2011-05-10 - Spectrum Culture

Interview: Kevin Barnes from Of Montreal

May 10, 2011 3:35 PM

Whether he's exorcizing personal demons on the harrowing, yet poppy Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer? or putting on a stage show with skull masks and people dressed as imaginary creatures, Kevin Barnes and Of Montreal continue to push up against the confines of indie rock. From breaking down traditional song structures on Skeletal Lamping to getting his best Bootsy Collins on with False Priest, Barnes may just make the most fun music about personal trauma and sexual desire. I was fortunate to spend 45 minutes speaking with Barnes about the creative process, Sufjan Stevens, his influences and selling out. I am proud to present the Spectrum Culture interview with Kevin Barnes from Of Montreal.

Your new EP Thecontrollersphere seems like a departure from what you were doing with False Priest.

Well, the songs were written and recorded around that same time period. It's very much a sister release to False Priest. There were songs that could have been on False Priest, but for whatever reason didn't make the cut.

I read an interview with you that said when you were making False Priest you were consciously trying to keep the length of the album down. Were these the songs that got cut off or a different batch of songs?

I only briefly toyed with putting "Black Lion Massacre" on False Priest but "L'age D'or" and "Slave Translator" were definitely intended for False Priest, but I cut them at the last minute.

I feel like the music on False Priest is more traditionally constructed pop songs while these break down the structure of traditional songs, especially the first track.

Yeah, definitely. On False Priest I was trying to make something that was a bit more accessible. Just a really well put together pop record without asking too much from the listener. Some of the Controllersphere songs are a bit more esoteric and not really for everyone.

Was that decision for the format of False Priest a reaction to Skeletal Lamping? That one definitely demands more from the listener.

Maybe to some degree, instead of making another Skeletal Lamping. I was excited to make something different than that.

You mention all of these titles on Hissing Fauna near the end. Was there a conscious trilogy in your mind at that point or did it come after you wrote the lyrics?

It just sort of happened organically. I didn't have a real vision of how the records would sound. I just knew those would be the titles for the next three records that followed Hissing Fauna.

Did those titles play on any obsessions of yours or were they free association?

They are definitely more free associations. At the time, I was just trying to come up with interesting song titles and that was part of the process. I got three album titles out of it.

Speaking of titles, the song titles on this new EP are less esoteric, to use your word, than many of your past ones.

I kind of go back and forth on that. You can name it anything you want to. You can give it a name people recognize and would make sense or give it a name that has a connected meaning with the song or maybe it doesn't. Sometimes I feel like giving it a totally sensible title and sometimes I feel like giving it some other kind of title. Like "L'age D'or," for example, I could have easily called it "She's My Party Drug" or something stupid like that. I guess a lot of times when you think a lyric is powerful or interesting then you can put more of a focus on it by titling the song that way. If you don't really care or don't really feel that strongly about any of the lyrics or you don't really want to put a spotlight on them then you give it some other title.

Traditionally bands title their songs after the chorus because it's the hook. Where with "Heimdalsgate Like a Promethean Curse," most people would probably call it the "chemicals" song.

Exactly. Especially with Hissing Fauna there's so many Norwegian words that nobody can really pronounce. It's not like I would even know how to say it either and I lived there for that time period. Titling songs is a slippery slope sometimes.

Is "L'Age d'Or" a direct reference to the Buñuel film?

Yeah.

It seems to me a lot of your music practices the same principles as of Surrealism. Two major hallmarks of Surrealism are sexuality and savage desire. Those are things you are not shy about putting into your music.

Definitely not. I think we share the same spirit. The same excitement about life and its potential and being broad-minded and open to new experiences. Exploring different aspects of the psyche.

Do you notice a difference in reaction between American and European audiences when it comes to the sexual and violent parts of the stage show?

Not really. It's pretty much the same when we go to Europe or other countries. I think we appeal to a certain kind of person all over the world. That kind of person is definitely in the minority as far as human beings go. But there's a good contingent of them all over the world. We're pretty much playing to same species of human or whatever you want to call it.

We have a pretty puritanical country here and if you played a show for non-Of Montreal fans they would definitely be more upset about you taking a person in a pig costume from behind than people shooting at one another on the stage.

Yeah, but I think it's always very cartoony. Unless you have no sense of humor you will probably find most of the theatrics entertaining. You might find it juvenile. All of it is really tongue-in-cheek. We hardly ever have a serious agenda that we're trying to push or try to make people uncomfortable. We're just having fun. We feel so free. We feel so liberated physically and emotionally and intellectually that there aren't really any taboos that we're afraid of.

Are a lot of the sexual lyrics tongue-in-cheek also?

I don't know. It depends on what specific lyrics. There's definitely songs that are more personal to me and they come from a darker place. Those aren't necessarily that fun. But they can help me resolve certain issues. It's always better to talk about something and get it out in the open. It's not always fun but it's therapeutic.

Yeah, Hissing Fauna felt more confessional than the albums that followed it.

That record is out of necessity. I was going through such a difficult time and I was using music as something to help me heal. It's not like I set out to make a really personal, confessional record, I just needed to make that. If that makes sense. It wasn't a premeditated thing, "Well, this record is going to be very confessional." I was going through such a terrible time and I was using music as therapy in a way.

Now that the dust has settled, is looking back on that record and that period harder for you to re-experience? Do you feel the same pain? Are those songs closer to you because they spring from a more personal space rather than a persona?

I like that record. I like playing those songs. It's funny because we have so many songs that we haven't touched live. We haven't played anything from any of the records that came before Satanic Panic in the Attic in forever. I can't remember the last time we played any of those songs. It's kind of weird, like my mind turned around Satanic Panic in the Attic and these last couple of records. We seem almost like a different band. I just feel so disconnected from those other records but I feel really connected to Hissing Fauna, Sunlandic Twins and Satanic Panic in the Attic. I definitely feel really connected to them but some songs are harder to perform night after night. Like "The Past is a Grotesque Animal," we've played that many, many times. But it's not something I'm really feeling right now and don't want to do it. But it's cool to have songs like that. If you are in a certain mood you can exorcize those demons with a song. If all you had was really happy songs, you'd be kind of fucked if you're in a shitty mood (laughs).

"The Past is a Grotesque Animal" has to be hell to play, especially on your voice.

I'm a weird vocalist. I'm really taking chances because I am not trained at all. I have no idea really how to protect my voice or even how to warm up. I have some really rudimentary techniques I use to warm up but a lot of times I don't even warm up. A lot of times I just
take the stage and realize, "Oh shit, I'm not warmed up yet! I can't sing this yet!" Then you just have to work your way through it.

I know that as a fan singing "Past" it wears me out.

Yeah, that song is super wordy. There are songs on Icons, Abstract Thee EP that came out right after Hissing Fauna that we've never played and I can't even listen to them because it still hurts me. It's way too sad still. But I guess there is a form of detachment that happens with songs. It's detaching from the source or inspiration and taking it somewhere else. Then I can deal with it. I've played "The Past is a Grotesque Animal" so many times and it doesn't really hurt me in that way. It just felt good to do it. But with those other songs I would just feel bad (laughs). I don't even want to sing them or think about them.

I'd like to back up for a moment about the longevity of the band and not playing the old stuff. Every time I see Of Montreal I feel like the audience gets younger and younger which is pretty fantastic for a band that has been around for so long. Is it hard to attract new fans without alienating the old ones?

To be honest, I don't think it's that healthy to think about your fans because you could be a fan of one record or one song. It could change. You don't really have to be beholden to some concept of the fan's perception of you or what they want from you. What one specific person wants from you or what a majority of people want from you. I don't think it's healthy for an artist to even consider that. So, I don't really think about that when I'm writing and recording. I'm not really worried about alienating people or pleasing people. I don't really think it would help the process at all. It's very important to me when I'm creating something to not let anybody else into my little bubble. I feel like that makes it impure and takes it out of this place it needs to be for it to happen organically.

So what is it about your music that attracts the 16-year-old? There is a sophistication about it that's different than what is on the radio these days or lack thereof radio.

I'm not sure really. I can't really say. Maybe because it's liberating. Maybe seeing people wearing interesting outfits and dressing up. I think it appeals to the side of people's personality that is in a hibernating state most of the time. Then they get a chance to cut loose because it's like Halloween or a costume party. It's always fun to go to a costume party when Halloween rolls around because everyone gets into it. Pretty much everybody has that side to their personality but most of the time it's in this hibernating state.

Back to the breaking down of song structures - another artist I feel is doing similar things is Sufjan Stevens with his newest record The Age of Adz.

Yeah, I love that record.

Someone was telling me that you do. I do see some similarities between his music and yours. I know that record, like Hissing Fauna, came out of personal strife.

That record has really meant a lot to me. It is probably the record I have connected with the most over the last five years or so. Not only because of its emotional content but also musically I feel like I've never heard music like that before. It's one of the most groundbreaking records we've ever had as humans. It is weird to me that it hasn't gotten more acclaim. I mean, it has gotten a lot of critical acclaim but I saw the records making critics' album of the year lists and I just couldn't believe that record wasn't on top of all the lists. Anybody who really loves music and loves the art form should see that it was the most fantastic, most exceptional record made that year.

I think one of the problems was that people were expecting another Illinois and it's completely different than that.

