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72 The Word with Talent We love Current I just saw the video for your single Honey Bunny. I think you guys posted it on your Facebook page two days ago. It got quite a good response. Are you happy with it? Yeah, I think so, yeah I like it. Well you know, it’s not a big deal for me. It’s more for the fans. This interview we’re doing is going to run in our November edition and it’s going to be themed “the white album”. Hum now, I read in an interview of yours that you have some sort of fetish for white sneakers… Ha ha! Girls Girls’ ascension to indie pop supremacy hasn’t really taken anyone by surprise. The San Francisco band’s debut album, Album, had already enjoyed critical acclaim back in 2009 and, with its follow-up LP Father, Son, Holy Ghost, the ever-evolving duo of Christopher Owens and Chet “JR” White officially cemented their place amongst the indie world’s shining stars. We caught up with the band’s front man Chris to talk white sneaker fetishes, running a business and singing “Stille nacht” to sailors at Christmas time in Antwerp’s docks. Interview Nicholas Lewis, with additional research by Pauline Miko …and I noticed that the car, the Corvette, in the video was white as well. I mean, is there a link to be made or is it just me tripping out? (laughs) No, you’re, no… You’re reading into it too much! The Corvette is silver. Well I watched it on my shitty laptop. Yeah. I wear the shoes not because of the fact that they’re white, but just because of the fact that they’re the classic Air Force One’s. You know, because of the fact that they’re not trendy. That’s why I like them. Compared to the first one, this new album sounds a lot richer, more accomplished. I mean, it definitely sounds like you have come of age as a songwriter. Other than relentless touring, what would you attribute this maturity gain to? Yeah, you know, I don’t think there’s any difference. One third of the songs on the new album were written at the same time than the songs from the first album. It’s just that the recordings are better, we’re working in a studio, with a group of musicians that are very good. But in the first album I was playing
every instruments and JR was running all the equipment and now on this album we had engineers, producers and musicians and a studio and everything was done right. But there’s no change. On the album’s first song Honey Bunny, which is also the video you just released, you sing ‘they don’t like my bony body, they don’t like my dirty hair’ and then you go on to sing about a girl who loves you for who you are. This theme of acceptance - are you referring to anyone in particular or is it more of a general statement? It’s a general statement. The song was written at the time when the person in the song doesn’t know for sure if they’re ever going to find somebody, the right person. It’s about saying: I’m not going to give up, I’m going to keep trying because it might be right around the corner. It’s about optimism. You’ve been quoted as saying that you think that music is a spiritual way to communicate transcendent things… Yeah, it’s more about just communicating my feelings. I think it’s important for me because I’m trying to figure these things out myself. It’s just talking about it in the songs in the same way that somebody might go to therapy or write a journal. That’s really the motive. I don’t want to indoctrinate anybody with any kind of theories, but I do want to communicate my feelings. For me it’s really selfish. How important is the validation of websites such as Pitchfork to you? What do you think of this moral authority that one website commands on the indie scene? I don’t really know. I don’t follow it, I don’t check it, I don’t read it. But I know when they give us a good score, I hear about it. It’s just like anything, when you get an award or you get praise… It’s really not the time where you feel successful. You feel successful the first time you listen to the album after it’s finished. It’s the same for live shows – when you’ve had a good show and when the audience was really great. And after that it’s like when people close to you are telling you they have real respect for what you’re doing or something. And finally after that, of course you want to get some respect from the people in the industry. But it’s really not the first thing. Our booking agents, our record label, our fans, … They were there before our first album, before we got a review. I think it helps, of course, but I know for example if Pitchfork had given us a bad support on this album it wouldn’t have made a difference. The tour was already booked before this. We don’t go and say like: “hey, look at the score, will you give us a show?” Music Doing my research, I couldn’t help but feel that you’re definitely moving closer to the mainstream and it’s not a move that you seem to be doing yourself. Rather, it’s the mainstream that seems to be embracing you, I mean you have interviews in GQ, Vogue Italia, showcases on Conan. How do you feel about that? You’re clearly becoming the darling of the airwaves. It’s just because those people are just slower than the public. You know, it’s the same in politics for example. Finally yesterday, there’s no discrimination about homosexuality in the army anymore. It’s just the government always needs an extra 10 years just to catch up. It’s the same with people like GQ. They would never say “Oh, I saw a band last night in a bar, let’s do a story!” They wait until you’re becoming relevant. The only reason that the mainstream is catching on is because they’re the slowest ones. Probably the final person to catch on would be like hum… Obama or