The situation: It’s a Tuesday evening and I’m eating and imbibing at Piecora’s Pizza with D. Crane, the frontman of one of Seattle’s favorite indie-pop outfits, BOAT.
BOAT is opening for the Apples in Stereo at the Crocodile on Tuesday, October 26. The show’s at 8 p.m. and tickets are $13. Boom, unfortunately, probably isn’t allowed in.
Intoxication: Intoxication? Crane is a role model, ok? By day he’s Mr. Crane, an eighth grade history, social studies, art, and guitar club teacher at Sequoyah Middle School in Federal Way (his kids like watch BOAT’s videos on YouTube and leave comments like “he’s my language arts teacher… lololol.”)
He’s also studying for his master’s at UW Tacoma, where he’s hoping to earn a degree in administration and become a large-and-in-charge school principal. “It seems like a sweet deal,” he says.
How He Got Here: Mr. Crane is up and walking his dog (a pitbull mix named Boom) by five every morning before heading off for school and another day with the kids.
“They were online today after they finished their work, and they were looking up this guy, I think it’s Wiz Khalifa? Do you know this guy?”
I’m pretty sure Wiz Khalifa mainly raps about rolling blunts and smoking weed.
“Well, that’s disturbing,” says Mr. Crane.
Shop Talk: Mr. Crane spent his summer vacation with his band, recording their fourth full-length, which will be released early in 2011. He describes it as “a super-rock album.”
“I think it’s going to be called Dress Like Your Idols,” he reveals. “[Although] the people I like don’t dress very cool. Like [Built to Spill frontman] Doug Martsch. The last time I saw them, he looked like a suspect sketch. He was wearing a black baseball cap, a giant white Hanes t-shirt and cargo pants. I don’t think he had on Tevas with socks, but it seemed like that.”
BTW: Mr. Crane says he can usually find something endearing about each kid, but there might be a line drawn somewhere, like two years ago, when some kids at Sequoyah poisoned one of the teachers.
“They put ipecac syrup in her coffee,” he says. “She had to go to the emergency room. She was okay, but she ended up not coming back, and the kids got expelled. Kids are weird.”
