Xiu Xiu

[August 2005]

Xiu Xiu’s Jamie Stewart is an incredible talent. I’d go on to say he’s a really nice guy, but I don’t know the man. What I do know is that the following interview was total amateur hour and he was extremely patient with my tentative fumbling over questions that in my head seemed okay, but wound up sounding all wrong when I asked them. The ideal Xiu Xiu interview for you readers would probably be an expose-style description of the events surrounding some of their gloriously overwrought songs. Stewart is dogged in stating that the main thing driving his songs is heavy personal events of him and those in the group. But there was the slight problem of not wanting to splash around in his opened-wound songs while simultaneously coming from a more abstract appreciation to begin with. The more I think about it, the more I feel that there could’ve been better routes to take. Nevertheless, here it is. Hope you can find something interesting. Ooga booga.

I don’t know if you remember I, uh, contacted you a year or so ago about how you inspired me to sort of do my own thing.

Oh, yeah! It’s nice to talk to you in person.

Well, I was kind of embarrassed too cause I tried to interview you after and I didn’t realize there’s all these PR things you gotta go through to set up these kinds of things. You made a list or something, and I sent it to my editor and nothing really came of that. So, yeah. About your sound in Xiu Xiu. "Shoe-Shoe," is that the correct pronunciation?

We usually say "Shoe-Shoe." Or "Shui-Shui" if we’re getting really sleep-deprived. I think our only objection is "Zu-Zu." I don’t know, we’re not too particular about it.

I’ve found one of the glaring things about your sound is that it’s distinctively unsettling. Other bands go for that sort of dark edge but you try to push that, I think, and go for this menacing atmosphere. And I was wondering, being a fan of horror films and those old scary-but-you-can’t-quite-explain-why sort of movies, if that played a part or if it’s more everyday sort of horrors that you refract through your sound.

At the risk of sounding incredibly melodramatic, I think probably more like what you said - more like everyday horror, not necessarily horror movies.

Yeah, I guess I hear you say in interviews that it’s very personal, very heavy kind of things, and here I am in this sort of insulated world - I mean, I’ve had my share of problems but, I guess I approach (Xiu Xiu) on a more aesthetic level. Is there a conscious sort of - do you want to shock or scare people at all?

No, we don’t have any sort of reaction in mind at all. We just write about the things in our lives, so... uh, things happening in the world.

I guess I’m thinking of the way your songs can be kind of quiet - sort of soft and melancholic, and then suddenly your hit with a maelstrom of all these sort of discordant...

I don’t know, there no sort of intellectualization of that sort of thing...

Probably better that way.

I mean, we’re certainly... I’ve suggested doing things like that just to reflect the emotionality of the topic of the song, basically. We try not to think about it too much.

Okay, that makes sense. Okay, about La Foret - First of all, what does that translate to?

The Forest. But musically "La Foret" translates to...

[Jamie’s phone cuts out. I say hello about five or six times with no response, then hang up, redial, and resume the interview]

[in a weird voice] Hello. La Foret also means "the drill." So it’s kind of screwy.

Has anything changed for this recording?

Mostly we’re just doing the same things we did before. Writing about our lives and politics.

I was just thinking, when you record an album, you do the slow drawn-out, dramatic songs and the louder, poppier songs. Are there different states of mind recording one or the other?

I think it’s...

I don’t know, I’m just wondering if it’s less of a cathartic sort of thing, and you just sort of go into the studio and...

I don’t think it’s ever been cathartic. Or ever will be.

It sure feels like it. That first album definitely does. It feels like a release.

It’s interesting and important to me that different people get different things from it. I mean I don’t get any release from it, emotionally. It’s mostly intellectually. I think it’s really good that people view things differently in any sort of aspect of art with a capital "A." I dunno. I mean one of the fantastic things about art is that it can be a personal, and I dunno... I think it’s fantastic that you can get something completely different out of it.

I guess I’m meaning to use cathartic not as a descriptive term, or about your process, but sort of my feeling from "I Broke Up" where you just sort of start screaming and...

Well I’m not saying that what you’re saying is wrong. Just that I have a completely different feeling about it and that’s great.

I know you’ve had some problems: having you equipment stolen, and you’ve mentioned in interviews about some heavy personal problems. Has that calmed down a little or eased off for La Foret?

Well, certain specific things have resolved themselves. And certain other things have come up. With each of the records, we were writing about things that were happening at that moment, so some of our particular life circumstances have changed. Um, I dunno.

You’re re-releasing, or giving a wider release of your earlier band Ten in the Swear Jar.

I think it’s actually the first time it’s really being released.

So how do you feel about that stuff?

[laughing] It’s kind of weird.

Yeah, I imagine. It sounds so different.

