PT: I get the feeling you have an
appreciation for vintage musical gear, Martyn.
ML: I have very old equipment. It’s
simpler and easier to work on. A lot of things today sort of go off lead
after a while and people will say, "Oh, we’ll just throw that out and get a
new one." The amplifier that I have is a beauty, an old Silvertone that
packs a massive punch. And it’s very simple, all hand-wired, so if something
goes wrong it’s fairly easy to pinpoint the problem. I like things that are
stripped-down and make sense. You look at these computerized things today
and say, "I could never work on that." There are some very good synthesizers
out there today, but they all look so loaded with different options. I just
like the simple old things that when they break down aren’t impossible to
fix.
How old were you when you moved to the
States?
I moved to the States when I was sixteen.
My father, my mother, two sisters and I moved to Colorado in 1984. My father
was an electronic engineer working in Germany at the time for Digital
Equipment and requested a transfer to Colorado Springs. I’d been kicked out
of the boarding school I was going to in Germany because I wasn’t doing very
well and wound up back in England going to a comprehensive school, the
Montgomery El Alamein Boys School in Winchester. It was amazing. You walked
into the foyer of the school and there were portraits of both Montgomery and
Rommel (laughs).
OK, enough of military history. What got
you into music as a kid?
My favourite bands growing up were
anywhere from Madness to E.L.O.
Funny you should mention that, because I
can hear some faint echoes of Jeff Lynne in your voice.
Oh, yeah! I actually saw E.L.O. in 1982 at
the Munich Olympia Stadium for the Time album - it had the single "Hold On
Tight." I was a fanatic. I had all their records. I still have all their
records and still listen to them. Production-wise, they’re phenomenal
recordings. You can hear everything from Doo Wop to the Beatles. Jeff Lynne
has a great ear for arrangement. I love all that stuff. I think he was an
absolute mastermind of pop music.
I’ve done a couple of interviews with
Jason Lytle of Grandaddy and he’s a huge Jeff Lynne fan.
Oh, I love Grandaddy. Yeah, I can hear
that on one of those Grandaddy songs, (sings) "Gotta get outta here." That’s
so E.L.O. The only thing that was sort of dismaying about E.L.O. to me when
I got older and I started to appreciate lyrical content was that it was
definitely lacking in that band. But Grandaddy, no way! They’re awesome.
They have an awful lot of substance.
How did you first bump into Robert
Schneider of Apples In Stereo?
I’d moved to Denver and was going to
school at the Institute Of Art, where I first met Robert. He’d just recently
moved there, too. I met him through a high school pal of mine who was also
an XTC fan. Robert had boasted in this local article that not only was his
band, the Apples - this was before they added the "In Stereo" bit - the
greatest pop band in the world, but all the bands on the Elephant 6 label
were the greatest pop bands in the world. My friend Joe bumped into (Apples
drummer) Hilarie Sidney working in a record shop and she told him to come on
down and check them out. So I went down and met Robert. He was immediately
very amiable.
Did you have a band at the time?
I was in a band at the time called the
Henrys. I’ve been in a ton of bands - a death-rock band. I was even a
drummer for a heavy-metal band called Jokers Wild (laughs). But I didn’t
have long hair. I had a crew-cut and a four-piece Gretsch drum set. I was
the odd man out. The Henrys was my band, a three-piece and very much XTC-inspired.
"Golden Street" was one song that we played. We did two recordings, but
nothing I would share with anybody. We were together for at least a couple
of years. Then I got into this louder band called Ink, a noisy, grungey kind
of band. Our bass player was into Les Claypool (laughs). Two different
worlds! I was still writing pop songs and these guys didn’t want to do that.
Knowing Robert, I bet he had something do
with getting you into the studio.
All that time Robert was saying, "Hey, we
should record those songs you wrote with the Henrys." So when Ink broke up
and I didn’t have anything, he said, "Let’s do a single." We actually
started the band together. I came up with the name. Robert played the bass
and lead guitar and Hilarie played the drums. That’s how we got it started,
more of a project than a band at first. I knew I wanted to write some fairly
solid pop songs, do a single and get ’em out. Then Rebecca (Cole) became the
drummer. We’ve been together seven years now and married for five years.
Did you get a lot of "second division
Elephant 6" notices in the press?
