If you were looking for a definition of "critic's darlings", you would need to look no further than Yo La Tengo, as they have remained one of modern rock's most prolific and consistently inventive bands since being formed by vocalist/guitarist Ira Kaplan and his wife, vocalist/drummer Georgia Hubley, in New Jersey in 1984. Their sound has constantly evolved from the beginning, and shows touches of Sonic Youth, Love, and the Velvet Underground. In fact, the band does the Velvets so well that they even played the seminal group in the film I Shot Andy Warhol. Their debut album, Ride The Tiger[URL], was released in 1986, and their new album, Summer Sun, will find them over the dozen mark when it is released on April 8th. Yo La Tengo is practically an institution in indie rock, and I recently had the pleasure of speaking to their man on the bass (and occasional vocals) since 1992, James McNew:
Keith Daniels
Keith Daniels:How many hours have you spent watching CNN the last two days?
James McNew: Almost none.
KD: Try to avoid it?
JM: I dunno. You try. It's kindof an ugly feeling.
KD: Are you against the war?
JM: In fact I am. We spent about a week and a half doing interviews in Europe -- we got back a week or so ago. That was pretty much all anybody wanted to talk about. Apparently we put out a record as well, [laughs] but that was all anybody was thinking about. We didn't feel very shy about talking about it.
KD: Was the difference in opinion between Europeans and Americans surprising to you?
JM: No, not the Americans that I know. In fact, I don't think I've met, or really seen, anyone give an opinion that was for the war that wasn't somebody in the government. It seems every single person that I've talked to is in agreement.
KD: You've got a new record coming out, Summer Sun Sun. What can we expect to be different on this one?
JM: Have you heard it?
KD: No, I haven't, honestly.
JM: Gosh, I dunno, it's different. I'm not really sure exactly how to encapsulate that.
KD: Well, when you were in the studio making this one - were there any discussions on what you'd like to try?
JM: No, not really. A lot of it was left up in the air. We tended not to finish any idea that we had for songs before we got to the recording studio to actually record them. We really had no idea how they were going to turn out, or certainly what any of the words were going to be. We just left it completely open, and tried to make it as spontaneous as possible. It was actually a fun way to work. Pretty exciting.
KD: Is writing in the studio the way you usually do it?
JM: Yeah, actually, for the most part. We're lucky, relatively speaking. We have a lot of time to work now. We were actually in the studio for a month or so, which is nothing compared to your giganto rock bands, but for us that's pretty great. Whereas, ten years ago we had a week, basically, to record, and so we would be completely rehearsed and know exactly what we wanted to do - to go in there and do it in our allotted time, without going over. We really had to be prepared. Now we take full advantage of having all this time to mess around and try stuff. It's a lot of fun. [laughs] I feel lucky to have all that time to work and to make something.
KD: Ira and Georgia get a lot of attention as far as songwriting, but how much do you contribute to the sound of the band?
JM: I dunno! [laughs] I've never measured it or anything, but every song on the record we wrote together. A lot of the songs come from our rehearsals. They're really not even rehearsals. We're just jamming and playing, and having fun. We're either playing cover songs or trying to play old songs we haven't played in ten years, or basically just screwing around. Occasionally when we're doing that we'll be playing for a really long time without stopping. It sounds so unappealing, but it actually is pretty enjoyable. It sounds so hippyish to describe everything as jamming, but it sounds too book-wormy to say that we're "improvisers". Anyway, it all comes out of that. It's just real ideas of the three of us messing around, and later we'll go back and examine things that we had just done - whether it was somebody had played a melody that we liked, or a rhythm - and we'll build a song out of that. In that way, we share the songwriting credits evenly, but we all have different ideas, and we all play instruments other than our main instruments when we're in the studio - and that we actually play onstage as well. Songs could come out of any lineup.
KD: Now, you've been in the band since 1992?
JM: Something like that, yeah.
KD: May I Sing With Me was the first one.
JM: Right, right.
KD: Is it surprising to you that it's still fun after 11 years?
JM: I guess it should be surprising, but it's still great fun. We just played four shows last week, which were actually our first shows in a really long time. We played almost all new songs, and it was really exciting. It was nerve-wracking, but in a really great way.
