The New Statesmen: The New Statesmen: The National Talk High Violet

My interview with The National for The Skinny

Cool, calm and collected: The National cut refined figures amongst the indie fraternity. The Brooklyn quintet's principal songwriters Matt Berninger and Aaron Dessner talk humble beginnings and reveal how accurate a depiction that really is

It’s almost two months before The National unleash their fifth album, High Violet. Matt Berninger and Aaron Dessner have been fielding questions in their homeland for over a week, but as they touch down in London to confront the UK press, you could never tell. The pair are gracious, enthusiastic and unerringly polite. “We worked on the record for a year and a half so we’re happy to talk about it now,” explains front man Berninger, his trademark baritone registering only slightly north of 8Hz. But The National didn’t get to where they are today through any lack of patience. Their formative years were spent moving from town to town, playing to handfuls of punters, living in squalor.

“I remember staying in a really nasty hostel in Glasgow in 2001,” says multi-instrumentalist Dessner. “We came back from our show to find all these drunken backpackers and one of them had put all their wet underwear on Matt’s pillow. We didn’t sleep much that night. I don’t know that we would do that again, but we earned our success one fan at a time. It taught us to convert whoever was in the room, even though there were often more people in the band than in the crowd.”

Berninger laughs when he’s reminded of those times. “It was a means to an end,” he says. And from humble beginnings great things come: these days, The National are the hottest ticket in town. High Violet is the must-hear indie release of the year, and it doesn’t disappoint. The band have produced another stonewall classic – on their terms – and both Berninger and Dessner are confident that it’s the most accomplished record in their canon.

“I think it’s completely unlike anything we’ve ever done,” Berninger assures, “which is what we want to do. It’s definitely our most ornate, layered and complicated piece; the weaving of the horn and string in and out of the ugly fuzzy guitar tones gives a delicate friction and balance and it was our intention to try to marry these to see what kind of alchemy it would create. I think we were more confident to try things we’ve never done before. Anyone’s Ghost is our first real pop song and a lot of the songs have more of a pop feel than what we’ve done previously. In the past, anything that sounded like a pop song, we just threw it away. This time we followed our impulses and weren’t so worried about being cool. I definitely think it’s our best record.”

The confidence the band are imbued with is fully justified. Having announced themselves on the scene with the underrated Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers in 2003, the Cincinnati via Brooklyn five-piece made a huge splash with 2005’s Alligator, an acclaimed album high on emotion and rich in melody. Commercial success followed, too, with 2007’s Boxer, a more restrained, but no less enjoyable record. High Violet, bound to be deemed the most accessible of their releases to date, is unlikely to result in superstardom, but firmly establishes The National as one of the most upwardly consistent bands of their time.

“You can see that what we’re doing in terms of trajectory is not completely random,” says Berninger when asked whether he sees a pattern in their discography. “It weaves one way and then back the other way, all the while moving generally forward; forward to the right, forward to the left. Boxer is very different from Alligator and in some ways we went the opposite direction. Boxer was circumspect and Alligator had lots of screaming. That was intentional; we didn’t want to back ourselves into a corner of being the band with the guy screaming over the top of everything. We cautiously tried to undo our identity at least on that level. This time – I think by doing that – we broke the mould of what people’s idea of what we were was. We diluted it enough so that we could do whatever we wanted. It gave us the freedom to do things like a pop song and have some ugly, jerky sounds and not have everything so pristine and stately as it was on Boxer.”

Their success is all the more remarkable when you consider that Berninger, whose voice – along with the idiosyncratic drumming of Bryan Devendorf – is the most distinctive asset in the band’s armoury, didn’t even realise he could sing until he was in his late twenties. But as any fan of the band will tell you, they broke the mould when they made The National. They tend not to conform to any Rock God stereotype, either musically or personally.

Much of the new album is built upon complex arrangements, layers of keys and guitars augmented with lush, yet unpretentious orchestration. Dessner puts it best when he admits: “We don’t start out thinking ‘This is going to be a sophisticated rock record’ – it’s just the way it goes.” There’s a perceived effortlessness to The National’s sound which places them head and shoulders above many of their peers, seeing them straightforwardly depicted as elder statesmen: wise, unruffled and judicious. Lyrically, too, their songs stand apart from indie rock standards. Berninger’s inkwell is habitually filled with paradoxes: abstract, yet vitriolic; remote, but evocative.

“I don’t write songs line by line,” he explains. “I just write about whatever feels important or the things I’m obsessing over. Sometimes I’m delving into the same dark corners that I have in the past. I don’t say, ‘I want a song about restaurants in the Mid West’. I don’t think that way. I don’t say, ‘I want a song that talks about the rain in England’. I never try to make a clear narrative, it’s more a very blurry train of thought and they can be very hard to connect. Sometimes I wonder if it’s better not to connect them.”

In conversation, too, both Dessner and Berninger have an air of seemliness that many in their profession can’t begin to emanate. Their responses are well-considered and conclusive; they are passionate about what they do and give the impression that they’d happily talk all day about it. But they casually dismiss any notions we have that they are overly refined. “I’m good at the drinking but don’t have a significant palate. I just have a powerful thirst,” says Matt, when it’s suggested he recommend The Skinny a good Merlot. “When I go to a restaurant I pretend to know what I’m doing but I usually order the least expensive. There’s the classic thing that everyone does in ordering the second least expensive bottle on the menu, but that’s where they put the wine they’re trying to get rid of, so I go for the least expensive. It’s mostly better than the other one. People are embarrassed by ordering the cheapest, but it’s usually better than you think.”