Oh, we got that all the time. I mean, we
did. We’re being compared less and less lately. We got so tired of it. For a
very long time we couldn’t have a review without it. It seemed like there
were only three bands that counted and the rest were forgotten. People would
say stupid shit like we were the "second generation." I mean, we were an
album behind, but I resented that "second-generation" stuff. All of us have
been involved in this kind of music for a long time. It’s not old enough to
have a second generation. But it’s been the story of this band from the
get-go. We’ve either been compared to those bands or our influences. But
everybody comes from somewhere. Buddy Holly came from a various number of
influences. Nothing just pops out of nowhere.
So you get not just the E6 comparisons but
the "retro" thing too, I imagine.
Somebody told me recently he thought of us
as a throwback. And I can see it’s very easy to say that. But a lot of bands
today are borrowing from other sources. The newest new craze these days is
New Wave (laughs). But I’m 33 and I remember it pretty damn well, and I have
to say I love a lot of that synthy pop stuff. Are there any original New
Wave bands out there? Well, Stereolab draws from such obscure influences
maybe you could say they’re original.
Well,
who is totally original anyway? Certainly not the Beatles or the Stones
or Bob Dylan. Nobody creates in a vacuum.
I’m not just trying to wriggle out, but I
don’t see it, man. I only know a certain way of singing and writing. I could
try and affect something, I guess. But this seems a little more natural. I
enjoyed and had a very difficult time making that record. I got a lot out of
it. I learned an awful lot. I wanted to learn essentially how to write songs
other than two-minute pop songs. And we’re still learning. I’m working on
ideas now for a new album and I feel really refreshed--and a little scared,
too. Can we keep it fresh with new ideas? But it keeps continuing to grow.
We will try anything. We’re getting a lot out of making music right now,
which is beautiful. For the first time we’re starting to feel comfortable
with our live set. When you start out you’re really self-conscious, and
that’s a healthy thing. But I feel a little more confident about the things
we’re doing.
Are you a perfectionist in the studio? It
sounds like maybe you are.
I’m fairly critical of my work. If there’s
a weakling (song) we try to weed it out. I am a perfectionist, but there’s
also an alarm that goes off in me a lot of the time. To a certain extent,
I’d tend to ignore it with this last record. There are a few reasons for it.
For one, I was incredibly nervous about having full production duties.
Robert wasn’t there at all. The first album he was very much in control and
I liked that when he said, "Hey, look, you’ve gotta trust me. Let’s make
this record." I more or less just stood back and it was a very good way of
working together. Obviously, it was very open. It was a wonderful experience
making that album, at the same time doing a record with someone I highly
respected but doing it the way I wanted to do it. With my other bands the
engineer wouldn’t even let you go near the board. But Robert takes great
pleasure in finding sounds. He’ll spend all day getting the sound he’s
looking for and he’ll fucking get it.
One last Robert comparison and then we’ll
let it drop. I hear quite a bit of Arthur-era Ray Davies/Kinks in both of
you.
Yep. I’ve listened to that record quite a
bit lately and it really struck me. I’d never really listened to it before
that closely. To me, it was the kind of concept record that was perfectly
not a concept record. It was loosely affiliated bunch of songs strung
together to make some sort of a concept. The songs stood out on their own. I
don’t think of it as anything. Like Tommy. "Some Mother’s Son," Yes Sir, No
Sir" go deeper than any song on Tommy. Two years ago I went back to England
and stayed with my grandmother who’s in her early 90s. She’s had the same
neighbours for 40 years. It was that time of the year and all of that
clicked. All of those stories on that record are true. "Arthur, the world’s
gonna pass you by." I have a member of my family who fits that description
exactly. I suppose you could listen to Arthur in the middle of the Grand
Canyon and not get the same thing, but I had it all in front of me.
So, what made you want to write songs in
the first place?
Well, I’d been a pop fan for years. I
would sing along in the car, sang along to stuff on headphones. It was just
wanting to sing along to stuff all the time. Wanted to do it since day one.
I can tell you the first time I was absolutely blown away by pop music. It
was 1977 and it was (E.L.O. album) Out Of The Blue. I think I saw "Mr. Blue
Sky" on Top Of The Pops and I knew that’s what I wanted to do. I was nine at
the time. I can’t think of anything else that really gets me going. I paint
- I went to school for that - but I haven’t done that in a while.
