"My story, I want to use it to inspire people, to show them where I come from and what I stand for. That's what the whole album is for. Like there's a song called 'Vagina.' That is because I have seen what is happening in Africa and I know what it is and I feel responsible."
photo by Rob Trucks
Emmanuel Jal is 28 years old—approximately. No one knows for sure exactly when the London-based rapper was born.
What is known is that Jal left his native south Sudan and its seemingly endless civil war as a child, after his village was razed and his mother was killed. For a time he lived in an Ethiopian refugee camp. Then he, along with other "lost boys," joined the Sudanese rebel army. After two years of battle and frequent flirtations with suicide, starvation and even cannabilism, Jal and 150 of his fellow child soldiers were rescued by British aid worker Emma McCune and taken to Kenya.
Jal's long journey is documented in the film War Child, this year's Cadillac Award winner for audience choice at the Tribeca Film Festival. And tomorrow on May 13, Jal's second album, also entitled War Child, will be released.
We spoke with Emmanuel Jal two weeks ago, between film festival and record release responsibilities, between public appearances and photo shoots, at his temporary residence in the Gild Hotel downtown.
VV: In one of the film's very first scenes you perform an a cappella rap of "War Child" for some students, and when you finish you say, 'That's my story.' If it's possible to capture your life in three minutes and 51 seconds, then that song's probably it, right?
EJ: Yeah, I have a song called "Forced to Sin" that summarize the intensity and everything and tell the story in a short form. That one is inspired by U.S. hip-hop basically. When I listened to Tupac, when I listened to Public Enemy and I listened to some underground. When people talk about 'my story,' in the hood, dealing with the drugs and all that, then I say, 'Let me give my story.'
So "Forced to Sin" is the story as much as the title track?
EJ: Yes. "War Child" is an intro. "Forced to Sin" is the full blow. Then when you come to "Emma," it's an appreciation of ending.
You mentioned Tupac and U.S. hip-hop, and that's as good a segue as any. You're born in Sudan, live in an Ethiopian refugee camp and eventually attend school in Kenya.
EJ: I escaped the refugee camp. There was war in Ethiopia and I end up going south in the army.
You're not forced to join the army but rather you volunteer, both for revenge and because you're a child and all your friends are carrying guns. Where are you when Emma McCune finds you?
EJ: Emma find me when we escaped from a failed battle of a city that we want to capture called Juba (in southern Sudan). So what happened was there was a fight between the rebels themselves. There was an internal fight, so for us, the young ones, we say, 'Okay, these guys have lost the vision, so let me go and protect my village.' So we all decided to escape. Me, I was just told, 'Okay, let's go.' So we escaped and the journey was intense and a lot of people died on the way.
This is when your best friend dies.
EJ: Yeah. And then we're 16 people, the only people left, and then that's when I arrived in Waat, exhausted. And Waat was not the destiny we wanted to go, but we ended up in Waat and that's where I met Emma McCune.
When do you first hear recorded music on a regular basis? When do you first hear American music on a regular basis?
EJ: The music that I used to hear was Bob Marley, but I didn't understand the English. But the commanders used to play "Buffalo Soldier." [Here Emmanuel sings a bit of "Buffalo Soldier."]
So you're still a pre-teen. You're not even 10 years old.
EJ: I start 7—7, 8, 9—and then I would hear "Get Up Stand Up" [He sings again.] So like those are the commanders who listened to those kind of music. Then some Arab music.
You recorded with (north Sudanese musician) Abdel Galir Salim, and it's missing the Jamaican influence that's present in your solo work. Is the difference that he's traditional and you're modern? That he's Muslim and you're Christian? Or is the difference simply based on north versus south Sudan?
EJ: If you actually go, properly, to Africa, because let me tell you, there's one place with music that is endless is Africa. Go to any village in Africa. Record it. Tell them to sing. Tell them, 'Sing for me a different song of different moods.' Go with your guitar and your cable. You'll end up either with reggae beats. You'll end up either with blues. You'll either end up with soul. You'll end up with dancing music, jungle music. Like that's how it is. But the Jamaicans, it's in the black peoples' genes, that when they're in pain they create music.
Music in Africa is in different form. There's music for war. There's music for sorrowness, when somebody dies. There's music for listening. There's music for loving. There's poetry. There's all kind of different, different sound. And sound vary from different village, from different place. But there's also the music that has been influenced by Arabs that came to Africa, and that's where you find Abdel Galir Salim's style. It's a mixture of Nubians' culture and Arabs' culture.
Now when you come to the style that I've brought, it's the way we think in my village [He sings again.] When we ask someone to put a beat into what we're singing, they came with a hip-hop beat. If you give it to somebody else they give it a reggae beat. Because I'm now in the Western world I've tried to make sure I sing the music on the four beat, but in Africa we just sing.
So is Bob Marley played on the radio?
EJ: Someone with a small tape. But we don't have radio station. These are commanders who've bought a radio and maybe they put on BBC and they'll hear Bob Marley, or they'll have a tape and they'll play. But what the soldiers do is they have their own songs. And the way they sing is different. Like I could give you an example of a song [He sings again, this time in a language other than English (Dinka?) . . . though the tune is reminiscent of Big Country's "In a Big Country."] Something like that. But that's now the soldiers singing their own song—not influenced by Jamaica, not influenced by anything.
Oh, sorry. You told me about hip-hop? I had hip-hop when I was in Kenya.
Is that when you were in boarding school?
EJ: No, not there. Before. Primary school. I had it when I was first brought in Kenya and I saw TV and people are rapping and I'm saying, 'Wow! What are they saying?' And I just like what they're talking about. I didn't understand so I would just jump around what they're doing. So I thought, 'These are Kenyans.' I didn't know these are Americans. I know like these are Kenyans having fun. Took me like four years to actually realize these are not Kenyans. So I say, 'Okay, Americans. Okay, cool. Americans.' But they're Kenyans. So I thought maybe it's another tribe called Black Americans [he laughs] which is in Kenya. Because they look like Kenyans because Kenyans are light-skinned and they're Bantus and those figures that I see in TV is the same except they speak English. So it took me a while.
You're a young man who has lived a long life already and you've taken on some heavy responsibilities. In "Forced to Sin" you talk about fighting for the children of Darfur, Sudan, all of Africa. And of course the War Child documentary endeavors to gain attention to the situation in your home country. But if the conflict in Africa is the most important message, is it diluted by including songs like "No Bling," "Skirt Too Short" and "50 Cent"?
EJ: This is me as a musician. What's my perspective? What's my reaction to the situation I have? That is me talking. So my story, I want to use it to inspire people, to show them where I come from and what I stand for. That's what the whole album is for. Like there's a song called "Vagina." That is because I have seen what is happening in Africa and I know what it is and I feel responsible. I'm here. I've lost my childhood. I have adulthood. Let me use the story to inspire people. If it doesn't highlight the situation in Africa, but somewhere somehow somebody's heart will be touched because a lady called Emma McCune rescued me and rescued about 150 child soldiers. And poverty's all over the world. Make a difference. That's one message I want to pass.
And also to remind people what hip-hop started for in America. It was something to speak for the community, but now it has gone into blings and prostitutions of women and all those things. Like the song "No Bling" came when I was in England because no record label want to sign me. The reason they didn't want to sign me is because I'm not hardcore. I'm a simple person. When I'm in the public, I don't carry the state of saying, 'I'm important. I'm a celebrity. You're supposed to take me as this great, amazing person.' I'm just a normal person. So they tell me, 'You need to have an image. You need to be hard. You need to have the big cross or bling here (he points to his chest). You need to have that look. You need to wear fine shoes. And that way we'll be able to sell you.' Then I say, 'No. I can't go for that. I'm in pain now. My family's destroyed. My country's at war. I'm a refugee. I've been a refugee for 25 years. I've starved. I have nothing to live for, but I have a lot to say.'
You understand that I'm not disagreeing with you.
EJ: No, no. I'm just trying to show you how angry I was with the record company. So this frustrate me because to fight the record label was difficult. Then the other part was, my cousin who escaped as a refugee to England started forming his own little groups and they called themselves G-Units. And they go and beat boys in school, bullying. He ended up stabbing a white boy. He was sent to jail. Then the producer's son was sent to jail for doing a drive-by shooting. And both of us were in the studio so we have mixed emotions, mixed feeling. Not blaming hip-hop, that hip-hop is bad, but how can we pass a message to the hip-hop guys up there that they are the icon? They are the people that the kids look up to? Rock only work in the white audience and Europe. Hip-hop has conquered all the continents of the world. You go to China. Reggae used to rule, but now hip-hop rule the young people. The only way I knew about how hip-hop is big is when I went to a village and a small kid singing me a 50 Cent song and he doesn't know English [laughs.]
Again, I'm not disagreeing with your point. All I'm asking is, When you're talking to the record label in London and saying, 'Look, I lost my childhood. My family's destroyed and people are starving,' does the inclusion of "No Bling," "50 Cent," "Skirt Too Short" dilute your message regarding the situation in Africa?
EJ: No, it doesn't because it's my response to an experience that I've had. Understand, the music that come out is come out of energy. If you do me something wrong now I'll come up with a song about it, so that when you go I don't want to fight you. I don't want to cuss about you, but take that energy and convert it into something positive.
But energy is energy, and you could write a song if I do something right and not just when you're angry, right?
