You’re a visual artist, a pop star, a writer, a composer and an avid cycling advocate – are there any professional stones you still want to turn?
There’s probably music and sounds and things that I’ve yet to write that I hope will be different from what I’ve done before, but do I want to be a top chef? I don’t think so. I enjoy cooking but I don’t think I’d like doing it competitively!
Do you ever sit back and consider how well your career has turned out?
I’ve been very lucky. I mean, it hasn’t been entirely luck – I set myself up so that I wouldn’t get boxed in either with Talking Heads or my own stuff. Fairly early on, I’d seen other artists who had managed to give themselves a little bit of wiggle room in order to be able to do different things and I thought to myself, that seems like the right way to go, I’m going to try and do it that way….I think sometimes my fans must be disappointed, because they can’t be expected to like everything, and I can’t constantly be expected to do things that are really good and have everything be on the same level. I think sometimes you try but you don’t hit the bulls eye every time, but by continuing to do it, you keep those muscles in play. In a way, maybe that allows you to hit the bulls eye next time.
So why is now the time for you to explain How Music Works?
I’d done a couple of talks and pieces for magazines – one of them was a TED Talk about the way music is influenced by the sound of a room, and I started realising that ‘oh, I’m really interested in all the extraneous contexts that have a profound effect on how music turns out, how it sounds, what instruments are used, the way its marketed, the kind of money that’s involved – all those things and how they affect what we hear.’ I thought, ‘Maybe there’s a book there. Let me just keep going and see what else is in it. This could be an interesting book.’
Were you surprised there wasn’t already a book like this out there?
Haha, yes! If I’m working on something, I’m always kind of looking over my shoulder and thinking, ‘Is someone else…has someone else done this first and I just don’t know about it?’ In the book, there are chapters where I gleaned a lot from what other people had written on the subject – there are a couple of chapters on technology and how technology has affected music, and there are really a number of books of the subject. There are a number of music geeks that have written about the history of the technology of recording, so that material is out there, but I think some of the other stuff is probably more original.
So how did the collaboration with Annie Clark (aka St Vincent) begin?
There was an AIDS charity that suggested we work together – they asked if we would do a couple of songs together at a benefit concert. I had seen another concert they’d done and I thought it could be nice. Her stuff tends to be quite melodic and can be quite beautiful sounding, and to me, coming out of the indie rock world, that was a bit unusual. Usually people in that world sometimes stay away from things that sound too nice – Annie manages to do it, but also keep things a bit gritty. To me that was a positive, for her, if you talk to her, she’s very wary of it; for someone who can write a beautiful melody and has a pretty voice, I think she’s probably really afraid that she’ll be thought of as someone who’s just a pretty voice.
So you weren’t friends at all? There’s been some hint of a ‘special chemistry’ on the record.
We’d met to chat and say hello but we didn’t really know each other. And we collaborated musically mainly online, by sending files back and forth. The face time, the time we actually spent together, we would do other things. We would go out to see music together or have dinner or go to the theatre. We were getting to know each other that way.
Is it important to like the people you work with?
I don’t think so. I would hope that they’re not going to swindle me or behave like an atrocious person, but what they do in their homes, or with their friends, or how they behave with their dog, I really don’t care. You need to get along, to some extent, which is why I wanted to get to know Annie socially. I wanted to get some insight into this person, to see how she thinks. And I think I did. I must have.
So what can we expect from the upcoming tour? We hear it’s quite the stage production.
Oh absolutely! One of our brass players let it slip that he’d been in a marching band in school. He wasn’t exactly proud of it, but I thought ‘Ooo…that means some of them actually have experience moving and playing at the same time!’ I brought in a choreographer that I had worked with before and I thought we’d just start off by having them move into different shapes so that the stage looked different for each song, with people in different places. And of course, the choreographer wanted to push things a bit further and see if she could get them to move while they were playing. It worked out quite well.
This is old hat for you, but how did Annie feel about it?
At first she didn’t want t be involved. She didn’t dislike the idea, but she said it was fine for the brass players, but she was just going to stand at the microphone, play her guitar and sing. That lasted for about a week or so – then I could see she wanted to get in on it, because it looked like fun. And it is, you know. I’m very happy with it. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever done before.
BY SIMONE UBALDI
