These buildings are on fire!
Choosing to stroll from Camden to London’s Scala to enjoy the sun may have placed stress on the time schedule but Jeffery Lewis arrives composed, swinging his decorative guitar with SUPERSWEET own stickers peaking through. Happily sitting cross legged in our cave of silver houses, Lewis imparts a fresh perspective on his new release City and Eastern Tapes, a compilation of new unheard tracks and old demos from the days of City and Eastern Songs. Informed by Lewis that the 1000 copies were made in New York and to his surprise the 200 he took on tour sold out “pretty quickly” the modest singer carries on to speak copiously about his leap into production and what really happened with Will Oldham.
SS: What was your reason for this album? On the by-line on the album it says “what the album would have been like if it wasn’t rerecorded by Kramer”- is the album a kind of backlash?
Jeffrey Lewis: Nah, I loved a lot of what Kramer (Galaxie 500, Butthole Surfers, Low, Daniel Johnston, etc) did and I’m really glad we made that album with him because otherwise it would have just been what that demo album is, because that’s the way we have always made records. The idea of making a record with Kramer in the studio what to see what happens if we try a different approach to it and go over the top. Kramer is bit of a nut; he really has a sort of weird psychedelic approach to things. It really resulted in some wonderful unexpected outcomes which have affected the way we’ve performed the songs even since then. Part of working with him taught us a certain way of going about playing the songs and it so it altered the early raw demo recordings. I love homemade lo-fi stuff and I know that a lot of people who are into the music I make like that homemade basic sound as well. A number of songs that I recorded around the time the album was made but never ended up on the record so we had all these extra tracks sitting around so it just seemed nice to put it all together.
SS: Going back to that stage of your career after already releasing 12 Crass Songs must have been interesting to see how you’ve changed as an artist. What change or changes do you think stood out the most?
Jeffrey: Well certainly, the experience of working with Kramer really showed me what a lot of the possibilities were and how to flush the textures of the songs and how the producing process was like songwriting in its own right. That’s part of what I brought to bear on the Crass album along with lessons learnt from working with Kramer and see what I could do as a producer. But since I was uncomfortable of experimenting on my own songs, it was partially an easy way out to use the Crass Songs to go, “Ok here I am, I haven’t written these songs but my main creative output here is to be the producer and see how many different ways I can figure out how to arrange every song, try to make each one go in a different direction and teach myself something about producing each one. The great raw material in the Crass Songs left it up to me about where to take it all.
I do prefer to play music stripped down (voice heightens with excitement). I’ve got a whole bunch of recordings that are totally stripped down, just tape recorder songs and then some recorded at a friend’s studio in Brooklyn that I’ve been working on, adding extra instruments, putting a bit more thought into it. So now I’ve got this huge pile of different recordings waiting at home in New York, now it’s just to decide which is going to be on the next album and what kind of artwork should go with it.
SS: You’ve said that you are continually collaborating with other people, now we actually spoke to a friend of yours Adam Green a couple of months ago, and he’s said that you, Jack Dishel and Steve Martens have started a rap group for fun. Adam wants the name as The Four Amigos but you’re having none of it?! (Read the interview with Adam here)
Jeffrey: (Smiles knowingly) Yeahh, I don’t really know about that name…it’s a matter of discussion. Hopefully it will never see the light of day because it’s incredibly embarrassing. But it’s so much fun to work with those guys and that’s a project I hope will continue on, ‘cos it’s great to get together with them and write this stuff.
SS: What do rap about?
Jeffrey: It’s all pretty ridiculous. In my mind collaborating with people is always a little bit scary because everyone has different ideas about what they want to it to be. My concept of the project was that it would be an abstract and totally weird rap project that shows topics nobody really raps about before. We have one about the Civil War, like what if rappers had existed at that time, what they would talk about? I have this idea that rap through the ages. What if there had been rap in the forty’s or in the 1700’s? What would they talk about and how would they talk about it? Some of the other people involved in the group have their own ideas about what they wanted to rap about so we are mixing it all together and its coming out pretty crazy. All of them, Adam and Jack and Steven have just such different imaginations that the way they go about doing things, I am constantly surprised. The combination within one song is one verses one lyrical style to another. It makes the most insane bizarre combination, it makes no sense, but it’s really fun.
SS: Your approach to comment on issues throughout the ages is also shown in your comic books where you deal with the History of Communism. Is this your way to educate America?
Jeffrey: Yeah Certainly. There’s stuff that I wish I’d learned in school and it’s so interesting to learn about things. I sort of like giving myself these type of assignments where I have to learn about communism in North Korea which I know nothing about and then show it in my songs and then educate other people on it. I love to incorporate that into the songs that I make. We have that History of Punk Rock in New York. I think it’s a great…when you sit down and write a song and have to come up with something. It’s so much easier to look to history as there are infinite amounts of amazing stories and events.
SS: You’ve said with your music, “people should just take it however they take it and if they enjoy it then that’s good”. But have there been any reactions to your music you just wanted to curse at and correct?
Jeffrey: People have weird interpretations of everything all the time and you can’t really control it. You also don’t want to over explain your own stuff then that’s no good either. If people are getting something out of it and they are enjoying it or being enlightened or educated in any kind of way then that’s good enough, whether what it was intended to be. With the Crass material, a lot of people took me playing Crass songs as a joke as a kind of ironic statement and I don’t really care how they take it as the ideas of the songs are still getting out there, whether people are taking it seriously or not it can’t help but somehow have a kind of effect on them with this idea. As an artist you are putting things out there in the world and you have a certain responsibility to put good things or educational things emotionally positive things out there. It all makes ripples in some way or another so I always find its good to try to be conscious to make good ripples in someway
SS: Lastly, Did you ever get to meet Will Oldham after the release of City and Eastern Songs? What would you say to him?
Jeffrey: When I met him we didn’t discuss the song at all. We’ve had a couple of weird indirect interactions with him in which a couple of shows I was asked to play in New York came through him and he was first asked to do these different events which for me where great shows to play. They contacted me: “We really wanted Will Oldham to do this event but he said he didn’t wanna do it but he suggested that we contact you” So I don’t know whether that’s his way of punishing me by sending me these gigs he doesn’t want or whether he’s just being nice..I have no idea! It’s very mysterious; but then I suppose it wouldn’t be Will Oldham.
Words: Gemma Dempster
Photography: Burak Cingi