EJ: Yeah, but most of these songs came out of anger. Like they come out of hard situations. That's why I haven't talked about love yet. I don't have a song about my experience with a woman, because what is relevant now is what I'm experiencing. I'm talking about what's happening with 50 Cent. How is 50 Cent influencing me? Me as a person? I'm a fan. I'm listening to learn more hip-hop and improve on my skills of flow and even writing. But what I'm looking is to say, 'Look, you have a responsibility. You have made millions. It's time now to turn everything around. Make even advertisement to young people. Go to school. Be somebody. Something like that. Because you keep that gangster image, a lot of kids will think it's amazing.'
And for me, one thing I know is music is powerful. Nothing speak to a brain or a mind or a heart or soul more than music. And that's why you find reggae music, the people came with reggae music. Guys like smoking weed and getting high and they're at peace. Rock music you find guys who are doing that kind of lifestyle and they think it's cool to be stinky and be rough. And you go to hip-hop it's cool to be violent. So you see, see how music has affect our society. But at the moment hip-hop is what is ruining our young people, our young generation, so it's my responsibility as well to pass my message to my opponent because I can't call him on the phone and tell him, 'Hey 50. Kids are knifing each other out there. Kids thinking it's fun shooting. They think it's cool killing somebody.' So the best way's to honor him because he has achieved amazing stuff. I can't come cussing at him. But I have to speak the truth and to honor him because I'm a fan. At the same time I don't want to offend him, but I want to stand to my truth to what I want to say if I meet him in the room.
I don't want to put the cart too far ahead of the horse, but you talked about not having written about your experiences with love. Given that this is your identity now, that there's a documentary and an album and you are the War Child, how tough is it going to be to leave that behind? Can you record an album, even five years down the road, where the main theme is something other than the situation in Africa?
EJ: You see, music go with timing and people grow. Now I'm at a different point when dealing with issues. My next album may not sound like War Child. My third album may sound different. I'm an artist. I'm still growing. And there's still more room for improvement, you know. Like I've got some love songs about women. I've got different stuff. But I'm saying, 'Is it the right time for me to put them on this album?'
And I guess the answer is, 'Not yet.'
EJ: It's not the right time. Next time. Next time maybe.
But you have written love songs?
EJ: I have some love songs. I even have a love song where I'm saying I'm going to find myself an American girl.
Yeah, I think that's Tom Petty.
EJ: [laughs]
The song "War Child" begins, 'I believe I've survived/For a reason/To tell my story/To touch lives.' Given all of the horrible, inhumane things you have seen and lived through, when do you begin to believe in God? There have to be moments of desperation when you questioned whether or not anyone was looking out for you, right?
EJ: Yeah, but like if you watch the film you find there are points I was tired of life. I want to commit suicide. I want to die. I hated life. I say, 'Why was I born?' I used to cuss my life every time, and when I was broke in Kenya when Emma died, that was a breakdown for me because I had to go to slums. I couldn't afford sometimes one meal a day. We eat the next day. So that happened. And that kind of pain is what brought the music that you hear today.
But when do you begin to believe that your life has a larger purpose? I assume that you felt that way when Emma McCune rescues you, but when Emma dies I would guess that you would question again. It's saying something for someone who has gone through as much as you have to believe that there's a higher power with a plan and who is looking out for you.
EJ: One question I would ask myself is, 'Why didn't I die when there was bombing? Why did I not die in my village when my village was attacked? Why did I not die when our house was safe and our neighbor's house got bombed? Why did I not die? Why did I not get shot in the time I was there? Why did I not die in the ship that capsized? Why did I survive that? Why did I survive the trek in the desert? Why did Emma McCune rescue me and brought me to Kenya?' So those were the questions I was asking myself.
And the answer is . . .
EJ: I believe I survived for a reason. To tell my story.
And that belief comes . . .
EJ: In London. When I came to London. Because I've seen the impact when I'm invited somewhere. Though it depresses me to talk about my story, how powerful. It make people to respond and want to do something. And then I say, 'Look, my country's at pain. I'm War Child. I lost my childhood.' Everybody want to know my story. Let me just give it to them. It's going to help somebody. So what else do I have to lose? I've lost everything that I've owned. But if this touch somebody's life to help somebody then it's worth it.
Okay, tell me something that you've never ever done before in your life.
EJ: I've never eaten a crab. [Laughs.]
That's a good one. Tell me something you've done once and one time only.
EJ: I cooked avocado, mixed it with onions and tomatoes with eggs. I fried all of them together. I was hungry. I ate it, but I'll never eat it again.
Really? Because that actually sounds kind of good.
EJ: You know the way you make an omelet of avocado, tomatoes, onion and mushroom, all that together? Because I like eating avocado. It tastes nice when it's not cooked. So I thought, 'How nice will it taste when it's cooked?'
Tell me the name of a movie that you've seen at least three times.
EJ: Apart from War Child. I can't say War Child. Which movie have I watched three times? Shrek [Laughs hysterically]. That shows how weird I am.
No, that's a wonderful answer.
EJ: It just make me laugh. The donkey was funny. I think the ogre itself was funny. And the girlfriend. Like the whole crew.
And if you could have everyone in the world listen to one Emmanuel Jal song, what song would it be?
El Perro del Mar plays the late show at Joe’s Pub with Lykke Li this Wednesday, May 7th (sold out) and again at Bowery Ballroom on Thursday, May 8th (sold out).
"I was grieving a person that had left, someone who had always been very close to me that was gone. And I think, for the very first time in my life, I was really asking myself the question of ‘Is there anything left?’ Or, ‘Is there anything following at all?’
On a mid-April Saturday (afternoon in New York, evening in Gothenburg), we’re mere days away from the release of From the Valley to the Stars, the follow-up to El Perro del Mar. For inside the Valley, Sarah Assbring, the Swedish woman behind the EPDM curtain, purposefully ponders life and death, whether or not there’s a god and whether or not there’s a heaven. You know, some fairly solemn shit even if you do live in the land of long, long winters.
But the mere 20 minutes remaining on our international calling card pays our conversational seriousness no mind, so we’ve got a long way to go and a short time to get there.
I read an interview a little while ago—maybe even while you were still recording—that implied you were aiming for something a little more thematic than the last album.
SA: Definitely, yeah.
Do you remember the trigger that suggested Valley was the right direction? Do you remember the moment when you decided this was a good idea? Are you, by any chance, staring up at the sky?
SA: I think there definitely was a moment of looking up in the sky and asking myself all these kinds of different questions, but the questions themselves had very much to do about life and death, and they were very linked to looking up to the sky. I think that was the trigger. And from then on it just went from naturally having the only wish of doing that conceptual piece.
Obviously the sky’s a major player here, but it’s not only a literal concern, like, ‘Hey, I see some stars and there’s the moon over there,’ but also figuratively in that heaven’s supposed to be somewhere behind those clouds.
SA: Exactly. It’s exactly what you’re saying. It’s the kind of the perpetual image that we people, like from the very beginning of time, seem to have this symbolic idea or wish for a comforting place somewhere above the clouds.
I don’t know how much you get to watch American baseball, or even whether you would watch baseball if you could, but many Catholic ballplayers, often Latino players, cross themselves before they bat. And then if they reach base they’ll cross themselves again, kiss their fingers and point up to the sky.
SA: Yeah.
I’m not sure where I was going with that.
SA: No, that’s kind of beautiful because, I mean, for me it’s a kind of a pretty image because it is very much kind of hinting to any kind of religious belief system. Any kind. And the whole work with the album personally ended up with me in some kind of like universal, very human kind of original need for just some kind of answer and some kind of comfort when you’re in need. And to me it’s like the most, just very natural kind of thing. I thought that maybe I was looking for something that was kind of, you know, religious or spiritual. And I was maybe, but it wasn’t linked to any belief system in that kind of sense. It only ended up with a very just basic idea of something, a comforting idea.
Since that was kind of like a mini-confession, that you were looking for something else out there, I will confess that I’ve read your blog.
SA: Yeah?
Yeah. And I’m going to hit you with that in just a minute. But first I want to ask you about this exploration, because this album has been an exploratory journey for you. Now that you’ve finished writing and recording these songs and they’re about to be released, did you learn anything?
SA: I did. I think I definitely did. I think something that would be good for you to know is that I started this work in a very kind of intellectual kind of way. I was like preparing myself, gathering diverse kinds of inspiration and inputs, and that had very little to do with writing music. It was rather like filling myself up with enough information so that the music could speak for itself. At the risk of sounding very pretentious. But anyway, that’s how I felt. That the music would be like universal, or the language that I would use would be more of a universal kind of language rather than something that was very personal. And the kind of gathering of information that I did was this personal kind of looking for a God or looking for something to believe in. I was kind of doing that because I was grieving a person that had left, someone who had always been very close to me that was gone. And I think, for the very first time in my life, I was really asking myself the question of ‘Is there anything left?’ Or, ‘Is there anything following at all?’ Or, ‘Are you still here?’ I was asking myself those questions, and I think that I, in the process, ended up accepting a lot of things. I think I somewhere ended up thinking, ‘No, there is probably nothing left, but it’s the journey that we make. We start here and we end up somewhere out there.’ So it ended up in a kind of embracing and jubilation over the facts of life: how we start and how we end and the beauty of that. It’s just very simply that.
Well, let’s move to the concrete from the abstract. Chronologically, what’s the first song that you write for From the Valley to the Stars? Once you decide, ‘This is what I’m exploring, this is what I’m filling myself up with,’ what’s the first song that you write?
SA: The first song is actually the last song on the album. It’s called “Your Name is Neverending.”
And what’s the last song that you write?
SA: The last song is “Jubilee,” the first song.
