A conversation with Robert Pollard from 2001
The Guided by Voices guru talks about why he started smoking, his relationship with Kim Deal, his favourite Canadian band, and getting drunk to write songs about getting drunk
Welcome to stübermania, where I dig into my box of dust-covered interview cassettes from the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s to present bygone conversations with your favourite alterna/indie semi-stars (and the occasional classic-rock icon). This is a newsletter in three parts: The Openers (links to recent writings, playlist updates, and/or other musical musings), The Headliner (your featured interview of the week), and Encores (random yet related links).
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THE OPENERS
Last week, Primal Scream’s still-excellent XTRMNTR celebrated its 25th anniversary; here’s the piece I wrote for Stereogum on the occasion of its 20th, and I think it’s safe to say that “Swastika Eyes” will retain its relevance for at least another four years.
Notes on this week’s new arrivals on the stübermania 2025 playlist:
Freckle, “Paranoid”: Freckle is, by my estimate, the 847th recording project that Ty Segall is involved with—in this case, it’s a collaboration with singer/guitarist Corey Madden of California psych-rock outfit Color Green. And while Freckle initially leans more toward the gentle acoustic side of Segall’s canon, the duo’s compact, 29-minute self-titled debut is a deceptively elaborate affair, its sundazed folk melodies luring you into labyrinthine songs (like this not-a-Black-Sabbath-cover opening track) that abound with proggy twists, glammy grooves, and fiery guitar solos.
The Weeknd & Justice, “Wake Me Up”: I can’t listen to Michael Jackson records anymore, so I appreciate Abel’s unyielding efforts to provide the world with less problematic alternatives to Thriller.
Dutch Interior, “Fourth Street”: With their slack-rock synthesis of Crooked Rain-era Pavement and Where You Been-era Dinosaur Jr., these L.A.-based Fat Possum hopefuls are retroactively auditioning for the role of Stuart’s Favourite Band of 1994…
Bob Mould, “Neanderthal”: …whereas this Sugar-rush of a tune finds Bob Mould still playing the role of Stuart’s Favourite Bob Mould of 1994.
Marshall Allan (feat. Neneh Cherry), “New Dawn”: On Feb. 14, the long-time Sun Ra Arkestra saxmaster will release his debut album—at the age of 100. Fittingly, its title track is the sort of song that makes time stand still, with its blissfully unmoored melange of spiritual jazz, old-time Hollywood orchestration, and a gentle slow-motion rhythm that rolls in like waves on the shore at sunset.
Benjamin Booker, “Slow Dance in a Gay Bar”: On this standout from his new album, LOWER, the blues auteur dresses up his gospel-gilded melodies with lo-fi production quirks and comes up with a new subgenre—Sparklehorse soul—to express the fear and joy that comes with being the truest version of yourself.
Sharp Pins, “I Can’t Stop”: Before you dig into this week’s feast of Guided by Voices-related content, whet your appetite with this unmistakably Pollard-esque lo-fi jangle gem courtesy of Chicago’s Kai Slater, who also fronts the Matador-signed indie power trio Lifeguard. (There’s plenty more of this hooky goodness to be had on Sharp Pins’ 2024 DIY debut Radio DDR, which receives an expanded re-release with four bonus tracks via K Records on March 21.)
THE HEADLINER:
A conversation with Robert Pollard
The date: February 15, 2001
Location: A boardroom in the TVT Records office in Manhattan
Publication: Eye Weekly
Album being promoted: Isolation Drills (a.k.a. the third-best Guided by Voices album, after Bee Thousand and Alien Lanes)
The context: Dedicated readers of this newsletter (bless you) will recognize that this is the second Bob Pollard interview to be featured in this space, following a previously published chat from 1999. But the circumstances surrounding this conversation were dramatically different: where our prior interview was a standard long-distance phoner, this one took the form of a face-to-face meeting in Manhattan, the city where—thanks to a now-legendary performance at CBGBs for the CMJ New Music Seminar in the summer of 1993—this former Dayton schoolteacher was transformed into an American indie-rock icon overnight.