KD: How does the new material go over?
JM: It seemed to go over pretty well! The young people seemed to enjoy it.
KD: Do you find that lately, with the internet, a lot of people seem to know the new material before it comes out?
JM: I guess there's no avoiding that. I know that Matador promos of our record are already on Ebay. That's pretty classy. There's just no avoiding that. People have traded tapes of our shows for years, which is kindof weird, but kindof neat at the same time. I think those people that are fans... I guess I could understand ruining the surprise.
KD: A lot of bands actively facilitate the taping of their shows, but is that something you just tolerate?
JM: Oh, we don't mind! As long as it's not made off the soundboard, because those sound really horrible. Otherwise, if somebody brings a tape recorder and a microphone to one of our shows, we don't really mind that much.
KD: How did you end up in the band? Did you know them before? Were you a fan?
JM: Yeah I was! I was in another band at the time, Christmas, which after I left mutated into Combustible Edison, but I had just signed on for a temporary... I was a temp, basically. I was going to play on a short tour of the states, and then a three week tour of Europe, and that was really all I had planned.
KD: So it was like Gilligan's Island.
JM: Yeah pretty much! [laughs] A twelve year tour.
KD: You have a "Yo La Tengo Joke Contest" online. Have you gotten to read any of that?
JM: Oh yeah.. . several years ago. I forgot all about that.
KD: Well they haven't posted the results of it yet! [laughs]
JM: I guess it didn't go that well. [laughs] Oh well.
KD: You've worked on several soundtracks, I Shot Andy Warhol, Brain Candy, and The Sounds of the Sounds of Science. Is that a different approach than making an album?
JM: Well, that stuff's all pretty different. Some of the soundtrack stuff we've done is really nothing more than people pulling songs off our records and plugging them into scenes in movies. There was a Hal Hartley film called The Book of Days that we actually composed the music for specifically, and for The Sounds of Science we were actually making up music to these little underwater short films. So it's always pretty different, and of course it's tons different than making a rock record. I like it all. I'm not as challenged by the things where they just take a song off a record. It's fun, but there's not much to it. I just hope the movie's really good.
KD: Did you ever think you'd end up an "elder statesman" in rock'n'roll?
JM: Oh heavens no. [laughs] I tend not to think about that. It's hilarious. If we've inherited that position... I guess it's great. It's an amazing accomplishment. Not many groups have our dogged persistence, I guess.
KD: "The tenacity of the cockroach."
JM: [laughs] Very much so.
KD: How do you choose the set list with so many songs to choose from?
JM: Oh god, we know a lot of songs. It sortof depends on what we're doing. Nowadays, the set list will be heavily new material, but I can't imagine a time where we would just play new songs. We're constantly reflecting previous records and things that we've done through the years. Chances are we'll play things, like cover songs, that aren't anywhere else, but our set lists are different every single night. Every day at sound-check we go over songs and write a set list for that night. It's always different.
KD: The last few albums have been softer, or more mellow, than the earlier ones. Do you think that that is from maturing, or is it just a personal preference lately?
JM: I don't know if it's either. It's funny, we recorded more songs than actually went on the [new] record. There's thirteen songs on the record, and I think we actually recorded eighteen. Three or four of the songs that didn't go on the record were really loud and fast, and there's much more of a guitar presence on them. It just worked out that we tried to put the thirteen best songs, the ones that worked really well together, and made a whole album. It's almost frustrating in a way [laughs], because I really loved those loud songs! I think we all did, but we had to focus and make a record that made sense as far as holding a mood. Those songs are going to come out anyway, eventually, and our live shows are still pretty loud. It's hard to exactly pinpoint, but there's no decision beforehand, like "We're going to move away from this." or "We're going to eliminate that." or "We're going to only use Jew's harps." [laughs] There's never really a plan beforehand.
KD: Who were some of your biggest influences?
