Black Swan Songs

Radiohead's artwork for "These Are My Twisted Words"

Well either Radiohead never had anything planned for Wall of Ice or they did have something planned and now they are just really pissed off that the shark got jumped a little early…cause the wallofice.com page is no longer linking to their W.A.S.T.E. store.

But, in chummy Radiohead fashion, they’ve released a new single for all to download – complete with cool artwork – for free.

mp3: radiohead :: these are my twisted words .zip

Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks: Malkmus (in blue shirt) was making literate indie rock before it was cool

Less than 10 years after the 1990s’ melancholy sunset, critical consensus continues to build that Stephen Malkmus and his old band Pavement were one of the most influential rock bands of that entire decade, forging timeless indie-ethos rock from a crucible overflowing with high art/post modern aesthetics, sardonically poetic lyrics and a new genre pastiche wherein “Exile on Main Street” loose-feeling slack rock combined with the steely song craft of one of Malkmus’ favorite bands, The Fall.

Malkmus and his current band The Jicks are currently touring – at their leisure – behind their 2008 release “Real Emotional Trash,” his fourth – and best – post-Pavement solo album.

When I woke up Malkmus at his Portland home for this interview (first published in a super-abridged version in the Austin American-Statesman), he was initially groggy. After a few yawns, the lyrically hyper-literate, ever-ironic songwriter proved to be uncannily happy to expound on his early influences, whether or not Sesame Street’s Elmo inspired a song on “Real Emotional Trash” and how he considered becoming an Austinite after the release of Pavement’s “Terror Twilight.”

» Read the rest of this entry «

Death Cab for Cutie in 2009: (from left to right) Nick Harmer, Ben Gibbard, Chris Walla and Jason McGerr. Notice how guitarist and producer Walla looks damn fine in army green.

Death Cab for Cutie spent the last decade slowly and steadily becoming one of the most popular indie-ethos rock bands in the world. Melancholy, lovelorn lyrics, wrapped around vocalist/guitarist/keyboardist Ben Gibbard’s plaintive tenor, infuse their pop melodies, ripping at your heartstrings while rocking the space where your soul meets your body. Their upcoming May 1 show at Austin Music Hall is sold out, a testament to the large and loyal fanbase they’ve built through years of touring. Recently Death Cab’s guitarist and producer Chris Walla spoke with me about an hour after our agreed upon time. He dragged himself out of bed and stood outside while speaking on the phone (perhaps so he didn’t wake the person he was sharing a room with). A thunderstorm began to cover the skies above him. He laughed with excitement like a little kid at the prospect of the storm’s impending fury.

Walla has a reputation for being very candid in interviews, and he didn’t disappoint during this one. He spoke very freely and didn’t stutter to clarify thoughts. His voice is very soft-spoken and it possesses a child-like wonder, constantly surveying all of the most beautiful things in the world.

Semi-recently Walla moved from Seattle to Portland, but he could easily be an Austinite. He owns a studio, he’s a vegetarian, a left-wing activist and he’s become a highly sought after producer as the fidelity of Death Cab records just expands at the same rate as their recording budgets. I’d guess Walla became a millionaire a few years ago, but he possessed the grace of someone that appreciates their position. (To contrast, I semi-recently interviewed Blake Sennett, the guitarist of Rilo Kiley, and Sennett did not possess that same humble graciousness.)

What follows is the unabridged interview transcript. I’ve left in all of my own stammers and false starts. The only thing I edited out were instances where Walla said “sort of”, similar to how people use the word “like” as a pause in order to find the exact way they’d like to phrase something.

This transcript is 2,221 words, and I had to edit it down to 400 words for a version to run in the Austin American-Statesman. Needless to say, the version that will run in the newspaper feels like just a snippet of a longer conversation. If you like Death Cab for Cutie – or if you’d like to read about why John McCain’s use of Twitter is like a death knoll for the micro-blogging site – I think you’ll appreciate the unabridged version presented in its entirety for the first time…right here.

From a recorded telephone conversation/interview on Good Friday, April 10, 2009.

Black Swan: Hi!

Chris Walla: Hi! (He says sincerely, enthusiastically.)

Black Swan: Thanks for taking time-out to do this interview. Where are you guys right now? Have you started the tour?

Walla: We’re six dates in to the tour. Part of the reason (the interview started late) – I was just telling Cath (the Atlantic Records’ publicist that set up the interview) – I thought we were in central time now. The time change and the interview change…sorry about that…I woke up an hour late.

Black Swan: Aw, naw, man. It’s all good.

Walla: We’re in Louisville, Kentucky right now.

Black Swan: Before we speak about the current releases, I’d like to go backwards for a second. There’s info in the Wikipedia page for the band that you were recruited into Death Cab when it became a full time project. I was wondering if that was true.

