Category: The S/T Interview

THE SELF-TITLED INTERVIEW: Geoff Barrow of Portishead & BEAK>

September 1st, 2010 | File Under: The S/T Interview | Leave A Comment

BEAK> (L to R: Matt Williams, Billy Fuller, Geoff Barrow)

As if being friends with Banksky, running an underground record label (Invada), and producing/playing in Portishead isn’t exciting enough, Geoff Barrow has also spent the past year sharpening the sonic teeth of his new band BEAK>. Rounding out by Robert Plant’s recent bassist (Billy Fuller, also of Invada’s first-ever signing, Fuzz Against Junk) and Matt Williams (Team Brick), the power trio formed in early 2009 and tracked their self-titled debut at their first rehearsals. Slapdash start aside, the songs are the sound of three Bristol vets who are on some sort of spiritual plane together—right alongside everything from the classic Kraut-rock of Can to stoner-metal standards like Sunn O))) and Sleep.

It’s music you lose your mind to, in other words—an even weirder version of Barrow’s creative vision than the last Portishead record, if you can believe that. In the following interview, Barrow discusses everything from his favorite Madlib record to why the Horrors didn’t really need his help after all. BEAK> will be making a couple rare East Coast appearances this weekend, including a stop at Bowery Ballroom on Friday and a set at the upstate edition of All Tomorrow’s Parties on Saturday.

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THE SELF-TITLED INTERVIEW: Sleigh Bells

July 23rd, 2010 | File Under: The S/T Interview | Leave A Comment

Sleigh Bells @ Market Hotel in October 2009 (Photo Credit: Turkishomework)

Words by Andrew Parks

A few months ago, we wrote something on our Twitter account just to fuck with people and prove a point. Sleigh Bells had just dropped the digital version of their debut, Treats, and far too many self-anointed critics had already made their mind up about the Brooklyn duo. On one side: the hype mongers, the ones who think Sleigh Bells are here to rewrite the rules and rewire the sound of pop music. And on the other: the cynics, the ones who think Sleigh Bells are yet another example of a blog-driven obsession with being “first.”

Outside of seeing them at SXSW and sending one of our photographers to cover their show with Surfer Blood last fall, we largely avoided listening to Sleigh Bells. At least until the pressure became too great and we caved in, firing up a press copy of Treats and finding it exhilarating but, well, really fucking loud. Or as we wrote into the Web’s vast void, “It’s giving us a headache. This would have worked well on Korn and Limp Bizkit’s Family Values tour in the ’90s, though.”

Sure enough, a fan of Sleigh Bells saw our tweet and forwarded it to guitarist/producer Derek Miller. He then responded to us, basically saying it’s funny that we’re slamming the record after asking to interview the band several times. We explained that we weren’t slamming the record, that we were just giving a knee-jerk reaction in response to all of the hoopla that was happening that week. As for us asking about an interview in previous weeks, the idea there was to discuss what all of this Next Big Thing nonsense means in the scheme of things, not feeding the blog-fueled beast even more.

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THE SELF-TITLED INTERVIEW: Against Me!

July 20th, 2010 | File Under: Featured, The S/T Interview | 2 comments

Photo By Clayton Hauck

Words By Arye Dworken

When we saw Against Me! headline the Music Hall of Williamsburg a couple years ago, frontman Tom Gabel looked like a superhero in a black T-shirt and skinny jeans, albeit a superhero who’s constantly switching between maniacal smiles and throat-torturing screams. One stand-out moment was when the 30-year-old punk provocateur belted out “Baby, I’m An Anarchist.” (Our favorite line: “When it came time to throw bricks through that Starbucks window, you left me all alone.”) Listening back now, it’s unclear as to whether Gabel is mocking the anarchy movement or simply relaying an anarchist’s love story. If it’s the former, then watching a roomful of punks sing along to the meta-critical words is borderline genius. But if that’s not the case, then the song is quite problematic.

Either way, Against Me! have retained their philosophical complexities while working within Sire’s major label system. And with White Crosses, the band have further polished their sound (even recording a piano-backed Boss homage called “Because of the Shame”) and sharpened the actual content. The title track is about abortion; “I Was a Teenage Anarchist” is about the fear of losing passion; “Rapid Decompression”—presumably influenced by the Stooges’ “Search & Destroy”—even has a response to the grumpy fans of yore…”Before you cast your stones/Take a look at yourself/How can you expect from someone what you won’t do yourself?”

More accessible? Perhaps. Any less venomous? Hell no. So with that in mind, we asked Gabel to discuss how his growth as a reformed anarchist has far surpassed his ability to grow a beard.

