An interview with Stephen Malkmus

Legendary and influential Pavement and The Jicks frontman Stephen Malkmus was in England recently for a series of promotional events. The Line of Best Fit’s Jude Clarke was delighted to get to interview one of her musical heroes, and hear his views on childcare, changes of band personnel, the creative process and forthcoming release Real Emotional Trash. Serious and considered, it was great to hear that Malkmus is a big fan of vinyl, and seeks out new bands via music websites such as ours.

Firstly thanks ever so much for giving us a bit of time for an interview, we really appreciate it. How long are you over here in the uk?
Just a couple of days, but I’m going over to the mainland for a jaunt, then I come back in a week for another couple more days.

Is that just interviews and publicity, or are you doing any dates while you’re over here?
Maybe I’ll do a couple of solo things as a “two birds with one stone” type promo. I’m not a specialist at that, but I’ll bash it out now and then.

In general, do you find the interview process tedious, or is it a part of your job that you enjoy?
Early on it’s not tedious and then once you go on, towards the end of doing a lot of them it kinda burns out, Or when people really don’t know anything much about you and they’re just going off the press sheet, you start feeling a little bit like a piece of meat. Then that’s not so great. On the other hand, if you have energy and y’know, the willingness to talk, I don’t talk to that many people these days (I have two kids now so I’m, like, in childcare almost 24-7 ) so this is like a lot of socialising for me.

How old are your kids?
One’s almost three, February 18th, and the other one’s just 3 months.

Must be a wrench being away.
It’s hard, especially for my partner. For me now, I just laugh, so it hasn’t hit yet but y’know, it’s going to be weird.

Ok. We won’t dwell on that then…
Not rock ‘n’ roll!

So, i’ve only had a chance to listen to the new album through three times.
That’s a lot. That’s enough.

How would you describe it?
Well song-to-song it is generally, organised rock ‘n’ roll. Y’know we try to wring some emotion out of the guitar stuff, mixed with a little of my typical music word-association. There’s some long songs, some aggressive songs, it’s mostly mid-tempo. It’s hard for me to say.

To me, it sounds like a lot of the tracks have got a very late 60s early 70s vibe? Was that a deliberate thing?
That might be just the length, or there are some solos and… certainly that kind of music is… it’s definitely not 80s, and it’s definitely not grunge sounding. In that kind of song structure the level of the guitar and the kind of sounds of the guitars are definitely from that era. Yeah, definitely… We’re still playing slightly improvisational guitar music that was more in favour back then, for sure. You could hear it on the radio, and now it’s not so often. There were pop songs like that, back then.

You now have janet weiss (ex-sleater kinney) in the band on drums: how does a change in personnel affect how you work?
Well, she had to adapt to our way of working – on a day-to-day basis: how we practise, and when we like to practise, and our schedules. Other than that she just does her thing. Y’know, she’s kind of like “press play and she drums”. She does a wild style drumming – you can really hear it on the record: it’s her. That’s rare these days – a drummer that actually has a “sound”. On most records, the drummer’s just keeping time, you know? So that added something different. She’s got her own style, she likes to play a lot of fills, like Keith Moon, so that gave us a different sound. She’d put a fill in there whenever she could. She’s a great player and with Joanna , my bass player, we really have the best hardest-hitting female rhythm section in the world ever, that’s ever been made.

Which is a good thing.
Yeah, I mean, I don’t really need to play the female card, but I might as well! There has never really been any two girls that play like them before, but there’s been plenty of guys that play like me! She’s really committed to drumming: it’s what she likes to do. Not to say I’m not committed to my instrument, but drummers, have to keep their chops, they have to play all the time, or you lose it, y’know? You can pick up a guitar after a couple of months and still be able to play.

Do you play any other instruments?
On record I do, on the recordings I’ll play piano and keyboards, but not for recreation, and not for writing songs. I just write them on guitar. I like to play other instruments on the records, but unfortunately I never learned the piano. My friend is taking lessons – there’s all these 7 year olds and him, y’know? Within reason, I could do with a couple of piano lessons. It’d probably help me just know where middle C was, instead of having to play along with the track. We have a piano at home – hopefully my little ones will get into it, I don’t know.

How do you feel about your own reviews?
We like to read about them, and hear what people say. You want it to be all positive, and if it’s negative you just shrug it off and just tell yourself “they just don’t understand good music”. But yeah, we like to read, I like to be a participant in the world – that’s part of why we do this, to contribute. To say what we think is good music, what direction we’d like people to be listening and also to show what our talent is, what we’re good at, so we have to see if other people can groove with that. If it was falling on deaf ears, that would be really frustrating.

