Down ye olde Okkervil River (from left: Scott Brackett, Brian
Cassidy, Will Sheff, Patrick Pestorius, Jonathan Meiburg, Travis Nelsen). Photo by Todd Wolfson.
O Will Sheff – should his parentals have named him Wit Sheff? I had fun chatting with the brain-teasin' 31-year-old Okkervil River songwriter - catch the first part of the talk in this week’s Sonic Reducer. Here’s more from that interview, and for the proper soundtrack, behold the band at a free performance today, Thursday, Sept. 6, at Amoeba Music in SF.
Bay Guardian: So how did this new album, The Stage Names, materialize?
Will Sheff: Basically when I wrote Black Sheep Boy, I wrote it in the country during the winter, and I wanted to go somewhere else to write this album. When we go on tour it’s hard for me to write songs - I don’t get to touch a guitar unless it’s on stage. I wanted to go somewhere else totally different and I had a cheap deal in Brooklyn and it seemed as different as possible from the place where I wrote Black Sheep Boy. I had a fourth floor apartment, tiny, a room big enough for bed and chair with an open window. And I’d sit by the open window and write songs. I find if you have to walk four floors to get up there, it’s just as isolated as being out in the country. Outside the window there was all this life and hustle and bustle. Then I went back to Austin and recorded the album.
BG: Did anything specific inspire the songs?
WS: I watched this documentary about Clara Bow, the “It Girl,” one of the first movie stars to be famous because of her perceived sexuality. There was something about her that people in ‘20s thought was sexy. She came from a really bad background - her mom was a prostitute and locked her in closet and turned tricks. Then she won some sort of beauty contest and got cast in It. She had a coarse personality and got this reputation as being unpolished. The thing that everyone loved about her became the thing that got turned against her. And these totally untrue urban legends were spread about her.
When the talkies came along, her accent was so strong that studios wouldn’t give her work. Really her life in movies ended. And you think a lot about that, someone who’s an ordinary person who gets swept into this dream world. You wake up a little worse for wear.
BG: Can you relate to her experience, being in a popular band?
WS: I experienced it in my own tiny way - what it’s like to have people think something about you that don’t know you, whether it’s something great or something bad - especially with this record doing better than any of our previous records.
There’s some backlash that has very little to do with us and has to do with other people’s perceptions of hype. It’s amazing how personal people can get about you - not just bloggers - whether it’s positive or negative. People who don’t know you at all! I think that’s very interesting. It works in a negative way where people cast aspersions on your character and haven’t met you, and people cozy up because of the songs, and think you’re their friend. It’s a false intimacy but that’s what a lot of artists are looking for. I know a lot of artists who have a hard time dealing with basic interactions in real life.
BG: Really? Is that true for you?
WS: Maybe a little bit. I think most singers in bands are very awkward people, I’ve discovered. I don’t know if they were born that way or if it’s a function of what you do. Maybe I’m a little bit awkward. But my observations about this have nothing to do with me or my life.
BG: You don’t see a little Britney Spears in Clara Bow?
WS: Maybe there’s some Clara Bow in there, maybe some Britney Spears in there.
The only way you can know somebody else is to imagine them, through themselves and through other people. I’ve gotten in trouble with some people doing that in the past. There’s an ex-girlfriend that doesn’t talk to me anymore because I learned through a friend that she thinks a song I wrote is about her. But it’s not about her, and I can’t censor myself.
BG: You were an English or writing major in college?
WS: I was an English major - I kind of wanted to be a writer, but it was freaky to me because I didn’t know how I would make money. I went into a writing program, and it was distasteful - there was a lot of pressure to write like people who were popular academically and there were a lot of insecure writers who would cut each other down as they tried to push closer and closer to what the professor wanted them to write. I thought it was really stifling. So I decided to do what most people don’t think is popular - like pop music.
BG: Music isn’t popular?
WS: Not with the kind of person who says, “I don’t even own a TV.” When they say that to you they’re trying to indicate that they’re above pop culture. I think it’s just snotty.
BG: Any surprises with the new Okkervil River show – dancers, bungee chords?
WS: I thought a little bit about that stuff – dancing girls, the idea of showmanship, stuff like that. But in my experience, whenever I’ve seen a show like that I’ve always been distracted from the musicians. In theory that’s so great - costume changes, sets – but every time I see that I’m removed from watching a performance. I get in watching-a-movie mode rather than watching-a-concert mode.
BG: What’s the difference for you?
WS: If you could freeze time and turn the lights on in a movie house, you’d see a lot of people with their mouths open and vacant expressions. When you see concert, you’re watching people jump around and you’re supposed to be watching a real event and you’re surrounded by sweaty people. I think live performance is a celebration of being alive and not having to dream. It’s about bodies.
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