In many respects, this moment represented the peak of my GBV fandom. While I had been a GBV loyalist since Bee Thousand was released in 1994, their 1999-2001 iteration seemed to tour the Toronto area a lot more frequently, so in addition to catching every local appearance, I found myself road-tripping to see them in Buffalo, Detroit, and New York City with a crew of fellow heads, because the shows were always a blast. (The fact that my roommate at the time was dating their new drummer, Jon McCann, might’ve had something to do with it, too.)
Isolation Drills was also the last GBV album I truly obsessed over, because I feel like it represented their peak as a band, in terms of fully realizing the arena-rock fantasies that GBV’s earlier lo-fi releases tried to execute on a spare-change budget. In hindsight, the album signified the true end of the ‘90s indie-rock era. By 2001, Pavement had broken up, Royal Trux were about to, Sebadoh had gone into hiding. It was time for a new narrative to begin. Little did I know at the time that I would actually bear witness to a changing of the guard during my NYC visit.
The night before our interview, on Valentine’s Day 2001, GBV played a pre-release show at the Bowery Ballroom, where they performed Isolation Drills in its entirety. I arrived in time to catch the opener, a local band who had just put out their first single. As I entered the venue from the back stairwell, I felt an immediate gravitational pull toward this band of five shaggy-haired, sharp-dressed kids who looked like they stepped off the cover of Television’s Marquee Moon and were playing a bunch of songs that sounded like “This Charming Man” crossed with “Lust for Life.” They weren’t selling any merch, but the next day, I went on a mission to track down their single at local record shops. After striking out at Other Music, I found a copy at Kim’s Video and Music for $8:
Funnily enough, even though Bob and I spent part of our interview contemplating the future of rock in 2001, The Strokes didn’t come up in the conversation, because, as much as I enjoyed their Bowery set, there was no immediate sense that this band would be plastered all over magazine covers within a few months, and effectively change the way bands looked and sounded for years to come. At the time, their world-conquering prospects seemed no more certain than, say, The Mooney Suzuki’s. But Bob and I did talk about a lot of other bands he likes—and at least one he does not. The tape started rolling just as Bob’s publicist was running down his itinerary for the rest of the day, which included a sit-down with High Times magazine right after our chat.
You guys aren’t really seen as a pot band.
I have to say that I'm kind of nervous about it. Nate’s all excited. I like to smoke pot, but some of it’s too strong. I smoke a little bit sometimes to kind of alter my perception to write, or socialize, or tell stories. Sometimes, I'll smoke and get really creative and think up some fucked-up song titles.
So is being back in New York a special thing for you, since this is really where the rise of GBV began…
Yeah, but I don’t like to spend too much time here. It’s a little too hectic. But it's kind of our hometown. The acceptance is much better here in New York than it is in Dayton. I especially like to come here and make a record, and spend a little more time, but just about as much time as I can stand. A month’s about all I can take.
So was that show here at CBGB for CMJ in ‘93 really the turning point for this band?
Yeah, that was it. That was the first show we had played in six years, I think. And I had no idea what it would do for us, man. It still blows my mind thinking about what happened after that. We had no idea that would happen.
Those 40 minutes changed your life forever.
Yeah, 40 minutes changed my life. First of all, I was just such a nervous wreck, man, having not played. My big fear—and the reason I didn't want to play and do anything with my band—was I was afraid we would have to play New York and Cleveland. Cleveland was my other fear. My logic was: “If they don't like us here in Dayton and Dayton doesn't know much about anything, what are people that actually know what they're talking about going to think?” I thought we would just be crucified. But that wasn't the case, so that night at CBGB was a magical night.
[Note: there’s no video of that CBGB show available on YouTube, but here’s one of their set a few weeks later in Philly.]
So it’s been almost 10 years since GBV went overground. Do you still feel a connection to your past life? Because, for the most part, the way society is set up, what you're doing at 30 is pretty much what you’ll do for the rest of your life.
That's a bizarre concept. It's good in many ways because, when things started happening for me at 36, I was at least mature enough to be able to handle it a little bit. Had something like that happened when I was 21, I would’ve flipped out, or made a complete fool of myself. Not that I don't now…
But it's more endearing now…
Yeah, now it’s like, “He's just a fucking drunk old guy—what the hell? You don’t mind if I smoke a cigarette, do you?
Not at all.
Do you want one?
No, I do all my smoke secondhand, it’s much cheaper that way.
