Elliott Smith - A Lost Interview

 

A part of me would like to pretend that I’d been down with Elliott Smith from the first hush tones of Roman Candle’s eponymous opener in which Elliott sings “I want to hurt him/ I want to give him pain/ I’m a Roman candle/ My head is full of flames,” but I would have been a very angsty seven year old, had that been the case. Alas, as is far too-often the case with these kinds of things, it was news of the troubled musician’s death at the tender age of thirty-four back in 2003 that really made me investigate his music properly.

Many people, myself included, probably first heard the delicate intonations of Elliott Smith’s music in the soundtrack for the 1998 Academy Award winner Good Will Hunting, which featured three tracks from his third album Either/Or, along with his Oscar nominated OST contribution, “Miss Misery.” This nomination, along with his surreal appearance at the ceremony, performing the song in a white tuxedo (sandwiched between performances of schmaltzy Hollywood fodder, including Celine Dion’s eventual winner “My Heart Will Go On”) garnered him the attention of major label Dreamworks who issued his next two albums, XO and what would be the final album released during his lifetime, Figure 8. This major label backing allowed Elliott to flesh-out his music from the intimate nature of the early recordings into the multi-coloured bombast of the latter albums, taking cues from bands he loved, such as the Beatles, and applying their experiments with kaleidoscopic studio production to his own compositions.

 

Although his music always hinted at or commented on forms of addiction, illicit or otherwise, it was during his final years in LA that his own drug use began to raise concerns and affect his work, in the studio and on stage. During Smith’s sporadic live appearances in 2001 and 2002 fans occasionally had to remind Smith of the lyrics (and sometimes even the chords) to his own songs and many people - including Flaming Lips frontman Wayne Coyne during an infamous incident in which Smith was beaten by Police officers – commented on how Elliott’s dishevelled appearance hinted at troubles with addiction. Smith had been due to contribute a cover of The Beatles’ “Hey Jude” for Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums but he failed to meet the deadline so a substitute was used (although Smith’s “Needle in the Hay” was used prominently in a suicide scene), and a whole album’s worth of recordings with producer Jon Brion were scrapped when the latter confronted Smith on his drug addiction.

However in 2003 Smith had completed stints at rehab and appeared to be on the path of recovery, putting the finishing touches on what would become his posthumous album From a Basement on the Hill. He was also working on music for the soundtrack to indie film Thumbsucker and in August he released a limited edition vinyl single, “Pretty (Ugly Before)” (which would later appear on the rarities collection New Moon).

 

 On October 21^st 2003, ten years ago today, Elliott Smith died from two stab wounds to the chest, fairly assumed to be self-inflicted. A suicide note of sorts, scribbled on a post-it note read: "I'm so sorry—love, Elliott. God forgive me.”

The fact that it was approaching ten years since Elliott Smith had passed away occurred to me serendipitously quite recently (in fact, it was a week ago today) when a conversation about music with a colleague at work led him to inform me that his brother, music journalist Jake Kennedy, had been one of the last European journalists to interview Elliott Smith for a UK publication, and certainly that he was the last one to speak to him after his last ever UK gig at The Forum in London on October 5^th 2000. My interest piqued, I asked my colleague for a link to read the review to find that it was not available online, having previously only been available in the printed article for Record Collector magazine. I therefore thought it would be interesting to interview Jake about this ‘lost’ interview, before publishing the interview in full at the end of the page. As Jake makes clear, Elliott Smith was not in the best of moods, so he did well to coax answers out of the man who “would rather have been anywhere else.” I am, however, very honoured to be able to commemorate Elliott Smith in some small way by bringing this interview (something of an exclusive for me) to light and would like to conclude by saying thanks to Jake for agreeing to this email interview and for allowing me to publish his interview in full. RIP Elliott Smith – thank you for the beautiful music.

My Interview with Jake Kennedy

Jake Kennedy and his cat Bill

Can you give me a little bit of context on the interview? 

Yes – it was for a world tour for Figure 8. I was working as a staff writer for the magazine Record Collector in London – a monthly title that was, at that time, still printed in black and white. It was very much an ‘old school’ magazine, used to covering articles on The Beatles and Stones. But the editor, Andy Davis, was a friend and was amenable to my ideas - usually about less well known artists (to our general readership) and for smaller, one- or two-page articles in a section called Short Takes. I would suggest things, as all the in-house editorial team would, and he would say yes or no. Thankfully, in the case of Elliott Smith, he said yes.

