Lambchop
Double-album goodness
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Reserved bandleader Wagner claims he's trying to unload some of the spotlight this time around on his more than capable bandmates, though he's still the one who comes around and does interviews about the inner workings of that classic Lambchop sound. In this case, he catches up with NATN's Troy Carpenter in New York, and between cigarettes, coffee and European gigs, holds forth on all things Lambchop.
NATN: You're soon heading back to Europe, right?
Kurt Wagner: Yeah, we'll probably do four or five tours there over the course of this year.
NATN: How long do tend to go out at a time?
KW: We're sorta starting to keep it down to three and a half weeks at a whack and we're able to spend some time with the family. Nothing too crazy. But it does make for more tours that way.
NATN: So could you fill me in on some of the back story to these records? The two main touchstones as I understand are you deciding to write a song a day for a period, and also the band doing a live score for a silent film.
KW: Yeah, I guess I'll start with the song thing ... I always sort of wanted the luxury of the time to do it. I was just trying to diminish the whole importance of songwriting, and just focus on making it another part of my daily routine in my life, like taking a shower every day. So it's not that big a deal. I'm not a particularly gifted writer, like a lot of guys are. I have to work pretty hard at it. So this just sort of allowed me the chance to screw up. And in the process I ended up writing plenty new songs. The idea would be just to make sure I wrote every day, within reason. So, the weekends I'd take off, or something like that. In order to have it work, I started to push myself. And I would do it like a month's period of a time, maybe take a week off and go somewhere. So maybe there was a three-month stretch there where I wrote every day. And through that, I came up with a pretty good number of songs (gestures to copies of the new albums on the table). Around the time I was winding down the song-a-day thing, the San Francisco International Film Festival approached us about doing a live score for this film called "Sunrise." It's a 1927 silent film by a guy named F.W. Murnau. Murnau's known mainly for "Nosferatu", the old silent version of that.
NATN: Were you familiar with "Sunrise"?
KW: I wasn't. So they sent me the film and I looked at it and it's incredible. A really amazing film. And of course it it has its place, I guess, in cinematography history and just the history of just cinema in general. So it seemed like a good way to utilize some of the material we'd created. It was conceived as a live score, so I figured in the process of practicing and learning the score, we'd be better prepared for when we went in and recorded, which was scheduled for shortly after the festival. In the spring of last year. That's my story :)
NATN: When you were working the soundtrack, you selected stuff you'd written specifically for it?
KW: Yeah, the way I approached the idea of the score was much the way a lot of contemporary films are using the popular music; songs. It started back in the '60s with "The Graduate" and "Butch Cassidy" and stuff like that, but there's a lot of guys doing it today. The Andersons -- Wes and Paul Thomas -- and Sofia Coppola, etc. It's a contemporary approach to adapt songs to existing film. Some of the songs I wrote worked with the film, some of them didn't. Some of the songs in the film aren't part of the records; some of the songs that aren't part of the film are part of the records. That was sort of the idea -- it was for me, something I had always wanted to do and probably want to do some more of. Just to see what would happen.
NATN: I think you also mentioned something about perhaps wanting to put out the score separately as a release?
KW: Right, yeah. That was actually something I was just working on in Europe. And we sort of did a rough-cut or a mock-up of the idea. We put the music together with the film to see if we could start pushing that idea forward through the maze of channels you have to go through to secure the rights to do that. And I think with some success. I'm hoping that maybe at some point in the future, in different parts of Europe ... they're just now starting to release this film as DVD. Up until this point it had never actually been released. I'm not sure why, exactly.
NATN: Even on VHS?
KW: Yeah, it's really strange. It's really hard to find a copy of it. We actually did end up finding a DVD copy of it, but it was included as a bonus, like if you buy five films you get this film. But it wasn't available separately; it's rather unusual. But they just coincidentally just started to release it, like a week ago, in several countries across Europe on DVD. The hope is that our scored version will be available somewhere as a bonus. Really, for me the idea is that it's a live score, which is something Lambchop does, and will be doing from time to time. And this is the way to get the idea across without flying to New York.
NATN: Would you think about doing that as a Lambchop show?
KW: That's the idea. because of the amount of preparation involved in preparing a film score, is that once you've done that, it's really a month and a half's worth of work, but we only performed it once. So it's an unusual idea.
NATN: It would probably be kinda different in the sense that you would do the same show every night, right?
KW: Exactly. So in that way, for us, it would be fairly predictable. We are rarely that predictable from night to night. But playing to a movie is a particularly intense performance situation. The film's an hour and a half long, and we play almost all the way through it. So you don't have time to go to the bathroom or break a string or any of that stuff. It's pretty intense and I find that to be pretty exciting. It's just another way to approach what we do, but it's quite the commitment once the film starts rolling.
NATN: Going back to that song-a-day thing, did you get to the point in the evening when you said, this was not finished, what am I gonna do?
