LCD Soundsystem

Image may contain James Murphy Face Human Person Head Jaw and Performer

I'm supposed to interview James Murphy at his Williamsburg home but when I get there he's hungry and wants to grab lunch. It's a rainy afternoon so we decide to go somewhere close. While he gets ready I steal a glance around the apartment. I notice a stack of Yves Saint Laurent t-shirts sitting on an ottoman and a portrait of a cat by the doorway. There are records everywhere. "It's pretty crappy out," I tell him. "You wish you wore a jacket. You wish you wore a long-sleeve shirt," he says. I do. We leave and within minutes we're at a nearby café. On the way, Murphy is gregarious but self-effacing-- he jokes constantly, usually at his own expense. He kindly offers to share his umbrella. At the restaurant, he hams it up with the hostess and waitress. We settle into a corner booth, order burgers, and talk about This Is Happening, LCD Soundsystem's final and arguably best record. LCD drummer Pat Mahoney shows up halfway through the meal, but is mostly quiet. It's Murphy's show, and they both seem to prefer it that way.

Pitchfork: I'm curious about your life as a music listener. Obviously you like a lot of good music, but was there ever a time you were really into uncool music?

James Murphy: I mean, was really into Yes, but I still am. But I don't know, these things always come in cycles. I was always into pretty "real" stuff, but even though they go in and out of fashion, they tend to come back around. Like, I was really into early Sisters of Mercy and I liked a lot of goth. Now, five years ago, that would have been suicide and not the band. But now it seems like that's okay. I remember like in 1999 when I met Tim Goldsworthy, we talked about how much we loved the Smiths but we were in hushed tones. Like, "Dude, no, that was the shit to me."

Pitchfork: But even as kid, really early on, was there stuff on the radio that you were really drawn to?

JM: Well, early early on, I really loved the Beatles. When I was really little-- six or seven. But I have older brothers and sisters. So I was picking from a menu that was already there. I'm the youngest by a lot. My brother was into, like, Todd Rundgren, Utopia, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, and Yes. He had a couple other records that I was more into than he was. He had David Live-- the David Bowie live record-- which I always found really terrifying. My other sister had some pop-rock records like Kansas; there was some Blue Oyster Cult floating around.

Across the street, my best friend had a bunch of older brothers who all had pretty different taste. Like, one brother was into new wave really early-- like, the Knack. The other brother was into metal-- pretty heavy sludgy shit. And the third brother was really into the Stooges, the Dead Boys, the Dolls, Velvet Underground. So I had a pretty amazing wide range of music. A range of what it was like to be a kid in the 70s.

But some of the first songs that I was really attached to were… I really liked Harry Belafonte when I was really little. Like "Day-O". All the early Harry Belafonte stuff just sounds awesome. And "The Lion Sleeps Tonight." Things like that, really floaty music. Then "Love Is Like Oxygen" by Sweet was my favorite song for a while. I don't know why. I liked Cat Stevens when I was little. I liked Yes a lot. For my birthday when I was eight I got a record player and two Yes albums. But before that, when I was seven, my first two records I bought were seven inches of "Fame" by David Bowie and "Alone Again Naturally" by Gilbert O' Sullivan.

Pitchfork: And at what point did you really go deep into music? Pretty much right after getting that record player?

JM: No, I was mostly spending my time being into Yes. I was pretty dedicated. Like, "I'm into Yes." But I was just always really into music. Really into sounds. Trying to make my stereo louder somehow. I consider getting into what I would call "my" music around Talking Heads' 77, Violent Femmes' Violent Femmes, the first Clash record. The B-52s, the Police-- I really liked the Police. Ghost in the Machine was a pretty big record so I was liking them up through that, Synchronicity was like too pop in a weird way. Clark Kent, OMD, the first Ministry records-- the very first Ministry new wave stuff. New Order, Joy Division, this was around eighth grade. The first Sisters of Mercy twelves I really, really liked.

Pitchfork: And what's your listening like nowadays?

JM: Pretty much the same shit! I could pretty much listen to all that like, today, right now.

Pitchfork: Do you pay much attention to new music at all? Do you have the time for it?

JM: I don't really have that much time. I guess I'm interested but I guess I'm not. I would like to be interested. I have this vague sort of prejudice where I'm like "Ehh". But, you know, I like being proven wrong. And I like being proven wrong by stuff where everyone's like "Oh yeah, they're big!" I'm like, "What's this? This is interesting!" People say, "That's the Drums. Everybody knows what that is." And I'm like, "Oh, I like this!" Like a year later. I remember I did that with Arcade Fire like two years after the fact. I said, "Who's this? This is good!" And everyone's like, "Oh, Jesus." I'm not like, y'know, [mimes being on the Internet]. "What are the kids doing?" But it's tough. It wears you out, as Thom Yorke said. I just think there's too much music. It's too easy to release music.