The National have come a long way since taking fetid digs in Glasgow, a sentiment highlighted by a recent show at the Royal Albert Hall. But their progress, their excellence and their increasing popularity are tempered with a modesty that’s begotten from a gradual ascent. “Our lives are a lot more comfortable and we’re lucky to be able to survive completely off what we want to do,” says Dessner. “But I could never forget those early days and how tough it was, probably not even if I tried.”

Original photograph by Ross Trevail

From The Jungle To The Dancefloor: The Progression of Yeasayer

It's a new decade and Yeasayer are full of the joys. I spoke to a loved up Chris Keating to get the lowdown on Odd Blood.

Yeasayer are in love. The Brooklyn band spent the course of their stunning and somewhat inauspicious debut set All Hour Cymbals bemoaning “the times we’re living in” and fearing “the future we’re born into”. Album number two, though, is a decidedly more starry-eyed brew. With cupid’s arrow firmly lodged in each of their three rears, Yeasayer have made an unashamed, dancefloor friendly pop record. Odd Blood is a libido led sonic boudoir. Their propensity to experiment remains, but their energy and residual creative schizophrenia have been channelled in what lead singer Chris Keating describes as “a more positive fashion.”

Keating was speaking to The Skinny a fortnight before Odd Blood’s release and was on hand to explain a little bit about the band’s change in outlook. “There are more love songs on this record compared to apocalyptic ones. There are still some dark themes there, but we are in a more content place now on a personal level than when All Hour Cymbals was being written. When we were working on it, this all started coming out without us even realising it. We’re all in relatively new relationships and we’re all very happy about that. So I guess that’s pretty obvious.”

The escalating influence of dance music production on Odd Blood, Keating goes on to tell us, encouraged them to be more open lyrically. “In reaction to the inorganic electronic sounds that we were getting from the instrumental tracks,” he explains, “we reverted inwards and started talking about personal things, like relationship dictions. We started telling little stories about that.”

The introduction of matters of the heart is not the only change the band has undergone since All Hour Cymbals. Around the time of their emergence, the drums of Africa were beating with increasing vociferousness over the work of a multitude of contemporary artists. It’s a sound that over the years has resonated heavily with New York luminaries, from Paul Simon to Vampire Weekend. Yeasayer’s debut trod a similar path.

Keating fondly recalls borrowing twenty records at a time from his local library and cultivating an encyclopaedic knowledge of Afrobeat reissues from the late 70s: from Chimurenga, to Highlife to Thomas Mapfumo. Upon discovering that bassist Ira Wolf Tuton shared his passion, it was incorporated into the very fabric of Yeasayer. Thus, its absence is one of the most surprising features of Odd Blood. They’ve peeled away the layers, raised the vocals in the mix and abandoned the sound of Africa. As Keating explains though, the ethos of the band dictates that change and evolution is compulsory.

“The idea is to never have to be pigeon-holed or pinned down in any one corner. We have to be cagy, like Mohammed Ali in the ring. It’s important to move from idea to idea, especially in this early stage in your career. We want to get as many different people to put as many different labels on us as possible… and then maybe slow down a bit when our fighting legs are a little slower. We’ll have to play rope-a-dope or something!”

Their kitchen sink approach may be the very thing that comes to define them. They throw everything at the wall and for the most part, it sticks. When quizzed on whether he finds it difficult to focus on a single idea, Keating insists that such an approach is intentional and in this day and age, perhaps more relevant.

“We try to make music that reflects how people are music these days. There’s a whole lot of scrolling through iPods, trawling the internet and MySpace and a general shift from the ‘album format’. The whole world is becoming chaotic in terms of information: we’re overdosing and this is how I want to make music.”

However settled and content Yeasayer may be with their personal lives, there are still grander issues that they feel strongly about. Keating is a self-confessed Democrat. He was vocal in his support of Obama’s election and his tone is lifted when he discusses the mood in New York City in the months that followed it. “It was ecstatic; there were parties on the streets and people cheering… it was insane. New York is a liberal place but for a few months it was crazy. You’d go up to people on the street and high-five them; there was a genuine sense of celebration.”

Yeasayer: 2080 / Tightrope on Blogotheque

But a year into his term of office, the critics are sharpening their knives. Despite (controversially) bagging a Nobel Prize, things have improved slightly, if at all. The American public’s optimism has waned and Keating is no different.

“Things are screwed up. Slowly there are minor changes, but the sweeping, hopeful change people thought was going to happen hasn’t materialised. I like the guy (Obama) but I’m done with the support. The Republican fucks in this country make me sick. The fact that a liberal like Obama has to appease them, these corrupt congressmen and senators, and can’t even squash them, despite having the majority, makes me sick.”

Keating goes on to voice his distaste for George W Bush, at whose feet he places the blame for the crisis enveloping the world: “Bush dumped out an entire trashcan of shit on someone’s doorstep and you try to walk into the house without getting dirty.”

For Keating at least though, the future is rosy. Odd Blood has the potential to earn them commercial success to rival the critical acclaim that met All Hour Cymbals. A wider audience may be just around the corner. To paraphrase: it’s a new year, and Yeasayer are definitely glad to be here.

Written for The Skinny

Public Image Ltd: John the Revelator

I spoke to the man once described as "the biggest threat to our youth since Hitler" to learn that despite mounting evidence, John Lydon has no intention of mellowing out just yet.

“The Skinny? Oh God Almighty! You’re nicking London phrases.”

