Post by ihaveaflamegun on Mar 15, 2004 15:22:25 GMT -5
in the toronto zine Wavelength
starting....now:
xiu xiu dropped their fourth album, fabulous muscles, on 5rc just last month. but front man Jamie Stewart is not one to take a vacation, having toured his band across the US no less then 7 times in the last two years. Jamie kindly parked his car beside the road to chat with Jam Butty. He asked about as many questions as he answered.
So, Jamie, whats up?
I'm just driving home from the studio. We're just in the process of mixing a new album.
Really? That was quick.
Well, Fabulous Muscles is a case of me writing and recording a bunch of songs. The new album has a much more improvisatory process. We basically were sitting down and cutting and pasting a whole bunch of stuff on a laptop. It's going to be way less poppy. A whole bunch of amazing xiu xiu- related people just came and played on it, including Cory McCulloch, our sometime producer.
Have you been getting a lot of good feedback for Fabulous Muscles?
Yes. Its a lot poppier so it seems to be reaching a lot more people.
I really like that song "i luz the valley OH! what can you tell me about it?
"I Luv The Valley" was a Ten In The Swear Jar song which was a band I had with Cory before Xiu Xiu. It was one of those bands that just kind of never went anywhere. We put out a 12" but that was about it. "I Luv The Valley" was written at that time although the Xiu Xiu version really only shares the words and chords.
What made you want to re-record it?
We initially did it but i wanted to do it again better. Also... Well, the songs about what it was like for me to grow up in the Valley in L.A with my family. My parents and I had a relationship that was um, like mystically coupling unreasonable demands with standard familial support. But then my father killed himself last year.
OH MY GOD.
And when he died the family dynamic totally changed. I thought that in re-visting that song it was like re-exploring our relationship. Hold on a sec...
What's up?
Sorry, there's this guy outside my car who wants a ride to the gas station. He looks kind of shifty. I'm actually really paranoid of serial killers, I think about it all the time. There was one in my neighbourhood when I was a kid, so I get freaked out about it way too often.
Umm... Maybe you shouldn't let him in your car.
Ugh... I feel bad, I don't want him to think I'm a bad Christian or something. What were we talking about?
I wanted to ask you about felt art.
What? How did you know I did felt art?
I think I read it somewhere. I like felt and make things with it so it kind of stuck in my head. What do you make with it?
I got into felt art through my experience as a pre-school teacher. You might think the premise is kind of dorky... basically, I'm obsessed with numbers, and how some are lucky and unlucky. I've been depicting suicide scenes with a human central figure and a bunch of different objects. All the objects are given numbers and I've kind of anthropomorphized them, stuff like bears, tables, Mt. Fuji or whatever. I like felt a lot because it's so inexpensive, I just cut out the shapes and glue them.
I read on your website that you're also writing a novel.
Yes, it's almost done. I'm just editing it and I'm hoping to get a record label to release it. I'm sending out copies just before we go on tour.
What's it about?
The novel is a series of vignettes about my sex life from ages 6 to 29. I've had a really funny and, well, bizarre history of sexual experience. The novel is pretty explicit and frank about all of it. I'm hoping people will see the humour in it.
Jamie then avoided another potential adventure and left the shifty looking man by the side of the road. The conversation turned to Art Spiegelman, Karla Homolka and Picastro's Liz Hysen. Xiu Xiu is touring as a two-piece. Their Toronto debut happens really, really soon (
)
starting....now:
xiu xiu dropped their fourth album, fabulous muscles, on 5rc just last month. but front man Jamie Stewart is not one to take a vacation, having toured his band across the US no less then 7 times in the last two years. Jamie kindly parked his car beside the road to chat with Jam Butty. He asked about as many questions as he answered.
So, Jamie, whats up?
I'm just driving home from the studio. We're just in the process of mixing a new album.
Really? That was quick.
Well, Fabulous Muscles is a case of me writing and recording a bunch of songs. The new album has a much more improvisatory process. We basically were sitting down and cutting and pasting a whole bunch of stuff on a laptop. It's going to be way less poppy. A whole bunch of amazing xiu xiu- related people just came and played on it, including Cory McCulloch, our sometime producer.
Have you been getting a lot of good feedback for Fabulous Muscles?
Yes. Its a lot poppier so it seems to be reaching a lot more people.
I really like that song "i luz the valley OH! what can you tell me about it?
"I Luv The Valley" was a Ten In The Swear Jar song which was a band I had with Cory before Xiu Xiu. It was one of those bands that just kind of never went anywhere. We put out a 12" but that was about it. "I Luv The Valley" was written at that time although the Xiu Xiu version really only shares the words and chords.
What made you want to re-record it?
We initially did it but i wanted to do it again better. Also... Well, the songs about what it was like for me to grow up in the Valley in L.A with my family. My parents and I had a relationship that was um, like mystically coupling unreasonable demands with standard familial support. But then my father killed himself last year.
OH MY GOD.
And when he died the family dynamic totally changed. I thought that in re-visting that song it was like re-exploring our relationship. Hold on a sec...
What's up?
Sorry, there's this guy outside my car who wants a ride to the gas station. He looks kind of shifty. I'm actually really paranoid of serial killers, I think about it all the time. There was one in my neighbourhood when I was a kid, so I get freaked out about it way too often.
Umm... Maybe you shouldn't let him in your car.
Ugh... I feel bad, I don't want him to think I'm a bad Christian or something. What were we talking about?
I wanted to ask you about felt art.
What? How did you know I did felt art?
I think I read it somewhere. I like felt and make things with it so it kind of stuck in my head. What do you make with it?
I got into felt art through my experience as a pre-school teacher. You might think the premise is kind of dorky... basically, I'm obsessed with numbers, and how some are lucky and unlucky. I've been depicting suicide scenes with a human central figure and a bunch of different objects. All the objects are given numbers and I've kind of anthropomorphized them, stuff like bears, tables, Mt. Fuji or whatever. I like felt a lot because it's so inexpensive, I just cut out the shapes and glue them.
I read on your website that you're also writing a novel.
Yes, it's almost done. I'm just editing it and I'm hoping to get a record label to release it. I'm sending out copies just before we go on tour.
What's it about?
The novel is a series of vignettes about my sex life from ages 6 to 29. I've had a really funny and, well, bizarre history of sexual experience. The novel is pretty explicit and frank about all of it. I'm hoping people will see the humour in it.
Jamie then avoided another potential adventure and left the shifty looking man by the side of the road. The conversation turned to Art Spiegelman, Karla Homolka and Picastro's Liz Hysen. Xiu Xiu is touring as a two-piece. Their Toronto debut happens really, really soon (
)