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"Can I have a P please, Michael?" (It's Michael these days, not Bob you know.) "Which P released an album called Brighten The Corners?" Forget about Top of The Pops, you know you've arrived when you get on Blockbusters! Sure, after the brilliant Wowee Zowee you couldn't have a more different record, but Brighten The Corners was another classic as soon as it was released way back in January, proving Pavement are still the band to hold closest to your heart when everybody else has let you down. Oh yeah, they got the question right of course.
Sitting down to talk in the plush surroundings of Dublin's Berkeley
Court Hotel, bass player Mark Ibold sighs with disappointment when
asked about the current UK scene, thinking back to the V97 festival in particular, when Pavement found themselves sandwiched between various Britpop acts.
"It had a real Britpop-heavy
line-up and I think that the audience was there to see Blur and
Kulashaker. We've played some festivals, like the Reading Festival for
instance, which tend to be a little more varied in its line-up. This
was just the heavy hitters of Britpop. All those bands have sold way
more records than we have and I don't know why they put us on the
bill. I mean we really stuck out, I felt like I'd dug a hole through
the earth and come out the other side, everything was upside down. It
was very well run. I mean in a way it was the best festival we've
played but, yeah, I just felt 'God, man, these people are all like
rock stars or really like shootin' for it'. The bands all had really
expensive gear, they had crews that were just kickin' ass (laughing).
We were low on the bill and it was hot, both shows in the same sort of
way, so we didn't really have very good shows I'm sorry to say."
But at a time when their contemporaries in American indie have all but
faded away, Pavement's popularity grows stronger still. Brighten The
Corners received almost universal acclaim in the music press and
beyond. What did you think of the reaction to the record?
"Yeah, I'm
trying to remember because that all came out when the record came out.
I think people said it was the most accessible because we recorded it
in the same way that I guess a lot of bands record, but I still think
that it's a little bit different. We didn't use a lot of distortion or
anything like that and we didn't spend a lot of time mixing it so it
could be better. I guess compared to the other Pavement records it
sounds the most like 'other records', which is no big deal, we're just
getting better at recording. Our best record? I'm not sure if it was
our best record you know. We always hope that each record will be our
best record, but I think that Crooked Rain was the best record. I
think that this is the most interesting album at this point - to all
of us it is. You know the critics are interested and they give us good
reviews. Which is good, I hope that that continues!"
With any Pavement record, Stephen Malkmus' lyrics, as well as Spiral
Stairs', are of slightly more than passing interest. Now, as neither
Stephen nor Spiral are here, I feel better about playing favourites.
My own - "Doctors leaving for the holiday season, got crystal ice
picks, no gift for the gab" from frequent set opener and spinetingler
Grounded. And Mark?
"Oh wow, that's hard. Well, I like them. I can't
really rattle off something that has any kind of profound
significance, but there's so many of them it's kinda like asking me
what's my favourite meal. But I would say that there's at least
something in every song that cracks me up. (laughs) There was
something that I was saying to myself over and over again the other
day and now I can't remember what it was! There's words and
descriptions of things like from Conduit For Sale!, 'Carbon monoxide
wallpaper', you know things like that. I like some of the stuff on
Embassy Row. That actually is the closest to a narrative in his
lyrics, not that I would wish that things go more in that direction,
but that's fun . a sort of international mystique in those lyrics.
It's sort of like looking at an abstract painting and being able to
see certain things within the painting and getting an overall feeling
for it that you can't really put your finger on but hits you right
away."
Are there any Pavement songs you look forward to playing live?
"Yeah,
it changes all the time, but on this tour I've always liked playing
Transport Is Arranged. That's one of my favourite songs from the new
record. A lot of times it just has to do with how we are playing on a
given night. When I see Transport Is Arranged on the set list I think
'all right!' Embassy Row is a song that I always see and I think
'okay, come on', I like that song a lot. We're more likely to make
mistakes on that song though. (laughs) That's just how it's worked
out. I don't know how. I think sometimes when you play things over and
over again you lose parts of it. I like playing Elevate Me Later and
Black Out. There are several that we do that, whether we do a good job
on them or not, I'm happy to see in the set list."
Are you playing any new songs live?
"Well, nothing actually new. We're
playing one song which hasn't been on any of the records yet. We'll
probably try to record it for our next album. It's a song that we
actually recorded for the last album, it's called The Hex, but we
didn't really like the way it turned out. But then we just have
snippets of new songs which we can't really play, some of these we
just do to kill time while somebody's tuning up or whatever. There
hasn't really been time to work on them, we've been on the road all
the time since January."
In between the Give It A Day EP and Brighten The Corners, Pavement
moved from Big Cat to Domino, home to the likes of Palace, Sebadoh,
The Silver Jews, Smog, jeez, can you get any closer to heaven? How has
the move been?
"It's been great, yeah. Domino have done a great job. I
guess it's a little easier in England for a small label to sell a lot
of records, but they have accomplished the same amount that Matador
has in the United States throughout Europe. But most of all they're
just really nice, I mean Lawrence, the guy who runs Domino, has just
become a great friend. He's one of those people who I always look
forward to seeing. They get excited about the same things we do. We
have a lot in common with those guys, which is something that has been
pretty much the case with all of our record labels. It's an honour to
be part of their roster."
The past eight months have been a busy, but no less rewarding time for
Pavement (tonight is the third time they've played Dublin this year!)
but what about the next while?
"After two festivals in Europe, we go
home for a three week break and then we do a short American tour of
the cities we didn't go to last time. Then we'll probably take a
couple of months off after that, then get together work on some songs
and hopefully record them. At one point we were thinking of going to
this place where The Cardigans recorded in Sweden. Then we'll probably
be out of the picture for a year." And with that, the amiable and
unfailingly polite Mark Ibold makes his apologies at having to leave,
but Pavement's favourite Indian restaurant in Dublin awaits.
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