So begins forty-five minutes of impassioned, exhausting and wholly entrancing conversation with John Lydon. The artist formerly known as Rotten is keen to remind me that he’s never been afraid to “ruffle a few feathers” and accordingly, the exchange is peppered with quotable soundbytes, snippets of advice and well-aimed swipes at everyone from The Smashing Pumpkins to Radiohead (“I feel like I’m banging my head off a fucking brick wall.”), and from the Beckhams to vegans (“I’m sensible enough to realise that I’ve got two different kinds of teeth in my head, and they’re there for a reason.”).

But the man once described as “the biggest threat to our youth since Hitler” has seemed more likely to turn up on Loose Women than to destabilise the regime in latter days. He’s got a Hollywood smile to match his Hollywood home. His infamous stint on I’m A Celebrity… in 2005 was followed by a series of advertisements for Country Butter. But rather than view himself as a fading threat, Lydon considers these projects to be equally as challenging as his work with the Sex Pistols, and every bit as subversive.

“Oh God! I loved their bravery!” he beams about the adverts’ creators. “Butter: how politically incorrect for the lettuce-eaters. But you know, I like a bit of butter on me bread. I was more than pleased. I can see the good rather than the stupid pomposity of negating everything because it doesn’t seem at first to fit in to a lifestyle.”

Lydon’s articulate manner is contrary to his oft-projected image. He speaks with rapid consideration. His demeanour is more jovial than threatening. And he refuses to shrink away from any of the questions posed. His memories of reality television are less than fond, and his assessment of it is contemplative, but scathing.

Along with his wife Nora, he had been booked to fly on the fateful Pan Am Flight 103 that exploded over Lockerbie in 1988. By virtue of poor timekeeping, they missed it, but the moment has haunted Lydon ever since. An agreement was struck with the producers of the show which would ensure Lydon was informed once Nora’s plane had landed in Australia to greet him on location – an arrangement they reneged on.

“They did some very nasty things to me that I’ll never forget, and I resent them bitterly. That ate at me, because I have to know when Nora arrives anywhere on a plane. Then that bomber (al-Megrahi) being released, really raised an issue in my head. I thought, ‘Where do I stand on this?’ Someone’s dying, and yes, you are sympathetic. But that bugger could’ve killed me and Nora.”

Death and his own mortality are issues that have been playing heavily on Lydon’s mind lately. Last year, his brother was diagnosed with cancer and his father died suddenly after suffering a heart attack. The events have, naturally, had a profound effect.

“Luckily,” he says solemnly, “my brother’s cancer is in remission. But my father died. There’s nothing I can do to change that, but I can’t accept it. It’s almost like a childish reaction. I just do not see why we must cease to exist. I’m not on a great search for heaven or ‘hark the herald angels’: that’s a coward’s way out of understanding what life’s about. Life is here to live to the absolute fullest, until you get the bucket. And self pity and misery, you really should have no time for.

“I’ve seen so many people die futile, pointless, stupid rock deaths inside my own industry. And nobody seems to be telling them that it’s not an alternative. It’s not groovy and far out. It’s an act of grotesque foolishness. And ultimately you pay the bitterest prices for your self-indulgence. Death.”

Last year’s tragedies have inspired Lydon to take Public Image Ltd on their first tour in 17 years. He describes PiL as “a mental release, as opposed to The Sex Pistols, which is more of a physical release”, and the desire for such an outpouring not only inspired this tour, but also the band’s formation.

“The song Death Disco kept playing in my mind after the funeral,” explains Lydon. “It’s a song I wrote for my mother when she was dying in the late 1970s. The whole thing, it had to be resolved in my head and when I started playing the record again, I really got it. I thought: ‘That’s it... that’s why I wrote that song!’ It’s somehow a cry in the wilderness, but a release from pain. It’s one of the many ways I can describe what PiL is. It’s a release from pain… an escape almost from drug hallucinogenic monotone.”

Lydon’s pain of the past year has been accentuated by accusations of racial assault made against him by Bloc Party singer Kele Okereke. The pair were involved in an altercation in Spain last July, during which Okereke sustained severe facial bruising. Lydon, however, has been taken aback by the allegation, claiming he is fed up with the “disruption and petulant jealousy of other bands”.

“I’ve been going through a lot of pain with my family and I’m reading all this nonsense that I’m a racist. Of all the people in the world! It really, really hurts; particularly for my grandchildren… they’re Jamaican. How do you think they feel about that? I’ve deliberately kept my public image, all my life, limited. And yet this dirty arsed, Hollywood gossip is still trying to stick its claws in me. And I don’t think that’s a paranoid point of view, I think this business of behaving filthy is now pervasive in society.”

Lydon’s anger over the incident is plain, particularly in light of his previously affable nature. But as the conversation draws to a conclusion, his fury subsides, replaced by a gracious farewell and a throaty cackle. He is asked, if there is anything he wouldn’t advertise to raise money for the next PiL reunion. The response isn't long in coming.

“Tampax... how on earth would I get away with that?”

Video: PiL - Death Disco (on Top of the Pops)

Written for The Skinny

2010: Year of the Rabbit? An Interview with Frightened Rabbit

As they prepare to unleash album number three, Finbarr Bermingham spoke to Frightened Rabbit to find out what 2010 holds in store.

Scott Hutchison is in Bath. Today should have been his day off. But instead, Frightened Rabbit’s lead singer and songwriter has found himself cooped up in a Somerset studio by day and answering his phone to journalists by night. The never-ending spiral of production and promotion has laid claim to the spirits of many musicians. Hutchison, though, is more philosophical than most.

“There are days when it’s awful,” he tells me as he checks into his hotel room. “But you have to catch yourself and transfer your body into an office, wearing a suit. Then you think: ‘Fuck it, I’m alright.’ Even on the worst days of touring, to me it’s preferable to any other job, so I’m not going to complain at all.”