KW: Yeah, sure, quite a bit. Some days I'd be done by 10:00, maybe I'd write another one. Other days it was really hard. But I tried to stick it out as long as possible to really see if I could ... usually they just ended up like crap anyway and I just sorta accepted that. For me, that really wasn't the point. Some I knew eventually would be good and others wouldn't be. But I think it was a really good exercise just to see if I could sometimes overcome the different bad situations. I think most of the time, the songs that were the best were the ones that seemed to happen very quickly. And that's been the case since before I even started this kind of "structure" to work with. I think there's something to be learned from making a mess. And I would do that, more often than not. But in the process, the next day maybe I would approach it and have worked out whatever problem I had, and start again. For me, it was really just about making those mistakes and learning.
NATN: Is there a lot of material that you got out of that period that you are fond of but is not a part of the "Sunrise" score or either of the records?
KW: There's a few songs, yeah, that never quite got finished at this point, as far as recordings go. And I sorta want to see those through. But the records represent the bulk of the material I thought could stand alone.
NATN: When you came around to the decision to release this material as two albums, was that an easy one to make?
KW: For me it was. For me it was just trying to come up with a way of presenting a large amount of material in a way that addressed the material in a way that was relevant to what we were doing and what we will be doing. As opposed to delaying one record for a period of time or something like that. It's a real passive sort of idea, you know; here's one record, here's the other -- buy one record, buy the other, buy both, don't buy either. It was just sort of a way to address the amount of material in a way that wasn't considered like a double-album. For me personally, that implies an experience where you really should try to listen to all that music at one time. And I didn't want that implied listening experience. I wanted it in a digestible form. If you like one, shazam! There's another record.
NATN: How did you decide which songs would make the albums and how to sequence them?
KW: Well, I started thinking about what types of records that I like. I immediately came up with two ideas -- one was the idea of a listening experience that has a flow, that has a beginning, a middle and an end. You can sit around and listen to it and then at some point it comes to a conclusion, and you feel like you've had an experience of listening to a record. And the other one was just a collection of songs -- separate songs that seem to stand up on their own, not so much relying on the song before or the song after for context. You can just create an experience that's more like a jukebox, where songs just come one after another.
NATN: So if some Lambchop fan is in a record store and they've only got 15 bucks, which one would you suggest they pick up?
KW: Either one. That was sort of the idea also, to make them separate but also as well-balanced and equal as possible. So as far as that's concerned, I think either one would be a fine choice. Or neither. I mean, you have to sort of be in to what we do.
NATN: I recognize the song "I Hate Candy." I think there's an older b-side called "Heavy Metal Trouble Girl."?
KW: Exactly, I guess Merge released it as such, actually before I came up with the title. The newer title is better (laughs). These are songs that have evolved over the course of a period of time. We were playing them in different ways, even before the film came up. So this one came out of a performance in Australia a few years back.
NATN: Both albums have a handful of instrumental tracks, which I don't think you've done much before. I guess that has something to do with the film soundtrack?
KW: Partially. That's partially the idea. It's something we've tinkered with through the years, just playing soul instrumentals or something for fun. Only a few of the instrumentals are part of the soundtrack. Well, there's only five, but two or three are part of the soundtrack.
NATN: I like the different ways it allows you to present the melodies.
KW: I think it's a lot of fun. It's kinda strange in that I think they're actually the catchier numbers on the record, actually. And thankfully so, because I think instrumentals can be a tricky place to wander in music. And certainly it's neat to see where that'll go. It's an idea that definitely came out of that process of creating a song each day.
NATN: With the idea of Lambchop as a band, there's usually a lot of people in the group. Sometimes the numbers vary; I've seen you with only four or five people. At what point do you consider it "the band"?
KW: So long as it's more than just me, it's Lambchop. It's even been a duo. I think it's just sort of the idea of people playing together, so as long as it's not just me playing with myself, it can qualify as Lambchop. I think the sound that we've sort of managed to create is a little bit richer than just a couple of people. We would like to have all those aspects represented, if possible. And it's becoming more and more possible. But it gives us a sort of flexible number. I do think, though, that there's a certain sound that we make that has to be presented now in order to qualify as Lambchop. But what that number of people is, who knows?
NATN: On certain different albums, there's different players that leave their mark, so to speak. Most striking to me is Tony Crow on Is A Woman -- his piano seems to be dominant on most songs. Is there any particular reason for that?
KW: Yeah, well, part of the idea is me as the sort of writer/arranger/producer guy, and Lambchop arranges things in a of natural way. As we start playing the songs, certain people emerge as players and I write songs for certain people in the band that I notice are becoming a sort of stronger element in what's going on. So that's what I try to notice, pay attention to what's going on and write accordingly. Or create records accordingly. It really became evident on Nixon -- Paul Niehaus was the first person in the band I noticed really leaving his mark in a sort of significant way. Then of course when Is A Woman came around, the idea of working with Tony led me to create a lot of songs that I knew would lend themselves to what Tony did. So I tended to focus on writing for the piano, even though I don't play the piano myself. I sort of envisioned these songs for him. In this case, it's a guy named William Tyler, who's been playing with us for about four years. He's the youngest member of Lambchop and he's finally become more confident in the fact that he's playing with a bunch of old guys; trying to step out a little bit. So I noticed that and started trying to point the sessions in that direction in general, with songwriting as well, knowing that his voice was growing stronger. So I started focusing on that. Each time it seems to be something different and I think that’s kind of one of the fine things about what we have -- this large collective of people.
