Photos by Elizabeth Weinberg
Words by Michael Tedder
Ariel Pink has spent most of his life making the sort of self-recorded psychedelic pop songs that make critics use terms like “hazy,” “half-remembered reveries” or “murky nostalgia for a time that never was.” But in conversation, the 31-year-old California native is significantly more direct. After years of scratchy home recordings for Animal Collective’s Paw Tracks label and critically-panned live sets, Pink says that he formed Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti after he realized that live shows were the only way he could make income as a musician.
“I had to figure out a way to make it so I don’t feel humiliated all the time,” explains Pink. “I could probably stand up onstage and just not give a shit about it, but I didn’t feel good about having so much contempt for the audience that are there to hear songs that they like on the record.”