Frightened Rabbit have been recording the B-sides for their forthcoming single, Swim Until You Can’t See Land. It precedes the March 2010 release of album number three, The Winter of Mixed Drinks, which Hutchison says is “more of a storytelling record” than anything they’ve put out before. It will be speckled with autobiographical musings, but nothing to match the heart-on-sleeve opus that was Midnight Organ Fight. “In other words,” he assures us, “I didn’t spend all of winter getting pissed!”

“At its core,” Scott continues, “it’s still full of songs and for me, that’s the point of putting an album together. The way we’ve treated them is sonically quite different. It’s much more layered, but I don’t want to say grand, because the obvious mistake to make is to start going over the top. But I don’t think we have – in many ways it’s a much more restrained and confident record. I don’t think it’s grasping for your attention as much as the last record and the difference in confidence is probably why.”

The runaway success of Midnight Organ Fight was largely unforeseen and it’s a measure of the band’s progress that The Winter of Mixed Drinks is one of the most anticipated albums of 2010. For many, expectation like that is liable to breed pressure. For Hutchison, though, it all comes from within. “I just want to better myself,” he says. “When you’re demoing, writing and recording you’re away from outside influence. It’s nice forgetting about the fact that anyone’s going to hear the songs and remembering how to write to please yourself again.”

If the new songs were written to please Hutchison, then surely previous tracks were written to help him. Painfully personal accounts of a failed relationship formed the basis of Midnight Organ Fight and the album charts Scott’s progress as he attempts to get his life back on track. Frequently it’s stirring. Sometimes it’s lewd and at others it’s funny. But the only track his mother struggles to listen to is Floating Down The Forth, during which Hutchinson contemplates suicide.

“I can see why a mum might not want to hear about her son having those thoughts. But she’s extremely supportive of the rest of it. I’m sure I’ve said ‘cunt’ in front of my mum once or twice, so the language isn’t much of an issue.”

The subject of the songs, too, has been for the most part encouraging. “I know the girl in question has heard it,” explains Scott. “She told me that some days she’d enjoy it and others she just couldn’t bear listening to it at all. I understand that, she’s good enough to not complain about it and even though we don’t keep in touch anymore, for the small amount of time that we did, she was pretty supportive.”

In less than a month, Frightened Rabbit will play one of their biggest shows to date, when they take to the stage at Edinburgh’s Hogmanay Street Party. New Year has, in the past, brought contrasting fortunes for the Selkirk band. Scott describes last year’s performance in Sydney as “bloody excellent” and one of the highlights of his short career. Its grandiosity is only magnified when it’s considered alongside some of their humbler experiences. Scott takes up the story:

“A couple of years before that, we played at Barfly. It was the year the George Square celebration got cancelled because of the gales and the rain, so it was bad enough trying to even get there. At the time, we were doing all our own driving and I had to wait until we got all the way home to have a drink. So, that was shit. I think we got paid something like fifty quid for our trouble.”

He admits that sometimes it’s good to reflect on dark nights like those. “We’ve done okay,” is his modest assessment of the subsequent couple of years. The twelve months ahead, though, promise to be some of the busiest of their lives, but Hutchison is anything but daunted. “There are always people to be played to, there’s always a new town to go to so we’re going to treat it like that and tour the arse off it!”

Scott contemplates the rigours ahead, before saying, “It could be worse.”

One wonders whether he’s thinking of that suit?

The Boggs standard: A word with Jason Friedman

This interview took place in April 2008, right about the time The Boggs' excellent Forts had recently been subject to a glowing review courtesy of myself...

Jason Friedman is, to all intents and purposes, The Boggs. He writes the songs, he designs the artwork and he oversees the recruitment of whomever the hell he wants to work with on any given day. With the stonking post-punk of Friedman's latest release Forts still ringing joyously in his ears, Finbarr Bermingham expected an impious Stalinist control freak on the other end of the ether when he caught up with the multi-talented Brooklyn based musician recently. Friedman's gracious, informed response suggested such misgivings were slightly off the mark, but we were by no means disappointed...

Your new album, Forts, is extremely difficult to classify. Where do you place it and how did you progress to a point so far away from your debut (2002's We Are The Boggs We Are, which was a reworking of Harry Smith's Anthology Of American Folk Music 1927-1932)?

Jason Friedman: "I think the thing that excites me the most about making art is looking for the connections in seemingly disparate things. When I started The Boggs, I wanted to discover for myself the ways in which all the music I listened to overlapped and I wanted to do so in a way that skipped past the automatic associations one might have for the specifics of genre.

"I have always thought the idea of there actually being something fundamentally 'rock and roll' or 'punk' or 'blues' or whatever was really kind of false. Fundamentally, it really just didn't ring true that the differences were real. To me, the only differences seemed to be surface ones; ones more about fashion, technology or the way records are marketed.

"It's all fundamentally the same thing to me; whether it was the disenfranchised in America thrashing away on brittle guitars in some late-night shebeen, skinny working class teenagers in postwar England finding their own fierce way through those same songs in a sweaty Cavern or a bunch of kids cutting up the records themselves in a local rec-center in the Bronx - wasn't it all just DIY party music?

"It's like a telephone-game of culture in which these party anthems have been passed around from generation to generation, mutating for over a hundred years."

Is there any reason why you are the only constant member of The Boggs? Do you find it easier to collaborate rather than operate in a fixed unit?