Walla: (laughing) I…don’t…what does the Wiki page say?

Black Swan: It says that you were recruited into the band.

Walla: (jokingly) Well, it’s on the Internet, so it must be true.

Black Swan: (laughs from me) I’d like to get it from the source…from the horse’s mouth as they say.

Walla: (after a pregnant pause) …I guess.

At this point I knew I had to change my tact very quickly because I could tell he was sizing me up, deducing that this was going to be a mediocre and boring interview.

Black Swan: And even before that, what got you into playing guitar? What inspired that? When did you start playing?

Walla: I’m a bass player by trade. Well, not by trade. By nature I am a bass player. By trade I am a guitar player…that would be a better way to put it. Yeah, this band didn’t need a bass player, so I started playing guitar.

Black Swan: So bass is your first instrument? I didn’t realize that. When did you start playing bass?

Walla: Well, I guess I was about 13 or 14 when I started playing the bass. Yeah, I’ve been playing guitar off and on since I was about 16 or 17. I learned it out of necessity and just sort of feeling like, ‘I should know how to do this.’

Black Swan: I’m curious, did you start off playing bass at home, or did you start playing the upright bass through school orchestra?

Walla: My best friend all through middle school and high school was a guy named Nathan Good. He ended up being the first drummer in Death Cab for Cutie. So I’d been playing with him since I was like 13 or 14. And we were never a proper band together. We always just recorded in…mostly just his parent’s basement.

Black Swan: What town was that?

Walla: That was in the town of Bothell, Washington, which is where I am from.

Black Swan: What year did you first meet Ben?

Walla: I met Ben in 1995, 1996…something like that. We were recording together and doing stuff by the middle of 1996.

Black Swan: Now I’ll fast forward. I was really excited by the new record and how it musically goes to some new places that you guys had never been before. Like with the song “Bigsby Canyon Bridge,” you guys rocked out – of course you guys have rocked many times before – but it feels like something new the way you guys played at the end of that song. How did some of the new stuff you did on that song come about? Did that come out of a jam? Or did the demos sound similar?

Walla: Well, the demos for that song sort of suggested that stuff. Sometimes the demos get translated to the records really literally. And then sometimes we tear them apart completely and they don’t resemble his demos at all by the time they make it to the album. With that song his demo suggested that that’s where it goes, but it definitely wasn’t quite there. It wasn’t doing it. I really like that recording because I feel like it’s one of the few places in our catalog where I think we just turned our brains off completely, and just did something just because it feels good. And you know, it’s a mess. It’s a big, sonic basher in a way. But it’s really, really fun.

Black Swan: Yeah, that (fun) comes through too. And you know that song with the Beach Boys’ Christmas bells, “Pet Sounds” kind of thing? I dug that too for the sheer fact that it was something totally different.

Walla: That song was kind of a throwaway at one point. I guess ‘throwaway’ is a little strong of a word. But it was definitely not an album contender. It had another verse, and it had another chorus to it. And it was just too much for what the song was trying to say. And yet it seems like there are times where playing into how morose a lyric is – and playing into and representing whatever lightness or darkness is happening in the song literally is a good thing to do. And then there are times where we’re doing exactly the opposite and it’s the right thing to do. “You Can Do Better” is much an example of the latter. Lyrically, the song is kind pathetic, like pathos pathetic, not like lame pathetic. Trying to make something that is equally pathetic is non-productive.

Black Swan: That’s when some of the coolest things come out. When the music is one emotion and the lyrics express another emotion. Those kind of moments pull at your soul.

Walla: Yeah. Yeah.

At this point,  the inflection on his last affirmation connoted, “Oh, OK. This guy is actually not the boring, run of the mill journalist that I thought he was going to be.”

Black Swan: You guys have been really fearless about taking a stand, whether it was with the Obama campaign or supporting PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals). I think that’s really cool. Bands used to do that in the 1960s, but you don’t see that as much now. What were the fans’ reactions to your supporting the campaign?

Walla: There wasn’t a lot of static this time. There was a lot more static in 2004, with the (John) Kerry campaign when we got involved with that. There’s a time and a place for all that stuff…for the public at large. It’s like with anything, things move in waves. And it’s been well documented that the Obama campaign and its subsequent victory was at least as much cultural phenomenon as much as it was a political campaign. In a lot of ways it has more societal (things) in common with Harry Potter than it does with John Kerry. It’s just something that takes over, for better or for worse.

And there is some blowback happening around that…and the loyal opposition is opposing everything, of course…which is their job…that’s great. But there wasn’t much static from the fans this time. It felt as though we were part of a movement…something that was actually happening…whereas in 2004, it felt as though we were working against the Kerry campaign. Working with the Obama campaign, they were like, ‘Yeah, whatever you guys want to do, come on board.’ And with the Kerry campaign, they were like, ‘Ooooo. Ahhhh. You’ve got ‘Death’ in your name. I don’t know if we can do anything. You’re gonna vote for us, right?’