With artists, all of their records are held up against each other. If that was his first record and there was no other reference of what Sufjan does and what he is capable of it probably would have had a completely different impact on people. I was thinking about a review I read of the new Deerhoof record. I love Deerhoof and I think they're incredibly creative and extremely wonderful and important. I couldn't believe this writer was giving them such a mediocre review. I was thinking about all the other records that were getting good reviews that were so much more derivative and so meaningless. Well, not meaningless but I can't imagine them having any sort of value 10 years from now. It's weird that certain records that are more adventurous, more cutting edge and more valuable....

Not everyone wants to be challenged when they listen to music.

Yeah, that's true.

Have you seen Sufjan play those songs live?

No, I haven't seen him yet but I think we're playing a festival together this summer so hopefully I will get a chance to see it. I can't imagine how he'd do it live.

Speaking of stage shows, the last time I saw Of Montreal, it seemed to be more Kevin Barnes-centric than ever before. The band surrounded you in a horseshoe shape and you had the entire stage to roam around. Will we be seeing less and less of the other band members?

That was just an idea for the last tour because we wanted to do something different from the previous tours where we had a lot of action with the performance artists. We'd done tours before where we had this room where most of the theatrics took place but that was an insanely heavy stage and it broke everyone's backs (laughs). So we decided to make it a little easier on ourselves so we created that horseshoe shape. I wasn't playing guitar on that tour. It was fun for me to be a front man and dancing around and have that sort of persona. On this new tour, it's kind of similar to that but we're getting more people involved with singing songs. We're getting band members involved in different ways. We kind of felt it was weird to have the band so displaced in a way and have them pushed into the shadows. We want to get people more involved this summer.

Is there a line where theatrics can overshadow the music?

I never really felt that because the music doesn't change just because something is happening on the stage. It doesn't get quieter. If people are really trying to focus on the lyrics but they're getting distracted is one thing, but I don't think you could ever have too much going on on stage for me. If I go see a concert 99% of the bands that really have any sort of theatrical elements to their shows, they might have some video stuff but I would never think that. It's obvious if you've seen our shows that we wouldn't think that. I wouldn't feel that way about theatrics. I always loved what George Clinton did. I always loved the theatrical side of Parliament and how they had so many different layers to what they were about. We view ourselves in that vein. We think of ourselves as the grandchildren of Parliament.

On your last tour it seems like you found a great foil for yourself in Janelle Monae.

She's amazing. She has become a really close friend of mine. It's amazing to develop new friendships, especially artistic relationship like that. It's something I treasure and hold very close to my heart.

Did she help you come up with that Michael Jackson tribute at the end of the show?

No, that was our idea. We wanted to come up with something we could all do together. We didn't really think of the tour as Janelle Monae and Of Montreal. We wanted there to be a lot of integration between the two groups. We just wanted to have a lot of cross-pollination. The Michael Jackson thing at the end was a really great way to close the evening together, holding hands.

I also saw you do a Franz Ferdinand cover and a Nirvana cover once to end your show.

It's kind of hard to pick them though. That's the tricky thing. It's always fun. The Nirvana was great. It seemed like the right time and it had been long enough for people to get back into Nirvana. It was around the time of the anniversary of Nevermind. That record meant a lot to me at one point so it was great to do that one again. It's a great song. The most badass rock song ever.

Which cover song ideas have been floated around that will never see the light of day?

We tried a number of things we felt like we couldn't do. It's hard to do a Marvin Gaye song or Al Green. If you don't have that voice, it's going to sound kind of weird. I guess you could always do it. We were listening to the Slits version of "Heard it Through the Grapevine" yesterday and realized how incredible that version is. In a lot of ways, it's just as good as all the other versions out there but it's not Marvin.

Speaking of your voice, I feel like your vocal style has been moving closer and closer to Prince. I know you referenced '70s musicians such as Parliament and Stevie Wonder but has Prince been a direct influence on your songwriting as well?

Yeah, definitely. Without question. I adore him and I adore everything about him. He's an incredible professional.
He's an incredible musician and incredible vocalist and dancer. You couldn't really ask for a better human (laughs). I mean on an artistic level. Especially his earlier records like Sign O' the Times, Parade and basically everything up until Diamond and Pearls is, I think, the most incredible pop writing we have.

I remember reading somewhere they floated doing a Prince and Bob Marley duo at one point. But Bob Marley wouldn't do it because Prince was too effeminate. I should probably Google it to be sure. That would have been pretty interesting.

I guess Stevie Wonder did some stuff with Bob. I was doing some Googling about that. That's awesome but I don't think there is any footage of it. There's a recording of a show Stevie did in Jamaica maybe, and Bob Marley played and they played some songs together. It was pretty amazing. Yeah, Prince and Bob Marley would have been pretty great.

Stevie Wonder is another guy who had an amazing run of albums.

Yeah, it's insane. I was listening to a lot of Stevie Wonder when I was doing False Priest and rediscovering Songs in the Key of Life and Innervisions and Music of My Mind and that whole period. Songs in the Key of Life is one of those records that really inspires you and you really love it but at the same time it can make you feel like, "Why do I even bother?" I'm never going to make anything that great (chuckles).

Is it reasonable to hold yourself to a standard like that?

No, definitely not. That's why I have to be like, "Fine, I'm not Stevie Wonder. I'll never be that great." But I'm not going to not make music because I'm not Stevie Wonder. There is that little voice sometimes that's like, "God, man. I wish I was that good" (laughs). You know, that's all right. I'm sure he probably felt that way about other people too. I'm sure he probably felt that way about James Brown or Otis Redding or whoever. Everyone has that insecurity. Jimi Hendrix didn't like his own voice. Things like that. How could Jimi Hendrix not like his own voice? He sounds great!

You have definitely mined the funkier side of Stevie Wonder but have you ever thought of doing something as heartbreaking like "All In Love Is Fair" or something like that?

Those kind of ballads are actually my least favorite Stevie stuff, even though it's great. I can appreciate it but I don't know. Writing about love like that is kind of tricky. If it really comes from the heart, that's one thing. But so many times people will sit down and write a song and they just write about love because it's the conventional thing to do. But I'm not really that into love ballads at all. They just don't seem that genuine most of the time.

You don't feel like something like "Let's Get It On" isn't genuine?

No, that's genuine, for sure. Sexuality is a real, natural thing. If I thought about it I'm sure there's some love songs that really touch me. I feel like John Lennon's songs for Yoko seem genuine. There has to be a rawness too. If it's just super flowery and sentimental it doesn't really have much impact.

What songs in your lifetime have meant the most to you?

Definitely the first two John Lennon solo records.

Plastic Ono Band and Imagine?

Yeah, Plastic Ono Band plus Imagine. Definitely Neutral Milk Hotel's In the Aeroplane Over the Sea. There is always an emotional impact and potency in those records. All the Beatles records. All the '60s Kinks records, Os Mutantes, Sly and the Family Stone with everything up until Fresh. Curtis Mayfield's first couple solo records. There's just so many.

It's pretty amazing that we get to experience this stuff, isn't it?

Yeah, it's great. I was talking to someone yesterday about as an artist it's kind of incredible that in 2011 that you have Stevie Wonder, Parliament, Prince but you also have Sufjan Stevens and Animal Collective and Caribou and other people like that. There's so much incredible music from earlier times and even world music. Especially now, everything is so accessible. All this incredible stuff from the '60s like Ethiopian funk. You can get your hands on that. Like Cambodian music. It's crazy how much access we have to so much incredible stuff.

How do you find time to listen to music?

I like listening to music when I'm doing little things around the house like cooking or chilling out. I always want to have music on when I'm doing something non-musical. It's not going to be a distraction. A lot of times if I come into the studio before I start work on something, I will listen to something to get into the spirit of it and let that inspire something out of me.

Let's talk about the music industry. I just watched Morgan Spurlock's movie about advertising. The whole conceit of the film is selling out vs. buying in. This is about the Outback thing. I feel like the whole attitude of the country has changed lately. Back when Of Montreal started out, people would have been pissed off about a band jumping from an indie label to a major. Now there is no radio or MTV and people don't care about a Wilco song on a Volkswagen ad or your song on an Outback commercial. Was it hard for you to make that decision? Is that the only way to get your music out?

It's kind of a tricky thing. As an indie artist, everyone is always so broke all the time. They've been broke their whole lives probably. When these big companies come to you with a check for more money than you've ever seen at one time, more money than you'd probably make all year, it's really, really difficult to say no to that. But then there's that dilemma because you know there's going to be a bad backlash. I think it still exists in the community. Not with everybody but there's definitely a punk rock attitude still prevalent in the scene where you don't lip synch or do certain things. There's these unwritten rules as far as maintaining your credibility. If you put a song in a commercial and it's pitching some stupid product and your song gets associated with that stupid product it's kind of terrible because the song has been ruined for people. You just throw trash on the song in a way which is not respectful to your own art. But at the same time, you need that money to keep going and to keep putting out records.

People would say, "Well, R.E.M. wouldn't do that and Radiohead wouldn't do that," but they are not in the same financial position as a lot of indie acts.

