What’s the story behind your latest song/album?
Well, “The Distortion Years” is obviously a very weighty and grandiose title. Its meaning can range from the stupidly simple to the nauseatingly—I don’t want to say “pretentious.” It gets thrown around a lot. But Monsieur Herr is an inherently pretentious and self-indulgent project. Anyway, this album, “The Distortion Years,” sort of continues in a similar sonic vein to my last one, “Everything’s Great,” which might be an even crazier record than this one. I’m always writing and making records—you can probably tell a lot of things by the fact that I say “records” instead of “albums”—but I’m also trying to do something new and interesting each time. I like to think “The Distortion Years” is, if nothing else, undeniably interesting.
How has your creative process evolved over the years?
It’s kind of stayed relatively the same, more or less. I’ve just gotten a little better at doing it each time. I like David Thomas of Pere Ubu’s analogy of comparing his band to a cup, where each album is a new vantage point, a new angle on the cup. It’s less evolution and more highlighting different aspects of the cup that were already there to begin with. I feel the same way about Monsieur Herr. I don’t know, necessarily, how much I myself have changed. My material circumstances have changed, my interests have changed, but I don’t know if I’ve really fundamentally changed. I think Frank Zappa would call it “conceptual continuity.” That’s about the gist of it.
Is there a specific moment in your career that felt like a turning point?
Not so much a turning point, but recently my musical comrades and I in our band Basal Metabolism played our live debut at a small punk record store in San Diego. It was myself, my friend Max Major, who has his own project called Zhir Vengersky, and our mutual compadre Matt Molaro. Matt and I plus our other mutual friend Evan Pincus are also in a band called The Chris Isaak Show—no relation—that plays really stupid and fucked up covers of beloved tunes. Our first show had renditions of Dion’s “The Wanderer” and ? and the Mysterians’ “96 Tears” that counts down from 96. We have lots of other really terrible ideas we’re considering for next time, and there will be a next time. Again, I wouldn’t call it a turning point, per se, but it’s fun to do.
What’s one misconception people have about being a musician?
Songwriters are all liars and music is ontologically evil. It’s not at all a respectable profession. We’re all horrible, horrible, deeply unwell people. Oh, sorry, you said “misconception” and I answered with something everybody already knows. I can’t read.
Who or what has been inspiring your music lately?
Recently it’s been things like the aforementioned Pere Ubu—obviously numerous other things, too—plus a lot of Japanese electropop in the vein of Yellow Magic Orchestra, a beloved band of mine, and especially P-Model. You know, a lot of people know Susumu Hirasawa, and a lot of people know P-Model, but it’s so strange to me that the first three or so P-Model records, when they were a willfully annoying new wave band—In a Model Room, Landsale, and Potpourri—aren’t especially well-known or regarded by a lot of people who are really into Hirasawa. It’s very unlike his later and more well-known work, I suppose, but it’s pretty seminal and important stuff in the Weirdo Music circles I run in. They’re great records. It’s in the same vein as things like XTC’s first two albums and Bill Nelson’s Red Noise, all of which I also love. Maybe I just like “bad” music.
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Can you share a memorable or unexpected moment from a live performance?
Basal Metabolism does a Zhir Vengersky song called “Multiplied by One,” which is about, quote, “multiplication and carcinization.” The evolutionary tendency to converge into a crab-like shape. It went over extremely well, and it’s one of my favorite songs to do live. All of the songs on Zhir’s album “Farewell, My Lovely,” which that song is on, have parenthetical titles, and you’ll notice this one’s is “Red Brontosaurus,” the name of the very record store at which we played our live debut. Kooooky!
How do you handle creative blocks or self-doubt?
Not well. I’m constantly riddled with both.
If you could collaborate with any artist, living or dead, who would it be and why?
Well, I like all my friends. Our collaborations are mutually beneficial and highly fruitful. Aside from that, I have a lot of respect for Paul D. Millar of Slugbug, who has overseen some of the best-sounding records of this century. He says obsequiously.
What’s a piece of advice you wish you had received earlier in your career?
“It’s not worth it.”
What’s next for you—any exciting projects or goals on the horizon?
Well, I can already feel the creep of stagnation with Monsieur Herr. It might need a bit of time to fully recharge. But there are certainly more Basal Metabolism shows on the horizon. The Chris Isaak Show is being renewed for at least another season. I have a novel I’ve been chipping away at for the past five or six years. As Chris Stamey says, “anything is possible.”