NATN: There’s a lot of different personalities that create the music.
KW: Yeah. Different minds.
NATN: Nixon is the album that introduced me to you and is still one of my favorite records. What does it mean to you?
KW: Well I think it definitely changed the way that we see the band. Um, certainly at that time it satisfied what I was trying to accomplish as far as making records, writing songs and trying to focus that kind of sound and that type of songwriting. It all seemed to work together well. And people seemed to respond to it pretty well and I think it sorta allowed us to continue doing this, making records. It’s, for me, definitely sort of widened the possibilities of what we could do as a band and where we could go with our music.
NATN: Is it true that allowed you to quit your carpentry job? So your official career now is musician or songwriter?
KW: Or general knucklehead. Well, it wasn't really my intent to neccesarily quit my job because of the music. It worked out because I was sort of a laborer and getting older, I was having more and more physical problems as a result. And coincidentally, the music thing started to pick up and it looked like we'd be busy for a while. I honesty didn't know where I was heading as far as "am I a musician/songwriter guy?" But it sort of worked out that way, and so I sort of backed my way into becoming this person. It's not to say I don't have a job. Lambchop is a really self-run organization -- we don't have management and all this stuff -- we're just guys who get together and do this thing and because of that, I've ended up becoming a little bit of an administrator, which is not the type of thing I'm particularly good at. But by default, here I am. So it is a job, but just a different kind of one.
NATN: The group has done a lot of touring in Europe. What sort of reception to you get there vs. the U.S.?
KW: It tends to grow each time we go, depending on which countries they are. It can be pretty surprising. I think it's just by virtue of having basically toured Europe in the past and for one reason or another they made it more accessible for us to do what we do over there. When it started we weren't really recognized, but over the years it sort of grew, and because of that we've been spending more time there. The result being, you can't be in two places at the same time, so we haven't done as much around the United States. And it's just by virtue of seeing that's where the interest lies. It's not to say that over there we're neccesarily a big deal, either. I don't want to say that it's a huge deal, because it's not. We are slowly becoming a more recognized band. It's certainly not a phenomenon. But people have gotten in tune with what we're doing, and it's becoming a bigger deal I guess.
NATN: Do you have plans to tour the States soon?
KW: Yeah, it's just gonna be interspersed between a lot of these European tours. We'll be doing little hops here and there to different parts of the country. It probably won't be until Fall that we'll be able to concentrate on doing a larger U.S. tour. But certainly we try to do it -- it's just difficult to divide your time.
NATN: You guys are based in Nashville, but the band is so mutable -- is there anyone who's played with the group then sorta moved away and moved out of Lambchop's scope because of that?
KW: It's really not that formal. It's just a matter of what happens in their lives. It's not like they've made this decision about the band. It's just what happens over the course of time. I just sort of look at them as emeritus members. The idea of the band is just, be there if you want to be there. If you don't or you can't, that's fine too. Maybe some other time we'll get together. We just see who shows up and try to work with that. We try to work with what's going on in people's lives; maybe they're in other bands, maybe their jobs are getting more serious so they can't give as much time to what we do. Because we're such a large group of people, there's more flexibility there. We're not neccesarily contigent on one person in order to keep things going. Although I guess if I croaked on the street today ... Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if they decided to continue on. It'd be interesting. I'm probably the one that would slow things down for a little while if I were to disappear. But that's fine. In fact, I encourage it, because I really want people to be a part of it because they want to. Does that make sense? I don't want them to feel like they have to be a part of anything unless they want to.
NATN: Press coverage of you guys gets wordy and confusing when it tries to describe "the Lambchop sound."
KW: Sure.
NATN: I think people want to say 'country soul' but don't want to summon up stereotypes.
KW: Yeah, I've found that I can't describe it either, and I totally understand that, but I don't think that's a bad thing. It sounds like us. Whether or not anyone's heard of us, well that's debatable. I think Nick Cave sounds like Nick Cave. Whether anyone's heard of him is debatable too. I'm sure they have.
NATN: What have been a couple of the most rewarding things you've experienced because of Lambchop?
KW: It happens all the time, in fact. It's really hard to pin down, whether it's a moment when we're performing or the completion of another record, writing a song. It's a lot of stuff. I think just the fact that it exists and continues to exist, is the most rewarding thing. The fact that I'm still seeing people's lives changing around me. I obviously never intended for all these things to happen, but we've been in a situation where it's been allowed to happen because we haven't followed the normal straight-line way that people do stuff. We don't get so concerned about success or any of those things. It's just people that want to get together and make records.
TROY CARPENTER | Troy Carpenter founded NATN from a Chicago apartment during the ambitious winter of 1998 with co-conspirators Ben French and Jonathan Cohen. After a five-year stint in New York, he and wife Lourdes have recently relocated to Indianapolis, where he spends days listening to music and nights in the kitchen at Elements restaurant. Musical heroes: Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Super Furry Animals. What else makes life worth living: Sushi, Phucty, runs in the park, and the Atlanta Braves.