2008-11-00 - Used Wings

Bryan's interview with Electric Boogaloo - some podcaster out of Toronto - hear what Beeps has to say about Skeletal Lamping, the live shows, laser shows and more stuff I haven't been paying enough attention to, apparently...

Another BP interview unearthed! This time from Philadelphia's Used Wigs website. It is actually a very enjoyable podcast, but if you want to go straight to the (beeps) point, it's 24 minutes in... Here, BP talks about what it's like to live in Athens, offers some insight about the A Pollinaire Rave comedy tour, and discusses why Philadelphia's is one of his favorite cities (and a whole lot more!).

2008-11-13 - Paste (part 7)

Of Montreal's Kevin Barnes: The complete Paste interview

Steve LaBate, photo by Jeremy Cowart By on November 13, 2008 4:10 PM |

Paste: Tell me how you got your first record deal.
Barnes: I had this friend, we were like best friends in Florida, and he was way more in touch—he had an older brother who turned him on to some things, and he knew about the indie scene, about indie labels, which I had no clue about. I guess there was some list that had all the indie labels, and there was this book about how to put out a record on an indie label, or how to start a label or something like that. We wrote songs together, and I wrote my own songs on the side. He got a list of all these labels, so we made a demo. Nobody seemed at all interested except Bar/None who wrote back and said they liked what they heard and wanted to hear more, so we sent them more and they were like, “eh, that’s pretty cool,” but they weren’t that into it. So, in secret, I sent my own tape with my own songs and they were like, “hey this is cool, we like this a lot,” but this put me in a weird position with my friend because they rejected the songs we wrote together and they liked the songs I wrote myself. For a while, I tried to sneak him into the contract, where we’d write the songs together and I’d sing them, but I’d try to sing them in his style, but [the label] wasn’t really that into that, and eventually it was obvious they didn’t want that stuff, they wanted my stuff. After a couple years of trying to work it out, we started to split apart, and I realized I’d be better off working by myself, so I just signed the contract with Bar/None and put my own songs out.

Paste: Are you from Athens originally?
Barnes: No, originally I’m from Cleveland, Ohio.

Paste: After Florida, you ended up in Cleveland and Minneapolis for a bit. Tell me what was going on in your life then, and about what made you come to Athens.
Barnes: The funny thing is, the guy I was telling you about, my friend from Florida, he was a huge R.E.M.

fan. He got his hands on a copy of Athens, GA Inside/Out, the documentary. We were trying to find a place to move, to get a band together, and Athens seemed like this fantasyland. We really romanticized it.

Julian Koster [of the Music Tapes] lived in Athens at the time and was also signed to Bar/None with his band, Chocolate USA. I was talking to Bar/None, saying I was trying to get a band together, “Where do you think I should go?” And they were like, “we have this other artist who’s kind of in the same position you guys are, he lives in Athens and he seems pretty happy, you should go meet him.” So I called him and talked for two hours, and it was like, “this guy’s awesome, he’s totally on the same page.” My friend and I moved to Athens together, but for whatever reason, he decided he didn’t want to live there anymore and moved away, but I stayed. I ended up living in the same house with Jeff Mangum [of Neutral Milk Hotel] and Will Hart and Bill Doss [both of Olivia Tremor Control]. It was amazing. All of a sudden I realized, “I’m not a freak! There are people who are into the same kind of music, and four-track recording and the DIY ’60s-psych-pop thing.” I think that was super-important for my development, to give me the support to keep going. I’d felt like I was the only one doing this thing, so it was so exciting to meet a group of like-minded people—it’s like, “holy shit, you’re doing the same thing and you’re 10 times better than me, this is so exciting!” But after a while, sometimes when you’re a kid—I was 18 at the time, and I had saved up money to move to Athens, but of course I spent all my money in a couple of months. I couldn’t really manage to support myself so I had to move back to my parents’ house in Florida. I should have just moved back to Athens when I had the money again, but I decided to try a couple of different places. I tried Cleveland because my sister lived there, and tried Minneapolis, but that didn’t work out. Eventually, I came back to Athens and have been here ever since.

Paste: Since it took so long for Of Montreal to have any kind of commercial success, did you ever doubt yourself and doubt the music you were making?
Barnes: I never really doubted myself. It’s kind of like that thing—when you believe in it, even though it’s not selling, you can always say, “well, people just don’t get it.” It definitely was frustrating as hell. I wasn’t very happy during the early years. I hated working at these non-committal jobs and having to spend so much time doing that.

Paste: What kind of day jobs did you have?
Barnes: I worked at a video store forever, and I did some telemarketing—all sorts of jobs you can’t really get any fulfillment out of. It seemed really impossible to earn a living playing music. It was like this code I just couldn’t figure out how to crack. How are these other people doing it? Are they more talented than I am? Are they smarter than I am? Why can’t I do it? But I never gave up because there was no reason to give up. Making music was the only thing that fulfilled me. I wasn’t going to give up just because people weren’t buying my records because that would’ve deprived me of something super-important in my life, of my whole focus of existing. It was definitely frustrating and depressing, and I almost feel like I paid too many dues. I’ve been kind of scarred by the amount of dues I paid. I was so emotionally invested in every show, and you go on tour for years and play to 50 people, and you’re like, “What the fuck, this is our third record, our fourth record, our fifth record and we’re still playing to 50 people. What the hell’s going on? Why isn’t it clicking with people?” You just can’t figure it out. And then, like magic, all of a sudden people start caring and you’re like, “What happened? Why is it different now?” But I’m happy. I’m psyched people care now because I know all too well what’s it like to play when people don’t care.

Paste: I interviewed you before a show at the 40 Watt in Athens right before Sunlandic Twins came out, and you seemed like you were in a pretty good place at the time. You told me, “I got married and I felt really emotionally strong. I was stable and happy and using that energy to make music.” But between then and Hissing Fauna you went through a difficult period—some depression and you and Nina split up for a while.
Barnes: Yeah, we split up for 3 months.

Paste: What was this time in your life like, and what do you think brought on this depression? How was your mindset when making Hissing Fauna?
Barnes: When I look back on it now, I think that it all centered around having [my daughter] Alabee. Being married is one thing, that sort of connects you to the world on one level, but there are so many anxieties that come with being a father that I wasn’t prepared for. I was living in this fantasy world inside my head, in this sort of bubble, and having a child roots you to the earth on such a huge level. It really slaps you in the face, like, “I am mortal, I am not going to last forever, I am responsible for this little thing, I have to take care of her.” It puts you in this strange, fractured state of mind, especially when you’re so used to being self-centered and egotistical all the time. That was really difficult for me. Also, the scenario around her birth—we were in Norway and we didn’t have a place to live, didn’t have a house of our own. We were couch-surfing, which is so insane when I think about it now. Nina’s eight months pregnant and we’re couch-surfing in a foreign country. Even though Satanic Panic had done well, we didn’t really have any money to speak of. There was no way we could’ve had Alabee in the United States because it would’ve ruined us, we would’ve been so far in debt. But in Norway, they take care of their citizens—they actually give you money [when you’re having a child]. You don’t have to pay for anything; they give you money to help out. So we decided to do it over there. We took everything out of our house and put it in storage, and went to Norway—without a home, without a country, just floating around, waiting for this child to be born and freaking out. Sunlandic Twins was done but hadn’t come out yet, and I knew I was going to have to go on tour once the record was done. It was a really weird transitional period, and that transition was really difficult for me. It took me a long time to find my footing again after that. I think that was the cause of my depression, but also, a big part of it was being on tour and Nina has this two-month-old baby back in Athens, living in this little apartment. I’m on tour, which is like a party. I’m having fun and she’s got all the responsibility. I wanted to be there with her to help her, but this is my dream, this is what I’ve wanted to do forever and things are really evolving in a positive way: We’re playing bigger shows, selling more records. But, at the same time, Nina is at home and suffering, and there’s nothing I could really do about it. So I was torn. I couldn’t satisfy everyone and I couldn’t satisfy myself. Eventually, it came to a head, and that’s why we split up. It was like, “Well fuck this, I can’t do this anymore, it’s driving me insane. I’m not going to quit music, [and I’m] not going to stay home. I can’t do both, so you have to go away.” It was really fucking hard for her. It’s so like a man to be, “OK, you take the kid and go.” And [she] takes all the pain and responsibility, and it’s so like a woman to be able to handle it. I would’ve totally lost my mind, but she’s so strong. She’s a fantastic person. And for her not to hate me after that, I think proves how strong our bond is. I couldn’t think of being with another person, and I don’t think she can either, so she just forgave me and we got back together. All that happened while I was touring for Sunlandic Twins and writing and recording Hissing Fauna. “The Past is a Grotesque Animal” is about our breakup. And that was difficult once we got back together—here’s this record documenting our hard times but it’s only from my perspective. The world only knows my side of the story; they don’t know her side. I think for a while that was kind of hard for her too, me airing out our dirty laundry for the whole world to see. But then, she’s like me, she’s an artist as well, so it’s like, “I understand, that’s what it’s about, you’re an artist.” There are tons of examples of people going through these breakups or tough times and writing about it, and the other side has to deal with it being out there.

Paste: How was your mindset while working on Skeletal Lamping as opposed to the more turbulent times that led to Hissing Fauna?
Barnes: I’m slightly more stable now because I’ve been on anti-depressants for a couple years, and things are a little bit less insane—still insane, but less insane. I think I was in a happier state of mind because I don’t have to worry about money as much, and don’t have to worry about doing my part with Alabee because things have worked out, she’s in school and my mom’s there to help. I just focus on making music. In a way, it’s sort of established now too—it’s a silly thing, until you start making money with music, some people are always going to be like, “Don’t quit your day job.” When [playing music] becomes your primary source of income, people give you more respect and give you more space to do what you need to do. So I take advantage of that and spend as much time as possible working on music.