In actual fact, I was initially expecting to interview Elliott that summer when he played at ULU, but it never transpired. The PR guy at the time was the usual “don’t worry, next time, next time,” but I really didn’t think it would happen.

SoI forgot about it, but then he came to the UK to tour in autumn, the last date of which was The Forum on October 5^th (also his last UK gig ever, I believe). So, by a process of elimination, that must’ve been the day I interviewed him as I was the last person that day, and he was flying back the next. The PR guy got back to me a week or so before and said “are you still up for interviewing Elliott?” and I remember becoming very nervous, as his music meant a great deal to me. I usually get nervous before interviews, I compare them to rollercoasters – you’re glad afterwards, but beforehand you overthink them, fear the worst and want to cancel. Luckily I didn’t.

I guess because of what transpired in Elliott’s life, that interview, of all of the people I’ve spoken to in music, remains the most potent, the most charged for me, rightly or wrongly.

Were you an Elliott Smith fan at the time, or was the interview just another assignment for you?

I was a big fan yeah. I got into him when Either/Or came out, at university, when I guess a lot of the UK did. By the time of XO I was obsessed and had done the archaeology on him and checked out Heatmiser, older things like that. So this probably didn’t help my nerves beforehand. I remember thinking when the first interview opportunity was cancelled, “phew, I don’t need to make an idiot of myself in front of one of my heroes now.”

 

What was the tone of the interview? (The way it reads he seems to go between just about bearing it to occasionally opening up) Was Elliott easy to speak to?

I got the sense, most of the time in the interview, that he would rather have been anywhere else than there. It took place in a north London hotel – something like a Holiday Inn maybe? And it was in the lobby, where they serve the food. We were at a dining table. You could still smoke indoors at that time and Elliott smoked throughout the interview. He was about an hour late and came down from his room in the same way a teenager comes down from his bedroom when they don’t really want to. He only had on a black tshirt, no jacket or anything. I remember thinking he looked disheveled. But, looking back on photos of him, he always kinda looked a little disheveled so I didn’t think anything more of it and I wouldn’t want to read too much into that. I remember I had a notebook with my questions in, which made me feel amateurish. We were face to face, next to a window which he kept looking out of. There were some newspapers on the table which had stories about the new Tate Modern which had just opened – which is why I asked him about Rothko.

But on the whole, no, you’re right, he did not really want to engage. And genuinely, sweetly, when I felt he was engaging, it was as if he was doing it solely for me, to make my life easier, like “OK, let’s get through this.” But even at the lighter moments towards the end, the tone of his voice sounded crestfallen, like the Q&A was a bit inconvenient for him, that it was embarrassing even.

That said, he was in no way evasive of any answers, and I think, if he’d really wanted to, he could’ve avoided some questions, or ignored them, or even called it all off. My guess is, as I was the last interview of the day, that leg of the tour, that he might have been answering annoying, stupid journalist questions all day.

You have mentioned that the interview was edited and abbreviated upon publication. Has the interview ever been published in its entirety? Is there an audio recording of the interview?

The interview has only ever been printed once, in Record Collector. I do have the tape, but in this day and age, who has a tape player? I remember it was about one whole side of the tape, and on the other is an interview from around that time I did with Jon Spencer. But what you see here is the full version – apart from one question where I asked, in desperation, if Elliott had any pets (someone walked by with a dog outside). He said he didn’t but that he’d like some, but was touring too much to look after one.

 

A lot has been written about Elliott Smith since he passed away, including biographies and an XO addition to the 33 1/3 series. Have you ever been approached to contribute to anything like that as the last European journalist to interview Elliott?

I haven’t no. I keep a pretty low profile and Record Collector is/was a fairly small magazine. I doubt many people read the interview. I don’t think it’s even listed on the Sweet Adeline site [TM: Sweet Adeline is probably the biggest Elliott Smith fansite and gets many Elliott Smith exclusives].

Has this reputation (“the last European journalist to interview Elliott”) had any noticeable impact on your journalistic career?

Well, can I just say, this was a total fluke. And there were plenty of interviews with foreign journalists in the preceding years – I distinctly remember the Under The Radar magazine interview with Elliott as being particularly great. They visited him in LA and stuff.

