Of Montreal's Kevin Barnes Says Their New Album Comes From a 'Darker Place'
'Paralytic Stalks' hits stores on February 7th
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By Matthew Perpetua
December 5, 2011 1:20 PM ET


Of Montreal will release Paralytic Stalks, their 11th studio album, on February 7th. Though the band have not abandoned their distinctive colorful funk, the disc finds frontman and songwriter Kevin Barnes spiking their tunes with abrasive noise, artful orchestration and some of the bleakest lyrics of his career. ("I spend my waking hours haunting my own life / I made the one I love start crying tonight and it felt good," he sings in "Spiteful Intervention" – and that's one of the album's most upbeat numbers.) Barnes recently opened up to Rolling Stone about grappling with depression while working on the new material, his plan to change the tone of the group's theatrical live show and his disappointment with the response to his band's previous album, False Priest. You can stream "Wintered Debts," the first track released from Paralytic Stalks, above, or download the song for free here.

The press release that was sent by your publicist along with your new album made a point of stressing that you're singing entirely from the first person in these songs, that you're not using any personas this time around. Why was it important to make sure people knew that?
It’s not really something I felt like I needed to disclose, but I guess on some levels, it's just the reality. It was sort of also a decision that I had made, though in some ways it was sort of made for me, because I was going through a difficult period. And a lot of times when I go through those kinds of periods, I use music as a sort of form of therapy. So, I guess I wasn't in good enough spirits to fool around with a persona.

So you work through more upbeat themes through fictional characters?
I think so. I think usually, that if I'm in a happy, balanced state of mind, my imagination tends to go in that direction, where I'm able to create a more positive atmosphere musically. I think I am a bit of an Eeyore. And when I'm feeling better, I really want to sort of want to magnify the effects of that, and that's why I'll create these really outlandish characters.

Did you know going into this album that it was going to be a particularly dark set of songs?
Yeah. I'm not going to just write when I'm happy. I also need to write when I'm in a darker place. I definitely didn't want to be there, but I just sort of found myself there. False Priest is very colorful and more upbeat for the most part. There are kind of darker songs, but for the most part, I was trying to make something that was more like Earth, Wind and Fire or Sly and the Family Stone. Something that was more funky and positive. But somehow that didn't last, and I sort of fell back into this darker place and was just writing songs from that perspective. But it wasn't really something that I set out to do as far as, "I want to make a dark record." It was "I need to make a record" or "I need to make music" because it's one thing I find extremely fulfilling and also distracts me, in a positive way, from my condition.

What brought on this dark phase you were in?
I think it's some sort of cyclical thing, you know? That you just have ups and downs. And I have a lot of depression issues. A lot of people in my family have had a lot of depression issues. In the past, I've tried to make things that are really upbeat, to sort of change my mood or try to alter my mood in a way. Somehow make myself happier. To some extent I'm still doing that with this record. It's still poppy, it's not extremely morose and minor. It definitely has a hookiness to it.

When you perform the darker songs in concert, do you reconnect with that mood?
The first 20, 30, 40 times that we play it, it's definitely still connected to the source. You know, a song like "Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse" has an upbeat, dancey quality to it and the lyrics are much darker. But just by creating a sort of carnival-esque atmosphere, it sort of changed the song in my head. And now when I play it, I'm not really thinking about the original inspiration. I'm thinking about what it has become. And it's sort of become this anthem in a way.

How are you planning to present these new songs live? It seems like it may be tricky to get across some of these arrangements.
Yeah, it's going to be a serious challenge. Zac Cowell, the guy who played the woodwinds and the brass instruments on the record, is joining the band. He is going to be playing those parts, but they're all multi-layer parts, so I think we'll have to experiment with having some samples mixed in with the live playing. And, you know, maybe have people playing parts that were originally on a flute on a synthesizer, or things like that. So it will sound different from the record. It probably won't sound exactly like the record, but we'll try to get pretty close.

Are you going to change the way you present the show visually for these new songs?
Yeah, I'm really excited about that actually. Right now we're still developing ideas. I think, in the past, we've sort of had fun using comedic elements – we've had performance artists coming out in different kinds of costumes and definitely on the False Priest tour, it was way more comedic and sort of Dada, sort of absurd stuff happening. And we've been doing that for a while and it was really fun, but I think now we want to do something slightly more abstract that is relying more on projections. But not just projecting onto a screen behind the drum set, but actually using the whole stage to create a very dynamic visual experience.

There are a few different shows that you've done in New York that have a few over-the-top sort of antics, like when you came out on stage riding a horse at the Roseland Ballroom. Do you feel a need to top that sort of thing, or do you want to move away from it?
I'm trying to not necessarily back away from it, but I feel like right now there's so much flash in music, so much showmanship. Which is great, like Lady Gaga, for example. But I think that in my head, I want to make something that's less superficial. I've been listening to a lot of John Lennon solo stuff and realizing how powerful that music is when it's more raw and direct. I want the stage production to work within that context. I've done that already, you know? I've been on a horse. I've been naked. I've covered myself in glitter, and all that stuff, and it was really fun but I don't want to just do it over and over again. I don't want to become a caricature of Georgie Fruit or whatever. I want to keep growing as an artist. I want to keep doing different things and trying different things and exploring my imagination.

How will this affect your choices of what older songs to play?
I had this kind of cool realization recently where, forever I've been thinking that, "Oh, the show has to be this upbeat dance party from start to finish, and I just want all the songs to kind of blend together and I want it to feel sort of like a mix-tape, like a really well-made, upbeat mix-tape." I realized there's a sort of insecurity in that; you're always afraid of letting the energy go down, and it's almost like you want to get off the stage at a super-high point and you worry about there ever being a moment where people get bored and start talking. But I want to be less insecure. We've got this hour and a half, whatever it is, 70 minutes on stage, and there's no reason to feel like, "Oh we need to apologize for taking chances with certain songs that aren't necessarily everyone's favorite song." I'd rather play slightly more obscure songs that fit the mood of Paralytic Stalks, rather than make it this upbeat dance party. That's not to say it's going to be extremely tedious and pretentious and boring, you know? I just want to make something that's a bit heavier, more beautiful and more emotive.

So what older songs would fit into this kind of show?
I was thinking of playing "Nonpareil of Favor," which is on Skeletal Lamping. It definitely starts off really upbeat and happy, and then it goes into this kind of crazy, noisy guitar thing. So I'd like to play some of the longer songs. Because most of the songs on Paralytic Stalks are pretty long. Or at least half of them are at least six to 10 minutes long.

When you write a song like that, are you kind of piecing together different fragments and ideas?
Well, nowadays, I don't usually write before I record. So I'll write and record a section of a song and work on that for a couple days, and once that's done, it’s "Okay, well now where do I want this song to go?" So I'll work in blocks of a minute, minute and a half. So you could say, "Well that could be a verse and that could be the chorus so let's just repeat that verse and repeat the chorus again and you're done! " Which is kind of a lazy way to write songs, but that's just the way pop music goes, for some reason. There's so much repetition in pop music, and that's cool, that's what it's about. But sometimes I like to get out of that and put a little bit more thought into it and make it a bit more transportive and not worry so much about the hookiness of it.

When did you make that shift over to kind of writing directly to tape?
I guess it was probably around The Sunlandic Twins. I think Satanic Panic in the Attic, I was still writing songs on acoustic guitar and working on it a couple months before recording it. Then I sort of realized there's no real reason to do that. Which on some levels is kind of a shame, because whenever I try to do solo shows, I don't even know what to do with myself because it seems so boring just playing them on acoustic guitar. But back in the day, when you're writing on the acoustic guitar, at least for me, I would try to make the acoustic guitar part kind of interesting too. But now it's like all about the layers and instrumentation, which doesn't really translate as well on acoustic guitar.

Was there anything that came out in the past year that really inspired you?
I was really inspired by Sufjan Stevens' record, The Age of Adz. That woke me up in a way where I realized that music doesn't have to be extremely digestible. You don't have to think about getting a song on someone's iPod playlist. You don't have to accommodate the direction that people are going with music, where they want one single, they don't give a shit about a record, they just want one single that they can put against all of the other singles and I feel there's a superficiality to that. At least for me, for someone who loves music and wants to connect with the human race through music or art, you don't really get that with some three-minute pop song about getting drunk and partying and all that.

The first song you put out from this record is "Wintered Debts." Why did you choose that song as people's introduction to the new album?
I think it was a pretty good representation of what people will be able to expect on the record. It is one of the longest songs and it's one of the more intimate songs – at least it starts that way until it transforms into something different. We could have picked any number of songs on the record, but I guess that one just felt right. I don't care if any of the songs get played on the radio and I don't care if it's even a popular record with people. I'd hope that people can connect with it, but that wasn't the motivation for making it. I'm not really plotting like, "This will be the one that gets them! And then I'll give 'em this one!" It's not like that. It doesn't matter. People could hear any of the songs.

Did you have greater commercial ambitions for any of the previous records?
Yeah, definitely. With False Priest, I was definitely hoping it would help us take the next step commercially, and that's why I did certain things like make a song that was kind of shorter, but also gave them logical titles. And it's funny because for some reason in my head I thought it was a very commercially acceptable record, but I was listening to it the other day and realizing that it's actually not that commercial. It's not a record that would necessarily make a band, or get a band on the television, or break a band, because it's still pretty artsy and weird, and also anachronistic in that it's pulling from these influences that most 18-year-olds aren't interested in. Most 18-year-olds don't think Isaac Hayes is awesome.