If the last song you wrote is first on the album and the first song you wrote is the last on the album then I’ve got to believe there’s a reason behind it. Does that knowledge tell me anything as a listener?
SA: Yeah, definitely. Definitely so. Since I took on this project in the kind of way that to me was feeling very much like the way that I think of classical composers writing a symphony or working on a symphony, I think that you have this idea, this chronological idea almost as a writer, like a literary writer, where you know you have to have this certain chapter and then you have to have that certain chapter to fill up the whole piece of work. And you’re very conscious about that during the whole process, and I think it’s pretty common that it works like that. You’re starting from the end and ending up at the beginning. That’s the kind of feeling that I got working with this. It was the kind of circularity, and that’s also the whole story of From the Valley to the Stars. It starts there and it ends up and then it goes on and on and on in this neverending circle.
And “Your Name is Neverending,” the first song you wrote for Valley and the last song on the disc is one of the few songs on the record that continues to use the acoustic guitar that’s all over your last album rather than the organ that’s prevalent here. It’s almost like a hangover of instrumentation. Does that make any sense?
SA: Definitely. And maybe that is also kind of an answer to your previous question. I mean, that the last song was written first. And I started with the acoustic and pretty quickly I realized that I need to explore something different. I needed to take this in a different way. And I pretty quickly was very drawn to the organ.
Your December 17, 2007 blog entry reads: “It seems every time I visit a church there just happens to be a musical event going on. And every time I'm hit with this feeling that I made the wrong choice as a musician. I would've been better off as a choral person; someone in the crowd of a choir. I just think about the atmosphere and the focus that the very room of a church inspires and what it does to me." And it seems like anyone listening to Valley from the Stars would know that you’ve spent some recent time in church.
SA: Yeah. Is that a question?
No, I just like hearing myself talk.
SA: (laughs) That’s a statement, yeah.
And “Happiness Won Me Over” is extraordinarily hymn-like.
SA: It is.
Okay. I was just making sure we were still on the same page.
SA: We are. Definitely.
Good, then let me ask you this. Last fall you weren’t quite finished recording the album and you decided to go to India. That seems like a weird time to leave, when you’re so close to being done. Why did you go then?
SA: That was just a pure miscalculation of planning. The original plan was to be finished with the album when I was to leave for India. But I totally, totally miscalculated the overwhelming, the massive work that was left, so I had to go. I had the tickets and everything so I just had to go and I had to accept that I wasn’t ready and it wasn’t finished. And that was very frustrating. I was very, very frustrated when leaving and thinking, ‘Shit, I totally just blew this.’ And it took me about a week to realize that it was probably for the best. I came back with a whole different kind of perspective to what I was making. And I’m very happy that it happened to end up like that.
So why India? And given the fact that you went there at such a tenuous, important moment in terms of making this record, what effect. [Here an operator recording breaks in with a two-minute warning; I cuss vehemently and Sarah laughs] . . . Why India and what effect did your trip have on the record?
SA: I’ve been very into like the philosophy, the old philosophy of India and the religions of the India, I guess. And I’ve also been very much into Indian music for a long time and I think Indian music was very much part of the trigger that made we want to do this album. Along with that, I’ve always, always dreamt of going to India, so India, in my mind I think, was a very big part of the whole process of the album and now, looking back on it, I think I had a very romantic image of what India would be like and I’m very happy that I went there to realize that it’s so much more than that idea. I think part of my idea was shattered, but a big part of me learned a whole lot and that’s why I think that the miscalculation of my work and having to go to India before the album was done and then coming back from the experiences that I had was very giving to the end result.
Tell me something that you’ve never ever done before.
SA: Rock climbing. I haven’t done that. I would love to do that, yeah. Extreme rock climbing.
Tell me something that you’ve done once and one time only.
SA: Ride a horse.
Just once? How long ago?
SA: I was very little and I fell off and I will never do it again. That’s what I thought then. I thought it was very, very difficult.
So the old axiom, ‘If you fall off a horse, get right back on,’ didn’t work for you.
SA: It didn’t. Not at all. It was like, ‘Wow, how can this be so difficult when it seems like it’s so easy? There must be something wrong with me. I will never do it again.’ That’s how I felt.
What’s the sky like in Gothenburg right now? Inspirational or not?
SA: The sky in Gothenburg is orange just above the rim of the horizon and light, light blue over that. It’s been a beautiful spring day today and the night sky is colored by that. I love nights like these. Totally inspirational in all its silent grandeur.
El Perro del Mar plays the late show at Joe’s Pub with Lykke Li this Wednesday, May 7th (sold out) and again at Bowery Ballroom on Thursday, May 8th. The EPDM blog is at elpd.blogspot.com.
Posted by Michael D. Ayers at 8:00 AM, April 29, 2008
Jolie Holland plays Union Pool this Wednesday, April 30th.
"The thing is, you’re not supposed to feed bears people-food, because then they’ll turn into garbage bears, and get shot."
We, and by we I mean New York, should feel lucky. Yeah, we got that Thriller re-enactment thingy last week, and sometimes the pizza is okay, but late last year our fair city stole the Texas-born belter Jolie Holland away from San Francisco permanently.
For years now, Holland has won favor with the likes of critics and Tom Waits, who nominated her for a Shortlist Music Prize. Similar to her own heroes (like, say, Daniel Johnston), she's been relegated to a small, devoted following. Maybe it’s because she’s not one for being trendy—her music has a certain timelessness to it, melding the best in vocal jazz, blues, and country traditions, her voice masterfully sliding between sultry and sweet, despairing and lonely. In a weird way, Holland's music might best be enjoyed five or ten years down the road—were you to revisit her work in a decade, I'd guess it'd be extremely difficult to place it in a time period.
We met in Williamsburg, at a place called Gimme Coffee, but that joint was way too packed on a Tuesday mid-day, so we went to a stoop and just sat there, chattin' and watching the traffic go by us. In person, there’s much more of a southern drawl to her voice than on record. She's quite charming and unpretentious, as well as gracious enough to not say “You’re an idiot” when I didn’t know what a Turkish Bath was or when I asked her to describe her own voice. She’s here working on a new record due this fall; I suggested two titles at the end of this interview: Feeding People Food To Bears and Really Famous In Canada. Alas, she’s already decided on The Living & The Dead.
VV: Springtime Can Kill You was my number two favorite album of that year. . . 2006.
JH: Oh wow. What was your favorite record?
I can’t remember.
JH: [laughs]. I think my two favorite records around that time, [one] was a record that no one has ever heard of called The Inferno—it was true stories based on Dante’s Inferno, true stories based on his life. And Freakwater’s Thinking Of You.
So you’re living here full time now? What prompted this change?
JH: I don’t know . . . I was just feeling shy or something; it was time to go somewhere. I was really considering going to Portland [Oregon], where I have a great pack of friends, but I ended up coming here.
Do you know a lot of people here?
JH: Yeah, I feel really lucky.
So you’re working here, on new material?
JH: Mmmhmm.
Who are you working with?
JH: You know Rachel Blumberg? She’s the drummer that has played with M. Ward and Conor Oberst some times. She plays on this record; she’s amazing. M. Ward plays on guitar, and he’s just ungodly at guitar.
He is a good guitar player. I’m not sure if people recognize his guitar playing as his best thing, but I’m not really sure what people recognize is his best thing.
JH: Right, he’s got an awesome voice.
Is he singing with you?
JH: No, just guitars.
So who else?
JH: Do you know Shahzad Ismaily? He’s on it, a New York guy—he’s this unreal bass player, a guitar player, and a drummer. He might be my favorite guitar player and drummer that I’ve worked with. He’s co-producing. M. Ward kinda co-produced the first part of the record, but he didn’t think I needed a producer, but I disagreed with him. But it was very nice of him to say.
What was reasoning behind that?
JH: He said it was like feeding bears people-food. [Laughing]
I don’t understand that.
JH: Okay, so have you ever lived around bears?
No. Well, I might have, but I didn’t know it.
JH: Good. The thing is, you’re not supposed to feed bears people-food, because then they’ll turn into garbage bears, and get shot.
Oh, okay. That’s right. The whole Yogi Bear sort of thing. Did you ever watch that cartoon?
JH: No.
That was the whole thing.
JH: He was a garbage bear? [Laughs] Yeah, I cracked up when he said that to me. I started writing it down, and had my journal open. Colin Stinson played on it a bit. Do you know who he is?
The name sounds familiar.
JH: Isn’t it that a fucking awesome name?
It’s not bad.
JH: [laughs]. So yeah, Colin plays horns on a couple of songs.
That’s one of the things that I was going to ask; the last record had such a brass / horn thing going on. It made it more weird, or interesting for me.
JH: I know so many great horn players, I feel really lucky. And Marc Ribot plays on this one too. I’m going to have a Turkish Bath with him on Thursday.
What is a Turkish Bath?
JH: You know, its like going to the steam rooms. So that will be fun.
Does he contribute vocals on this?
JH: No just guitars. But I do want to sing with him at some point.
Do you sing with anyone on this?
JH: I sing with myself, which is kind of a new thing for me. Carla Bozulich sang a bit with me, and she’s a good shot in the arm.
So would you say the record is bigger than the last time, or is it still sparse in a way?
JH: Quiet? Yeah, I think this is really different, because this is years after I fell in love with Daniel Johnston, and I really think Daniel has really brought me back to rock and roll the way that no one else has.
Really, him?
JH: Yeah, him. Because he’s so pure.
Did you see his movie?