JM: When I was really little my mom and dad listened to music all the time. My mom liked the more folky side of things, Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel. My mom was the Beatles and my dad was the Rolling Stones. My dad liked them and James Brown, so I knew about music from a really early age, and I always listened to the radio. When I was a kid I liked Thin Lizzy, hard-rock, and then discovered Black Flag, Minor Threat, stuff like that. I was sortof open to ideas, even though I didn't live in a town that was really open to a lot of ideas at that point. I had an English teacher, when I was like thirteen, who gave me a copy of [the Velvet Underground's] White Light, White Heat, and the first Nuggets compilation, and I think an R.E.M. record. Like "Oh you'll probably like this." and she completely destroyed my mind in one afternoon. [laughs] Playing White Light, White Heat for a thirteen year-old kid, ok, thank you.
KD: She might as well have given you acid.
JM: Exactly. "No offense, but I won't be studying in your class anymore, or anyone else's class for that matter."
KD: In looking at your credits, I see that you've worked with several bands in the last few years: Brokeback, Dump, Mark Eitzel, Sue Garner. Is it fun to go off and work with other musicians outside of your band?
JM: Yeah! Yeah, it is fun. Some of the times when I'm working with other people I'm doing something that's different than what I usually do. Like the stuff I did with Brokeback was mostly like a really primitive, backwards version of electronic music, it was adding strange sounds to what they were doing. I played on a bunch of songs on the latest record by Sue Garner, a record on Thrill-Jockey that she just released about six months ago. Played guitar on that whole record, which was really fun, because I don't get to play guitar that much, but it was really fun to do, and really enjoyable. The Mark Eitzel record I was his bass player. Steve Shelley from Sonic Youth and I served as Mark's rhythm section [ed.-quite a rhythm section] for most of that record. It's great to be asked to do stuff like that, and if I have time, usually I'll do it.
KD: It is more often people who you were already a fan of, or somebody you might not have heard of, that contacts you?
JM: It seems that mostly it's people I've been friends with, but if somebody I didn't know asked me, and I liked what I heard, I would do it.
KD: What are your thoughts when you know you have two weeks before something new is coming out?
JM: I dunno, panic, [laughs] in general. Everything is clouded by panic. Things are really hectic, usually, in that time. We're doing a lot of interviews, and a lot of preparation for the amount of traveling that we're going to be doing in the coming months. It's hectic, it's exhausting, but it's also really fun. I'm not really nervous, anymore, I was nervous for a long time. I just get really anxious, and ready to go out and play. Get the show on the road, literally. Wow... I've never been able to use that clich' before! [laughs] I love traveling and I love touring. We have a lot of friends in different cities all over the world, and they're people that I don't really ever get to see. I don't get to travel to those cities in a non-touring capacity. I look forward to seeing all my friends, and eating in all these fine restaurants all over the world. I look forward to playing every night. It's very enjoyable, and very satisfying.
KD: What city has the best food?
JM: Oh gosh, that's impossible to answer. They're all different. We just came from Austin, Texas, which is a fine barbeque city, and is also a really fine Mexican city.
KD: Fine music city, too.
JM: A fine music city, as well. We could probably find you something good to eat in pretty much any city in the world.
KD: You have a little black book, "good places to eat".
JM: We know what we're doing, yeah. It's well researched. After being together for so long, we've got a pretty good book.
KD: You have a big cult following, tons of people like you. Is it ever frustrating that you don't get played on the radio?
JM: It doesn't bother us. We don't really think about it. We certainly don't have it in mind when we start working on anything. I think it's passed the point where we're going to be an overnight sensation, but it does seem that with every record we've made that slowly more and more people find out about us. Every record we've made has sold better than the previous one. It's worked that way for every record, and I think that's awesome, because we haven't really changed anything at all. We're just ourselves, doing what we want to do, yet more people are coming to us - rather than us trying to court success. The level of success that we've got... I'm thrilled, and amazed. It's great.
KD: Are you surprised when you go over to Europe, or somewhere else, and they know all your music?
JM: I'm surprised almost anywhere! [laughs] I remember playing shows in South America, and finding out that all these people knew us. Everybody was singing along with our songs while we were playing them. Very mind-blowing. Or going to Taiwan and finding out that lots of people there know who you are. It's a total shock, but it's incredible.