2011-12-10 - The Therapy Of Music

The Therapy of Music: Exclusive Interview with DJ List Cristee a.k.a Kevin Barnes from of Montreal
Natasha Mijares December 8, 2011
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The Therapy of Music: Exclusive Interview with DJ List Cristee a.k.a Kevin Barnes from of Montreal

As the December 10 show featuring Au Revoir Simone’s Miami debut approaches, the city has been set ablaze with anticipation not only for these songstresses, but for the DJ sets as well. I got the chance to have a phone interview with DJ List Cristee, otherwise known as Kevin Barnes from the acridly glam pop group, of Montreal. We discussed his fairly new DJing career and about of Montreal’s upcoming album, Paralytic Stalks, which shall be released in the US Feburary 7, 2012 by Polyvinyl Records Co.

The album mixes the flowery, ethereal quality that stays true to their sound with wretched and almost primitive lyrics that come together to make a beautiful milieu of Barnes’ personal experiences. He’s introduced some new elements in this album that can be heard in the album teaser “Wintered Debts” below. However, Barnes continues to uses his personal relationship as paradigms of the relationship man has to the world. He covers many topics, from drunk calling in Sao Paolo, to the void we feel as a solitary planet in a giant solar system, as seen in Tensional Parapraxes (Dour Percentage) where he says “our parents aside, this planet is an orphanage, and it cheapens us the way you and I torment each other”

The album has an inescapable “manic energy” that Barnes shows in Spiteful Intervention when he sings: “lately I’m rutted in the filth of self-authored agonies that really should fill me with shame but all I have is this manic energy.” Barnes has shared that the reason for this mood is because of his problems with depression, and that writing this album has been helping him battle it. In essence, we are really riding along the journey of Barnes psyche and receiving that sense of illumination and wonder in the end.
Listen to the album teaser, “Wintered Debts” (not the lead single):

Wintered Debts by of Montreal


Therapy Life: What kind of music or artists do you like to include in your DJ sets?

Kevin Barnes: I like to play a lot of 60s, 70s, 80s funk and R&B; Sly and the Family Stone, Elements, Prince, Cameo, all sorts of things.

TL: How long have you been DJing as List Cristee and how did you come up with the name?

KB: I guess I’ve been doing it since about a year ago or so. The name, I’m not really sure where that came from; it’s just a strange name that came to me, haha.

TL: We’re also anticipating of Montreal’s next album Paralytic Stalks, which was recorded in your home studio in Athens, Georgia. Would you say that a Southern influence is present in your music?

KB: Uhm, maybe on some level. I might be like Outkast, haha. There are some Southern artists that I like. But I mean, I guess there are different kind of Southern music, there’s like Southern rock and hip-hop. I’m definitely more influenced by hip-hop and R&B than Southern rock.

TL: What kind of creative processes do you take in writing and producing an album? Do you write on tour or do you lock yourself at home and write?

KB: I do a lot of lyric writing on tour when I’m traveling, but pretty much all the music is written at home.

TL: What effect do you think your writing process has on the lyrics?

KB: Well, if you’re traveling, you’re experiencing all these different things that you wouldn’t necessarily experience when you’re at home. When you’re at home, you kind of get into a routine. Especially with writing, you get a lot of consistency, which sometimes is good, but sometimes it’s bad.

TL: The music of the album is riddled with intricate compositions that some would say resembles modern classical, while at others echo at neo-prog, pseudo-country, and 60s pop. How would you characterize or personify the relationship between the lyrics and the music on this album?

KB: They’re equally as important for me. When I’m making music I want it to be interesting and unpredictable and when I’m writing lyrics I want it to have those same characteristics. With this album, I’ve definitely written more personal lyrics, from the heart, and from my personal life. So it’s not really as fantasy based, it’s all rooted in reality and I’ve been going through some tough times so I’m kind of using the music as a form of therapy in a way, because the creative process is a form of therapy.

TL: After adding violinist Kishi Bashi to the touring line-up, you’ve been working with session musicians for the first time in your career. How do you think that changes the of Montreal sound as a whole and are you enjoying how the music is evolving?

KB: Yeah it’s good because, especially with Kishi Bashi, I would write something and do a lot of work on it and I’d kind of get to the point where I wasn’t sure what I could do to change it or make it more interesting, and I would send it to him and he would come up with all of these ideas that would help transform it. Then he would write stuff to me and I would use that as inspiration for new ideas for myself. So it was really great with him and also with Zach Cowell, who is also gonna join the line-up. He played all the woodwinds and the brass on the record and we had a smooth relationship as well, so it was really cool to have people that could contribute things that you’d never be able to contribute. It’s not like a piano player and a guitar, those things I can handle on my own, but I wanted people that play things that I don’t know how to play and that I’d never be able to do on my own. It’s always good to have people that can contribute something special.

TL: Who did the album artwork and why did you choose that piece for the cover?

KB: David did the cover, my brother. He listens to the record while he’s producing the artwork. So he kind of used that as inspiration and tried to, in a way, represent the sounds on the record visually. It’s always a sort of abstract translation; the sounds just sort of made that image in his brain.

TL: Will you be using this kind of imagery for the live shows?

KB: Yeah, the live show is going to be very visual but it’s not going to be as theatrical in a sense because we’ve been using a lot of comedic characters for a couple of tours. It’s almost been like a comedy show, sort of like a Dada comedy show as far as theatrics. For this one, because the subject matter of the record is much darker and more personal, we wanna present it in a different light. It will still be very visual and interesting on that level, but it won’t be as comedic.

TL: So will Georgie Fruit (Barnes’ on stage persona) be back for Paralytic Stalks?

KB: Haha, maybe for the encore but not for the regular show.

TL: There are some very big concepts that the album discusses such as revenge, self-hatred and the egocentric man. What kind of lessons on humanity and existence would you say is most apparent in the album or do you think that people will walk away with?

KB: Well, yeah, it’ a very bitter album in that way, which I think you can lose yourself in bitterness and it’s definitely not the path to enlightenment. It’s definitely more of a self absorbed, kind of negative trip. But sometimes you kind of have to go through it. It’s an element of the healing process. It’s okay to be really hateful and really bitter for a period of time but you eventually have to get over it. So it’s kind of a weird record in a way cause if you stop listening to it midway through, it might actually put you in a bad mood but if you can make it all the way to the end of the record it has some sort of weird healing power at the very end. I’ve noticed that myself when I listen to it. I kind of need to listen to it all the way through in order to feel that sense of balance returning.

2011-12-09 - Wasabi Fashion Kult

::Kevin Barnes, the antihero


By Flor. Published: December 9, 2011.



Hours before his DJ set at Grand Central, of Montreal’s, Kevin Barnes, spent some minutes on the phone with WFK. Last week the band announced the release of their awaited new album, Paralytic Stalks, their darkest record so far. 


In this interview, the lead singer and composer of one of the weirdest and most talented groups from the last decade tells WFK how he fell in love with art and the dark side of being a true artist.

WFK: Everybody knows the story of your musical career after you joined the Elephant Six Collective, but what happened before that? When did you start feeling passionate about music?

I guess when I was about 13 or 14. I started making songs and recording in my bedroom. By then I was inspired by heavy metal music but my inspiration has changed a lot over the years.

What was the primordial musical intention when you created of Montreal, back there in 1996, is it still the same?

Yes, pretty much is a labor of love to me. I made it pretty much by myself and I got inspired by different things; I wanted to made something personal, exceptional and interesting and the essence stayed kind of the same from the beginning.

Both your music and performances are notoriously influenced by other art disciplines such as theater, cinema and literature; you were even involved in the A Pollinaire Rave comedy tour. Is there any other artistic discipline that you would like to explore or combine with your music?

You kind of name most of them, you can definitely try to incorporate different things like gardening or other unconventional ideas. We also have lots of pretty strong visual elements on our live productions over the past four years, as far as projecting images and putting thought into the lightning and the stage. But for this future we are actually spending a lot of attention on the visuals and the projections and trying to create a sort of transportive experience for the audience.
You are an artist that was never afraid of opening up and singing to your deepest feelings, in one of the songs that is going to be included in your upcoming album you even declare: “I spend my waking hours haunting my own life / I made the one I love start crying tonight / And it felt good”. Did you ever get involved into serious trouble because your conception of art?

Yes, definitely it creates some issues with the people I’m in a relationship with because I incorporate a lot of my personal life into my songwriting and people, understandably feel sort of victimized in a way to see that they are displayed in front of the world like that because especially is only my perception, it’s only from my advantage point which is not a real fair thing to do. I mean is not fair to the other people involved but in the same time I think that art really has to come from a very personal place if not it doesn’t have much value and it feels superficial, in my mind.

I think that you are one of the few artists left who are so true and sincere in your songs, although, as you said before, it can get you in trouble. So, have you ever thought about changing that way of making art?

Well, I have done some roll playing and I have definitely written songs to fantasy, I have created characters and you know in a way that is more a fantasy based line rather than personal. I guess sometimes you got trough phases were nothing really dramatic is going on in your life but you want to keep on writing songs and creating this “personas” allows you to stay productive without a soap opera happening in your life.