Paste: The word ‘whimsical’ has been used to describe Of Montreal. It’s even in one of the band’s album titles, and I’ve heard you use that word to describe the music before. What does that word mean to you, and do you think it’s still the best word to describe Of Montreal’s sound and approach?
Barnes: It’s definitely still a pretty good description of the band. When I think back on the earlier records, people would always say we were twee. At the time, I was super annoyed: “How can they say that, it’s not twee; it’s really emotionally heavy and blah blah blah.” But now when I look back, I’m like “Yeah, it is twee, it was twee, that shit was extremely twee.” At the time it really offended me, I didn’t really understand it, which is insane because it just shows how delusional a person can be. Obviously, now, things are a bit heavier emotionally but it’s funny how people have this perception of emotions like, things are light if they’re happy and dark if they’re sad. It’s not necessarily that cut-and-dry. It’s not like something has less value because it’s happy. But for a while I got into that state of mind: I don’t want to make super-happy music because it might seem like it has less legitimacy. [2002's] Aldhils Arboretum was actually the one record I was more influenced by the outside world. While I was writing that, I was trying to make something that seemed slightly more mature than the past records had been. I abandoned that with Satanic Panic and just did what I felt like doing. And now I’m still in that state of mind. [Aldhils] was just a brief departure into that world. It was also at a time when we had been a touring band for a long time, and we were trying to crack the code in a way: How can we do something that we still find creatively interesting, but that doesn’t make people disregard it as twee or preschool music, music for babies.

Paste: You’ve been making music under the name Of Montreal for almost a decade now. When you look back at all these different records and this body of work, how do you feel about it?
Barnes: I never listen to the old records, but I’m happy with them. I’m proud of them. I’m proud of the packaging and the personality of each one. I’m also really happy that each record has its own individuality, but it all works together. I kind of toyed around with the idea of changing the band name for Satanic Panic and closing that chapter and moving on. But I decided it’s cooler to have it all under the same heading. It’s interesting that it’s pretty diverse. When we first started getting [a lot more] people into the band around Satanic Panic and Sunlandic Twins, I knew they weren’t going to like Gay Parade or Coquelicot. It’s very unlikely they would listen to that and be like, “This is awesome.” I think in 20 years time, hopefully, I’ll still be putting out different kinds of records, and still developing as an artist and trying different things. Hopefully, Sunlandic Twins, Hissing Fauna and Skeletal Lamping will be just as foreign to what I’m doing 10 years from now as The Gay Parade is to what I’m doing right now.

Paste: When I was listening to the new record, I was thinking, “you could play a lot of this in a club.” But I bet [Coquelicot’s] “Good Morning Mr. Edmonton” would really clear a place out.
Barnes: Yeah, definitely.

Paste: The name Of Montreal came from a relationship you had with a girl from Montreal.
Barnes: Yeah.

Paste: How much do you still relate to that name? Or is it just something you picked and stuck with?
Barnes: At the time, it made sense, but it was very shortsighted of me to pick a name that was always going to be connected to this relationship I had. At the time, it was the most important thing in my life, but I should’ve known 10 years from that point it wouldn’t really have the same value. [But] I think just the fact that the impetus for calling the band Of Montreal was centered around a life experience—I think that’s still true. Everything I do is centered around my personal experiences. Each record is a time capsule for what I was going through at the time—what I was listening to, what kind of films I was watching, books I was reading, people who were in my life. So I think the name is still appropriate in a way, if you think of it in a broader sense than just a failed relationship.

Paste: Have you ever considering producing records?
Barnes: I’m actually doing my first production job in a couple weeks, with this French band. I’ve never really produced anybody before. I’m kind of excited, but also a bit nervous. I feel kind of like a charlatan even though I’ve self-produced and engineered all [the Of Montreal] records. I feel like I’m not really proficient enough to call myself a producer/engineer. At the same time, I guess I am, I am producing and I am engineering, and if people think it’s OK and they like it, then there’s no reason not to try it. I would really like to do it as long as I’m on the same wavelength with the person. I would want to collaborate with people and be creative in it, and not just sit there and say, “Oh, you want to record guitar now?” and then get up and move the microphone to the guitar. I definitely would want a more hands-on relationship with the band. But I think it would be a lot of fun.

Paste: I heard you were going to be in a new Joe Swanberg film. I guess it starts shooting in September?
Barnes: That has actually been postponed for a while. Originally, I was supposed to do this film with him and then he called me—“Hey, I want to do this other thing.” He’s been working with Noah Baumbach a lot, and he’s like, “We want to do this project that’ll be a bit different.” And then this production job came up with this French band, and I’d rather do that. But I’d definitely like to get into acting at some point, if it was a good role. I’d really like to do something where I could be really freaky, like a Crispin Glover thing.

2008-10-01 - Spin

Of Montreal: Welcome to Normal Town

With unlimited imagination and the resources to realize his weirdest whim, Of Montreal's gender- (and genre-) bending, secretly sane visionary is learning to have his cake and eat it, too.
By Andy Battaglia 09.22.08 1:55 PM
Photographed for SPIN by Michael Schmelling
Photographed for SPIN by Michael Schmelling

For an impish sprite with a wardrobe full of starry aqua ankle boots and fishnet tights, Kevin Barnes is surprisingly intense when it comes to volleyball. It's a numbing summer night in Athens, Georgia, and we're engaged in some serious business in Normaltown, the larky boho haven that Barnes calls home. His backyard is strewn with tangles of Christmas lights, and his friends -- the tight coterie of musicians, painters, and various weirdo visionaries who help make Of Montreal more than just a band -- have split into gamely warring factions. "I've seen him rip off his shirt in anger for losing," says Of Montreal drummer and multi-instrumentalist Jamey Huggins. Keyboardist Dottie Alexander describes playing against Barnes as "a real catharsis."

The attic in the house up front is where Barnes has worked on a series of increasingly ambitious art-rock masterpieces, including Of Montreal's ninth album, Skeletal Lamping. But it's out here, in the yard past the trampoline and a kiddie pool, where Barnes, 34, and his band function like a true unit. The group just treated itself to a new piece of equipment: a shiny pink volleyball to replace a leaky old one wrapped with what bassist Davey Pierce describes as "20 pounds of duct tape." (They tried.) The grass around the net is littered with melted Cherry Garcia cones and empty beer cans. By any sporting measure, the level of play is unmistakably low. But the spirit! Bodies lurch and dive feverishly. Absurdist trash-talk zings over the net like so many feeble slams: "We need to get you finger extensions!" "What would Jackie Joyner-Kersee do?"

On the Set with Of Montreal (video hosted on Spin's website)

Barnes himself is commanding but relatively quiet. Between points, he riffs on the allure of Aerosmith and tells of a dream in which a bandmate appeared before him with a disarmingly small penis and six swinging testicles. (That would be Ahmed Gallab, a newly enlisted supplemental drummer, not yet in town to be freaked out.) But the Kevin Barnes diving after wobbly shots with an incongruously focused look is a long way from the upstart star who preens onstage amid a mess of cuddly winged monsters.

Of Montreal's practice space is in a complex of repurposed warehouses between a chicken-processing plant and a cement factory, under a rusty water tower on which hobo is graffitied in a shaky hand. A trapeze studio and a bike shop do business among art spaces and rooms made noisy by dozens of bands. They rent two large rooms: one for music and another to build props and sets for their famously elaborate stage shows. The music room boasts a guitar amp draped in pink fur and a chandelier attached to a pulley, built on a whim to raise and lower for the lighting of wax candles.

The prop room nearby houses the fixtures that make Of Montreal come alive onstage. A wooden box swathed in brightly colored paint serves as a makeshift coffin from which Barnes can spring forth as a ghostly white blob, covered with the contents of 30 cans of shaving cream.


"Over here we're building leaf-blower guns," says Nick Gould, who started designing sets and props for Of Montreal as a recovering film-school student and dates keyboardist Alexander. Components of a dazzling stage set stack up high against a wall, with luminescent risers and a catwalk suspended in between. In concert they flash in stroboscopic patterns like something from Ziggy Stardust's yard sale. In storage they're just a bunch of plywood contraptions cobbled together and crammed with standard-issue 60-watt bulbs. "Your output is going to be exponentially more creative when you make it up as you go," says Gould.

Of Montreal's growing stature -- 2006's Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? sold an indie-respectable 108,000 copies worldwide -- owes a lot to the ad hoc spectacles they stage, with little budget but lots of ingenuity. When they performed "Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse" on Late Night With Conan O'Brien last year, Of Montreal had so many people doing so many different things on set -- sword fighting, stumbling around in a ten-foot space-god suit -- that union rules required them to be billed as a "performance group" rather than just a band.

Live Video: Of Montreal, "Mingusings"

Such shoestring theatricality has made them heroes to a new breed of like-minded bands. "Kevin is constantly pushing the boundaries of pop, which is inspirational to slackers like us," says Andrew VanWyngarden of MGMT. "He's making the Black Albums and Station to Stations of today."

This outsize ambition has been funded in part by a handful of commercial deals, including a jingle for a certain Australian-themed steak-house franchise that has been the source of much debate in indie circles. "It's all slightly embarrassing, a skeleton in the closet," Barnes says. "But we put a lot of money into the shows that we might not see again. If you want to make a living making music these days, you have to have other sources of income."