Did you feel out of it in 1977 with
friends who were into punk?
No, because I enjoyed that too. E.L.O. was
on the radio the same time as Elvis Costello: "Oliver’s Army." No, we
listened to anything. On Radio One, as a kid, there was a mishmash of
everything on there. For four years, that was the greatest pop in the world.
You had not only great punk but great pop. And I can listen to,
and get pleasure out of, both. I’d been in louder, dissonant kind of bands,
but I didn’t want to do that anymore. I wanted to do what I truly, truly
love.
So, what’s with the ten-minute track on
the new album, "Nice Day For It"?
That is our longest song ever, by seven
minutes (laughs). That was a lot of fun. It was a crazy, "the world’s a
polluted mess" kind of psychedelic pop song. And we’d never gone into that
territory before, with a crazy, rock-out jam at the end.
You credit an old friend of mine, Jeff
Saltzman, on the new album. Has he ever played his Cerebral Corps album for
you?
No, he won’t let me hear it. I keep asking
him, "Am I going to hear that record at some point?" and he’ll say, "No, no,
I don’t think that’s possible." I know it’s gotta be good.
I’ll send you a tape of it, if you like.
Well, I wouldn’t want to do it behind his
back, because he really doesn’t want me to hear it. I really enjoy working
with Jeff. Actually, I just did something with him recently. He mastered
a track for this split-single we’re doing with Tobin Sprout of Guided By
Voices. Jeff did a great job on the Stephen Malkmus record. He’s quite the
engineer.
Do
you feel part of this new Portland scene? The Dandy Warhols certainly get a
lot of press.
Well, there’s definitely a scene. And I
suppose we’re affiliated with a couple of little corners of the local scene.
We hang out with the guys from Magic Marker. Then there’s a band I recorded
called the Kissing Book. We play with shows with them. We’re playing a show
tonight with Luther Russell. There’s a lot of different cliques in Portland,
a great musical town. We’ve been here three years now.
Why did you move from Denver?
We felt a little stifled there, maybe a
little bit in the shadow of the Apples. And we wanted to experience
something other than our own scene. There wasn’t really much more going on
in Denver other than our own little thing. And I felt that was dangerous.
And I also wanted to go to a place that was colder, temperature-wise. Denver
in the summer was brutal. We’d played a show out in Portland the year before
and had a better response than we got in Denver. And I thought, "Wow, this
is a great place." We’d play in Denver once a month and no on would ever
come.
I get the feeling from the new album that
you’re not afraid to try anything.
No, and you shouldn’t be. We’re making
records, godammit. This is the only time I’m going to be able make records.
Maybe I won’t ever be able to do it again. Fuck, once you’ve got this chance
to make records you’ve got to grab it. I don’t have any hirable skills
outside of this. This is the only thing I know how to do. And I’m going to
keep doing it as long as what we’re doing isn’t something that’s just
cooked-up. It comes straight from the heart. We do it because we absolutely
love it.
Are you ever discouraged by shallow,
off-base record reviews?
We do get brushed off by the press mostly.
(U.S. magazine) AP recently described us as being just Meet The Beatles,
which I don’t agree with at all. But that just hardens our resolve a little
more and go wherever we want. I have noticed that music critics are pretty
much a buddy club. Whatever’s determined as the cool record of the month is
gonna be boosted.
Are you, as we like to call it in the
States, bi-coastal faves - popular on both coasts with a tougher slog in
between?
It’s funny, you know I was terrified of
the East Coast the first time we went out there. New York and Philadelphia
seemed so daunting at the time. A band like us, people would turn their
noses up. But now, the East and West Coasts are the two places we look
forward to playing most. Every time we play San Francisco we have a great
time. There’s a level of enthusiasm that you just don’t see in other towns.
We played a great show there recently with the Pernice Brothers.
Would not being able to do this send your
life into a tailspin?
Without this I wouldn’t say my life would
be over. I’m fairly critical of my work. If there’s a weakling (song) we try
to weed it out. But if it got to the point where I felt we weren’t doing
anything good, I would definitely move on. But, then again, I’d like to get
to that point where I’ll never stop doing it completely. At some point I can
see where we won’t be putting out records every year. There’s a limit to
what you can write about, I suppose. Or maybe there isn’t.
Written, produced and directed by Jud
Cost, © Ptolemaic Terrascope, 2001