the AU interview: John Darnielle from The Mountain Goats (USA)

With another new Mountain Goats LP under his belt (that
makes, what, 17!?) – John Darnielle is bringing the Mountain Goats back down
under for a highly anticapated April tour. We spoke to John in advance of this
tour about the new album “The Life of the World to Come”, his love of Vegemite
and Australia – and epic heavy metal guitar solos.

Larry Heath: Hey
John, thanks for speaking to us! Where abouts are you at the moment?

John Darnielle: In my bedroom actually! Durnham, North Carolina. Where abouts
are you at?

We’re down here in Sydney Australia.

Oh right on, lovely town. Home of the Swans!

Haha, yes indeed! Ok
well let’s get down to buisness. In october you released your latest studio
record titled “The Life of the World to Come” … Can you tell us a bit about
the thematic choice of the album?

Well yeah, every song takes its title from a chapter and a verse of the bible. I
don’t really go into things programatically – a good half of the time I write
the songs and then put the title on it. I had one where I wasn’t sure what to
call it. It was a song that didn’t make the album, but it obliquely referenced
something I recognised as a Bible verses, one of my mother’s favourites from
Matthew – “Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these”. So it
spawned the title, and it re-framed the song. You probably wouldn’t have
noticed the line had I not brought attention to it, and so suddenly there’s
this different angle on it.

The same thing happened about a month later, with another
song I was working on that seemed quasi-Biblical. And then you have two and
they look cool – a bible chapter and a verse – they look grave and important
there next to each other on the playlist. So I started thinking it was the
thing to do, the way the writing was trending. So a couple of months later I
had 6 or 7 and I went, OK this is what I’m doing now!  

You have enjoyed this
process of trends on multiple occasions. I’m huge fan of the ‘Going to …’
series, for one – any plans on a song for Australia?

*laughs* You know, I will give you a breaking piece of news. We’re always
working on new songs, and we just did some stuff the other day. And one that I
actually ran across the lyrics, totally forgotten having written it, and it
didn’t have a title. But it was an interesting little song. And we were working
on it together, and I thought where was this from?

And I remembered, and realised I wrote it during a 2 day off period when I was
last in Brisbane. So I wound up calling it “Brisbane Hotel Sutra”.

I haven’t actually done a “Going to…” song in quite a while. I sort of ran out –
for one thing, because they were starting to make fun of people who think they
could run away from their problems by going somewhere – I mean now I spend my
whole life going to places. So if I write it now, it just sounds like a
musician singing about touring.

Speaking of travelling,
you seem to have lived, at one time or another, in every possible place someone
could possibly live in America.

Yeah, I’ve been around a bit!

Did such a life on
the move help you slide comfortably into the touring life?

Maybe. I don’t know. I actually think, because I tend to
lose my mind a little when I tour … I shouldn’t say always, because they do
sometimes go smoothly – but usually I do hit little pits of panic and
depression at some point … I think that has a lot to do with the fact that
when you move when you’re young, it’s not voluntary. Your parents divorce and
you have to move, that’s not plesant. You get pulled away from your friends and
so on…

But touring is different, because no matter what kind of day
you have, however you feel, if you make to the end of the day, you get greeted
by a bunch of people who want to hear your music. So everyday ends on a
pleasant note. It doesn’t even matter if you feel that you weren’t at the top
of your game – as long as you make it through that door to your workplace, you’re
blessed. “Oh how awesome, now I’m in a room full of people who want to hear my
music… life couldn’t be any better”.

So it’s sort of the opposite of the moving experience you have as a child –
moving from one school to another, feeling confused and disoriented.

Where do you feel most at home?

Well I was rooted in Iowa for 10 years, so it was great to live in one place for
so long. But now I live in North Carolina, and I hope to be living here the
rest of my life. It’s just so awesome here… I can’t say enough good things
about it.

But I did spend a lot of time growing up in California, too,
and Southern California is the sort of place, once you’ve a forged an emotional
connection with it – I mean any place you’re from is special of course – but California
has a special way of resonating for people who have at one point become
attached to it. When you get there, it’s very much like a person – when you go
back, it’s like seeing someone you feel like you knew. It’s something.

Moving back to the new album, the record
has also spawned a raw performance film of the same name by Director Rian Johnson
(Brick) – how did this come about?

Well Rian is a long time fan of my stuff, and he’s actually from not far from
where I’m from in Southern California. And we bond over a lot of the same
things, we used to get along famously. And he directed the video clip to “Woke
Up New” a few years ago off the Get Lonely record.

He is a guy, that when you work with you have to say, “Rian, you have an extra
brain in there somewhere…” however many ideas you can hold in your head at
once, Rian can hold about twice that. It’s so crazy. He seems like a normal
guy, but then you ask him for his idea for a video – and he spills out this
thing and you have to ask him to tell it to you again because you lose track of
it, and he’ll say “Oh it’s simple – you’ll get it when it works!”. And it turns
out it’s this boxes inside of boxes inside of bags inside of boxes vision of
stuff. And seeing his movies, that’s just how he works. He’s always sticking
one story inside of another, and braiding them together.

