In the complete, unabridged interview that was used for Amplifier’s feature story on LCD Soundsystem, James Murphy lets loose on being a grump, “selling out” to Nike and the state of indie rock.
Amplifier: What’s the last year been like for you?
James Murphy: I’ve been working so much I don’t know. Other than I’ve been working a lot harder than I used to work, nothing has really changed. Just the work. Touring, and that type of crap has massively increased, compared to what it used to be like. I got a wife. I got a dog—that was a big change. I got a great dog, a little French bulldog named Petunia. She makes little pig noises and she’s great.
Do you feel like you’ve hit it?
I’m definitely struggling to reach a certain goal. All this stuff happens outside of me, so I really don’t know what our role is in the world. I have no real gauging. I sometimes think we’re much smaller than some bands, and then someone will tell me, “No you’re much bigger than that band.” Or I’ll think some band is small and then I’ll find out they send millions of copies of records. I’m really disconnected from all that, so it’s very difficult to know what we are.
How did the deal with Nike come about?
There’s a promotion company that I guess runs conduit interference for companies like Nike and artists. And they approached me and I said no. And then I kind of thought about it and I thought, “Well, I could make a 45 minute disco track and it would actually get put out.” Because I’d been recently kind of thinking about records that artists that put out that were, like, one long track, and it was an alien concept to me to be able to do that. And then I was like, “Well, here’s an opportunity to do that that works out really nicely.” I own everything, and we get it all back in six months. I don’t like companies that much, and I don’t like shoe companies in particular. I don’t buy fancy shoes or anything like that. I don’t like culture-branding very much, but it wound up being a really good opportunity to make music, and it really saved the record for me. Stopping in the middle of the album to do this other thing really freed me up.
Was there a concern about being accused of selling out?
I guess I’m not just real concerned about that, actually. Of course, it’d be crazy to say it didn’t cross my mind, but I’m already on a major label. I’m on Capitol. I’m not on Dingleberry Records. Obviously, I’m trying to sell records, so it didn’t seem all that meaningful. And plus, I always thought that if I make the music good enough, then it makes that complaint kind of empty. And I felt that I was proud enough with what I made that I just didn’t seem to worry about. That’s what it really boils down to me. If somebody calls me a sell-out or something and I didn’t make a very good… if I did something kind of low-quality to achieve something, it would burn me and I would feel it. But if I knew I worked really hard on something that I knew the people criticizing me couldn’t do, then fuck ‘em.
Was Nike concerned that you didn’t wear Nike shoes?
I didn’t really deal with them that much. They didn’t try to send me a bunch of Nike stuff. They sent me the shoes that the thing was about. They were actually pretty non-invasive, so I have to give them that. They’re running shoes, and I run barefoot typically. I run the treadmill.
How do you feel this particular piece of work represents the LCD Soundsystem canon?
I’m really proud of it. I’m really excited about it. It’s a different thing, but I also think it’s really attached to what the band is and what I’ve done before as a remixer. It made me really happy actually. I’m really psyched about it as a representation.
How did you construct the piece in terms of the way it ebbs and flows?
That was what was fun about it, being this running thing. They had a structure in mind. They were like, “We want a 7-minute warm-up, we want a 7-minute breakdown.” And I like arbitrary rules like that. They make me really happy. So I got to chart things out on a graph and start working to fill those things in musically. It was pretty simple. I started constructing pieces of music that would connect together trying to figure out the bridging. I mostly did it in sequence: the first piece, the second piece, the third piece, etc. I said I tried it out, but that was just totally a lie. I don’t do 45-minute runs; I do 30-minute runs.
Tell me about DFA. Do you feel a responsibility to the indie music scene?
I don’t have any interest in anti-top 40. I would just like the Top 40 to consist of being better music. Popularity for me has no bearing for me on my opinion on music. I don’t dislike things because they’re popular, nor do I like them because they’re popular. I tend to gravitate most of my judgment around things like “Good” and “Bad.” So we just try to get music that is good. And sometimes that music is pretty unmarketable, and sometimes that music is pretty marketable. Like, I think I make pop music to a certain degree, but Gavin and Delly (?) is pretty abstract music. I just think we’re just trying to put out music that we think is good and find as big an audience for that music as we possibly can. And try and keep the integrity of who we’re working with intact, where they feel proud of what they’re doing and what’s being done on their behalf. That’s the model for the label entirely is… try and have as much cultural impact as we possibly can. Because I feel like music like Black Dice should be culturally relevant; it shouldn’t be just for people who work at music stores. I think it’s interesting. I miss the era when Laurie Anderson was a well-known artist. We don’t really have those people anymore, and I think it’s a shame, because it really helps for the inspirational nature of music, which was always what moved me as a teenager in a small town—things like Laurie Anderson and even Phillip Glass. I think these things are interesting to have, because when you’re growing up, they give you a sense that—even if you don’t understand them entirely—they give you a sense that there’s a lot more possible than just Bruce Springsteen.
