New slants to enchant

Stephen Malkmus talks about his new band
the Jicks, Todd Haynes’s Dylan flick and
his past (and future?) with Pavement

AFTER THE ASPHALT: Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks

by JOHNSON CUMMINS

Having been the main songwriter in the highly influential band Pavement, Stephen Malkmus could be considered an indie-rock spearhead—whether he likes the tag or not. Marked by Malkmus’s stream-of-consciousness lyrics laced with dry humour and nasal vocal delivery, Pavement quickly became critical darlings after their ’92 debut, Slanted and Enchanted. Since the band’s demise in the late ’90s, Malkmus has kept busy with four solo records with his backing band the Jicks—the latest, Real Emotional Trash, proves he’s hardly lost his signature songwriting style while continuing to grow as an artist. The Mirror reached Malkmus by phone at his home in Portland, Oregon.

Mirror: You just became a father for the second time. How does this affect the amount of touring you do?

Stephen Malkmus: My family definitely takes priority, but the rest of the band all have other things going as well, so all of that affects how much touring we want to do. We’re older now, so we don’t really want to go out for that long because we just have more commitments at home. We like touring but I don’t think we’re really into making that lifestyle change as a band. I think we’re still ambitious but we just take it in stride. I guess we’ve kind of been around the block (laughs).

M: You’ve said the new record was the hardest one you ever made.

SM: Yeah, we went to this studio in Montana and after we saw the equipment list on the Web site, and that it was affordable, and that we could drive there, it looked really good. But once we got there, it turned out it wasn’t really a professional studio at all. After that, we would just kind of make decisions step by step and had to make a lot of changes in our plans. We changed engineers, went to a bunch of studios like Wilco’s studio in Chicago, scrapped mixes and remixed in New York and stuff, but we never really got too worried. We just had to make rational decisions. I think everything happened for a reason and we just had to be patient. It only sucks that with the extra money we had to spend remixing everything, we could’ve all got Vespa scooters.

Asphalt jingles

M: How did you get involved contributing vocals to the soundtrack for Todd Haynes’s Bob Dylan docu-drama, I’m Not There?

SM: Well, Todd lives here in Portland and it’s a relatively small community of older people that make films and other artsy-fartsy people, so our paths eventually crossed and he just asked me. He’s a really positive guy so I’m not really that surprised he gets such good performances out of his actors.

M: Does it bother you that the legacy of Pavement sometimes overshadows what you are doing now, or is it something you’re proud of?

SM: It’s a combination of both, I guess. If it wasn’t for Pavement, I don’t think that many people would be interested in what we are doing now, so it does give us a leg up on other new groups. Our history and our pedigree is part of why we’re here and how we got here. Artistically, there’s always going to be a bit of disconnect, because sometimes people won’t take what you’re doing now as seriously as your past. You can get typecast a bit, which sometimes can be good, but sometimes it can be hard for people to just listen subjectively. I understand it though, it’s not like I want to see Jim Carrey in a serious drama role.

On solo shows, I will play some Pavement songs because I basically don’t know what the fuck I’m doing when I’m up on a stage playing an acoustic guitar, so I’ll just want to please the crowd. But we really don’t play Pavement songs with the band because we kind of believe in what we are doing now.

M: With a lot of bands from that era now reforming, would you ever consider reforming Pavement for a tour?

SM: I could see it happening, but somebody would really have to pitch it well, where we would do it for a charity or something. Everybody in the band would have to be 100 per cent into it, and I don’t think that’s the case right now so… we’ll see. I mean, everybody is still alive and we still like each other, but…

With guests at la Tulipe tonight,
Thursday, July 17, 9 p.m., $20