old interview with Will

http://panacherock.com/magazine.php?area=interview&page_id=68&issue_id=24
Okkervil River

Okkervil River sounds like what we'll be playing on the back porch after a nuclear holocaust, trying to pass on to the new, post-fallout generations the old tales of heatbreak and broken family dynamics that existed in a much more complicated time. I sat down with Will Schaff, the main creative force behind Okkervil River (he's also credited with the cover art on the band's albums). He seemed to get hungry when we spoke of breakfast Tacos, a Texas phenomenon, frustrated when asked about the tour, irritated at the mention of sadness in his songs, and suprisingly magnanimous when I mentioned Bright Eyes, the most overrated thing to happen to indie music since Elliot Smith.

Someone in the room: We’re gonna turn Earlimart’s room into a fucking cloud, aren’t we?
Ian: Have you ever eaten breakfast tacos at Mi Madre’s?

Will Schaff: That was one of the first places I ever had breakfast tacos.
Are you serious? They’re the fucking best.

Will: That’s my neighborhood.
Have you had one as good since?

Will: I love all kinds of breakfast tacos; the Mi Madre’s ones as I recall are real unpretentious, sort of down home-style, but then Kuro’s is a little more fancy; they’ll do red corn tortillas and they have really good coffee from Oaxacca. But there’s also a Tex-mexy place on the east side call Juan in a Million and they’ll put a shit-ton of cheddar cheese and potatoes and there’s…there’s all sorts of great taco places in Austin. But Mi Madres is in my neighborhood, I just moved to that part of town. The East side is cool, I love the east side.

(Drummer Travis Nelson enters)

Travis Nelson: Does anyone have a light?

Will: 's that got marijuana in it? Can I hit it? I always like to get real stoned before I do an interview where I’m supposed to sound smart.
By the way, how was the art show?

Travis: The Will Schaff show?

The Will Schaff show.

Will: I had this idea that art is really stale when it’s in an institution and part of academia. It’s cool, the immediacy of pop stuff and art made for the ordinary people, but what I didn’t realize is that ordinary people can’t afford art and that’s why the institutions exist. So there were all these kids that said “This stuff is great! Oh, I don’t have $300 dollars, $500 dollars.” The funnest thing about getting to any kind of limited success, is you get to the point where you’re able to help out your friends.
Is there tobacco in this?

Travis: Yes. This is the only band I’ve ever been in where everyone we deal with--our booking agency, our record label, the woman who does press for us--it’s not just that we have a good business deal. Carrie Kline, who does press for us--
Will: Carrie Kline and I cried together.

Travis: Yeah, I’ve called up Chris Swanson, our record label guy and said “We need some more records shipped down here, and how’s this doing, and my girlfriend dumped me!
Will: Every person we’ve done business with has heard us cry about our love lives.
Travis: It’s a group of friends; everybody’s helping each other out.
It’s the rocker’s secondary dream. Once you get over wanting to be huge and famous and shit--

Will: I want to be rich. I don’t want to be famous, but I’d love to be rich. That’d be so rad.
But I’ll bet a big part of that is the ability to help your friends.
Will: Yeah. I want all my friends to be rich too, ‘cause it’s not fun if they’re not--

Travis: I just don’t want to go back to Austin and flip hamburgers.

Will: I work at a video store and he flips hamburgers.

Travis: I cook food and then I have to deliver it and yell people’s names. I deliver some guy’s food and he goes, “Holy shit, you’re the drummer from Okkervil River. I can’t believe the drummer from one of my favorite bands works this super shitty job.” I didn’t know how to take that.

Will: I went there once on my break from the video store--I was having a bad day--Travis was working and he was going to hook me up with some free beer. This guy behind me in line goes “Hey, I know who you are.” And I’m like yeah, you probably know me from the band and he says “No, you work at the video store. You’re the really loud, opinionated guy.”
Why are you excited about ‘Black Sheep Boy’, in succession with your other records?

Will: I always wanted to make a record that felt really thematically unified, and it was always hard to just make a record, period. There’s a lot of scrambling around to get even the simplest shit done sometimes in the budget-rock world. We did it Brian Beattie's house (producer of Daniel Johnston and Okkervil's second record). He’s really the unsung hero of the Austin music scene. We worked up a lot of the songs at the last minute so they would feel sloppy and fresh. Down the River of Golden Dreams, which we did here is San Francisco--I’m really happy with that record--but it’s a little too clean sometimes, and I like Black Sheep Boy because it’s dirty. It’s dirty and stinky.

Travis: There’s so many clams. I screwed up so many times.
Was there a lot of live recording?

Will: Yeah, all of the basics were tracked live, and the basics is pretty much everything. There was no real way to fix things too much, so you had to sort of go with what you did. We were using a lot of nice gear, mixed with a lot of crappy, cheap gear that nobody in their right minds would ever use. We wanted things to feel like they had some dirt.
It strikes me as a relatively upbeat album.

