Early in the morning of Oct. 4, Dry Ink was able to corner Sean Tillman, a.k.a. Har Mar Superstar, of Sean Na Na for our now famous “Drinks With” interview. Tillman has recently reformed Sean Na Na as a full-time project after temporarily putting Har Mar Superstar on the shelf. The band is touring with fellow Minnesotans The Hold Steady, and had performed at the EARL earlier in the evening. We ended up on the patio of a friend’s house where we drank Miller High Life, several bottles of red and a bottle of Jim Beam. I hope this makes sense to you.

Dry Ink: Thanks for doing this.

Sean Tillman: You got it.

DI: How is the tour going so far?

ST: It’s only day four so it’s hard to say, but it’s been great so far. We’re here drinking with you guys now, and the show was great. Shit, this afternoon we were getting our van washed by some topless moms in North Carolina.

DI: What? A topless car wash?

ST: Yea, now we got titty marks all over our van. But anyway, The Hold Steady are our homeboys from Minneapolis, and the tour started in New York and will end in New York, so it should be a fun.

DI: So where to next?

ST: I think we’re in Birmingham, that’s Alabama, tomorrow night.

DI: It’s been a minute since you guys have been here. The last time you were here was a few years ago. We ended up at this girl’s house and got crazy in her kitchen.

ST: Yea, we were on tour in a cargo van. I remember that night, sort of.

DI: Do you have a new record coming out?

ST: Well, we have the songs recorded for it, and we played some of them tonight. It should be out this fall. It’ll be called Family Trees or Cope We Must.

DI: I like the new songs. You guys sounded good tonight.

ST: Thanks.

DI: I’m glad to see you have Patty from The Dillinger Four playing with you. Great bass player and just an awesome guy. I’m a big fan of D4 too. So (drummer) Ben (Webster) and (keyboardist) Lucky Jeremy have been in Sean Na Na forever?

ST: Yea, I’ve been playing music with Jeremy and Ben for a long time. And Patty fucking rules. We’ve had some others extraordinary gents in the band at times: Chris Wilson from (Ted Leo and) the Pharmacists, and Ted himself. Chris and Ben used to play drums at the same time. Ben lives in some weird compound in Kansas now, but we were able to go pick him up for this tour. He’s been taking those pictures of everyone where we all look like we’re in a wind tunnel or a vortex. We also have a new guitar player, Denver Dalley, this time around.

DI: Why is Jeremy called Lucky Jeremy?

ST: Just fucking look at him, dude.

DI: There’s three of him, but he is handsome. A little pale, but… I’m gonna get some more beers.

ST: He is the best and you are the best.
(Tom returns with more High Life)

DI: So where is home for you now, you were living in the UK for a while, right?

ST: Hollywood, California is now my home and I love it. Hangin’ out with Mel Gibson and Jack Klugman.

DI: Speaking of Hollywood, I loved your moves in Starsky & Hutch.

ST: Yeah, that was a lot fun. I had a blast as Dancin’ Rick. Owen Wilson and Ben Stiller were very friendly.

DI: Are you getting into acting, too?

ST: Yea, I got a few things in the works.

DI: What’s going on with Har Mar Superstar? I mean, you were playing shows with The Strokes, and you have your hands on this beautiful woman’s head on your MySpace pic? And isn’t Har Mar the spokesperson for some Russian Vodka?

ST: We put him in the closet for a minute, but I’m still touching beautiful women. And yes, Har Mar is the Vladivar Vodka spokesman. But right now I’m just doing the Sean Na Na stuff, but he’ll have another record out and be rockin’ the mic some time next year.

DI: That is all good stuff. Jesus, it’s 6 in the morning and I have to be at work in 30 minutes.

ST: Yeah. You mean you have a job?

Tom Cheshire is the publisher of Dry Ink Magazine. Write to him at tom@dryinkmag.com