JH: Yeah, I did. I thought it was kind of sad. . . if I had seen that movie before I knew about his music, then I would have had a hard time understanding his music—because there wasn’t any good music; just a few little snippets. I thought of it as him as a presentation as a caricature, then one of America’s greatest songwriters period.
I guess I can see that whole caricature part, when they were talking about the whole MTV thing. So anyways, you were saying . . .
JH: Oh yeah. Actually, it’s funny. There are a lot of lyrical nods. There’s a line that quotes “Cold Hard World.” There's lots of other tiny quotes of my favorite songwriters on this record. If you’re a Freakwater fan, then you know that there is a ridiculous amount of weird motifs. I have a line there where I reference the velvet tongue which they talk about. And there is another line where I say “Let love in,” which is a nod to Nick Cave . . .
Did you have a lot of competition around San Francisco? I mean, like around here, I think it would hard to get noticed.
JH: I don’t know. I don’t listen to anyone that I think sounds like me. But there are a lot of songwriters that I admire; I don’t think of it as competition. If I’m competing with anybody, I’m competing with…[pauses]
I was going to say something weird like “If I’m competing with anybody, it’s the TV.” Because in a way, I do think if you’re trying to get someone’s attention, that is what you are competing with—but someone’s attention that isn’t being moved by music.
Did you ever have any classical or formal training?
JH: No, I never had any formal training.
Self-taught?
JH: I was in orchestra when I was in thirteen. But my teacher was deaf, and she didn’t ever notice that I was never learning how to read, and just playing by ear. Which I guess is good training in a way. Which I liked it. But I was first viola. I couldn’t read but I was first viola.
How does that work, having a deaf teacher, teaching music?
JH: I don’t know. I mean I’m glad she had a job. She didn’t start out deaf, she was just getting old.
One of the thing I’ve been wondering, is how you would describe your voice? One of the things that you’re good at is controlling it, in ways that I don’t hear very often. It seems like you’re really good at controlling the pitch subtly. But maybe that’s me overthinking it, and you not even considering it.
JH: I mean one of my earliest influences was Blind Willie MacTell. He has so much passion and humor in his voice. Well, first of all, I don’t describe my voice—you know what I mean? I just don’t.
Do people ask you to describe your voice, like I just did?
JH: No, not that I can remember. But I think about phrasing a lot—that’s what I’m concerned with. Phrasing has to do with timing, force of tone, and what kind of breathe you are using. The way that the notes are presented in sound.
So, that would make me think, is that a challenging thing?
JH: I don’t know, but it’s just what I love about music. For me, my tiny, tiny differences in phrasing changes the meaning of something. I mean, that’s what I love about any musician I love—these tiny little ways they do things. For me, that’s totally where it’s at. If somebody is phrasing is fucked up, I can’t listen to it. If they have a bullshit relation to the beat, I’m not interested in it, I’m not drawn to it. And if they have a fascinating connection in their phrasing, it’s so magnetically attractive. And to me, that’s Thelonious Monk, that’s Marc Ribot, that’s all the great singers. And that’s it for me.
Jolie Holland plays Union Pool on Wednesday, April 30th.
"I've always been Black Francis but I tried to call myself something else for a while and I sort of said, 'All right, enough baloney.' You know, 'Back to who I am for real.' And it is an artier stage name and so for some reason. . . while performing under that moniker, I feel a bit artier."
Today, Black Francis releases the "mini-LP" Svn Fngrs.
Looks like the sort of man who likes to break up via fax, doesn't he?
Know that, regardless of guise, Charles Michael Kittredge Thompson IV is prolific man. An album a year as leader of the Pixies, Black Francis. Another dozen under his Frank Black solo artist pseudonym, and now back to Black Francis—first with Bluefinger, last fall’s collection inspired by musician, painter and writer Herman Brood (pretty much the Dutch personification of sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll), and currently with Svn Fngrs, a seven-track “mini-LP” that continues to lean left with its subject matter.
But the man who chortled about “slicing up eyeballs” and “whores with disease” is a bit more grounded in his day-to-day life, for in less than two months Thompson and his spouse, Violet Clark (who played bass on Svn Fngrs), will welcome a fifth child into their Eugene, Oregon home.
We interrupted his progeny’s Saturday afternoon efforts to have their dad chase them around the house in order to talk about songwriting, Svn Fngrs and the balancing of career and family.
Let’s talk family man versus Herman Brood and his representation of the sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll lifestyle. Is that an outlet or escape for you since you’re living a “Father Knows Best” life right now?
CT/FB/BF: I have thought about it in those terms. I can’t say that it’s really like that because I’ve never really been that type of a hedonist or whatever, you know what I mean? I’ve just been a lot more conservative, even when I was younger, and so I can’t say that I’m, you know, somehow living vicariously. I think people like to hear about those subjects, though, in rock ‘n roll music, so it’s definitely given me a way to go there.
Do you have to get your mind in a certain place to write about such things?
CT/FB/BF: No, not really. It all seems perfectly normal to me. I mean, I was probably 8 or 9 years old and consuming the Beatles’ White Album and Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits, Vol. II, so, you know, there’s plenty of abstract kinds of poetry, oddball couplets and things on those records, so they were always my example, the psychedelic giants of the ‘60s.
I’m guessing your house tilts toward the crowded side. Is there a room where you can go in order to write? Or do you have to get completely out of the house in order to compose?
CT/FB/BF: Yeah, I pretty much have to basically book a recording studio. I do have an office downtown here where a young kid works for me part-time. You know, we try to sell a few t-shirts and a few CDs, that kind of thing, and I have a piano down there and so sometimes I go there and work. Before that, before we had the office, I used to get a hotel room for a few days and just go there.
So composing during the fatherhood years almost has to be a burst thing.
CT/FB/BF: Yeah, and I think it allows me to continue my habits of procrastination, you know, but I have an excuse now, sort of. It’s sort of like, I haven’t gotten around to doing it. I’ve been too busy with my kids and everything.
I just did a whole silent movie soundtrack in San Francisco last weekend.
Is that Golem?
CT/FB/BF: Yeah, I basically showed up for the session a day early and holed myself up in a hotel room. That was writing with a different kind of an aesthetic, you know, because it was a movie and it’s real arty and I had a real, strong, clear catalyst, this film that I was scoring. But, you know, we did a whole album. Basically we did 82 minutes worth of music, so definitely a double album’s worth of music, and it took about a week, including the writing.
So I think that if you’re feeling good, then you can write very quickly. It’s kind of like being good at a particular video game or I suppose being a good surfer. Once you’re in the zone you can do a lot of stuff in that zone, and kind of make the right editorial kind of decisions very quickly. And get a lot done real fast.
I like to work that way, number one, but, number two, I’ve been doing it for 20 years or whatever on a regular basis, so I have that background. I’ve written a bunch of songs. For better or for worse, I’ve made a lot of records in the last 20 years, so I have that muscle.
And probably the commitment of time, the commitment of time away from the family and the pressure of a limited amount of time in the hotel room doesn’t do any damage to the burst either.
CT/FB/BF: Yeah, I get real focused. I don’t waste a lot of time. You know, I don’t get sideswiped by something else. I’m like, 'Hey, I’m doing this right now and I’m going to do it and I’m going to stay up all night if I have to and that’s all there is to it and here we go.'
Let me ask you about Svn Fngrs. You and Violet record for six days and on the seventh you rest. Is there a compositional glue? Like are these all songs you wrote in one specific writing session? Why seven songs?
CT/FB/BF: I think I tried for ten or eleven songs. I wanted to do a full album, and I think I wrote maybe seven or eight new chord progressions, or theoretically what could turn into a so-called song as soon as I put a vocal on top of it. And I even used a couple of bits of music that I recorded last summer that still don’t have vocals on them, but you know what? I wrote them not even in a hotel room. I wrote them at the studio while the drummer was having a cigarette outside. I’d say, 'Go have a cigarette,' and he’d come back ten minutes later and we would cut a track and I’d say, 'Okay, go have a cigarette.' I’m going to write another one. And I did seven or eight, nine songs, something like that, and then Violet threw the bass on it.
It sounds like he’s a smoking fiend. He’s not really, but he smokes these clove cigarettes and they’re kind of slow burning, you know. It’s like smoking a cigar or something. So I’d say, 'Go have a clove. I’m going to write a lyric.' And he would take off and I’d page him on his cell phone a half hour later and say, 'Okay, I’m ready,' and we would do a vocal. And that’s how we’d do the vocals for a couple of days.
And right around when we got seven songs finished and feeling really good about them, I could feel, even before I composed the first couplets for track number eight, that it wasn’t happening. I could just go, 'It’s gone now.' The creative energy is totally gone. I’m not going to do a full album’s worth of material here. I’ve got seven songs here that are really good. I’m going to finish number eight here and it’s going to suck. And I did and it did stink. But I knew it. I could feel the energy was gone, and so I was like, 'Okay, well, that isn’t so bad.' I just released this Bluefinger record back in September, so at least I won’t be putting that kind of pressure on the record label. Like, 'Okay, I’ve got another record. I’ve got a mini-LP, you know. A little off the radar, you know. It doesn’t have to be a big deal. You don’t have to promote the heck out of it. Just put it out.' And they were agreeable.
So the recording was extremely self-contained.