"We're always up for an incredulous moment," says guitarist Bryan Poole, who joined up with Barnes more than a decade ago. Back then, Barnes was a shy, awkward twentysomething from Florida with an ear for forgotten '60s pop and a belief that indie rock could be more than glum guys in plaid shirts. Poole remembers him confessing to not having any friends until he was ten or 11, so "he had to create his own world and all these things to entertain himself."

Barnes wasn't alone in Athens, though. When he first moved there, he shared a house with Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel and Will Hart and Bill Doss from Olivia Tremor Control -- each a prime mover in the experimental psychedelic confab known as the Elephant 6 Recording Company. "That was just about making music for yourself and your friends," Barnes remembers. "The scene didn't exist that we wanted, so we just had to make it."

2008-10-10 - Emusic

eMusic Q&A: Of Montreal's Kevin Barnes
by Michaelangelo Matos
Ten years ago, Kevin Barnes would have seemed like the least-likely-to-succeed satellite of the Athens, Georgia-based Elephant 6 troupe, a loose collective of bands and artists that became a mini-phenomenon among indie-rock fans in the mid-to-late-'90s. Barnes' group, Of Montreal, were maybe the most whimsical of the E6'ers; their early records, even ones as good as 1999's The Gay Parade, were more notable for what they weren't (meaning, actually from the '60s) as for what they were (modern recordings that pined for the '60s).

Then, shortly after 2002's Aldhils Arboretum, Of Montreal fell apart. Barnes, newly married, moved out of the house shared by most of the band, and the group's power dynamic shifted. Later that same year, Barnes recorded Satanic Panic in the Attic alone, and regrouped the band. By 2005, Barnes had re-conceived Of Montreal as something just as knotty and psychedelic as before, but with wider spaces and deeper grooves. That approach has resulted in three albums that tower over the band's earlier work: 2005's The Sunlandic Twins, featuring the irresistible disco workout "Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games" ("Let's pretend we don't exist/Let's pretend we're in Antarctica," goes the chorus); 2007's Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?, No. 8 in the eMusic user poll of 2007's Top 10 albums; and now the new Skeletal Lamping.

Skeletal Lamping is denser than the two albums preceding it, thanks to tunes and arrangements that jump all over the place stylistically a la the Fiery Furnaces, and looser, thanks to lyrics that both acknowledge and make fun of therapy-speak, as on "Id Engager": "Ladies, I'm screaming out to you from the depths of this phallocentric tyranny/My self-conceptions awaiting your invasion clumsy penetration punishment/When the hope of another wet nightmare is all we have to live for." Say that ten times fast.

eMusic spoke with Barnes over the phone from his home in Athens.

What would you say the primary difference is between Skeletal Lamping and Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? in terms of the way you made them? Did you work differently?
Not really. I guess maybe the way I've arranged the songs is a little different. I experimented with that on Hissing Fauna, and it's something I'd done more on older albums like [2001's] Coquelicot Asleep in the Poppies and [1999's] The Gay Parade. But basically [on Skeletal Lamping] I'm creating fragmented songs out of separate sections that I just piece together. Some feel more random than others. Basically, I recorded everything myself in a home studio for both [Skeletal and Hissing], so the similarities are there in that aspect.

Was that something you went in knowing you wanted to do in advance?
I think I was naturally compelled to do that now — it was a more interesting way to write. I just wanted to have fun. Sometimes when you're trying to craft the perfect pop song or whatever, it can be a bit tedious: "I've got the music for the verse and chorus, and now I have to come up with the music for the second verse." I find it more interesting to just work with an idea until it becomes boring and then move onto something else, not force [myself] to make it kind of linear. It definitely works better with my attention span to constantly change things and not try to make things have a continuity, to just evolve in an abstract way.

When you put the album together, was everything in pieces waiting to be put in order, or did you have an idea for a sequence laid out beforehand?
I didn't really think about making a record very much, more so just thinking about making a one-and-a-half-minute piece of music. And then if I made another piece of music, I'd say, "Is it interesting together?" If not, I'd make another piece of music and see if it worked. I had about two hours' worth of these fragments — I didn't think about them as fragments, just as little pieces. It was fun to see what worked, to see what was interesting. I couldn't really lose; they were all different from each other. I wasn't trying to create something fragmented, just [something] that flowed and was consistently interesting.

Is there an element to Of Montreal, either musically or in concert, that you think is obvious but no one else seems to have caught onto?
I can't say that's ever really crossed my mind [laughs]. We don't have an agenda; we're just trying to do something that's artistically satisfying. We don't really think whether people like or want it; we do what we feel compelled to do. We're not checking bloggers or whatever.

On "An Eluardian Instance," you sing about "Koster Island" and then about climbing "upon the rocky shore and freak[ing] out to the Mountain Goats." Are you referring to Julian Koster and John Darnielle here?
I'm friends with them, but no: Koster Island is a place in Sweden, and it was the last place my wife and I were before out daughter was born.

How old is your daughter?
She's three.

How does she respond to your music? Is she an Of Montreal fan?
She likes it. I don't really listen to my music, so I don't really play it for her that often. But she does seem to respond to it. It's kind of funny, she's singing, "We can do softcore if you want" [from Skeletal Lamping's "For Our Elegant Caste"] — we don't try to hide any of that stuff from her. I couldn't care less about whether she says the word "fuck." It's kind of a Lenny Bruce thing [laughs]. We're not militant about it — she can say what she wants to say.

Athens is a college town, and you've written about academia a little — particularly on the song "Art Snob Solutions." Let's say Of Montreal dries up tomorrow and you went back to school. What would you major in?

I've never really responded to the world of academia for some reason. I sort of had this romantic view of intellectualism, and I've definitely tried on my own to broaden my mind and expose myself to different philosophies and things like that. I don't think I would ever go back to school. I dropped out of community college after three days; I never went beyond high school.

Who controls the tour-bus iPod?
[Laughs] We don't really have one. There is a communal area where people hang out afterwards, but we're into the same things. There are maybe some guilty pleasures that some of us might have.

What do you typically listen to while on tour?
Prince, David Bowie, the Rolling Stones — music that's more high energy, playful, and frisky. A lot of Sly & the Family Stone — mostly stuff from the '70s. We're all into Fela Kuti and Afrobeat and things like that — we'll put that stuff on, and the tried and true stuff we've grown up listening to.

Did any particular incident or situation inspire "Id Engager"? It's obviously an idea-driven lyric but it sounds like it could have come from a real-life situation.
With every song I've ever written, it's a mystery to me as well. Once it's written, in that spirit, I sort of lose the thread of what the inspiration was. I'm sure it had its root in something personal, but now I can't even recall it. Something to do with this concept of players — it's a bit weird, because the chorus is about, "I just wanna play with you, I just wanna have fun," and the verses are sort of condemning that. But it is what it is. It's hard for me: I'm not thinking about motivation or understanding why. I don't second-guess it; I just let it happen in an organic way. I'm moving on; I'm thinking about what I want to do next. I feel divorced from the songs in that way.

Maybe that's one reason why the lyrics on Skeletal Lamping generally feel even less inhibited than those of earlier Of Montreal albums. Some of them seem almost therapeutic.
I really felt this freedom to take chances and go somewhere that would have been more insecure in the past, and let it all out there. Part of that is the soul influence, the freedom that people Sly and Prince had. People that are basically — I don't even know if this is a term, but "freak-funk." It's intellectual but it hits you on a visceral level as well. One of my favorite contemporary artists is Erykah Badu: she embodies that spirit for me: soulful and playful and organic, but she can also turn and go really serious and introspective.

2007-04-18 - Creative Loafing

Of Athens
Published 04.18.07
By Cooper Levey-Baker



Rennie Solis
YOUR NORMAL, AVERAGE, EVERYDAY INDIE ROCK BAND: Kevin Barnes (standing, middle) and band mates Matt Dawson(left to right), Dottie Alexander, Jamey Huggins and Bryan Poole
INFO

of Montreal

Sarasota Film Festival Independent Visions, 8 p.m. Thurs., April 19, Minxx Nightclub, 7111 S. Tamiami Trail, Sarasota, 923-6200. $20.

The website for the loose indie rock collective known as Elephant 6 features a bewilderingly dense, overlapping network of bands and individuals from Athens, Ga. Twenty-five groups are listed as full-fledged members of the scene; 14 others are dubbed "The Extended Family." Entries on the history of each band are chock full of hyperlinks to bios of transient band members and brief collaborative projects.

Trying to make sense of who recorded what with whom in Athens over the past 15 years quickly makes you dizzy.

For of Montreal bassist Bryan Poole, though, the Elephant 6 thing is notably less complex. The scene "was just a group of friends getting together making music," he says on the phone from Athens during a tour break. "[It] just kind of had a name." Poole had grown up in Columbia, S.C., and was lured to the college town by word-of-mouth buzz about its first-rate music scene, still hoppin' a decade after luminaries like R.E.M. and The B-52's lit it up.

"Back then the Athens scene was more like math rock," Poole remembers. "It wasn't quite the Seattle grunge thing, but it was really heavy." Things were "heavy" in most underground rock spots around the country during the early '90s, with bands offering up variations on the post-punk blueprint but always keeping the noise and the chaos right up front.

Elephant 6ers, though, had a jones for something a little different.