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THE SELF-TITLED INTERVIEW: The Dillinger Escape Plan

July 16th, 2010 | File Under: The S/T Interview | 4 comments

Words and Photos by Andrew Parks

One of the smartest metalheads we’ve ever met also happens to be one of the scariest: the Dillinger Escape Plan’s Greg Puciato, a guy so ready-to-rip-your-face-off onstage (seriously, check out this SXSW video) that MTV.com once put him on a list of likely steroid users. To which Puciato responded, “While this isn’t the first time that someone has presumed that I take steroids, it is the first time that I can think of that it’s been publicly presumed. Although I usually take it as a compliment, it borders on slander when done in this way, and in actuality, it’s more of a shame that we live in a time in which people assume that you need to cheat somehow in order to actually achieve anything worthwhile.

He continued, “Your article says more about you, James, than it says about me. Regardless, thanks for the publicity softball pitch, and you can thank me in return. Keep practicing the whole ‘writing’ thing, cause it apparently doesn’t come that naturally to you. And meanwhile I’ll go pop all the huge zits that I have on my back, beat the shit out of my girlfriend for having a guy friend, start a fight at a sports bar, drunk-bang a bunch of 19-year-old sorority chicks and crush 20 Wendy’s double stacks.”

The singer’s rather bitchy retort is understandable but unfortunate. Unfortunate because it makes him look hotheaded—the last person you could imagine having a real conversation with, let alone one as dark and deeply personal as the following interview (abbreviated as a list of life lessons in our current issue). As it turns out, Puciato skipped a couple grades in school, is a voracious reader, and spends a lot of his free time taking online classes through California State’s Long Beach branch.

And his one-track train of thought not too long ago, as Dillinger wrapped up their fourth LP, Option Paralysis? Absurdism, the Camus/Kierkegaard-led philosophy that there’s no point in trying to tap the meaning of life because it’s all bullshit anyway. Or at least that’s what we thought it meant…

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THE SELF-TITLED INTERVIEW: Xasthur

July 13th, 2010 | File Under: ST008, The S/T Archives, The S/T Interview | Leave A Comment

XASTHUR 3

Photos by Bryan Sheffield

Words by Kory Grow

“Singing always felt like a concussion, and I got a lot of migraines from doing it,” says Malefic, the mysterious man behind the atmospheric black-metal group Xasthur (pronounced zas-ter, like disaster). “Sometimes I wonder if it has caused some damage to my head and my memory. If there was any right or wrong way of doing this, I’m sure I did it wrong.”

As of this past March, Malefic has stopped worrying about his art affecting his physical health. He has decided to end Xasthur after 14 years, releasing a final record (Portal of Sorrow, out now on Disharmonic Vibrations) and returning to life as suburban Los Angeleno Scott Conner, ex–black-metal musician. “I’ve been saying I’m sick and tired of [Xasthur] for too long…and now, I’m going to back it up,” he explained in a blog post. “There are or have been literally 18,000 black-metal bands; it does not matter if there’s one less.”

Posted in: ST008, The S/T Archives, The S/T Interview

THE SELF-TITLED INTERVIEW: Zola Jesus

June 18th, 2010 | File Under: The S/T Interview | Leave A Comment

Photos by Aaron Richter

Interview by Andrew Parks

As a general rule, we never interview artists at South By Southwest. While some publications are happy to squeeze a couple pull quotes out of a five-minute conversation, we’d rather save our enthusiasm for a later date—one where we’re not all high, drunk, rushed or some twisted combination of all three.

We made an exception for one artist this year, however: Zola Jesus. And not just because we’re still obsessed with the operatic pop songs on her Stridulum EP and its steel-plated, self-produced counterpart, The Spoils. The 21 year old isn’t able to tour much, as she’s currently wrapping up her French/philosophy degree in Wisconsin, so self-titled figured we’d take what we could get.

What we didn’t expect was the first, and so far only, interview with Nika Roza Danilova and her full live band. While that may seem unnecessary (she’s a solo artist, right?), the group’s innate chemistry could lead to some collaborations on Danilova’s next album, which is expected early next year. And even if it doesn’t, the way the young singer is learning to apply her sky-scraping melodies and subzero soundscapes to an actual band says more about her position as one of today’s most thrilling artists than a simple one-on-one session would. Here’s the supporting cast, then:

ALEX DEGROOT (keys, samples, backup vocals)
NICK TURCO (keyboards, bass)
SHANE VERWEY (synths)
NICK JOHNSON (drums)

You can catch this speaker-caving incarnation of Zola Jesus over the next couple months, including a one-off show at Glasslands in Brooklyn tomorrow night. It’s close to selling out and features a bunch of s/t-approved Sacred Bones artists, so you might want to snag tickets now here. And if you’re not in New York, all other dates can be found on MySpace.