CT/FB/BF: Yeah, it’s sort of like our family can handle, or I should say the parents can handle, a week’s worth of chaos without going totally nuts. Honey, I’ve got to leave for two days in a row to go into the studio. You’ve got to take care of everybody. You know, for a day she goes and does the bass and I watch the kids for a day. Again, she ends up taking care of the kids and everything when I’m at the studio, but it’s basically about a week where I’m not so involved in the day-to-day. And after about a week, because she’s pregnant, she’s just like totally spent, so yeah it is self-contained in a way. It’s like we can handle a week’s worth of chaos and then after that we have to take a break and get back to our routine.
The last two records are credited to Black Francis. Are you using that name because it’s a different sound or because it’s better marketing after the success of the Pixies reunion? Why Black Francis instead of Frank Black or even Charles Thompson?
CT/FB/BF: Well, I hope it’s better marketing, but I can’t say that that’s the reason. But, you know, for sure there’s this thought that maybe performing under the old moniker this new or old, forgotten about door has opened, or reopened. And it does sort of feel like that.
Like I just recorded this Golem stuff. Some of that sounds like a Frank Black and the Catholics record, but again, for me personally it’s not about a particular sound but it’s about a certain kind of door being opened that couldn’t be opened before until I made this symbolic gesture.
It just feels like I’ve always been Black Francis but I tried to call myself something else for a while and I sort of said, 'All right, enough baloney.' You know, back to who I am for real. And it is an artier stage name and so for some reason I have to say while performing under that moniker I feel a bit artier.
The connotation of artier would suggest that one is a little freer to push the boundaries, which brings us back around to the whole Bluefinger/Herman Brood theme.
CT/FB/BF: Yeah, yeah. And also less concern about commercial viability. Not that I was so concerned about that with the Catholics, but going under Frank Black, I really wanted to scratch other itches. You know, it was challenging for me to try to be more formulaic, to try to be traditional, to try to do something that sounded like classic rock. But, you know, definitely I’m feeling more arty again and ready to go at a moment’s notice. Just like, Let’s go make a record right now, you know. I’ll play the vacuum cleaner and you play the pots and pans.
Not only are the last two records credited to Black Francis, but both have “finger” in the title. Is there a connection? Or is it just an odd happenstance that such a particular noun would show up in consecutive album titles?
CT/FB/BF: Yeah, it was just a coincidence but it was a coincidence that I immediately saw, and I liked it. But it is just a coincidence and they’re unrelated subject matter. The only thing that’s connecting them really is that I guess in everything that I write these days there’s a unifying concept. With the Bluefinger record, of course, the unifying concept is Herman Brood. The Svn Fngrs unifying concept is a little broader, but I would call it demigods, half-human, half-god. Not necessarily in a literal sense. Like a couple of the songs are literal. Like “The Seus,” which is a reference to the Greek demigod Theseus. But also, for example, the song called “I Sent Away,” which is alternate sex fetish robot stuff that I was reading about on the Internet. And there’s a song on there about the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the builders of the bomb are known collectively as “the demigods,” so that fit the unifying concept.
You mentioned “reading on the Internet.” Do you consider yourself impressionable?
CT/FB/BF: Only if I’ve discovered something that really jazzes me, you know. In the case of Svn Fngrs I had no idea what I was going to write about, but I was really up to the gut to try to go above and beyond the call of duty. And so I was under the gun and I was like, 'Okay, what the hell am I going to write about here? What am I going to write about?' And I literally just started doing the random article search function on Wikipedia. And I did this for quite a long time late one evening in a very tired state, and somehow I stumbled upon the article for demigods. And I was like, 'Oh, demigods.' And then, of course, 'Okay, well what is a demigod? And who was a demigod? What do they mean by demigod?' And, of course, on something like Wikipedia one article has other links in it and suddenly you’re off, you know. So the Internet has become a really great resource for me because I’m not a deep researcher. I just want to have an impression. I just need to find out some facts. I’ve already got my little concept going. My little concept is already in place, but I just need some facts so when I rhyme “phone” with “zone” my couplet - well, hopefully it has some artistic merit on its own, regardless of what it’s about or if it’s about anything - but if it happens to be about something, it’d be nice if it was sort of backing up some cool fact about the subject. It’s satisfying, I think, for the listener and it’s satisfying for me.
"I Sent Away"
Will the Golem sessions end up as a Black Francis record?
CT/FB/BF: Well, I’m performing it in a couple of weeks down in San Francisco at this film festival. The requisite there is to show up with some music and perform it in some way along to this movie that they’re screening. And so I said, Well, that sounds fun, but I have to sort of make a record. I have to have some sort of blueprint, you know. So I went down to San Francisco a couple of weeks ago and made a record with Eric Feldman producing. And got together mostly San Francisco people, although Duane Jarvis is from LA and Jason Carter, the drummer, is from Oregon here. But the other guys are all from San Francisco. So we made this record and in the end I understand it’s a public domain film so, of course, we’re tempted to release our movie soundtrack as part of a DVD. But I don’t know, ultimately, what me or my manager will decide to do. It’s more than 80 minutes of music. It sounds cool, but there’s about 14 or 15 actual songs and then there’s a lot of themes and reprises, so I don’t know how interesting that’s going to sound on a CD. It may sound okay. I don’t know. But it’s a lot of music so we’re considering doing the rock album, edited version.
You’ll be adding child number five to the household before summer. Are you going to be able to tour as much as you’re used to or will you have to cut back?
CT/FB/BF: I’m still going to tour. I don’t want it to be less necessarily, but I may have to. I don’t know. We just wish that we were more successful – not necessarily so we can have more money, although money’s always nice – but just so that we could afford to pull it off as an entourage. You know, if we were Madonna, it wouldn’t be a problem. We’d just be like, 'Well, there’s our crew of four nannies, you know. There’s our runner who just buys diapers and batteries.'
It’s a little bit different than just jumping into the car with one other person to mix your sound and sell your t-shirts.
CT/FB/BF: Yeah, exactly. On the punk-rock level, it just does not work with a family. And we’ve tried to do the poor man’s Madonna and, you know, it works for a little while. It’s okay. But it’s a lot of work and I don’t know how much the younger kids really love it, because they just want to be home with their stuff
All right then, on to the lightning round. Tell me something you’ve never done before in your life.
CT/FB/BF: I’ve never done cocaine.
Tell me something that you’ve done once and one time only.
CT/FB/BF: Acid.
The name of a book you’ve read at least twice.
CT/FB/BF: Through the Looking Glass.
And the name of a movie you’ve seen at least three times.
CT/FB/BF: Brazil.
What’s the last album that you bought?
CT/FB/BF: To be honest, it probably was a downloaded record off of iTunes or something. If you wait just one moment I’ll look at my computer here and tell you what it is. (pause) Oh, Paolo Conte. That’s the last record that I actually purchased. I downloaded probably four or five different Paolo Conte records. He’s an Italian guy. He’s kind of like a Frank Sinatra/Tom Waits/Leonard Cohen kind of a guy.
Okay, I see how Waits and Cohen go together, but Sinatra’s kind of a curveball there.
CT/FB/BF: It’s got a little bit of a jazz traditional mainstream kind of edge to it.
Mainstream edge?
CT/FB/BF: Yeah, it’s not super avant-garde or anything like that.
Great. And the last question: Do you own a rake?
CT/FB/BF: I do not.
Really? You have four children, a fifth on the way and you don’t own a rake?
CT/FB/BF: No, you know, we’re not really outside that much in our yard because the construction is still going on outside. We have this beautiful house that the Pixies reunion remodeled. And it’s really great on the inside. We just had our first breakfast outside this morning on our little patio, which was nice. But there’s a bunch of frogs living in our pool and there’s freshly poured concrete and dirt and during the week guys with little tractors, so outside is sort of a no-go zone at the moment.
Posted by Michael D. Ayers at 12:00 PM, April 14, 2008
"My Morning Jacket—love the way it sounds. . . until you’re on the subway, and you can concentrate on what he’s saying, and all of a sudden, you’re like 'Oh my God, this guy had no idea what he was doing, and he was just hoping to get this stuff by without anyone really noticing.' And he’s done a wonderful job of it, because if you don’t pay attention, you don’t notice these terribly embarrassing things."
There are some things you should know about David Berman, if you’ve never listened to Silver Jews. Or even if you have. He’s a romantic, while at the same time, hyperaware of his consciousness—it’s not enough to say “self-conscious,” because that connotes a degree of self-pity. It’s different than that: he speaks his mind in a direct, unapologetically blunt fashion, quite the opposite of his oft-cryptic approach to writing song lyrics.
This June, the Silver Jews will release the excellent Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea on Drag City—their sixth full-length in two decades. Before that, they’re going on a short tour with Israeli trash-rock trio Monotonix, an absurdly perfect pairing Berman describes as “such a wrong thing to do.” Also, Berman is a poet and artists with his drawings recently selected as a part of the Dave Eggers curated caption-art show Lots of Things Like This."
A few days after Apexart had the opening reception, I had dinner with David and his wife Cassie, who now plays bass full time for the Silver Jews. I wanted to be a bit antagonistic, but was too smitten by their husband-wife glow.
VV: I was asked to talk to you about a documentary you were involved in.
David Berman: Mmmhmm. What was the documentary?
Cassie Berman: The Silver Jews documentary?
Yes.
David: It only showed in three cities in America, in like one day.
Cassie: No, it went to South by Southwest, and a traveling little circuit.
David: Well, no one was blown away by it.
What was the gist?
Cassie: He hasn’t seen it.
You haven’t seen it?
