Jay Reatard Unleashes Singles

Jay Reatard was near the top of everyone's radar this year without even releasing a proper album.

Instead, the Memphis, Tenn. native produced a limited run of singles for Matador Records, which all sold out and drove in new demand and popularity for the tumultuous rocker. Those singles were compiled on disc and released on Oct. 7 as Matador Singles '08, just in time for Reatard's tour of Eastern Canada (dates below).

ChartAttack spoke with Reatard about what comes next, and most will be happy to hear the answer is more music.

ChartAttack: You're at home in Memphis now, right?
Jay Reatard: Yeah.

What are you doing with the time off?
The dudes in my band always get time off. I get home and I have to work harder than I do on the road. The road's my vacation. We're kind of on different pages. We come home and I have recording schedules, press schedules, girlfriend schedules, domestic schedules — things to fix around the house. When I'm on tour, I pretty much get in a van and a driver drives me somewhere, I hop out and I'm shown some hospitality. I drink a few beers and play a show, and then I go to a hotel. That's like vacation.

Are you working on the Matador full-length now?
I'm kind of working at an album. I have this deadline, but deadlines are kind of made to be broken. They're considered rules, right?

What's the deadline?
My album's supposed to be out in the spring of next year. So for that to happen, by December, I'd have to have a completed LP turned in. I'm just not gonna rush myself. I'm gonna sit on the porch and drink iced tea in the rocking chair. If a song comes along, I might go inside and record it.

You're doing it at home, but you had a budget this time around. Did you buy yourself some better equipment?
Yeah, I definitely bought some better equipment, but it doesn't teach itself to go. So I don't see a big leap in anything as far as fidelity or whatever. I guess you could say it might be cleaned up a bit, but the songwriting itself has changed a lot, so I think it's going to be hard to differentiate between a different recording technique and a different songwriting technique with everything changing so much.

What's would you say has changed about your songwriting?
I'm not really pulling out super-aggressive records. I'm trying to fuse nihilism with acoustic guitars a little bit [laughs]. Without coming off as some sort of angry southern troubadour.

But you know, just the fact that I don't feel like it's such a wall anymore. I'm not necessarily hiding behind distortion that much on this record. Not that I feel like I was doing that very much anyway, but things are just a little bit more simple. They're a lot more heavy on melody. And where some songs used to have a huge guitar part that would come in that would kind of work as the hook, now there are a bunch of tiny little parts that float in and out that, taken out of context, would be completely insignificant, but within the context of the song become what your ears might go towards.

So like some of the stuff on the singles compilation?
Yeah, like the latter half of the singles comp. Some of the songs that I'm writing for the LP make the songs on the beginning of the singles comp sound extremely punk rock, when I don't really feel like they were. I guess the key is that I'm floating more away from punk rock and feeling free to experiment with whatever, rather than being tied down to some genre.

Are you doing the recording by yourself or with your band?
There's, like, a dog hanging out.

Here are Jay Reatard's Canadian dates:

Oct. 17 Ottawa, ON @ Babylon
Oct. 18 Montreal, QC @ Cabaret La Tulipe
Oct. 19 Quebec City, QC @ Le Cercle
Oct. 21 Halifax, NS @ The Marquee Club (Halifax Pop Explosion)