2009-08-18 - Suicide Girls.

of Montreal's Kevin Barnes

By Jay Hathaway - Aug 18, 2009

of Montreal's Kevin Barnes has been experimenting with pop music for almost 20 years, all the way back to recording home demos in high school. He started of Montreal in 1997 in Athens, GA, and fell in with the Elephant 6 collective, which included bands like Elf Power, Neutral Milk Hotel, and The Apples in Stereo. Since then, of Montreal has put out nine records, including Barnes' biggest critical success, 2007's Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer?

The subject matter of Hissing Fauna was darker than anything of Montreal had released before, but that gave way to the sex-soaked disco of their most recent album, Skeletal Lamping. The band's sound has changed dramatically over the years, especially with the addition of more electronic and dance elements. Although their upcoming record, False Priest, is only starting to take shape, Barnes sees it continuing in the funky, danceable direction of Skeletal Lamping.

We caught up with Barnes on the phone to chat about the adventures and eccentricities that come with being in of Montreal, and found out that whatever you assume about the guy in the eye makeup and the wild outfits is probably wrong.

Jay Hathaway: I've never seen this answered anywhere, so I have to ask: why did you name all those songs after Dustin Hoffman?

Kevin Barnes: It was just a weird spontaneous decision when my brother and I were putting together that album [The Early Four-Track Recordings], which is all songs I'd done when I was 18. At the time I released the album, I was 27 or something. It was a funny, kooky idea to pretend like it was a concept album, even though the songs had nothing to do with the titles, and nothing to do with Dustin Hoffman. It was just a spontaneous thing we created over lunch one day.

JH: Have you been saving any demos since then, that might turn into another project like that?

KB:There's a ton of unreleased stuff that I had done from that time period. All I really did when I was in high school was go home, hide in my bedroom, and just make four-track recordings all day. So there's a lot of stuff. Personally, I don't find it that interesting. I don't think about it, 'cause I'm only interested in what I'm working on at the moment. If I ever got a record label together, just a pet label, I would just release things for fans and people who are actually really into that stuff. Maybe. I haven't really given it much thought.

JH:So, about the stuff you've been working on recently ... what did you think of the critical reception for Skeletal Lamping?

KB:I try to avoid album reviews, because 99% of the time, they're totally inaccurate, and I don't really benefit from reading them. I don't really get anything out of it. No new insight that I didn't already have. I'm kind of absorbed in making the album, and then when I'm done, I just want to move on to the next thing. Unless I'm just totally bored, I'm really not that interested in hearing what people have to say about it. I don't really worry about what critics have to say about my record, but it seems like people liked it as much as they liked Hissing Fauna, just judging from attendance at shows and things like that.

I wish that rock criticism had more value. I think it could be very beneficial for an artist to have an outsider's perspective on what they're doing. It can be sort of an insular experience. I think it could be good if it were someone whose observations you actually respected. It would be good to hear what they had to say. For the most part, though, you can just tell in the first couple of lines if there's going to be a terrible review, in terms of what they're bringing to the table. Their observations are just so far off from what your inspiration was, or motivation or anything.

JH:Whose opinion do you think would be valuable?

KB: For me, it'd be someone who's an artist themselves. Someone who's produced albums I really respect. Someone like David Bowie, or David Byrne, Brian Eno, Prince. The kind of people who are my idols. If they had something to say about the record, it would definitely be extremely interesting. Ray Davies. Stevie Wonder. Sly Stone. Anybody I'm influenced by. As far as straight-up rock journalists, I don't really follow that scene, so I don't really know who's considered to be good.

JH: I was going to ask you whether you would prefer if people took you more or less seriously than they do now, but it sounds like you don't particularly care ...

KB:It's hard to make a generalization, like, "In general, do people take me seriously?" You'd never be able to quantify that. I definitely hope that people know I spend a lot of time and put a lot of emotion into every single thing I release, and it's the most important thing to me when I'm working on it. At the same time, I'm not pompous and pretentious and want everyone to pore over everything I say and dissect it or make it super-intellectual. Everything I do is more organic, it just happens. When I'm done with it, I can move on.

JH: You've talked a bit before about your performance persona. Who is this guy, and just how separate is that, to you?

KB: It's a weird thing. My brother and I talk about it sometimes before we go onstage. It's so integrated into our lives that I never go, "Shit, I've got a show coming up tonight and I've gotta prepare for it!" It's just second nature, now. It's so natural now, performing and living. It all just happens, and I don't spend much time thinking about it, making a division like, "What's the real me?"

JH: It's tempting to imagine, just from listening to your music, that you guys are very eccentric in your personal lives. Do you think that's true? What's the most eccentric thing about you?

KB: Something that people might be surprised by is that I like watching SportsCenter. I'm really into sports. I like watching baseball, basketball and football. My cousin and I play tennis and basketball all the time. My friends and I have these volleyball cocktail parties, where we make drinks and play volleyball. We get the cops called on us all the time by our neighbors. It's really conventional stuff.

JH: It's funny that the conventional stuff is what would surprise most people. That's an interesting position to be in.