David: A guy I knew, was going around with us in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, and it’s me going totally off the cuff, to lots of different people, all day long. And obviously, when you do that, its not as circumspective as when you are emailing, or things you half-way believe, or are poorly explaining…I find that to be the worst kind of activity, to be seen in films. It’s like kissing babies footage; there were really sweet people that were really surprised that this band was in Israel, because of the tour there. The film is basically of these two shows, and it ends up on Wailing Wall- and apparently, I have an emotional experience where I was crying. And this one guy who wrote about it said to him, crying is porn, it’s like his porn.
A reviewer wrote this?
David: Yeah, he was saying that crying is the forbidden; it’s the worst thing you can see. Mick Jagger doesn’t want you to see him cry; it’s the last thing. Unless it’s an important time for where a man to cry; I mean, maybe you’d like to see Abraham Lincoln with one tear or something, but I guess I’m kind of a crier. So, I knew if I saw that movie I’d tell him to take it out. But I didn’t want to; that’s such a wrong thing to do. Kind of like having Monotonix open for you.
When I find something that is the 180 degree wrong idea, then it’s right for us. Because no one else likes that, and that’s something I can be alone with. That’s why I take pleasure in talking about things, spitting out just about anything, the “opposite George theory” of life—because to change your opinion, to change your luck—that’s not working for me. It’s sort of like having a wife who you know loves certain things that you never want to do. That you know would love that if you just would do that thing—something you hate. Ice skating. Hiking, for me.
Cassie: Camping.
David: Right, right. But if you were to, its like contained positive energy that you’re not releasing into the world. So when you do those spontaneously, or what I call “throwing curve balls”—you’re making your wife happy, and you’re also breaking a pattern. It’s kind of like liberation of the slavery of the tyranny of never wanting to do anything. It’s sort of like that.
I think in a Pitchfork interview, I did before Tanglewood Numbers came out—I did this long interview, and it was notorious because I explained how much money a person who sells 20,000 records will make. And people—it was shocking to them. It’s the last thing people will talk about, especially if you break it down. I think the latest way that I want to do that, with this album- the chords are all in the album. There are only sixteen chords on the whole album, and so, you always wonder why in the liner notes, bands don’t put their chords there? Its almost like bands are afraid to show how easy it may be. Why is that not often done? Most bands’ chords are only two or three; and people would cover their songs. There is no reason in the world, from a business standpoint—it's insane not to. If you put these things in there, you are encouraging young children to learn to play on them. And those are the people they go on to cover, maybe.
So, from a mercenary point of view, it’s the thing to do. The reason I do it, is because that’s the sort of great twist of things. The only reason I can do it, is because I use so few chords. The reason Radiohead can’t do it, is because you can’t give something to someone, that they can’t absorb. They can’t give their music away for free; they can give their recordings away and tell them to name the price. But to give someone your music, you have to give them something they can play, and a method of playing. So this insert in there, it has the sixteen chords, and the tabs. All these chords are ones that use two or three fingers at the end of the neck.
Cassie: We call that “Farmer’s Corner” in Nashville—at the end of the neck.
David: Where all my songs get written. By providing these, literally—if a person was to be on a desert island, with a guitar and a CD, and never had played guitar before—or in your apartment, where your roommate has a guitar—in a couple of hours, you could be playing songs. To me, that’s like a whole weird life to it, when it comes out. I’m inviting people to play the songs, and I try to make the songs as coverable as possible, but with as little idiosyncratic—not as much self conscious, self-referential stuff…
In what?
David: In the lyrics…it’s so hard for someone to cover a song that has a joke, that is based on that person’s personality.
Well, one second though, if you’re going to say that. I got some crib notes, that are about your lyrics on Lookout. And there are some obscure references. I definitely agree with you; if you’re not really listening to it—it does stand up as a whole, and you don’t need to “get it.” But at the same time, this material that you’re drawing on, is so random. Speeches that Roosevelt did to young boys clubs. That Roger Miller-ism, “country-restroom.” It’s a quick, quick reference…
David: Yeah, that’s the thing. There is a lot of content, and within the content, there is a way of reading the record just as a history of me and Cassie. There is a way to read it, and just like the year 1913—it brings up a lot of stuff, in terms of what I am saying about this time, and comparing it to 1913, before the world changed forever. This album is kind of me speaking to people born after 1980, people that are younger than me. It’s me saying that “things are not going to be like this.” With Silver Jews music, you have to listen to it, and you have to make connections later down the line. Because you’re so used to making music that doesn’t have any meaning, that it’s really easy to listen to without that. And it should be able to do that, song by song. I try and make it narrative and pretty straight.
Well the problem with someone like me, is that I listen to music while doing other things. Especially while writing, or even reading about other bands. Which is probably the worst thing you can do.
David: I know what you mean.
Read about why a band is good, or sucks. And that’s how I listened to Lookout the first several times. I did listen to it on my CD player, while I was doing household chores. And that’s a different type of experience. But when I was on the subway, and no one was around to bother me, and my eyes weren’t fixating on anything. That’s how for me, with everyone of your records, you have to get, and realize they are so accessible. And then there’s the words, in which you start talking about Swedish Fish—which I have to buy for my wife every week.
David: So it builds a connection.
Definitely with your tunes, it’s something you can’t be a background listener to. You’re not going to get it.
David: It’s inferior background music.
It totally is!
David: My music has the ability to depend on that attention. Movies still demand that attention. You can’t watch a movie and do those kind of things. And a director is sure that these things will be examined, and compared to. In music, you’re pretty sure that these things won’t be paid attention to. Except to guys like you, who finally get alone with it.
Can you imagine going into a movie, and reading a magazine, or watching another movie? It doesn’t make sense, in consuming another art form. Or like your thing the other day, I guess people could listen to tunes while they’re looking at your pictures.
David: Well I started to foresee something in the late 90’s, when instrumental music started becoming really popular, that started saying something to me…
Like who?
Well, in general techno and the electronic movement that is less lyric oriented. That to me really became a part of the shopping culture that’s really come up. Because music like that really makes you the star, you’re in the forefront, and it’s the soundtrack to your life. That’s kind of the Night of the Roxbury guys. And that music means something else. And I think that is what music got to me. And that’s why the band, if they have the right style and the right form, then they are a lot closer to being finished. I think the background is the big issue now. When bands are doing lots of harmonies and reverb, I think it’s a drawing back from the foreground from having to say anything. The Flaming Lips sound was always about individuals, but they created a way out of putting mortal feeling into their songs, while seeming to still embrace the good. Which is all about the “ahhhhhhh.” It’s like My Morning Jacket—love the way it sounds, until you have the opposite experience. Until you’re on the subway, and you can concentrate on what he’s saying, and all of a sudden, you’re like 'Oh my God, this guy had no idea what he was doing, and he was just hoping to get this stuff by without anyone really noticing.'” And he’s done a wonderful job of it, because if you don’t pay attention, you don’t notice these terribly embarrassing things. If my music doesn’t get heard or concentrated on, then its below the standards of regular people. If you put on a Silver Jews record at a regular office, this sort of dislike that is expressed, is not that this is egghead music. That this is other music performed with a more rudimentary singer, with not as thrilling of hooks or something. But if you put it in another context, and treat it like something that is throwing its weight, and needs to be listened to, and more interpreted . . . I need people to raise their standards, so I can have a chance. If you don’t raise your standards, then I lose. Left alone with regular people and the mainstream, then I fail, in that Venn diagram.
That’s a good bridge to this Apex gig that went down. Speaking of mainstream…it seemed like a very high art thing to be involved in. Is this a regular occurrence for you, down in Nashville?
David: No. It was totally, out of the blue. I don’t know Dave Eggers, and he asked for one little drawing…I never volunteer myself, but I did say that I do this kind of stuff, this is my specialty. These rude little drawings. So I sent a bunch of them, and he put up those. These are my most inquisitive impulses; why should I hang my cartoons in shows with Mac from Superchunk and John Darnielle from The Mountain Goats in coffee shops….what I’m really saying, is if you can contextualize yourself—it's impossible usually. But I don’t belong to the art worlds, and I don’t belong to the music or poetry worlds either…It’s like I have this little cheat going on. I can do one thing in those three places that’s a bit good, but in all three of those places, I can’t do everything good. I’m a bad drawer, I’m not a good singer, and in poetry I have no training or form. So, it’s almost like I’m cheating…like a con man, who is presenting a little bit of one story…
Yeah, but didn’t everyone say they loved it, the other night?
David: No
No?
David: I don’t think people got a chance to look at them. It was too crowded…it was very tiny, and you couldn’t get back from the walls and get a look at them.
Did you have to stand by it, and explain this is my….
David: No…there wasn’t any other artists there, and I thought that was weird. And there was a line out the door, but no one would leave. I was glad that I was in that show, but it was poorly planned.
Were there price tags on it, for sale?
David: No…it was just a show. I just thought, well, hopefully this will jack up the value. For insurance, you have to declare a value. So, I said a thousand dollars.
Per piece?
David: Yeah. And they’re just pieces of 8 ½ by 11 pieces of paper. But I’m like, if I don’t call it a thousand, if I don’t say I’m a musician, and if I don’t say I’m a Jew, no one is going to say I’m a Jew. If I don’t name these prices and contextualize myself, if I keep letting the world do that for me, I’m going to keep meeting the wrong people and put in the wrong places and misunderstood. Because that’s what it is—you get tired, you make the record, and then say “take it over guys.” It’s a recipe for being misunderstood, for anybody, if you have stuff you’re trying to communicate.
With this showing, and with the Jews output, it seems like there has been a lot of attention thrown your way.