"The Elephant 6 thing was a dollop of psychedelic sunshine," says Poole. That meant flourishes like brass sections and keyboards, and hooks -- loads and loads of hooks. Scenesters that normally regarded musicianship as more of a handicap than an asset weren't quite sure what to make of the new breed. For Poole, though, the period was magical: "Back in the day, it was a utopian collective feeling."

Poole began playing in various incarnations of the band Elf Power, led by friend Andrew Rieger, and joined of Montreal's inaugural lineup, put together by chief songwriter Kevin Barnes, circa 1997. While of Montreal is generally regarded as little more than a pseudonym for Barnes' solo work, Poole -- except for a brief stretch when he left the band because playing in two groups "just got too hectic" -- has been there for the entire run.

"I've been his foil behind the curtain, behind the terry cloth or something," Poole says. "We've been friends for a long time."

Although the Elephant 6 scene started producing some nationally recognized acts (The Apples in Stereo, The Olivia Tremor Control) and even one indisputably classic disc (Neutral Milk Hotel's 1998 burner In the Aeroplane Over the Sea), of Montreal still languished on the Athens B-list.

But while of Montreal toiled in small venues, the Elephant 6 sound started conquering indie rock clubs across the country.

Today, you can hear the bands everywhere. The Shins -- early Athens fans -- took the town's '60s pop obsession all the way to the no. 2 spot on the Billboard charts this past January. The Decemberists performed a similar feat last fall. Even the relentlessly serious art rock of The Arcade Fire owes something to the expanded sonic palette the Elephant 6 groups gave to the underground.

Indie kids today -- for better or worse -- would much rather be pop than Iggy.

Poole doesn't sign on to my theory, calling the game of Who Influenced Who "a big puzzle." He was flattered and honored, though, when The Shins played Athens before they were big and specifically invited the town's indie elite to the show.

The new zeitgeist helped of Montreal generate more and more buzz over its past few albums (2004's Satanic Panic in the Attic and 2005's The Sunlandic Twins), but no praise had ever matched the acclaim that greeted the release of Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? early this year. Tastemakers at Pitchfork gave it a rep-confirming 8.7.

And the disc is superb. "Suffer for Fashion" kicks it all off, with programmed beats, buzzing synths and Barnes' funky upper-register vocal hysterics. "Cato as a Pun" accentuates a not-quite-hip-hop beat with an assortment of odd sound effects and electric guitar squiggles. "Labyrinthian Pop" references the sexed-up funk Beck brought on Midnite Vultures.

The melodies are so bright, I forget pretty quickly that the songs originated in the heartbreak and confusion of a tenuous marriage and an unexpected child.

Before Barnes' wife Nina gave birth to the couple's now-2-year-old daughter Alabee, Barnes poured all the worry and self-doubt of impending fatherhood into some of the songs that would eventually populate Fauna.

Nina, who played bass in the band, was now saddled by motherhood and couldn't tour with her husband. "We're like, 'Wow, we're doing better than ever! We're selling out shows!' but Nina's at home," Poole remembers. "You know, the typical calling home, 'We sold out so-and-so!' and, 'Well. Great.'" After the conclusion of that jaunt, Barnes struggled. "All these things came to a head," Poole says. "And Kevin had a psychosis. He didn't want to leave his house. We came home from tour and he didn't leave his room."

Poole had to begin conducting band rehearsals sans Barnes and the entire group had serious doubts about whether of Montreal would continue. Barnes was eventually coaxed out for a second tour, only to have Nina and Alabee move to Oslo, Norway, while he was on the road. "The pinnacle of the record, 'The Past Is a Grotesque Animal,' he wrote that one after Nina had left him, and he's just alone and spewed it all out," says Poole.

The couple eventually reconciled, but despite Fauna's critical triumph, touring has still proven tough on Barnes and his wife. When I ask Poole if they're bearing up better than before, he answers with a curt "nope," although he notes that now that Alabee's no longer a newborn, she can accompany the band for one-week stretches, helping the mindset of all involved.

of Montreal follows up its Sarasota Film Festival date with a long string of European shows, and then it's on to more recording or gigging later this year. Barnes -- ever prolific -- has already scripted a new set of tunes. And while times seem better for the singer, Poole assures me that the fresh material is "definitely showing a bit of the psychosis in there as well."

Based on Fauna, I wouldn't want it any other way.

2006-04-07 - Athens Exchange

Of Montreal on Home, Fame and Bank Accounts

by The Bridge
04/07/2006

Small Town

It's Athens in the wintertime. As I'm walking home from work, a car drives by slowly, with the windows down, tunes loud, playing a song by my co-worker's band. It's Athens, it happens a lot. It's a pretty good song; I step to the beat. Oslo in the summertime/Nobody can get to sleep...

It's Of Montreal, a band born of the Elephant 6 collective who outlived and outgrew their kid brother status in said collective. You might (if you were prone to tedious, drawn-out analogies) want to think of Olivia Tremor Control as the overbearing mother of the group; Neutral Milk Hotel as the absentee father; and Elf Power the surprisingly well-adjusted older son. Of Montreal were, in the early days, a smaller caliber affair, drawing modest numbers for their shows and releasing albums to mixed reviews and less than spectacular sales. They had staying power, however, sticking it out for over a decade and counting. The last four or five years have been a mite snow-ballish for the group. Satanic Panic in the Attic, their second to last full-length, went to number two on the college radio charts in Billboard magazine. The follow-up album, last year's The Sunlandic Twins, is their current label Polyvinyl's biggest seller to date.

I'm not entirely sure where the band was, saleswise or famewise, when I met Dottie Alexander, current keyboardist for Of Montreal and former bartender at a joint called the Globe in Athens, Georgia. I know that they were popular enough to have acquired a disease common to all notable public personas, a disease which manifests itself mainly in the way that we, the common folk, interact with its victims. People like Michael Stipe, who is in the terminal phase of the disease, will encounter the same kind of whispering and eye aversion and/or unabashed staring (it's the same sentiment, whether you're looking too hard or not looking at all) usually reserved for the severely deformed. Having lunch with a friend at the Globe one day, not long before I got a job there myself, I noticed that Alexander was early stage symptomatic.

My friend, a vinyl collecting geek, was talking about independent record labels. I was listening half-heartedly. "And her band is on that label, too," he said, dropping his voice to a mutter on the word "her." I followed his gaze to the girl behind the bar, the girl from Of Montreal. "They're pretty popular." he added, still in a conspiratory undertone. She glanced in our direction as she walked by, and I hurriedly changed the subject, hoping she hadn't heard us talking about her. Fame makes me nervous. It's part of the disease. Their disease.

Ordinary Joe

So, to make a long story short ("TOO LATE!", cries the peanut gallery), I eventually met Dottie, we worked a shitty bar job together, and I forgot about her disease for a while. It was easy to do when she was doing Ordinary Joe stuff with me: cleaning toilets at the bar, bitching about our boss, paying parking tickets. By the time I saw her perform with her band, I had forgotten that anyone else had even heard of them. But they had, in large numbers, and ignoring it became increasingly difficult. Flipping through magazines at a newsstand, I'd come across my friend posing with her band in Mojo magazine, with a pithy little bio. On a trip to Gainesville, GA, the pharmacist in a grocery store drilled me with questions about the Of Montreal hoodie I was wearing - where did I get it, did I see the last show, when were they coming back. And finally, there is this intersection. Athens Exchange wants to send someone to interview them. I mention it to Dottie on her last visit to town. "Oh, why don't you do it?" she says. Sure, why don't I do it? Makes perfect sense. I know Dottie, I can get her to set it up, why not?

For future reference: because it's fucking weird.

Big Band

On the day of our interview, the band is, by and large, hung over. It is the day after their homecoming show at the 40 Watt, so I'm amazed that Dottie was able to persuade them to come at all. Everyone shows except for bassist Matt Dawson. Guitarist Brian Poole and drummer James Huggins are stubble-faced and wearing shades. Dottie looks happy but subdued, dressed in simple black, none of her usual multi-colored tights or screaming orange scarves. Lead singer Kevin Barnes does not look hung over, but he's a queer one, perpetually shiny-eyed, almost always decked out in something a bit beyond jeans and a t-shirt. Today he's wearing a pastel suit and a white-brimmed newsboy cap with slender blue and white striping that looks like something a train conductor in a Richard Scarry picture book would wear.

The band saunters raggedly in to the "quiet room" at Hot Corner Coffee, where the photographer and I have been discussing seating arrangements. As the others are getting coffee, Huggins strolls around the room, checking out the local artwork. He spots the photographer's laptop, set up by my tape recorder. "Is this yours?" he asks. I tell him whose it is.

"Photographer? You're not taking pictures of us." Shit. "Oh, no... You could have done that last night, when we looked cool..." We did take pictures last night, but that was for a review of the show, and this is for the interview. I try to explain, but Huggins is now a resolute non-participant. "I mean, maybe I speak for myself here... I bet I speak for some of the others..." He shakes his head and wanders out of the room. Five minutes later, Dottie returns from the coffee counter with an iced concoction and a rueful look. "Well, you pissed Jamey off," she grins. I start to freak out, quietly. "Don't worry, it's just Jamey. He's like that to everyone," she grins again and rolls her eyes.

Dottie and Jamey

They argue like a married couple. "We practically are one," I have heard her say, more than once. Both have significant others - it's a platonic love, certainly. But a looooong one. The two joined Of Montreal in '98 "as a package deal," Dottie says. At the time they were playing together in a drums-and-keys two piece called Lightning Bug vs. Firefly. Flashback to over a year ago, when the two came into the Globe while I was working. They sat at my table and ordered lunch. After Jamey placed his order (a sandwich), Dottie told me how to make it (hold the mushrooms, I think. Or maybe it was onions). "You're right, I don't want mushrooms (or onions or whatever)," Jamey said. "How did you know that?"

