erin_broadley

Robert Pollard is best known as the songwriter and frontman of Guided By Voices. Though he didnt release an album until the age of 36, today Pollard is about to turn 50, and over 2,000 of his songs have been released on records. His next two albums are twins called Coast to Coast Carpet of Love and Standard Gargoyle Decisions. They represent the two halves of Pollards musical personality: the sharp and melodic versus the heavy and dark. But two albums wouldnt be prolific enough for Bob Pollard: his Circus Devils side project is going to see international release for the first time with an album called Sgt. Disco. Pollard will be the first to admit that some people think hes an asshole, but when I got the opportunity to talk to him on the phone from his home in Dayton, Ohio, it didnt take long to understand how he manages to attract some of the most devoted fans in music.

Jay Hathaway: So, youre a notoriously earlier riser10 am isnt too bad, but

Robert Pollard: Ive got a schedule, you know. When I drink, I start drinking about four or five. So Im usually in bed by about 10 or 11. I get up now about 6:30, I got a routine going. I take my wife to work, you know, walk the cats. Im actually outside in the backyard right now, watching the cats. I have to watch them cause one of them can jump the fence, the other ones too fat to jump the fence. Theres like some dogs. You know, I do things! Ive got responsibilities, obligations.

JH: So you just wrapped up recording your next two albums?

RP: Yeah, they were going to send you the new stuff, did you get everything? You get Circus Devils?

JH: Yeah.

RP: You know, Circus Devils' Sgt. Disco got one and a half stars in Spin?

JH: Yeah, but who cares what Spin thinks, right?

RP: Really. Really. You get a fucking 80-minute record, fucking 32 songs, you listen to it one time and youre gonna review it? You know thats what happens.

JH: Ive listened to the two solo records maybe twice each now, and I dont feel like I could review those.

RP: I dont see how you could, I dont see how you could. I mean, you know, a fair assessment, listening to it a couple times. I cant even do it myself. It takes me, even after I mean, I wrote the songs and helped record them, and it takes me 10 or 12 times before I can even assess it or compare it to something else Ive done, you know. But anyway, its my stuff, understandably. And granted that people who review records, theyve got a big stack of shit and theyve got a deadline, and so they listen to things one time and do reviews, and then the record-buying consumer a lot of these kids kinda, they go buy things based on what these people who listen to the record one time say. But I dont take it too seriously, the reviews. Sometimes they can be pretty nasty, and they can get personal. I dont appreciate when people get personal in a review. Like when they say, This guy drinks too much, or He cant hear anymore. Thats what somebody said recently, I dont know whether its the drinking or he cant hear anymore. I dont know what the problem is. (Laughs) I dont see a problem! Some people who listen to my music, theyve got a problem sometimes with the fact that I work with the same person all the time. Like, Todd Tobias. Did the Beatles work with anybody but George Martin? I dont remember them working with anyone but George Martin. You know, you find something thats successful for you, thats working, and why would you wanna change it? Also, it allows me to be indolent and lazy.

I basically write the songs and send them to Todd now. These two records were like, Record all the music and let me know when its done. And he did. It amazes me how this stuff like, most of the stuff on these two records was written kind of spontaneously, so its like theyre all over the place. Youll notice theres not a lot of verse-chorus-verse-chorus things going on, with the exception of a few songs, "Miles Under the Skin" and a few things like that, that are actually older songs. But its kind of like, I got all these songs, I had like 35, 40 songs, I dont feel like going up and recording all these, man, I dont know if I have the patience. And so I sent him all these songs and said, Pick a time. Spend the whole winter on it if you have to. He seems to work really well when hes left to his own resources, in his home and at the studio and he can take his time. Even better than when I go up there and we allot a weekend. Todds like my George Martin. He does everything and he can play anything. I think hes got a better ear for my songs than I do, to tell you the truth. So its just a good situation. For the most part, people dig that working relationship, but there are some people that say, Well, we just wish you would work with someone else, or get a band again or get a producer. But I dont see that happening. Like I said, its a good partnership. Its painless. I found somebody whos got a similar attitude toward making music as myself.

JH: And look what happened when the Beatles turned an album over to Phil Spector.

RP: Yeah, look what happened. Thank you! So Ive got my George Martin, and thats good. What record was that, anyway?

JH: Let It Be.

RP: Yeah, Let It Be. Pretty good record, but its sloppy. Its pretty directionless, you know.