David: But I’m coming out more, so people are opposite maybe.
Do you think there are more people hearing it, more people recognizing that it’s good?
David: For me, and maybe you’ll be surprised at this—but I think that music fans who aren’t Silver Jews fans….no, I don’t feel that way. I feel like it's “He’s still here?” And “Is he qualified to do that?” and “What’s he trying to get away with?” I do feel some hostility from writers, because it’s easy for them to make that case—that it looks easy. Would you really be surprised if I told you that the consensus of people that hear Silver Jews records, end up despising Silver Jews? That’s how I go around thinking. I think more people have heard the Silver Jews and said “I despise that band” than have bought a Silver Jews record.
I think its more of a I don’t know who they are, versus those that love. I’ve never heard of a hate. Maybe I’m just not talking to the right people.
David: Google “I hate the Silver Jews.” I did that once, and there was a quote from Sufjan Stevens interview. He said “I hate bands that make fun of religion . . . I hate the Silver Jews and other bands that make fun of religion.”
Posted by Michael D. Ayers at 10:15 AM, April 1, 2008
Human Giant will appear tonight Tuesday, April 1st at the Paley Center For Media at 6pm for a measly $10.00.
Rob Huebel and Aziz Ansari: The ones with hair.
"One time, we were doing a festival, and we were supposed to open up for Peter, Bjorn and John. And Peter Bjorn and John got really mad at us. And they beat up Paul [Scheer], and then they raped him—in their tour bus."
This whole comedy mixing with music scenes is pretty new to me. You used to have your two-drink-minimum comedy clubs and Lollapalooza '92, which had Ministry. And Ministry; well, they’re no laughing matter. If memory serves me correctly, LP92 was the first time I saw a young girl with black eyeliner spit on someone, then laugh about it—clearly not “comedy” as we've come to think of it. The point is they were separate worlds.
In the Eugene Mirman-era, the funny ha-ha thing is regular on music bills, with sketch comedy troupe Human Giant—Aziz Ansari, Rob Huebel and Paul Scheer—having had success working music angles into their repertoire, most notably with last May’s 24-Hour MTV Marathon.
I sat down with Aziz and Rob earlier this month in Austin, where they were largely unimpressed with my 'revelation' that music and comedy are mixing so well. They were also largely unimpressed with my Lollapalooza recollection, but I didn’t mention anything about goth-girl spitting, so maybe it’s my fault. Presentation is everything.
I’ve been really interested in your careers over the last few years.
Rob Huebel: Are you being sarcastic?
No. This music crossover you’re having success with is very interesting; when I was in high school, and went to festivals, there would be no comedic acts.
Aziz Ansari: Well, I think Rob and I can both agree, for the past couple years there’s a huge crossover in comedy and bluegrass music.
Rob: That’s all we care about. Merging bluegrass with hilarious comedy.
Aziz: So many people who listen to bluegrass, like our comedy.
It makes sense.
Aziz: No, all these festivals—South by Southwest, Bonnaroo, Pitchfork, it’s so fun for us to go do comedy there, because there’s a lot of people that are into comedy, that are listening to indie rock music, or whatever.
Rob: Well, I don’t think that’s new . . .I mean I think that it’s new, that they figured it out.
Aziz: Yeah.
Rob: Of course, that makes sense. It’s like these are young, smart, hip people that like this band . . .might they also like smart comedy?
Aziz: It's good, and a little break from seeing music. Maybe you know us from Human Giant, but you don’t know any of the other comedians. It’s easier to get into comedy that you’re not familiar with, more so than music even. A comedian will start making you laugh, and you’re immediately like, “I like this guy, a lot. Already I’ve seen him for two minutes, and I know I like this guy.” That’s how we kind of came up too; I’d do a show with someone like David Cross, and it would be a great way for me to be introduced to people.
Rob: There is a bit of a . . . comedy definitely has its place at a music festival.
What is that place?
Aziz: A separate place. “This is a comedy thing, you want to see that, go see that.” What’s hard is, when it’s “Here’s a couple of bands, and before we bring on the headliner, here’s this guy, who a lot of you probably don’t even know who he is, he’s going to come and waste your time.”
Rob: Last year, here at this Fader Fort, we were hosting this party. And they were like basically you guys are going to introduce bands, and be funny, and come out and be funny some more.
Was that in the contract: “Be funny”?
Rob: Yeah [laughs]. So we went out, and for some reason they had given the audience a bunch of ping pong balls—here, where we are right now—they started pelting us with ping-pong balls. We were like “what are we doing?” Just have us do comedy, at a place where they are expecting comedy. It should be a little bit segregated.
Aziz: We’re pro-segregation, as far as comedy and music.
Rob: An hour ago, we were supposed to introduce this band, and they were doing their soundcheck right up until their set was about to start.
Aziz: Yeah, at that Pitchfork thing.
Rob: So, we were like “Do you want us to this bit? It’s like five minutes, and it’s really funny.” And they were like, “Well, its going to eat into our set.”
Aziz: And we were like “we don’t want to eat into you set time, when there are industry people here to see you. Of course we’re not going to come and do our dumb thing with a T-shirt gun.
Which I saw today. Which was pretty funny.
Aziz: We just fired them; you got see us do the bit!
Rob: We actually do a bit where we shoot out a bunch of T-shirts, then we end up putting pantyhose over our heads and end up robbing the audience of their T-shirts, and then we turn on each other and kill each other with T-shirts.
Aziz: It becomes a really dumb bank robbery situation. It’s like Point Break meets T-Shirt guns.
Those things flew.
Aziz: Oh, man, so hard. But you can’t wedge that in right before some band everyone is wanting to see goes on. One time, we were doing a festival, and we were supposed to open up for Peter, Bjorn and John. And Peter Bjorn and John got really mad at us. And they beat up Paul, and then they raped him, in their tour bus.
Rob: Which I always felt was excessive.
Aziz: And they whistled “Young Folks” the whole time, while they were raping him.
[Rob whistles “Young Folks”]
Aziz: I was like, that’s not cool.
It’s not.
Rob: As Paul was being raped!
Aziz: By Peter, Bjorn and John. Those guys, oh my god, they’re brutal.
I saw him [Peter Morén] last night, he looked smug, like he’d done something.
Rob: All rapists look smug.
Did you guys see your profile really raise after the MTV Human Giant 24 Hour thing, where you had bands integrated; it was a lot of good press after, as a “return to form.”
Rob: What it is really, is two separate worlds; it’s the people who watch MTV, and then there’s the people….
Aziz: Who probably hate MTV.
Rob: Yeah, that hate MTV, but watch our show. So it's two types of people; people who normally watch MTV, probably don’t get our show. We don't write stuff for that demographic, whatever that is. We just don’t try to appeal to them. We just try to write stuff that’s funny, what college kids would think is funny, that sort of…
Aziz: It would be impossible for us to cater to their audience.
Rob: It’s really mainstream. Gone are the days where they do a lot of cool stuff; they’ve just had so much success with really broad reality shows; more power to them.
Aziz: It’s like “Here’s a kid in high school. He’s going to prom. Let’s put that on TV.” We can’t do that; we just don’t know how to film a kids’ high school prom. And then edit into a television show.
Rob: For them to do this weird comedy show, it’s like…
Aziz: To MTV’s credit, it’s like them saying “It might not be fitting their corporate culture at our channel right now, but we think it's good, and we’re putting it on.” To their credit, they let us do whatever we want, and the creative freedom we have is a lot.
Rob: They literally have let us do whatever we want, which is crazy, because the show does not blend in with the channel at all.
Aziz: The deal we made with them was basically like: “Okay, you guys can have complete creative control here, as long as you film this season of Life of Ryan.” And we were like, “Okay, we’ll film this kid skateboarding.”
Rob: And I don’t even like skateboarding. You know, this kid goes to high school, he goes to his prom, and we’re there with him, 24 – 7.
Aziz: Filming it. It was easy. Rob actually hooked up with a girl at his prom . .
Rob: And I’m way too old to be hooking up with a high school girl. . . but I did, because I needed work.
Aziz: And now she watches Human Giant.
That’s good that they give you that freedom. Honestly, nothing ever good is written about [MTV], besides what you did…
Aziz: We think they may like hate us for that reason. . . they’re like let's not give press to those guys, because it's always like “They’re awesome. . .but!”
Rob: People will write, “I love your show, but I hate that channel. But I love your show.” To their credit, as we said, they’re smart enough to know that there are different audiences out there and not everything has to be straight up the middle. They can do stuff that appeals to the audience that they used to get; the audience that used to watch The State and Beavis and Butthead. Cool, weirder stuff. They know that those kids still exist out there; they’ve also figured out that more of those kids, like dumb stuff.
I was thinking earlier today…
Aziz: [Occupied] Sorry, my girlfriend is asking me where. . .
Rob: Let the record show that Aziz is texting his girlfriend to. . .
Aziz: I was sending her a PIN, if you really want to have it on the record. . .
Rob: He’s sending her a PIN for his ATM card, so she can get out money, to buy heroin.
It seems kind of randomly, that your tastes in music have helped your careers in ways.
Aziz: I think anytime someone has something in common with a performer, that makes you a little bit more likely to be into them. Take a look at Brian Posehn—he has a huge metal fanbase, cause he’s clearly a guy who loves heavy-metal music, and talks about it in his act. So those guys are going to be into that, there’s nothing wrong with that.
What’s the scene like at Bonnaroo? I’ve never been, but the YouTube clips I’ve seen of David Cross, he’ll just roll out there and start to rip on hippies. . . and it’s funny to me.