Totally. For them, there is no reason to do it because they don't really benefit, necessarily, from having a song in a Volkswagen commercial. It depends who you are. I think what you're saying is true. People aren't as critical as they used to be and it probably wouldn't be death to band. There would probably be a handful of people that would be like, "Fuck that band. They're sell outs, blah blah." You don't really hear "sell out" that much anymore. It doesn't seem like it really comes into the conversation that much anymore.

Right, the attitude has changed.

I'm sure if you're a punk rock band and that was your whole thing , anti-corporation, then you'd lose everything if you did that. For most people, you gain people who are like, "Oh, actually that song was really cool."

What was your experience with it? Did you gain more fans or was there backlash?

I think we had both. Definitely there was major backlash. We had people coming to the shows....There was one show we played in Austin, Texas where these people brought a big Outback Steakhouse banner. They went so far out of their way. They got napkins from Outback Steakhouse and were throwing them in the air (laughs). It was something they had to spend money on actually and that's a lot of time. That was like next level backlash. But we had people still come to the show and stuff. It wasn't like nobody was supporting us anymore.

No one threw a Bloomin' Onion at you?

I think they had a Bloomin' Onion that they wanted to throw but then someone somehow caught it beforehand (laughs).

Would Kevin Barnes circa Cherry Peel feel the same way?

About selling out?

If you got approached with that sum of money.

I think it would be the same situation. It hasn't really changed. During Cherry Peel I had this telemarketing job. All of us had these terrible jobs so I think if I had got offered a way out of that even in spite of losing some credibility in some people's eyes, I don't think I would be able to refuse it. You have to really sacrifice a lot to maintain that level of anti-corporate whatever. You can't really get around it. Everybody shops in the same places. Everybody is supporting these corporations anyway. What difference does it make if you have a song in a commercial or you go there and buy their hamburger? It's the same thing in a way. At least if you sell a song for a commercial, you're getting something out of it. I could see it both ways. I can see how it's potentially damaging
to a song, at least, and to some degree people's perception of you and your commitment to your art. There are other hard realities you have to accept as an adult.

I interviewed one indie artist who said the goal nowadays is not to be rich but not have to work a day job anymore.

That's pretty much it. You just want to be able to make your music. No one is really trying to get yachts and Mercedes Benz. We're just trying to stay afloat and be in a situation where we can focus as much as possible on our art.

Do you self-finance all your own records?

I have a deal with Polyvinyl where we split all the expenses. But I have my own studio where I record. With the exception of False Priest everything I have ever recorded was recorded in my home studio. Studio might give you an exaggerated concept of what it was, especially back in the day. It was basically a 4-track and a $100 mike. Slowly, with each record, it has gotten a little bit better. I have understood how to get better sound, slowly, over time, by just learning little things, little engineering tricks and little mixing tricks. Pretty much everything is done on a shoestring budget or no budget at all.

You seem to have a lot of ideas circling around your work. Where are you headed next?

I started working on a new record. I'm basically done, actually. All of the songs are a lot longer. Much of the songs are about eight minutes long. It's a little bit like I was doing with Skeletal Lamping, having these longer, slightly fragmented songs. These ones are less fragmented. They feel more like one composition and not a bunch of different compositions pieced together. I've incorporated a lot more symphonic instruments. There are a lot of woodwinds and strings and brass. Things I haven't really used in the past very much.

Are you playing these or do you have people coming in?

Yeah, I can't play those instruments. K Ishibashi, who plays in the band now, plays violin and is doing all the string arrangements. He's turned me onto a bunch of his friends that are really talented and also excited about experimental arrangements. Which is important because a lot of people can play an instrument, but they don't have much imagination. They have all these rules in their heads, especially classical musicians. They have all these rules in their heads about what you can do and what you can't do. They are a bit robotic about it. Then you get that great combination of virtuosity and imagination. I feel really fortunate that I've met a couple people that fit that description.

Is there a thematic preoccupation in your new songs?

It's definitely more intimate. It's more personal. It's not really as sexual. There are a couple of funkier moments but I wanted to make something that sounded more intimate just because I was going through some different things as of late. Similar to Hissing Fauna, I was using music as therapy to get over these things and resolve them.

Do these songs have movements and tempo switches like the Sufjan songs?

Each one is different. The Sufjan record definitely feels almost like a through composition. You could listen to the whole thing and think about them as different suites because it definitely feels consistent throughout, which I can't even imagine how he was able to sustain that focus on something, to my ears and to my mind, that seems so complex. To have that complexity sustained throughout the 70 minutes or however long it is, that was something I was extremely inspired by. There is a lot more repetition on his record than there is on my stuff. I don't repeat very many sections. I create these expansive soundtracks. A lot of the songs go into these weird, less lyric-based and more music-based moments. There are definitely moments of heavy lyricism but there's really, really moments of instrumental periods. That's really different for me because I haven't really worked much with instrumental music.

I know Sufjan used a visual artist as his inspiration. Do you use any external stimuli when it comes to writing or does it all come from within?

There are definitely a lot of outside influences, especially musically. I hear something like Stevie Wonder for example or I hear something like "Boogie on Reggae Woman" and I listen to what he's doing on the keys and I think, "I want to do something like that. That's so incredible." So then I'll make something like that. It won't sound like Stevie. Nobody can sound like him, anyway. But often, Parliament and Prince and Sly, all these people influence me greatly.

by David Harris

2011-01-11 - Creative Loafing

A Q&A with of Montreal visionary frontman Kevin Barnes; the Athens psyche pop group plays The Ritz Ybor on Saturday (with videos)

Posted by Leilani Polk on Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 12:57 PM

Kevin Barnes [pictured below] is the high priest of intellectually stimulating, cleverly cheeky pop culture-infused lyricism, an idiosyncratic self-trained musical genius who serves as the visionary frontman of Athens, Ga. electro-lush glam rock and psyche pop outfit, of Montreal. The band released a Top-10-of-the-year worthy LP in 2010, False Priest, which found them fully exploring their funkadelic and R&B tendencies along with pumping up the richness of their sound with help from producer Jon Brion (Kanye West, Fiona Apple).

I had the pleasure of chatting with Barnes several weeks back while he was taking a break before gearing up for the next leg of the band’s False Priest tour. Check out our lengthy conversation below along with various videos for songs off the new album.

Leilani: So how are you doing? You enjoying some time off? Or is there really any such thing as time off for Kevin Barnes?

KB: Yeah, I’ve been getting some recording done. It’s been good. I feel lazy if I don’t do anything, just sitting around seems like a waste of time.

How have the False Priest tour dates been so far? I know you played some international dates ...

Yeah, it was great, it was definitely one of the most successful tours we’ve ever done, on every level. We also recently went to Mexico and we went to Brazil, before that we went to Europe. We’ve kind of been all over the place.

Were these your first dates in Mexico and Brazil? What’s it like playing down there?

It was our first date in Brazil, but we'd played one other show in Mexico. The first time we went down there, actually, it was sort of under dubious circumstances because we were playing this festival — it was a massive festival [Corona Music Fest] — but we were playing a smaller stage. And the festival was actually in a soccer stadium that was, if it’s not the biggest, then definitely one of the top five largest soccer stadiums in the world. Just massive. But we weren’t there, we were in the parking lot, one of the side stages in the parking lot of the giant soccer stadium.

Most of the kids were there to see NOFX. So they didn’t want to see us at all, you know? And they were really insane and it was crazy weather, pouring down rain, and these kids were really into the whole punk rock thing and the role-playing of “Oh, we’re so punk rock, we hate everything,” so they were spitting at us and throwing shit at us. It didn’t bother me because it was so surreal and so cinematic in a way, you know? It was definitely an extraordinary experience.

We went back a couple weeks ago and played a proper show in a venue, and we were the headliners. And that was great. We got to really connect with people who were on our side. So that was nice.

Do you find that your overseas fans respond differently to your music, or are there certain songs they respond to more enthusiastically?

I think we’ve been sort of spoiled because our U.S. fans are really amazing, it’s not like we're coming from this uptight place and then going to these other places where people are less uptight.

But sometimes we feel like, in a weird way, we are an American band that seems to make sense more to Americans than we do to people in other countries. But one thing that does seem true is when you go to other countries, people don’t have to know the material to get into it, they’re naturally inclined to dance and they want to dance and celebrate and have fun. When they see a band, as long as the band is giving them something that they can work with, they will be very supportive and vocal about it.

I guess if you put on a good show people will like it regardless of what you’re doing as long as the music is good and the entertainment matches the quality of music…

It’s kind of cool to go places where maybe you haven’t been before, and maybe your records aren’t really available or widely available, and you have to really sort of get by on the talent, or the presentation, or whatever it is you’re putting forward. You really have to have your shit together in order to put something across that’s positive for people.

Sometimes it’s easy, if the fans are there to see you and they know the material. You can’t really lose unless you’re just completely wasted and can’t even function or can’t stand up or whatever (laughs). As long as you can, like, do your thing, then people are going to like it and it’s fine. But it’s kind of an interesting challenge to go places where you don’t really know if they know you, and they don’t really have the context to understand you, but they can still get into it.

Let’s talk a little about False Priest. I know you’ve said in interviews that it was pretty much complete when you brought it to producer Jon Brion. What motivated you to work with him?