So I love his work, and he digs mine – and some of these songs seem quite
emotional to me, so I thought it would be… well I won’t say fun… but worthwhile,
to go back to the town I grew up in, and play them in the building where I
first give a piano recital when I was 8.

So it’s not the same piano, but I went back to Claremont
(CA), and original bassist Rachel sang a few songs with me, which was a thrill.
It’s really a decent thing.

You talk about
concepts, and you really don’t get more raw than that – going back to where it
all started.

Yeah, I’m pretty excited for this to come out on DVD in a
month or two. It’s screened in a few places, I think people who like what we do
will really enjoy it. It’s all solo – so there’s no drums, just guitar, piano
and voice. But it’s got a good vibe and Rian’s direction is amazing. It goes
places and really opens up on stuff.

So you’re finally
returning to our shores soon… can we expect a good focus on this album when you
pop down under for the April tour?

In all likelihood. Our setlists change every night – although we tend to open
with the same song for each tour. It’s a great thing to do for me, because by
the second or third night, it hurries you to the top of your game, “Oh! After I
play this song, I get good!”

We opened with “Wild Sage” for about a year, and by the end,
the second you played the first note, it would usher you into the peak of your
set, in your mind.

But yeah, other than that – we’ll definitely be playing fair amount of the new
album. In the fall in the US, we toured as a quartet, but now we’re back to a
trio for Australia, so I think we’ll be doing the song “Heretic Pride” – which we
didn’t play at all on the last tour. So I’ll be stoked to get that one back in
there. But I haven’t given it a lot of thought yet.

Fair enough! Is there
any chance we might hear a bit of Moon Colony Bloodbath?

No, not likely – because the guys haven’t played it. And
there’s no percussion on the album… but, hmmm. It could be worked out. I’ll
think about it!

Speaking of which, it’s your fifth tour
in our country – how have your past experiences been down here?

Here’s the thing… they’ve been so great that I imagine people
must think we’re trying to butter them up when we talk about it. But the reason
you’ve seen so much of us since 2003 is because you love you. We like to come
down there and hang out and play music for people who like to listen to music. It
was like a secret to me – I didn’t know people were so nuts for music down
there, that they’d be so into showing up to shows and jump straight into it, especially
the left of centre stuff we play.

So the first tour we did with Showbag was such a joy, and it’s
been that way ever since. We really love to play music for people who seem to
really enjoy listening to music.

Yeah, that much be what it’s all about
as a musician.

It’s seriously just a win-win. I did it solo the first time, and I talked to Peter
about it – but I didn’t want to ladle it on because he hadn’t been able to
join. And then when we did all get down there he was like “why didn’t you tell
me!?” and I told him he had to see it for himself. It’s really just so much
fun. It’s not that people don’t like music elsewhere, it’s just that
Australians really seem comfortable easing in to a listening space, when they
get in. So we get the sense that our music is getting across – it’s really
awesome.

I think we’re just
happy that people remember we exist down here some times!

*laughs* Well we definitely remember, and we get over there
and lay on the Vegemite until we’ve had enough.

You actually enjoy Vegemite?
I don’t think I’ve ever met an American who does!

My friend, I go to town on Vegemite like a guy on prison
leave. I love it on toast, I love it in a sandwich with cheese. I load my
backpack full of it every time I’m down there because it’s so expensive here,
if you can even find it.

And finally – you’re a lyricist, a
vocalist, a guitarist, and a pianist. Plus you play the drums.

I don’t play the drums actually! This is a scandolous
rumour!

Ah, well this may be the answer to the
question then – are there any other instruments you would love to become an
“ist” of one day? A Harpist or Double Bassist, perhaps?

There are so many instruments I’d like to play – there’s a lot of orchestral
instruments. I used to play the clarinet, I’d love to be good at the clarinet. You
hear someone play the oboe – what a magnificent instrument. But what I’d love
to do with an instrument I already play – and this is a lifelong goal – is to
play a guitar solo. I’m a rhythm guitarist – I think a pretty decent one – but if
I was thrown onto a stage in the middle of 12 bar blues song and asked to play
a solo, I would drain the room with my incompetence. And so it’s a goal at some
point, to learn how to solo before I die.

It’s going to be a heavy metal solo, and it’s going to be awesome when I get to
it. I’m basically going to do the solo from Judas Priest’s “You’ve Got Another
Thing Coming” and it’s going to be so great.

Well I can’t wait to
see and hear it. We’ll leave it there on that not mate, thanks so much for
chatting with us!

It’s been a pleasure talking to you. We’ll see you down
there!

The Mountain Goats are
playing shows around the country next month.
Tickets are on sale now and the dates are as follows:

Brisbane – Sunday April 11 -The Zoo
with special guests Crayon Fields

Presented by Rave

Sydney – Tuesday April 13 – Manning Bar
with special guest Catherine Traicos

Tickets from VenueTix (Ph: 8225 8888 or www.venuetix.com.au) & Moshtix (Ph: 1300 GET TIX or www.moshtix.com.au)

Perth – Sunday April 18 – The Rosemount
with special guests Schvendes

Tickets from Heatseeker (www.heatseeker.com.au & Heatseeker retail outlets) and Moshtix (www.moshtix.com.au & 1300 GET TIX (438 849))