"Please. I've been listening to your picky orders long enough to know-"

And they bickered for a bit, cute as codgers. They do that a lot. "Jamey," Dottie once said, drunk, after a pissy phone conversation, "Is my cross to bear."

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know. Nothing. Jamey's great."

One night, closing the bar by ourselves, Dottie and I were required to call a male in to sit with us through closing. Our boss felt uncomfortable leaving two girls alone at night with all that money. So Dottie called skinny, foppish Jamey Huggins, who sat at the bar, drank overpriced beer, and insisted that everyone dance with him when we were supposed to be restocking, because he liked the song that was playing. He told us the entire history of Os Mutantes (which Dottie already knew). He was in a good mood that night. Jamey Huggins in a good mood is like a child at his birthday.

Dottie and Jamey are oddly twinned. Both have a high play instinct, both are very bright, and neither one has much patience for a party spoiler. Unless they are in a very bad mood, in which case the party is over.

Where Your Heart Is

Eventually, Brian Poole and Kevin Barnes return to the quiet room and arrange themselves on the couch with Dottie, and we begin the interview, while Huggins meanders about the room, uninvolved. The interview takes thirty, forty minutes, but it feels like an eternity. All of the effort I have made trying to forget that my friend is a rock star is being undermined, swiftly, by my very own deliberate actions. I have made her an adversary: she sits on one side, me on the other. Already, Huggins has fired a decisive shot, wounding my ego. My heart's in my throat. I feel like a jackass. "Do you feel weird coming back to Athens?" I ask, mostly because I feel weird. No, not really, is the group consensus. I've never interviewed a whole band before, and I'm getting flustered. One pissed off drummer and a simple "not really" are bad ways, I feel, to begin an interview. I reword the question, trying to get a more interesting response. "The wedding show," Barnes offers, finally. "That was pretty weird." "What wedding show?" Dottie asks. "THE wedding show..." "Oh, that one," says Poole, as he and Barnes lock eyes in an odd, intense stare. "The wedding show?" I prompt, hopeful. Barnes nods and mutters something, softly, about a show with the Psychic Hearts and the Modern Skirts. "That was probably the most different, definitely."

Great! That's something. "Different good, or bad?" I ask.

"Just different. Definitely." I try to get more about the wedding show, to no avail. In response to my next (admittedly dorky-sounding) question about whether Athens is still where the various members' hearts are, Barnes points out that "Leonard Cohen said, never go home with a hard on."

Okay, let's run with that. "Don't you have to do it anyway?"

"Oh, yeah. You know, he's just... Canadian, and shit." Barnes makes a small gesture dismissing Canadians.

A week later, in response to a rather panicky, help-me-write-it email to Dottie, she fills me in on the wedding show: "The wedding show was bullshit. We made it up. Having you on."

Dumb Interview

This is not the dumbest inerview that Of Montreal has ever endured. That honor, I believe, would go to the girl from an MTV2 contest who interviewed them in a record store. "She was deathly afraid of ketchup," Dottie said. The band, bored and bewildered, made up a bunch of ridiculous stories in response to her queries. Among them: Brian Poole's love of Ukranian mime. So I suppose a fib about a wedding show, with scant elaboration, isn't too bad. There's also the sex cult, which I kind of figured wasn't true. It's what I got for saying, "So, the band name...?"

"Boo!" (Times three.) "You're not going there." "Hissss..." "We get asked that. Every. Single. Time."

"But, I've read the story, where it came from, and I just-"

"Which one?" asks Poole.

"Oh-the one about the girl that Kevin dated, and she-"

"Enslaved me-" giggles Dottie.

"Into her sex cult," Barnes says.

"Don't you worry about how that information will affect your parental, family-oriented fans?"

"Yeah," says Dottie, "but we're finally ready to leak it."

"I've been leaking for a long time," Barnes adds brightly. "That's why we have to do so many costume changes."

"How do you feel about your expanding fan base?" Now I'm hoping to hear them bitch about frat boys and 99x listeners. "I mean, do you ever look out at these big crowds and see a bunch of people that you don't really believe..."

"Exist?" Barnes suggests, helpfully.

"I mean-that they really like Of Montreal," I finish, lamely. It has just occurred to me that it might be rude to suggest that the people coming to their shows don't actually care about the band. But no one seems to notice, or care.

"No. God bless them all." Barnes says, firmly and sincerely. Dottie and Poole nod and murmur in agreement. "How the audience reacts makes all the difference," Dottie adds. "It's a symbiotic relationship. Generally, the newer crowds have been younger and more into it, and it's a party. It's kind of what we wanted, to play and dance and enjoy, and then go home and get laid."

Like Children Playing

It is a party, watching them play, Of Montreal are a band that I can imagine six year olds loving, and I mean that as high praise. Their shows are a study in fun, pure, sincere, fun, with props and singalongs. There are costumes: wonderfully kitschy leisure suits, lots of body glitter, sometimes Dottie wears a wreath of blinking lights in her hair, usually Kevin Barnes takes his shirt off. At the last Athens show, Matt Dawson wore what looked like a oversized Russian cossack-style hat for the duration of the set, which had to be uncomfortable under the stage lights.

Dawson, by the way, is a bespectacled, cherub-cheeked guy who probably cringes every time someone refers to him as being "elfin." It was through him that I first heard of Fela Kuti, one of his musical heros. When he was couch crashing at Dottie's house, he whipped out a DVD on the man and begin to wax worshipful about him. "Thriteen wives, and he got them all to marry him at the same time," he sighed, "You gotta respect that.

Later, chatting about his role in the band, he remarked that being in Of Montreal is a little like being in a school play. "Because it's Kevin's show, Kevin's songs. You just learn your lines and play your part, you know?"

I like that, because it evokes a sense of childhood. Barnes' control of what Of Montreal puts forth feels like the bossiest kid on the block-the one who tells the best ghost stories - getting everyone to dress up and play make believe with him. There are bizarre improvs in most Of Montreal shows - pantomimes with strobe lights, strange chanting, occasional props. During these moments, they look less like rock stars and more like the goofy hipster kids that you see at parties in college towns, fucking around, making a joke of everything.

Oprah

"Those are the most enjoyable parts of the show," Brian Poole says of the improvisations. His bandmates agree. "We did one hundred and thirty shows last year, and we played some of those songs every night. So it kind of keeps things interesting."

"It's really more for us than for them," says Dottie.

"When we play "Exquisite Corpse" - I'm not sure anyone really likes us playing it." Dottie and Barnes snicker in agreement. "But we have fun."

"You do most of the lyrics, Kevin - is that right?"

"All." "He does 'em all." His bandmates answer for him.

"I put the words in." Barnes whispers in a gentle parody of modesty.

"Is it important to you that the others 'get' everything you're saying, that they understand the words?"

"No, not at all," he replies, very quickly. "I'd be shocked if they knew any of the words."

"It's funny," Poole says, "I sing backup on almost every song. If you asked me to quote a line, I probably wouldn't be able to do it. Sometimes when I'm singing, I'll think, what the hell am I saying..."

"Sometimes I've felt really bad," Dottie interjects. "when I figure something out - like, oh, is that what you were talking about? Oookay."

Barnes nods. "At this point, I've played them so many songs, I don't expect them to pay attention anymore."

I consult my notes on the lyrics. Lots of literary references, this guy. Orwell, Keats, Greek mythology - "Were you an English major?"

"No, I'm a pseudo-intellectual. I don't know, I just have an interest in it. I never really went to school."

"Of Montreal is a very literary band," I observe.

"We're all members of the Oprah Winfrey book club," he explains, "and that helps us stay in touch with contemporary literature."

Elephant 6

"It was like a family. It really was. And everyone was really excited about what was happening - and those days can't last forever," Brian Poole acknowledges. "We're all still friends, of course, but you go to do your own thing eventually. There's not that concentration now, that high feeling, like there's some utopian music vision that's happening all over... but it still exists. We played with Robert Schneider, from the Apples [Apples in Stereo] for a couple of shows, recently, and a bunch of guys and girls [from Elephant 6] came out for the show last night. I try to play with everyone from that that I can, but, you know - the Orange Twin kids [a label started by many for the Elephant 6 members], they have their own stuff going on."

"Did you guys ever consider being on Orange Twin?"

"Brian is on it," Dottie says, referring to Poole's solo work as the Late B.P. Helium.

"Yeah, and they're cool," he says. "But Polyvinyl, it's just the best thing that ever happened to Of Montreal. I mean, Kindercore [a now defunct Athens indie label] tried, but... Polyvinyl just really has their shit together."

"So, who handles the financial decisions, contracts and whatnot - who's your manager?"

"Brian." Dottie laughs. "Most of that stuff is unfairly deferred to Brian. Not that you don't do a great job," she assures him. "But you have too much work."

"You need a tour manager, then?"

"We need Flam Dikton," says Barnes.

"We're short listed for Flam Dikton," Dottie sighs.

"He came to all five shows at South by Southwest," Barnes points out.

Flam Dikton, apparently, is an old-hand manager who has worked with some big names and is, according to the band, the shit. The currently unobtainable shit. These kids ain't dumb. They know the stakes are rising, and they don't want to make any missteps that they'll be kicking themselves for later. Poole, who gives off the most grounded air of the bunch, is clearly concerned about not letting the business tedium overtake the joy of making music. "I read this thing about Arcade Fire last year when they were blowing up. Someone asked the front guy how everything was going, and he was like, 'Oh, it's been terrible. I'm busy opening bank accounts. I haven't had time for anything else.' Of course it sounds like, oh, you poor baby, you have all this money to deal with."