Do you think that DFA is positioned now to help a band gain more popularity?
We were not ready for The Rapture. We held them back, scrambling to try and make it work when we didn’t know what we were doing, I think, did them a disservice. And we vowed to kind of never have that problem again. Which is one of the reasons why I made my album—one of the reasons why I went to EMI. Initially, that’s what we wanted to do with the Rapture-go to EMI, and have it go out through them and Capitol, and them put DFA through Astralwerks and Caroline, and that was the model. And when it all fell apart, it was like, “Well, I really believe in this model.” And LCD wasn’t supposed to be an album band at all. We were just going to be singles. So I kind of decided to make an album just to test the waters, because fucking around with somebody else’s career is not something I really relish doing. But to fuck around with my own, it’s like, “Whatever.”
Are you less of an asshole these days?
Absolutely not, man. I’ll take a roomful of Jesus Lizards over the boring bullshit bands I deal with every day. Fucking apologetic wusses make me nauseous. I don’t like friendly indie rock very much; I find it nauseating. Rich kid bullshit. I used to tour around with the bands that were relatively dangerous, and I liked that. I always think it’s always more interesting. The Jesus Lizard was such a good band to be around. They weren’t assholes, though; they were incredibly nice people. They just weren’t going onstage and apologizing to the audiences for being grumbly creative kids.
What do you think of the indie rock world today?
I like it. I’m torn, because on the one hand, I love that there’s a place for music that isn’t mainstream music. And that’s what independent music is supposed to be—a more open place for music. But I don’t think it is a typically more open place. I find way more often that it’s a more closed and critical place, like it’s way more of cool club, like high school. You know, if you act this way and you dress this way and you GARBLED this way… it becomes a fuckin’ genre, and it wasn’t a genre when I grew up. I mean, you could listen to Black Flag and the Minutemen and the Violent Femmes and the B-52s and it was like, ‘Okay, this is all great.’ And right now, I don’t think you can do that. I don’t think there is as much diversity. It’s like all one label that sounds like itself and another label that sounds like itself. I find it a little boring. Every once in a while I get a big breath of fresh air, like Anthony and the Johnsons comes out or stuff like that, but for the most part I find it mind-numbing and un-inspirational and petty and backbiting and all that sort of crap.
Who’s the biggest act that you’ve turned down after they approached you to do a remix for them?
Usually we just turn things down because we don’t have time. I remember we turned down the Rolling Stones and U2. With Justin Timberlake, we had time. I like Justin Timberlake. You know, he’s a guilty pleasure for everyone—or not so guilty. Um, that was kind of fun to do, except that I saw a different side of the industry that I’m usually protected from. I typically don’t talk to… when people commission a remix from us, they send us the parts and that’s it, and then I send them a remix and that’s it. And this was more like, “Hey, we kind of want it to sound like this,” and I don’t do that. I’m more like, “Hey, if you ask me to do a remix, you’re getting what we make.” We haven’t failed miserably yet, so we don’t need any input. I liked the track.
Your new album hits the shelves in March. What do you think the most surprising aspect of the CD is?
Um, that I’m still making records. I don’t know; I can’t tell. I’m too inside it. It’s circus music. I think people are going to be stunned by the clarinet work. I play a mean clarinet. It sounds identical sometimes to the last record to me, and it sounds totally unrelated to the last record to me at times. It depends on when I’m listening to it. I’m very aware, because I’m a producer, I’ve worked with artists a lot, and artists have their heads firmly planted up their own asses about their own records typically. They’ll be like, “Man, this album is crazy. People are going to lose their minds when they hear this.” And then you’re sitting there looking at them and it’s like, “Dude, it just sounds like a fuckin’ rock record.” You know, I’m fully aware of how retarded one’s view of one’s own music is, especially while they’re making it, and I’ve only finished making it less than a month ago. And it’s already leaked. Yeah! I haven’t even had time to fuckin’ live with the record and there are already people getting all jack-assery about it on the Internet. I don’t really know what’s the surprising part. We haven’t played live in a year so that I could make a record, and I don’t really work like that. We just make them and hope it all works.