JH: When you listen to all your old stuff, has your opinion of some of that changed over the years? You were talking about giving something one spin, not being able to give it a fair assessment. Youve heard the Guided By Voices stuff, all your older solo stuff a bunch of times now.

RP: Its weird because you record a record, listen to it for a couple of months and then you put it away. Your initial excitements over, you put it away for a while. Then you get it back out after a couple, two, three years and sometimes things are surprisingly better than you thought they were. I pulled out Universal Truths and Cycles and Earthquake Glue and I thought those were particularly really good records. Not only the performance of the people playing on them, but the production and the way we put together the songs. Both of those records I wrote a lot of songs around that time, and there were some things that got deleted or were put on EPs but that particular time right before the end of Guided by Voices, I thought was good. Especially Universal Truths and Cycles, that was a really good record. I think it had to do with the fact that I wrote two different batches of songs. One batch of songs where we practiced and rehearsed and took some time on it, kind of longer songs and prog-rock type songs. And then there was a batch of little short songs, Alien Lanes-style. And so that record has, I think, stood the test of time. It sounded better when I brought it back out than when I listened to it for the first time. And obviously, theres stuff that will always be my favorite records that Ive done. I like Kid Marine, for some reason. Kid Marines really personal to me. It was really conceptual, and that was also the first Fading Captain series record, it kind of started all that. You have Crickets?

JH: Yeah.

RP: Thats the wrap-up, so the Fading Captain series is over. There was a lot of stuff in there that I thought was really good, too. I thought it was interesting that I was able to do 40-some records on the side, and weve been able to wrap it up and look at it as a body of work. People are kind of digging it. I think its more digestible in this form for people to check out that it was for people to try to buy all the Fading Captain series records. There were some records that people thought we shouldnt even have released [in the Fading Captain series], and maybe we shouldnt have, but I never release a record unless I think its worthwhile. Actually, I release records because I want to hear them. In particular, Im talking about the Hazzard Hot Rods and Acid Ranch and shit like that. Just crazy, basement field recordings that we did. I mean, I wanna hear them. I want these things compiled and I want them to be real. I dont think its real unless you put it on an LP. CDs arent real. Anybody can do that. Thats ok with me. When we first started making records, it was hard to do, you had to get the money together if you werent on a label, and you had to spend some money to put out an LP. There were no CDs, and so not just every band could make a record. You could make a cassette, whatever, but now kidsll come up and be like, Heres our new CD. We bought a hundred of these. This is our new album. Anybody can do that. When we first started making records in the early '80s, you had to make an LP. Its expensive, and unless youre sure of yourself and you have the money and the time, you cant really do that. And now people just make records on a computer and burn it on a CD and they call it an album. Theres not a lot of love in that.

JH: So even if you were recording something in the basement on a 4-track for ten dollars, youd still have to get it pressed

RP: You do it in one night. You buy some beer and a cassette and do it on a 4-track or do it live, back in the '80s you still had to come up with a couple, two three thousand dollars to get 500 of them pressed. Most kids couldnt afford to do that.

JH: Do you think LPs actually sound better, or is it a symbolic thing, the work that goes into it?

RP: Its a symbolic thing. The fact that its so easy and so accessible, and anyone can make a record now. There was something more special about it. You had to have the drive, and not necessarily have the money, but just, We want this record to come out really badly, so were going to save our money and were going to have it pressed and have our own box of records. And you had to go through that process to make a record, or you had to be signed. I guess you could call that the early days of indie rock, to go through that whole process. Now indie rock, its so easy to be part of it, because anyone can burn a CD, anyone can make a record on the computer. Its not as romantic as it used to be. The blue-collar ethic part of it is not there anymore. And Im talking doing it DIY and indie rock. Obviously if you get signed, it doesnt matter. Its not that easy to get signed. I think its easier than it used to be.

But what was crazy back when we first got signed was that right before that happened, there were bands being signed to major labels and it just blew my mind that major labels would be interested in such bands, and that was because labels were looking for another Nirvana. So they were just signing any local punk rock band that they thought had Nirvana or Green Day potential. And to me, that blew my mind, but it kind of opened the door like, Hey, we got a chance. But it kind of still was like, Thats not good, because back when I bought records in college and in high school, these big labels were signing bands like Sparks and T. Rex, you know, those kind of bands. Hell, Big Star couldnt get signed! It was a good thing because it opened the door for us, but it was kind of scary because it was like, Anybody can get signed to a major label right now. Whats going on? and this had to do with the advent of CDs and shit. It was so mass-produced and formulaic.