Dottie chuckles. "I remember being outraged by that."

"What he was saying is basically, he's having to deal with all this stuff that has nothing to do with the music. That's how you get the history of musicians rushing to sign bad contracts, or doing something stupid, and then later saying, shouldn't we be getting paid for this? And someone says, well, no, you signed it away."

A While Ago

At the Go Bar, many months ago, I sat with Dottie and her roommate, Elyse, and we talked about their plans to move to Santa Cruz. While we were talking, I noticed Michael Stipe lounging on the couch near the DJ's table. He had on sunglasses and his usual hangdog expression, and he needed a shave. As the girls talked, I stared at him, feeling oddly disturbed by his presence, and guilty for feeling disturbed. The guy can't help it that he's famous; it isn't his fault, I told myself. What difference does it make anyway?

But I couldn't help it. I didn't like him being there, in that tiny little bar. I didn't like the largeness of him. The simple fact of what he did for a living erected a wall around him, and it made me feel cagey. Of course, it is possible he doesn't like it either.

Not too long after that, I went to see Of Montreal play a show at the 40 Watt. "I have this whole other persona onstage," Dottie admitted once. "You'll probably call me out on it."

She did. Or maybe she didn't, maybe the simple fact of being onstage erected a wall around her that altered her by itself. She looked too large. Too lit up. Too doll-like, like anyone might pick her up and pose her to suit themselves.

Bye Now

I end the interview somewhat awkwardly, and the kids start to gather their stuff. I say goodbye to my friend with no hug, which is all right. I'm not a big hugger. She is, though. I'm afraid I've altered our relationship irrevocably. I've gone and made her big.

A week later, I leave Dottie a voicemail worrying about all of this, and complaining that I'll never finish this piece. She calls me back and tells me I'm crazy and paranoid. Mildly relieved, I send her an email with one of the many questions I had wanted to ask and forgotten: Don't you think it's weird that I'm interviewing you, by virtue of what you do, and not, say, a brain surgeon or a math teacher?

Her response: "Brain surgeons are boring." That, and people dig musicians because it's something they can imagine themselves doing, and therefore relate to.

I don't think I can imagine myself doing what these guys do. It seems wonderful and impressive and lonely and awful. I'm horrified at the thought of them signing a bad deal and getting screwed by some megalabel and tossed aside after their fifteen minutes. I'm equally horrified that they'll become mondo-famous and my friend will be like Stipe-a rock star in a tower, unreachable. Let's wish these guys luck. Let's hold out hope that, ten years from now, they'll still act like six-year-olds onstage.

2004-04-28 - Glorious Noise

Of Montreal: Changing Your Month

By Ryan King
April 28, 2004

Of Montreal - There's no future in that.

Fueled by love, frosted with joyous psychedelia, and infused with subtle percussive polyrhythms, Satanic Panic in the Attic has already been getting word of mouth buzz as one of the best records of the year. Now, fanning the flames of fame as a flamboyantly flexible sextet extended by blends of friends, Of Montreal proudly un-frowns wowed crowds with stridently styled guile. Surreally appealing, with skits that are scene stealing, the band deals a meal of real rock and roll with more than a feeling. Why did they wish again to come to Michigan? Climbing the ladder and connecting the dots, Of Montreal’s Kevin Barnes surveys the scene, selflessly soliloquizes on the folly of bucolic solitude, and takes pains to explain why he would like to write music that changes your month.

GLONO: I discovered you guys about 5 years ago. A friend of mine in Kalamazoo, would you like to see a picture of him?
Kevin Barnes: Hello, friend! Peering through the bushes...

GLONO: He's like 6'4", 200 pounds, he has like found art all over his walls, lots of things he made himself, Polaroids everywhere...
KB: He lives in Athens?

GLONO: Now he does, yeah.
KB: I think I recognize him.

GLONO: Oh, yeah? You've seen some of his Polaroids?
KB: Maybe, I think so, yeah.

GLONO: He introduced me to the music... I show up at his place one day, and he turns it up full blast. The song was "Fun Loving Nun." And he was like, "You gotta dance to this!" And he just starts losin' it and flying around the room, back and forth, you had to join him, you know?
KB: (laughter) Or get knocked over...

GLONO: So what kind of responses have you got from fans, in person, or in the mail?
KB: Well, so far, we've had a lot of great response. We haven't sold, like, tons of records, but it seems like people who buy our records are really moved by it, really into it. So that's more important than the numbers. It's more important for people to be touched by your music than for you to make tons of money off it. So, so far, we've been happy with the response we've gotten.

GLONO: Do you ever get any people who are really into the fantasy worlds that you create in your records? Is there an Of Montreal cult?
KB: There's not a cult, but there was this one girl we met who said she was going to name her daughter Nickee Coco, which is one of our song titles, one of the characters I created [from The Gay Parade]. So that was amazing to hear.

GLONO: What kind of response have you gotten from the crowds at the recent shows?
KB: It's been amazing. This has been one of the best tours we've ever done. I think because we're combining skits along with the music, so it's not just traditional rock and roll performance, that people are accustomed to seeing. Plus I think people expect something slightly different from us because we've always tried to do something... a little bit unpredictable. We have a couple costume changes, some strange skits, people are jumping around, changing instruments and stuff. A lot of movement on stage.

GLONO: In Kalamazoo, I saw a really big guy with a red Mohawk doing a tango with another kid.
KB: Yeah, yeah. I saw that. That was great.

GLONO: You guys do trade instruments... almost for each song! What drives the stage arrangements?
KB: Everyone is really talented, everyone can play a bunch of different instruments. And I think it's just, if for no better reason, because it keeps it interesting for us, you know? Well, I don't really change instruments that much. I play piano on one song, but everybody else, it's just kind of cool to feel like you're moving around a little bit, get a little exercise. But also, it's like trying to work out, because the songs are created in the studio, so when we try to figure out how to do them live, it's like, okay, I can't play my part because I'm playing the clarinet, so they go, okay, I can put on my guitar for five seconds and pick up the accordion or pick up the tambourine or whatever. So everyone has to pick things up, drop things, pick up another thing, just to pull off the recorded sounds live.

GLONO: You look like you're having a lot of fun playing the new material. What songs are you really getting into playing?
KB: I love playing "Vegan in Furs," just 'cause I get to do a rippin' guitar solo. (laughter)

GLONO: Have you ever added any other forms of multimedia to the performance?
KB: Yeah, we've had video before. My brother went on tour with us and he shot a bunch of short films that went along with the music. That was really cool. So many people do it, but it's kind of tricky, it's hard to take it to the next level, because we have such a limited budget, it's always shoestring.

GLONO: Yeah... quality, not quantity, of records sold.
KB: Yeah, so for us to do something like that, we'd want it to be really special, and not just do it kind of half-assed, just like footage behind us or something.

GLONO: How many tours is this for you?
KB: I don't know! Many.

GLONO: What is your favorite place to go and play, so far?
KB: In the states?

GLONO: If you want to say Europe or Japan...
KB: Japan was by far, just because it's such an extraordinary experience, culturally, on so many levels. I definitely would say Tokyo is the highlight of my "rock career," if you could call it that.

GLONO: What did you go out and do and see in Tokyo?
KB: We didn't really go out and do and see that much, but just being there, wandering around, going out to dinner... we spent some time in Osaka and Kyoto as well. We got to go to the Osaka Castle, got to wander around Kyoto, and it was great because then we had more of a sense of the country, it wasn't just like coming into a gigantic metropolis, staying there for a couple of days, and then leaving. We got to see the countryside, bullet trains, and all sorts of things.

GLONO: You had a sense of the community there, and how it operates?
KB: Well, not a great sense, but some sense. (laughter)

GLONO: The new record, Satanic Panic in the Attic. The rumor went around that the last record, Aldhils Arboretum, was going to be the accessible record. This is the accessible record!
KB: Well, the last record... for me, I felt like the last record was a bit of a disappointment. Like, I don't really feel like we were pushing ourselves, creatively. And I guess that was the point, to try to make a record that was closer to a live band. It's okay, it has its own place.

GLONO: At the time, you said it would really translate well live. So that was the idea, to record it live?
KB: Yeah. Everyone had worked their parts out already, and we had the arrangements, the orchestrations, all before going into the studio, which we had never done before. And we recorded it like a rock record, without any sort of whimsical elements added. In that way, it's not one of my favorites. I like Coquelicot and The Gay Parade, and the new record a lot more. I think with this new record, I was trying to have that element, that fun element that was kind of lacking a little bit on the last record.

GLONO: You talked with the band and you all decided that you would record the new album mostly by yourself?
KB: Well, I didn't really talk to them. I just kind of started doing it. We used to live in a house together out in the country and we moved out of that house, because I got married in July. My wife and I moved into a new place in Athens, and so I just set up my studio in one of the extra bedrooms and I had so much energy, like so much creative energy that I just wanted to knock it out, and just have fun. Everyone else was going through these different phases in their life, like Jamie was living in New York for a long time, and Dottie started this new full-time job and she was working a lot with that, and Andy went back to school, and Derek had been focusing a lot of time in this other band, Circulatory System.