KB: I think that, in general, everybody is eccentric. Aside from a small minority of people that are as one-dimensional as they appear, I think most people have a secret life. Most people are extremely interesting. Anybody that you see just walking down the street is probably a very interesting person. I don't think that artists are necessarily more interesting than non-artists. Someone like Salvador Dali, who was just performing all the time, I mean, his whole life was a performance. He probably seemed more interesting than other people. If you're not envisioning the world looking in it at you, you're not documenting all the things in your head.
You might be extremely eccentric, and you'd have no idea. In our band, everybody thinks that every other member of the band is totally crazy, that they are the only sane one. It's probably like that with all groups of friends. It's some weird aspect of the human condition that we think everyone else is crazy, except for ourselves.

JH: If your band were the cast of a sitcom, what would that show look like?

KB: I can never really draw that parallel. It's kind of too abstract. There's a guy, Jamie, who plays the keys and bass and drums. He's been in the band for 10 years or something. He's definitely got kind of a Larry David character. He's a magnet for those kind of weird interactions with people. He's the one who's always getting in a fight with the old woman behind the counter at the convenience store, being screamed at by the Indian guy who runs the liquor store, or whatever. There's always some weird story with him. So I guess maybe Curb Your Enthusiasm would be close.

JH: Have you been doing any comedy stuff over the past few years, since A Pollinaire Rave?

KB: There's definitely a comedic element to our live show. Everything my brother and I come up with - well, not everything, but at least 70% - is supposed to just be funny, and kind of absurd. It's not really this heavy statement about religion or politics or whatever. Just because there's this weird person in a McCain mask hanging this guy in gold lamé, that doesn't really mean anything. It's supposed to just be funny. There's always a sense of humor involved in the theatrics. I think it's just incorporating that into what of Montreal is now, whereas before, A Pollinaire Rave was sort of a separate thing. Now it's all together as one.

JH: Skeletal Lamping was your most overtly sexual record, both lyrically and musically. How did it turn out that way?

KB: I felt like I had been in a sexually hibernated state of mind all through my 20's. In my early 30's, I started waking up to sexuality and exploring it, thinking about it a bit more. It was kind of natural that it also came through in my art. I think I was just going through a sexual awakening.
I was listening to music that people consider more sexual, like funkier stuff, soul music and R&B. When you think about what music would seem like the most sexual music, most people would say Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On" is the sexiest song. But in kind of a funny, weird way, it's almost cliche. Like the scene in a move where someone's about to have sex, and "Let's Get It On" will come on, and everyone will start laughing.

JH: Well, even with sex, it's important to have a sense of humor about it.

KB: Definitely. It has to be fun and playful. Otherwise, I don't know what the hell it is, if you're not having fun. Rape, or something. That's the line between consensual sex and rape, a sense of humor.

JH: What do you think is the most boring thing that's happening in music right now?

KB: It's hard to say. I think everyone has these filters in their head where if something's boring, it doesn't even really register. You just sort of ignore it. But I think any time people try to imitate something successful, it just becomes more watered-down. The whole vocoder R&B thing is pretty boring now. So many people have done it that it's just a dead horse at this point. Unless someone can do something with it that's still interesting. That's the cool thing about music. Everyone borrows from everyone else, and movements evolve that way. They need to evolve that way. Nothing's completely original, but everything has a trace of originality.

JH: And maybe if you can synthesize it from enough other parts, you won't even be able to recognize them anymore.

KB: Totally. Certain things, at their source, they're coming from a place that maybe even a person who's influenced by a person who's influenced by this thing doesn't even know it anymore. They don't even know they're influenced by the Beatles, because they're influenced by someone else who was influenced by the Beatles. On the family tree of music, you don't know all your cousins, aunts and uncles.

JH: What do you think about the Beatles, by the way?

KB: I was a humongous Beatles fan. At one point in my life, they were my favorite band. I had every single record, I was obsessed with reading all the biographies. I was really infatuated with them. I guess within the last 6 or 7 years, I sort of got more interested in other things. I still really love them, but I don't get the same charge out of listening to Revolver that I did at one point. I do know them better than I know any other band.

JH: What's your take on the three and a half minute pop song? Do you think it will ever die, and do you think it would be a good thing if it did?

KB: I don't think it would necessarily be a good thing. Sometimes I think that people follow the pop template too much. There's a pressure that if you want to have a commercially successful song, it has to fit into these parameters, and I think that's definitely unhealthy for the art of music. There's also a great challenge in that. It's kind of fun to fit as many ideas as you can into three and a half minutes. I've never really, with the exception of maybe two or three songs, I haven't really explored longer pieces. I've pretty much stayed within that area of 4 minute songs. On the new record, I've actually started writing longer. Everything is about six and a half minutes.

JH: What's your relationship with the Elephant 6 collective right now? I've heard you're still in it, you used to be in it, or you were never really in it at all. What's the deal there?