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THE SELF-TITLED INTERVIEW: Solvent

June 9th, 2010 | File Under: The S/T Interview | One comment

Like his hero Aphex Twin, Solvent squeezes an incredible amount of emotion out of nothing but synths and samplers. At least that was the case on his two-disc Demonstration Tape collection, a decade-spanning retrospective that could have been called Soul of a New Machine…if Fear Factory hadn’t taken the title way back in 1992. The recently-released Subject To Shift, Solvent’s second proper LP for Ghostly—the previous one being 2004’s Apples & Synthesizers—takes the moody machine template of his earlier work to another level by applying shifty electro/coldwave/avant-techno beats to realms usually reserved for the Faint (“Don’t Forget to Phone”), Kraftwerk (“Formulate,” “Caught a Glimpse”) and, err, black-metal (the demon-derived vocals of “Take Me Home”). And then there’s “Loss For Words,” the closest producer/singer Jason Amm has ever come to crafting a straight-up synth-pop song, as opposed to a straight-up synth-pop song that’s haunted by the nightmares of Johnny 5 from Short Circuit.

Solvent sparks a rare U.S. tour at Wierd’s weekly New York party—the one helmed by this guy—tonight, so we spoke to him at length about everything from the second-coming of electroclash to the sorely-overlooked basslines of Skinny Puppy. The Toronto-based musician also let us premiere the video to “Loss For Words,” one of the most heartbreaking animated shorts we’ve seen since Radiohead’s “Paranoid Android” clip. Real talk.

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THE SELF-TITLED INTERVIEW: Tracey Thorn

May 26th, 2010 | File Under: The S/T Interview | Leave A Comment

[Photo by Edward Bishop]

Interview by Ilirjana Alushaj

You’re not still referring to Tracey Thorn as “that girl from the deserts-miss-the-rain video,” are you? Let’s hope not. After all, Everything But the Girl’s been ‘on hiatus’ since 2002, and Thorn just released her second album in three years, the rather spare, synth-free Love and Its Opposite. Considering two and a half decades separated her debut (A Distant Shore) and 2007’s Out of the Woods LP, this is reason to rejoice, reason to think that one of the most important female vocalists of our time (see also: Marine Girls, several key Massive Attack singles) has finally found a way to balance three kids and extensive studio time.

self-titled spoke to Thorn during a rare press day in New York.

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THE SELF-TITLED INTERVIEW: Converge

May 6th, 2010 | File Under: The S/T Interview | Leave A Comment

Converge fans, meet Kurt Ballou's guitar

Words and Photos by Andrew Parks

Whether you’re into metal or not, you need to see Converge at least once. Aside from being one of America’s last remaining hardcore bands, they are easily one of the most intense live experiences you’ll ever endure—a blinding battering ram of a rock show that’ll probably result in a bruise or two. But hey, you’ll feel like a better person in the end. And if you’re like us, you’ll have the pictures to prove it.

The following is an interview I conducted with Converge’s guitarist/widely respected producer (Kurt Ballou) last fall. We saved it for their next headlining tour, which happens to touch down at New York’s Santos Party House tonight. That show is sold out, but you can find other dates on the group’s month-long North American trek here.

As for what’s discussed herein, expect: Ballou’s new Black Flag-meets-Birthday Party project, the band’s guest-dotted Axe To Fall album (current and former members of Neurosis, Disfear, Cave-In, Hatebreed, Genghis Tron, Undertow…), why he doesn’t listen to too much metal anymore, and much, much more.

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THE SELF-TITLED INTERVIEW: John Lydon of the Sex Pistols and PiL

April 27th, 2010 | File Under: The S/T Interview | 4 comments

[Lead Photo by Duncan Bryceland]

By Andrew Parks

While it pains us to admit it, we first heard Metal Box—Public Image Ltd.’s infamous canister of career-defining 12-inches (a.k.a. Second Edition)—a couple months ago. And not even by choice. The 1979 album simply started playing by chance, a forgotten eMusic purchase salvaged by iTunes’ shuffle function.

To be honest, we thought it was a Swans record at first. After all, the deep, slightly demonic vocals on the album’s 10-minute opener (“Albatross”) sound exactly like Michael Gira—three years before Swans formed, mind you—and Keith Levene’s steel-plated guitar chords, why, they’re post-punk personified, a dovetailing hint of the decades to come. Elsewhere, “Careering” proves that A Certain Ratio wasn’t the only band the Rapture ripped off on their breakthrough record. (Check out the wobbly vocals of “Echoes,” then compare “Do the Du” to “Killing.” Who needs a sampler when you have a decent record collection, right?)

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