GLONO: I heard he's doing that full-time now.
KB: Yeah. So there was kind of a shift in all of our lives. But I didn't want the music to stop, so I wanted to just be, "Don't stop the music!" I had to keep rockin'. So I just made it. Because also, I really wanted to make a record on my own like that. Just because it's really fun to do it that way. You can just get lost in your headphones, and there's no one to confuse your vision in a way. Not to say that the band members confuse my vision, because they didn't. They totally contributed an amazing part to the records, but I just wanted to make a record that was straight out of my brain.

GLONO: Uh-huh. You had the itch, you had the creative energy, surging, and you were like, "I gotta get this out."
KB: Yeah, totally. It wasn't like an ego trip, it was like, "I wanna make this." And here I go, I'm making it.

GLONO: (laughter) But you know who that sounds like, right?
KB: Yeah. Paul McCartney?

GLONO: Are you thinking of Sgt. Pepper? Did he do that mostly by himself, initially?
KB: No. I don't think so. I think maybe, a little bit more the White Album, he was playing drums on some songs.

GLONO: Oh yeah, he had some songs that were just all him.
KB: Yeah.

GLONO: I was thinking of Brian Wilson!
KB: Well, he wrote all the parts, but he didn't play them.

GLONO: That's true.
KB: But I'm no Brian Wilson, so... (laughter)

GLONO: Have you ever seen him play?
KB: Uh-huh. Well, I haven't seen him live, I've seen it on television, and I've heard the live Smile, it's amazing.

GLONO: What do you think of him going back and finishing Smile?
KB: I think it's great. I've heard it so many times, that it's like, I wish that it would have happened five years ago, because now I'm kind of like, "Oh, Smile". I mean, I love Smile, but I've heard it so many times that it's like, not as exciting. But I think it's great that the people actually hear the record closer to the way that he wanted them to hear it, instead of in fragments. A lot of bootlegs are totally fragmented and you can't really visualize what he was trying to do with it and how it all flows as one piece. That's the cool thing, also, about CD. You never would have been able to hear it that way because you would have had to flip the record over. Now you can hear it all the way through!

GLONO: Ever got a reaction from him on any of your stuff?
KB: There's some quote on the Elephant 6 webpage where someone asked him, do you know that you're inspiring this new generation of musicians, like the Elephant 6 collective? And he was like, "I don't know who they are... I just like the good old rock and roll," or something.

GLONO: He likes "Be My Baby."
KB: Yeah, that's his favorite. I don't think he'd really appreciate The Gay Parade. I don't think he'd really understand it, even though he inspired it.

GLONO: With the new record, you seem to be adding a few new sounds to the Of Montreal vocabulary... there's a really vintage analog sounding synth on "Your Magic is Working," "How Lester Lost His Wife," "Spike the Senses," it sounds like the synth on the old Steely Dan records, actually!
KB: Yeah, it might have been! It's actually from the 70s, it's this Univox. All the synth is pretty much that one synth. It's really versatile, it has a bunch of different sounds.

GLONO: Was that for this record or did you actually get that a little earlier?
KB: No, it was for this record. It's not mine, it belongs to Great Lakes, another band I play in, and it's on all of the Great Lakes records, but somehow it ended up my house, so I just used it every day!

GLONO: And much more diverse percussion, much more groove oriented!
KB: Well, I got into Afrobeat and dub music, and like 70s funk. I think that had a lot to with the more percussive element.

GLONO: You said in Flagpole, you're aiming for a sexier sound.
KB: Yeah, totally.

GLONO: "Vegan in Furs" is really funky.
KB: Oh, cool!

GLONO: So funky is a compliment?
KB: Yeah. Definitely, I mean to say, with a lot of people, funky stuff can be atrocious, especially a lot of white funk can just make you wanna slit your wrist, so yeah, it's a compliment. Especially if you're just one person doing it by yourself, it's kind of hard to make it super funky, like Sly and the Family Stone or Curtis Mayfield or whatever, but I tried my hardest.

GLONO: It really showed through. Like the drum machines on "Rapture Rapes the Muses," or this bassline on "Eros' Entropic Tundra," and there's some kind of a woodblock or cowbell on "Eric Eckles," do you remember recording that?
KB: Yeah, there's woodblock and cowbell.

GLONO: Wow, I feel cool for guessing that. And there's a menacing—is it a keyboard bass on "Spike the Senses?"
KB: Oh, that BARRRHRHRHH...

GLONO: Yeah!
KB: Yeah, that was the Univox. I think it was that and a fuzz bass.

GLONO: The album just sounds lighthearted. Even relaxed!
KB: Yeah, I think I was trying to go with more of an atmospheric feel in a lot of the songs. I think, like before, my arrangements and orchestrations are super crowded, they make you feel claustrophobic in a way. They just keep layering, layering, layering.

GLONO: ...there was a lot going on in those records.
KB: I think with this record, I wanted to have everything have its own place, fit in the mix, have its own personality, its own voice, and have its moment.

GLONO: Yeah, it seemed like there was a lot of breathing room. Everything in its Right Place. I once read an interview with Neil Young where he said that music should be approached like painting, where you have the time to return to it at your leisure. He indicated that playing shows can be emotionally difficult because it takes music, and the feeling you've put into it, out of its natural context.
KB: Oh yeah, I definitely can feel that, because you have to play every night, you know, when sometimes you don't necessarily feel like playing, but you have to somehow get yourself in the mood. Especially when it's a sadder song, you clearly don't feel that way. But you have to get into the character. So, it's a challenge, and it's something that I struggled with a lot, early on. But now, I can just do it because it's so integrated into my existence, it's just become my life, performing and writing and everything. So I don't feel like I'm being phony. There are certain songs that I will not play, for that reason, because to do it without putting your heart into it would be a crime, so I try to shy away from the really heartbroken songs that I have written in the past.

GLONO: So you're playing music so often now, that it's not so much of an emotional stretch anymore?
KB: Yeah, it's not. I mean, you go through a range of emotions every night. I do especially, with the songs and stuff. I'm sure everybody does. The music is pretty emotional, even though it's very whimsical and playful. But especially the songs that are a little bit more melancholy, it seems a little bit strange, because what we're doing is so upbeat, and we're trying to put across is a joy. We want people to feel a joy and we want people to feel happiness and feel like, "Okay, there's people who care in the world," because you know, you're just inundated with like McDonalds, and Wal-Marts, and Fox News and it can be so depressing. But it's so inspiring when you see people who are doing something that's not motivated by greed or not trying to manipulate you, and not trying to fuck your head up in any way.

GLONO: Your earlier records shaded a lot toward personal lyrics, and your middle period records like The Gay Parade and Coquelicot shaded toward stories. In interviews from when Coquelicot came out, you said you might move back toward personal lyrics when your personal life got a little more dramatic or interesting.
KB: (laughter) Well, there are some songs on the new record that I wrote for Nina, my wife, that are just love songs. "Your Magic is Working," "Lysergic Bliss," also "Climb the Ladder." But then other songs are just kind of like wordplay, because I have a lot of fun just letting my mind wander and doing a stream of consciousness style of writing. And so there are songs like "Rapture Rapes the Muses," I don't really know what that means... It just came to me.

GLONO: Yeah, there are definitely some "throwback" songs that are very much the playful Of Montreal of old.
KB: Yeah, I think that's maybe just like, I have four styles of songs that I write, so if I write a sad song, it's not necessarily a throwback because it's just human emotions, and everyone feels that way from time to time. It's a tricky thing as we record more, and have more records in our catalog, because people are like, "Oh, I like this record," or "I don't like this record, I wish it was more like this record." You have a little bit of pressure because you don't want to let people down, but I try never to let that influence me because I just want to do my own thing. If people like it, great, and if they don't, you know, maybe they'll like the next one.

GLONO: The lyrics on Aldhils Arboretum indicated some themes of romantic emptiness and cynicism.
KB: Yeah, I was going through a hard time. That was before I met Nina, and living in the country was becoming more oppressive. I was having a hard time just feeling good in the world, just feeling pessimistic, jaded. But then I fell in love, and everything changed. You never know what's right around the corner.

GLONO: Is it that simple? You're in love, so you're happy now?
KB: Well, I think it's more like appreciating life. Because I got to the point where I was just not appreciating life. I had this crappy job, and blah blah blah, and I just sort of died inside a bit. But then, I met Nina, and like, going over to Europe and just realizing that the world is a magical place if you want it to be, or are tuned into it, and there are great writers who can inspire you, and there are great painters, great filmmakers, and great poets, just great people, and so you just have to focus on the positive and be a positive force on your own.

GLONO: How was your experience in the country?
KB: At first, it was great, because it was the five of us, well actually, the four of us, because Andy didn't actually move in. It was me, Jamie, Dottie, and Derek. And we lived like that for a year, and at that point, the band was really coming together on an emotional level for all of us. We were having a great time together, and it was still really new, really fresh, and exciting. And to be out in the country, like away from everything, away from all distractions was really cool.
It was so great because we had a recording studio in the house, and didn't have any problem with neighbors, because everyone was so far away from us, and we had a lot of land. And it was really exciting because I had never lived out in the country before. For the first year and a half or something, it was really, really really great.
Eventually it became too much because we were touring together, and traveling together, living together, and so it was just... too much togetherness. And also, it was confusing because, when you're in a band like that, and I would want to record and do stuff but I couldn't, because I might upset Dottie because I was playing a keyboard part and all of a sudden, she would feel obsolete or something. Oh, you're playing it because you don't think I'm good enough, and then there'd be this drama.
So, I wanted to get away from that. I wanted to be able to just create and not have any sort of strange pressure. Because I love all of them, and I want them to be happy, and I'm sure they want me to be happy, so actually it turned out really great in the end, like they're happy with the record, and they're happy to be playing the songs on tour, and it's the family again.