Paralytic Stalks is probably one of your darkest albums so far; are the Georgie Fruit days gone?

I think that I will keep on playing some of those songs, I don’t think that I need to have a funeral for Georgie Fruit or anything like that but this is just a period of me needing to do something different. I don’t worry that much about the things of the past, I’m just only interested in moving forward and trying to live in the present moment and do whatever feels right in that moment.

In the past, of Montreal released many conceptual albums such as The Gay Parade, The Bedside Drama: A Petite Tragedy and Coquelicot. It’s Paralytic Stalks a conceptual record? If so what is the concept behind it?

I think there are lots of recurrent themes but I don’t know if you can really consider it a conceptual album just because there is not real narrative or a story necessarily, it’s almost like general scenes from a period of my life.
of Montreal is one of the few bands that still support cassette, Paralytic Stalks is going to be release in this format among others, and you even have released your own Cassette Box Set. What do you find so enchanting about this format?

I think I’m fond of it because it’s something different that it used to be extremely popular and then it completely fell off. Now nobody even considers it as a possibility but they are so cheep to get, you can go to any thrift store and get a cassette for 10 dollars, I mean they are still around but … I think they are kind of cute in a way, this little plastic things. And also when I first started recording I was recording in a cassette four tracks so all of my early demos were on cassette, so I definitely have a sort of connection with them, pleasant memories about them.

On December 10 you will be performing in Miami with a DJ set. Can you tell us about some of your favorite tunes that you will be playing that night?

I will probably play some Parliament and some Rolling Stones, Stevie Wonder and then some more contemporary stuff like Erykah Badu, mostly some kind of funky soulful songs.

2001-05-14 - Pop Renegade

EXCURSIONS OF A POP RENEGADE

In feature/interview on 05/04/2011 at 8:30 am

If you wanted to get all psychoanalytical about it, you could say Kevin Barnes’ soaring falsetto is a mere manifestation of his restlessness. And all those words he crams into Of Montreal’s songs? Same thing. The dude feels he has so much to say and so little time to say it in that he spits them out a mile a minute as his voice reaches Dirty Mind-era-Prince heights.

Check out this line from “Our Riotous Defects,” one of the best songs from last year’s False Priest: “My God, I should’ve realized on our second date when you dragged me into the bathroom at Tameka’s house and screamed at me for like 20 minutes because I had contradicted you in front of your friends/I was like, Oh/And then later that night at my apartment, as punishment, you killed my betta fish/You just threw it out the window.”

Whew.

At times, Barnes is a marvel to behold. Other times he verges on annoying. Either way, no band has made a transformation quite like Of Montreal over the past 14 years.

On their 1997 debut, theAthens,Georgia, group distilled many of the same influences as other bands in their Elephant 6 collective, making a sort of artsier version of Beatlesque indie pop. But they’ve evolved – sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly – over the years, until they ended up what they are now: a theater-like troupe of funky performance artists made up of more than a dozen members. “I view it as a life form that has its own trajectory,” says Barnes. “I think back to [those first albums] and I don’t really identify with them, like a completely different person made them. It’s like a typical human evolution: The early albums are very sweet and naïve but they evolved into something more mature and sexual.”

The evolution began in earnest with Of Montreal’s ninth album, 2008’s Skeletal Lamping. That’s when Barnes (who plays most of the music on the band’s records himself) let his R&B-singing, cross-dressing alter ego Georgie Fruit take over for an entire album. False Priest is a bigger and tighter version of its spazzy predecessor, using live instruments instead of synths, and singers Janelle Monae and Solange Knowles (Beyoncé’s sister), who add sweetness to the sometimes sour mix.

“I wanted to make something that was more accessible and immediate,” says Barnes. “I have a tendency to put too many ideas into my records. Any song can go in so many directions, and there’s that tendency to just take it there.”

Just as Of Montreal’s music has gotten more ambitious, straying outside its comfort zone, same goes for the feather-boa-wearing man behind it. False Priest is the first album Barnes recorded outside of hisAthens studio (it was made inLos Angeles) and the first time he’s worked with a producer.

Jon Brion (who’s helped shape albums by Fiona Apple, Aimee Mann, and Kanye West) arranges sounds that Barnes just kinda threw out there before. The post-disco beats running through songs like “I Feel Ya’ Strutter” and “Our Riotous Defects” lead to messy, glorious trips. “There are so many different ways to listen to music,” says Barnes. “There’s so much going on in Stevie Wonder’s records. When you dissect them in your head, you hear all these things going on. That’s the great thing about music. It can be very complex but also very sneaky.”

Barnes’ continuous restlessness yielded thecontrollersphere EP last month. He calls it a folk record, but that genre tag is debatable, since the highlight — a sprawling and amp-shredding five-minute workout called “Black Lion Massacre” – is the noisiest thing Of Montreal have ever recorded. “I’m never really satisfied with the things I do,” says Barnes. “I never feel like I’ve accomplished anything, so I’m always looking for the next thing.”

Thecontrollersphere isn’t baroque pop or funk machine or anything else, really, found in the group’s bag of sounds (even though most of the songs are False Priest leftovers). It’s Of Montreal between stages, once again, and is likely a sign of things to come. “It’s a bridge,” says Barnes. “It’s noisier and more cacophonous, which is where I’m heading. But it’s hard to say where you are in a moment. I really don’t know where I’m at right now.”

2011-05-02 - Eye Weekly

Kevin Barnes: hungry like the wolf

Prior to tomorrow night's show at the Phoenix, we spoke to the Of Montreal ringleader about alcohol-inspired creativity, wearing women's clothing, what his mom thinks of his onstage nudity and spirit animals.

BY Sarah Nicole Prickett May 02, 2011 15:05

Something you might not know about Of Montreal—particularly if you don't know anything else about them either—is that they're not actually of Montreal. As the story goes, frontman Kevin Barnes—who is from the world's most wonderfully named place, Athens, Georgia—named the band after a Canadian girl who broke his heart. Well, he's returned the favour several times over since then. Barnes used to whip up chipper, psychedelic twee-pop songs (kinda like Animal Collective) and insane gimmicks (one album was called Dustin Hoffman and featured “Dustin Hoffman” in every song title). Now, he makes sad songs that trick you—with a lot of bells and whistles and disco references—into thinking they're happy. Those are the best, or worst, kind, depending how you feel about being sad.

From 2007 (when Of Montreal got deeply glam with Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?), till now, with the release of totally manic EP thecontrollersphere, Barnes has fashioned himself as a kind of Bowie who can read. (If you don't get it, Google it.) His live performances look like Judith Butler case studies plus drugs. (You'll see, if you catch Of Montreal this Tuesday night at the Phoenix.) Meanwhile, in recent phone interview, Barnes tells me about everything from his favourite summer drink to his spirit animal, with some stuff about music in between.

So, where are you now?
Philadelphia.

Is it always sunny?
[Laughs] No, it's actually not.

Did you watch the royal wedding?
You know what, I missed it. I slept on that.

I would have, too, but I had to wake up for a minute and comment on “The Dress.”
How was it?

Beautiful, but so virginal. I don't get that about wedding dresses—like, you're 29, we don't believe you.
Maybe she got the hymen surgery. There's home kits for that now.

Yeah, at Shoppers. Or—what do you have in the States?—Walgreen's. Anyway, I was listening to The Controllersphere, and it reminds me so much of Bowie's “Space Oddity.” All spacey, lost and bleak.
The whole album reminded you of that?

OK, mostly the second song, but that was the most memorable one for me.
Yeah, it's very Bowie-influenced. I was also extremely wasted when I was writing and recording it.

What were you drinking?
I think I was drinking my favourite summer drink, which is gin, tonic, watermelon and a little bit of Perrier. It's really good. A little bit of mint, too. You gotta do that in the summertime. It makes you feel better about the intense humidity. Although I like humidity. It feels like being in the tropics or something. I can imagine myself somewhere.

And you can go naked, which is a big pastime for you. I mean, I saw the Pitchfork photos. Question is, did your mom see them?
She was embarrassed. I've done so many things to embarrass her that she's kind of used to it. It's a bit of a shitstorm for a couple of days [after I do something like that], and then it's fine.

You've sold songs to a few commercials. Like, there was one for a steakhouse. Does that make you want to make your songs weirder, so commercials won't want to use them?
I haven't had a song in a commercial for a while, but it's not that intentional. That one [for Outback Steakhouse, which changed the lyrics of the song "Wraith Pinned to the Mist" to form a jingle] came out before I had any representation of the ad agency world—just how sinister they can be. They completely lied to me in regards to that song, that nightmare. For the other ones, I actually gave my consent. It's a good thing for indie bands because there's a good amount of money. Actually, there was a Canadian commercial I made the music for—it might have been online only—the Subway commercial. It was the people [Kangaroo Alliance] who made the "Wraith Pinned" video, the animated video, and they were working for a Canadian ad company. They did the animation and I did the music for a Subway commercial. You wouldn't notice it, though. It wasn't, like, Jared eating a sub and listening to my song.

My favourite use of an Of Montreal song in The September Issue; they play “Suffer for Fashion.” It's perfect.
I actually haven't seen that! But I should. Janelle Monae was super-into it, she was telling me the other day.

