Stephen Malkmus
Issue #24
To celebrate his new album, the indie-rock legend sizes up basement recording, skateboarding, and the latest CDs at his local listening station
By Amy Schroeder
Published: June 1st, 2005 | 1:51pm
I’d assumed when I talked to Stephen Malkmus on the phone in April that I would’ve been, like, the 29th person to interview him in a week. Or maybe even the day. I figured he’d be pooped out or annoyed from answering the same questions over and over. But that wasn’t the case. “Umm, yeah, not too many. One a day,” he said on the phone from his Portland home. “Like a vitamin.”
I giggled. He’s a nice guy, and after all, as the former main dude in Pavement, Malkmus is one of the most memorable songwriter-guitarists to emerge from the 1990s American indie rock movement. And unlike a lot of musicians from the same scene, he graduated by moving on to challenge himself with something new: a solo career.
On his third solo full-length, Face the Truth, Malkmus confirms that his talent is all about combining cleverly concise lyrics (sometimes humorous, sometimes not) with feel-good music. In this case, you’ll hear some influences of disco, Thin Lizzy, and Simon and Garfunkel.
So I hear you’re about to become a dad.
I already did.
Is it a boy or a girl?
Girl.
A girl! What’s her name?
Lottie.
How did you pick the name?
My mom had written it down as a family name, and then I have a record by a singer named Lottie Goldman, and it just sounded strong: Lottie Malkmus.
What’s dadhood like?
It’s pretty fun, yeah. It’s really … what can I say about it? It just happens, and it’s a new paradigm, you know, a new existence. She’s changing before our eyes, so it’s pretty exciting.
You recorded your new album in your basement, right?
Yeah, I recorded it in my house. I have a home studio with stuff I’ve amassed over the years that I’ve never really used. I finally got some help to get it all put together and just kind of cranked it out. But I mixed [the album] in a real studio with this guy Phil Ek [Shins, Built to Spill]. I made it sound a little more hi-fi or at least medium.
Do you try to keep your work life separate from your personal life, or do you sort of mix it all together?
I generally keep it separate. You asked me about my child, and my answers could be in an article or something, but pretty much I do keep it separate. What are you gonna talk about at a certain point? I mean, people like music, but they want to know about the person a little bit more, or just something they can relate to more than, you know, the guitar tune. But then there’s other magazines that are more focused on process or rock history, and I’m not too picky about it. I’m not a huge reader of things. I’ll answer most questions, but if it’s too personal I wouldn’t mention, you know, medical records or relationships or something.
Why did you call your new albumFace the Truth?
It’s just kind of a strong title. It’s just straight ahead and kind of tough sounding — tough love. Doing the record down there by myself and just messing around and what-you-see-is-what-you-get, what-you-hear-is-what-you-get. There’s not too much trickery or tuning the vocals or spending forever masking the fact that it’s not a good song through lots of overdubs or producers or something.
What do you like about being a musician?
I like to travel. I like to make art. It’s sort of interdisciplinary because you get to make an album cover, and the music thing is pretty free and open — there’s a lot of freedom to mess around. It’s just something I do to give meaning to life and something I do naturally, so I don’t really know exactly what to say. It’s what I gravitated toward — when most of us are thinking of things that we like to do besides the social things. I like the people, you know, there’s different scenes. If you’re into the arts in any way, there’s different scenes in each one, whether it’s the art world, the literary world. There’s obviously different people and different attitudes and people that gravitated toward it, and I generally like the people I’ve found in the music world, who have similar interests as me.
Did you make the cover art for the new album?
No, Jessica, my partner, made the front cover. I did the inside, and there’s like this sexy-girl thing in there. She didn’t do that (laughs). It’s like a boy-fantasy thing. She just kinda rolled her eyes at that.
Did you know from a young age that you wanted to be a musician?
I knew I liked to play guitar and make songs just to entertain, and I guess when I was in high school I was into the punk movement of the early ’80s and going to see bands. My social life was kind of based around bands, skateboarding, and skateboarding bands. I wasn’t a very good skateboarder, so I’d rather be the music guy than the guy skating to the music.
