Articles

Star Light, Star Bright

by Eric Broome

Mazzy Star is all about purity of vision. The simple, rolling chords of David Roback's guitar. The detached, evenly­phrased singing of Hope Sandoval, rising hazily behind draped layers of echo. The traditional, unadorned lyrical themes:the rise and fall of love, disillusion, spiritual yearnings. It's a sound that hangs timeless in the wind, free of contemporary references and technology.It's the moody, internal universe of Roback and Sandoval, which they consent to let us visit for a moment ­ on strict condition that we're careful not to disrupt the furnishings of this pristine, private world.

Given the music's introverted nature, no one should've been more surprised than Roback and Sandoval that Mazzy Star's second album, So Tonight That I Might See, was a genuine commercial hit. Months after the disc's release in September, 1993, the vaporous "Fade Into You" became an overnight radio smash, and led to the album hitting the platinum sales mark well over a year after its release. Adding to the Mazzy onslaught, hungry station programmers then tapped 1990's She Hangs Brightly for "Halah," creating a second surge of sales for the group's debut.

Of course, Roback and Sandoval were never too concerned with chart positions. Speaking in separate phone conversations, the two shrugged off fame with customary nonchalance. Their responses came soft, slow and stumbling, as befits the group often cited as the most difficult interview in pop music.

"It doesn't feel any different, really," murmured Sandoval, calling from Los Angeles where she was completing a video shoot. "Um... I don't really...it just happened. I mean, I don't..."
"It's pretty abstract, really," said Roback, across the world in London, setting up an overseas tour. "It's kind of strange, I suppose. But you know, we just go about living our lives. Fame can screw up people's heads. Some people think about it more. I never really think about it."

Thus, the two trudged through extra tour dates and an embarrassing photo shoot here or there, then retreated back into hiding. They continued what Roback calls their "nomadic lifestyle" for awhile, spending most of their time bouncing between London and San Francisco, but at last, they have graced us with a third Mazzy album: Among My Swan. A full three years have passed since So Tonight That I Might See.

"This is just basically how we work," said Sandoval, dismissing the gap between releases. But what really accounts for such a delay? Writing? Recording? Mixing?
"Uh...it's about equal, I would say," she decided. "We wrote songs, recorded them and then sort of got bored. Then we wrote some more songs and recorded them. It's sort of what happens..."
"When we actually record, we record pretty fast," said Roback. "It's just that we do a lot of other things. We experiment around with a lot of different ideas. Like different songs, things we've never released. I wouldn't call it discarded material, but we definitely have always experimented a lot, both in writing and recording."

The latest product of the Mazzy laboratory offers no huge surprises, Recorded in both London and San Francisco, Among My Swan has the usual array of smoky balladry and dreamy atmospherics, adding a few new touches like the gurgling wah­wah guitar on "Cry, Cry," the eerie bell­like keyboards on "Disappear" and "Happy," plus Sandoval's tentative harmonica debut on "Flowers In December" and "I've Been Let Down." Thankfully, the album's not as oppressively bleak as its predecessor, and nostalgically spacy tracks like "Still Cold" (see Surrealistic Pillow) and "Roseblood" (see A Saucerful of Secrets) add some nice variety. "Rhymes Of An Hour" is also included, a hypnotic piece already heard on this year's Stealing Beauty soundtrack. Again, Mazzy Star has created a uniquely haunting work.
"It's basically a similar approach," said Roback, comparing Swan to the previous records. "You can make generalizations about things -- but every song is different, and each one is written in a different way. Each one has different contributions to the music and lyrics. That's always been our approach: song by song. The approach to each song is different, but not to the albums. We always end up with some sort of a mosaic."

The most enigmatic track is certainly "Umbilical," a rambling spoken piece similar to the last album's lengthy title cut. Trying to read between the lines of Sandoval's lyrics is difficult enough, but in this case, the words aren't even fully audible.
"I wouldn't say that we hid the lyrics," producer Roback explained, "but I've always thought that in music, there's a lot of room for participation. You interact with the music. There may be a song that you think you've known for 20 years, and then you might read the lyrics and go, 'Oh, that's what she's saying? I had no idea. I always thought it was this.' You bring your own interpretation to it. That's why you can listen to music in different languages ­ it can be very satisfying. But you'd have to ask Hope if you wanted her to interpret the lyrics to that song."
Of course, the ever­mysterious Sandoval wasn't about to discuss its contents.
"I'd rather not," she said slowly. "I just don't feel...I just don't really like to do that. In general, I just don't like to talk about it."
So she won't discuss her lyrics at all? Long pause. "Um...I just don't like when I hear other people doing it. For some reason, it bothers me. I feel like they make too much out of it. They sort of become obsessed with their own lyrics."
Well, is any one track on the new disc more personal to her than the others? "No," she answered, adding with a palpable smile, "As if I would say." Strike three.