Your own fashion sense is notoriously theatrical. Were you always into the dress-up box as a kid?
No, I did a lot of athletics and kinda hung out with friends. My parents made me take drama. I was in Oklahoma! in high school, but I was just, like, a loser in the chorus. It wasn't until later that I discovered theatrics on my own. What we do [in Of Montreal] is so much more fun, because we just combine everything. In a way, I like bad taste better. The New York Dolls are one of my great inspirations. When I think about what they did at that time, and in New York City, one of the toughest places, to dress like that was really inspiring.

Diana Vreeland agrees with you on bad taste.
It should be fun! Go into your girlfriend's closet and grab whatever and put it on. Go out on stage. A lot of fashion is so trendy and it's so insecure, and there's no real joy there. You should be able to look ridiculous. That's why someone like Björk is really great. She does take chances.

Cross-dressing is kinda mainstream now. Even Kanye West wore a Celine shirt, a women's shirt, at Coachella.
Well, in the '60s, men were given options that weren't just grey, beige, khaki, white—these boring colours. Men like myself don't look in the men's section in most stores because it's so boring, but it wasn't always like that. After the '60s, the whole psychedelic period, we lost that for some reason in the '70s. It came back a bit in the '80s, on the club scene, but it dropped massively in the '90s when every guy was so butch in jeans and whatever. I think maybe it just goes in waves. Now, maybe we're back on track to having fun.

A lot of your songs are wild and bright, but the lyrics are very dark and serious. Are you doing that on purpose? Making people dance at their own funerals?
I think it's a combination of what I wish were true and what is true. I want to make emotive, joyful music, and in the past I have made similar lyrics to match the joy of the music, but then the music became slightly more cynical, slightly changed, and I'm trying to get out of it, but it's difficult to be extremely optimistic in the face of everything. I'm a bit of an Eeyore at heart.

And the music is Tigger.
Exactly. I think Tigger's on acid anyway.

I have this new therapist and she says all creative people are depressed, but maybe she just wants to make me feel good enough to hand over my money.
On some level, it's true. I think about what it is that makes artists want to produce, make us want to do it. On some level, it's dissatisfaction with reality, and trying to create our own. For me, making music definitely takes me to a better place. It's definitely therapeutic. I would be lost without it. I always have something I need to say, not even for the world, but just for myself.

What's happening with your side project with Andrew [VanWyngarden] from MGMT?
We've both been swept up in our own projects. It's been kind of difficult. We love each other and respect each other and hope that it does happen someday, it'd be really great. It's loading there in our consciousness.

Who else is left on your list of dream collaborations? You've done so many already.
There's a lot of people. It would be fun to collaborate with certain bands like Animal Collective and Caribou. Actually, you know, the person I would most want to collaborate with is Erykah Badu. She's extremely funky, she's like the funkiest woman alive. She has a spirit that is so free and crazy and interesting. She reminds me of everything that I like about funk music. It should be playful and wild and heavy and emotional.

Last question: what's your spirit animal?
I don't know. We've talked about this, but I don't know.... Maybe the wolf. I think about the way it's used in contemporary art. It's always the tackiest, most terrible thing imaginable, like all the truck-stop art. I like the way it appeals to people who aren't artists or avant-garde in any way, but they might hang a silk painting of a wolf, and it's big and mysterious.

Anything else you want to tell me?
There's so much, but we'll leave it at that.

2011-05-?? - Metromix Harrisburg

Q&A: Of Montreal

Wild frontman Kevin Barnes ponders Prince and another stab at live comedy

By Jessica Jardine

Special to Metromix

It’s a bizarre feeling to realize there are indie rock bands that have been around long enough to already have, in the case of the band Of Montreal, 10 full-length albums under their collective belt. After last year’s well-received “False Priest,” the Athens, Georgia-based band has another EP they’re rolling out, “thecontrollersphere,” full of the typically upbeat, electro indie-pop that has come to define their sound.
But lead singer-songwriter Kevin Barnes—who has earned a reputation as an exuberant showman willing to strip down nude during shows or cover his body in mountains of glitter—fell in love with R&B in recent years and the band’s sound has reflected those newer funk and soul influences. That led to a collaboration with celebrated newcomer Janelle Monae on her critically lauded “The ArchAndroid” album and Beyoncé’s lil’ sis, Solange Knowles, who popped up on “False Priest.”
As the band hits the road for one of their celebrated, wildly visual live tours, Barnes continues to rely on the organic nature of collaboration between his creative team, which includes his brother and wife. And considering previous tours have included a live horse being trotted out on stage, those who’ve seen the art-rockers in action know that it often means expectations are going to be blown away.

What can someone expect for the live show? You guys are known for being incredibly over the top and then, other times, pretty minimalist in terms of production.
It’s something that sort of evolves over the course of the tour. We might start off with a concept or a set of ideas and then, the more shows that we play, the more that we switch it up and change it. We have a bunch of performance artists and a bunch of interesting cartoons for this one, though. My brother is the main one who creates most of the content for the stage theatrics of show. I mean, I talk to him about it but, for the most part, it’s his thing.

“Thecontrollersphere” EP was recorded at the same time as “False Priest.” Do you feel the songs differ much?
It’s a similar feeling but, in the way that all the songs are pretty different on “False Priest,” there are a decent variety of different kinds of songs: slower songs, faster songs, and funkier songs. It’s in that ballpark I guess.

What was the determination for holding off on including those songs on “False Priest”?
They would’ve fit but we really didn’t want to make a double album. So, we had to take some of the songs away. There are even more songs from that period that haven’t been released yet. I think we might even do another EP because it was a really productive time for me.

Is there any particular reason why it was so productive?
I think it was kind of discovering a certain kind of music that I’d always liked but hadn’t worked with, as far as a genre. I was rediscovering funk music and soul music and just really riding that wave of excitement.

In terms of that R&B influence, who are the artists that you love?
Well, my all time favorite vocalist would be Sly Stone. I love all the Family Stone records and all the Marvin Gaye ‘70s records, Curtis Mayfield, Parliament, and Stevie Wonder. There are so many great artists from that time period.

How did you end up connecting with Janelle Monae?
We live in kind of the same area. She lives in Atlanta and we live in Athens. We’d met after a show and just started talking. From there, she was working on the “The ArchAndroid” album and we were working on “False Priests” so I’d send her mixes of stuff I was working on and she and her partners would send me stuff that they were working on. I felt very connected to her throughout the whole process. They were very much a great motivator and inspiration to me. I heard what they were doing and thought it was so fantastic and wanted to do something equally as cool.

You went on a comedy tour a few years back. How did that come about?
Well, it was basically me and my wife and my brother were trying to figure out ways to have fun, earn some money and, basically, get out of town for a period of time. It was a fun experience because it was kind of scary to just set up a tour and have no idea what you’re going to do. Then, once you get to the venue, you just look around and say, “Alright, what’s it going to be tonight?” We put something together and, at first, it was pretty terrible but after about the fourth or fifth show it started to evolve into something a little bit more tolerable and slightly entertaining.

Did the show involve sketches or improv or a combination?
It was sketches that were sort of loose and that we could improv on. We didn’t have long moments with any intense soliloquies or anything. [Laughs] It’s definitely more in the dada realm of comedy.

Having a comedy tour under your belt, can you imagine doing it again?
Possibly. It was a fun experience. It was definitely low profile. I mean, we were playing pretty small places that had, at most, like 50 people. It definitely wasn’t the best way to earn a living. [Laughs] You have to really love it. It’s like anything; like when we first started playing music. You play to 30 people every night and just make enough money to buy gas to go the next city.

I saw that you also released the last album on cassette and that seemed pretty unusual. What went into that decision?
I guess it’s something that’s a bit of a movement. It’s kind of like how for a long time nobody was releasing anything on vinyl and then people started getting excited about vinyl again and now pretty much everybody releases their record on vinyl, especially indie artists. It’s a bit of a novelty because nobody really does it anymore. I think it’s cool and it’s just a different format and you can have a different relationship with this other physical object.

There was an article where Pitchfork called you the psychedelic Prince—as in, Prince the artist. What do you think of such a nice moniker?
Yeah, it’s nice but he’s kind of a psychedelic Prince himself. I don’t know if there’s room in this world for two. [Laughs]

2011-05-06 - the AV Club

Of Montreal’s Kevin Barnes' top 3 rock alter egos

Kevin Barnes talks rock’s rich tradition of onstage personas

Kevin Barnes knows a thing or two about adopting new personas

by Matt Schild May 6, 2011

If you were going to come up with an alter ego for yourself, you’d probably choose to don a cowl and strike back at the underworld or to be a glamorous debutante. Not Of Montreal’s Kevin Barnes: His Georgie Fruit alter ego, who dominated the act’s Skeletal Lamping tours, is a cross-dressing African-American who’s undergone multiple sex change operations. Barnes obviously has a significantly richer vision for his secondary personality than you do. He also has a rich appreciation for rock musicians’ tradition of crafting onstage personas. Prior to Of Montreal’s recent appearance at the Bluebird Theater, Barnes reflected on a trio of his favorite rock ’n’ roll alter egos.