Was there anything in particular you wanted to accomplish with the new record?
Yeah. I mean, I think I wanted to be more… on the last record, I felt like it was a bit beige. I felt like I relied on more organic sounds and some postures and positions that I felt were comfortable for me. And I’m glad; it’s fine—the first record is fine. But I definitely wanted to have more of the detail that goes into the dance 12s and the remixes that I think was missing from the first record. And I wanted to push myself in terms of embarrassments and courses… you know, shine… I wanted to push myself a little harder on this record, so I set out to do those things—to address the drama of rock. We’re all hiding behind a veneer of blandless—stuff we find safe.
Most people hate their jobs, so how do you feel about yours?
I hate part of my job. I hate not having time to do stuff and going away from my wife for a year. But I love making music. I get to make the thing I love, and I get to be very uncompromising, which makes me very happy. Like, I’ve worked really hard and I started old enough that I haven’t been able to be GARBLED very much. So I have the luxury of being able to be kind of a bastard and get what I want most of the time. And be able to make music the way that I want. I don’t have anyone telling me what to do or a lot of things that other artists have to deal with and that I’m impressed that they can do it. I have kind of built the luxury of independence into what I do. So I think I’m really lucky in that regard.
You keep hinting that you’re not cut out for a career as a rocker and that you look forward to the day when you won’t have to do it anymore. How serious are you about that?Very serious about it. I want some 23-year-old to just kick my fuckin’ ass, but they just don’t kick ass. I’m stunned sometimes at how bland bands are. I’m stunned at how boring what they do is very often. I mean, I should not be in this. I’m 36 years old, married; I got a dog. I’m grumpy. Seriously, I should have been put out to pasture fuckin’ a long time ago. And I kinda came out of retirement. I sucked in my ‘20s, so I can’t really complain about kids in their 20s now because I was fucking horrible. The music that I made was retarded, and a complete waste of vinyl. But I still… I guess I have hope… You know, I should just be shoved out into one of those careers like John Cale has. You know, where you make records and you put them out sometimes and you play shows. You know what I mean? And like, “Hey, fuckin’ John Cale, dude.” But I would love to be watching kids and be kind of excited about them. I mentioned maybe a handful of things that I maybe do find exciting, like Dandy Wind and the Arcade Fire, but, like, for the most part, most of the stuff that I like is either real far out on the periphery and I’m like, “Come on, get in there.” I would love to be irrelevant. And I would love to be made irrelevant not through my own failings, but because other things are just so good. I don’t think I should be that relevant. I think there should be tons more things that are just really good and are really exciting and that last and don’t fall apart after a couple songs and that cohere, you know. And then I’ll just stay home with my dog and mix people’s records and be a husband. It just seems like there’s a war going on, and they’re still training people, and so I’m on the front.
Are you ever surprised to hear that your music is a hit in certain communities?
Not really. I don’t really know of groups of people or communities that like us or don’t like us. I mean, I’m not aware of any kind of specificity in that way. Grumpy white kids probably being the least surprising. But I would hope that we did OK certainly in gay places. We’re stoked, because we come from that. We’re big massive New York disco fans, and that was the soul haven for gay New York for probably 8-10 years. That’s a big part of our history as a band. That wouldn’t surprise me.
What’s next for you?
We’re touring, so it’ll be a whole year of being in a bus looking at other smelly people. Which’ll be fun. I like playing and visiting places and making art and making cover art and doing videos and stuff and trying to find a new way to do that that I find engaging and exciting, and not, like, again, making adverts or traveling salesman style. So it’s going to be a year of heartbreak. (Laughs.) But you know, I’m not, like complaining. I mean, nobody makes me do this. My wife is complaining, but she’s very patient. I totally choose this, so I’m a prisoner of my own manufacture. But I feel like a little bit of an odd fellow climbing onto the bus, like this is all very designed for somebody else: somebody thinner and younger a little more narcissistic I guess. I mean, I’m just as much as an egomaniac as any lead singer, just slightly less narcissistic. All the ego; half the narcissism. I wish I could have earned the narcissism like a Bowie or something. Walking around with that kind of charisma, like shooting laser beams out of your face is not the path for me, though.
[A feature story culled from this interview appears in the issue No. 58 of Amplifier Magazine.]
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Interview by Ken Knox
Photo: Jake Walters
LCD SOUNDSYSTEM's SOUND OF SILVERis released March 20, 2007 on Capitol Records.
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