But you know, if I’d got the interview I was originally going to do with Elliott a few months before, or if he had me scheduled in earlier that day, or who knows, the day before, then pop! I would only have been “one of the last European journalists to interview Elliott smith.” And, of course, anyone who interviewed him after me might have been European, but just based in the US, or wherever.

 

What was your response when you heard that Elliott had passed away, and in such tragic circumstances?

Well, you know, I only met the guy once. Which in no way gives me any sort of right to pretend I was fucked up about it or super sad – but, that said, I do remember it feeling distinctly more close to home than say, when Kurt Cobain died, or whoever, because I had interviewed the guy and seen first hand how down he was.

Obviously I don’t know why he was down when I met him - maybe because he was meeting me! – but that sadness seemed to add on to the shock of him being dead. The way he died too, that seemed so sort of Shakespearian to me – a knife through the heart. It’s a dark thing to say, but it seemed the perfect fucking way for him to go, if you want to buy into the mythology of Elliott, which I know a lot of his friends and family have gone on record as saying they don’t.

Did you even realise that you were the last European journalist to interview Elliott, or did someone else inform you?

Umm, well again, it was really only circumstance that made that the case. I sort of worked it our for myself. It had a romantic feel to it. The reality was a lot less glamourous, but that’s the print industry for you… 

What do you think of Elliott Smith’s legacy in the decade since he passed away? Can you hear his influence in new bands coming out today?

I think when you like the music of someone as much as I did/do Elliott, then it’s hard to listen straightfaced to any band who claims that music as a key influence. There are bands that were around when Elliott was around who have gone on to change their sounds – Wilco, Jim O’Rourke, Beck, Cat Power even – who I think would admit to having been influenced subsequently. Also, I read a fair few interviews with younger female artists who consider him a key figure, which is cool. And recently, Nicky from Manic Street Preachers has been singing his praises, which I respected, I wouldn’t of expected that from him.

A lot of what Elliott achieved came from fusing different artists’ stuff – obviously the Beatles, Elvis Costello, etc, etc. So when you hear someone who sounds a bit like that, you tend to return to source, rather than saying “ooh, so and so does The Beatles like Elliott Smith did them.”

 

What makes Elliott’s music so enduring?

I’m currently reading that book, Torment Saint, that’s just come out about him, and quite a few of the references are about how Elliott always loved the ‘change’, the passages between chords, or from verse to chorus or back again. I think that’s a big part of it for me, and when you couple it with the lyrics, you get that sweet spot, the perfect combo. In ‘Son Of Sam’, there’s a big sweeping change to yet another minor chord at the end where he sings “I may talk in my sleep tonight cos I don’t know who I am/I’m a little like you? More like son of sam” which gets me every time. He’s comparing himself to a serial killer in an effort to convey how little a girl really knows him – so glorious, such enduring passive aggressive venom.

How do you feel reading the interview back today?

Ha, well, I gave it my best shot. I don’t think anyone else could’ve got better results, given the raw material, at that time, on that day. I was young (22), meeting a hero. I had dreams of screwing up my notebook and taking Elliott around the Mark Rothko room at the new Tate, or of maybe getting a pie and a pint, but the reality of it - and rock journalism on the whole - was an hour in the dining room of a chain hotel on a wet afternoon. Which I guess was perfect enough.

 Thanks Jake. And now the interview in question:

Jake Kenney’s Interview with Elliott Smith, October 5^th 2000 – “In the dining room of a chain hotel”

You released “Figure 8” followed by “Son of Sam”, shouldn’t albums follow singles?

“I didn’t choose to do that. If I had my way I wouldn’t bother to release a single at all. It’s the label’s decision, I didn’t ask, you know. I’m really not very... into singles. What’s the point?”

 

Do you hate doing press too?

“I don’t hate it. The last few interviews that I’ve done were actually fine. I’ve gotten used to certain things and I don’t get mad about questions that irritate me. If it hits on one of those things I just...”

 

Like a contentious issue?

“Just things that have been thoroughly covered.”

 

It reminds me of when you were playing at ULU, because you were asking the audience what they wanted, and naturally they wanted old songs. Do you not enjoy playing them so much?

“I like playing old songs, I like playing brand new songs. If it’s an old song that I don’t play very much then it can seem kinda cool again. I enjoyed that show, I like playing in London.”