KD: Do you know about Suicidegirls?
JM: In fact I do.
KD: Are you a member?
JM: No.
KD: Well I wouldn't put that out there anyway. [laughs]
JM: Well God bless you and the work you do. [laughs]
For information on Yo La Tengo, and MP3s, go to Yo La Tengo.com
Keith Daniels
Keith Daniels:How many hours have you spent watching CNN the last two days?
James McNew: Almost none.
KD: Try to avoid it?
JM: I dunno. You try. It's kindof an ugly feeling.
KD: Are you against the war?
JM: In fact I am. We spent about a week and a half doing interviews in Europe -- we got back a week or so ago. That was pretty much all anybody wanted to talk about. Apparently we put out a record as well, [laughs] but that was all anybody was thinking about. We didn't feel very shy about talking about it.
KD: Was the difference in opinion between Europeans and Americans surprising to you?
JM: No, not the Americans that I know. In fact, I don't think I've met, or really seen, anyone give an opinion that was for the war that wasn't somebody in the government. It seems every single person that I've talked to is in agreement.
KD: You've got a new record coming out, Summer Sun Sun. What can we expect to be different on this one?
JM: Have you heard it?
KD: No, I haven't, honestly.
JM: Gosh, I dunno, it's different. I'm not really sure exactly how to encapsulate that.
KD: Well, when you were in the studio making this one - were there any discussions on what you'd like to try?
JM: No, not really. A lot of it was left up in the air. We tended not to finish any idea that we had for songs before we got to the recording studio to actually record them. We really had no idea how they were going to turn out, or certainly what any of the words were going to be. We just left it completely open, and tried to make it as spontaneous as possible. It was actually a fun way to work. Pretty exciting.
KD: Is writing in the studio the way you usually do it?
JM: Yeah, actually, for the most part. We're lucky, relatively speaking. We have a lot of time to work now. We were actually in the studio for a month or so, which is nothing compared to your giganto rock bands, but for us that's pretty great. Whereas, ten years ago we had a week, basically, to record, and so we would be completely rehearsed and know exactly what we wanted to do - to go in there and do it in our allotted time, without going over. We really had to be prepared. Now we take full advantage of having all this time to mess around and try stuff. It's a lot of fun. [laughs] I feel lucky to have all that time to work and to make something.
KD: Ira and Georgia get a lot of attention as far as songwriting, but how much do you contribute to the sound of the band?
JM: I dunno! [laughs] I've never measured it or anything, but every song on the record we wrote together. A lot of the songs come from our rehearsals. They're really not even rehearsals. We're just jamming and playing, and having fun. We're either playing cover songs or trying to play old songs we haven't played in ten years, or basically just screwing around. Occasionally when we're doing that we'll be playing for a really long time without stopping. It sounds so unappealing, but it actually is pretty enjoyable. It sounds so hippyish to describe everything as jamming, but it sounds too book-wormy to say that we're "improvisers". Anyway, it all comes out of that. It's just real ideas of the three of us messing around, and later we'll go back and examine things that we had just done - whether it was somebody had played a melody that we liked, or a rhythm - and we'll build a song out of that. In that way, we share the songwriting credits evenly, but we all have different ideas, and we all play instruments other than our main instruments when we're in the studio - and that we actually play onstage as well. Songs could come out of any lineup.
KD: Now, you've been in the band since 1992?
JM: Something like that, yeah.
KD: May I Sing With Me was the first one.
JM: Right, right.
KD: Is it surprising to you that it's still fun after 11 years?
JM: I guess it should be surprising, but it's still great fun. We just played four shows last week, which were actually our first shows in a really long time. We played almost all new songs, and it was really exciting. It was nerve-wracking, but in a really great way.
KD: How does the new material go over?
JM: It seemed to go over pretty well! The young people seemed to enjoy it.
KD: Do you find that lately, with the internet, a lot of people seem to know the new material before it comes out?
JM: I guess there's no avoiding that. I know that Matador promos of our record are already on Ebay. That's pretty classy. There's just no avoiding that. People have traded tapes of our shows for years, which is kindof weird, but kindof neat at the same time. I think those people that are fans... I guess I could understand ruining the surprise.