JH: Can you tell me a little about the infamous suitcase?

RP: Yeah. I had a suitcase full of 300 cassettes. And I did, and I do. A lot of that stuff is coming out on the Suitcase compilations. I think I lost a bunch I had a flood in my basement, and I think some of them got damaged or destroyed. I still have a lot left. It just gets really hard to go through them. Because when I used to record, first of all Id never mark any cassettes. Wed just record on them and throw them in a box. It was pretty stupid to do that, but now its kind of fun trying to find them. Sometimes, if I was just recording by myself on acoustic or I had an idea for a song, I would just pick up a cassette that was lying around and record, just to get the idea down before I forgot it. And so a lot of songs are at the end of cassettes, or in the middle with nothing on a side, or maybe a few things. So now the process of going through the cassettes to find old songs wears on you after a while, because it could be at any point on the cassette. There could be silence for 35 minutes and then youll find something. So trying to go through them and find them all can be kind of hard on the brain. So recently, Rich Turiel gave me an old cassette player where you can actually hear it going through. When you forward and rewind, you can hear the noise, winding up fast. So you can actually hear sound. When I was trying to find stuff on cassettes on my stereo, you just kind of had to hit the forward button and stop it sporadically and see if theres anything on there. But now I can actually go through the cassettes and hear noise all the way through, even on fast forward. So I think Im going to start going back through the cassettes and see what else I have. Cause theres ton of stuff . Even compiling the first two Suitcase compilations, Ive probably only gone through about half of the stuff in the suitcase. Thats the other thing: how did we find time to record all this shit? Basically all we did was wed get together on the weekends and just record everything we did. Dialogue and skits and jams and whatever.

JH: Did you rerecord any of that stuff and send it to Todd for the next two albums, or are those all new songs?

RP: When I send Todd stuff for a record, including these last two records, Standard Gargoyle Decisions and Coast to Coast Carpet of Love, I probably wrote what are there, 33 songs? Probably 23 or 24 of them are new songs I wrote, and then there are probably 8 or 9 of them I found on these cassettes and just sent them to him. What we do is Ill get together with Todd on the phone, he listens to them for a while, then we kind of get our acoustics out over the phone. You know, like, What are you doing here? and if I know what Im doing on the guitar, Ill explain it to him. I cant explain it to him with the names of chords and progressions and notes and so forth because I dont know how to read music and I really dont know what Im doing. So I can only explain to him finger position, you know, My middle finger is on the top string on the 4th fret. Basically thats it, hell say I think I got the rest, and I leave it pretty much up to him as to what he wants to do and what kind of atmosphere he wants to bring into the song, what sort of bass runs he wants to do, and riffs. The exciting thing is, Send it to me when youre done, and two months later hell call me and its finished. To me, thats like Christmas. I dont know exactly what hes going to do. Its been about 95% guaranteed that what he sends me, Im going to like. Not only like it, but probably end up liking it more than I anticipated. Its almost like to be able to hear your songs for the first time. Which is difficult to do if you write songs and spend months on writing and spend another month on the demo process and then spend another month rehearsing and then go and spend four months recording the record. After a while, you cant stand to listen to that shit.

JH: Youve written so many songs that have these kind of narrative threads to them, that suggest a longer story. Have you ever thought about writing a novel, a collection of stories, something like that?

RP: As far as a novel, my attention span is too short to do that. I dont think I could keep it together for that long. I have entertained the possibility of writing a collection of stories. I even have a title, its called and Im not sure this will ever happen - but if I do, its called The Dogshit Chronicles.

JH: I love it!

RP: Its just going to be the very best drinking, crazy-ass party stories that I can conjure. The How the hell did I survive that? kind of thing. Kind of like the Basketball Diaries, but its the Dogshit Chronicles. It mainly has to do with alcohol, not heroin or whatever.

JH: You must have a ton of those stories.

RP: I do! Ive got shitloads of them. But I cant always come up with them, because theyre not like we went out and fucking burned a building down or something. Its just where we went out and shit that we didnt expect to happen would happen. The next day we go, Jesus Christ, were lucky we didnt kill ourselves. Those kinds of things. And Ive done lots of those kinds of things, too. Not so much anymore, cause Im getting older and Im not quite as wild as I used to be. But still, I drink about four or five days a week. When you drink, things happen. So thats what the Dogshit Chronicles is about.