 

Is “Son Of Sam” about someone who realises their partner doesn’t know them at all?

“It could be. That one’s particularly impressionistic and I don’t have any particular interpretation of it.”

 

Do you write as yourself?

“Not usually. Or not entirely, you know? There’s a couple of songs on the last few records that are straightforward, but most of them are more like... they’re not unreal, but they’re not exactly a diary. I’ve compared it to writing down a dream that you had over and over. That’s still the closest thing I can get.”

 

Do you ever try and reflect that in the production?

“Yes, but only to the extent that I have any conscious desire for the production. I play a part in it, but the last two records have been two producers and me and we’re all pretty much equally involved, although they do way more of the technical stuff. Choosing compressors and microphones. But the way it’s mixed involves me.”

 

What about artwork?

“That’s pretty much all my decision.”

 

So does everyone want to talk about the Beatles to you?

“Oh, people want to talk about the Beatles anywhere. I really like them, but I also like a lot of other things. But if you say one thing in an interview then it seems as if that’s the only thing you ever listened to.”

 

Tell me about LA then.

“I’ve been living there for almost a year. It’s alright. I don’t live in Hollywood so it’s not that kind of LA that people think of who’ve never lived there. It’s very unlike London. London is very central. With LA you can be there and still not be able to see the downtown area. It’s pretty green, there’s a lot of neighbourhoods and only two or three storey buildings. They kind of stretch out sideways.”

 

You mention traffic a lot on “Figure 8”.

“I’ve moved to LA from New York, but I don’t have much stuff so it was easy. Traffic’s just a good metaphor for lots of things. It’s noisy and it moves so it applies to all kinds of situations.”

 

Are you famous?

“I don’t know, you tell me. It’s all comparative. Compared to some of my friends who play in bands that don’t have a record deal I might seem famous, but in comparison to I don’t know who, too many people, I’m not famous at all.”

 

 

Do you find yourself fascinated by older musical styles, like waltz and ragtime?

“Sometimes. I’m interested in every style. Except whatever’s really popular, because that’s been fully covered. Whatever is selling millions of copies automatically attracts more and more people to do that, so a bunch of people are doing the same thing. I’m not saying that’s bad, I don’t feel the need to dive into that teaming ocean, you know.”

 

Do you have contemporaries then?

“Yeah, Sam Combes from Quasi, that’s about it.”

 

So you get lumped with the wrong crowd then?

“Uh huh. Sometimes I just get put in with, well... anyone who’s not in a band. Anyone who’s a singer-songwriter. Which is funny because in the past couple of years my records sound more like a band than a singer-songwriter. But because it has my name on the front and not the name of a band I get put in with... well, I get a lot of people saying I’m influenced by Simon and Garfunkel, which is far from true.”

 

So you’re not a solo artist?

“Yeah, but I’m in a band, and it doesn’t mean I’m trying to fly the flag for a long tradition of singer-songwriters. I’m coming from growing up listening to The Beatles and Stevie Wonder. He did it all on his own. But it doesn’t sound like one person. He was a great drummer for example, that was really inspiring to me when I was a kid. I wanted to be in a band. My band broke up, so now I emulate one.”

 

Did you play out much?

“I was in a band when I was in my early twenties. We made three records, we went on tour. It wasn’t fun though, because we didn’t really want to play the same kind of music as each other. But they’re all doing different things now.”

 

Are you multi-instrumental?

“Yeah, I play almost everything. Not like Stevie Wonder, but well enough to do my own songs justice. If I didn’t like the sound of something I’d do it myself.”

 

What sort of music don’t you like the sound of?

“I still haven’t found anything to like about jazz-fusion yet. Other than that I think all styles of music are really good. There’s cool examples of everything.”

 

Do you read much?

“Yeah, I read a lot. Lately I’ve been reading contemporary fiction. There’s a Portugese author called Jose Saramargo, and I read some things on Hinduism and now I’m reading a history of medieval Europe. I was reading the Tibetan Book Of The Dead and I had to put it down for a while. It was kind of dissolving my sense of self. It wouldn’t be bad, but since I was on tour I needed to keep some sense of identity.”

 

What’s the biggest mistake people make about you?

“I just don’t like it when people don’t even listen to the record they’re coming to interview me about and they just ask me “Why are you so sad?” as if a record is a journal. As if there’s no fictional quality to it at all. You wouldn’t do that with a movie.”

