Interview with Jonathan Meiburg (Shearwater, Okkervil River)
January 23, 2006 by mfink
Jonathan Meiburg is a busy man. Apart from playing a myriad of instruments as a member of burgeoning backwater indie rockers Okkervil River, he shares the helm of the elegantly homespun Shearwater with Will Robinson Sheff, having made their debut in 2001 with the sorrow-drenched song cycle of The Dissolving Room. His high, wraith-like vocals creating the perfect foil for Sheff’s creaky, misery-loves-company persona, Meiburg writes with a penetrating eye for detail, drawing out the sadness and confusion of modern life with an honesty and directness found lacking far too often in modern songwriting. Last year’s Everybody Makes Mistakes was a confirmation of their abilities and a genuine triumph in the dynamic of pristine sadness.
Luckily, there’s more on the way. With Okkervil River having recorded their next album and Shearwater heading to the studio in July, Meiburg is going to have his free time stretched even further than before. And even though he probably could have been spending his time working out an organ arrangement or doing research for his master’s thesis, he still found the time to spend one afternoon in early March giving DOA a rundown on the future projects of Okkervil and Shearwater, an explanation of his creative process, and even a little info on the ivory-billed woodpecker.
Delusions of Adequacy: So you just got back from recording an album?
Jonathan Meiburg: We got back from doing the new Okkervil record, I guess, about a month ago. Or maybe two months ago. We did it in February. Then, there was South by Southwest down here and we had to get back for that.
DOA: Did you play as Okkervil?
JM: We played as Okkervil and as Shearwater. We played like six times or something - it was crazy - which was more than we’ve played in the last six months.
DOA: Did you take the whole band for both of those?
JM: Yeah. In fact, with Shearwater we even had the string players with us. A mighty force (laughing). The new Okkervil record, I’m really excited about it. It’s really good. We’re going to take it to be mastered tomorrow, so I can finally take the tapes and throw them off a bridge and never think about them anymore.
DOA: How many of the Okkervil albums have you been on?
JM: Well, it depends on whether you count that first little EP or not. If you count that one, I’ve been on two of the three. But this new one, I’m much more of a presence on it. I do all the organ and piano and Wurlitzer and Rhodes and all the keyboard stuff. And the funny thing about that stuff is that it’s kind of like the glue, it sort of sticks everything together but you don’t necessarily notice it as an element in and of itself. You notice the whole thing seems to go in and out of focus in a kind of interesting way.
DOA: So what was the recording process like for the new Okkervil album?
JM: Oh man, we’ve never done anything like this before. We actually did it straight in about three weeks at Tiny Telephone.
DOA: John Vanderslice!
JM: Yeah, it’s his place. And Scott Solter was there engineering and did a fantastic job. He worked the booth for like 14 hours a day, every day. And he was getting paid by the day, so he could have walked out after eight hours, we still had to pay him. I didn’t really get to see much of San Francisco. I would just sort of stay in the city all day, either at Tiny (Telephone) or Scott had a studio in his home, part of the building that he lives in, that’s totally isolated from the rest of the building. But it’s very tiny so you could never fit a whole band in there, but it’s great for vocal overdubs, and you don’t have to pay for Tiny if you don’t need it.
DOA: Do you expect this to be a lot different sounding of a record?
JM: It’s definitely not one of these grand departure things. I think it has a more confident, together sound to it. I think it’s a little more aggressive in some ways, but I don’t think it’s like, “Oh my God. What happened to this band?” It’s a little less folky.
DOA: So you joined Okkervil through Will Sheff?
