Articles

Mazzy Star in "singer speaks" shock

by Jim Greer, Ray Gun Magazine, November 1996

For the past few days I've been going over a stack of Mazzy Star press clippings and have talked to a number of people who've previously interviewed the duo; the unifying thread of both the articles and the conversations, making allowances for differences of perspective and personality, seems to be GET OUT OF HERE FAST! THIS INTERVIEW WILL BE A DISASTER! But we at RayGun will not be so easily cowed.

In the past, it seems, the pair have given such reluctant and unforthcoming interviews that some writers have been reduced to printing an actual count of the seconds between question and reply - and when the reply does come, it tends to be along the lines of "Um, I don't know. Maybe." Which can be frustrating, after a while, both for the writer as well as for the reader eager for more complete picture of the enigmatic band's collective personality. Ah, but we've got a plan. Simply put: Divide and conquer. Due to a fortuitos logistical arrangement, singer Hope Sandoval is here in Berkeley and guitarist etc. David Roback is somewhere in Norway. Ray Gun editors call up the record company loudly demanding that interviews must be done right away, for obscure but ominous-sounding deadline reasons. The ruse works - I'll get to talk to Hope here alone, then jet off the next morning to Oslo and put the screws to her partner. The result of my efforts should be either a softening of the glacial Mazzy Star silence or a doubling of same, with jet lag. Either way, my frequent flyer mileage wins.

First things first: Mazzy Star has a new album out. The reason Mazzy Star has agreed to do (a very limited amount of) press is that Mazzy Star has a new album out. The band has made it clear that it doesn't understand why anyone would particulary need or want to talk to them, especially. Everything they had to say they said on the record. Just listen to the record, seems to be the implied message. So, okay, the new record: Among My Swan (I'm not even going to try to figure that one out), while similar in vein to the previous two Mazzy Star records, is a great improvement over what some found to be the stylistic torpor of the last one, So Tonight That I Might See - though that record did represent the band's commercial breakthrough, due mostly to the late-breaking success of the single-and-video "Fade Into You", as well as the added exposure the band garnered when Hope guest-sang on the semi-popular Jesus and Mary Chain track "Sometimes Always," which was in MTV rotation at roughly the same time. Fans of either that record or the previous, far better debut, She Hangs Brightly, will not be shocked by any severe stylistic swerves on Among My Swan. Nevertheless there's evidence of a broadening of the traditional Mazzy palette; a more purely pop sensibility sticks its tongue out on a couple of the newer tracks among all the usual country-blues-such-girl-in-a-pretty-dress-whirling-around sort of stuff, and songs like "Dissapear" and "Take Everything" demonstrate an increased willingness to experiment with a broader range of sounds, the former featuring a dissonant-but-beautiful bell accompaniment. There's even a song called "Happy" that seems to mean it, which in itself could be called a stylistic breakthrough for the determinedly melancholy duo.

Whether the new record duplicates the platinum performance of So Tonight or not remains of course to be seen, but the prospect of either its success or abject failure doesn't seem to trouble the two Mazzy Stars one whit. They seem more bemused by their newfound Modern Rock Star status than enthusiastic about sustaining at least the more public aspects of that status. "What time are you flying to Norway tomorrow?" asks Hope as we sit down at a quiet table in the Berkeley bar (The Spam? The Spit? The Splat? Can't remember) she's chosen for our interview. "Do you like flying or is it sort of a drag for you?" "Um..." I begin, hesitating, thrown a bit off guard by her forthightness. Hope laughs. "You must not like it, because you hesitated. So why not just do it over the phone? Or is it more exciting in person - I mean as far as just talking to the person in person."

"No, it's not that," I reply, slowly getting used to the idea of having the interviewing tables turned on me. I wonder if this is a new tactic she's developed to avoid answering questions. Contrary to anything I'd been led to expect, Hope appears relaxed, confident, maybe a little quiet, but no more so than you average sober American. "You can't really get a sense of the person over the phone; you need to meet them so you can better tell what they're like, I guess. Phone interviews can be so superficial - they're really just used for sort of utilirian promotion; although I guess there's some aspect of that to any kind of press. I mean, why are you here now? Because you've got a new record out. It's not because -" Hope interjects, laughing, "It's fun!" "Do you prefer to do phone interviews? Are they easier?" She considers for a moment. "Yeah. It's easier. But it's obvious why it's easier: It's easier for basically the same reasons why you just said it's better to do it in person."

We talked for a while about the making of Among My Swan, which Hope tells me was recorded partly in Berkeley - at a studio called Live Oak that the band has used for its previous records; it's a basement studio in a house here where bands like En Vogue usually work, but they like it - and partly in London, at the Jesus and Mary Chain's studio and at the Cocteau Twins' studio. "Do you like London?" I ask. "Yeah, I love London," she replies. "I mean, my boyfriend (William Reid from the Mary Chain) lives there." "What do you eat there?" I ask, genuinely puzzled. "Umm, fish and chips," she answers with a vague smile. "I'm big on sandwiches, too. They have great sandwiches in London." "I notice you have a co-production credit on this record." "Well, David does most of the producing, but we both analyze each and every song, and sort of decide what guitar or whatever - mean obviously mostly that's his, because he's the guitarist, but I figured I should get producer's credit because I was involved with most of it."

