SCOTT KANNBERG, aka SPIRAL STAIRS, is not letting the anticipation of PAVEMENT’s reunion shows get to him. The same cannot be said for the yappingly giddy MITCH ALEXANDER.

In the early days of 2010, Simon Reynolds of The Guardian looked back on the decade that was, recalling the various incarnations of new wave, new romantic, electro, synth pop et. al. that resurfaced and mutated throughout the first decade of the twenty first century. At a little under 2000 words, it took a long time to say ‘some of it was stellar, some of it was pretty poor, some of it made me want to invent a time machine and destroy Soft Cell when they were still in the womb’, but it did tie the ‘electropop renaissance’ into a greater historic trend of popular music finding its retro twin in the music of two decades past. 1970s punks connected with the rudimentary skills of primal 1950s rock & roll, politicised (and horribly quiffed) musos from the ‘80s responded to the experimentalism and ideals of the hippies and greasy grunge slackers gave a new face to the sagging arena rock of the 1970s. As I walk past telephone boxes and streetlights adorned with advertisements for shows by The Pixies, Dinosaur Jr, Faith No More and Pavement, I begin to believe that Reynolds’ article was more than yet another addition to the tired ‘music ain’t as good as it used to be’ angle.

In the 10 years since Pavement disbanded, the people in-the-know (if you’re unsure if this includes you, then it probably doesn’t) have evaluated and built up their output and mythology to often hysteric levels. The archetypal slacker band – The Pixies were just a bit too ferocious and J Mascis was way too self-assured to earn the title – have been elevated to a status that seems completely incongruous to their original aesthetics.  Somewhere between the hippie burnout drummer and the shambolic live performances and your suspicions that Stephen Malkmus chose to sing badly, it became fairly apparent that Pavement weren’t taking anything seriously. Even if they said they weren’t, but then you thought it was an act … nope, they still didn’t care. A decade on, and it still feels like the entire world has sped up, but Scott Kannberg is still moving at Pavement’s pace.

“Ooooh no … no,” responds Kannberg, when asked if he puts much thought into the band’s highly anticipated reunion. “It’s kinda surreal, you don’t really realise anything … we’re just a band that played a lot of shows and made some good records.

“That whole thing has just been generated because of time, that’s the way it is in music. We’ve been lucky that people like it. We didn’t know what the fuck we were doing, we didn’t know how to play our instruments, we were just having a good time.”

As the band’s success grew with each new release, their giggling collective persona was swallowed up by deeper band tensions, evident in more introspective songwriting and increasingly erratic performances. Pavement’s disbandment in 2000 was typically low-key, leaving avid fans to survive on various retrospectives and album repackagings that bordered on the hedonistic. Frequent rumours of secret shows and one-off reunions would send hipster blogs into overdrive, but it was nothing compared to the September 2009 fervour surrounding confirmed bookings of several New York shows towards the end of 2010. Based on the response to these shows, and the realization that there was a lot of time to kill between the initial statement and the actual gigs, a string of dates were added around the world. Which brings us to a sunny January morning, as Scott explains the choice of New Zealand and Australia for Pavement’s inaugural reunion shows.

“We made it that way because I’m getting married in March here, so I figured I might as well bring everyone out for a party,” he explains from a coffee chop in Melbourne. “Those [in New York] were the first shows we announced, and then everything after that we just filled in, because the demand has been so great.

“Some of us haven’t seen each other in 10 years, so I thought it would be great to get everyone and their families out here. In the past, Australia’s always been such a great place for Pavement, so that’s kinda the impetus … [it’s] a chilled place to start before we play Europe or festivals and all that stuff.”

Like talking to someone who has been in an internment camp for years, or traveled forward through time, to hear Scott discuss how much the internet has changed things during Pavement’s absence is a surreal moment. When the band had officially decided that they would reform, it was unofficially decided that Kannberg would have the honour of making the first announcement. Decided, yes, but it doesn’t seem like it was strictly upheld by all parties…

“I didn’t realise that news would travel so fast. Brooklyn Vegan wasn’t supposed to say anything, it was supposed to come from us, but as with the internet, some little website always tries to outdo somebody else. I read somewhere that the internet is a breeding ground for anonymous negativity … it can be, good and bad, y’know?”

Ironically, a decade ago and Pavement would have been struggling to get any gains from online media, having found a comfortable home for their whacked-out videos on MTV. But as Kannberg shakes off the cobwebs of some songs that are almost 20 years old, he reveals another positive feature of the internet.

“I’ve been rehearsing with the songs, trying to learn them all,” he says shyly. “It’s cool … you can actually look up on the internet and find all these tabs. It’s a lot easier than it used to be. I’ll be looking at a song and go ‘Oh, I didn’t know that was a D! I’ve been playing it wrong all these years!’”

As ambiguously as they disbanded, the indie rock prototypes are back together with some loose plans for 2010 and it all gets a bit blurry after that. Compared to all the lovey-doviness that usually arises when bands reform – do they immediately forget the last few decades of bitter comments and lawsuits? – Scott’s casual candour about the future is refreshing. No plans to record new material, a setlist heavy on favourites and no plans after this tour finishes. It’s everything a reunion tour should be.

“This year’s going to be about Pavement from the past, and I think that’s what people want to hear,” says Scott straightly. “We’ve gotta play the hits, y’know? We’ve got so many songs, we’ll probably start out learning 30 songs and go from there.

“We’re pretty set to do all the shows this year, but for us to do new music now, I don’t know, it wouldn’t sound like Pavement of old.”

Cheap post-grunge alterna-rock, cargo pants and inexplicable fascinations with Skeet Ulrich … of all the things you might remember fondly from the ‘90s, I’m pretty happy with Pavement returning, if only briefly.

PAVEMENT play The Tivoli on Wednesday Mar 10, supported by Gersey. QUARANTINE THE PAST: GREATEST HITS 1989-1999 is out now through Matador/Remote Control. www.matadorrecords.com/pavement

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