I had only worked in my home studio and I’ve only worked in bedroom studios my whole life, so I’ve never really been to a real classic studio and worked with anyone who had a track record like Jon’s. So it was really me wanting to go and see how real records are made, rather than what I considered my little bedroom project. And I was really intrigued by going to Ocean Way, where Frank Sinatra used to record, and all sorts of other crazy people over the years, and then working with Jon, who’s a genius, a total icon. I knew I’d learn a lot and I did. So it was great.

[Video below for "Famine Affair" off False Priest]

What ultimately convinced you to incorporate more live instrumentation on this album?

The live drums was sort a of a semi-new thing – the last couple years have been more drum programming and loops. I’ve kept a lot of the drum programming, then also integrated live drumming onto the tracks as well. But the main thing is instead of using the software versions of synthesizers, using the actual synthesizers.

Jon has an incredible collection of vintage synthesizers, vibraphones and the most incredible collection of musical instruments you could ever imagine. We had so much at our disposal. He’d listen to something I made just using my computer software, piecing it together myself like that, and he’d go, “Oh, you want to use a Mellotron sound, or that Chamberlin sound? I have an actual Chamberlin. We can just plug it in and replace it with that.”

We did that a lot, replacing software versions with their actual physical instrument. And then the big thing, too, was mixing, ’cause I’d always just mix it myself, but Jon has an engineer that he works with and he pretty much mixed the whole thing. I was there with him and made some suggestions, but he was the one moving the faders and turning the knobs. That was cool, too. To have someone else I respected mixing it, after it was all said and done, was really great for me. I kinda just looked at it as an education …

It seems like you go through a different stage of creativity with each album. How did your creative process work and evolve into what became False Priest?

A big thing for we was meeting the Wondaland Arts Society, which is the art collective that Janelle Monáe is part of. I met them in Atlanta after a Skeletal Lamping show and we started hanging out. One of the guy’s in the collective, Chuck Lightning, he and I became really good friends and he turned me on to a bunch of different things I hadn’t really explored very much, like the whole P-funk scene and a lot of science fiction writing and things like that. I owe a lot of that inspiration, that spark, to Chuck and meeting those guys. It was great because they were working on the Arch Android, Janelle’s record, at the same time and we would kind of email each other, works in progress. Getting their feedback and support was very important to me.

I know she’s on the album, specifically one of the songs I wanted to talk to you about, “Enemy Gene” – how did that song come about?

The creative process has always been a bit of mystery to me, it’s sort of this unconscious evolution. I just sort of sit down at piano or guitar or whatever it is, and it sort of happens in this organic way, and I just sort of let it happen, and whatever it is, if I’m laying down the music first, I’ll listen to it a bunch of times and figure out what I want to sing about here. I have a journal that I keep all my lyrical ideas in, so I’ll go through the journal and see if I find something that seems to fit or that has some sort of glow to it, like, oh, that’s the direction I should be going in. You know? And then I sort of piece it together. All of this really happens very organically and very mysteriously.

But getting Janelle to sing on it … once I discovered what an incredible vocalist she was and how versatile she was, I got to a point where I wanted her just to sing on every track – basically I wanted make a Janelle Monáe record. But you know, I couldn’t be too greedy.

We actually wrote that song “Our Riotous Defects” as a duet. It was sort of like a he-said she-said – she took the second verse, and we had a whole separate verse that she sang that was more from the female perspective. But it kind of became too campy, so we shelved it. It might be available via iTunes [it is on the Deluxe Version of False Priest]. That was the original idea. But after we shelved that, we ended up getting her to sing on “Enemy Gene.”

[Kevin Barnes performing "Enemy Gene" solo acoustic on piano below.]

You’ve been known to take autobiographical experiences and incorporate them into your songs. How much would you say what you’re writing these days is inspired by things that have happened to you as opposed to things you’ve made up or things that have inspired things you’ve made up?

It’s definitely something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. I think, maybe about 50 percent, it’s sort of split. A lot of the stuff, maybe it didn’t actually happen, but I don’t really differentiate that much between what physically happens or what just happens in my mind. In a way, it like, if it happens in my mind then it’s just as real as if it happens in real life.

Also, I think about music and I think about the things I sort of identify with and writers I identify and the writers a lot of other people identify with, are the ones that speak, for the most part, from personal experience, and it just feels more real and more emotive and in a way, more fulfilling to hear stuff like that because it has a universal appeal to it. Someone like John Lennon, for example, and the Plastic Ono Band, it’s one of the best examples of that, just completely raw and coming straight from his heart, straight from his soul. That’s something you can’t really do on every record, necessarily, but those are magical moments in music, and we’re lucky to have a few. It’s something I’d like to do more and I think I’m getting in a state of mind where I can do it a little bit more. Because you do have to put yourself in this vulnerable position and really not think about the outside world – at least for me, anyway, it would definitely throw me off. If I think about someone writing about it, commenting on, hearing it, even, then it takes me about of that space that you need to be in where you’re just unconsciously doing this thing, stripping it directly from your psyche and not conscious of it. Otherwise, you might just become too self-conscious to even do it. I think you have to be unconscious in that in that way – you’re speaking to god, or whatever, you’re speaking to something that isn’t necessarily human…

I know you guys have another outrageous stage production put together for this tour. What is different on this tour from your last big album tour as far as what’s happening on stage?

When we were putting the False Priest show together, my brother [multi-media artist David Barnes] and I were talking about our vision. The Skeletal Lamping show was basically just a collection of all these theatrical moments and they weren’t really connected at all – we’d have this Old West barroom brawl break out during one song, a creepy religious figure molesting little kids or something in another, and then we’d have this guy getting harassed by John McCain dolls, then hanging himself, and then getting covered in blood in some Aztec ceremony. Randoms ideas that we created and threw together.

So for False Priest, we thought it’d be cool if it was more thematic and everything had a narrative to it, that maybe wasn’t completely linear, but the parts connected together, so felt more like a contrived piece of work. And we actually tried that for the first couple shows, but it became almost a bit Spinal Tap (laughs). It wasn’t the way we envisioned it in our heads, it just came off in this awkward, sort of pretentious silly way. So then we just said, fuck it, and abandoned it and we were like, we’ve got all these components, we’ve got all these costumes and all these props, and everything, so what are we going to do?

So we tried to make it more playful and fun. I think we always just naturally gravitate towards that anyway, and any time we try to be too ambitious in creating some sweeping epic in our mind, it never really comes across. It’s always better if we have fun and do things spontaneously. And when you’re doing something night after night after night, even if it’s a complicated thing where you have lots of roles to play, it can still become mundane. To have that freedom, where you don’t have to follow any script, is very important.

It’s kind of funny, too, though, with the theatrics, because you realize that one certain theatric works really well with this specific song, but if you tried to do it on another song, it’d be awkward and just wouldn’t work. So a lot of times the theatrics actually sort of determine what the setlist is going to be.

So what’s next? I know you guys have an EP with some more material from False Priest on the way …

Yeah, that’s going to come out in April. It’s called The Controller Sphere. I’m really excited about it. It’s only five songs but there’s some different material, it’s sort of new territory for us, a bit noisier, a bit artsier. Just kind of bizarre stuff. But that’s done. And like you said, I’m not gonna take a break, so I’ve been working on more new material, working on some new projects, and I’m sort of in a transitional stage right now trying to figure out what I want to do next. I’ve made so many records by now, I’m trying to figure out if I should do should do something different, involve different people, to figure out different things I want to do, but still writing and exploring…

[Video for "Coquet Coquette" from False Priest below.]

2010-07-21 - Michigan Live

original article.

Full Q&A with Of Montreal frontman Kevin Barnes on upcoming album, performance at Land of Nod Experiment

Of Montreal in Jackson? Believe it. The indie rock band is headlining the final day of the Land of Nod Experiment on Sunday in Leoni Township. The music festival is one of four dates on an initial push to start promoting "False Priest," the Georgia band's 10th album and Of Montreal mastermind Kevin Barnes' latest exploration of freak-out dance pop. Here is what Barnes had to say about the gig, the album's bass-bumping sound and his collaborations with up-and-coming R&B singer Janelle Monáe, who will join the band on tour in September and asked Of Montreal to contribute to her debut, "The ArchAndroid":

Is this show going to be the first opportunity for fans to hear some of the new material from “False Priest” that you haven’t had a chance to perform before?
Yeah, we’re debuting four new ones at Land of Nod.

I’ve only heard “Coquet Coquette” and some samples of other songs, but it sounds like your aim with this one is to help people get their groove on.
It’s definitely a very funky, dance-oriented record, but there are some kind of stranger, art-pop moments that happen later on in the record.

It’s not just mindless booty shaking, though. As far as the lyrics go, there are some literary, intellectual influences?
A goal of mine is to make something that can touch you on multiple levels, something that’s not just a dance song about dancing or a dance song about love. So I try to have an element of ... I don’t know really what you call it, but I put some time into the lyrics so it’s not just one-dimensional.

You’ve always had prominent bass lines, but it sounds like bass is taking an even bigger role on this one.
It’s not so much about the bass guitar as the subfrequencies. I went out to L.A. and worked with Jon Brion. We worked in the Ocean Way Recording studio, and we added some things like low synth bass and some 808, some things to really create a broad spectrum so it becomes almost panoramic in a way.