"Has the level of record company involvement changed with the success of the last record? Did Capitol execs come sniffing around the studio any more than usual?"

"They just seemed like the way they've always been," she says. "They're interested, but they're not gonna force anything on us. They're businessmen, they don't want to hurt the relationship in any way. They want to make things go as smoothly as possible. I know if things got really bad for Mazzy Star it might be a different story, but right now, they're just sort of "Let them do what they need to do and leave them alone, and they'll make a good record."
"What about the composition of the audience? I ask. "I know a lot of bands seem to notice a sort of immediate change once their video gets played a lot on MTV. The audience seems to get younger and, I don't know, stupider in general."
"I don't think that we've reached that point," she replies. "I've heard that that does happen, but I don't think it's happened to us yet. If it has, it's so small that we haven't noticed it."
"What, no mosh pit?" "No. They didn't really do that for us. Well, when we toured with the Mary Chain, I would go onstange and sing "Sometimes Always" with Jim, and people would sort of do that slam-dancing thing."
"Has playing live gotten any easier? I know you used to be real uncomfortable with it."
"Well yeah, all those people just staring at you...."
"But I thought performers were supposed to crave that kind of attention."
She demurs brightly.
"I mean, it's natural for anyone to crave attention, and yeah I guess some people sort of OD on it. I mean, I like attention just like the next person, but playing live is sort of - it's really asking for it."
"Do you feel obligated to put on a show?"
"I feel obligated to sing well, and that's it. I sense that (desire for more interaction) from them, yeah, and that's what makes it uncomfortable. I mean, it's not so bad now most people who come to the shows now realize it's not going to happen, and they accept it, but in the beginning....people would demand it. Like, they demand a show."

Hope looks momentarily perplexed at the thought of her demanding audience. The thought to me that at some point I'm going to have to ask Hope about her lyrics, since after all they represent a large part of her contribution to the Mazzy Star experience. Knowing her reputation for standoffishness when it comes to discussing specific lyrics, I decide to try a more general track, first bucking up to the task by ordering one more in a succesion of 7 & 7s. (Hope sips occasionally from a glass of red wine, but barely manages to finish it by the end of our interview).

"Judging from the sort of overall bent of your lyrics, one might think you have a somewhat jaundiced view of relationships. In general, I mean."
"I think some of that's true," says Hope, tracing her finger lightly over the lips of her wine glass, "but I think people sort of project their own feelings into the lyrics, to coincide with what's going on in their own lives. But I guess you could say that."
"Do you mind people coming up with different interpretations of your songs, or is that the point?"
"It doesn't matter what people think about the lyrics. You can't control it anyway."
"Is there a song on the new album that you would call flat-out celebratory and uplifting?"
"Yeah: 'Happy'"
"I wasn't sure if that was meant to be sarcastic. When you come up with a lyric, do you have a specific meaning in mind that you want to communicate, or is it more of a broad emotion?"
"I don't really think about any of those things, I just sort of talk about what is happening at that particular moment," says Hope. "I think most people, probably everybody who writes lyrics, they are talking about themselves, even if they attempt to sort of talk about their friend, it is themselves, it's their feelings, it's their opinion of the situation. So I think most people, if not everybody, is talking about themselves who write lyrics."
"Does your opinion about things in general and situations differ a lot from time to time, or are you pretty consistent in your thinking?"
"I'm sure it changes."
"Does that mean you're (pause for comedic effect) moody?" I joke. Hope laughs.
"I don't know, I don't know."
"How do you choose what material makes it onto any given album, for instance this one," I ask, changing the subject.
"We record a lot of songs and then just sort of decide what our tastes are that particular month or week or whatever."
"Do you ever revisit unused material?
"We plan to do that after each record, but it never happens. We just sort of get bored of it. We just sort of feel like if you don't write new songs you're just stagnating or whatever."

At this point, I decide that the RayGun plan has been an unqualified success thus far. On their own, unable to fall back on the protection afforded by simply lapsing into an elliptical silence, dropping the conversational ball to be picked up and similary fumbled by the one or the other, Hope and David were forced to be more articulate than their reputation would admit. Or at least Hope was. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Heady with evident interview mastery, I strectched a bit further than my rock writer resources were currently capable of extending, going on an extended and web-headed analysis of the difference in Hope's singing on Among My Swan as opposed to her earlier stuff. All of which boiled down to me suggesting that her melodies were a bit more developed on this record than in the past.

"Umm...I think I know what you mean," answers Hope kindly at the end of my rambling exegesis. "You're the second person who's said that, so I guess maybe it's true, I guess. It's sort of hard to tell, I mean you just keep playing and singing music and it's just sort of whatever happens happens."

"Do you think your voice has improved?"
"(Emphatically) No, I don't think that, but people have told me that they think that."

