IT S A quiet Sunday morning and I m sitting in the foyer of a Temple Bar hotel waiting to interview Stephen J. Malkmus and Spiral Stairs, singer and guitarist respectively, of esteemed quirk rock practitioners, Pavement.
Beside me sits a man decked out in an austere raincoat and a dog-eared winter hat the likes of which haven t been seen on any sane, self-dressing individual since John Candy in Planes, Trains And Automobiles. A robust figure who also converses with the same conviviality and cheery bonhomie of that late Canadian comic actor, he tells me all about the racehorse he owns back in the States and that he s bursting with enthusiasm at the prospects of spending a day at the races in Leopardstown.
His name is Bob Nastanovich the same Bob Nastanovich who will, within a matter of hours of his having checked his betting slip and focused his binoculars for the last time that day, be literally jumping around the stage of the Red Box in a frenzy, intermittently screaming non-sequiturs into a microphone mid-song, like some particularly demented performance poet. He is the backing vocalist from hell. Oh, and he does percussion and keyboards too.
Welcome to the wired and wonderful world of Pavement. While so many bands who strike the befrazzled, hatter-mad pose can often come across as irritating and wearisome, the oblique, crazily chaotic Californian skewed-rock quintet remain endearing to the last.
However, the Stephen J. Malkmus who I eventually encounter in the hotel dining area is an altogether more sober proposition than his surreal, nonsensical lyrics might lead you to expect. This is due mainly to a bout of food poisoning, the after-effects of which he hasn t quite shaken off Pavement had to cut short the rehearsals for their current European tour (of which the Red Box gig is the opening show, and their first live performance in a year).
Malkmus and Stairs are trying to lay to rest that hoary old lo-fi tag that seems to have (dis)graced just about every press clipping since their inception.
I get pissed off with that more than anything, opines Stairs (real name: Scott Kannenberg). That was such a long time ago but we didn t even consider it lo-fi then because we were recording on good equipment. It was just that we didn t know what we were doing.
Malkmus offers a slightly different spin on the subject: Slanted And Enchanted is lo-fi, I guess, but we were just working within the parameters of the studio, he explains, in his slow, laidback Californian drawl. It didn t have a lot of nice gear in it so you couldn t really try to not sound lo-fi. . . you know, trying to sound big by putting cheap reverb on a demo. We weren t going to do that. It s better to sound trashy in a trashy studio.
It s like an ugly girl who s trying to fit into a tight dress. She just shouldn t try to wear some dress that shows her up. The form should meet the function. The function should meet the form.
Quite what my old post-feminist lesbian poetry tutor from my college days would make of that metaphor I shudder to think so I decide to move swiftly on and discuss the new album. Titled, with customary enigmatic aplomb, Brighten The Corners, the fifth record from the West Coast cult outfit is a typically abstruse affair, all deconstructed melodies and zany rhymeless couplets that can often be as frustrating as it can be exhilarating. It s Frank Zappa meets Gram Parsons meets the Pixies or, if you like, countrified grunge-rock for art students.
But if there s one thing you can t call the new album, it s lo-fi. Brighten The Corners is an undeniably well-produced record that betrays none of the shoddy amateurism with which which Pavement are often associated. This is due in no small part to the pre-production work done by the semi-legendary sound boffin, Mitch Easter (whose wizardry was brough to bear on REM s seminal debut album, Murmur, and, closer to home, on the great, lost third LP by the Stars Of Heaven), in whose studio in North Carolina it was recorded.
Mr. Stairs: He had a lot of great equipment that we used. His house was like a rock monument. It was cool. He didn t produce the record (Bryce Goggin actually did the honours), he was just around to feed his dog and offer us support. But he s a wonderful man. And he s into taking off to Australia or some foreign place to record some obscure band just for the hell of it.
I tell my interviewees of Easter s trip to Dublin to produce The Stars Of Heaven. Then we start to eulogise about early REM (oh God Ed.) and within the rapid movement of an eye, Spiral Stairs is discussing the interior design of Peter Buck s bathroom.
I remember seeing a picture of it. It had nothing but Elvis memorabilia. That was his house in Athens; he lives in Seattle now.
They momentarily digress.
Malkmus: His wife s exactly like that other girlfriend he had. Remember her? Typical rock girlfriend.
Stairs: Wears black. Dyed black hair.
Malkmus: That s the one. His wife owns the Crocodile Cafe (hip Seattle music venue). We should have played there instead of Rock Candy. That way Pearl Jam would have come on the guest-list. All the scenesters get in free there.
What of the music scene on the West Coast? How have Pavement s physical roots in northern California shaped their music, if at all?
The West Coast has a certain laidback quality to it, I suppose, ponders Malkmus, a mellow sound. Then there s also all the aggressive punk rock bands like Rancid and Rage Against The Machine. But I don t really think that geography has all that much to do with our sound. The culture of America is pretty homogenous at this point in time, due in large part to the influence of TV. A band from Seattle and a band from Texas could sound, with subtle differences, virtually the same.
These days, though, Malkmus and co. are more likely to be found hobnobbing with the doyennes of Britpop, Elastica, than Seattle grunge gods, Pearl Jam: Pavement recently collaborated with Justine s mob on a forthcoming movie soundtrack.
It was mainly just for a laugh, avers Malkmus. I was interested in meeting them. I think they re pretty cool chicks, as pop star bands go. And it probably works well for them to work with someone like us who as a cult band doesn t have the stresses and strains of getting No. 1 chart hits and all that stuff. It s good for their cred, basically.
And they like us too. What would you rather listen to: Pavement or Gene? They ve got good taste, he deadpans.
Apparently, you lot have been cited by Damon Albarn as a major influence on Blur s alleged change of direction on their forthcoming album. How do you feel about that?
That s a smart move for them, answers Malkmus. They ve picked The Kinks and now us. I guess that s two good bands to imitate. His straight-faced delivery leaves one unsure exactly how far his tongue lies inside his cheek.
Given the regularity with which Pavement have released their records five albums in seven years and the extensive nature of their latest tour itinerary, it would appear that the perception of the band as inveterate slackers is as inaccurate a soubriquet as it is a lazy clichi.
Elastica, for instance, are a lot more slack than us, asserts Malkmus. They ve taken two years to make their next album. Justine s just sitting around her house going I don t really need to go out; I don t want to finish the album cos then I m gonna have to tour. I just think we get called that because we re educated and we don t seem to be just trying to make pop songs for the money; we follow our own vision.
Everyone thinks they re unique. I m sure all bands think they re doing something that s important or else they wouldn t be able to wake up in the morning. . . unless they were just doing toss-off pop songs and making huge amounts of cash. Then you could wake up in the morning and say what I m doing is shit . That Oasis guy must say I m doing pub rock bollocks .
I hear their second album is almost the biggest selling album in Britain of all time by a British artist, second only to Dire Straits Brothers In Arms; and, as for international artists, it s only 500,000 behind Michael Jackson s Thriller and that s been out for 15 years. What s The Story s gonna be the biggest selling album ever. That that fucking pub rock can do that gives me hope.
If I ever get tired of this hard route, I ll just make these verse/chorus/verse pop tunes with some hard guitars. . . but we don t look like them, we don t have the cheek bones or the eyebrows.
Ah, but they do have bonkers backing singers with a penchant for horses and headware with woolly ear-flaps. The world is theirs for the taking.n
Brighten The Corners is out next week on Domino Records.