by LORRAINE CARPENTERG

On Sleater-Kinney’s seventh album, The Woods, Janet Weiss’s thundering drums and the spry and bulky guitars of Carrie Brownstein and Corin Tucker can finally support the weight of Tucker’s towering voice. Aiming to blow all conventions out of the water, the Pacific Northwestern trio switched labels, from Kill Rock Stars to Sub Pop, and dropped their usual producer John Goodmanson in favour of indie-rock auteur Dave Fridmann, who has built electric walls of sound for the likes of the Flaming Lips, Mercury Rev, Mogwai and Delgados. Impassioned by present-day politics and the psychedelic sounds of the past (namely Led Zeppelin, Jefferson Airplane and Captain Beefheart), the band has retained their pop sensibility and punk fervour, and gained some serious sonic gravitas. The Mirror spoke to Tucker about classic rock, crying and therapy.

Mirror: I read that you went through some Metallica-esque group counseling around 1999, 2000.

Corin Tucker: That was a very difficult time for us. We needed to work out whether or not we wanted to stay a band and how we were going to do that without making each other crazy, so we had someone set up rules for us so that we wouldn’t be so overwhelmed.

M: I understand you’ve been self-managed all these years. I imagine that contributed to your stress.

CT: Basically, we became much more successful than we thought we’d be. We were from this community of bands that were all small and self-managed and avant-garde, but our band became popular, so we suddenly had a lot more pressure to deal with than we had expected. To help us handle that, we really needed an outside perspective.

M: I noticed that the gap between One Beat and The Woods is the longest of your career so far.

CT: Yeah, we really needed to dig deep in order to make something different and exciting. We’ve opened a door for ourselves in terms of going somewhere new with our musicianship on this record, and I feel like we broke through with unconventional song structures, and that’s something we’ll probably pursue next time.

M: I understand you got pretty heavy into classic rock in the studio, and it shows. Do you think the indie purists in your fan base will freak out?

CT: To me, this record definitely sounds like Sleater-Kinney, it’s just that we’ve gone out and searched for things that we found inspiring and rebellious and freeing, and sort of interpreted it for people.

M: Is it true that there was a lot of crying in the studio?

CT: It was tears of frustration. We were asking so much of each other and of ourselves, and Dave asked us to do things that were a little bit above our skill level. We felt pushed in a way that was uncomfortable at times, but it was great too. I also burst into tears when I heard the playback of “Let’s Call It Love” and “The Night Light,” this 15-minute piece of music we achieved. I was like, “Oh my God, it’s so great!” It was definitely intense and emotional at times, but that’s just part of recording. At least for me.

With Dead Meadow at la Tulipe on Sunday, June 19, 9 p.m., $20

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