Yeah, I mean the only reason, well, I guess it’s just one of them — our friend’s label asked if they could put it out and I guess we thought it wasn’t a good idea at all in the first place. It was sort of a ska label so it’s really funny; we wanted to be on that label really bad, but it doesn’t make sense for us to be at all. So it’s kind of funny that way. So five years after that band evaporated, we’re getting to release it all. Xiu Xiu rearranged and fundamentally rewrote like six of those Swear Jar songs. So it’s kind of for like a historical sense. It seems like those who were interested in Xiu Xiu wanted to hear some of that early stuff, so it’s kind of, I dunno. I’m not that interested in it, particularly. But it seemed like people wanted to hear it.

Well, do you feel like it’s amateurish at all, or that you’re embarrassed by it?

Oh, um, [pause] some of the songs, I think, are pretty good songs, which is why Xiu Xiu worked with some of them. But at the time the arrangements or recording wasn’t particularly good. Maybe the skeleton of the songs still felt real, like it could be something that could be reworked into something particularly meaningful, and that’s why we did it. But a lot of them — just kind of what you said — are amateurish and kind of undeveloped. But maybe in some kind of raw way that’s potentially semi-interesting.

From what I heard it was, yeah. So, anyway, do you listen to your own music?

No. Not at all. We work on it really hard while we’re making the records. At the times when we’re working on it, I listen super attentively, but listening to it after sounds kind of silly. And also, a lot of the songs we play on tour, so it’s not like they go away from my consciousness. They’re just re-contextualized.

I’ve always thought when you make music, you make it because you wanna make your ideal song or collection of songs.

That’s a really cool motivation for making music.

Do you consider yourself more an artist or a musician?

Oh, um... I guess a musician. I mean I guess there’s not that much of a distinction.

Well, I mean, when you think of yourself, I guess. Like when people ask you...

Oh, what I do with my life?

Yeah.

I would say I was a musician.

Okay.

I usually think of art as visual. But I certainly do think of music as art. I don’t know if our music is art, but I think generally...

I was gonna say (Xiu Xiu) could be coined as art music, but...

If I had to explain to somebody’s grandparents what we were doing, I’d probably say art-pop or whatever.

Do you have relatives or friends from decidedly different music inclinations that have in some way reacted to the music you’ve put out?

Most of my friends play in bands that are related to the "scene" that we’re in. I mean independent or underground music.

Well, I was thinking, maybe through your pre-school teaching.

Oh, I no longer do that. For the last two records I’ve been just focusing on the music.

Sloppy research, sorry. So what happened with that transition there?

[breaks up laughing] Well I’m making enough money just playing music now. I just started touring enough.

That’s great. I’m glad to hear that, actually.

Yeah, it seems like kind of a small miracle to me. Hopefully it’ll last.

So do you now feel more sort of pressure to be professional in the studio and not as, um, artistic, Are you still reaching into the soul and putting it out there or thinking more about the construction of the songs, and a giving-the-people-what-they-want sort of thing?

Um, no, no, no. Not at all. I mean an aspect of that — we’re trying to be more conscientious about things. Before it was just a matter of trying to squeeze things in a little after work. But now I have all day to do stuff. I mean, for better or worse [laughs]... I mean, if because we make our living on it we tried to be audience pleasing, I think we’d fall flat on our face.

I don’t mean make yourself more appealing, or change your sound so much as, uh, sort being faithful to your fanbase, or something along those lines.

I don’t know this for a fact, but I’d just assume that anyone who knows our records would want us to be doing what is generally in our hearts, musically, at the time — rather than trying to write something that someone who we’ve never met nor will ever meet would like, you know?

That’s true.

It’d be impossible to do that.

Yeah. I do see a thread, though, running through the albums. Sort of like a feel.

It’s not conscious; I just think that’s how it happens.

Ok. Well, that’s great then. Because you see a lot of artists that try to reinvent themselves each time around, sort of become very ambitious. Then there are artists like yourself. Like Boards of Canada - their second album isn’t all that different from the first, but it’s a continuation of something good, something singular. What am I trying to say? I guess you just don’t see that a lot. People are looking to make that one album and blow everyone away so... Well, you guys make consistently good albums that blow everyone away [JS laughs], so it’s sort of like they work together.

[quietly] Thank you.

[awkward stammering] I thought I was gonna do better for my second interview...

[laughs loudly] I think you’re doing fantastic.

I noticed there’s a lot of political subject matter on your albums. What do you think of when people say, "If you’re gonna make music, make sure you have something to say." Do you think things can be more indirect, or do you think there’s a need for Bob Dylan or somebody to state things in a very eloquent way that everyone can understand? Or, do you value the ability to sort of subvert things, I guess, and be a sensationalist maybe or be sort of a provocateur — rather than pointing people this way or that about an issue? Sort of loaded there, but...

Well, I don’t think people should be doing things beyond being themselves, you know?

Is that part of yourself, as a songwriter?

For me, personally, it is. But I wouldn’t want to make any sweeping generalization about what music should be.

So would you call "Support Our Troops" a protest song?

Oh, I’d pointedly call it — it’s absolutely a protest song.

I don’t look at it - it’s more like an Iraqi nightmare song to me.

I mean, I guess stating the fact of the nightmare is protest.

Is it a concern of yours not to be preachy or come across like a liberal or something? Sorry...