KD: A lot of bands actively facilitate the taping of their shows, but is that something you just tolerate?
JM: Oh, we don't mind! As long as it's not made off the soundboard, because those sound really horrible. Otherwise, if somebody brings a tape recorder and a microphone to one of our shows, we don't really mind that much.
KD: How did you end up in the band? Did you know them before? Were you a fan?
JM: Yeah I was! I was in another band at the time, Christmas, which after I left mutated into Combustible Edison, but I had just signed on for a temporary... I was a temp, basically. I was going to play on a short tour of the states, and then a three week tour of Europe, and that was really all I had planned.
KD: So it was like Gilligan's Island.
JM: Yeah pretty much! [laughs] A twelve year tour.
KD: You have a "Yo La Tengo Joke Contest" online. Have you gotten to read any of that?
JM: Oh yeah.. . several years ago. I forgot all about that.
KD: Well they haven't posted the results of it yet! [laughs]
JM: I guess it didn't go that well. [laughs] Oh well.
KD: You've worked on several soundtracks, I Shot Andy Warhol, Brain Candy, and The Sounds of the Sounds of Science. Is that a different approach than making an album?
JM: Well, that stuff's all pretty different. Some of the soundtrack stuff we've done is really nothing more than people pulling songs off our records and plugging them into scenes in movies. There was a Hal Hartley film called The Book of Days that we actually composed the music for specifically, and for The Sounds of Science we were actually making up music to these little underwater short films. So it's always pretty different, and of course it's tons different than making a rock record. I like it all. I'm not as challenged by the things where they just take a song off a record. It's fun, but there's not much to it. I just hope the movie's really good.
KD: Did you ever think you'd end up an "elder statesman" in rock'n'roll?
JM: Oh heavens no. [laughs] I tend not to think about that. It's hilarious. If we've inherited that position... I guess it's great. It's an amazing accomplishment. Not many groups have our dogged persistence, I guess.
KD: "The tenacity of the cockroach."
JM: [laughs] Very much so.
KD: How do you choose the set list with so many songs to choose from?
JM: Oh god, we know a lot of songs. It sortof depends on what we're doing. Nowadays, the set list will be heavily new material, but I can't imagine a time where we would just play new songs. We're constantly reflecting previous records and things that we've done through the years. Chances are we'll play things, like cover songs, that aren't anywhere else, but our set lists are different every single night. Every day at sound-check we go over songs and write a set list for that night. It's always different.
KD: The last few albums have been softer, or more mellow, than the earlier ones. Do you think that that is from maturing, or is it just a personal preference lately?
JM: I don't know if it's either. It's funny, we recorded more songs than actually went on the [new] record. There's thirteen songs on the record, and I think we actually recorded eighteen. Three or four of the songs that didn't go on the record were really loud and fast, and there's much more of a guitar presence on them. It just worked out that we tried to put the thirteen best songs, the ones that worked really well together, and made a whole album. It's almost frustrating in a way [laughs], because I really loved those loud songs! I think we all did, but we had to focus and make a record that made sense as far as holding a mood. Those songs are going to come out anyway, eventually, and our live shows are still pretty loud. It's hard to exactly pinpoint, but there's no decision beforehand, like "We're going to move away from this." or "We're going to eliminate that." or "We're going to only use Jew's harps." [laughs] There's never really a plan beforehand.
KD: Who were some of your biggest influences?
JM: When I was really little my mom and dad listened to music all the time. My mom liked the more folky side of things, Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel. My mom was the Beatles and my dad was the Rolling Stones. My dad liked them and James Brown, so I knew about music from a really early age, and I always listened to the radio. When I was a kid I liked Thin Lizzy, hard-rock, and then discovered Black Flag, Minor Threat, stuff like that. I was sortof open to ideas, even though I didn't live in a town that was really open to a lot of ideas at that point. I had an English teacher, when I was like thirteen, who gave me a copy of [the Velvet Underground's] White Light, White Heat, and the first Nuggets compilation, and I think an R.E.M. record. Like "Oh you'll probably like this." and she completely destroyed my mind in one afternoon. [laughs] Playing White Light, White Heat for a thirteen year-old kid, ok, thank you.