GLONO: You did a covers show in Athens on New Year's Eve, 2002. How did that come about and how did you choose the songs?
KB: Uh, well that was kind of tricky, picking the songs, because... that was the New Year's Eve show?

GLONO: Yeah, with the Krush Girls.
KB: Okay, because before that, we played a Team Clermont party. Team Clermont is this publicity company there in town, and every year they hold this formal ball, everyone dresses up in these ridiculous seventies tuxedos, this time it was an eighties—or maybe it was always eighties—so anyway, it was an eighties ball and we were the band for the dance, I think the theme of it was Almost Paradise or something, kind of a high school reunion or a class of '84.

GLONO: Was there dancing allowed? Was it like Footloose?
KB: Yeah, totally, everyone was cutting loose, everyone was going wild. We had to learn two sets worth of cover songs, we had to learn close to 40 songs, and so that was the first time we had ever taken on such a big undertaking. It was great, it was really fun. And so we realized, hey, we can do this, and it's fun, you know, we'll make some money and it's a good time. For a while we kind of flirted with that idea. Like, what if we play frat houses and become like a cover band on the side, to make money, like a lot of bands do?

GLONO: (laughter) Uh-huh!
KB: In the end, we just, we weren't ambitious enough. Or we were too ambitious, maybe. So then the New Year's Eve thing was actually our second cover show, and so we had to learn songs that we didn't play in that 40 songs that we played at that eighties dance party. And, it was just fun because New Year's Eve is always great at the 40 Watt, the Krush Girls are always really great so it was great that they asked us to do it.

GLONO: You covered "Wild Wild Life?"
KB: We're all huge Talking Heads fans. And it's such a party song. Gets people movin'. We've done that, we've done "And She Was." Not that night, but maybe at the eighties dance party.

GLONO: And "War Pigs."
KB: Yup, "War Pigs." (laughter)

GLONO: That blew my mind. I mean, that blew my friends' minds. There was a lot of mind being cleaned up off the floor at the end of the night!
KB: We tried to mix it up and do things that people wouldn't necessarily expect from Of Montreal.

GLONO: You did that song, and then you think about that recent release of yours, If He Is Protecting Our Nation, Then Who Will Protect Big Oil, Our Children? And there's a skit in the current show where you kind of "play war"...
KB: Yeah, the wind war. Oh, that's not really political in any way, it's just supposed to be surreal.

GLONO: Oh. Because I was wondering if you were pursuing any overtly political message.
KB: Well, that is pretty clear, yeah, like, what we're going for there, but it's supposed to be tongue in cheek, I mean, it's not supposed to be like a serious, pretentious stance against George W. I mean, it's clear anybody with a brain is against George W.
With Then Who Will Save Big Oil, my brother, David, had already made the artwork long before we thought about compiling those songs and making a second singles and songles type of record. We just thought it would be funny to do, just to be a little bit ridiculous. You know, like here's George W. with an oil derrick for a penis and shooting his wad into a little boy's ear, it's a ridiculous image. (laughter)

GLONO: I actually haven't seen that artwork, is that in the artwork for the record?
KB: Yeah, it's like George W. wearing a button down white business shirt, and no pants or underwear... and he has this black oil derrick for a penis, and it's shooting oil through this little kid's ear and, he's wearing a shirt that says "America"... (laughter) and there's this little African-American choir boy singing in the corner, and it's just ridiculous... and it's kind of funny because Pitchfork, actually, the guy who wrote about that totally missed the point. He was like, "They're struggling to regain cred after..." and it was like, "What are you talking about?" (laughter) "You missed the point, man."

GLONO: How does the artistic community of Athens inspire you?
KB: I think just because everyone is sort of on our level. It's encouraging, like you don't have people saying, "You don't have health insurance. What's wrong with you?" You know, "Go back to school. Get your master's degree..." So everyone is around our age, and doing their home recording thing, and kind of taking it seriously, working hard at it and putting their hearts into it. I guess just in that way, it really keeps you going because you don't feel disheartened. There's no pressure, there's no status symbol that you have to attain.

GLONO: What is the reaction of children to your music?
KB: Well, my nephews like it. Every once in a while, someone will be like, "My four year old son really likes Of Montreal." The lead singer from the Lilys, Kurt Heasley, he said that his kids are really into Of Montreal. So, it's funny, every once in a while someone will tell me, "My son loves The Gay Parade, he's four years old, and he always wants me to play him The Gay Parade and dance around the room..." That feels really good, to know that we're reaching the youngsters.

GLONO: What do you think of this? I was in class and someone read this quote from Nelson Mandela. And on the recent record, the song "City Bird" made me think of this. I want to show this to you, you've probably seen it before.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous?

KB: (laughter) That's great!

Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are born to manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we consciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

- Nelson Mandela, 1994 Inaugural Speech

KB: That's great. How did that remind you of "City Bird?"

GLONO: "You neglect your wings like you don't need them."
KB: Right. Actually, I didn't write those lyrics. Those are Dan Donohue's. That was the first time on any Of Montreal record that someone else wrote the lyrics. And when Dan gave them to me, I thought they were really beautiful. So, I just wrote the music for it.

GLONO: What other groups are you into right now in Athens?
KB: Well, Athens is kind of the same, you know, Elf Power, Circulatory System, Summer Hymns, Casper and the Cookies, the Late B.P. Helium, Marshmallow Coast, and like all of our friends' bands. I haven't really been turned on to that much new Athens music. But I'm sure there is a lot of great stuff being made. I don't really go out very often. I'm not really... in touch.

GLONO: The other members' projects, like Marshmallow Coast, Circulatory System, how are those coming along?
KB: Well, Marshmallow Coast just put out a record last year called Anti-Star and it's a really great record. Circulatory System is in the process of completing their second record, I guess it's going really well. I haven't heard any of it yet but it's supposed to be really great. And with Great Lakes, Jamie was like a main songwriting force in Great Lakes, but he's not really doing so much with that anymore, he's working on his own thing. Right now, it has the title of James Husband. But he might change it. But he's actually recording that record as we speak, well, not right now, because he's on tour with us! He would be, if he was at home. The Casper and the Cookies record just came out.

GLONO: Yeah, you have a couple Cookies in the band right now, right?
KB: One, yeah.

GLONO: One Cookie.
KB: Yeah, only one cookie. (laughter) And The Late B.P. Helium, his record should be coming out pretty soon, he has an EP [Kumquat Mae] that was really great that came out last year.

GLONO: This might be premature to ask, you know, as you're doing the tour supporting your new record, but where do you think Of Montreal will go next?
KB: Well, I actually have a really good idea of what I want to do with the next record. I want it to be less like a pop record, and more like a long piece, you know, with all these different movements, everything connected together, but not necessarily in a linear fashion. Something more ambitious.
When I think about it, I really want to make a DVD. I wish that DVD audio was the media that everyone uses, for that to be the norm instead of CDs. It would be so great if you could put on a DVD and just listen to it, or you could turn on the television and watch it. It would just be more interesting if you had an animated feature that would go along with the whole record, or films or whatever that would be, just to have visuals with the audio. But not necessarily to have to listen to it through television speakers. Everyone would have it set up just like their CD player is set up right now.
We've talked about making a website also, me and my brother and Nina. We don't have a name for it yet, but that's going to be the project we start immediately when we come back home.

GLONO: When you say in the long piece, that the movements might not proceed in a linear fashion, do you mean like the Circulatory System record that was a shuffle play record?
KB: Oh, it could be something closer to that, but I was thinking I wanted to sort of just abandon the pop music clichés of verse-chorus-verse-chorus but I don't want it to abandon the great part of pop music that is like the infectious melodies, the toe tapping rhythms, or whatever. I want to make something that is very listenable, very cool to listen to but not necessarily conventional. I just want to push the envelope in a way, and I know that that is a cliché in itself, but I want to make something that is just so... that somehow, will make every other record seem obsolete.

GLONO: Ah ha ha! That's ambitious!
KB: Yeah. I just want to change the face of music. I want to make something that... that people can relate to, but will still seem very exotic. The reason I want to do that is because, I want to hear that record.

GLONO: Well, they say, write what you want to read...
KB: Exactly. I want to make the record that, if I heard it, I would say, "Holy shit, I need to go to my studio right now and make a record!"

GLONO: You want to push the envelope in a different way, huh?
KB: Yes, for some reason I felt like, music has gotten kind of stagnant, in a way. And like this "return to rock" with the Strokes and the White Stripes is great, and it was great for like five minutes, but like, there's no future in that. And I don't know, it changes too, like, I wouldn't want to listen to something totally insane and symphonic every day, either. I like to put on Iggy Pop every once in a while too. I like to put on the Misfits or Black Sabbath or Led Zeppelin or whatever.

GLONO: It's rockin', it gets you through.
KB: Yeah. The thing is, that's why I was talking about the DVDs. I wish there was more of an experience, where you put it on, and you watch it, you listen to it, you experience it, through headphones hopefully, and it changes your year. It could even just change your month or something, you know? That's my goal. Just change the month. It doesn't have to change the year. (laughing) A year is a long time.

GLONO: You are changing lives through music.
KB: I hope it has a positive impact on the world. That's definitely the goal.

GLONO: Last question. What's your favorite scene from "Help!"
KB: I like when they all walk up to their apartment and they're saying goodbye to each other... It's brilliant. (laughing)