This weekend the Portland band Typhoon will play two concerts celebrating 20 years of making music together. The band broke out in the early 2010s, with albums like “Hunger and Thirst” and “White Lighter.” Two members of the band, Kyle Morton and Shannon Steele, join us to talk about the band’s history and future.
Note: The following transcript was transcribed digitally and validated for accuracy, readability and formatting by an OPB volunteer.
Dave Miller: This is Think Out Loud on OPB. I’m Dave Miller. The Portland band Typhoon started 20 years ago. They broke out in the early 2010s with a lush and orchestral sound, and lyrics that belied that size. The songs are poetic, intimate, full of longing and loss. Typhoon has expanded and contracted over the years, but it is still making music. The band is celebrating 20 years, with two shows at Portland’s Revolution Hall this weekend.
Kyle Morton is Typhoon’s songwriter. He is a singer and guitarist. Shannon Steele is a violinist and singer. They both join me now. Congratulations on 20 years and welcome to the show.
Shannon Steele: Thank you.
Kyle Morton: Thank you, Dave, and thanks for having us. We’re big fans of Think Out Loud.
Miller: Thank you. I’m thrilled to have you guys here. I thought we could start with one of your recordings. We’re going to hear part of the song “CPR/Claws Pt. 2”, from your album “Hunger and Thirst,” which came out 15 years ago in 2010. Let’s have a listen to the first couple of minutes of it.
[Recording of “CPR/Claws Pt. 2” by Typhoon playing]
Your help is on the way
Just sing yourself a song and wait
Nothing was promised in the first place
But we suffer for as long as we can take
Then the suffering, one way or the other
It will go away
It’s quiet and you wake
You make the bed for two you always make
Though half-empty from some days before
He lay down on the kitchen floor …
[Song fades out]
Miller: This is the “CPR” part of “CPR/Claws Pt.2”, from your 2010 album “Hunger and Thirst.” When we started listening to this, I said I really love the song. And Kyle, you said, “I still like this too.”
Morton: I still like this one.
Miller: What do you like about this song from an earlier part of your life?
Morton: The thing that ages the quickest for me are the lyrics.
Miller: These are intense.
Morton: Yeah, these lyrics are intense.
Miller: These lyrics are about death, loss, longing. It’s a little bit mysterious, like a lot of your songs.
Morton: You know what it’s about? Should I disclose?
Miller: No, I don’t think so. Often I do, but right now I want the mystery.
But I am curious, you said it’s often the lyrics that age.
Morton: Yeah, those are usually the ones that curdle for me earliest. I think these lyrics are still pretty good, which makes me cringe a little less.
Miller: What makes good lyrics, whether they’re yours or somebody else’s?
Morton: If I knew the answer to that, I’d be a much better songwriter. I don’t know, there’s something true in them, there’s something about them. If anybody asks me songwriting advice, I say write something specific, because most song lyrics are so vague and broad.
Miller: The thing about that is that it seems like universal writing advice. That’s advice that’s given to journalists and reporters, and it’s given to novelists and short story writers: be specific. But you think it works for songwriting too?
Morton: I do. George Saunders, the short story writer, had a great quote about “Try to find a story that only you can tell.” And I try to transpose that over to songwriting. I’m not a classically trained musician and I’m not that great of a singer. But I do feel like I have a song that I can sing. And there’s times where it gets closer to that pure song and sometimes it gets further away. In this song, it feels like I got something good in it.
Miller: Shannon, what’s it like for you to hear a song like that 15 years later?
Steele: I sort of have a similar feeling. I do really enjoy all the parts. I’m more super zeroed in on the musical side as opposed to the lyrical side.
Miller: He talks and you just ignore his words and focus on the music. [Laughter]
Steele: No no no, of course not. But yeah, I think generally speaking upon listening to most music, it’s like third or fourth listen before I even register most of the lyrics. But yeah, I really enjoy the parts on this song in particular, still.
Miller: Kyle, you grew up in Salem with a lot of the members of the band. Were there times over the years, when you were playing on tour around the world, you’re on “Dave Letterman,” you’re doing a “Tiny Desk” concert, when you’d look around and think, “I was in a middle school band with some of these guys?”
Morton: Yeah, I do that constantly.