No, not at all. I think if something’s important to someone and part of genuinely caring about that is who they are musically, then it’s not preachy. It’s singing who you are.

Right, but I guess there’s sort of a big difference between painting a picture like you do and Toby Keith, or something like that. I mean, they’re passionate, but they’re not really thinking about it.

I mean, people like Toby Keith, or whatever, are part of a multi-national corporation. It’s not even really music, you know?

Some people sing songs, like "I’m really passionate about this so this is why I’m doing it" when the truth is, like you said, they’re really just these shills.

I guess I’m really just talking about indie music. That gigantic major label stuff isn’t really music. It’s so completely attached to corporations and advertising. It’s, like, eighty percent that and twenty percent music. Anything that I’d say about music is completely excluded from Toby Keith and that sort of thing.

Do you see yourself ever as like a sort of absurdist?

Um, no.

Not at all? Or a sensationalist maybe?

No, not really. I mean, sometimes things we write about can sort of be sensationalistic because the events that they describe are really intense and horrible. But the point isn’t to be sensationalistic. The point is to write about things that’ve happened or are happening.

So, you’ve cut off some heads with roofing shingles?

Say that again?

I dunno. I don’t know why I said that.

No, [laughs] that actually was a real thing that happened.

Really?

I mean, it wasn’t cutting somebody’s head off. There’s a lot of mental illness in my family. I won’t get into the exact details. There was an incident of somebody throwing a roofing shingle and hitting a neighbor in the forehead.

That’s interesting, cause I can just be weird. I can say things like that and think it’s funny, so I’m always surprised...

I mean, It’s completely ridiculous and unbelievable. And it’s terrible, but it is sort of funny in a weird way.

I feel bad because I’ve been completely off the bat with everything I’ve written about (your music) because I’ve read time and again that your material is extremely personal, and I guess I just never realized to what extent. I mean, I’m sort of an apologist for absurdity for absurdity’s sake when everyone sort of balks at that. And I felt very strongly about your music in this regard and - it’s similar to when I was talking to Resplendent - are you familiar with them?

Uh-huh

I was talking to them and the same problem came up, he’s very literal about his songwriting process. And I’m always latching onto these intangibilities - I guess I’m not a very good interviewer for that reason.

It’s like I said before. It’s your way of viewing it, it’s not right or wrong.

Do you read rock criticism or that sort of thing?

Um, sometimes.

I’ve been writing reviews for a couple years, and I try to look at as active listening. I’m not so much there to be a tastemaker so much as I care about music and want to have these open-ended conversations about it. It sounds more pathetic the more I talk about it.

I mean, you care about it. Not caring about shit is pathetic.

I guess, it’s just that sometimes I get to feeling like I’m writing into a void and I get lost in subjectivity. How this interview is going is a good example of how that can kind of derail me at times. Has there been any questions that nobody’s ever asked about the band that you’d hoped or expected would be asked?

Um, nobody’s ever asked us about our fashion sense.

Is that something you care about?

No, I’m totally joking. [laughs]

Okay. Well, it seems like you sort of have something going...

I just have a friend who makes these really cool t-shirts we wear, and that’s as far as it goes.

When I first got into you guys I remember seeing pictures and you were a foursome. Now it seems it’s just you and Caralee. How did that all change?

We’ve gone through a lot of members and line-up changes.

So it’s just been you as a core with people backing...

Um, not so much anymore. Caralee’s been playing in the band for the last year and a half. It definitely started out as a regular band with four people. And then evolved into three people... Sometimes we have collaborators come in and do stuff; the set up is really funny.

Do you write the songs by yourself?

It depends on the song. Some I do, and some are with, like, six or seven people in the room.

What song are you most proud of on the new album?

Um probably "Yellow Raspberry." That’s a song that song that sort of fell into this loose ideal of what I’d really like the band to be. I showed up at my friends’ house with my computer and this really tiny sequencer and six or seven of my friends added to it.

I guess that’s about all I’ve got. I’ll ask you, what music or films have you been getting into lately?

Um, uh [laughs] The March of the Penguins, which is really - I’m super interested in bird-watching so...

That’s the director of Winged Migration.

Right. I also saw the Miranda July film Me and You and Everyone We Know. And it was really genuinely fantastic. It’s really funny and really weird and really touching. It’s just wonderful. I’ve also been listening - I’m friends with Deerhoof and they showed me their new record which is really amazing.

You’re somehow involved with them right?

Yeah, Rob (Fisk) and I are in another band together.

Anything you’d like to discuss before I let you go?

Um [long pause] where do you live?

Smalltown, USA. Upstate New York.

Oh, what town?

Schoharie.

Oh, [unintelligible].

Are you gonna be coming to the state any time soon so I can catch you guys?

We’re playing in [September] at the Bowery Ballroom.

Oh, great. That’s a nice place. Last thing I saw there was Trail of Dead, and they were really cool.

I’ve never been there, so...

So, thank you for your time.

Oh sure, thanks. It was good to talk to you, man. I like Tiny Mix Tapes a lot. It’s a really great site.