So it’s more about critical and peer acknowledgement rather than massive record sales and sell-out tours?
Well, yeah. I mean, it has to be at this stage in our life. We can tour and we want to survive and we don’t want to work at any other job cos we’ve worked so hard at this and we love it, but obviously, in the end, that’s what matters: just to be a participant in this music world, y’know? Have a voice, really.

What current bands do you enjoy?
There’s this band Times New Viking that I like, on Matador, they’re real lo-fi. It’s a cool name, and they have a kinda Television Personalities, trashy, lo-fi sound. I think there’s a lot of hope there, too. I’m so weak on this… I have to think of some bands to mention that I really like… We toured with this band called Blitzentrapper, they’re from America. I really enjoyed playing with them. They’re going to be on Sub Pop. I thought they were great… I know there’s more… Animal Collective, I’ve always been a fan of them, they’re really cool.

How do you generally find out about new music?
Local bands, or people recommend things to me, or bands on my label. Sometimes I’ll read Pitchfork Media, which is the big giant really influential thing in America. I’ll read what they’re reviewing.

Have a read of The Line of Best Fit as well – we don’t do too badly!
I will, I want to check it out. I like to look at stuff, I just like to look at people’s opinions. I’m online a lot because I’m at home with the kids so I’m always doing things online – usually just email or sports, but I’m looking for more things to check out, like people’s music blogs, if they have some tracks on there.

There’s so much up there – where do you start?
Exactly. That’s what everyone’s looking for, to have that primacy as the one you start at, like Pitchfork have. On a larger perspective it’s, like, the news about Microsoft trying to buy Yahoo and they’re so far behind Google. The game was won so long ago – it’s really odd.

Being of an age where you have experienced the changeover from vinyl, to cd, to downloads, how do you feel about the changing ways in which people consume music?
Well, obviously I would prefer to have people buying vinyl records – not “obviously”, but that’s what I like, for the full experience of the band. To get in their head what they were thinking – a band like us, y’know? But now people download individual tracks, and they listen to them on often tinny small speakers and, it doesn’t sound good, until you really put them on your iPod or something. So I’m not so keen on it but… I just roll with it. I don’t have an iPod. I have enough music just with my record collection and a couple of CDs now and then.

So you’re mainly into vinyl.
I was never a real fan of CDs. I’ve always thought of them as very disposable. I guess I’m fine with them going by the wayside and just having vinyl and downloads, really. My record company probably wouldn’t like that… Sometimes there’s nice cover art. In America kids trade cassettes – the coolest groups are releasing only cassettes. It’s like in skiing now: everyone used to want to try the new snowboards, and now if you’re a cool kid you have the wide skis again, snowboards are out. Everyone’s gotta just find their own thing. But, I mean, you’ve got to have something in your dorm room, right? Some records, or something to show when people come in. Saying who you are, to impress the girl or whatever.

You seem to be someone to whom lyrics have always been important and your lyrics are endlessly fascinating and hugely interesting. Given this, do you ever do any other type of writing (poems, books)?
No. I’m just a one medium guy when it comes to it. That’s about all I can master, y’know? I do like to write, but I’m a little bit lazy, and a little busy, like all of us in this world, so, a lot of my free time is spent either just playing guitar, or rehearsing with the band or taking care of my kids. If I can get a couple of things written down, like on this press tour – I might have a chance to spend some time thinking metaphorically, or more deeply, and some weird things might come out.

Do you carry around a notebook?
No, but I’ve got my computer here and I can write stuff on paper. I’m just hoping that I can get back into that, cos I do appreciate all the things… you have to be in a position to catch those things or they’re just gonna go. You know how it is, you think of something clever and you want to remember it, and then you say you’ll remember it, then it’s gone so fast. At my age, at least.

I’ll look up your site. Remind me again what the name was?

Thelineofbestfit.com! Thanks so much for the interview. I hope you do some live dates, either in London or come to Cambridge! It’d be great to see you play in Cambridge.
I went there once. The Corn Exchange. A long time ago. It’s supposed to be really nice there.

We’ve got some good new smaller venues now too.
That’s where we would be, anyway!

Thanks so much for your time. Enjoy the rest of your time in the uk, and all the best with the record.
Okay, alright. Bye bye.

mp3:> Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks: ‘Baltimore’