 

Do you also deny the charges of ‘folk singer’?

“Yeah, totally.”

 

Your records are funny.

“I think so too. And I thought there was a lot of humour in Morrissey’s records as well. It’s not that there wasn’t any real feeling in them, the two just co-existed. They can be moving and comical at the same time. I thought that was great. And I remember at high school people were like, “Oh Morrissey’s so depressing” and it’s just, you don’t fucking get it do you?"

 

He never really sang in a traditional way either.

“Well, good for him.”

 

Have you got a hardcore album in you?

“Ha, maybe. When we recorded “Either/Or” for a time I wanted to make it one side of acoustic songs and one side of full-on metal versions, but I didn’t wind up doing that. My old band was kind of post-punk or something. Or just high volume. I like playing like that.”

 

Is it different coming off stage with a band to just coming off alone?

“Well I have people to talk to. Someone else will say it was fun, or that they couldn’t hear themselves at all.”

 

Are you the boss?

“I don’t wanna be the boss. We’re already playing all of my songs, that’s enough for me."

 

What makes you laugh?

“Interviews sometimes.”

 

So you’re confident about your voice and your playing?

“In some ways. I’m definitely not the shy person that some of the press makes me out to be. I’m not like a megalomaniac who thinks he’s god’s gift to singing or something. There’s lots of people who can sing better than me."

 

Do you still get time to sing and play in your spare time?

“I still do it a lot. But it feels like people are watching me more. That’s the only real downside to the whole thing.”

 

What was it that first made you pick up a guitar?

“My dad bought me one when I was 12, and I was trying to learn how to play Angus Young, AC/DC, but it doesn’t sound the same on a nylon acoustic.”

 

Where do you stand on the “Good Will Hunting” is shit argument?

“I think that it depends on where you’re coming from. If you’re going to approach pretty big budget Hollywood movies and compare them to art films then they might not come out so favourably, but I think what he was trying to do was play a bigger game and not get stuck in a little corner making Gus Van Zandt movies for the rest of his life. I think it was a brave move. I think it turned out pretty well. But soundtracking that was a one-time kinda thing.”

 

Do you read your own press?

“Not any more, no. I did up until about a year ago. Most of it seemed pretty positive, but it’s like looking at yourself in a circus mirror. Passing by is kind of amusing but if you’re standing in front of it day in and day out then eventually you start to believe that’s what you really look like. I’d rather stick with my own definition of my life. Whatever that is...”

 

Is it getting easier?

“No it’s getting harder. But it’s not a big deal. It’s not like a big crushing weight. It’s just something to watch out for more and more. And it might disappear you know. Maybe next year or the year after that or five years from now there won’t be any attention and it won’t matter. Problem solved.”

 

You must be learning then.

“Yeah, and it’s not, umm, it’s very positive and lucky. On most counts.”

 

Do you get praise from strange places?

“Yeah, I think it’s cool when people who are seen in magazines to be belonging to some style can show their appreciation for other styles. I don’t know anyone who only likes one kind of music. I like lots of different kinds of music, I think if people read music magazines they get to thinking that everyone’s in their own corner, as if all these different styles were competitive.”

 

Is this a job?

“Technically, yes. I used to work in a bakery. I did political theory and philosophy at college, and I went to the bakery when I got out. Eventually it closed. I started doing odd-job construction work. So this is not the same at all. It’s far from what I thought would be going on.”

 

Do you feel lucky?

“Extremely.”

…

Do you like Mark Rothko?

“Yeah, he’s one of my favourites. I know some people don’t like him, they say it’s just a field of colour, but that’s what’s so cool about it. They just hum. It’s like this kind of static thing. It’s the same thing I like about Nico’s records. Some people find it too static or maybe depressing, but it doesn’t make me feel like that. It’s a vibrant, elemental thing. It’s not a fancy thing.”

 

Do you feel like that?

“Well, I seem to get a lot of attention considering I haven’t had a hit single and I probably won’t. It doesn’t really bother me though because when I’m recording I don’t think about that. I’m still really into the long form of albums, even though CDs make it so it’s one continuous thing.”

 

Are you going to keep going?

“Yeah, sure, as long as I can. I hope so.”

 

Anything to add in your defence?

“No, nothing I can think of.”