Prince’s Camille
Kevin Barnes: As a kid, I discovered [Prince], and it opened up a lot of doors for me, intellectually and emotionally and sexually. I didn’t really know about Camille until later in life. I just knew that there was this wild man out there who was taking all these crazy chances, doing things that no one’s ever done before, or doing it in a way that no one’s ever done before. The thing I most love about Camille, for Prince, it kind of gave him the opportunity to say things he wouldn’t feel comfortable saying just as Prince. That’s something, as a songwriter, I can identify with having.

The A.V. Club: Isn’t that one of the primary reasons why people adopt alter egos?

KB: I think so. It’s just a little trick of the mind. Somehow, you can pretend it’s not as connected to your psyche. In reality, you can’t really defy yourself in that way; everything’s from inside you. It’s just a nice trick you can utilize to get a little bit deeper and pull things out of you that maybe you’d be too self-conscious to do as yourself.

David Bowie’s Thin White Duke
KB: I’m more frightened by the Thin White Duke than I am by Aladdin Sane or Ziggy [Stardust]. He’s a little bit frightening because he has a little bit of a Third Reich influence, which is clearly extremely fucked up. The music that he did in that time period, whatever you call them, The Berlin Trilogy of records, are so amazing. They’re not really commercial successes, but they’re incredible artistic successes. You have someone like Bowie, who had complete commercial success and was a rock star, one of the most famous faces on the planet. For him to go in a completely other direction on those albums is really inspiring for me, as an artist, to know that someone like that can take chances and it’s not going to kill his career to do it. I think it adds a lot of credibility to his oeuvre.

David Byrne
KB: I think there’s probably some disconnect between his actual personality and his stage persona. It doesn’t feel like acting at all. At some level, the alter egos of Bowie and Prince maybe have trace elements of that sort of character acting. It’s not extremely genuine in the way like somebody like Neil Young or John Lennon are.

AVC: Don’t many performers have disconnects between their real-life identities and their stage presences?

KB: For us, it helps a lot. I noticed that depending upon what I was wearing, it kind of brings out a different part of my personality onstage. If I were to take the stage just in jeans and a T-shirt, I think I would be a bit more self-conscious. It’s kind of funny. Dressing up makes me less self-conscious. I just get into the spirit of it, and I get swept away by it. I get transported outside of myself, or transported to some good part of myself that’s not totally neurotic and pessimistic.

I did create a stage persona, Georgie Fruit. I was sort of Georgie Fruit in my head when I would take the stage a couple years ago. As of late, I integrated that into my self-concept. I don’t make a distinction between who I am, Kevin Barnes, or Georgie Fruit, or whatever persona I might have created. It’s all just naturally flowing through me.

2010-09-13 - Express Night Out

Liner Notes: Of Montreal, 'False Priest,' at 9:30 Club with Janelle Monae

"The Past Is a Grotesque Animal," the 12-minute gamechanger on Of Montreal's 2007 album "Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?," documents founding member Kevin Barnes' transformation into his gender-bending alter ego, Georgie Fruit.

Fruit, is a 40-something, black, former funk singer who was a man, then became a women, but eventually decided he was better off as God made him. The 36-year-old Barnes channels the character on "Hissing Fauna's" second half, singing, "I've got my Georgie Fruit on/ He's my dark mutation/ For my demented past time," in "Labyrinthian Pomp."

"Skeletal Lamping" followed in 2008 and further merged Barnes with Fruit. The fragmented, ADD style of the album allowed him to jump in and out of character with ease as songs morphed every couple of minutes, segueing together into one 58-minute piece.

With Of Montreal's 10th album, "False Priest" the distinction between Barnes and Fruit is even narrower.

"At first I think it was a foreign entity in a way, or it felt like I was role-playing," Barnes said of Fruit. "But now I've been absorbed by it. I think it's a good device for artists to have, where they're able to explore different parts of their personality that just sort of gives them the freedom to do what they want to do, but maybe they're a little bit insecure about doing."

Easily Of Montreal's funkiest album, "False Priest" continues the hyper-sexual songwriting of "Skeletal Lamping," but distills the concept into distinct songs, rather than fragmented pieces. It also marks the first album Barnes recorded with an outside producer, the acclaimed Jon Brion. Barnes, who's recorded most Of Montreal albums almost entirely by himself, left the comfort of his home studio and brought Brion a finished version of the album to rethink.

"By Of Montreal standards, [the record] was basically done, and then I went out to California just to see what we could do to make it better," Barnes said. "I always had that in the back pocket, like OK, if this sucks and is just a waste of time, I'll just cut my losses and put out this other record."

Brion ended up adding to nearly every song on "False Priest," incorporating a booming bottom end and playing nearly as many instruments as Barnes. He also gives the album a fidelity unheard of for a band that prides itself on lo-fi productions.

"It was very educational and very inspiring," Barnes said. "It wouldn't have worked with any other producer, I don't think. But he's so gifted musically and technically and he understands music in a way that most people don't."

"False Priest" is also notable for two female guest artists: futuristic neo-soul vixen Janelle Monae and Beyonce's little sister, Solange Knowles. Monae will open most shows on Of Montreal's fall tour, including Monday and Tuesday nights at 9:30 Club. The two friends and frequent collaborators (Monae is in two "False Priest" songs, Of Montreal appears on her album "The ArchAndroid" in a song Barnes wrote) are planning a multimedia experience. Typical Of Montreal shows are high on art and chaos — with frequent costume changes, revolving set pieces and a supporting cast — sort of like the indie version of a Lady Gaga performance.

"With this tour, for the first time, we're really going to collaborate completely for every moment in the show," Barnes said. "We still want both artists to have their own personality, but we also want it to feel more seamless; the transitions aren't really obvious or really abrupt where the houselights come on, now all the crew's on changing equipment. We never want to break the illusion that you're being transported into this other reality.

Express asked Barnes to guide us through the funky, sexual, futuristic world of "False Priest" track-by-track.

"I Feel Ya' Strutter"
Pretty much on every song on the record I was trying to emote as much as possible and listening to Marvin Gaye. Marvin Gaye has been my primary vocal influence as of late, and seeing what he does with his voice, how he puts so much heart and emotion and life into ever song, every vocal take. And songs are different and they require different things from the vocalist and so, on this record with every song — or even within the song — I was trying to have different moments convey different emotions and really — I know it sounds cheesy — sing from the heart.

"Our Riotous Defects" (with Janelle Monae)
There's truth to everything. It's definitely a bit of a fantasy song. But yeah, there's definitely moments from my life that I put into it.

It's also like Stevie Wonder — there's moments in Steve Wonder songs that just crack me up, where he'd start talking and saying crazy things about sweet, sweet love. George Clinton, too. It's definitely taking the baton from those artists in a way.

"Coquet Coquette"
[The "Coquet Coquette" video, see: above] was very collaborative. I originally got the idea at a museum in Chicago. I was hanging out with the Wondaland Arts Society — Janelle Monae and Chuck Lightning, Nate Wonder — and I saw this painting, I don't even remember who the artist was, but it showed these ghoulish figures that were in the water out on this boat, and it sort of clicked in my head that it'd be cool to make a battle on the beach. It's sort of is a reference to the absurdity of war and the absurdity of how violent we are as a race.

That's why I like the ending scene — it's like these two brothers, who actually are me and my brother, we are side-by-side the whole time and we are slaying our enemies together. At the end my brother goes to give me a congratulatory handshake, and instead I just stab him. I look around and I survey the beach and I see that everyone's dead and I'm just depressed because there's no one left to kill.

"Godly Intersex"
I originally got that idea [for the chorus] from a Wreckless Eric song, I think it's called "Whole Wide World," but I thought he said "Because nobody's stoned about you." But I think he actually said, "Because nobody knows about you." I actually get a lot of ideas from mishearing things and thinking, "I thought he said that, no, he didn't say that. OK, good, I'm going to say that then." But it's sort of a song about my childhood. And it's fairly autobiographical, and it's the idea that everybody's stoned about you, everybody's thrown about you, it's just sort of confusion. That sort of feeling of being misconstrued and people aren't really understanding what you're about, and you don't really understand what you're about. You know, that state of confusion that you're in when you're 17 or whatever.

"Enemy Gene" (with Janelle Monae)
I really think that without [Monae and Wondaland Arts Society] this record would be a completely different animal. The main things I can point to are they're very much into sci-fi of course, anyone can see that. And also extremely into funk, but mainly Chuck Lightning. He's one of Janelle's collaborators and one of the main songwriters in Deep Cotton, another Wondaland Project. He turned me on to Philip K. Dick. I'd never really read sci-fi before, so it was definitely a big moment for me. There are a few moments lyrically that you might be able to see the sci-fi influence.

It just seemed so natural to have [Monae] sing on it. It seemed to totally capture that same spirit.

"Hydra Fancies"
That one actually has more of [Jon Brion's] stamp on it than any of the other ones, just because originally I was thinking it wouldn't be on the record and he was campaigning to get it on the record, so he spent a couple of nights creating other synthesizer solos and adding a lot of the stuff that really makes the song special. And then he presented it to me, and I was like, "OK, this is insane. Yes, let's put it on the record."

"Like a Tourist"
That was one of the songs I recorded and it was done, and the things that we added were just little subtle things, like some synth bass and this Mighty Wurlitzer that we played at this church. Jon was doing a film score and the director wanted some really ghostly organ sounds and he found this Mighty Wurlitzer; there's only like a handful of them in the world.