JH: What about the people who compare you to all the great American songwriters and try to figure out where you stand? Are you in the top 10?

RP: Its too complicated. Its all out there, and its hard to distinguish whats good and whats not good, whats supposed to be good and what my intentions are. Its harder to judge whether Im one of the great songwriters because theres just too much stuff. My point is that I just dont care. People have pointed out to me before that I dilute my brilliance, or whatever you want to call it, by putting out too much shit. I dont care. Thats my modus operandi and how I work. Ive been in top hundred, top 50 songwriters of the last 20 years, 40 years. Ive been in those things, which is very flattering, but its hard to tell whether Im a better songwriter than Ray Davies. Or as good, or comparable. Or Pete Townshend. Because those guys are great songwriters. Im sure I have some songs that stand up to some of their best songs, but like I said, my stuff is just so spread out, theres so much that its hard to compare me with anyone else. I guess Id have to be the most prolific songwriter, I would think. A lot of people say prolifics just another word for just putting out a bunch of shit, but whatever. Ive probably put out 2,000 songs on records. Theres probably another 5,000 that havent been out. I put out records and I release records that I like. If some people say that compare to some of the great songwriters, then thats great. Ive got so many songs, everyone has their favorites. Im sure because I have so many, that makes it easier for the percentage of good songs that I do have to be up there with other people that have written a lot of good songs. I would say a lot of people would agree that Ive at least written 15 or 20 really really good songs, and I would say that thats probably good. The rest of it, depends on who you talk to. Depends on if youre talking to me. Theres a lot of songs Ive written that I think are good, and other people disagree. It depends on what you think a good song is.

JH: Its interesting that after all of the times youve had a double-album of material and had to cut it down to a single album, now youre actually getting to put out both.

RP: Yeah, thats cool. I hope this record is one that people kind of WOW! - stand up to. Cause I think theyre really good. Its an interesting concept, it always has been, and I kind of go, Maybe this onell be slightly different, and itll generate some excitement the way Bee Thousand or Alien Lanes did. But that kind of shit doesnt happen too much anymore, because of the initial freshness of the band, the stuff was new at the time and we were on a 4-track and people were seeing us for the first time. I dont think you can ever get that back. Every time you put out a record, you just hope that maybe this will be the one that stands up and does really really well. And you never know when it happens, and thats not what you make records for, but you cant help thinking in the back of your mind that maybe thisll be the one that does really well.

JH: Coast to Coast Carpet of Love grabbed me right away. Its really pop, really accessible. Standard Gargoyle Decisions took a couple more listens, but its growing on me. Do you think one half might be more well-received?

RP: Thats the good thing about having two records, it can be dissected. Its a competitive thing. Which ones the best one, the rock album or the pop album? Which one has longer staying power? Which one is better at first? Theres a lot of different angles you can take. Its a cool built-in marketing device for Merge. They came up with the [album cover with] the two halves of my face, one half is negative and the other half is regular. Thats part of their way of thinking, too, that we make this into a two sides of the psyche thing. We were talking about the id, the ego and the superego. Its different emotional concepts that can be compared and studied. Like you said, Coast to Coast Carpet of Love is more immediate and poppier, but the other one grows on you. I was going to put a sticker on them that says, You must play Coast to Coast Carpet of Love first! Thats our rule around here. If youre going to listen to both of them, youve gotta play Coast to Coast first.

JH: Oh man, I listened to them in the wrong order. I guess I fucked up.

RP: You did!

JH: But then I went back and listened to Standard Gargoyle Decisions again. It was back-to-back-to-back.

RP: Oh, ok, thats cool. I like the way you did that. Ok, thats acceptable then.

JH: Yeah, but I should have put the other one on first, it makes more sense that way.

RP: Everybody else agrees about that, too. Obviously you dont have to listen to both of them at the same time either. But if you do, like I said, we were even thinking about putting on a sticker. And then, obviously, there are going to be people who make one album out of both of them. Ive done that already, actually.

JH: How did that go?

RP: Fucking great, man. I was just looking at the possibilities. Lets see what these sound like as one album instead of releasing both of them. And its good, but I like the fact that one of thems kind of like a Beatles album and one of thems kind of like a Stones album, or whatever. I think Id have to go with the two albums. We already have, actually. The decisions been made.

For more information go to robertpollard.net