Pitchfork: So in terms of your career trajectory and your age, you're making music from a different perspective than a lot of people…

JM: You don't have to pussyfoot around it-- I'm old.

Pitchfork: Okay, you're old. How do you think your age informs your music?

JM: I think it's a huge part of it. I've kind of been thinking about this a lot lately. Because for a while I was really angry. ‘Cause I was like, "What the fuck? We should suck. We should be being wiped off the stage by kids every night." I just didn't get it. I spent years saying that and being kind of wound up. Like, where the fuck are the kids? Then I started thinking that energy that used to be kids-- early rock and then punk, what was really going on was that there was no marketing to kids.

If you made advertisements, you made them to 40- or 50-year-olds. Because they had money, they had jobs. You didn't advertise to kids. The only thing that was targeted to kids was like, funny hair products and rock'n'roll. So you had this one thing to navigate, and that was where all your energy was.

But now kids buy shit. They really buy shit. Kids buy designer stuff. So you're being constantly pounded by marketing. And if you want to be a rebel, well, there's rebel clothing companies. There's rebel stick-on tattoos. You can get a rebel skateboard. You just pick your rebel mode and there's a whole online shopping network that you can be a part of. So kids may look punk or feel punk, but what they're kind of doing is the same as like, being really swept up in high school sports or something. But when I was a kid, you didn't know. I was like, "I guess Kraftwerk is punk?" I remember I got Sex Pistols, Kraftwerk's Computer World and Venom on the same day. And I thought it was all punk. It was just everything that was weird. Everything that wasn't Bruce Springsteen-- who turns out to be a lot punker than I thought at the time.

So I just think it takes a couple decades to kind of clear your brain now. So it makes more sense to me that I could find my footing when I was 30 instead of when I was 19. It seems a little more clear. You know, novelists are older now. Things are happening later in people's lives. They're kind of living lives and then creating things about the lives they've lived. Rather than being an artiste at an early age and coming out with a ball of fire. That energy has been co-opted because you haven't immunized yourself yet against media. It's easier to get swept up things then take a couple of years to get over your, like, indie rock hangover. I'm scraping the fucking Quarterstick Records crust out of my eyes when I'm like, 27. You know, "Why am I playing in 5/7? How is that fun?"

Pitchfork: Do you feel like it's an advantage in any way? Just being able to draw on much more life experience than someone younger?

JM: I think it's an advantage to a certain degree because of that. But on the other hand, I get tired. And I get sick on tour. And I want to go home. You're also part of a machine that's set up to really whip your teenage ego into a frenzy. On the one hand, that's awesome, because you're kind of immune to it. But on the other hand it's not as much fun. It's like being an adult at an amusement park designed for kids. I'm like, "I can't fit on any of these rides."

Pitchfork: So obviously you pull a lot of other music that you love into your own.

JM: I don't know what you're talking about. It's all completely original. I've never heard anything before.

Pitchfork: Sure. But in terms of that appropriation, I feel like you're able to strike a pretty good balance of being reverential but also making it your own. Is that a conscious effort?

JM: I don't know, it's a hard thing to say. You try to make it better, which is impossible to a certain degree. Because if you really love "Walk on the Wild Side" or something, you're not going to make it better.

Pitchfork: I guess it feels like you're less wary of taking something and running with it than a lot of other artists.

JM: I'm not afraid to show my hand. I'm old. I'm not going to pretend that rock was invented by me or us. I think if you're working with a persona-type rock vibe where you're like, "I'm feeling it! This is who I am! We share feelings together!" then it has to have all this realness to it. And so what you can't show is that you might have actually ripped that bassline from a Joy Division song, because then what are you real about? You know, what's going on here? You're not supposed to be self-conscious. You're supposed to be lost in the rock zeitgest. But if that's not what you're interested in, then it's kind of liberating. You don't really have to worry about it. It's not that we're consciously trying to strike a balance, it's just that we're not worried about the other stuff, so you just get to make what you like.

There's all this anxiety that people are going to "catch" you. No one wants to get called out for being derivative or something. It's like, we're all making rock. No one's reinventing the wheel over here. If anything, the balance is struck by not worrying too much about it. So I'm spending my energy trying to make a good song rather than spending my energy trying to cover my tracks.