Will: Is that how it strikes you?
That may just be on the surface--the presence of electric guitars and faster, more upbeat rhythms.

Will: A lot of people think it’s real sad, that Okkervil is depressing and mopey. I get sad when I hear that because that’s not what we’re going for; we’re trying to be ecstatic, like all your synapses are firing at the same time. It was an intense time for us, and it’s a painful album in some ways, but we wanted to make it feel like a party at the same time. I think that’s the key with the fast rockers and the pop touches. A lot of that album sounds severe to people, but we were laughing and joking and thought that some of the stuff we were doing was hilarious. Like “The Latest Toughs.” I think there’s a lot of joy on the record, like trying to do a wake. Like “everything’s fucked, let’s get a bit more drunk” kind of record.
The thing I’ve found out about people is that they’ll say anything meditative at all is sad. Anything more lyrically-driven and downbeat is a sad sort of song. But the fact of the matter is that there are a lot of songs that are contemplative and meditative, and it’s not like they’re trying to bum you out, it’s just a certain method of trying to burrow through a thought you have.

(Drummer Travis Nelson exits)

This isn’t a good interview question, this is more like praise. I feel like your music, your songwriting is more like taking these little everyday moments--little snapshots and making them something holy, something profound.

WS: That’s a really sweet thing to say, because I think that music should be holy. I don’t think we’ve ever accomplished that once, but every time that’s what we’re going for. I think of music like it’s a magical or as an alchemical act and not just where you’re making a pop song, but where you would actually stand in front of a train for what you’re doing. You should be stupid enough to think you’re moving heaven and earth. It’s not like you can, but you’ve got to be stupid enough to try. I like the idea of a song that sends a shiver down someone’s spine, or that makes them want something so bad--bad enough to steal it.
That’s a nice way to put it. That’s bumper-sticker material. I’d like to talk a bit about your songwriting. You’ve got a unique way of storytelling; you’ve got some incredible characters that come out. I’m wondering how those manifest in your brain.
WS: I’m always a bit skeptical when people tell me that I write differently. But if I had to pinpoint a different thing that I maybe do, is that I start thinking who these people are and then start over-thinking who they are, like what were their parents like or where are they from and when is this song taking place. Who are these people and what do they have at stake? Instead of writing about Will Schaff, to split myself into little pieces--take what bothers me and turn it into an entire personality and think about who he is and write from that guy’s point of view. It’s very liberating for me, much better than trying to write a diary entry.
That’s what fiction writers are supposed to do, it’s funny that you say that.

WS: I wrote a lot of fiction until I got decided that I was really dissatisfied with that whole scene. I guess that it got drilled into my brain that if you’re going to care about somebody you have to feel like you know who they are and you have to feel like they have something at stake, and you have to feel like you want them to get what they want, but something’s going to keep them from getting it. I think that’s what tension comes from and that’s what keeps people reading a story. But first and foremost, these songs are songs, they’re not short stories, they’re not poems, they’re not prose poems and the song form is really different. When you listen to a lot of old folks songs, they’re telling stories too and you get a really good idea of who the characters are. I feel like that’s something we’ve lost as people started to misinterpret folk music as confessional.

What are you looking forward to?

WS: We’re about to start recording again. We had this idea on the road, we have all these tracks that we didn’t finish from Black Sheep Boy and I had this idea that we were going to finish them and do a record called Black Sheep Boy Appendix that’ll be an EP.

Here’s a good one, who are you sick of being compared to?

WS: You just asked me that because you want me to say Bright Eyes.

That’s exactly why.

WS: Yeah, I’m fucking sick of being compared to Bright Eyes.

Another version of that question would have been, does it make you mad that (a certain local are paper) recently compared you to Bright Eyes?

WS: No, because I’m used to it. But you know, the guy has a shitty voice, I have a shitty voice; that’s the similarity. Our voices are in the same range and we both seem to be challenged when it comes to staying on pitch. I feel like the similarities are pretty superficial. But you know what? I’m broke and Bright Eyes sells a lot of records. If they want to say that I sound like Bright Eyes and some kids who like Bright Eyes buy our record too and it gives me a little more money, then yeah--Bright Eyes--awesome. That’s the only one that bugs me.

Are there any others?

WS: Bright Eyes and Alt/Country. And then people go, oh, it’s Emo-Alt-Country and I’m like, fuck you.

How many buzzwords can we combine by hyphen?

WS: It’s like someone going “Yeah, you know, you remind me of a mix between Gallager and Carrot Top.” But I don’t even want to bitch, because people keep giving me money to do records. I know a lot of fucking super talented songwriters who can’t even say that. So people compare me to Bright Eyes, fuck it. I get to play shows and get money to do it. I’m not going to look that gift horse in the mouth.

You handled that well.
interviews from issue #24 - these are only a few - there are more in the the hard copy of the issue
Album Reviews
reviews from issue #24 - these are only a few - there are more in the the hard copy of the issue