Soul Asylum's Dave Pirner on New Album and Prince's Death

— -- It has been more than two decades since the release of Soul Asylum’s hit album “Grave Dancers Union.” The record turned a group of college rockers into Grammy award-wining artists.

Soul Asylum’s first two singles off the album -- “Somebody to Shove” and “Black Gold” -- topped the Modern Rock and Album charts, and the third, “Runaway Train,” took home the Grammy for Best Rock Song in 1994.

Now, the band is back with their latest album, “Change of Fortune.” “These days I feel even more liberated and free to try all kinds of different things and that’s kind of what this record is about,” lead singer Dave Pirner said.

The album, which Pirner describes as electric, was a decade in the making. “There’s some stuff on there that I spent ten years working on. So that was kind of cathartic for me, having some stuff I’ve been working on see the light of day,” Pirner said.

Years later, Pirner still considers Soul Asylum a punk-rock band. The singer got his start in Minneapolis as a teenager playing venues throughout the Midwest and eventually crossing paths with artists like Prince.

“We worked at lot at Paisley Park [Prince’s record label] and I would run into him in the hallway and say hello. … We had a chance to work out there a lot and I ran into him backstage at a Sheryl Crow thing and I had a chance to sort of express my gratitude to him while he was still around,” he said.

Prince’s death shocked the music industry and hit close to home. “It was a shock. People were really, really surprised. He was a very private person. … My drummer [Michael Bland] played with Prince for quite some time and so I sort of have at least a little more understanding of an intimate understanding of who he was really, from all of Michael’s great Prince stories.”

Soul Asylum is touring with the band English Beat throughout the United States.