Pitchfork: In terms of your lyrics, there's an off-the-cuff quality to them and I wonder about your writing. Do you compose a lot beforehand or just improvise?

JM: The short answer is that it depends on the song. The longer answer would be is that the most normal way it goes, is while I'm working on the music there's some lyrics-- maybe a hook-- that are kind of bouncing around. And I'm unconsciously kind of singing that to myself while I'm working on a song. So like, things start to expand and get meaning and have an overall kind of intent or tone. Then when it comes time to sing, I'll just set up a microphone and just go sing. Just do a take where I'll just make it up-- just automatic singing. And then I'll listen to that and there'll be things that I like. And probably what's going to happen is I'm going to keep that take just so I have something to work with, then I'll go back and fix things that I don't like. Or re-do the whole thing or write it out, but usually it starts from a position of honesty.

Pitchfork: How much revision is there? Do you spend a lot of time reworking words and phrases?

JM: It depends on the song. Usually if I go back and rework them, they tend to get square in shape. Meaning I start getting obsessed with each verse being a certain number or syllables or something. But when I just go sing, they have very different shapes from verse to verse. Which I like better. I don't think it's something that you notice necessarily but if it wasn't there, it would feel very different.

Pitchfork: Does that process mirror how you make songs? Do you usually have a pretty clear idea of how you want something to sound beforehand or do things just develop organically while you're tinkering?

JM: Both of those things happen and they're very separate. It's not a balance between them. Sometimes I'll just have a loop, then go play drums, then go play something on top of the drums, and things just start having a feel. Then other times I'll think, "I want to have something that sounds like this." Then you just have to sit there and try to chase a sound that's in your head, which is a pain in the ass.

Pitchfork: Do you prefer either method?

JM: Well, I guess I prefer both results. It's easier to do songs with energy in 16ths. Doing a song like "Pow Pow" is a lot easier than doing a song like "All I Want". "Pow Pow" is just like, Pat's there, Tyler's there. We set up drums and bass and I play percussion and try to call out some changes and then go record it. Then I can go and work on that because it has nice energy-- it's all there. But if you're doing things with different drum patterns-- like rock-ier drum patterns-- it's really hard to get the energy right. Because the energy's a little more ephemeral.

Pitchfork: So this record feels a bit darker content-wise. Maybe moodier or even a little angrier at times. What sort of stuff do you draw upon when writing?

JM: Really? I guess I don't think of it like that. But it's whatever I'm stuck thinking about usually, that's the problem. Sometimes you get stuck thinking about the same thing for four songs and there's not much you can do. Whatever seems emotionally dense or funny or stupid. More often than not, it's just whatever you're stuck with.

Pitchfork: There's a lot of self-awareness to the music. Do you consider yourself an introspective or self-critical person?

JM: I don't know that I'm introspective or self-critical. But…

Pat Mahoney: Self-obsessed.

JM: Self-obsessed, yeah. Really suck the air out of a room! We're talking about me, right?

More just like, there's a lot of erasure-- and I don't mean the band-- with how we all talk to each other, where everything's kind of balanced. In other words, there's nothing wrong with being a piece of shit or being stupid. So it's not self-deprecating in my mind to say that I'm stupid or a piece of shit because there's no judgment. It just seems normal to me because that's how we all talk to one another.

Pitchfork: But there's some analysis in there too. Are you the kind of person that spends a lot of time thinking about social interaction?

JM: Yes. Yes, I spend a lot of time thinking about social interaction. A ton of it. Always have. I find it endlessly fascinating and gross and awesome.

Pitchfork: So you've said this will be the last LCD record. What do you plan doing after the LCD stuff wraps up?

JM: Knock somebody up? I don't know, I want to just do some stuff. I want to hang out. Produce some other bands, make some things with other people. Not on me. I mean, it's pretty exciting working with me.

PM: It's been eight years worth of fun!

JM: Eight years worth of "Hey, guess what I think too!"

No, I want to do some more production. I want to make some more music but not worry about making an album on album schedule-- doing an album release, press, and videos and tour-- and I want to do some weird stuff. I want to get some bad ideas and follow them through. You never get to now. I want to do music for the subway-- I want to make music so that when you go through the turnstile it doesn't just go "eeeh!". Make them all separate tones that are in key. So like during rush hour in big subway stations it would make this kind of harmonic music. Just bad ideas. The only reason to get semi-successful is so you can do that shit.