Asking Roback and Sandoval about their songwriting isn't easy from any angle. This much is apparent: While Roback wrote most of the lyrics for his past bands Opal and the Rain Parade, Sandoval holds a fairly tight leash on the words in Mazzy Star. Taking most of her poetic cues from old jazz/blues standards, she adds her ownmodern, slightly gothic twist. (Tellingly, she named Billie Holiday, the Rolling Stones and Spiritualized as her favorite artists.)

The two have an unusual way of dividing the writing duties ­ Roback gets credit for "music," Sandoval for "vocal melodies." This suggests that Roback arranges the backing tracks first, then submits them completed to Sandoval for decoration. Correct?
"Sort of like that," she replied. So she picks and chooses from his instrumental demos? "Well, if he comes up with something I like, I say, 'Can I work on that?' Or he'll say 'Do you want to work on this?' and I'll say yes or no."
Roback countered her slightly. "Well, it really depends on the song. Sometimes it'll work that way. It's not so black­and­white. Sometimes I'll write some words to a song [he did contribute some lines to 'Rhymes Of An Hour'], and sometimes she will have some musical ideas."
Simplicity ­ the clean, sparse lines of the melody and words ­ seems to be a cornerstone of the Mazzy style. Some might even say that Roback's whole career has been a reductive process, leading from the florid psychedelia of the Rain Parade to the grittier jams of Opal, and finally to the rootsy musings of Mazzy Star.
"I wouldn't say that," he contended. "I like working with Hope because I like what she writes, and I like what she sings. It really has nothing to do with paring anything down. I suppose that I've wanted to experiment with different things, and that's probably the main reason why I've gone from one thing to the next.
"When I started working with Hope, it was very exciting because she wrote a lot and was really into what we were doing. She was very respondent as a writer to a lot of my musical ideas, and that was an interesting thing to have happening. We started to write songs, and it was very natural for us.""We just write songs that we like," said Sandoval. "Whatever it takes for the song to appeal to us, that's what we do. We don't think about the simplicity of it, or anything else. We just do it."

The group's most controversial aspect continues to be its live shows. Augmented as on record with recurring guest musicians (most notably, string player Will Cooper and drummer Keith Mitchell), Mazzy plays in near­total darkness and avoids all direct contact with the audience. The band's aloof stage presence has alienated more than a few unsuspecting fans, but for Sandoval, performing is still terribly awkward. Isn't she used to it yet? "No," she moped. What's the worst part? "Um...just feeling uncomfortable in between songs, when there's nothing to do."
She continued, brightening a little. "The audience has pretty much accepted it, I think. It's not like it used to be. I think now people have probably been to our shows before, and know what to expect. I mean, I don't think it's a big deal. There's plenty of shows where the lead singers and band members don't get up and do a song­and­dance. It's good if you feel like doing that, but I don't think it should be held against you if you don't. I don't think it means that you're not as good as somebody else, or not as interesting live as somebody else who's sort of dancing around and having a conversation with the audience. But it gets frustrating for me, because even shooting videos, I just feel uncomfortable. I wish I could feel more relaxed."
Ever the intellectual, Roback is more analytical about the experience. "It's interesting to play our songs loud, and project them into a big environment. You know, This is something that's interesting to me. I think that's why we do it: to actually project the music onto a big, three­dimensional space."
Is he bothered by the fact that all eyes are fixed upon the more photogenic Sandoval? "No. I just want to focus on what I do, which is playing guitar and keyboards and things like that. And writing songs. That's really where I'm at. I don't care too much about anything else.
"It's hard for me to know how other people perceive what we do. We've done what we wanted to do, and that's enough for me. We've made the music we wanted to make."