Maybe it’s time I gave John Vanderslice another shot–even if the Game’s pushed less weight than a midget sumo wrestler.
D: So what do you think of acts like No Age—bands that intentionally shirk self-consciousness, or make a point of being shambolic?
JV: If you’d asked me what I’d wanted to do five years ago, I’d have told you I wanted to be Viktor Vaughn or The Game—I would want to be a rapper with an eight ball of coke in my pocket and a wad of hundreds. Because that kind of freedom—well, perceived freedom—is where I want to be. And that’s probably as far away from what I could do. To make a live record—something that has a lot of lice in it—is difficult. After slaving away for years in the studio, when I hear a No Age record or when I hear Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ first EP or when I hear DRI or really early punk stuff, it’s just so powerful, so raw—and I know how hard that is to create. It’s very deceptive. It’s like a Dardenne brothers film—it seems like just a handheld camera following some people around in a trailer park, but it’s incredibly difficult to do that.
Via Decider care of Largehearted Boy
Download:
MP3: John Vanderslice-”Fetal Horses”
MP3: John Vanderslice-”Too Much Time”
2 comments
Disco Vietnam says:
May 19, 2009 at 12:55 pm (UTC -7)
This quote is very interesting. To hold that kind of perspective, to be dumbfounded by captured performance, implies he doesn’t approach music on musical terms. If you sent Vanderslice back in time 100 years he couldn’t be a musician.
This is something a studio rat like Trent Reznor has managed to avoid but a Dr. Dre finds himself spiraling toward at terminal velocity.
Scott T. Sterling says:
May 27, 2009 at 3:48 pm (UTC -7)
Having met JV a couple of times (via my buddy Graham Macrae), I can say that he’s one of the most interesting and downright GOOD people I’ve ever met even remotely connected to the music ‘industry.’ He’s like an old-fashioned troubadour, living on the road, playing anywhere/everywhere, and just totally open to the world around him. Oh, and meet him once, and he’ll remember your name forever. It’s totally freaky.