Was that the reason you decided to bring Brion on board, so he could add that panoramic sound?
That’s kind of his vision. You know, I always work at home by myself and I don’t really know what I’m doing. I’m flying by my pants, kind of, just trying to be creative. I’m not really thinking about how it’s going to translate into speakers. I sent him some of those early mixes and he thought he could improve upon the general sound of the record. ... I trusted him because he has such a great track record.

Is there a continuation of the more experimental song-snippets we heard on “Skeletal Lamping,” or is it a return to a more standard pop-song format?
It’s definitely more pop-song format than “Skeletal Lamping,” but I think just because of the way my brain works ... I get bored so easily, I’m always trying to do something unpredictable, so it’s not totally straightforward. There was an aim to make something that had an immediacy to it. In a way, if you make it too segmented, you can’t really get into a groove because it’s changing tempos so often or song styles. There’s nothing to shake to.

Of Montreal’s sound has expanded so much over the last few albums. Has anything in particular been a catalyst that’s allowed for all this musical exploration?
I think the big thing for me was a couple years ago just getting excited about R&B and soul music from the ’70s. I’ve always had an interest in the genre, but I’d never really incorporated it into my sound. It became sort of an obsession of mine. It’s definitely sort of pushed me in this direction and inspired me the last couple years.

Was there anything that spurred that interest in soul and funk?
Just seeing how much I had in common with people like George Clinton and Sly Stone and Stevie Wonder, the magic of those recordings. There’s something so magical about it, and it made me want to try my hand at creating something like that. When I was making my early records, I was obsessed with The Beatles and The Kinks and The Who. I would listen to that all the time. More recently, the last couple of years, it’s been Prince and Sly Stone and Stevie Wonder and Curtis Mayfield.

The press photo I got has like 37 people in it. How many people are actually going to be performing on stage?
At Land of Nod we’ll have a seven-piece (band). ... The reason we have so many people on the photo is we really want to emphasize that it’s not just a band, it’s more of a performance group. ... There’s so many people involved in performance art or video or sound or in the band.

Can you give any hints, even cryptic ones, about what we can expect costume-wise?
We definitely have some tricks up our sleeve, and we’re going to possibly involve some of the other, more theatrical performers that also have performances at the festival. We haven’t actually formally mapped it all out, but it will hopefully work and hopefully be interesting.

What do you enjoy about these festival gigs?
You can see a lot of bands and performances you wouldn’t see. You get to meet interesting people that you wouldn’t have the chance to meet. It’s always great to play outdoors rather than inside some stale, smoky venue, even if it’s a really nice theater. Most of the time we don’t play nice theaters. They’re cool places, but they’re not the kind of places you would want to spend time in if you weren’t performing. It’s always nice to get into nature.

As truly exciting as it is to have you guys here, you couldn’t convince Janelle Monáe to join you early so we’d get a chance to hear her, too?
I think she’s wrapped up in her own stuff.

You came to work with her just through connections with her Wondaland Art Society?
Basically, we kind of found out about each other and found out how much we had in common. Both our groups are so geared toward doing something exceptional, something ambitious. It was like birds of a feather in a way. It’s great because it’s definitely evolved in this way I couldn’t have predicted or imagined, as far as cross-pollination between the two worlds and all the collaborations that have happened and plans for collaborations. It’s the greatest thing artistically that’s ever happened to me.

2008-11-13 - Paste (part 6)

Of Montreal's Kevin Barnes: The complete Paste interview

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

Paste: So when you did Skeletal Lamping, you recorded with the touring band and then decided to go back and do it over by yourself?
Barnes: No, nothing was recorded with the touring band. Well, there was one song that I had done a demo of. I guess it wasn’t even really a demo because it turned out to be the version I used. It was just an idea, kind of an experiment. We went into a good studio in town ’cause we’d been playing the song live a bunch, and got the band to play the same parts they’d been playing live. Even though the engineer was great, and it was a good experience, I felt like it was lacking something, that personal touch or whatever. That’s the problem I think when bands record in big studios, it can become a bit samey, there’s drum sounds that, like, you’ve heard them before. I guess I’m just so comfortable with my setup now and the way I record bass, and the way I record drums sounds and vocals. And [the bigger studio] was kind of expensive, and I realized that if I made a whole record that way, I could make five records on my own. We actually used some of the parts from that [full-band] session. And we did do a band project where everyone contributed song ideas and wrote their own parts. We have this band called Instant Witch.

Paste: Have you done anything with it?
Barnes: Yeah, we’ve recorded 20 to 30 minutes of music. It’s really fun. We’ve been playing a couple songs from it live [with of Montreal]. We’ve played one song live a bunch of times recently, called “Tender Facts.” We just booked a block of time at the studio, and were like “OK, everyone just write something and bring it to the session and we’ll just knock it out and see what happens.”

Paste: Are you guys going to put it out?
Barnes: We haven’t put it out yet, but I’m sure we will. Bryan did this kind of Afrobeat thing and this Cuban-sounding thing, and Jamie did this kind of rock ’n’ roll thing. We all just did different songs and played on it like a live band, and it was fun. But then I realized, also, that I don’t really want to be in a democracy. If you have all these very specific ideas of what you want to do, and how you would do it—that’s the worst thing about being in a democratic band: Everyone has to compromise to the point where it’s not that fulfilling anymore. And for me, any type of compromise is too much, which is obviously not very healthy, but it’s the way I am.

Paste: I caught you guys at the Langerado Festival this year, and for the finale you climbed out of a coffin full of shaving cream, and there were all these masked dancers and heads on poles. They were throwing boxes into the crowd. I asked this guy what was in the box he caught, and he was like, “Human hair!” With Of Montreal, there’s this parade of what seem like of non-sequiturs. Do you think that’s a fitting backdrop for your music?
Barnes: I don’t know if its fitting or not. We don’t really think about what’s fitting for the music, but we want to do something that’s theatrical and visual and, yes, it’s possible we’re taking away from the music, but I don’t really care. If people just want to hear the songs, they can listen to the record. We want to do something beyond that, something that touches on all different levels of the senses. With that idea, what we wanted to do was have a big tarp over the audience full of human hair, and then we’d pull a rope and all the hair would fall down on people, but we realized there would be a lot of legal issues with that because human hair can be pretty dirty and have a lot of germs. We actually collected hair for a long time—a friend of ours works at a salon, and every day he’d sweep up the hair and put it in a bag, and we had all these bags of hair and we were ready to go. Then our tour manager talked to the promoter of the festival, and the guy was like, “Eh, I don’t think that’s going to happen,” so we put it in boxes instead. [On stage], I don’t really know what’s going on a lot of the time because my brother creates a lot of that stuff, and I can’t really see it because I’m at the front of the stage and everything is happening behind me. It’s really thrilling when I turn around and see some totally bizarre situation happening—different performance artists, and I’m like, “OK, I’ll just get back to my rockin’ out. But the coffin idea was his. He actually used to do that a lot, cover himself in shaving cream, when he was in college. He went to FSU in Tallahassee. Just for fun, he’d cover himself in shaving cream and put food coloring in it so he’d be this weird, green shaving-cream man, and he’d go around and knock on doors and freak people out. They’d be all stoned and be like, ‘‘Whoa!”

Paste: I think a lot of the lyrics in your music have a similar feel, this bizarre randomness. Sometimes they remind me of Zen koans, those mind-bending riddles that are supposed to snap you out of your normal state of reality. With your lyrics, I was wondering whether they were more well-thought-out artistic choices or more arbitrary, and if you think it matters either way.
Barnes: It’s never arbitrary. Even as disconnected as it might seem, it always makes sense to me. And it’s really weird, but it’s just one of those weird things, like, I know it’s right, even though it could go any number of different ways, but for some reason I’ll look at one line and be like, “That sucks,” and someone else might look at it and be like, “It doesn’t suck any worse than the rest of the lines,” but somehow in my mind it makes sense. It’s kind of like that with the music too—sometimes I’ll listen to something I’ve written and think it’s really not happening, it’s really boring. It’s just a feeling.

Paste: We talked about when you married Nina, and going from life with all these people in the band to living with just Nina and David. How important is family to you? You collaborate with Nina and David quite a bit, and when I met your mom, she seemed very supportive of you.
Barnes: It’s really important. I have a really strong relationship with everyone in my family. I really love that. I think about that a lot. It’s really amazing to have a family where people just have to accept you, and that’s the best element. Sometimes you annoy each other, sometimes you don’t want anything to do with each other, but you have this really special, magical connection with the people you grew up with and spent so much time with. My mom actually lives behind us at our house, which would probably be a nightmare for a lot of people, but I actually really like it. My dad’s been living down in Florida ’cause he’s still working, but I wish he lived up here with us, too. I like that idea, of being able to spend time together, have dinner together—you do your own thing during the day. These are the people who are as far from strangers as possible, and even though they might not completely understand you, and you don’t completely understand them either, you have such a special connection [with them] and that’s really important.