Do you skateboard now?
Not really, no. I don’t even have one in the house, actually. Too dangerous for a father.
When did you start playing guitar?
I guess I was around 10. I got one of those Spanish guitars and just started fooling around. I had a couple lessons that my parents got me with a guy teaching me to play, like, “Oh, Susannah,” songs like that. And then I joined a punk band and played bass. You know, that’s a good way to start, as a bass player, because there’s only one string you have to hit instead of like chords, you know. And it makes your fingers stronger because it’s hard to press down the bass strings — at least the bass I had. Then, in college, I started maybe honing more of the direction that I went in, I started to learn about other groups, Velvet Underground, stuff like that.
For this issue of Venus, for whatever reason we seem to be covering a lot of Portland stuff. Is it coincidental, or is there something in Portland’s water that inspires creativity?
Well, maybe more for certain kinds of band like Sleater-Kinney, who are from Olympia originally ... Before this new record, I think they were more like an Olympia band, but now I think they’ve become a Portland band because they’re a little more jammy. And there’s like a psychedelic stoner edge to their music, even though they wouldn’t touch a joint with a 10-foot pole.
I think there’s a lot of young people moving here, certainly, and a lot of bands, and there is an art and film scene here, too, so there’s a lot of clubs, which is a good for a band. There is kind of a D.I.Y. spirit that goes with the Northwest. I could be doing this anywhere, I think, but I must say I definitely was helped a lot by people around here … A girl named Gail Buchanan set up all my recording stuff, and if I lived in Tucson or Phoenix or Oklahoma City, maybe I wouldn’t have found it so easy to have people help.
What music are you listening to right now?
This morning we listened to some Beethoven, and the kid seemed to like that all right. I’ve got some pretty folky, mellow stuff around the house these days, although I’ve got a couple metal records, too.
How do you feel about rock music right now?
Well, I took the baby down to this listening station the other day, and I was listening to some stuff — this band called the Kaiser Chiefs. They had a really Brit-pop song, and I liked that. I like the Kills — No Wow, that sounded good. And Daft Punk was a little bit boring but still better than a lot of things. Even when they’re kinda boring, they’re still more interesting than a lot of bands. Brian Jonestown Massacre weren’t very good. Brendan Benson: that’s pretty catchy stuff. That might be a good Venus thing. He’s kinda cute, too, I think, maybe. There was a little bit too much production stuff on it, but still very good. And Hot Hot Heat — I didn’t like that very much, but I don’t know, I just listened to the first couple songs. I generally was thinking there was some weakness in the lyrics, and in the new music there’s just not enough effort there; just some weak rhymes. I mean, I’m guilty of it, too, sometimes. People were trying really hard on those listening-post records. People are spending some more money on those generally, so there was a lot of effort, which I appreciate. It wasn’t like people were half-assing it or anything.
That’s some serious criticism.
I can critique!
How has life changed for you since Pavement?
Umm, well, I tour a little less. The music is similar, but there are different people [involved]. It’s hard to say, because there were a lot of different stages. In Pavement, we had our young time, when we were a young, new band, and there was a lot of attention and photos and interviews and all that stuff. I just don’t do as much of that anymore. That was getting a little tiring at the end of Pavement. It’s just there’s a certain time when you just kinda see through that stuff or you can’t do a photo shoot or something. You’re just like, “I can’t do this right now,” you know? I’ve got more important things to do. But when you’re younger, you want to go through that, and you just want to see where it’s gonna go. It’s just a little slower, but we have a following — people are paying attention to what I’m doing, so that makes me happy.
In some other interviews I’ve read it seems like you’ve been pretty goal-oriented in your career, and I’m wondering what your ultimate goals are at this point.
I would like to just keep it at this level of interest and quality and relevance. And to be a little bit a part of the scene and keep being able to call our own shots and be able to have a living from it — a little bit, not to be grandiose, but hopefully all of us will be able to do this and do other things on the side. They’re pretty modest goals. Write some new songs and make more records. Really nothing too big on the music side.
Comments
Please login to be able to comment on this article.
more