Thurston Moore interview (with some J content)

[built_to_spill]

http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/article/n … am-nationi

Pitchfork: You’ve had some great help with the record: Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley, Dinosaur Jr.’s J Mascis…

Thurston Moore: I live up in Northampton, Massachusetts, and it just so happens that Mascis lives in the next town over. He has a studio in his top floor that he lives on. And John Agnello, who worked with us on Rather Ripped as our mixer, works with J all the time. So I basically just asked J if I could use his studio, and he said [in Mascis’ mumble] "Yeah sure." I asked John if he would be available, and he said "Yeah sure" and I sort of brought up a few musicians to play with. I had all these different ideas, and for most of them it wasn’t what I planned on doing, but it turned out fine; I mean I wasn’t really drawing a hard line on what I wanted to do.

But, basically, it came down to working with Steve Shelley, and this woman Samara Lubelski. She’s a violinist and bass player from Brooklyn who’s done some solo records under her own name, and she was in this band Hall of Fame that did some pretty cool underground records. So I called her up and asked her if she would play violin on some of these songs. I kept thinking "Well, I’ll do guitar, bass, drums and instead of second guitar I’ll have some strings," because I just sort of had it in my mind how that would sound. And I thought she would be the person to bounce the ideas off. So we got together to rehearse, and me and her and Steve got the songs together, and then went up to J’s and recorded them with Agnello. We just did it. And I played bass guitar, and I did all the guitar overdubs.

Luckily Mascis was around the house; he wasn’t on tour, and so every once in a while with one of the songs I would hear something where we really just needed some shredding lead, and I would go downstairs and find him, and he’d be, like, "Yeah, okay…I’ll be up in a second." And he’d come up and plug his guitar in, and sit on the couch, really slouched down. So we asked him, "Do you want to hear the song and sort of work on it for a while" and he was like, "No, it’s okay, just play me the section" [laughs]. And I was like, "Why don’t I play you the song?" and so I’d play it and he’d just rip all through the whole song. And I’d say, "Okay, here comes he section" and I would count it in, and he would really rip on the section, as if he wrote the goddamned thing. I mean, it was the most harmonically, melodically astounding lead guitar throw-downs. So I had him do that on three or four turns, and it was really sweet. That’s a real bonus on this record.

Pitchfork: That’s a privileged position to be in, having Mascis around to tear it up.

Thurston Moore: Every once in a while you get some really sick Mascis action, which is pretty nice. And then, this woman who I really admire, Christina Carter from this duo called Charalambides; she’s a beautiful, pure-toned vocalist and great improviser. Just a really interesting musician. I’ve known her for years; in fact, she’s sort of lived at mine and Kim’s house for a few years between tours. Luckily she was around, and I had her come in, and she sang two songs with me. So that sounds really sweet. John Moloney of Sunburned Hand of Man plays drums on one of the songs, and that’s cool [laughs]. Well, this is really sort of the New England weird music scene.

"No, it’s okay, just play me the section"

[malkmus]

This is so funny. Mascis is awesome.

[Author]

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