Paste: Now that you’ve been a father and a husband for a few years, how does that affect your life as an artist?
Barnes: I was afraid it was going to affect me in a negative way. I was afraid I was going to turn into Kenny Loggins or something, and write all these sweet, mundane little love songs. But it’s kind of funny, I don’t know if part of my mind has rebelled against that. It’s affected me in a good way, I think; it hasn’t taken the fire out of me. I still feel totally neurotic and freaked out and confused most of the time. I just think it’s cool to have, with Nina, this sounding board, someone who’s in my corner all the time, and she’s not going to sugarcoat things for me and tell me something is great even though it sucks. I trust her and respect her, and if she says something is exciting, I can get excited about it too, and if she doesn’t seem that excited about it, then I’m like, “Maybe it’s not that good.” It’s the same with David. The three of us have this really special connection where we really understand each other, and motivate each other and are really excited about each other’s art. It’s not like pulling teeth to get David to listen to one of my songs; he actually wants to hear it. And he gives me really interesting feedback because he’s not a musician. So he’s hearing different things, he’s not hearing things on a technical level like some musicians might—it’s more of a visceral thing for him. And Nina is the same way because she listens to all kinds of music, and her mom’s an amazing musician, and she grew up with all types of music and she’s a musician, too. She’s turned me on to all sorts of things.

Paste: So what are their creative roles in Of Montreal? Is it ever more than being a sounding board?
Barnes: Nina and David do all the artwork for the albums and T-shirts, and all the merchandise, and both of them listen to the records as they’re being created and help me figure out the identity of the record sometimes. In a way, it’s almost like having a therapist. Talking to them helps me order my ideas and put things in a better context. But they created the artwork for the new album packages and the posters and all that stuff, and we also create all the theatrical stuff together and the different ideas, like the shaving-cream thing. All the ideas you’ve seen [executed] on stage probably have come from either David or Nina, but anyone in the band can contribute ideas, like the 10-foot dress, that was Jamie and Dottie’s idea, and we had our friend in town sewing for us. I realized today that Of Montreal is an art collective—it’s all these artists working together, and it’s all centered around the band, but it’s branching off in different directions and everybody is wearing different hats and contributing different things.

Paste: What was your relationship like with David growing up? Did you guys always make music and art together?
Barnes: We always did things, but we didn’t really do that many things together. David was always drawing. From my earliest memory, he had drawing journals and spent most of his time in his room making these funny little comics, but we didn’t start working [together] in any way until I started putting out records. It just sort of fit with my mentality at the time, which I still have—that it’s cool to create a personality for the band, and I like that David has contributed art to every single record, with the exception of Petite Tragedy. On every single record, he’s done something and I’ve done something, but what we try to do is make it seem like a different person is doing it, so there’s continuity but it doesn’t seem like the same shit over and over again. That’s kind of the fun challenge—how are we going to do something different than we did last time? It’s very rewarding, but also very frustrating when you’re going through the process, going back and forth. It’s funny for David and Nina cause they’ll spend hours and hours, and I’ll go in and look at it and go, “It’s pretty cool, but what if you change this?” And that’s happened a lot of times, where I’ll spend hours and hours playing a song and they’ll be like, “Yeah, it’s pretty cool, but it gets kind of boring at that one part, and I’ll be like, “Goddamn you, fuck you!” but then I’ll think about it and be like, “You’re right, actually,” and then I’ll go back and change it and it’s better. So I think it’s good to have people you respect to throw ideas off of during the development of a project.

Paste: When I talked with your mom, right after your Langerado performance, she said you’d always wanted to be in band since the 6th grade. Now, you’ve been in this national touring band and have had some success. Looking back, how does the reality of it compare to any dream you might’ve had?
Barnes: It’s just as good as any dream I might’ve had, you know? In the early days, I probably wouldn’t have said that. I always wanted to be in a band. I never cared about school. I never thought that I would get anything out of education or really any other career. [Being in a band is] all I wanted to do. It’s kind of funny now, ’cause I was thinking about, having a daughter, I probably won’t push her very hard to be an A student. A lot of times when you’re growing up, your parents will put that on you, like, “If you want to get anything out of life, you have to go to college and get good grades,” but that’s not necessarily true. What you really need to do is find something you love, and find a way to make a living at something you love. And that’s a lot harder than getting A’s. We just had this production meeting this morning, and talking about the different ideas we’re coming up with, it’s so exciting and fun—there’s nothing else I’d rather do.

Paste: You got your first drum set when you were in seventh grade. What was it like getting that first instrument?
Barnes: When I got that drum set, I’ve never been happier in my life. My parents got it for me for Christmas, and we had this half-finished basement, and they set it up down there, and I went downstairs and it was like a miracle. I couldn’t even believe my eyes—it was that kind of moment you see in the movies. It was the most beautiful object I’d ever seen. I was really into hair metal at the time. And it was a black Pearl drum kit, and everyone played black Pearls at that time. And it was just like…

Paste: Like [Poison drummer] Rikki Rocket!
Barnes: Exactly! I was so psyched. But [after a while] I started getting a little, well, not frustrated with drums, but I wanted to do something more melodic, like guitar. For some reason, I took to guitar really quickly. I’ve never really become a great guitar player, but playing chords and doing what I needed to do to write songs came pretty quickly. I never really had lessons, but I had an uncle who taught me how to make bar chords. Then I learned every Rolling Stones song, and that was my musical education. There was this one tape collection I had called The London Years and it was all their early stuff—really simple three-chord songs. So I would just listen to them and figure them out and play along with them. That was around the time we moved to Florida from Michigan, so I had a lot of time to myself. I was like 14 then. I would sit in my room and play the songs and imagine I was on a big stage. I guess I kind of imagined myself as Ron Wood.

Paste: So all the many instruments you play came with time?
Barnes: Yeah. My parents were really cool. I wanted to get a bass and my parents were like, “OK, if you get a B in Chemistry we’ll get you bass.” And then I’d try really hard and get a C+ and they’d be like, “OK, close enough.” I had this really wicked Warlock bass, and I played that in a band for a while. I had a bunch of little bands with my high-school friends. We’d just play covers. My dad very much discouraged me from playing bass. He’d be like, “Nobody wants to be the bass player. Why do you want to be the bass player?” And I’d be like, “Dad, bass is cool.” But that was always my focus—trying to find people to play with, which was really difficult, especially in Florida. I couldn’t find anyone to play with. For some reason, there weren’t that many kids into playing instruments in West Palm Beach at that time. It’s probably different now, but at that time, just to find someone who could play drums was impossible.

2009-01-26 - The New Yorker

Logic of Excess
Kevin Barnes’s disco semiotics.
by Sasha Frere-Jones January 26, 2009

Of Montreal’s sideshow: face paint, glitter, ruffles.
Photograph by Mackenzie Stroh.

Kevin Barnes, of Of Montreal, has written, performed, and recorded many of its songs alone, but these days he is joined onstage by an increasing number of unpantsed musicians and painted performers. Since the band formed, eleven years ago, in Athens, Georgia, Barnes has been committed to the pleasures and the logic of excess. Why go for the usual themes when you can write a song called “Dustin Hoffman’s Wife Calls in Detective to Dust for Porcelain Particles on Dustin Hoffman’s Tongue” (from a 2001 release with “Dustin Hoffman” in every title) or “There Is Nothing Wrong with Hating Rock Critics”? If 2008 wasn’t a big year for semiotics or for what Barnes calls “the depths of this phallocentric tyranny,” it did no apparent harm to Of Montreal—its latest album, “Skeletal Lamping,” is moving the band closer to the center of whatever the indie-rock conversation is now.

Barnes’s bag of tricks is deep; David Bowie’s bedazzled seventies rock is just as relevant as literary nods, disco highs are as appealing as melodic intricacy, and pleasure seems to drive every one of Barnes’s impatient, rococo arrangements. “Skeletal Lamping,” the group’s ninth and best album, isn’t just the most danceable; disco punches up the hedonism in Barnes’s songwriting, and the steady 4/4 thump helps keep the fidgety songs from splintering.

In the nineties and early aughts, Barnes was roughly in step with his friends in a musical collective called Elephant 6. Along with bands like Elf Power, Of Montreal drew from several decades of melodic guitar pop, especially the English band XTC, and made rackety, exuberant rock albums. Barnes has a high, thin voice that often mimics a falsetto even when he’s not singing falsetto. He could slip seamlessly into the chorus of a Zombies or a Beach Boys record. Pop’s secular boys’ choir is not so removed from the castrato voices of canonical disco acts like the Bee Gees and Sylvester, and Barnes began flirting with derivations of disco in 2005, on the album “The Sunlandic Twins,” with songs like “I Was Never Young” (an uncommonly plain phrase for him) and “Wraith Pinned to the Mist and Other Games” (much more like it). Of Montreal came closer to being a de-jure dance band on 2007’s celebrated “Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer?”

“Skeletal Lamping” continues in this vein, and although it is not always formally dance music, it dances, and rarely leaves the old-fashioned joys of song form behind. Barnes could never settle for dance music’s heartbeat—long stretches of repetition—because his compositions flicker too rapidly. So it is perhaps more helpful to think of Of Montreal as one big dance d.j. rather than as representative of any genre of dance music itself. The songs on “Skeletal Lamping” are like mini mix tapes; strung together, it’s just a whole lot of mixing.