I didn’t used to. I didn’t smoke until shit started happening for us. We’d be doing interviews with Melody Maker, and I’d be like, “Give me a cigarette—Jesus Christ!” When you smoke a cigarette during an interview, at least when they ask you a question that you can't answer, you can just [takes a long drag and pretends he’s thinking profound thoughts]. You don't have to sit there and be like, “Uh…..”
And hey, it always looks good on stage.
Yeah, I get to be Dean Martin on stage. I’ve got a new name. I always pick a new name for myself—my new name is Dean Mercury. It's like a combination of Dean Martin and Freddie Mercury. [laughs] My name the other night was Steve West. I thought that was a funny name—I was like, “Steve West, actor!” But then somebody reminded me Steve West is the guy from Pavement—shit!
You know Jay Ferguson from Sloan, who you’ve played with—while flipping through the $1 bin at a record store recently, I discovered there’s a ’70s singer/songwriter also named Jay Ferguson.
Oh yeah, he was in Spirit. There’s some pretty interesting solo artists coming out of Toronto now—what do you think about Danko Jones?
I’m a big fan.
I think his record’s pretty cool. Reminds me of Thin Lizzy, except a little more arrogant. They’re funny. Those are funny songs, man. He’s the ladies man—he believes it! I wouldn’t mind taking them on tour with us. It’d be interesting to go out with him. But he’s not allowed to take all the good lookin’ women! [laughs] So what are you doing down here?
TVT Canada had the budget!
So this is for a cover story, right?
Yeah, this piece will run before your Toronto show. We’ll be giving away tickets and CDs and all that.
When is the Toronto show?
On April 25th.
Cool, the record will have been out for a few weeks by then….
People will be able to sing along.
Some people are already singing! How some people get our records way before they come out is beyond me. Some people already know the songs. It's weird man. On [the GBV mailing list] Postal Blowfish, I read things about the band where I’m like, “No one told me this!” They know it before I do!
Do you find that your following has become more intense?
The following has grown; I don't think it's any more intense, it's just larger numbers. From the start, we had a hardcore following. Like, when we broke in ‘93 or ‘94, people just needed to have everything, they needed to know what every line meant, everything was up for analysis and discussion. It's still that way, it's just growing in numbers. That’s one of the reasons that we made a label jump to TVT, to make the legions grow. Our quest for world domination!
Did Do the Collapse live up to your expectations in terms of growing the audience?
It didn't sell as much as I thought it would. Especially with Ric Ocasek [as producer]. There have been a few things that I've done, kind of shameful things that I've done, like using people's names [for our benefit]… not that I used Ric’s name, because I wanted him to produce it, and I liked the stuff that he’d done. But I figured when we worked with Kim Deal, we’d sell 100,000 more records because people need everything with Kim Deal’s name on it! But what I didn't realize is that not every band has that sort of fanatic following. Even though they sell a million and a half records, they don't have that fanatical following—it’s just everybody buying a record because they heard the song on the radio. And they don't buy everything with their name on it. Whereas if we have 10,000 fans, those 10,000 fans will buy everything, which gives me job security. That's a reason why, when I'm with a big label, they can't really push me around. They can suggest things to me, but they’re not going to tell me what to do. If they drop me, I don't give a shit—I’ll make my own records and I'll put them out on my own labels. I've been doing all these things on my own. I’ve got two more things coming out. I did this thing with Toby [Sprout], we call ourselves Airport 5, that'll be released this summer. And I did another solo record, so I can basically do four albums a year. And if you have 10,000 people buying four albums a year, you can make a living doing that. Especially when you do it yourself. I'm not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, but I have money in my pocket, because I don’t buy a lot of things. And if I do want to buy something, I can afford it, and I couldn’t do it as a teacher. I think Steve Albini wrote that article saying you can’t do this for a living, but that’s not true. A lot of bands can’t do it for a living, but we can. It’s about staying true to the people that love you.
The amount of non-GBV albums you’re making has really accelerated in the past few years. Is that a product of feeling confident in the stability of the current GBV line-up, and feeling like you can venture off into side projects without compromising the integrity of the band?
Yeah—more so than in the past. Before that, it’s been kind of all over the place. But now [GBV has] developed into what I wanted it to be. And I'm glad that it's been a gradual process over time. If it happens too early in your career, you can burn out and be done.