"Well, I'd say it comes from necessity more than anything. I've always had a very specific sense of how I wanted things to develop and a lot of that development has occurred late at night when my OCD tendencies can sort of switch on and take over the process. In that way, it's been a kind of insular route so it has at times been really rewarding to open it up and have the fresh ideas of someone new to play off of.

"In essence, The Boggs is really a recording project and most of the work is done over extended periods of time and the songs built up in an almost painterly manner.

"Where not having a fixed unit has been an issue, it's in performing live. It's hard to grow as a performer when, in reality, things are starting over again every several months.

"Sometimes I get very jealous when I look at friends of mine like The Rapture and I see the ways in which they continue to improve on stage. That comes from their ability to build on each performance and that is something I have never been able to really do in The Boggs."

Is it important for you to be the controlling force when writing/recording, or are there any democratic aspects to the process?

"Yes, I'd say it's important for me to think of myself as in control of the band. I don't want that to sound arrogant. It's not the only way I could ever work and in no way are my ideas in anyway superior to all the incredibly talented people who have at different times called themselves a part of the group. It's just that the thoughts behind what has motivated me with The Boggs have been so specific that it's been easier to assume the role of captain. It's also a role that has intensified over the years. I think there is something very specific about what the Boggs are and even I would be a different sort of writer and performer if I were in another band.

"In the Boggs, I mostly work as musical director. I set up the parameters and the direction and then whomever I'm working with act in response to my initiative and we move the track along together.

"I think one of the ways in which I have improved over the years is knowing when to trust the people I'm working with. Trying to recognize when it's appropriate to step back is important. Most of the time, the engineer or musician is more likely to go where you want them to if you leave them alone."

The list of musicians who have contributed to The Boggs over the years makes for impressive reading (Friedman has counted Enon, Au Revoir Simone and Liars alumni as part of the band at one point or another). How do you get involved with these people and what artists would you like to collaborate with, in an ideal world?

"Oh I don't know. I'm not sure I could really answer that. Maybe a filmmaker? I'd like to try scoring a film; that would be fun. And I could certainly learn a lot by watching a great director in action. I've definitely been extremely privileged to work with so many amazing people. In some cases they've sought me out, in some cases I've asked people to fill very specific rolls and sometimes it just kind of happened."

Like some other notable New Yorkers (Lou Reed, Liars), you've spent a lot of time in Berlin. What is so attractive about the city; how does it differ from New York and influence your work?

"I went to Berlin at a time when I really needed to step a way from things. I went there and basically disappeared into the creative process for a year and a half. If you know what you want to work on, Berlin is great for that. There is a feeling of being very far away from the world there. It's slow and it's quiet: I think that was what I needed at the time.

"It also seems to be a somewhat lawless or apocalyptic place. Just about every major event in the 20th century happened in one way or another in Berlin. Those stains are still all over the city and in a lot of ways it still feels like a post-war environment. Creatively, all that darkness and space really had an impact on me. It helped guide a number of the themes. Not in a literally historical manner, but in its mood and temperament it had a tremendous effect."

Thematically, what is Forts about?

"It's about the kinds of figurative and literal things people make for themselves to both deal with and avoid ordinary life. It's about routines and habits and the rooms, cities and imaginary spaces where these habits and routines take place. It's about compulsion, restlessness, isolation and people who should know themselves and each other much better than they do."

What are the main influences on your music, both musical and others?

"While I was making Forts I was listening to a lot of early hip-hop, Afro-Beat, funk, ska and soul.

"I watch a lot of movies. I end up spending all day watching things if I'm not careful. And I'll watch all kinds of films really, from snooty seven-hours-plus Hungarian films to teen comedies. You can't miss with a good rom-com. Nor can you with the Marx Brothers or something like It Happened One Night.

"I look at art. Paintings and drawings mostly but I also I borrow from a good many of the 70's conceptual artists and people like Joseph Beuys.

I hope this doesn't look ridiculous but, a lot of my notions about this kind of non-linear history of rock and the kind of de-compartmentalised anti-genreism I go on about were shaped by reading Gilles Deleuze."

The cover of We Are The Boggs We Are features a music magazine with The Strokes on the cover. What was the thinking behind that? Do you think The Boggs fitted in with the early 2000's New York band scene?

"I think we fit in more than The Strokes did to be honest. By that I mean that those guys were never really a part of the scene. You'd see them bobbing up here and there, but really they weren't really a part of things. To me the New York scene was something that really grew in the late 90's. There were a few really great rock and soul dance parties around town and there was a gang of kids who all hung out together and ended up in all these bands in the 00's.

"The Strokes sounded the part, but they didn't have much to do with anything else. They might as well have been from L.A.

"I always like to fill album covers with details and inside-jokes. So much of the first album to me was about re-thinking assumptions and I new most people would automatically associate our sound with cliché images of sharecroppers and miners. None of that had any relevance to me since I discovered that music in record stores. That was my context for it and I wanted to display it that way as if to say, 'This music is not what you think, it is not something from long ago, it is now.'

"The cover was based on the Faces' First Step LP as kind of an answer to any criticism that we might just be a novelty 1920's revivalist act. The Faces reworked folk and blues in their way, The Velvet Underground did it their way, Wire did it their way etc. I wanted to say we are no different and that this is what the process is: everyone stealing from each other and in the process, rediscovering it. The England scarf was another clue. This music doesn't just come from America and Africa it comes from everywhere and its mutations are infinite. And all of this was done in the summer before the Strokes debut when every magazine had them on the cover when everyone was wondering if they were the next great leap forward. I was pointing the finger and saying they are nothing new."

How do you like to spend your time away from music? Do you have any interesting pastimes?