If you want to know exactly how A.D.D. a Barnes song can get, go to the seven-minute “Plastis Wafers,” which could be a self-contained primer on “Skeletal Lamping.” The song has four main sections, and touches on many of the sounds and ideas that Barnes returns to: sexuality, books, disco, progressive seventies rock, androgynous vocals, the shortest distance between two styles, and the entanglement of clear language and ambiguous feelings. Early in the song’s light-footed opening, which might be an Italian disco track from 1981, Barnes sings, “I confess to really being quite charmed by your feminine effects, you’re the only one with whom I would role play Oedipus Rex.” For Barnes, reading and music and sex all seem to be connected to the same central pleasure node. Barnes knows he’s dealing with heady material, which might be why “Skeletal Lamping” is stuffed with so many different sounds and melodies and parts.

On “Hissing Fauna,” he recounts bonding with a girl over Georges Bataille’s “Story of the Eye.” (There is a generation of eighties semiotics students who wish that Barnes had been around twenty years earlier, to make critical theory a little easier to use on dates. But then we had Green Gartside, of Scritti Politti—another writer Barnes has an affinity with, as far as androgyny, literature, and affection for disco are concerned.) After asking his object to be his “pleasure puss” and comparing two sets of hands to “four excited spiders,” Barnes skips from lighter disco to a slightly heavier groove. (These sections are striated into subdivisions.) In one rhapsodic sub-bridge, which sounds a little like a languid Pink Floyd track, Barnes assures his lover that “you and I are friends, not some polemic to be puzzled over.” On “Hissing Fauna,” he made the connection to David Bowie’s work almost explicit, by developing an alter ego named Georgie Fruit. Live shows began to feature more and more costumes and nudity, sometimes involving Barnes dropping trou entirely. Of Montreal became a roving sideshow in face paint, glitter, and ruffles—anything to upend what Barnes would likely call “normative.”

Barnes pushes at definitions. When he sings, “I’m just a black she-male, and I don’t know what you people are all about,” on “Wicked Wisdom,” from “Skeletal Lamping,” it doesn’t seem as genuine as his love for Bataille; it is perhaps a way to scare off anyone who doesn’t want to play the most unorthodox version of indie rock possible. Actually, “indie rock” barely applies to Of Montreal as anything but a description of the people who come to see it. What do you call music with horn parts reminiscent of both Burt Bacharach and Prince?

There’s a bargain with the audience when Of Montreal plays live. In the studio, Barnes has tight control over his hundreds of skeins and can knit everything together and check all the seams. (After a dozen listens, “Skeletal Lamping” doesn’t feel at all jumpy or impatient. Barnes may like to change positions a lot, but he rarely loses track of where the song is.) Onstage, it is considerably harder to reproduce the precision of machines. The pleasure substitute here is spectacle. At a performance last month at the Music Hall of Williamsburg, Barnes wore some appealing tight blue bits and pieces, and disrobed extensively. The bigger thrills were left to the non-playing members of the show. The set began with four people draped in gold fabric topped by gold masks, staring at the crowd like Aztec statues that had taken a notion to move about. During the show, a small clutch of agents dressed in black ran around the audience and then painted people with red face paint. The biggest stunt was a supersized puppet operated by five people, one for the head and one for each big fuzzy limb.

The band brought this bit of theatre along when they performed “An Eluardian Instance” on the “Late Show with David Letterman.” As much as I salute Barnes and his cohorts for importing pageant and chaos to the stage, it’s all a little half-baked compared to the music running through Barnes’s head. Of Montreal would have to be a band on a par with the seventies version of Parliament to deliver both theatre and top-quality dance music. That kind of performance skirts Broadway in terms of complexity and production-value demands, and a touring band is going to have a hard time hitting those heights. In Barnes’s case, the spectacle is already in the sound. ♦

2008-12-10 - Salmon of Rock

Interview with Of Montreal's James Huggins

I had the chance to chat with Of Montreal multi-instrumentalist James Huggins this weekend. The Athens band is wrapping up the U.S. leg of its Skeletal Lamping tour these days.

If you haven't seen the band live yet, I'd recommend it, if you want to see and hear mock hangings, ninja action sequences, centaurs and brilliant musicianship.

Skeletal Lamping was one of my favorite albums this year, a fantastic mix of psychedelic rock and indie-funk that should pass the test of time.

Huggins has been in the band for more than a decade, and now the collective finally appears ready to make a splash on the charts, thanks to ever-imaginative frontman Kevin Barnes. Catch the group performing live on the "Late Show with David Letterman" Thursday, Dec. 18.

Barnes recorded most of Skeletal Lamping in his home studio, and his big band fills in the gaps on tour.

Huggins, a gifted songwriter in his own right, is responsible for a solo album under the name James Husband.

He called me from a Tampa beach this weekend and talked about his time with the band and Barnes, what it's like to finally hit the "big-time," and his plans for an upcoming solo project.

I will post the half-hour interview in three chunks over the next three days. Enjoy!

SoR: How's the tour going?

JH: This is the very bottom of the tail end of the last straw of this tour. We feel like the whole tour was over essentially right before Thanksgiving and then these Florida shows were added on at the last minute. They're all a little bit lower profiles, so we're just kind of doing them just for like a bonus.

SoR: It's obviously the most elaborate show the band has done, with ninjas and costumes and action sequences. Is this your ideal view of what a concert should be?

JH: This time we were more motivated. The time before it was a little bit less. The scary thing is trying to top this now because there's an expectation when you do something really big and theatrical that then, each time, I feel like there's some expectation that we have to impress and improve. So at some point it's going to have to hit a plateau and go back to something minimal.

SoR: You can't really top mock hangings I guess?

JH: Yeah, but that's exactly how we wanted to do it. And for us the only real limitation on this whole tour was venue size, like stage size, and then, of course, money. But we found some very creative ways around the money thing. As far as the size of the venues, we could just adapt our set to accommodate most places.
Like in Atlanta, that was the ideal setup where we had all five video screens and our little drum towers and all that. But a lot of times, like in Nashville, I remember it was really small. We had to strike the risers all together and only use one video screen. I don't know, all those things we have to work around every night. It's sort of a new setup but the show is essentially the same.

SoR: Do you sense that you guys have turned the corner and maybe moved out of the smaller rock band status and into one of those larger acts?

JH: Well, definitely, that's undeniable. For us, it's kind of like a funny thing that we're talking like we're so old and we've been doing it so long. So we have the same excitement that you see in a younger band that's put out their first or second record.
I feel like we've been trained for disappointment because we sort of expected it to do this six or eight or 10 years ago. And with each record and each tour, we feel like we've just been waiting for the audience. Now 10 years later, to have some of those things start to happen, I think we're all a little bit distrustful of the whole situation.
Because it's like it's great that we can be able to put on the shows we want from larger audiences and have respect from other groups and press that wouldn't give us the time of day two years ago. It's definitely a very interesting transition but I think we're all just slightly confused and maybe wary of the success.

SoR: What would be the optimal topping out point? Do you guys want to sell out Madison Square Garden?

JH: Sure, that would be great!

SoR: I understand that the music scene is splintered today with the larger record companies struggling to make a lot of profit. Now there seems to be a lot of the smaller bands that hit the medium status and never get to that Britney Spears-type status. Would your goal be to sell out the big stadiums?

JH: Well that's the thing. I don't think there is an ideal. It's just different things. We love putting on big, funny things and playing in small clothes. I guess it just depends on what it calls for. We had an offer to do a show at the Hollywood Bowl, which I think the maximum there is like 15,000 people.
I don't know if we'd get anywhere close to that. I guess the last show we did in L.A. was like 4,000 people in a single room, and this was like an outdoor room. So we would have the opportunity to have like an orchestra or something crazy. But that would be something we'd do once, and then the next time we might play at the small, little rock club and put on a special show.
Last time we played in London in a big theater and put on the first, real U.K. big performance. But then we're going back in a few weeks and we're playing this show with Franz Ferdinand in a little club that only holds like 600 people.
I think that it's really just keeping it interesting by doing a variety of different kinds of shows and different kinds of environments for different kinds of audiences. I think rotating it gives you perspective.
Because if you just start doing detached, large arena kind of shit, I can see how that would kind of kill the personality of the performance. I've gotten a glimpse of that a couple of times. I've heard of a couple of other bands that say that they can't stand playing really large, arena-type venues because they don't feel any connection. I can see that too, but I don't think we're in any immediate danger of having to do that.

SoR: Can you walk me through the recording process? I know Kevin Barnes records most of the parts and then you guys learn it and perform it live. Is that generally how it all works?

JH: The last couple of records, that's exactly how it works. So if we're talking current events, yeah. But it's a weird thing because we've had lineup changes with people coming in and out of the band.
Dottie and I have almost exclusively been working with the band for almost 11 years, and there was a lot more time where we were living in a house with Kevin, writing all of our parts, singing all of our own parts on the record, and actually writing entire songs for the record. So that was like a whole other era.
To me, it feels like two different bands, and they just kept the name.

SoR: Does it feel odd to make that change?