Miller: You do, still. What does it mean to you to have been making music with some of these people for, what, 25 or more years?
Morton: So Toby and I met when we were 13. And I just turned 40. Besides being miraculous, really, I was saying this at rehearsal the other day, but it’s like time travel. Because you’ll play these songs you played, maybe now decades ago, with somebody that you met when you had braces. And then suddenly you’re just back there. And Peter was saying the same thing, like we’re playing some songs we haven’t played in many, many years for these shows. And it really is just like you’re opening up a photo album and it’s just right there.
Miller: Do the songs change for you?
Morton: Do you mean like my interpretation of them or how I feel about them? Or do you mean like the arrangements? I guess both.
Miller: I was thinking more about the former, about what it evokes in you, and even if the same words end up meaning something different to you, the way they might for a fan. If they hear them when they’re 16 and then when they’re 36, they’re at very different points in their life. But you’re the one who’s making it.
Morton: Yeah, there’s a kind of curse to writing songs and then having the privilege of performing them for 20 years, because you just kind of then have to listen to the song you wrote ad nauseam. I try to give young Morty some grace, but usually my feeling is like, “you were so young.” [Laughter]
Miller: Well, speaking of young Morty, you gave us access to one of the earliest Typhoon songs. This is from the self-titled debut from 2005, and this is not available on YouTube, Spotify, Bandcamp, iTunes or whatever. You said there were tens of copies?
Morton: There are dozens of copies out there of CD-Rs.
Miller: That you ripped yourself?
Morton: Yeah, we did them ourselves. This is what we’re celebrating, Typhoon became a band about 20 years ago, December 22, 2005. We had our album release at Clinton Street Theater here in Portland. And I remember we were screen printing all these little cardboard, they call them arigato packs. And we’re burning the CDs, and then there must have been 100, maybe 200 tops?
Miller: All made by hand or your own little burner. This is “Rolling Credits.”
[Recording of “Rolling Credits” by Typhoon playing]
Miller: So this is “Rolling Credits,” from 20 years ago, not available basically anywhere right now. Why did you pick this song which has no lyrics, no singing?
Morton: It’s also a song I still like. I don’t sing on it, which is part of the reason. My singing voice from 20 years ago is even harder to listen to than my singing voice today. But I don’t know, this was kind of the first big Typhoon song I wrote. We came from these garage rock and punk bands in Salem. Then I wanted to make something that was kind of cinematic and was an excuse to get all of my friends to consolidate into one band and move to Portland. And this is kind of the first song that did that.
Miller: You did bring two of your instruments: a violin and a guitar. Can you play a live song for us? What do you have for us?
Morton: Love to, Dave. This is called “Sleep”. It’s off of a record called “Offerings” from 2018.
[Strumming guitar] Here we go.
[“Sleep” by Typhoon playing, performed live in studio]
We can all agree it’s a mixed bag for the living
Full of sorrow, full of grief
Well I ransacked the place for the single thought that could comfort me
Something small, something sweet
It was once in the spring, you were on the porch, I heard you singing
From inside, sat and listened through the screen
Now it’s the time, the last liferaft leaving my mind
As it sinks out of sight
Would you stay for a while – put your gnarled hands into mine?
Hold me down
I feel so light, I could just float away
Just don’t let me go to sleep
So long, my sweet
Maybe next time that we meet
We’ll be whole, we’ll be weightless, we’ll be free
Just don’t let me go to sleep
Just don’t let me go to sleep
Just don’t let me go to sleep
[Song ends]
Miller: Thank you both. That was truly lovely. That’s the song “Sleep” by Typhoon.
The band is celebrating 20 years this weekend with two shows at Portland’s Revolution Hall. They’re gonna be joined as with the opener Black Belt Eagle Scout on Friday night and Lost Lander for the show on Saturday. How did you choose bands to open up for these two shows?
Morton: So the true Typhoons-heads out there will know that are all bands that have with us. I guess starting with My Body, who’s opening on Saturday, that’s the project of Jordan Bagnall, who is one of the founding members of Typhoon from the old Salem days. So we are really happy to have her playing. And then Lost Lander, we toured with them and Laura Gibson in 2012, for a pretty memorable tour, became pretty good friends with them. And then Black Belt Eagle Scout, Katherine Paul is one of my favorite musicians. We worked at Mississippi Studios back in the day.