It's like a gigantic pipe organ. It's absolutely massive. And it was in this church that was pretty cool. The mighty Wurlitzer shows up in a bunch of songs. We're like "Oh, well we got all the mics set up, we might as well go through as many songs as we can." He and I both played it.

"Sex Karma" (with Solange)
[Solange and I] met through Janelle. We were hanging out backstage and Solange was there. Janelle introduced us. At that time I didn't know Solange very well, and I wasn't really that familiar with her music, but after I met her and got her record, I realized we had a lot in common. You know, she's just an amazing music lover. She turned me on to a bunch of things. She's an amazing performer, amazing vocalist. We just bonded right away. We've written songs together.

"Sex Karma" was the first song I wrote for "False Priest;" I wrote it pretty much right after "Skeletal Lamping." So that one has been around for a while, and I always felt it would be weird for me to sing or to say "playa," but when I originally wrote it, I thought it should be for a female vocalist, so it worked out perfect.

"Girl Named Hello"
At the end of "Sex Karma," you know the whole — "you look like a playground to me" sort of gospel-ly thing? — I had this drum loop that I connected to the end that had a Cuban sort of Latin groove to it, and then I was like "Whoa, I should extend that, that would be cool." And then I just made this funky vamp. In a way it's a proper funk vamp — it just repeats and it's the same. I did a lot of guitar layering so there's a lot of subtlety to the guitar part; it's not just one riff over and over and over again. That's actually one of my favorite moments on the record.

"Famine Affair"
I'm definitely a big Cure fan. I don't think they get enough credit, but there's definitely that sort of [vibe], there's even a bit of a Cars element to it, that sort of muted guitar thing, and then it changes in the middle section to something a bit different.

"Casualty of You"
I think it's good to have an emotional balance so it's not all just sunny upbeat songs, because it can get kind of static. It's exciting because everything is upbeat and danceable, but I always try to fight that static situation. So it's good to have a counterbalance of something that's heavier, and it's also more representative of who I am or just the human experience. It's not always going to be happy. There's going to be dark moments as well. It has sort of vampire-ish qualities.

"Around the Way"
I learned that there should be nothing embarrassing about expressing a genuine feeling and that's actually the thing that most people identify the most with: the vulnerability, and we need that from our artists. I definitely connect more; that's why I love Marvin Gaye so much. There's so much heart on his sleeve, you can really feel what he's going through. Or John Lennon, for example; "Plastic Ono Band" is one of my favorite albums because of the primal scream therapy he was going through and incorporating into his songs and into his vocals. I love pop songs, but often they can be sort of disposable. And then there are these few moments in pop music where you can always go back to them, and always be touched by them and always be healed in a way.

"You Do Mutilate?"
A lot of my ideas, I don't second-guess them. They just sort of happen, like, "What am I going to call this one? How about this?" And then it just sort of sticks. For a while "Hydra Fancies" was called "Chaotic Ancient Rift." I just love coming up with strange combinations of words. I love the idea of adding a question mark for no reason.

2010-10-01 - Drowned In Sound

"If I make sense, I fail". DiS meets Of Montreal

by Andrzej Lukowski - October 1st, 2010

According to the full version of the above photo, there are potentially a full 13 people in the ever-evolving Of Montreal's current incarnation. As you know, just one of them really matters: Kevin L Barnes, the genius/fruitloop behind all ten of their albums to date, including last month's funky/fucked up False Priest. On the eve of a walloping great three date UK tour, DiS caught up with Mr Barnes to talk about fish slaughtering ex-girlfriends, the futility of religion, and why you can't change the world via the medium of lampshades.

DiS: Did you have any particular plan for False Priest? It’s clearly a different mode of songwriting to the fragmentary approach you adopted for Skeletal Lamping...

Kevin Barnes: I think because I’d done that collage style writing on the last record I didn’t want to do that again, I felt like a change, so, um I leaned it more towards slightly more linear arrangement with the songs. I also wanted to create longer vamps within the songs. Skeletal Lamping was very jarring, with this one we wanted to bring out the rhythm element more. But I was still very much under the influence of Skeletal Lamping, it’s still very funky and still a fairly sexy record. But I started getting into, I guess, the heavier end of funk music.

DiS: Why did you decide to cut the entire record with live instruments this time? Was it because you had more money?

KB: Well I actually made this record at home, and by my standards it was basically done. But I’d been sending rough mixes to [producer] Jon Brion and I guess he had sort of gotten it into his head that he would like to help me realise a fuller sound. So he invited me out to California and I went in with a session drummer called Matt Chamberlain who came in and drummed on every single song. So once we’d improved the fidelity of the drum I was like ‘maybe I should recut the bass too’ so I just went through song by song and redid all the bass lines and then we sort of realised ‘well, why don’t we replace a couple of these digital pianos with real pianos’ and we kind of got carried away and sort of replaced everything.

DiS: So what you’re basically saying is that you technically made the same album twice?

KB: Yeah... it all just happened organically, I found myself out there working with this wizard of a producer and a musician and transforming my record, it’s been such a great education for me.

DiS: False Priest seems a bit more playful than your last few records; do I take it that not so many of the songs are biographical this time?

KB: Everything is based at least loosely on true stories...

DiS: So ‘Our Riotous Defects’... that actually happened to you?

KB: Yeah.

DiS: Wow. So you had a girlfriend who killed your fish?

KB: Yeah, she killed my Betta fish over some really small shit...

DiS: Wow. On the second date?

KB: Er, no, it was later, well into the relationship...

DiS: It’s not your wife is it?

KB: No, previous relationship.

DiS: How does the subject feel about the song?

KB: Um... well, they’re not really a huge Of Montreal fan, they might hear it on the radio at some point... but I don’t care, she deserves it.

DiS: Yeah, it, er, sounds like it! Does it get harder finding stories like that now you’re settled down..?

KB: It’s pretty easy I guess – when I’m feeling inspired I just let whatever happens happen and I don’t really edit myself or second guess it I just let it flow... it’s funny, a lot of songs I can’t explain the inspiration or influence behind it, I can’t remember writing or even recording them. I just have a really bad memory I guess.

DiS: Skeletal Lamping, False Priest and your upcoming The Controller Sphere EP all take their titles from a single line of the song ‘Faberge Falls For Shuggie’... is there any meaning to them beyond that? Bar the anti-religious monologue at the end of the ‘Do You Mutilate?’, False Priest wouldn’t seem to be much to do with religion...

KB: I think that maybe it has some connection to the part before it, the ‘try to connect XX infinite pleasure’, but it is abstract, that’s the only way I can really write. If I try and make sense than I just fail. I might be failing anyways, but at least I’m doing it in a way that works with my normal brain function.

But I don’t really have any strong agenda. I mean, I was raised a Catholic, I did go to church for 18 years, went to Sunday school for 18 years, my mum is very involved in the church, but I don’t think that much about it or care about it... I don’t feel like the Catholic church is bringing about the end of the world or anything. But what I was trying to say with that very frank lyric at the end, which is something that my brother and I talk about a lot, is that we should put humanity first, that we shouldn’t put god above humanity, we shouldn’t think of a religious prophet as more important than just day to day helping people. I think people get carried away by the mythology of these things, the mysticism of it, that if you don’t on the surface act a certain way they you’ll be punished and if you act another way then you’ll be rewarded in the afterlife... but who cares about the afterlife? I can’t really understand that obsession. We can do better without God, because we can do away with all the uncertainties, leaving just the certainties. If we got rid of religion and just concentrated on trying to empower each other then I’m sure that would help us a lot more.

DiS: It sounds to me like you’ve been pushing your vocals a lot more on this album, not technically, but in terms of a few more vocal personas. Is that something you were aiming for?

KB: Yeah, definitely, and I think listening to people I really like live David Bowie, Stevie Wonder, Sly Stone, Prince, a lot of people have different vocal personas and with an album they go through four or five different personas. I’m just trying to be very expressive and experimental with what potential I have on this record, really trying to put my heart into every vocal performance and just make it more unconscious, sort of natural expression. It’s a cool thing because on this tour I’m not actually playing an instrument I’m just singing.

DiS: I can imagine you’ve wanted to do that for a while.

KB: Yeah, I’m sure I’ll miss playing a guitar but it's an interesting challenge and it will allow me to put all my energy into my singing. And of course there’s the dance moves, which are really tricky.

DiS: [laughs, unsure if he is joking] Speaking of Bowie: he always took pains to point out the inauthenticity in his dabbling with black American music, referring to it as ‘plastic soul’. Do you feel similar with what you’re doing?

KB: I’m not really TRYING to make soul music, but I don’t believe in that thing that if you’re white you can only make ‘white’ music authentically and if you make music that was created by black people then it’s obviously phoney. Maybe it was at one point, but I think now there’s so much cross pollination and intermingling of ideas and releases and cultures, I don’t feel any more of a phoney doing this than when I was making Coquelicot... which was influenced by the Gershwin brothers... now it’s just a sort of different obsession, but it's emotionally and intellectually connected to me, it doesn’t feel like I’m putting on a persona or anything.