JH: Obviously, that's a tough transition, but after a couple of albums and seeing how dramatically it's shifted the whole audience and seeing what that's done for him to to get these records out of his brain uninterrupted by compromise, it's good for him and fun for us to see what he comes up with.
Now, we feel much more like musicians. We're all still songwriters and do our own thing, but in this band it's much more about the performance now. I always say that we feel much more like actors, like we're given a juicy script but it's our job to interpret it. And we do that kind of in our own style with each thing and it's never as strictly regimented as a lot of people assume. We usually take what he's done and create a part that represents some kind of essence of what it was and then play them live.
Because a lot of the songs are really impossible to play verbatim. Most of them have four or five or as many as eight bass lines. No one person can play that, so we'll listen to it and find the major points of what pops out the most and then try and construct one single part from that. And it's the same with all the vocals. Most of the songs have at least 10 vocal harmonies and there's only four of us that are singing.
It's like interpreting it, and that's another reason why the performances have gotten so outrageous because the rest of us in the band need to do something creative if we're not writing the material. All that shit we do. Very, very little of the stage design has anything at all to do with Kevin, or people also seem to think that it has some literal translation of the lyrics. That's not always true.
It's like the band and his brother, and we just get together and come up with these ridiculous ideas and go shopping and we build all the stuff ourselves. All the video content we shoot ourselves. So it's very much a group effort that a hundred ideas are sort-of in a pot and we'll come out with 10 good ones.

SoR: You've recorded under the James Husband name.

JH: That's been an ongoing recording project for me for years that I haven't really ever made much of an effort. I've done shows, I've even done whole opening tours for Of Montreal. But it's mostly just a bedroom recording project that I make mostly for just my friends and to distribute to a few. It's a real small-time project for now.

SoR: Are you still working on coming out with another album?

JH: I'm desperately trying to get into a situation where I feel like I can release something with a label that's going to do it the way that I want to. I've been really reticent to put out like a small release of a single album because I've seen it happen so many times where you put all your eggs in one basket and then it doesn't get any kind of attention. Then the songs are dead and you gotta start over again. ... I want to make a multiple disc release that is not just like 10 songs, 12 songs. At this point, I've amassed so much material that I'm trying to find someone whose willing to put out like a four-disc thing, almost like a posthumous-type thing, like a collection of an entire decade. I think that I will eventually be able to do it and I'm talking with Polyvinyl about trying to convince them to do it.

SoR: Are they giving you an impression that they'd be willing to do it?

JH: We haven't even gotten that far in the discussion. It's more about them agreeing to do something and then we'll have to figure it out at a meeting. But yeah, I would absolutely love to do that, and if I have to make them myself, which is what I've been doing, and sell them at shows, then I'll do that. That's a whole other ball of wax. But to be honest, I'm not sure what's going to happen.

SoR: I figured you had to be working on your own material as well, if Kevin is putting all the albums together.

JH: Yeah, it's actually pretty interesting. We did go into a real studio and we attempted to do this album "Skeletal Lamping" live, as like a live feed. And we did, we went in for like a week. We did about six or seven songs. We thought it sounded great, we were really enjoying being in the studio.
And we were working with this producer who I think Kevin felt uncomfortable with. And then I think he just kind of napped on like the sixth or seventh day and just decided that he didn't feel comfortable and explained to us that it wasn't about our playing or his recording, but that he was really dying for the privacy, the personal experience of staying up all night and recording whatever he wanted in his pajamas.
That's how he works, he usually recorded way late in the night, starting around 9 or 10 until like 7 or 8 in the morning. So he ended up using a lot of that stuff on the album. There's a couple of tracks where it is all of us playing and he's gone back and sprinkled all his crazy electronics and falsetto vocals over it and taken that as a blueprint and gone with it.
So it's frustrating to us because, of course, we think we could do a great live album, and that we're considered, I hope, to be really musical beyond theatrics. It's frustrating to never get a real chance to show that in a recording. But at the same time, we have to allow him that because when he did get full control he came back with something that really surprised us and was actually fun for us to listen to as fans.
It's like a weird kind of give and take sort of thing, but I think we're all at a point where it's not about egos or feeling like we're not getting some sort of opportunity to do this or that. It's more like just releasing all that crap and allowing him to have his voice and we just help him.

SoR: What did you think of Skeletal Lamping when you first heard it?

JH: I really disliked it. Until I started deconstructing it, I didn't see how unique and multi-dimensional it was. At least for the first two or three listens, I felt like it was just really disjointed, frustrating, simple, sexual booty-pop or something and I just couldn't understand where he was going.
And then when he started sending these isolated keyboard parts and harmonies and stuff and I sort of detached myself from my personal interpretation of the lyrics just by knowing him and knowing his family and knowing his psyche, I tried to not consider that. And not consider any of the lyrics literally and pretend like it's some sort of alien voice that's just coming in and doing a little tap-dance and getting off on it. That's what he wanted.
And then I talked to him about it and said, 'God what's the point of this? Why did you end it like this?' And he was saying how it was his calculated intention to make it upsetting and jarring to listen to, and that all of those cut-in-half songs and quick starts and sharp endings were meant intentionally to kind of keep you on your toes. He wanted to make this sort-of difficult arrangement that wasn't like a standard, three-minute song, track by track for 14 songs.
So anyway, after a little bit of context and a little bit of time and then actually trying to piece it together myself and learn parts, then I got a deep respect for this album. I think it might be one of the best. But that defines any good record if you can listen to it five, eight, 10, 12 times and find something new out of it, that is definitely the case with this one.
I would recommend a minimum of 10 listens before making any sort of opinion. And, it's such a short record and it does change so often that you can stomach listening to it 10 times in as many days and it wouldn't be like some kind of chore. Just pop it in your car and ride for a half an hour and it's over.

SoR: I understand what you're saying. With each successive Of Montreal album, I think that I'm not going to like this one as much and than after 10 listens, it's my new favorite. I guess that's the mark of a good album and I guess that's what you guys are hoping for.

JH: The thing is, I think Kevin just disregards any of that when he's making them. For him, I really do think he's making it for himself.
It's really hard being an artist, and especially if you know that your voice is being heard. I can sit around and write stuff and I'll actually consider, 'Does this sound like it could be played on the radio?'
But Kevin doesn't give a shit what anybody thinks, obviously. So he's able to detach himself from any self-editing, and that's a big part of some of the creepier, sexual lyrics. He said he wasn't going to sit there and say, 'Oh I shouldn't say this,' or 'I shouldn't say condoms on my ice-cream cone.' Whatever he wanted to say he just said it, because it made him laugh and it made him smile in the moment of creation. And then he wouldn't go back and reconsider, 'Is this offensive?'
I have to respect that, not to suggest that just anything you fart out is gold. There's obviously some consideration there, and I don't think anybody wants to hear every random thought that an artist has. I do think that freeing up your ego a little bit can certainly yield interesting creative work and I think he's done that very successfully.

SoR: There's an image that people seem to have of you guys. I keep hearing the word 'superfreak' thrown out there to describe the personality that you have on stage. Is that really how you guys are or are you actually just sitting around drinking hot tea and relaxing?

JH: I think it's a very real and natural part of all of our personalities, but that's a misconception. When we're on stage, we are trying to put our best foot forward to put on a show for people to have a great hour and a half.
It's not like it's difficult for us to do that or that we're forcing some other personality on ourselves because each one of us has that in us.
But then, we all have a depressed, sitting in the back of the bus side. We all have a groggy, bitchy in the morning side. We all have a crazy, loud eccentric side.
I guess the thing that bugs me mostly when people say stuff like that is that a) we are insane, or most frustratingly, we are on drugs.
We eat well, aside from maybe drinking a little too much. Nobody even smokes pot at all, not ever. Everyone just assumes that to be inventive you have to be abusing substances and that drives all of us nuts.
Why can't we not have decided to put on this performance with a gigantic, rotating room and a man in a centaur outfit and not have it come from a night of smoking bongs?
It's like, no, we had a production meeting where we sat around and came up with that. To us, it's not that insane. It's just entertaining.
That's the thing that gets lost. It's trying to be entertaining and definitely comical. Some people feel like maybe they shouldn't laugh because this is serious art. Well yeah, it is art and we're serious about it but it doesn't have to be uptight and it can be very playful and comical.

SoR: Is this a band you hope is going to be around in 30 or 40 years?

JH: Well, the goal is not longevity for the sake of a good story. It's like, as long as there's good material and we're healthy enough to jump around, and if Kevin still wants us to work in this sort of arrangement. But yeah, I would definitely see it five or 10 years from now. I don't think we're slowing down.
I was talking with (Kevin) about that yesterday, that it's funny to me that young kids are discovering us that now we're approaching this sort of territory like Sonic Youth. Because right now, we're definitely over the decade hump. After five or six more years, and then suddenly 15 or 20 years, you think, 'God we've been doing it for 20 years.'
I could see that definitely. I'm not going to make any predictions but I will say I don't think we'll be stopping anytime soon.

SoR: I have to ask, based on the band's influences. Beach Boys: Pet Sounds or Smile?

JH: I'm always going to go with Smile because it represents everything that I love about recording, but then Pet Sounds is also fantastic. It's just two different things. It's like when people ask me the Beatles or the Stones. I think it's a ridiculous question because I love them both for so many different reasons.

SoR: I think that's the best answer you could have had.

JH: Anyway, for the sake of whatever, Smile.

SoR: Prince: Purple Rain or Sign 'o the Times?

JH: I would have to say Purple Rain personally. I was always a sucker for the hits and that one has a bunch of them.

SoR: I appreciate you taking the time to chat with me.