interview with Stephen Malkmus

Stephen Malkmus is an indie rock musician, a founder member of the influential band 'Pavement', sometime member of 'Silver Jews' and recorded three previous albums with 'The Jicks'. He's got a new album out in March called 'Real Emotional Trash' which also has the Jicks providing the instrumentation. He headlined last year's 'Green Man Festival' and is over here promoting his new collection of songs. I couldn't get to his London hotel but I was able to phone up the laid back Californian with a gentle drawl up for ten minutes in his busy promotional schedule.

Hi Stephen, first of all can you describe where you're living for our readers.
You mean where I'm based, where I live? Yeah yeah, we're in Oregan , Portland in the north west of America. It's the west coast, you know Seattle, 'Twin Peaks' (David Lynch) maybe people will have seen that before. There's a lot of pine trees and rivers and it's known primarily from a socio point of view of being a pretty open, left leaning, diverse-ical sustainable land of hippies and free thinkers.

How would you describe the new album, 'Real Emotional Trash' to somebody who hasn't heard it?
Well, I would say it's just a spreading out of wide open song structures with a lot of twists of turns in there and a little bit of guitar histrionics and some psychedelic imagery.

Who has influenced you in your music?
So much, I suppose initially when I was a teenager, well, beyond being a teenager, I was pretty much attracted to outsiders, people who were working against the grain of the mainstream media that was being forced down my throat at that age.

The punk bands of the early days like 'Dead Kennedys', 'Black Flag' and other California bands, there were local bands that came to my town. And then, going on from that to more club bands like 'Husker Du', 'Sonic Youth', 'Dinosaur(Jnr)', and 'Butthole Surfers', these bands that were taking it on the road.

But of course also at that time I liked 'Echo And The Bunnymen', and Jesus And Marychain', these British pop bands. More recently of course I'm a little beyond that kind of music and more into esoteric, weirder music, private press.

So how do you go about creating your music these days?
Well I've always one just to go down in the basement and have a go, you know. Just bash away, maybe I listen to some records that I have and maybe I'll hear a good bit here or there from a specific song and think I can pay tribute in my own way and I use that as a starting off point for a rhythm and I tune all my guitars in an odd manner and so that manages to transform anything that might be mere imitation or hero worship into something that sounds unique. And, after that I do the lyrics and that just comes from my weird mind, I don’t really know where that comes from.

So when you say basement is that a studio then?
That's my place in my house, I've got a house, that's where the family doesn't go, I go down there and it's all dirty, I don't have to vacuum and it's like the last stand for rock and roll in my house.

Are you doing any festivals at all this year?
So far we haven't decided, there was one out on the Isle of Wight or somewhere we were considering doing. We could be, we did 'Green Man' last year, I heartily recommend that, the weather's tolerable at best, but that doesn't seem to stop the British fan. But just the vibe there and everything, great place and great organisers.

I saw you at Glastonbury '99 when you were still in Pavement...
Pavement, yeah I would do that (festival) too, it's got a similar vibe. Obviously it's been canonised into the mainstream 'Glastonbury', but the spirit's somewhere still there I think of the original thing.

Have you ever been to a festival as punter?
I've been to some, when I was a kid I used to go to them. You know I'm pushing 40 so it's going to be hard to get me out there. Plus I played at many of them, but yeah, I saw great ones. 'Cow Jam' with 'Ted Nugent' and 'Now and There' with 'R.E.M.', 'The Cars', 'The Motels' and 'Ratt', this heavy metal band called Ratt.

Yeah, so those are the ones I went to, you know and then there was Lollapalooza, but that wasn't really my bag that was more of a youth culture, mainstream media thing, I was getting a little suspicious of that by then.

But you know 'The Green Man' if I wasn't in a band I could see myself going to that, if I wasn't in the industry sort of I guess you know what I mean, I would go to that one.

So have you been to any other UK ones?
As a participant I've been to 'V', and of course 'Reading' (laughs) I've been there. Like V'97 it’s still going I think. Yeah, Europe seems to have, essentially England, well, there was an explosion of them in the nineties and now it's just corporate sponsorship and they're settled pretty much into a routine it seems like there's some for nearly every genre of music, like the 'Big Chill' for instance, that's a good one too.

So if you could choose a band to reform so you could see them, who would you pick?
Well... I'd love to see, well... there is so much, Fairport Convention with the original line-up that would be nice. I wouldn’t mind seeing Hendrix when he was shredding with the original line-up.

There's many more obscure bands, but 'Wire' when they were... you know it's more like seeing them at the time, for a lot of these bands. I mean 'The Stooges have reformed and they are pretty great, considering how bad it could be, 'The Stooges' are amazing, you know, actually that's one of the best ones I've seen, but I can imagine during that time when they were kind of out there.

Okay, so if you could go a time when somebody was playing who would be the one you’d want to be at most of all?
Oh, there's so many of them, you know. You could imagine seeing 'Pink Floyd with Syd, Hendrix in his time that would be awesome. 'Sex Pistols' at those first shows. I mean I’m just going to keep it widescreen and go with all these big bands. 'The Doors', I mean I was a big Doors fan when I was in seventh grade and I still think of it being cool to see them.

Who would you most like to collaborate with?
I'd say maybe, oh I dunno Mark Bolan, oh wait he’s dead. Just kidding. I dunno, collaboration’s never something that I, that’s me. I prefer maybe some street musicians from Africa, no wait Damon Albarn's already done that.

So would you not do something because somebody’s already been there?
Not really, I just don't really suffer musicians or something, I don't really want anything from them from anyone that's established. I kind of just like working with my people and my band or from people I don't know, that aren't famous.

So how did you get the Jicks (the band) together then?
Well they are friends of mine from town, and I've got a new drummer now who was in another band. She was in this band called 'Sleater Kinny' you might be familiar with. They were a pretty successful group in America all women, punk rock band, she joined up. Just through connections, friends from down around the pub type thing.

Well, that's my ten minutes, you've got another interview lined up in a minute thanks for your time.
No problem nice talking to you.

I'll have to get around to seeing you sometime, I used to quite like Pavement actually you were in a perfect slot at Glastonbury for me, there was Wilco, you and then Gomez, so I hung there for the day.
Yeah I like 'Wilco' too, Wilco's a great band and 'Gomez' was on a roll back then, there was some of the best work ever.

Yeah, they were great that day, thanks man.
Take it easy man. Bye.