Stephen Malkmus Gets Domestic

07/15/08 3:58pm

by Noah Love (CHARTattack)

The Stephen Malkmus of today is pretty much the exact opposite of the Malkmus of yesteryear. Well, sort of.

He still has the same drawl, the same penchant for guitar solos and the same ramshackle lyricism of his youth. But today's Malkmus is fairly domesticated. His two daughters, Lottie and Sunday, keep him busy when he's off the road, and a switch in drummers have kept his band, The Jicks, grounded for the better part of three years.

But now he's back on the road supporting a sprawling new LP, Real Emotional Trash. He also has a new drummer, former Sleater-Kinney stickswoman Janet Weiss. His worldwide tour makes two Canadian stops this week: Toronto on Wednesday at the Phoenix Concert Theatre with Fleet Foxes; and in Montreal on Thursday at La Tulipe.

ChartAttack caught up with Malkmus in the spring, shortly after Real Emotional Trash's release.

ChartAttack: You kept touring on the down-low after you had your first kid. Now that you have two, are you still going to keep it low-key this year?
Stephen Malkmus: We're working a little harder this year. It's relative. We're covering most of America in two-week bursts, and that's better anyway. It's better for my voice. If I play five shows in a row anyway, I sort of start losing my voice, just from trying to yell over the din. I just don't have a really strong voice. Two weeks is good. Then we're going to Europe for a little bit. Probably if I didn't have kids, I'd stay out another week for each leg of the tour and be hitting it harder, but it's probably better for the longevity of the band. And most groups, unless you're in full demand, I think it's better to tour shorter. For instance, the people who won the Academy Award for their song, those Irish people or something [Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova], they should just go out and play every day to the wine and cheese crowd while they can, ‘cause that's gonna dry up pretty fast. So I would say keep them out on the road for the whole year, because people forget that visual stuff.

This was the first time it's taken you more than two years to release an album since Pavement's Slanted & Enchanted was released in 1992. Are you writing less these days?
I'm doing less, yeah. But that's more because we're touring now, and the two kids. I just have to wait for it to come again, because I feel like I just sort of take it from the air or from inside me. I'm not really like a 9-to-5, work-at-my-desk guy, which some people are — some really good people. Maybe that's how you do it. I know my friend David Berman from the Silver Jews and what I hear of Britt Daniel from Spoon, Janet's friends with him, he has office hours, both of them. They just pound away 'til they get it. But I can't do that and I never did, and that wouldn't be a lifestyle. I go down there for 20 minutes on off hours and something will come just from playing. It's maybe a little less organized than that.

I'm guessing switching from John Moen to Janet Weiss on drums slowed things down a bit, too, right?
Well, that was one thing that slowed us down, no doubt. We didn't know who was going to be our drummer. Going back in time, ‘cause no one really talks about it, we did Bonnaroo with another drummer, this guy Pete, who could have been our drummer. He was good. I didn't know. I was like, "Maybe this is good." A friend recommended him. And it was pretty good, but it wasn't perfect. Nothing wrong with him, but it wasn't perfect. And then Janet, she bailed on Sleater-Kinney, but that took a little while. So yeah, we kind of had to work that out and make sure we were sounding good as a band and that kind of stuff, and that did take a while. And John wasn't exactly clear about how he was going to be with The Decemberists. He was going to try to do both, and then they're forever on the road. So as it turned out, he only really had time for one band, and they're a more steady gig, and more financially steady for him as a new father. Maybe he just likes them better.

Was there immediate chemistry with Janet?
Yeah, I guess. For me, it's more like it is what it is. Because for me, all the drummers, I've just said, "Okay, you're the drummer now." Like Gary [Young] for Pavement, and Steve West — they were the drummers and I just played with them. Drummers sort of make their own chemistry. They think that they play to you, or that they're accommodating to you, but really, they just play how they play within your music, and that's how it sounds. Some things, I'd say you could call them chemistry, but also others are just inevitable. Chemistry is inevitable.

You played Pavement songs at the Pitchfork festival last summer. Have you gotten more comfortable with the idea of doing them live?
If I'm playing solo, yeah. They're just songs at that point, and they don't really have any attachment to the players. If it's in The Jicks, I wouldn't really do it because I just respect them too much. They wouldn't care; it's just a song. But to me, it's just kind of reaching, just desperate reaching. But solo, I'm all about the desperate reach. Whatever people want for an hour, I'll play. If people want me to do Smashing Pumpkins songs, if the price is right, I'll do it. No shame.

Every couple of years, there is a Pavement double-disc reissue. Will there be one for Bright The Corners this year?
I think there is. I don't have any of the tapes, any of the ephemera. I barely have any posters. In fact, I can't even remember anything. So, uh, it's hard for me to know exactly what the plans are with that stuff. I'm kind of just along for the ride. I think Matador wanted to consolidate the catalogue, so they do it for that reason. They get new contracts with us that are beneficial for them, and those things come out. And they do a good job. They're lovingly compiled and they put everything in its context, everything in one place. And maybe it sounds pretty interesting at this point, 10, 12 years down the line from when the records came out. I don't really know what they really sound like compared to things now, exactly. Not as compressed or as loud. CDs weren't as loud back then.

What's life like for you right now when you're not on the road? Just hanging out with the kids?
Domestic off-tour life kicks in. I was reading this interview with Kim Deal because I was in Spin. I guess they do these interviews with ‘90s stars that are still going, and she was going, "I don't have any kids, and I wish I had a wife to say, ‘You're the poet, go work,' and I never had that," she said. And then in the issue before that, there's a picture of me with my kid and it makes it seem like that's how it is for me. And it's not actually. I would tell her, you know, it's a lot of work and you don't just get to be the poet in this day and age. You gotta do both.