"I draw a lot. That's my stuff all over the new album. I also make films and videos; although I don't do that so much anymore. And I write. I watch a lot of football which, because of the time difference between England and America, means getting up at the crack of dawn and getting my weary bones to a pub in the city. Ridiculous."

What is your favourite music of the past year?

"The new Hot Chip LP."

Interview written for The Skinny

Video: The Boggs - Remember The Orphans

The Mountain Goats: Songs and Scripture

Finbarr Bermingham waxes with head Mountain Goat John Darnielle to talk ambition, God and Santa Claus

There are few bands that combine durability with innovation like John Darnielle's Mountain Goats. Almost twenty years into their celebrated career, with a prolific turnaround rate of nigh on an album per year, the concepts seem to be growing more and more interesting. Darnielle's recent EP with John Vanderslice was based around an organ harvesting farm on the moon (think Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go, gone lunar). But nothing could have prepared us for the challenges presented by their new album, The Life of the World to Come.

Each track is named after a biblical passage, each of which has resonated with Darnielle in some shape or form through his life. He has applied each one to an issue close to his heart, some personal, some global. Matthew 25:21, for instance, recalls the death of his mother-in-law, and is truly heartbreaking. "When you're in a room with someone dying of cancer, it's hard," says Darnielle when told how touching the song is. "I had some trouble getting through that one."

Another track was inspired by his diagnosis with a chronic illness last year, which led to the cancellation of an Australian tour and comes with the defiant chorus: "I won't get better, but someday I'll be free. I am not this body that imprisons me." John, a former nurse, explains that he tried to write the song from both patient and carer's perspective. "I've spent a lot of time in hospitals as a worker and clinics as a patient. It's a place and role that's been under examined by songwriters. I wanted to broaden it and give it a third dimension." And it works.

Listening to The Life of the World to Come is like cracking a code and its depth and quality combine to make it one of the Mountain Goats' finest releases to date. But when I put it to Darnielle that his religious zeal may alienate some of his fanbase, he laughs. "Believe it or not, I don't have any faith. I think that this, the guy talking to you today, is it. After I die, that's it. But I'm sort of the opposite of most people who don't have faith in that I think it would be awesome to have it. You have people like Christopher Hitchens who are happy to share his atheism, and that's cool for him. But I remember the morning that kids came into my Catholic school telling me that they'd figured out that there was no Santa Claus. I knew, but didn't wanna know. I was like: "Guys, it's way more fun if there is a Santa!"

Despite not possessing faith, Darnielle is a spiritual person. He attends church and prays, because for him, "there's a great deal of pleasure to be had in it". I suggest to him that in pursuing such activities he is merely hedging his bets. "No!" is the quick response. "If the great God the Christians talk about is real then there won't be any bet hedging. You can't say: 'Well, I showed up at church'. You really have to either take the leap or not. Americans really like to think, well, hey I did this and I did that, so he'll let me in, I'm cool. Of all the possible escapologies, that one's not right."

But Darnielle's seemingly encyclopaedic knowledge of the scriptures is enough to put the most devout Christian to shame. For a confessed atheist, it's a peculiar specialist subject to have. John, however, refutes that claim. "I have a selective knowledge of the parts that resonated with me. If you were to quote to me a verse that I hadn't been using, I wouldn't know where it came from, unless it was pretty clear. I have a working knowledge of the scriptures."

As we approach the end of the decade, Darnielle is thankful for the fortune that has come his way. "Man, ten years ago, I never would have thought the Mountain Goats could have been full time thing. Well, certainly not at this level. I still don't expect much, though. I grew up with not so much money so my general hope each year is that by the end of that year I will have a roof over my head and a stove to cook food on. That really is as high as I set my goals." But when it is put to him that his ideas and songwriting ability should be enough to ensure continued trajectory, he is equally modest. "I feel as though all of my ideas have to be coming from somewhere outside of me. I don't really believe in invention, everything is probably a perversion of something I've heard somewhere."

Something suggests that the man described by the New Yorker as "America's best non hip-hop lyricist” is selling himself short.

Interview for The Skinny

Video: The Mountain Goats (John Darnielle) - Ezekiel 7 and the Permanent Efficacy of Grace

A Weekend In The Country with Bloc Party

This interview took place in June 2007, when I spoke to Matt Tong before Bloc Party's show at the Carling Academy in Glasgow. After being initially annoyed at being fobbed off with the drummer, I was pleasantly surprised by Tong's opinionated, honest and forthright conversation, all delivered with a prominent stammer...

Who the fuck wants to know what I think? I'm only the bloody drummer in Bloc Party for God's sake!

Probably not the most solid foundation to base an interview on, but as it turns out, Matt Tong has an awful lot to say. An unlikely spokesman for the band, Tong has assumed much of their media activity for their latest album, an interesting tactic considering the outspoken nature of frontman Kele Okereke. But after half an hour spent with The Skinny, Tong's strangely endearing stammer and refreshingly honest persona suggests it's a prudent decision.

With an industry driven bandwagon of political and socially "aware" artists in full motion, it's sometimes difficult to ascertain whether there is any substance behind it. Bloc Party are one such group, and few take themselves more seriously.

"The undercurrent of violence and racism in the UK," and in particular the troubled climes in the capital are unsurprisingly "worrying" for Londoner Tong. His views on the root of the problem, however, are slightly more forthright. "It's symptomatic of the English embrace of American culture. The media have taken a lot of US values and made them normal. So now it seems commonplace that gang culture is rife in London."