Obviously, you’re still the centre of the band, but I feel like Doug and Nate’s guitars are becoming as much of a signature as your melodies.
I know, I know! I'm happy with that. We've always been a guitar band, but we've always been a minimalist guitar band. Like, I played, Toby played, Mitch [Mitchell] played and we basically pounded out the same chords. Whereas now, Doug writes leads, and Nate writes things in, and that's what I've always wanted, actually.
Isolation Drills has a much tougher sound—it’s a lot closer to what you sound like live.
This record is more fully realized, it’s more what I wanted on the last record. But that’s natural, it’s part of the progression. I don’t blame that on us or the producer. I attribute it to the fact that we’re more comfortable in the studio now, so the second time was easier. And we worked with Rob Schnapf, who’s a lot more like us, a lot more blue collar. Whereas Ric Ocasek is… Ric Ocasek! He’s flamboyant. He's a helluva good guy, but his presence is intimidating. He's a rock star. Whereas Rob just wears flannel, drinks beer with us, and smokes hash…
Is it true you weren’t allowed to drink beer during the Do the Collapse sessions?
Not with Ric—that was one of his policies. And I was like, “We’re Guided by Voices! What are you talking about?” But I just accepted it because I hadn’t worked with a producer before and it was Ric and I said, “Okay, we'll do that.” But I won’t accept that anymore. I'm not gonna allow anyone to make policies for us. It’s my record. I’m hoping we can produce it ourselves at some point.
I’ll admit, I didn’t fully embrace Do the Collapse until I got to hear those songs played live.
Yeah, it's weird too, because, when a record first comes out, for a while, people aren't singing the songs yet, because they don't know them. You're not getting that enthusiastic response. When we toured Do the Collapse at first, people didn’t sing “Teenage FBI,” but now they’re singing it.
That’s what I noticed last night at the Bowery: The TVT move seems to be working, because “Teenage FBI” got the biggest response.
That’s always great: When, all of a sudden, people start singing it. They did it in Chicago and they did it in New York. That song goes on, and they all have to sing it. It takes a while for things to sink in—even for me to understand which songs are the best and which albums are the best. Sometimes, it takes two or three years. But the main thing is that all the albums are different. They should all be different. I don't want the next one to be like this one, right? I change my mind all the time. But right now I want the next album to be a 10-song format, with each song being like four minutes, but with lots of changes—almost prog-rock-like.
Have you heard The New Pornographers record? They’re kind of going for the same thing…
That’s a good record. The vocals are great on that. There are a lot of good singers in that band. In my opinion, Carl Newman is the best singer in rock right now. He's got a great voice—he’s got a sweet voice, but he can scream. I love that. It's like Robin Zander.
Sadly, it appears that Superconductor are no more.
We were gonna put a record out by them on Rockathon, but it just got to the point where Pete Jamison didn't want to put out records anymore, which I felt bad about because I totally would’ve. And they haven't put out a record since. I hope they do sometime. Both of the albums they put out are great. They’re my favourite Canadian band of all time. Even better than Neil Young. [laughs]
So you played the whole new album in its entirety last night. Does that suggest there’s a concept behind it that demands a complete front-to-back listen?
I've always liked to do that when a new album comes out—we did that with Under the Bushes, Under the Stars. The Who used to do that—like, “we’re playing the entire Tommy tonight!” All the songs sound good live, but eventually we’ll drop some songs, because we have too many songs!
I imagine putting together a setlist is a difficult task for you…
Well, I did this solo record, and the songs really rock, so we're going to do a bunch of songs from that eventually. You’ve just got to weed things out. And then you’ve got people yelling at shows to “play this” and “play that,” and sometimes there's so many people doing it that we go, “We have to do it! Let's learn this song!” We did that with “Big School.” A lot of people were yelling for “Do the Earth” It’s a B-side on the I Am a Scientist EP. It's a fucked-up song, but you never know what's going to be their favourite song.
Were you worried about how this album would go over live, given that it’s your quote-unquote “introspective” record?
I thought it would go over well live, because there are enough songs that rock: “Pivotal Film,” “Skills Like This”—those are rock songs. And there's some anthems. I love to do anthems live. I've noticed that people really like “Things I Will Keep.” We get the best response other than “Teenage FBI” for “Things I Will Keep.” That was my favourite song on Do the Collapse, so I thought, “I want the next album to take that direction.”