Steele: And her old band Forest Park, I got the privilege of playing a few shows and recording with them. And Ryan from Typhoon as well, did some horn on it.
Morton: And come to think of it, I played in the very early version of Black Belt Eagle Scout with Nora from Typhoon.
And then Matt Dorrien, [who is] opening up the set on Friday night and who we’ve toured with in 2018, is just one of Portland’s best songwriters.
Miller: It does make me wonder if you made a poster with string with the connections of Portland indie bands of the last 15 years. It would just be like a bunch of tangled yarn.
I wanna go back to the lyrics from “Sleep” that you guys just played for us. This is how it starts: “We can all agree it’s a mixed bag for the living, full of sorrow, full of grief. I ransacked the place for the single thought that could comfort me, something small, something sweet. It was once in the spring, you were on the porch. I heard you singing from inside, sat and listened through the screen.” Just a super lovely poem in and of itself, and then you add the gorgeous music with it.
What role has music played for you in providing that “something sweet,” in, as you say, a life that can be full of sorrow and full of grief?
Morton: I’ll try to do this without tearing up. “Offerings” is a concept about a man losing his memory. But there’s kind of a spoiler here. This last song is kind of my whole approach to songwriting in a nutshell. In a state of diminishment, trying to find the thing that’s important to you, that’s essential to you. The original demo of this song actually had a voice memo of my wife singing on the front porch of our house. I still have the memo of it, and I just sat there and listened. It’s just one of these core memories that, if everything else goes away for me, I hope I can hang on to that.
Miller: When some moment like that happens, is there a part of you that says this could be a song, this small moment, it’s a kernel that could grow into a song? Or does that happen later?
Morton: Yeah, that’s a good question. Because there’s a way in which I think a lot of songwriters end up self-sabotaging by like, “Oh, is this a special thing that’s happening to me right now? Maybe I should capitalize on that!” So it’s a push and pull there. Back to the question of what makes a good song or good lyrics, it’s a practice of thinking for me. When I do it best, it’s this reflection and meditation on whatever it is.
Miller: Let’s listen to a little bit more of another one of your songs, “Artificial Light” from “White Lighter,” which came out in 2013. We’re going to pick this one up about halfway through this song, as it gets to some kind of catharsis. Let’s have a listen.
[Recording of “Artificial Light” by Typhoon playing]
And it belongs to me
It belongs to me
It belongs to me
I woke up in the morning
To a pale light tangled in your hair
And I never wake before you
But this time I caught you sleeping there
Yes you are my sunlight
You are my last breath of air
I would try to hold it
I would try to keep the moment
Like a photograph of the sunset
Like a little kid with a bug net
Like a dying man, I swear
You belong to me, you belong to me
If you belong to anyone then you belong to me
But I have no other place to keep you safe
But in my shaking, ever shaking melody
Life goes on
Comes back on …
[Song fades out]
Miller: This is where things really start picking up here, in terms of the raucousness of the song. What’s it like to play this song live?
Morton: We were just talking about that. With 12 people on stage, you’re moving a lot of air. And it feels very powerful. It’s just so much sound.
Miller: And you feel that up on stage, the wall of sound that you’re making?
Steele: Yeah, most definitely,
Morton: Dave was saying the other day at practice that he just felt so grateful to be able to be on a big stage where he could turn his amp up to full volume. Like how many people get to do that?
Steele: It’s sort of a singular feeling.
Morton: Make a neighbor mad or something.
Miller: And you’re now getting to rehearse these songs again. Because it’s been a little while since you’ve played live?
Morton: We’ve played a couple smaller shows last year, benefits and stuff, and I do some solo stuff. But this is the first time we’ve had the whole gaggle back since 2024.
Miller: Kyle and Shannon, it was a pleasure having you both on. Thanks so much.
Steele: Thank you so much.
Morton: Pleasure’s ours. Thank you so much, Dave.
Miller: That’s Kyle Morton and Shannon Steele from Typhoon. Again, they are gonna be celebrating 20 years with two shows this weekend at Portland’s Revolution Hall.
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