You couldn’t buy your way into supporting John Kerry for president. It was a really different thing.

Black Swan: I’ve read President Obama has Kanye West and Wilco on his iPod, which makes me think he might have Death Cab on there too. Have you guys heard if he is a fan? Have you met him yet?

Walla: Haven’t met him yet.

Lightning strikes close to Walla and a thunderclap booms across the phone line.

Walla: Aw, Jesus. That’s the lightning in Louisville. Dude that sucks. I’m standing outside. Guess I’m gonna get wet right about now (he says in a sing-song melody). Maybe I won’t get wet. What was the question? Have we met the president?

Have not met him. Have a pretty good idea that he has heard our music at this point. Our songs ended up in some actual official stuff, like the inauguration day CD that the campaign-turned-advocacy committee put together. I don’t know though. I’ve kept in touch with a lot of the people that I worked with on the campaign. And a lot of people from the Chicago office have jobs at the White House now. It’s been really interesting to watch the thing unfold. Pretty awesome actually.

Black Swan: You guys have played in Austin many times. Because of Austin’s similarity to where you live in Portland – and obviously you’ve been all over the world – but is Austin a place you look forward to playing? Does it stand out? Like, you know you’ll be able to find some good vegetarian restaurants…or look forward to seeing like-minded people?

Walla: Yeah, I think for a lot of bands that first start, driving a van across the country, it ends up being ground zero for South by Southwest (SXSW) every year. And thinking about SXSW now sends chills up my spine. Thinking about how…we’re sort of road-weary rock veterans now. We’ve been doing this for 11 years. When I think about how enormously stupid we were in 1998 or 1999, driving 50 hours straight from Bellingham, WA to get to Austin to play SXSW, eating handfuls of trucker speed and whatever else just to get there.  And when I think about 600 other bands that are doing exactly the same thing, and then putting them all in the same place…when I think about that it kind of sounds like a nightmare.

Atlantic Records’ publicist: We gotta start wrapping up. (I didn’t know she was still on the line. I suddenly felt a little violated.)

Walla: I’ve got another minute or two. (I was suddenly reassured that the interview was going well and I was engaging Walla in a good way as this would have been his chance to get off the phone and go get breakfast.)

Black Swan: I’ll cut to my last question. (The publicist interrupted my flow, so I stammered for a bit.) Um, well, I actually didn’t want to talk about SXSW, but…how about getting back to Austin…

Walla: (graciously helping me pull my flow back) …I do love Austin. And I feel like I do have a little bit of a connection to it. We got to be pretty good friends with the American Analog Set at one point. I think about staying at Kenny’s (American Analog Set’s vocalist) house when we were down there. It does seem like a navigable home base…and that’s always nice on a tour. Like right now, I’m in Louisville – and I love Louisville. It’s a cool town – but I don’t know Louisville. I don’t understand it. You know, like you said, I don’t know where to get something to eat. I know where the Jimmy John’s is, but that doesn’t count.  I know where the thunder and lightning are…

Black Swan: Lastly, I want to ask you about…you guys have always had cool, thoughtful album artwork. And now you guys have cool digital releases like that cool iPhone app. Did that come out of you guys having iPhones and thinking it would be cool to have something like that…or did someone else come up with that?

Walla: Well we all love LPs, and we love CDs slightly less. None of us listen to music or buy music that way…at all. When we’re honest with ourselves, we’ve all given up on the physical transmission of music. Like, an album is something I put on if I happen to be at home, but I’m not even ever at home anymore. So it’s just a logical extension. It’s just a matter of asking the questions like: ‘we’re not listening to music the way that we were when we started, and what are our options for transmission?’

iTunes is the biggest, most obvious corner of that world. But getting away from that and moving into corners beyond there is the next logical thing. By my thinking, Twitter is probably already dead, being that John McCain has a Twitter account…seems like that’s the death wish for anything…getting him involved and excited about it and having him talk about it is the sure way to kill anything good (he says jokingly).

But (seriously), it’s a matter of watching our fans and listening to the people who give us feedback. And too, watching what other band are doing. I mean, I never in a million years would have thought that we’d get to 2009, and Nine Inch Nails would be doing the coolest shit around. It’s incredible. And Trent Reznor is driving all of that. It’s just awesome to watch his whole thing unfold. And he probably has a team of digital snipers that are just working on that stuff all the time. All the geo-caching stuff. He just launched an iPhone app that is like the Nine Inch Nails site.

Black Swan: Thanks for taking time out to speak with us. I’m actually a long time fan, and I’m still a fan, so keep doing what you’re doing.

Walla: Thanks…thanks a lot.