I thought it was interesting that people were cheering last night to “How's My Drinking.” It strikes me as a pretty sad song.
I wrote that song in response to a show we did in Dayton, maybe four months ago. When we play in Dayton, we get extra, extra drunk. And the local papers come out… First of all, we partied for three hours before in the club with hundreds of people, and then we played for over three hours. For the first two hours, it was fine. The last hour, we were fucking fall-down drunk—especially me, I fell down a couple times. And then they crucified my ass in the local paper—not only the next day, but they continued to do it the day after that. I kinda like it myself, because it makes me look like the local wildman. Other bands who think they're wild, they look at me and go, “That guy's the king, man!” But it really upsets my parents and old ladies I used to work with, because this writer was putting me up there with Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin and Mama Cass! Like, I might choke on a ham sandwich from a deli tray in the back. So that song “How’s My Drinking” was for this guy Ron Rollins, a local writer. And I try to tell people in Dayton, because they don’t know anything that’s going on with us other than in Dayton, “That [kind of press coverage] doesn't happen to us anywhere we go. They love it. They love us stumbling around on stage!”
Last night, you seemed very diligent onstage.
I got a late start last night. I didn't really get too drunk. I like to play shows like that. But sometimes, if you’re playing a hometown show or you’ve got a lot of fans at the show, you just get swept up in the commotion and the smoke. You don’t even really have to drink that much yourself. Sometimes it's just the atmosphere that carries you.
It’s funny, when I saw you in Toronto at The Opera House in ‘99, it was this epic, four-hour, blissed-out experience. But then I saw you a few months later at the Majestic Theater in Detroit, and things got pretty ugly…
Was that when everybody got up onstage? Wasn’t that crazy? People started fighting and shit! And that big blonde guy started dancing with me!
It was like I experienced GBV Woodstock and GBV Altamont within a few months of each other.
We stopped the show at one point, remember? Like, “hey…” But every show should be different.
I also remember at that show, you went off on Wayne Coyne…
I was on him for a long time. I got on him because he said some nasty shit about us. I have no idea why.
Really? I thought you guys were tight bros in the fraternal order of American psych-pop bands…
We used to be friends. But we did a show with them and he's setting up his gongs and shit, and he told my drummer, Jim McPherson, “I can't listen to Bob’s shit anymore, it just all sounds the same.” He told my drummer that! So I started ragging on him. And then I read somewhere where he said, “You know, I'm selling all my Guided by Voices records back.” Well, fuck you! I can't sell my Flaming Lips albums back because I never bought any. I’m wondering why he would do something like that. I’m thinking he’s jealous because he doesn’t have a band anymore. He's got one, but it’s not a rock band anymore. It's all in the name of art—he's an artist. And I'm a rocker. That's the difference between me and Wayne Coyne—he's an artist and I’m a rocker. But I think there's art within my rock, so whatever. I like rock, I don't want it to die.
Is there any hope left for rock?
I don’t know, I’m not sure. I talk a good game. But you never know, things go in cycles.
Well, we’re at that turn-of-the-decade moment when a new rock saviour usually emerges…
Yeah, because it happened in ‘92, ‘93—things started happening again then, so it might now.
You’re a bit too old to start rapping, getting a brow ring, putting on some Adidas, and fucking shit up.
You won’t have to worry about that.
So I read an interview you did with Magnet in’ 96, where made a comment along the lines of “Lou Barlow just writes relationship songs”...
Yeah, I used to make fun of people for doing that, and now here I am doing it. But mine aren’t quite so obvious. I think the lyrics are still fairly far-out. The titles are pretty straightforward, and the content is too, but the lyrics themselves have some pretty strange lines. I still don't know what the hell a “Twilight Campfighter” is. But it just so happened that things started changing in my life. A lot of things went down that caused me to be kind of introspective and sad. So I started writing about it.
So is this album your Blood on the Tracks?
Well, you just write about what happens to you, and the kind of people around you, and what’s going on. When I was writing “Kicker of Elves” and things like that, I was around kids all the time, so it had that kind of subject matter. I don’t want to lose that completely. Things have to change, even though we grew up a little later than most people…
At 43, you’re finally maturing.