JM: Yeah. I was in another band, and we met at a benefit for the local college radio station, KVRX, and it was on the roof of this thing called the Waterloo Brewing Company. And my band played and then Okkervil River played, and it was so weird because you had these bright lights shining on us that were like utility lights. And we were right next to the exhaust vent for the grill from down below. So on the one hand, it was like being the Beatles in Let It Be, and on the other hand it was like being barbequed. Clouds of hickory-flavored smoke would keep coming across the stage, and you couldn’t see anything at all. You could sort of hear yourself bouncing off buildings around you. I was watching Okkervil playing, and I was just sort of fascinated because they sounded so bad. They sounded terrible, but there was something about them that was kind of honest and friendly and appealing in this weird way. And I couldn’t get it out of my head. So I called Will a coupled weeks later, and I think it was our second phone conversation that he said, “Hey, we oughta do a little four-track type record together.” So, I said, “Sure,” and then we ended up somehow, months down the road, doing the first Shearwater record. And we did it in like three days, but we were so happy and encouraged by how that went. It was so fun to work on…Have you heard that record?
DOA: The Dissolving Room?
JM: Yeah, The Dissolving Room.
DOA: Yeah, yeah. Definitely.
JM: It sounds to me like it was recorded in three days, in a lot of ways (laughing). But mostly in good ways. I mean, it’s digital. It doesn’t have the richness that I think later recordings are going to have.
DOA: Yeah, I think it has a real honest sound.
JM: Well, it kind of couldn’t have anything but. We were on a shoestring budget and that’s what it was. We were so happy with how it came out as a whole unit that we thought, “Well, maybe this shouldn’t be just a little recording project but maybe something independent from Okkervil.” So then Kim, who’s my wife and played bass on the record, became a real member of the band rather than someone who was doing me a favor. Then we added Thor (Harris) - who plays strings, vibraphone - after that record was done. He also plays with Angels of Light.
DOA: So, your former band, was that Kingfisher?
JM: That’s kind of an interesting story (laughing). There is no such band. There was never a band called Kingfisher. There was a band I was in that went by a couple of different names, and we were a band that essentially split up over a dispute over what the name of the band should be. But it was a fun band. We made one little record, and I think those guys are still playing. They kicked me out a while back, though, because I was never showing up…
DOA: So were did the legend of Kingfisher come from?
JM: I was in that band at the time, and we needed something to put on the one-sheet. And Kingfisher was one of the band names that was being tossed around. So, we put it in the one-sheet, and it’s so funny how people always print whatever you put in the one-sheet. I mean, you could say anything and find it bounce back at you. Kingfisher has gotten more press than the actual band ever did. People are always like, “Jonathan Meiburg from Kingfisher!”
DOA: When you and Will formed Shearwater, what was your original concept for the band?
JM: Well, I was writing these songs that didn’t really fit with the band I was in, and Will had a surplus of songs. Will actually made a little record between when Stars Too Small to Use EP was made and Don’t Fall in Love with Everyone You See. It’s called Nine Songs for Nine Ghosts, and it’s kind of a neat little record. He made it on a four-track or eight-track or something. And it’s really, really rough, but it’s got some neat stuff on it, and the song “Red” originally came from that record. Okkervil re-did it for Don’t Fall in Love… But he was just working on a lot of songs and was feeling stalled out a little bit, and he had more material than he was going to be able to use and was getting frustrated at not having done anything for a while. So we were both sort of looking for an outlet for some of our stuff, and the idea was to do some of the stuff that didn’t fit so well with our other bands. But I really do want to try to kill that “side-project” tag, because I don’t think it’s very fair to the band.
DOA: Right. So, what do you think was your original goal when you were recording The Dissolving Room?
JM: It was funny, there really wasn’t any goal at all. The goal was to finish the record. I wanted to make something that I could stand by and (that would) represent more what I was interested in about music and sort of reflect what I wanted at the time. And I think it really did; I was really pleased with that album. It’s not the record we would make now, but it was neat; those sessions had a weird sort of energy to them. And the funny thing was, we did almost all of it in three days, and then went back in and did an overdub here or there, and then I mixed it like a couple months later. But they were going on at the exact same time as the Don’t Fall in Love sessions, and I remember the first day I met Brian Beattie, who did the Okkervil record, and I went over to his shed where he records (laughing), and they were doing the pedal steel part for “Kansas City.” And then I went in and put the accordion part on an Okkervil River song while Will took the pedal steel player over to the other studio where we were doing the Shearwater record to do “Military Clothes,” so we were doing both at the exact same time.