something! ˆ If Pitchfork had given us a bad support on this album it wouldn’t have made a difference. The tour was already booked before this. We don’t go and say like: ‘ Hey, look at the score, will you give us a show? ’ ˇ That’d be nice… Yeah, that’s the goal! They’ll give me a call and say: “I’ve listened to your album and it’s really good!” You recently stated in an interview that “The album should go down in history as an important album. I hope people realise that. Whether they do or not, they should at least not write it off as music that is trying to sound a certain way.” Yeah, you know, I believe that this is a great album, I believe that the music is great and that we did a good job making it. We took huge steps up from the first album to the EP to this record. It would have been really easy for us to spend three or four thousand dollars and make another one of those and just put it out and stick to what we know, but we invested much more money into this new record. That’s the whole thing, even right now, on our tour, everybody got engaged to go on the road and they get paid a lot of money. And you know, the easy thing to do would have been: keep the same plan up from the beginning, keep the money just low, keep going on cheap tours, and rack up some money for ourselves. You know, when you look at it, it looks like a small business or something: every time we get extra money we put it straight back into our business and we make a better thing for the people involved. I have a lot of pride about what we’re doing because for me it’s the first time in my life where I’m doing something and I’m basically a part of a company. I’m making decisions. I’d like for people to understand that this is a very serious effort and that there is a lot of work going on. People like to label you as a certain thing and to me it’s frustrating because here I am 32 years old trying to run a company, make a career out of this and make the best albums possible. You’ve spent some time in Belgium. Can you tell me how you ended up here, where you lived, any memories you kept, things you remember about the place? Yeah I spent like six months there! I was living in France at the time and my mom had a new boyfriend and I wasn’t getting along with him and that was becoming… you know young teen (I was like 13 years old, or maybe 12) and I was being rebellious. So there was this place where they wanted to send me away so I could maybe be mature or something and to be totally honest with you I don’t really know what city it was, I don’t remember anything about where I was. I remember that it was a very nice place and I liked it a lot. We had goats roaming around freely. Do you remember if you were in the French speaking part or in the Flemish speaking part? I was speaking French, for sure. So you went with your mom to Belgium? No, I was by myself. I do know one detail, which is that they used to take all the children together and there were a lot of children and we’d go sing in the docks of Antwerp – where there are all the big ferry boats from everywhere around the world – and we’d go on the boat and sing “Stille naaacht, tralala naaacht”… Really? I’m serious! 73 To the sailors?! Yeah! And then we would sell some cassette tapes of us singing. And that’s how we would make some money. But it was like a program for kids who were kind of having a hard time growing up. You’d go there and learn how to sing Christmas carols and take care of goats and play outside. I don’t know if that helped me or not. But I remember I liked Belgium a lot.
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Volume 04 — Issue 05 Neighbourhoo
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8 The contents Neighbourhood 23 Whi
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12 01 08 05 07 The whiteboard Exhib
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© Paul McCarthy, courtesy the arti
Page 20 and 21: 20 James blake @ L’ ancienne Belg
Page 22 and 23: 22 The papers Cinema Art Society Cr
Page 24 and 25: 24 Jungle fever Here’s an interes
Page 26 and 27: 26 high Drama Like fake boobs, coca
Page 28: 28 The papers The smooth operator T
Page 31 and 32: The fuTure iS free buT free doN’T
Page 33 and 34: tennis poles were brought in direct
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Page 37 and 38: “I fear the blank canvas because
Page 39 and 40: The cheesemonger A father and son b
Page 41 and 42: Life 41
Page 43 and 44: Life The law enforcer: Johan Denolf
Page 45 and 46: I like to find the truth, to dig be
Page 47 and 48: process helped me create my own fou
Page 50 and 51: 50 The look Heritage Design rue Bla
Page 52 and 53: 52 The showstoppers Fashion Beauty
Page 54 and 55: 54 The showstoppers 05. Knit hits C
Page 56 and 57: 56 The nod Play People Heritage The
Page 58 and 59: 58 The fashion Word Fashion Consume
Page 60 and 61: Left: Top Ingrid Vlasov, Skirt John
Page 62 and 63: Cotton blouse Nicolas Andreas Taral
Page 64 and 65: 64 The fashion Word Left: Dress Ing
Page 66 and 67: 66 The columns Talent Rise and shin
Page 68 and 69: 68 The columns Talent Rise and shin
Page 70: 70 Jane’s addiction Nostalgia Whi
Page 75 and 76: Like I said, this interview is goin
Page 77 and 78: © Sarah Eechaut Bouchéry, Brussel
Page 79 and 80: Hotel Conrad’s Bar Loui The gourm
Page 81 and 82: Au Vieux St Martin The staple of th
Page 83 and 84: Le Chou de Bruxelles Another obliga
Page 85 and 86: for storing: Joseph Joseph melanine
Page 87 and 88: for drinking: bugatti’s Milla esp
Page 89 and 90: from left to right Far Too Close (S
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Page 98: 98 Before we leave you… Play The
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