KB: I think Elephant 6 was always this nebulous collective anyway. It wasn't really a specific group. It started off as a bedroom project, just for fun. At that time, in the early '90's, there weren't that many indie labels anyway. It was just them trying to empower themselves and release their own records. The core group was Apples in Stereo, and what became Neutral Milk Hotel, and what became Olivia Tremor Control, and then Elf Power was a part of it, too. We were kind of a part of it, but on the fringe.
I looked up to them as big brother figures. They were a little bit older than me, and they had done all the things I wanted to do: release records, self-produce, go on tour, and do it all on your own terms. I wanted to be a part of it. I was sort of just pulling their coat from behind, like "Hey guys, can I come to the party, too?" Now we've been able to establish our own thing, so I'm not really a part of Elephant 6 although I guess it still exists to some degree. Only briefly was it ever a fully-functioning label that would sign bands and release records. It was really more like a friend collective that became a movement, in a way.

JH: Would you consider working with another producer on an of Montreal record?

KB: Every record that I've made has been home recorded, and every of Montreal record has been self-produced. I've never hired anyone to help us with it, or gone into the studio, with a few exceptions. Everything's been done with crappy equipment in some small, little bedroom. The new record that I'm working on, I've just kind of attacked it the same way I have the last three or four records, doing all the parts myself and recording everything in my house.
I think I would, in the future, like to start working with other people as an experiment, to see what might come of it. People like David Bowie, for example - he always seemed to benefit greatly from other people's influence. Brian Eno or Tony Visconti or whoever. People that could bend his mind in a way he wouldn't have known naturally, and really great things can come out of collaborations like that. I've been a bit paranoid and insular the last four or five years, but I see myself coming out of that and wanting to work with other people in the future.

JH: The EP you did with Jon Brion was really interesting. Is there a possibility he might help produce an of Montreal record?

KB: I think it could definitely be good. It could definitely be interesting. It's kind of weird, the way I work, because everything is just done in the moment. I don't do any sort of planning beforehand. I just start experimenting and something will evolve out of that. I guess if you had a producer, the two of you together would just do the same thing. It could be fun. I'd have to be in a certain state of mind where I wouldn't feel like I had to perform for them. The thing I really like about recording and creating music is the process, where you shut off the rest of the world. It's a dream state of mind. All the ideas are coming, and you're caught up in the wave of creativity. It all depends on the chemistry between me and the other producer, as far as whether I could get to that place if there was somebody else in the room.

JH: What do you know about this new album, so far?

KB: It's going to be called False Priest. It's very funky and definitely dance music, but it's kind of hard to explain the vibe of it right now. There's a lot of strange lyrical imagery and sort of funkier sounds and ... [laughs] I don't know how to explain music, ever. I've got about six or seven songs. I'm just writing and experimenting and not really worrying about what songs are going to be on the record. I'm just trying to have fun with the creative process, and edit myself later. Probably in five or six months, I'll say, "Ok, what songs do I like the best? What kind of record should this be?"

JH: Are you familiar with Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies? Do you ever use those?

KB: I actually have them on my phone. I've used them maybe once or twice. There's one that I read that says, "Don't build a wall. Make a brick." That was really good advice. It's sort eerily helpful. Every time I check it out, it's usually good advice. I think it's a fantastic tool for musicians.

JH: of Montreal are known for quirky song titles. Which comes first, the song or the title?

KB: Usually, I might have a title and I won't really think what I'm going to use it for. It's somewhat random. Usually the title doesn't really connect with the song. It's just something I thought sounded interesting. It's strange that people are so lazy with song titles. A song title is almost always a lyric from the song, and almost always a lyric from the chorus. It's such a generic way of identifying songs. I think it's more fun to just be creative with every aspect of the songwriting process. Why not be creative when you're titling the song, too?

JH: You're going to have to say the names of your songs so often that's it's probably a good idea to pick something you can live with hearing all the time.

KB: Yeah. It's hard, too, because a lot of our song titles are so strange that even the band members have a hard time remembering "which one is that again?" Especially songs that have foreign words, 'cause a lot of the songs are named after places in Norway, so they have this weird sound, like Heimsdalsgate or Gronlandic Edit. I'm really fascinated with words. It's so remarkable that we're able to express these really complex human emotions with one word. It's all about finding the right word to really articulate the feeling. You have all these words at your disposable, but you have to find the precise one.

JH: And sometimes the word you need is in another language ...

KB: There's things that, if you are very well-educated, you'll know that you can't really say this in English, but this is the term in French. I guess there's a term in French for someone who's strange-looking but beautiful at the same time. Not a conventional beauty. I don't know what that word is.

JH: So, I shouldn't capitalize the first "o" in of Montreal, right? Unless that's changed in the past few years?

KB: I don't know what we have to do to make people realize the o is always going to be lowercase. Seven out of ten times, the o is uppercase, and it's not really such a big deal. We don't have an official font or an official logo, so I guess it's just natural that when people don't know what to do, they just capitalize the o. Aesthetically, I prefer it to be lowercase in "of."

JH: Is it just because of the aesthetics? It's not like a bell hooks or e.e. cummings thing?

KB:It's sort of like that. It's just that when I see the o in uppercase, it looks like this weird pregnant monster.