We talk a while longer, mostly about not terribly interesting things, which is my fault, I eventually start fumbling around with the "What's the last record you bought/book you read/movie you saw" type of fanzine idiocy that usually marks my seventh or eighth cocktail, when Hope is rescued at last by the arrival of her "ride," in the person of William, her boyfriend to whom I am politely introduced, before the two dissapear into the Berkely evening. Early to bed for me: I've got an eight AM plane for Norway.

Oslo, Norway. The airport hotel. A hellish (only in sense that all intercontinental plane travel is hellish) 18-hour journey has ended here, with my head in the minibar awaiting a call from David Roback, Mazzy Star's other half. Flush with my previous success, I anticipate similar accomplishment with Roback, who in any case has a reputation for somewhat more loquacity (of course in a relative sense) than his partner. And she wasn't any problem at all. He calls later that evening, and we fix a rendezvous at a place called the Library Bar off the lobby of the Bristol Hotel in downtown Oslo. I'm glad of the chance to be away from the airport, if only temporarli (my flight out is scheduled for some ungodly morning hour the next day). David is sitting in a booth in a corner of the bar when I arrive, talking to a couple of friends. At least, I assume they're friends. I'm early and so take a place at the bar so as not to compound the imposition of the interview by showing up rudely early.

Roback's easy to spot even in the well-populated bar; with his beatnik black attire and matching beret, he might as well be wearing a sign that reads "Musician." No one's really sure what David's doing here here in Norway. His record company publicist professed complete ignorance, and when I asked Hope, she shruggled and replied, "Ask him." Which I proceeded to do, but was rewareded with an elleptical reply along the lines of, "Travelling." Well, I could see that, Beatnik Boy.

In general, David proved a far more difficult nut to crack then had Hope. He was unfailingly polite, and made an earnest attempt to answer my fruity rock writer questions, but his answers tended to be not only exactly the same as hope, but unrevealing in the extreme - along the lines of "There are no rules in music. It's just what sounds good to you," which I'm sure opens up worlds of meaning in some alternate universe where rock cliches have before been uttered or written, but it didn't do a hell of a lot for me. In another, less accomplished musician, such retience and apparant lack of of insight might be suspect; but Roback has earned the right to keep his trap shut. Beginning with his early 80's work in Rain Parade, a seminal band among the "Paisly Underground" (a short-lived flowering of LA-based psychedelica), through the proto-Mazzy psuch-natterings of Clay Allison and the enormously well-regarded (if commercial obscure) Opal, David's track record basically defines the hoary term "artistic integrity."

When the very 30-something guitarist (there's no hair under that beret, is what I'm thinking) looks you in the eye and says that, "We're just doing what we-ve always done," that "always" contains a lot more history than your typical out-of-nowhere MTV wunderkind. But if you happen to be unaware of his honorable rock record, he's not well inclinded to disabuse you. So, really, it was probably just the jet lag. I opened up by expressing surprise at Hope's lack of retince, to which David replied simply, "You can't believe everything you read." We discussed technical matters concerning guitar sounds and amps and such that can't possibly be of interest to any one reading this now, which obviously is my fault again, and he confirmed to me pretty much everything Hope had already said concerning the process of writing the new album. The only point of dispute seemed to be wheter the bell sounds he used for the songs "Disapear" and "Happy" were sampled (as Hope as informed me), or "created" (David's word) and "definitely not sampled." Like it matters.

Or the subject of record company involvement, David envinced an even more fanatical desire to be left alone than had his partner. "I'd rather just put stuff out on a cheap cassette than let somebody else tell me how to make my music," he averred. I'm thinking to myself, "Why a cheap cassette particularly," but my mind tended to wander badly throughout the course of our chat. David insisted, "I don't really notice the audience," when playing live, but affirmed overall that the process of touring was an enjoyable one, because "you get to present the songs in a different environment." What do you talk about rock music? David couldn't remember the last band he'd seen play live, apart from the ones he's been on tour with.

His musical world seemed unremittingly insular, as evidenced not only by his zealous guarding of any and all personal facts by his seeming proud rejection not only of the music industry but of most of the music itself. If ever a man could be said to be self-sufficient, it would be David Roback. Some of that self-sufficient spirit inevitably translates into Mazzy Star's ambiguous and affecting music. But appertenly the secret behind that transmutative process will remain as tightly wrapped as the man who writes the music keeps himself. An enigma wrapped in a puzzle on a bed of lettuce, or something. Obviously I was a little more than tired by this point. I said good-bye to David and caught a cab back to the airport hotel, where I crawled into bed to await my wakeup call so I could get back in another metal tube and be flung across the ocean. But the joke was, I couldn't get to sleep. The God of Jetlag, or that crazy Norse God Loki, would not let me shut my eyes. I put my tape of the new Mazzy Star record in my Walkman and turned the volume way down, hoping to be lulled asleep by the gentle strains of the music. It didn't work: I just got more disturbed, and lay there in an agitated clump. Which is probably just the kind of reaction those two were looking for.