KD: She might as well have given you acid.
JM: Exactly. "No offense, but I won't be studying in your class anymore, or anyone else's class for that matter."
KD: In looking at your credits, I see that you've worked with several bands in the last few years: Brokeback, Dump, Mark Eitzel, Sue Garner. Is it fun to go off and work with other musicians outside of your band?
JM: Yeah! Yeah, it is fun. Some of the times when I'm working with other people I'm doing something that's different than what I usually do. Like the stuff I did with Brokeback was mostly like a really primitive, backwards version of electronic music, it was adding strange sounds to what they were doing. I played on a bunch of songs on the latest record by Sue Garner, a record on Thrill-Jockey that she just released about six months ago. Played guitar on that whole record, which was really fun, because I don't get to play guitar that much, but it was really fun to do, and really enjoyable. The Mark Eitzel record I was his bass player. Steve Shelley from Sonic Youth and I served as Mark's rhythm section [ed.-quite a rhythm section] for most of that record. It's great to be asked to do stuff like that, and if I have time, usually I'll do it.
KD: It is more often people who you were already a fan of, or somebody you might not have heard of, that contacts you?
JM: It seems that mostly it's people I've been friends with, but if somebody I didn't know asked me, and I liked what I heard, I would do it.
KD: What are your thoughts when you know you have two weeks before something new is coming out?
JM: I dunno, panic, [laughs] in general. Everything is clouded by panic. Things are really hectic, usually, in that time. We're doing a lot of interviews, and a lot of preparation for the amount of traveling that we're going to be doing in the coming months. It's hectic, it's exhausting, but it's also really fun. I'm not really nervous, anymore, I was nervous for a long time. I just get really anxious, and ready to go out and play. Get the show on the road, literally. Wow... I've never been able to use that clich' before! [laughs] I love traveling and I love touring. We have a lot of friends in different cities all over the world, and they're people that I don't really ever get to see. I don't get to travel to those cities in a non-touring capacity. I look forward to seeing all my friends, and eating in all these fine restaurants all over the world. I look forward to playing every night. It's very enjoyable, and very satisfying.
KD: What city has the best food?
JM: Oh gosh, that's impossible to answer. They're all different. We just came from Austin, Texas, which is a fine barbeque city, and is also a really fine Mexican city.
KD: Fine music city, too.
JM: A fine music city, as well. We could probably find you something good to eat in pretty much any city in the world.
KD: You have a little black book, "good places to eat".
JM: We know what we're doing, yeah. It's well researched. After being together for so long, we've got a pretty good book.
KD: You have a big cult following, tons of people like you. Is it ever frustrating that you don't get played on the radio?
JM: It doesn't bother us. We don't really think about it. We certainly don't have it in mind when we start working on anything. I think it's passed the point where we're going to be an overnight sensation, but it does seem that with every record we've made that slowly more and more people find out about us. Every record we've made has sold better than the previous one. It's worked that way for every record, and I think that's awesome, because we haven't really changed anything at all. We're just ourselves, doing what we want to do, yet more people are coming to us - rather than us trying to court success. The level of success that we've got... I'm thrilled, and amazed. It's great.
KD: Are you surprised when you go over to Europe, or somewhere else, and they know all your music?
JM: I'm surprised almost anywhere! [laughs] I remember playing shows in South America, and finding out that all these people knew us. Everybody was singing along with our songs while we were playing them. Very mind-blowing. Or going to Taiwan and finding out that lots of people there know who you are. It's a total shock, but it's incredible.
KD: Do you know about Suicidegirls?
JM: In fact I do.
KD: Are you a member?
JM: No.
KD: Well I wouldn't put that out there anyway. [laughs]
JM: Well God bless you and the work you do. [laughs]
For information on Yo La Tengo, and MP3s, go to Yo La Tengo.com
VIEW 13 of 13 COMMENTS
[Edited on Apr 05, 2003 by an_earplug_life]