Aziz: Yeah, everyone goes there and shits on hippies.
Rob: It’s in the woods, in Tennessee, on this farm, and it’s a million degrees. But they do have good bands there; Radiohead’s been there.
Aziz: It’s like two festivals going on: there’s the indie rock kids and the hippie kids. I think at Bonnaroo, they have a separate comedy tent. So they’re at least coming there…
Rob: They’re there to see comedy, but also it’s the only air-conditioned place.
Aziz: At the same time, the lines now are so long for the comedy tent. You really have to want to see it bad . . .
Are these things are good gigs—are they financially rewarding in your worlds?
Aziz: Yeah, I think so. Being able to come out to South by Southwest or Bonnaroo, you can’t ask for a better deal than that. See all these bands, they treat you well, we never take it seriously. Like when we go to the artist thing, we never think we’re artists.
Rob: We’re the last people to be like “What the fuck man, where’s my VIP pass?” The truth of the matter is, most people don’t know who we are.
Human Giant will appear tonight Tuesday, April 1st at the Paley Center For Media at 6pm for a measly $10.00.
Guess which one of these people has a man-crush on Caron Butler?
Pavement questions are like "getting questions about the giant monsoon you survived but [that] killed your whole family"
Stephen Malkmus's latest release Real Emotional Trash, the first with former Sleater-Kinney drummer Janet Weiss, begs comparison to '60s-era jam-band staples like the Grateful Dead and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Fittingly, Pavement's former mastermind was recently tapped to provide the singing voice for Cate Blanchett's Bob Dylan in Todd Haynes's 2007 biopic I'm Not There. Like Dylan, Malkmus continues to be prolific as he matures—seemingly to spite the ebb and flow of critical reception—and he's also one of America's more lyrically clever rock stars.
Recently, we caught up with Malkmus by phone, where he proved ramblingly lackadaisical and poetic as ever. He and his band the Jicks play three New York dates, starting tonight at the Bowery Ballroom.
VV: Wow, your voice sounds awful.
Stephen Malkmus: Yeah I'm okay. But after five days of shows, my voice is lost for a while.
VV: What was your mindset while producing this new music?
SM: It's something I just do without thinking. It's always a struggle for me. We just wanted it to be great, and I don't know what else to say. There's no real goal other than making good strong songs that aren't like other people's and are instrumentally good, and also to have some aggressively emotional moments musically. Maybe lyrically, too—you know, playing music and the primal trance formation, some technique involved, physically hard playing. It's not just brains and words and cleverness. It's beyond that.
VV: How about the historical dimension? There's something archetypally early-60s era jam-band about the sound. Compound that observation with your vocal reproductions of tracks for Cate Blanchett's Bob Dylan portrayal in I'm Not There, and one wonders if you're getting dangerously close to being stereotyped as "retro."
SM: Not that Bob Dylan thing so much, because it really had very little to do with me as a movie. But perhaps Cate Blanchett is retro too. Everybody associated with that movie is retro, so let's throw that out the window. But the music reviews? [The new tracks] are definitely in that genre. It's of that time. It's more comparable to '60s music than it is the '80s or grunge or disco.
VV: Was that deliberate?
SM: Well, I think that kind of songwriting and playing is more suited to the way the river flows in my body and that's just where I go to. I don't know what the future is or anything, or what it knew, but I'd hope that we have enough censors in our mind that our sound isn't a parody or quotation. I think there's enough originality in my voice and song structures that they haven't exactly been done before and, you know, you need some materials that are signifying, otherwise it's not going to mean anything to anybody. So that's what we chose to use. I think everything we hear is at least a mix of something that's happened in the past. It depends on your time frame—if you choose, like, six months or 12 years or, like, all 40 years of electric whiteboy music (laughing).
VV: You've been living in Oregon, but Pavement was in New York for a while, and of course there's that famous footage of you being hit by a big rock while performing in West Virginia the mid-'90s. Are you scared to come back an play the rough-and-tumble venues in Kentucky, Virginia, Philadelphia, New York?
SM: [laughing]...Sure, that was at Lollapallooza. That show was just 'How on earth?' I personally would have thrown something at anything. It was hot, miserable and so poorly organized. It was like the natives were restless, and they were just taking out their frustration, and so became cunning. It was funny to be there. What an awful place [laughing].
VV: The crowd embarrassed itself.
SM: No, no, no...it was just a couple of people so uncomfortable in the mud and heat, and I can't believe they had to pay to do that.
VV: So, whom are you secretly hoping might be in the audience on the East Coast this time?
SM: Obviously Caron Butler from the Washington Wizards. Both women in the band have a crush on him, and I have my own man-crush on him. It's a great story. His mom was basically a crack addict in a really rough area of Wisconsin, and he's managed to keep the team in the playoffs. It'd be really nice to meet him. Not anyone specifically from within the Beltway so much.
VV: I have to ask. Every journalist asks you about the prospect of a Pavement reunion tour. Does that irritate you after a while?
SM: [laughter] ...I noticed you didn't ask, and neither did the last journalist earlier today [still laughing]. That's the thing...I guess you just try to block it out of your mind. But it never happens. Shit, you survive an earthquake in India, and eventually you have to block it out. That's sort of what it's like: getting questions about the giant monsoon you survived but killed your whole family. That's what Pavement questions feel like. It's not bruising, but it gets repetitive. It's a verbal repetitive stress injury. That's all.
Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks play the Bowery Ballroom tonight, tomorrow (Tuesday, April 1), and the Music Hall of Williamsburg on Wednesday, April 2. All three nights are sold out.
Posted by Everett True at 8:00 AM, December 18, 2007
Kate Nash headlines the Bowery Ballroom on Wednesday, January 9. It is already sold out.
Hugs And Kisses
The Continuing Outbursts of Everett True
THIS WEEK: Kate Nash, part one
Listen. I conducted this interview—what—almost two months ago, same night as a Kate Nash show in Brighton.
She vaguely disappointed on stage, like someone behind her told her she should be courting a certain indie demographic and she was only half-listening but took on board some of the suggestions—there were too many thuds on the drum and flaunting of the guitar, vocals not mixed high enough…and what’s more, I didn’t appreciate the rudeness of her own personal security man. Ms Nash’s songs, on record, are quite charming: sexy, bubbly, self-deprecating, filled with pus and ephemera, everyday and sometimes spiteful, beats that recall 2007, a voice that’s way better than the album may lead you to believe. Dry sense of humour, Mockney accent, guests on Kano’s album, mates of Lily Allen (whom she’s been compared to). . . derided by the serious ‘critics’, but fuck it. Who wants to be considered one of them? Pitchfork only gave it 5.5—but Jesus. Pitchfork grade albums.
Kate Nash is quite the major star in the UK: a Number One single (‘Foundations’: achieved around the time of this interview) and album (Made Of Bricks) will see to that. But anyway: reason this transcript hasn’t appeared before is cos my two-and-a-half-year-old son Isaac went and hid it. We found it, in his tape box nestling next to The Gruffalo and Dr. Seuss.
As you join us, we’re talking about recent shows, backstage at the Concorde 2.
“…was one boy who kept crowd-surfing. It was very funny. They got so excited during ‘Merry Happy’ they threw this pint of water on stage and it landed all over me: and I was laughing, ‘Ah-ah’, it was so cool. It was the first time I felt like what I was on a mission to do was getting through.”
So the kids sing along with every song…
“Yeah.”
. . . do you just stop sometimes and listen?
“First, I used to be laughing. It was so funny people knew all the words. Now, I try really hard to concentrate. And also…um…sorry, sometimes I get a hole on my brain…”
No worries. How long ago did you write those songs?
“About a year-and-a-half ago, probably: ‘Skeleton Song’ was written this year.”
Have you got past the stage of finding it weird that people are singing along to songs you just wrote for yourself?
“Sometimes, yes. At Reading, I played ‘Merry Happy’ there were so many people there – 10, 20 rows outside, just packed, guys in boxer shorts crowd-surfing, really raucous, people crying…it was amazing cos it was like…it’s that whole thing again, what was I saying…I was laughing cos I was like, ‘I just wrote this at two in the morning in my living room’, and now it means so much, all these people going mental…”
Would you have gone to see you, couple of years ago?
“I dunno [laughing]. Maybe. I like to think so.”
Can you put yourself in the audience and see yourself up there?
“Yeah. I think it’s cool. I think I’d like, probably cos I’m a bit grungy and I don’t care.
Like that time I got water thrown in my face and loved it…I think it’s a good role model for girls to see, me shouting and screaming on stage, having a good time. I think it’s a good attitude. I’d like that attitude.”
Who were your role models when you were growing up?
“When I went to gigs…?”
When did you start going to gigs?
“What, gig-gigs? It was more like concerts when I was really young—like Irish music, cos my mum’s Irish, and classical music. Then, when I was 14, all my friends went to see metal bands at Wembley Rugby Club, in Harrow: and then all the rude boys would come down and stab everyone and smash windows, and we’d all have to run home because the police would come down—and everyone would be home by 10 o’clock, la la la. Then my friends started going to Putney and Camden, gigs there…”
Who were your role models? Did you have any?
“Yeah, I guess so. I started to go to gigs like The Strokes and Regina Spektor and loads of people, then I got into the amateur scene with people like Peggy Sue And The Pirates [her support band], blah blah blah…”
Did you want to be a rock’n’roll star?
“Yeah, everyone wants to be a rock’n’roll star. Cool. Don’t they? Didn’t you?”
