Adam Green: A Fat Elvis Willing To Sell Out

06/24/08 4:30pm

by Jared Morano (CHARTattack)

"Fucking hell, man! This is the hardest interview I ever did in my life," Adam Green says while slumping into his chair.

He's only mildly exaggerating. This is the fifth time his band members have interrupted us by entering the room to get cigarettes, bottled water, backpacks and other daily requirements for touring musicians. He's getting sick of kicking people out.

"These kids are real derelicts," is how Green describes his bandmates. "They've all got major criminal records. I'm just touring with a bunch of criminals, frankly. They've got no respect for the law."

Most of that isn't true, but it doesn't seem to bother Green. He's a playful guy who sometimes prefers to lie about his background rather than tell it straight. He once told a German television host that he lost a tooth because his dad punched him out for not going to medical school. That was back when Green was famous in Germany, an odd and temporary chapter in his career that saw him hit the country's top 10 and get on the cover of the German version of Rolling Stone.

"For a duration of time, I was a very famous person in Germany," he reveals. "I couldn't walk down the street, you know?

"But, like anything, nothing lasts. It's not like that now. And in fact, when I just did a tour of Europe, I found that the French shows and the British shows were more packed than the German ones. So maybe I'm more famous in France, and that's cool. You don't get to pick who listens to your music."

Green is riding a wave of acclaim due to the prominence of one of his songs in the mega-smash, pseudo-indie flick, Juno. It's a cute, quiet song called "Anyone Else But You" that Ellen Page and Michael Cera perform at the end of the movie. Green co-wrote it seven years ago while part of the anti-folk duo The Moldy Peaches that he formed in his teens with fellow songwriter Kimya Dawson. After their self-titled album was released in 2001 (on 9/11, coincidentally), the Peaches filled opening slots on tours with The Strokes and Tenacious D. The group then went on hiatus as Green and Dawson chased solo careers. Page, a longtime Moldy Peaches fan, brought "Anyone Else But You" to the film. She played it for director Jason Reitman as an example of the type of music she imagined Juno would listen to. The song's sudden resurgence has caught Green off-guard.

"It's displacing," he says. "I can't complain too much about it though, 'cause it's probably led some people to listen to my music. I welcome anyone to listen to any song that I've had any involvement with at all."

Also displacing, but much more welcome, are the big royalty cheques Green's now getting from his publishing deals. And they're not just from Juno.

"'NYC's Like A Graveyard' is in an Australian movie called Garage Days, 'Friends Of Mine' is in a Spanish security company commercial, 'Jessica' is in a South American deodorant ad, 'Anyone Else But You' appeared in an Orange cellular phone advertisement," Green elaborates. "My general philosophy about it is something Serge Gainsbourg once said, which is, 'I'm willing to be a whore so long as I get an orgasm.'"

It was weird hearing Green speak sincerely, especially since he just tried to convince me that he's the reincarnation of fat Elvis (for some reason it was important to distinguish from the skinny one), but would prefer to be described as the Jewish James Dean. I'd put him closer to a cabaret Leonard Cohen who likes to sing about turds, but he's admittedly a hard guy to pin down.