We put out our first record in ‘86, and we put out so much stuff so fast. That’s actually like how it was in the ‘60s. And now in the TVT contract, we got it so that I’m able to do what l want on my label, as a low-profile kind of thing.
So the irony is that signing to a major label gave you more freedom than Matador did?
Yeah, basically. Not that Matador wouldn’t let me do it, they just suggested it. They told me not to do so many things. Back then, we were doing a lot of EPs and singles and shit. Of course now, I don't even mess with EPs and singles, I do whole albums. So I think we have a little bit more freedom now, but in a different way. With Matador, if I wanted to give them a four-track record, they would accept it. Whatever I gave them, they wanted me to be happy and that was nice. But TVT wants it to be right. And I accept that, because I’m into being on a higher professional level.
Is it hard to go from making albums for $10 to seeing how much money gets spent on proper studio records?
It blows my mind. We just spent $140,000 on a record—that’s a mansion in Dayton! That's crazy. And most people spend more than that. People spend millions on pieces of shit that they don't even put out. It blows my mind how that kind of money is wasted. With Matador, we’d get a $100,000 advance and spend $10 making the record—I took a lot of pride in that, especially after reading that Steve Albini article, where it said you can’t make money doing this. Well, you can if you spend $10 from a $100,000 advance! But Matador’s a cool label—they let me put out what I wanted. I miss Matador, but TVT’s good. I like to change things up. It's nice seeing the TVT logo on the records now. I've always been into logos, before I could even play music. I used to make album covers, and I used to put logos on there. So it's always interesting to see a new logo on a record.
I was listening to Propeller the other day, and realized that stuff like “Mesh Gear Fox” and “Weed King” could fit right in with what you’re doing now. It’s almost like the lo-fi albums were a momentary diversion in the trajectory of this band rather than your defining characteristic.
Alien Lanes was insane. Kim Deal really liked Bee Thousand, but she didn’t like Alien Lanes—she said it was too much, and it was hard to listen to. But I don't care—I like it like that. It makes you wanna listen to it again, because you missed too many things the first time. I like to make different records and I disagree with Wayne Coyne that they all sound the same. But I want to stay within the framework of rock, I want songs. I don't want to go off into some weird-ass 72-minute song or something. I don't want to be Can, although I like Can.
How are things with you and Kim?
I haven't spoken to her in a long time. Things were kind of rocky for a while. I'd like to see her. She's been spotted. There's been spottings of Kim Deal.
I just read The Breeders were scheduled to do a benefit show in L.A., and they cancelled because they were afraid the place would be way too overcrowded.
She does weird things as well. But that’s what caused the initial trouble between her and I. She read something I said, and it wasn't that bad. Someone asked me, “What's wrong with Kim Deal? What happened?” And I said, “Well, I just think she tried to come back to Dayton and find out what was going on with the lo-fi thing and got lost in the realm of lo-fi.” And she read that and was like, “fuck you.” But some people have told me she said some nice things about me recently and I wouldn’t mind hanging out with her again.
Is she still living in Dayton?
I think she has a house there, but she’s all over the place at all times. She makes a lot of money because “Cannonball” is constantly being played in commercials and sampled in different songs and shit like that. So she's living off of “Cannonball.” I want a “Cannonball”! Jim McPherson’s got gold records and shit—I want a gold record! Just to have it on the wall. I don't know if that's going to happen!
One thing I’ve noticed about both Do the Collapse and Isolation Drills is that you have a handful of songs that really pop out as potential radio singles, but then the rest of the songs are still fairly eccentric. Is that intentional: Like, you give TVT the pop songs they want, and then you’re free to do what you want for the rest of the album?
I just write songs and I put them together and record ‘em. I'm conscious of the fact that TVT want singles, so I better have a couple on there. And the next album, I’ve already decided—as l told you—it's going to be 10 prog-rock songs with one bonus track, and it's going to be “The Krispy Kreme Theme Song,” and that’s going to be the sugariest pop song I've ever written. Because I love Krispy Kreme donuts.
We don’t have them in Canada yet.
They're pure sugar. They're bad for you. But Krispy Kremes rule. I’m just totally hooked. But you can't eat a lot of them, they’ll make you sick.
