French Toast & Kurt Vile (Interview)

Kurt Brunch 1It’s a beautiful, sunny autumn day in New York City as I make my way along Broadway in Brooklyn. I have an appointment to meet with Kurt Vile at a café in the trendy area of South Williamsburg to discuss his new album, B’lieve I’m Goin’ Down, which was just released a week or two earlier.

As I walk down the busy road, the neighbourhood morphs from run-down tenements to Latin-flavoured junk shops and finally, I see my first bearded hipster. Yes, I’m headed in the right direction, and sure enough the increasingly gentrified area is soon teeming with coffee shops and cafes.

I locate the agreed-upon destination, but find it is closed…not due to open for several more hours. Temporarily confounded, I wander across the street, in search of a possible alternative location, simultaneously emailing Vile’s representative, to see if plans have changed.

I return to the pre-arranged location to find a gaggle of 20-somethings, a few with long hair, standing around on the street corner. Sure enough, Kurt Vile is among them and I approach the group, introducing myself.

Yes, they are expecting me and yes, they are as confused (and hungry) as I am.

There’s about a half dozen of them, Vile, his band, a road manager and his wife. After a brief powwow, we decide to stake out on our own, in search of an appropriate place to eat and talk. Our group makes it way down a few side streets, turns a few corners and comes upon a French-style café that looks like it will fill our needs.

It’s just after 1pm. Vile and his band, The Violators have just performed at Manhattan’s historic Webster Hall the previous night, the first of two sold-out shows. No doubt it was a late night, and these folks are only just now coming to grips with the new day.

Kurt VileThe band and entourage all sit together at one table, while Kurt and I grab a more isolated location where we can conduct our business. Its clear Vile is still buzzing from last night’s show, and before we have a chance to order our food, he’s ready to talk about his relationship with his audience.

“I’m liking my fans. I don’t know what it is but I’m really liking my crowds. It seems like the crazier I react, or what I think is sloppy, they like it more. I could be wrong, but that seems to be the reaction I get.”

Kurt comes across as a genuine kind of guy. He fits the stoner image that his music elicits, and often ends his comments with a goofy, but endearing laugh.

“I am reading the crowd,” he continues, “you know, there’s only been a few gigs, and I’m only talking about club shows, because we did play one festival, Austin City Limits, it was good, but it was like daylight and outdoors and it’s different when you have to kind of consolidate your set and think about…so anyway, it’s all still slight trial and error but I am reading my crowds in the clubs and its good vibes. I don’t know what it is. I’m stoked.”

He should be stoked. The new album is getting rave reviews and fans are buying concert tickets by the bucket-load. Vile takes time after his gigs to mingle with fans, and gets plenty of feedback from them, most of it positive.

“Yeah, but I can also tell when somebody says, ’Great show’, if they really mean it. There is a paranoid part of me, but usually towards the end of the night, I can tell, I can gauge what the quality of the show really was just by…if I just disappeared I would never know, but I hang around and see the reactions, you know.”

That last comment is punctuated by one of those short, sudden laughs. A waitress turns up just at that moment and Kurt goes for the Eggs Norwegian and a pate sandwich that he plans to eat later. Asked to choose between fries and a salad, he takes the healthy option. Black coffee is mandatory. For myself, I order French toast and black tea. The conversation turns to Vile’s own assessment of his show.

“I just want to give an honest performance. I want to be feeling the music, I don’t want to be phoning it in. It’s funny, sound check kinda fucks with me because its empty and the room sounds different. It might sound sorta weird to me sometimes so it just depends where I’m at, but I’m not necessarily into it and all of a sudden there’s a crowd that’s stoked to see me and I’m a completely different person. I just kind of react in the moment. It’s just got to be kind of a personal experience, sort of like rock and roll I guess, but not mail-it-in rock and roll, like reactionary rock and roll mixed with fractured folk, or something.”

With the new album just a few weeks old, Kurt and The Violators (Jesse Trbovich, Rob Laasko and Kyle Spence) are breaking in the new songs in front of audiences. I ask if he is still feeling his way through the new material.

Kurt Brunch 2“Yeah, I think that I am doing all those things and there’s other songs we’re still trying to work out. I should have a banjo arrived at the venue tonight because I’m playing there again tonight, so we’re going to put Goldtone in there, because we haven’t done that yet, or attempt to. So, yeah, it’s figuring out the new songs and there’s always some songs that are a little more technical from the new record that all of a sudden I feel like you sort of get lazy and decide, you kind of go in this laid back…you go for the laid back thing a little more or the strummers, but I really wanna not just get used to doing that. I wanna challenge ourselves and stuff like that. But, yeah, it’s all still in the works.”

Sure enough, when the evening’s show rolls around, a banjo does indeed make an appearance, much to the appreciation of the assembled throng. It’s an instrument that’s near and dear to Vile’s heart.

Click here to read The 13th Floor concert review.

“I grew up playing the banjo, it was my first string instrument. My dad got it for me. But I’ve gone back and forth to it my whole musical life. I’ve had plenty of older banjo recordings and I’ve attempted to maybe get some banjo back in there, but it just never really worked out. It just finally worked out with this song, Outlaw. I really zone out just playing the banjo at home, you know, more than guitar. You can finger pick on a banjo like all day if you’ve got nothing going on and just really zone out in a different, more ethereal way than a guitar.”

After a few more minutes of formal interviewing, I lay down my recorder and we get down to the business of eating. The French toast is excellent, smothered with berries and Kurt seems to be enjoying his eggs.

I mention that I read Kim Gordon’s book, Girl In A Band, on the plane. Kim is an old friend of Vile’s and has written part of the press release that accompanies the new album.

“Our label put that together. It was nice but I haven’t seen her in a little bit. We’re friends, I’ve known her since the Smoke Ring For My Halo era, even before that came out. She was a fan of my first Matador record and J Mascis and they all live close to each other and we ended up playing some shows together. But she became a big fan and always sort of, subtle, maternal vibes, you know, like slash friend. I don’t know, she was always pretty supportive so we sent her the new record to see what she thought. Conveniently she loved it.”

Kurt Vile comes to New Zealand in January with solo shows in Wellington, Queenstown and Dunedin and a show with The Violators in Auckland at the St James on January 12th. By then, Kurt will have had some time to get the new song road worthy. Are they likely to change much by the time they get to us?

“The songs, yeah, they’re always going to evolve a little bit. Like I said, as of right now there’s a sort of energetic head nodding, get lost in my sort of whammy bar and Jaguar and booster pedals…you know, a little louder than I promised myself, if I let myself be again, this time. I keep saying I gotta turn it down up there and then it just makes me play it even louder. So that’s where I’m at right now. It’ll evolve…I don’t know how. It’ll tighten up but I don’t want it to be slick, you know. I’ll figure it out as we go.”

When I ask if he’s worried about getting too slick, his response is short and to the point.

“No”.

And then he laughs in classic Kurt Vile fashion.

Marty Duda

Click here for more information about Kurt Vile’s New Zealand tour.

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