DOA: Wow. So you guys were recording with Okkervil before you did any Shearwater stuff?
JM: Well, it just really started at exactly the same time. I wasn’t so much an official member of Okkervil then. I could have really joined Okkervil when they were about two-thirds of the way through tracking that record, which is why I don’t have a real big instrumental presence on that record. However, I was already sort of helping them make a lot of decisions by the time they got to mixing and mastering.
DOA: Going back to The Dissovling Room, that really seems like such a crushingly depressing record, thematically anyway. Was that the intention?
JM: (Laughing). The idea was to make a record that was all about death. It wasn’t necessarily supposed to be crushingly depressing. Whenever someone says that about Shearwater, like, “Man, that band is so depressing.” I mean, have you listened to modern rock radio? That’s depressing. You’ll be surprised by the next record, I think. We’ve been misread a little bit as a bunch of sad sacks, and I can understand that certainly. There’s a little tongue-in-cheek humor about Everybody Makes Mistakes that seems to have gone over some people’s heads. Maybe we’re too subtle about it…but on the next record everything is going to move a whole lot more.
DOA: Well, you and Will Sheff seem to complement each other real well as songwriters, be it stylistically or thematically or whatever. Do you guys write together a lot?
JM: It’s weird. Sometimes we’ll give each other little fragments of songs. I’ll write melodies first and lyrics second, and Will tends to go the exact opposite way where he’ll write the whole package at once. Will has really been an inspiration to me as a songwriter. He’s definitely made me work a lot harder. Although, actually, I think on that last Shearwater record, there are some places where, thinking back, I wish I had sort of had just finished (the song) myself instead of handing it off to Will. Not necessarily because I think it would have been better but because it would have been different.
DOA: How deliberate is the songwriting process? Do you have a pretty good idea going into the studio of what you want?
JM: Well, you kind of have to, especially if you’re not recording at home and you’re using one of these big studios where the clock is ticking and your money is falling out of your pockets every time you take a step. So, yeah, you got to know what you’re doing. But generally, with Okkervil we went to San Francisco with 15 songs, cut two, and then during the process of recording cut two or three more. So, you try to go up with a range of things, and an idea with how you’re going to approach them and hopefully an arrangement of how you’re going to do it. Because if you don’t have an arrangement it just takes you that much longer.
DOA: The second Shearwater album was a lot different than the first one, at least texturally with a broader palette of sounds. Was the process a lot different than the first one?
JM: Yeah. We did that one with Brian (Beattie), and when you work with Brian you work on Brian’s time. And he does it on a per project basis, so you’re not looking at the clock. And Brian, he’s got a real talent, and all his recordings have a real distinctive sound to them. And, like I said, he’s got this shed that you couldn’t even believe that recordings even happen in there. He’s got pieces of equipment all around, and the concrete floor has these huge cracks in it. It’s like a giant beast had enmeshed its head underneath, and the floor is cracking upward and here’s cables running through the cracks in the floor. But he’s got a real idiosyncratic way of working, and he’s got a great ear for big, beautiful sounds. He loves to leave mistakes in the recordings, and he’ll fight you for hours upon hours about trying to fix that note that you really want to fix. And he’s like, “No! No! It’s perfect! It’s what makes the song!” And eventually you’re like “Alright. Alright.”
DOA: Do you think you guys tend to be a little perfectionistic in the studio?
JM: No, but Brian is a special case. I think we’ve learned a lot from Brian. It has been my experience that it’s hardest to not be a perfectionist about your performance. It’s much easier to say to someone else, “Oh! That crazy note is great! Leave it! Leave it!” And then you do your own thing and you say, “Can we do that again?” And I think we’ve really learned a lot from Brian about what makes a thing musical. And sometimes it’s not accuracy.
DOA: So has the process of making the next Shearwater album begun yet?