Ask him about the stereotypical English view of the Scottish, and he lets fly with another tirade. "Red headed, angry and alcoholic. I don't subscribe to it though, the English have used that for years to cover up their own frailties. You just have to look at the hooligans flying English flags all over the world. And then the Americans slag off the English in turn, to disguise their problems."

Tong's reluctance to embrace patriotism extends to a disdain for facets of the British music industry. "People think you have to be pretty shameless when it comes to getting attention and success." He assures us that as a band, Bloc Party are "cynical of what the industry has to offer."

However, with the levels of attention given to all the next brightest hopes by the likes of NME, who championed Bloc Party, it must be hard to ignore. Tong brands such overexposure "harmful" but explains that sometimes, it's just better to smile and nod. "We knew it was going to happen. But you can't assume you're above it, even if it can be a hindrance. I think we give our fans some credit though, quality prevails."

Those guilty of wrapping their arms around celebrity culture are dismissed by Tong as "puppets," and he has no qualms in giving his views on some of the more notorious pawns.

"Johnny Borrell is an arse. Write that down. And Pete Doherty too. I have my opinions and sometimes I'm wary of them being misconstrued. But they're just fucking arses."

Seemingly under no illusions as to what this industry offers, Bloc Party could be in for a long and illustrious career. So, in this age of frequent reformation, what does the long term future hold? "We're gonna split up after the third record," he asserts with his tongue boring a hole in his cheek. "We'll develop a Pixies-esque cult following that explodes into something far and above what we experienced in our original lifetimes and come back for a multi-million pound tour. That's the plan." Not a huge Police fan then? "Sting can fuck right off!"

As known associates of Franz Ferdinand and confessed lovers of contemporary Scottish music, Matt also proves somewhat of a historian, suggesting the successful Scottish underground scene can be traced back to the Act of Union. "The richer scene stems from a perpetration of trust by the English. Scotland had to maintain a sense of identity which results in the whole thing being more interesting than the English. I'm not a massive fan of bagpipes though!"

One would be forgiven then, for thinking there was little about Tong's native green fields that gives him pleasure. Au contraire...

"Well there's something bloody marvellous about Morris Dancing, if you're talking about traditionally English things then that's it. There's something so intrinsically silly about it that makes it fantastic. Nigel Mansell as well." Is it for his charisma? "No it's his moustache, I think for the same reasons I like Morris Dancing."

Video: Bloc Party - Banquet

He'll Be Lightning - An Interview With Liam Finn

The second thing you notice about Liam Finn is his shy, unassuming manner. The first? Well, it’s his beard of course. At just a little over 5 feet 5, and sporting a gnarly, grizzly number that makes him look like he can sprout forth folliclely at will, Finn shares passing resemblance to Gennaro Gattuso, the former Rangers midfielder known for his snarling tenacity. Except, in Finn’s conversation, that’s a quality that’s absolutely lacking.

It’s all quite surprising, because since birth, Finn Junior has been as good as royalty in New Zealand. Son of Neil, nephew of Tim, sometime affiliate of Crowded House and a rolling member of the Seven Worlds Collide collective, one might have half expected to be confronted by an indignant victim of rockstar excess. But no, politeness is his thang: “Are you sure I can’t get you a bottle of water? I’m afraid we don’t have much of a rider, but…”

With the release of his debut album I’ll Be Lightning last year, Liam Finn proved that the family gene pool has yet to be spoilt. It’s as enjoyable as anything his elders have churned out and given that he played every instrument himself, an arguably more accomplished record all round. But did he feel a pressure to step out of his family’s shadow?

“Not really. I know it probably seems that way, and it might seem like the right thing to say, but they’ve been very supportive. Plus I’m very proud of what they’ve all done. I don’t think I should be trying to shun that side of things, but I’m very independent. I’ve been doing my own thing for a long time now, and it’s just good to see the fruits of all the hard work. I was determined to do things my way and I think I could’ve chosen to do things much more easily than I have.”

As if to hammer home his last point, Finn explains how he made his way to Auld Reekie for this particular evening’s gig. “We’ve just come up from Whitley Bay today. We had a few beers, but I wouldn’t recommend it, but it was cheaper for us to get some hotel rooms there and travel to Edinburgh this morning. Gotta keep an eye on these things!”

Given his lineage, one would surely think that his future had been set out in the stars even before Finn first lifted a guitar. But he had other plans. “I really wanted to be a professional basketball player,” he says. His poker-face suggests laughter wouldn’t be a viable option, but he goes on to explain. “I know what you’re thinking… short-arse Kiwi, and I don’t look the part, but I was pretty serious about it for a while. I just love playing basketball and when I had it in my head that I wanted to do it, I was convinced.”

Alas, the NBA never beckoned and with such an obvious musical talent at his disposal, we should be appreciative of his diminutive physical stature. His self-effacing demeanour disappears when he hits the stage. With the exception of long-term musical partner EJ, his is an exhausting solo show: wired, charging from instrument to instrument, bellowing out his back catalogue spliced with vitriolic crashes of hi-hats. I wonder what has happened to the nice young New Zealander I encountered earlier. A humble bow après show, though, and a shy look returns to his face.

“I just love playing live. It’s what it’s all about, being a musician. The recording part can be okay, even fun sometimes. But if you’re a serious musician, if that’s what you class yourself as, then that’s where you should be able to come into your own. It’s liberating. You’re on the stage, in front of all these people who have come to see you sing your songs. What more could you ask for?”

An interview for The Skinny

Hi, How Are You? A Conversation With Daniel Johnston

Kurt Cobain described him as "the best songwriter on earth." But there's much more to the story than that. Finbarr Bermingham spoke to Daniel Johnston to find out that he still has his demons, but that hope is keeping him going.

