Under the Radar: Stephen Malkmus


We recently caught up with former Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus, who’s acclaimed second solo album with The Jicks, Pig Lib, was released earlier this year. Malkmus was sitting in a New York café, recovering from a recent jaunt opening for Radiohead and preparing for a small West Coast tour this December, and he mused about Pavement reissues, Elliott Smith’s passing and curating All Tomorrows Parties. Nick Hyman (N): Stephen, how are you? Stephen Malkmus (S): Pretty good, how are you. N: Excellent, where are you right now? S: I’m in New York at this little café getting some food. Where are you? N: I’m in Burbank, California. S: Oh right, nice airport. N: Why are you in New York? S: We had this little East European thing happen and I just flew back through here to stay with some friends for a while because it’s pretty nice here in the fall. The last time I was here was in June and it was really hellish, really hot and miserable and shit. N: How was this last leg of touring? S: Small. It was a lot of traveling, a lot of flying. They’re very warm promoters, very nice and open. This guy in Turkey and his sister/girlfriend, I couldn’t make it out for sure what they were. This other guy in Norway was totally cool. It was a really good time, we were zipping around and I don’t really have any memories except for going to this really awesome pub in Belfast that was across from the most bomb hotel in the world. Maybe it’s being overtaken by the Baghdad Hilton now. It was good, a good trip. N: You were opening for Radiohead for a while on their most recent tour. That seemed a little odd. How did that come about? S: We share the same booking agent in Europe and that made it easier to set up. I’ve always expressed my respect for that band. I’ve always thought that they were pretty cool and made weird records that were good. Everyone in the band likes them, so really it was a perfect situation because it’s something that some of us probably won’t be doing again. It was a different kind of thing because it can get kind of repetitive touring the same venues and playing to the same people over and over. N: You’ve played large venues before while you were in Pavement. Was it a challenge for the Jicks to play larger venues? S: It was different, I’ll say that. They just roll out the red carpet at those places for the bands; they don’t want anything to go wrong so it’s really easy. They put you on this carpet with these perfect monitors. It was pretty nice. N: Did you get along with the guys in Radiohead? S: Yeah, they’re cool. They need entertainment because maybe they’ve known each other for too long or something. We act more entertaining and we’re not even that entertaining. They’re fun, they have interests, they have lives. A couple of them wanted to reach out. On tour, it gets really boring if you don’t have any friends so you might as well make one. I don’t think they really know people in each of the towns. It’s probably different in LA and New York, which we didn’t play. N: I saw them here and Supergrass opened. They probably had more in common with them. S: They both live in Oxford and they share the same management. N: So, is The Jicks/Radiohead split 7-inch in the works? S: I don’t think so. I wish, if we could split the cash made from it. I’d be happy. N: So, you’re curating this summer’s All Tomorrow’s Parties in New York? S: We’re curating this one in Europe. I’m not sure the one in New York is going to happen. I’m skeptical. N: How did the opportunity present itself? S: They just called me. This guy Barry, he’s around and he e-mailed me. We played at the Los Angeles one and maybe I was more open and nice than the other people at the festival because the guy was overrun and it was so hectic. We came down just for that show so it was more like a vacation instead of a real tour, so that was actually nice. There were some big egos there. You have people from New York and they’re spoiled or something. I guess they get used to being treated like modernist artists while in Paris and so they expect the same. I really don’t know. I’m used to being treated badly. N: Sonic Youth are also picking bands for that weekend. S: Yep. Which is awesome because I like them. N: So you just get out a list and start writing down bands. S: Basically. But you’ve got to keep in mind that you have to put down a couple of bands to draw a crowd. You can’t just say that you want your friends that don’t really play but are awesome. We’ll just give them a guitar and see how it is; they’re called Purple Megalomaniacs. When you get a chance, you can select some weird ones too. You need bands that people like or have a name like the Yeah, Yeah, Yeah’s or the Shins or Modest Mouse. You need some of those. You can also get weirder bands too, that no one knows. N: What are you listening to now? Do you get burnt out with music while on the road? S: I’m listening to some stuff but not like major big