The Clean.”
The nostalgia’s earned, not embalmed. He remembers when finding music meant effort and mail. “There was no internet,” he says. “It was college radio and fanzines. Romantic era.” And even now he’s still tumbling into rabbit holes like a kid with a Xeroxed discography. “I was a late fan of The Go-Betweens,” he admits. “Once you get in, you get sucked in hard.” Consider that both programming note and listening assignment.
Doris and the Daggers isn’t a rock opera, and Spiral winces at the idea anyway, but it does have a cast: Doris the Sydney bar legend, “Doris” the fallen friend behind the kit, and Scott Kannberg, the lifer who knows a good side-A when he hears it. “The songs kind of fit together,” he shrugs. Which is Spiral for: yes, there’s a story, and you’re smart enough to put it together on your own.
No chapter breaks. Flip when told. Dance when ordered. And if you need a map, check the liner notes: Bowie, Iggy, Roxy, Melbourne pubs, college radio, and the crackle between two sides that still tells you where you are.
Listen to the interview above and check out the video for "Dance (Cry Wolf" below.