JM: No, we’re going to do that in July. We’re going to haul up to Nebraska, and just like the Okkervil record, we’re going to do it in one shot.
DOA: So, do you collaborate with Will Sheff on a regular basis? You live in Texas, right?
JM: Yeah, we both live in Austin. I see Will about every day. Our fates are sort of inextricably bound musically speaking at this point. So, yeah, I see Will all the time. It’s not like Gilbert and Sullivan. They didn’t talk to each other I don’t think (laughing).
DOA: How difficult is it being in two bands?
JM: I think we’re really lucky that the bands are on different labels, because if they weren’t I think they might end up in competition in a way. Because, it would be like, “Who does the label like more?” That kind of thing. Misra is a great label. They just actually moved here to Austin so we can go and harass them. I don’t know; the two bands are very different. In Shearwater, I actually do things like play guitar, which I never do in Okkervil. And then there’s the writing and performing. We rehearse in a different place. Thor and Kim give it a very different feeling. With Okkervil, Will is a little more in charge, and I’m content to sit back and figure out things to fill it in. Because that’s why I got into the band in the first place when they were a three-piece. There were just a lot of things missing in the middle with the sound, and it was my job to try to fill those things in.
DOA: Do you ever worry that there’s going to be a conflict of interest between the two bands?
JM: No. I mean…no (laughing). They’re just two different bands. If one band started making just a whole lot of money, then maybe, but that’s kind of hard to imagine anyway. Why not just worry about that when we get there?
DOA: Do you think the two bands have different goals?
JM: Musically speaking?
DOA: Musically or as a job or whatever?’
JM: Well, the holy grail of indie rock is that you can make enough money to make a living. In that respect, I don’t think the goals of either one of them are particularly different. But I think the music is different. We used to think of Shearwater as somehow kind of quieter and less explosive than Okkervil, but Shearwater has just been organically growing in intensity lately. But it’s just a different kind of energy. But in a way that Everybody Makes Mistakes is a kind of static record, the songs just kind of sit there, and don’t necessarily go anywhere. Which is great when you’re in the mood for that kind of thing, but when you’re not, you’re like, “Oh God! The hell with this stuff!” But I’m not interested in being a slow-core band or a sadcore band or any of that. I mean, give me a break. That doesn’t sound like any fun at all. So, we’re going to be getting out of that. Also, Shearwater is going to be doing, for the next album after this one, what I think is going to be an album all about the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker.
DOA: Really?
JM. Uh-huh.
DOA: Wow! You work with birds?
JM: Yeah, I do. I’m writing my master’s thesis now on a bird species that lived in Tierra del Fuego and the Falklands. Yeah, I’m like a real nut about birds. I know that’s really kind of an old lady kind of thing to be, but I find them really fascinating. It’s a window into a whole other world that doesn’t care about you at all. They’re just out there doing their thing and have been doing it for a really long time.
DOA: Do you think that sort of outlook inspires your writing?
JM: Absolutely, oh yeah. I get a lot of inspiration from the natural world. I mean, the world we live in is cluttered up with so much noise that we make that you have to look hard and listen hard to pay attention to things again. What is it, your average person sees 10,000 advertisements a day or something? You have to train your mind to ignore a whole lot of things in everyday life. So when you try to go the opposite way and start training yourself to notice things, it’s really counterintuitive at first. You’re devoting most of that energy to ignoring things. And birds are a really nice way of training yourself into going, “Look! Notice this! There’s something going on with this little creature that is living its life and wants to do things as much as you want to do the things that you do.”
DOA: It’s a discipline.
JM: Yeah. Exactly. But the ivory-bill was the largest woodpecker in North America and is now presumed to be extinct. But it’s kind of in the realm of the Loch Ness monster because people still see it. There was a pretty good report a couple years ago, but the last official sighting was in the 60s. And there are some places, like in the Pearl River Basin of Louisiana where it’s conceivable they could still be. So we’re going to go out there for a couple of weeks and do some field recordings and then come back and do some instrumental stuff. So, it’s going to be an interesting record.