things. I like this band called The Rapture. I’m probably not supposed to but I think they’re really good, convincing and cool. I heard them on a Tower listening post and I read about them in NME and they seem a lot cooler than some of these bands that were on there. Their album was much more ambitious than The Strokes or Ryan Adams which are the other things that I heard on the listening post. N: That sort of upbeat rock is huge right now. Look at Hot Hot Heat. S: They seem better than Hot Hot Heat. They seem to be more serious. You should go see them. N: I saw Death Cab For Cutie last night and I was wondering what you think of them? S: I’ve never seen them but I like them. They live in Seattle and they’ve garnered quite a following. I don’t know what to say about them. They’re earnest and poppy and I know they’re nice guys and they’re named after a Kenneth Anger movie so they can’t be that bad. N: I saw the Dark Wave video recently (www.matadorrecords.com/stephen_malkmus/music.html) and was wondering how it came about? S: Not my idea. We get a little overwhelmed with responsibilities so this guy Lawrence in England organized it. He went the right way with the video for “Jo Jo’s Jacket”. We made two videos off of the first album with these English guys and they were very good. So he suggested that this guy do it fast, cheap and out of control and we did that and I think it came out pretty good. It’s kinda gross. It was two guys and I was there for some filming in a special suit so they could draw me. It was weird. N: The Pavement DVD and reissue of Slanted and Enchanted were excellent. Are there plans for more album reissues? S: Yeah, a Crooked Rain triple CD. Reinterpreted solo acoustic versions by me, live in Tibet; they’re going to be great. Besides that, they’re will be a regular version because that was our biggest selling record and it deserves to be reanalyzed and re-bought. N: Is that same kind of treatment going to happen with all of the Pavement albums? S: I don’t know, I don’t care. N: You don’t sound really involved. S: Not really. I do get checks from it sometimes and I am gracious for that but if it didn’t come out I wouldn’t care. We did a lot. Maybe I just say that because someone is doing it for me and I can take that attitude. Do you know what I mean? Maybe I would care if no one paid attention. I’m not really sure, I’m conflicted. I know I like the Matador people and what they do for the stuff and I don’t want to say that I don’t care that they’re doing this. They’re cool and blah, blah, blah. N: How is touring with The Jicks different than with Pavement? S: I basically get a lot more attention and it’s more focused on me than Pavement in terms of interviews and I get single bedrooms more often on tour. I’m even more of the boss in some ways and in other ways I’m not. There are other things that they do that they control. It’s not that different really as far as I’m concerned. N: The recent loss of Elliott Smith was a blow to the indie community and especially to those located in the Pacific Northwest. Did you know him? S: I know. It’s so tragic. He’s from Portland, Oregon and I met him a few times and he was a really friendly guy and really nice. Every time I’ve seen him I had nothing bad to say about him, but I don’t know him that well. It was more of a general greeting. It was almost sort of my friends that knew him very well and how it went really wrong down there in Los Angeles. So everybody’s really gutted about it up in Portland because some of his true good friends from Heatmiser and stuff. I don’t know him that well, so it was just a general thing for me. That’s sad. We really didn’t see the full brunt of it because we were on tour. We didn’t see much in Europe because we didn’t read the papers or search the internet. N: Are you already working on new material? S: Yeah, I have all of the music worked out. Of course I can write songs, they just sort of come naturally but lyrics don’t. So I’ve got it all worked out and I’m ready to go with the whole new record it’s just getting up the effort to decide where to record it to make it special again. You know, that stuff. N: Where did you record Pig Lib? S: In Seattle, but outside Seattle in Washington State where Soundgarden recorded Badmotorfinger. That’s what I always say. The Foo Fighters recorded significant chunks of The Colour And The Shape there and Black Heart Procession recorded there a few times. N: Were the songs on the bonus EP recorded at the same time as the album? S: Yeah, they were. We tried to separate them a bit from the album. Everyone gets to hear them in the end so it doesn’t really matter. Stephen Malkmus is currently on tour: NOVEMBER 2003 Sunday 30: Solano Beach, CA at Belly Up Tavern DECEMBER 2003 Monday 01: Los Angeles, CA at El Rey Theater Tuesday 02: San Francisco, CA at Slim's Wednesday 03: San Francisco, CA at Slim's Friday 05: Portland, OR at Crystal Ballroom Saturday 06: Seattle, WA at Showbox www.stephenmalkmus.com