I think that it goes both ways too – I think there are a lot of R&B producers seeking influence from outside sources, it’s not as homogenous as it once was, people are starting to nod to each other... it’s kind of similar to what was happening in the Sixties, Otis Redding covering Rolling Stones songs and Aretha Franklin covering Beatles songs... I don’t really know what happened in the Seventies to make it all so segregated again...

DiS: Do you ever feel at all self-conscious about the music you make? Like, does it require a special effort to psyche yourself up to do a vocal as OTT as the one on ‘I Feel Ya Strutter’?

KB: Er, no, when I’m recording I work on my own and just forget about the world. I don’t think about playing the music live or anybody else ever hearing it, I just want to make it exceptional, powerful, and not question myself. So much of funk music and soul music is so much about swagger, about attitude and confidence and you know I think I’ve reached this point, I know I’ve accepted my flaws, I’ve accepted that I’m not a perfect person, that I’m a total fuck up and I don’t really care, because everybody’s the same way, you know? I think self-forgiveness has really allowed me to go out there and not feel vulnerable, I don’t feel like anyone can take anything from me. It’s not like a cocky thing... I’ve just been down so low that I’ve got a new understanding about myself, what can be taken and what can’t.

DiS: ‘Enemy Gene’ and ‘Sex Karma’, the tracks on False Priest with guest appearances by Janelle Monae and Solange Knowles, are very explicitly duets, it’s not just a chorus hook or whatever; is that a mode you’d been interested in writing in previously?

KB: I’ve been a big fan of Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell’s stuff for a while and I became sort of really obsessed with it while I was working on False Priest, so it was something that I was excited about. But I felt so privileged and so honoured to be able to work with Solange and Janelle, I think they're two of the most exceptional singers and artists and performers and human beings that we have among us on the Earth right now.

DiS: There are no novelty editions of False Priest, whereas Skeletal Lamping had all these special editions that were just a download and a fancy object; did that not pan out how you’d hoped?

KB: Um, it was kind of a funny thing, because we thought it was going to completely revolutionise the music industry. And that kind of didn’t happen, it didn’t even seem to be that big of a deal. And then you see other people who came out with similar things afterwards and we didn’t get any props for it. But we’re just some underground indie band... and maybe somebody had come up with the idea before us and I just didn’t know it. But we were all a little bit deflated because we thought it was going to be this big event, you know, abandoning the conventional product that goes along with the record and doing something totally far out.

DiS: I bought a lampshade.

KB: Maybe it was because the things that we were able to make on our budget weren’t that outrageously commercial... we were just crazy, now I think about it. We thought that this elaborate lantern or wall decal was somehow going to replace the TV or the microwave or something. But for The Controller Sphere we do have plans for some really cool packaging, something that we’ve been working on for a while.

DiS: Should we expect anything different from this tour?

KB: I think the same spirit but we’ve expanded out line-up so that we’re now an eight piece band, so this with the exception of a few samples everything is live. We’re trying to just get completely away from any sort of oppressive backing track, just try and create spontaneous energy, like we did it back in the day. We just want to be a real band, follow the spirit of Parliament. But there’s definitely going to be a theatrical element to it, we have a lot of new props that we’re very excited about bringing over to Europe.

DiS: Do you have a mental cut off point over how far into your back catalogue you’ll go?

KB: I’m weird about my back catalogue and my past in general, it’s almost like another person wrote those songs and I’d be covering some other artist if I played anything before Satanic Panic in the Attic. I think the False Priest tour will be very False Priest heavy with a few Hissing Fauna... and Skeletal Lamping songs thrown in. Luckily we don’t really have any major hits, so it’s not like anyone can go ‘they didn’t even play that’.

DiS: What about ‘The Past is a Grotesque Animal’?

KB: Yeah... that one’s hard though, it’s like a ten minute journey into hell... but I guess we’ll probably play it a couple of times. We’ve never done it with this line up, with a violinist, I think we could definitely create an interesting version of it. Maybe we’ll do it in London.

2010-10-06 - The Quietus

Performance Breakdown: Of Montreal's Kevin Barnes Interviewed

Alex Denney , October 6th, 2010 03:56

As Of Montreal hit the UK, Al Denney talks to Kevin Barnes about the influence of Parliament on False Priest and the history of 'The Past Is A Grotesque Animal', one of our favourite songs of the last decade
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Athens, GA’s Of Montreal were a pleasant fixture on the indie-pop firmament for more than a decade before depression, divorce and a well-documented bit of madness involving a fortysomething, transsexual alter-ego collided with frontman Kevin Barnes’ world and sent the band spinning off in ever wilder trajectories.

Quietus ed John Doran reckons Barnes might be some kind of genius, but that feels like too premeditated a word, somehow – he’s more a compulsive truth-teller; a keenly perceptive fellow whose desire to take a magnifying glass to the fine print of his soul leads him just as often to moments of pathological ugliness as it does pockets of transcendence.

Whatever the semantics, Hissing Fauna, Are You The Destroyer? was quite simply one of the most beautiful meltdowns ever set to wax, with ‘The Past Is A Grotesque Animal’ the darkly circling eye of the storm. A twelve-minute, depressive’s tract written from a cabin in the Norwegian countryside, it’s a little like Bergman’s Hour Of The Wolf set to a krautrock groove, and as such completely unfuckwithable. To celebrate the track’s rerecording for a forthcoming Spike Jonze short film, we asked Barnes about its genesis, aftermath and exactly how much his missus minds him taking a hammer to his id in public.

Since Kev is exactly the kind of stand-up Southern gent we always like to hear more from at The Quietus, we also found time to ask him about the latest full-length dispatch from his band’s salty canon, the campily brilliant False Priest.

You’re releasing a new version of ‘The Past Is A Grotesque Animal’ featuring Nick Zinner and members of The Moonrats, can you tell us how that came about?

Kevin Barnes: I guess it was Spike Jonze’s idea, he contacted me and said he wanted to have a special cover version. He’s really good friends with Nick (Zinner) so he put us in touch with each other, and Nick and some of his friends created a track and sent it to me. Then I cut my vocals and sent it back to them.
I wasn’t involved in the musical production of it. I have a lot of respect for the people involved so I knew they’d do something cool with it, they had carte blanche really. I was just really excited to hear what they would do with it. The only direction Spike gave was that he took out certain lyrics he didn’t want to be there, just because it’s such a long track. I mean the song is basically a four-chord vamp on a loop, you can pick out any of the lyrics and it’ll be fine.
It was kinda cool ‘cos I wrote and recorded the song almost at the same time and when I did the lyrics I just happened to throw them together that way. I’ve played that song hundreds of times, but with the new version when I cut the vocal track I could incorporate things I’d done in live performances of the song. So the re-recording is impacted by all the times I’ve played it over the years; I sang it differently.

That must be a difficult song to play live on a regular basis.

KB: Definitely. I always feel sort of emotionally spent afterwards, but at the same time it feels very exciting and empowering. It’s just this really massive emotional workout, and at the end of the song you just kind of fall to the ground.

The song feels like a centrepiece for Hissing Fauna. How much of album did you have written at that point?

KB: It’s weird with that record ‘cos the way the tracks are arranged is basically the order I wrote them in. After I wrote that I was able to exorcise my demons or whatever and felt able to write poppier stuff. I actually edited it down, the real version is like sixteen or seventeen minutes long. But I had to cut it to make it more palatable.

Amazing! I’d be curious to know what got left out.

KB: It was really just more of the same. I could have written a whole album out of that song because of what it’s about – my wife Nina and I’s relationship dissolving and all the pressure I was feeling, the chaos, anxieties and all of that. It was a very insane period in my life. I’d been writing and writing and I had so much material I could have put into that song, but at a certain point I felt like people would just want to eject the CD and throw it out of the window.

Artistically the record was hailed as a breakthrough, did it feel that way at the time?

KB: I think it has a weight to it, an emotional strength to it that a lot of other records don’t have, a lot of our records are more abstract and poppy and fun. There was no primal scream element to them, they’re fairly balanced or whatever. And Hissing Fauna’s the first one that deals with a lot of psychological issues, just because of what I was going through at the time. It has more of an emotional impact than previous records and it definitely helped to establish us in a way. I actually was using the creative process as a form of therapy but it wasn’t really working, I was hoping if I wrote these songs I would get healthy again.

Does that seem like wishful thinking in hindsight?

KB: It’s the same thing that always drives me to create art, to create a world that’s better than the one I’m living in physically or mentally. So I mean the same source of inspiration is always there regardless of how I’m feeling. It’s always trying to create this secondary world that I have more control of or is more romantic or poetic or funny or whatever it is.

Just coming back to ‘The Past...’ specifically, were you surprised at all by the violence of the imagery in that song?

KB: Well I felt like a trapped animal, and I think that when that happens you’re capable of things you wouldn’t be if you were just skipping through some flowery garden or whatever.

Were you prepared for the interest that record sparked in your private life?

KB: I’m not sure it did. I can understand if people are curious, it doesn’t bother me. I performed naked on stage. I’m not too concerned about privacy or keeping things secret for myself.

What about some of the literary allusions in there? There’s that line, “I fell in love with the first cute girl that I saw/ who could appreciate Georges Bataille/ standing at a Swedish festival, discussing Story Of The Eye." Is Bataille a big influence on your work generally?