DOA: Sounds like it. Do you think you lean toward more tragic themes like that, like the extinction of a bird?
JM: I think there’s only one story really, and that’s that the old world is gone and it’s not coming back. And you see this theme in any story that’s any good (laughing) or has any resonance. And there are good things about the new world, too, I don’t mean to just focus on tragedy. But the ivory-billed story is kind of actually tragic in the classical sense, in that there was a study done on it in the 40s by this guy by the name of James Tanner that said, in this beautiful report, “Look, the ivory-billed depends on this and this and this, and we have to preserve these areas for it.” Especially this place called the Singer Tract in Louisiana. And nobody did it or paid attention to it. They logged the Tract out, but you hope there is some kind of lesson to that. I’m drawn to sadness, and there’s an awful lot of things to be sad about, and a lot of bad reasons to be happy (laughing). But by that same token, I’m not into despair. I think despair is the enemy of art.
DOA: Do you think you and Will Sheff have similar songwriting theories?
JM: Uh, it’s hard to say. I really do admire Will’s songwriting ability. He’ll write like three songs in a day. He wrote some of the best songs on the new Okkervil record in the two weeks preceding the recording. So, it’s hard to describe the process of songwriting. It’s much easier to describe the process of recording and how to play your instrument or whatever, but why you make the decisions that you do… I mean, the whole point of art is that those decisions are left to intuition and, therefore, immune to explanation.
DOA: Right. Do you think that Shearwater has been labeled as a depressive band?
JM: Oh yeah, in as much as anyone has paid attention to us at all. Did you see the new Chunklet Magazine? It’s “the bands that they’ll pay not to play.” We made it into that one. We’re not in the lowest category. The lowest category was “preemptive strike.” They put us in a whole list of bands that they’d pay 10 dollars to each member of the band if the band would break up and never play again (laughing). It’s really kind of a consolation because we know that no matter what, no matter how this goes, there’s always 40 bucks waiting for us.
DOA: (Laughing) So something like that, you don’t take to heart very much?
JM: You try not to. I think the way everybody is, you ignore your good reviews and pay attention to your bad reviews. I think everyone feels like they’re walking around with the suspicion that someone is going to come up and point the finger at them and go, “Ah ha! You’re a fraud!” And you’ll go, “Ah! I know! I know! I knew it!” And there are a lot of things about that last Shearwater record that I really like, but I think there are a lot of things about the band that aren’t shown by it and that I think are going to come out in future recordings that will make that record make a lot more sense in that context.
DOA: Well, definitely, Everybody Makes Mistakes was an amazing record. Was the response pretty much what you expected?
JM: That’s hard to say. Some people like it a lot. Some people don’t particularly care one way or another. A few people have absolutely hated it. Ideally, you want people to either love it or hate it. Indifference is probably the unkindest cut of all. If someone says, “Yeah, this is OK,” then you’re probably just like, “Whatever.” Pitchfork gave us a really sort of nasty review.
DOA: Yeah, I read that.
JM: Whatever. I can see their point, but by that same token, the options are we can go on or we can give up, and if we give up we can never get any better.
DOA: Yeah, plus they give everyone tough reviews.
JM: Oh yeah. I like those guys, and unfortunately I agree with a lot of what they say. I can’t just go, “Oh, the hell with them! What do they know!” It’s not good, necessarily, to not pay attention to anything that anyone says about you. At least I’m not the kind of person who can. But you can’t change your artistic process based on what other people say about you. You just have to branch out within yourself and become interested in other things. Also, it’s a funny thing about pop music that you’re expected to make great records when you’re really young. I mean, I feel more likely to make a great record now or a couple of years from now than I was a couple of years ago. The way you get better is by doing it. So, I think there is a tremendous value in hanging on and trying again and keeping at it. But, I do feel, a little bit, that the time is going come when we have to put up or shut up, and I feel the next record will be it.
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