So what are you listening to these days?
I listen to mainly old stuff. This past year or two, I’ve listened to a lot of Scott Walker and Jimmy Webb.
So when you’re writing now, do you think more in terms of arrangements, like those guys?
Yeah, I do think more in terms of arrangements because I listen to those guys, and I want to be considered more of a mature songwriter, so that's another reason why I’ll use strings. I don't want everything to sound the same, I don't want to write a whole album of pop songs, I don’t want to write a whole album of songs that have strings. I can't write music, but I know what I like. Right now, I pretty much start with lyrics and just kind of work my way through the song. I write something for the first couple lines, and then the tape recorder off and start again. That way, you get a lot of changes in the song.
Has Doug become like your Keith Richards?
Nate’s Keith Richards!
Who’s Doug?
Pete Townshend! Doug’s a great guitar player. I was a fan of Doug's guitar-playing back in Death of Samantha—the licks and shit he does are amazing.
How did you end up retaining custody of Doug when the Cobra Verde version of GBV fell apart?
I asked him to not leave! Once you get somebody like Doug, he can't go. He’s added a new dimension to the band that I really like. And some people don't like it. Some of our fans are like, “He overplays, he’s ruined Guided by Voices!” That's not true. And on this album particularly, we made a conscious decision for him to do atmospheric things and not too many leads. There are some songs he lets go on, but for most part, the stuff he does is really laid-back and tasteful.
Parts of this album have a real 154 feel.
There are some 154 songs on there—like the end of “Fine to See You” is really 154-sounding.
And “The Enemy.”
I love Wire. 154 is one of my favorite albums of all time. It’s in my Top 5. That’s what an album should sound like. I mean, truly great albums should have that kind of diversity.
It’s like you have your perfect line-up now: They can sound as big as The Who and as tight as Wire.
We can even do “Baba O'Riley” live! You gotta be good to do that! We’re not going to do a lot of covers from now. We just went through this period where we started doing them. We had never done covers, but at one show, and for one of our encores, we did like 10 covers. And then we were like, “well, that was fun, so…”
ENCORES
When revisiting these old interviews, there’ll occasionally be an instance of a band talking shit about another band in passing, and my usual instinct is to excise it from the newsletter, because I’m not doing this to dredge up “gotcha” moments or reheat 25-year-old beefs. However, Bob’s animus toward Wayne Coyne has been so well-documented and long-simmering (in fact, he was still taking shots at him as recently as 2017) that leaving it out would be kind of like removing Damon Albarn disses from a Liam Gallagher interview. Despite all the trash talk, Coyne retained enough affection for Guided by Voices to record a lovely version of “Smothered in Hugs” for a 2010 tribute album:
That February 2001 show at the Bowery was the start of a long-lasting mutual appreciation society between Guided by Voices and The Strokes. The two bands closed out 2001 with a pair of shows together at Harlem’s Apollo Theater (by which point the opener/headliner roles had switched); Julian Casabalancas has joined GBV onstage to sing the Isolation Drills insta-classic “Glad Girls”; GBV made a cameo in the “Someday” video; while The Strokes have been known to cover “A Salty Salute.” And in 2006, Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. released his solo debut, Yours to Keep, named after the GBV song of the same name.
Despite Bob’s best-laid plans, the follow-up to Isolation Drills was not a compact 10-song prog-rock album with a bonus track about Krispy Kreme donuts. Instead, we got the unwieldy 19-track Universal Truths & Cycles, which marked GBV’s return to Matador Records after their relationship with TVT unceremoniously ended (and it also marked the point where my interest in GBV started to wane, though I did my best to keep up with their deluge of 21st-century releases before waving the white flag a few years ago). However, Pollard would fulfill his dream of becoming a Krispy Kreme pitchman with the release of “Doughnut for a Snowman,” from 2012’s classic-lineup reunion album Let’s Go Eat the Factory.
While this newsletter coincides with the 24th anniversary of my NYC/GBV expedition, the real reason for digging up this interview right now is that Guided by Voices are about to release their 42nd (!) album, Universe Room, which I can’t say is any more essential than their 19th or 27th or 36th album, but it does mean my never-ending playlist of GBV’s best post-reunion songs just got a little longer:
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