KB: Definitely. It really is true though, that lyric... I had this idea about a fantasy woman who’s really into Bataille and can understand him or not be freaked out by him. When I met Nina that was the first thing that impressed me about her. I was always looking for someone who could teach me things and stimulate me at all levels, and I hadn’t met anyone like that. So it’s true that we were at a Swedish festival, we were hanging out and talking about George Bataille so that’s highly autobiographical.

It’s quite the opening gambit, as chat-up lines go.

KB: That’s just how I roll, ha-ha. When you first meet someone you test the waters, I wasn’t trying to impress or anything, I was just hoping to be impressed. But when you’re meeting someone... sometimes I’ll act really idiotic just to see if they can take it. Then if they can you think, well, this person’s cool or whatever, and then if they look at you like you’re crazy it’s like "I don’t wanna have anything to do with this person anyway..."

What about the reference to Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf (“The mousey girl screams 'Violence! Violence!’/ She gets hysterical, because they’re both so mean/ and it’s my favourite scene/ but the cruelty’s so predictable/ and it’s my favourite scene.”)

KB: I always loved that play and I always loved that movie, just the dynamic between the two of them and imagining a relationship which can go through such an incredible tumultuous rollercoaster emotionally. Just the shared fantasy life that the two of them have in that play - the hysterical pregnancy and everything - it makes you realise how complex relationships can be when you put these highly intelligent human beings together. We have so many devices that we use to hurt each other and help each other and I just think that’s really interesting.

But you and Nina were reconciled by the time of Hissing Fauna’s release?

KB: We got back together just before it was came out and Nina was extremely embarrassed – well maybe not embarrassed but just like, "Oh this all our dirty laundry you’re sharing with the world, and that’s just your side of the story so it’s not really fair." So she felt a little bit awkward but also she really loved it, and was really touched by the emotion behind it and so she was extremely supportive.
She never asked me to change a certain lyric and I wouldn’t have anyways. She’s an artist as well, she’s a crazy woman so she’s not afraid to expose her inner-life with the world and I think she can appreciate that aspects of art will make you uncomfortable. Especially if you’re speaking from personal experiences and sharing your actual thoughts with the world, so it’s not all just fantasy-based. There’s always a danger that someone’s gonna make fun of you for it or you might feel overexposed but in a way I think the best art comes from that place. People can identify with it more; if it’s too skilfully managed you lose a bit of the rawness that makes art great.

With the follow-up album (Skeletal Lamping) did you worry that your alter-ego Georgie Fruit would be seen as just such a ‘skilfully managed’ contrivance?

KB: Definitely, I mean at first I had the Georgie Fruit character as a songwriting device but it was such a strong pull. Somehow there was this force that was just pushing me to write these songs and they seemed so different from anything I’d done before. So it helped me to have this device where I could say well, it’s not really me it’s Georgie Fruit. But then I realised no, it’s completely me, I couldn’t possibly do it if it wasn’t me.
I don’t really believe in personas being somehow disconnected or different from the artist. The art’s completely that person, there’s no escaping it. You’re not capable of producing something that doesn’t come from your psyche. So I kind of realised Georgie was just another part of me, I stopped thinking about him like that. It’s all just part of Kevin Barnes, whatever that is.

I like the way you’ve run with the funk and R&B vibe on the last few records – psychedelia seems to be such a white preserve nowadays, which is weird given how it was kind of joined at the hip with funk in the late ‘60s.

KB: When I first started getting into music it was total R&B stuff that I was listening to and then I started getting really into The Beatles, and then via The Beatles, The Pretty Things, White Noise, Os Mutantes and stuff like that. And then of late I’ve been way more interested in ‘70s soul and R&B. Parliament was a great discovery for me, they were taking stuff like ‘60s doo-wop and ‘70s funk and psychedelia, acid rock and blending it all together into this crazy collage, and having so much fun theatrically with all the visuals and stuff. So they’ve been a real guiding light for us, because it’s not just superficially interesting, there’s also a great emotional depth to the songs as well because it’s coming from those soul roots. George [Clinton] was a member of a doo-wop group in his early days. So what we’re doing now is taking a lot of inspiration from those guys.

The Janelle Monae thing has been cool [she features on the track ‘Enemy Gene’ from False Priest] – I feel like you guys are aiming at similar things, albeit from quite different starting points...

KB: I think we’re very much the same creature in a lot of ways. We’re on tour right now together, we’re combining our shows. We still want both artists to have a really strong identity, but it’s amazing how much we have in common, there’s this desire to kind of cross-pollinate and it’s exciting ‘cos you never know what’ll happen from night to night. There are just so many ideas bouncing back and forth. We do a thing where a member of Janelle’s art collective, Roman John Arthur, is coming onstage and singing a couple of verses of my songs. What happens is I pretend I’m about to sing a song and then the performance artists come and grab me and hold me back. Then Roman comes from backstage and sings the song while I’m pretending to be really upset, like, "What’s going on?"
We’re incorporating all these crazy ideas into the show and having a laid-back fun attitude towards everything, it’s not like an ego-trip or anything. In a way it’s very much like when I watch the old Parliament shows, Clinton was an important part of it but he wasn’t a lead singer, rock-star archetype you know, he was more like a director. And he realised he had all the insanely gifted people around him so they all should have their moment in the sun. That’s the way performances should be. It’s kind of funny because most performances you go see a show and it’s so scripted in a way, you know what’s gonna happen, the artists know what’s gonna happen, the lighting guy knows what’s gonna happen, it’s almost set up like a Broadway play. But we’re trying to keep that spontaneous element of just doing what you feel like doing on any given night. Just keeping things alive.

It’s also good to hear an artist sing about sex in such frank and bizarre fashion. We’re bombarded with sexual imagery nowadays but beyond the surface raunch people don’t seem to have an awful lot to say on the subject.

KB: Well I mean a lot of it is very clichéd. It’s all ‘I love you baby’ but there’s no intellectual involvement, it’s just very physical or visceral or whatever. There’s no thought about sexual politics. It’s like people are on autopilot when they’re writing pop songs, they’re just like, "Well I want people to feel sexy" or whatever and then they go from there. It’s rare that people actually spend time with lyrics.

Do you feel like Lady Gaga offers something ‘other’ in that sense, or is she just an insanely ambitious hack?

KB: I think she does a lot of things really, really well. Visually she’s amazing, superficially she’s great. And also the people she’s trying to speak to are the underdogs, she’s trying to give her voice to the awkward people of the world in a way and I think that’s beautiful. But musically she’s definitely hitting on a very mainstream level, it doesn’t match her persona at all. When I first heard her I thought it was like Pet Shop Boys song or something – I mean I like Pet Shop Boys, but it wasn’t really what I was expecting, I was expecting something more artsy, something a bit more Grace Jones at least. But it comes across as too safe, but you know that’s why she’s so popular, she can appeal to Jersey Shore people and teenage art kids at the same time so you know, she’s obviously doing something right.

How would you say Georgie Fruit’s role has shifted on the new record?

KB: I think he’s just kind of immersed into my head, I don’t even think about him anymore. It’s like he doesn’t exist. He’s just melted into it, he’s a part of the collage.

And the title, False Priest, you’re on record as saying has to do with a kind of "false policing of the self"?

KB: It’s a funny thing; with a lot of conceptual or fine artists, so much of the creative process is connected to explanation, you know it looks just like canvas with a red dot on it, but it’s actually it’s something completely different. But for me, somehow an idea gets in my head and I don’t really even question it or even think about. I had this thing when I was making song titles for Hissing Fauna, and I was reading these Dylan Thomas poems just to get into a creative frame of mind. I think he has an amazing way of structuring sentences together, so after I’d read a poem I’d just close my eyes and let that influence my own consciousness.

I came up with ‘Skeletal Lamping’, ‘The Controller Sphere’ and ‘False Priest’ during that writing session and for some reason those three didn’t seem like song titles, they had this weird aura about them.

Do you feel with the new record you’ve been able to engage more with the outside world after the introspection of the last two?

KB: I’m always trying to be creative, I’m always trying to pay attention to ideas and be observant. So I don’t really think about whether I’m more or less connected to reality. It sounds really pretentious but I don’t really remember writing or recording the songs especially, because you get so absorbed in the process.

But there is a bit of anticlerical sentiment in there, for example...

KB: I was raised Catholic, it’s my mom’s religion and like any good mother she said, "That’s your religion as well"... I’m joking. But you know how it is with mothers, like, "You’re my child, you were baptised so this is your religion, this is your faith." How ironic. It’s a strange world for sure, but kind of fascinating as well. It’s like a comic book in a way, it’s hard to believe it actually exists and that people actually believe in this stuff, all the superheroes in there like the Pope. It’s hilarious to me, that the Pope is the voice of God and has these powers, he’s not just a man who takes shits every day like anyone else. He’s just a man, he’s not anything! It makes me realise how much we have to mature intellectually, spiritually, emotionally to get to a point where we’re really just focused on reality and not mysticism. I mean as an artist I can appreciate mysticism, but I’m a realist and I’m not about to go believing in my fantasies.

If you were to set up your own religion Alan Moore-style what would it be like?

KB: I guess it would be something in line with progressive humanism, where we just realise that we don’t have any divinity looking out for us so we have to look out for each other. In a way that is God, by caring for each other we’re able to create God amongst ourselves.