The protocol for an interview with outsider artist Daniel Johnston is unlike any other. For a start, and for obvious reasons, he is reluctant to open up to the press. His demons are more unembellished than most and thus, an interview is hard to come by.

When The Skinny secures some time with him, we have to call his father and have a conversation with him first. Bill Johnston is an 85-year-old, old-fashioned, deeply religious gentleman, who still handles his son’s affairs. This is despite the fact that Daniel nearly killed them both in the 1990s.

The pair were flying back from a performance at SxSW in Bill’s light aircraft when Daniel – who had stopped taking his medication – seized the controls and threw the keys out the window, sending the vessel into an uncontrollable freefall. The plane landed in a forest. Father and son were lucky to survive.

Fifteen years on, Bill tells me off for calling at an inconvenient time and he goes "to get Daniel from the other room” (it later emerges that he has been oversleeping: his manic depression returns sporadically).

But there’s a reason why The Skinny, and almost any other magazine, will go through such rigmarole to speak for 30 minutes with a middle-aged, overweight, chain-smoking, bi-polar, narcissistic, schizophrenic, manic depressive American. It’s because Daniel Johnston is one of the most remarkable individual talents living today.

Strangely, though, there seems to be only one way to start a conversation with him and one which delves right to the root of his work’s simplicity. I succumb to the temptation: "Hi, how are you?” It turns out he’s okay, but I wonder if he’s sick of people asking him that same question.
“Not really. You know, when I was growing up everyone would say “Hi, how are you?” Before I ever put it in a drawing or on a t-shirt, it was in a song of mine that said: 'I saw you at the funeral / You were standing like a temple / I said “Hi how are you? Hello” / And pulled up a coffin and crawled in.'”

“But the drawing came about 10 years later, when I worked at Astroworld in Houston. I found a Weber Frog Box that said “Hi, how are you?” and I thought: “Hey that’s cool.””
Daniel’s conversation is childlike, optimistic and innocent; many of the adjectives attributed to his music. He still dreams of having a Number One hit: “Well, I’m gonna keep on practising and writing until one day I can, that’s what I want.”

He holds out hope that Matt Groening will act on his promise to do some work together, having been impressed by his comic portrayals of Casper the Friendly Ghost and Captain America: “I love comic books, that’s what I want to do, and if we could do something together… Oh boy!”
Whilst institutionalised in the early 90s, he wrote a letter to his agent requesting that The Beatles reform as his backing band. When reminded of this, he skirts round the question, but still fantasises of the collaboration: “It might have to wait ‘til we all get to Heaven, but if they walked in now and said they wanted to play with me, I’d drop dead with shock!”

He beams with pride when we talk about Kurt Cobain (who described him as “the greatest songwriter on earth”) wearing his t-shirt: “Somebody gave me a Xerox copy of the picture and I had it hanging on the wall. It was a big deal because it was the MTV Awards!”

He still can’t believe how many popular artists have covered his songs, but struggles to keep track of who has sung what. “It’s great that I get all these tapes, and they all sound really cool. I hope that one day, someone will popularise a song so much that I can get to Number One. Oh boy, that would be great.”

In fact, Johnston is much more at home when talking about achievements and aspirations. Perhaps his dreams are less terrifying than his nightmares. He says his new material with Danny and the Nightmares is “the best I’ve ever done” and is happy the extensive remastering of his back catalogue is continuing, with Welcome to my World, Yip Jump Music and Continued Story / Hi, How Are You all scheduled for reissue this month.

All of this means more work, and for Johnston, it’s imperative that he keeps busy. “I try to write everyday. When I feel good and nothing is wrong I write all the time, and that’s what I’m trying to do now.”

The award-winning documentary, The Devil and Daniel Johnston, rummaged through Johnston’s past with a fine-toothed comb and held all the worst bits up to the light for the world to see. It’s fascinating stuff, but makes for uncomfortable viewing.

“I like it. At first I didn’t know what to think. But I’ve only seen it about 15 times you know?” he says when asked for his opinion on it. But he dodges questions about the issues addressed within the movie: his health, his time in mental institutions and his current state of mind.

The only time he subsides is when I quote him a line from his song, Go: 'Here I am on this planet taking everything for granted', before asking if he’s learned to appreciate his own life.

“I try to enjoy my own life, despite my manic depression. When I get depressed… even today I was sleeping in… I just sleep. I can hibernate for four months at a time. Once I get going, especially if I am recording, it inspires me to write songs. It’s good therapy.”

The only area of the movie he discusses openly is Laurie Allen, who he fell in love with as a student and wrote hundreds of songs about. She was none-the-wiser until the film-makers contacted her. They were reunited at the premiere, and Johnston’s voice perks up when describing the moment.

“I couldn’t believe it when she came. My heart just broke – I didn’t know what to do. When I saw her at the party after, I flipped out. I could hardly talk – I was out of my mind. I couldn’t think of anything to say. She was every bit as beautiful as I remembered, and I love her. She’s probably married,” he says softly. “We’ve lost contact since, but I hope I’ll see her again.”

For Johnston, these fragments of hope are what keep him going. He is still a prolific illustrator and songwriter, and whilst much of his harrowing past is addressed within his art, he finds it difficult to talk about. A conversation with him is a crude snapshot of his rollercoaster life. He can make you frustrated and sad, but by the end of the next sentence, have you laughing along with him again. What truly emerges from a conversation with Daniel Johnston is that he is a gentleman – a rare breed amongst the music fraternity of today.

Written for The Skinny

Video: The Black Cab Sessions. Chapter Six: Daniel Johnston