Spectrum met with Nathan Williams in Portland quite a while before his recent bad luck, but even at the eerily empty Reed College, it was clear that Williams was aware he may have been caught up in something bigger than he’d imagined when he was just recording in his bedroom.
And although we went in with the expectation that we’d be interviewing a tough, oft confrontational artist, the reality was that Williams seemed mostly confused and conflicted about his newfound fame. Here was a musician who had never really intended to be heard on a global level now dealing with the rigors of massive touring and constant press junkets and in that situation is it all that strange to become somewhat annoyed and agitated by the whole affair?
We spoke with Williams and his cohort Ryan Ulsh about the double-edged sword that is Pitchfork Media, certain editors that Williams has an open contempt for, and the disappointment of going from playing to a few insanely passionate kids to cynical, uninvolved adults just wanting to relive some of their youth before returning to the 9 to 5 of their daily lives.
We’re at Reed College, where you guys have just started the college leg of your tour. Has this relentless touring been something you’ve wanted to do from the beginning or has it come out of Wavves sort of exploding? I mean, I saw you said to Eric Grandy at The Stranger recently that you played approximately 953 million performances at…
Nathan: Fuck Eric Grandy at The Stranger! Sorry, what was the question? Oh, this is like the second or first college we’ve played.
Are you guys a little more excited about playing to crowds that are closer to your age rather than the SXSW cynical old critic demographic?
Nathan: I don’t care. Anyone who wants to watch is cool with me. I’d rather play all-ages, but…
You’ve come up from The Smell in L.A., right? So you’re probably more used to the all-ages scene.
Nathan: Yeah, that’s more our thing. We feel more at home playing those types of places.
Ryan: You don’t really alienate crowds by having an all-ages thing going on.
It seems like you’d have more energy, too.
Nathan: People give less of a fuck and they’re not worried about how they look, whether they’re cool or stupid or something. They just want to go hear music. When you get an over 21 crowd, people want to go there to drink beer and try to fuck each other and there’s the two o’clock dash and everyone wants to stand around with their arms crossed and be cool.
Everyone has a job to get to in the morning…
Nathan: Exactly, everyone has a job to get to in the morning.
To kind of go back to the Eric Grandy thing, you guys make it clear that you feel you have to deal with a lot of bullshit interviews. You’ve come up in the indie circuit when it’s become more of this gossip-ridden culture, and I’m interested in what you think about how the Pitchforks of the world have kind of become more interested in the feuds and the bullshit between people rather than the actual music…
Nathan: That’s just kind of what it is now. There’s nothing you can really do about it. People like confrontation.
Ryan: Yeah, we always come back to that statement: “People like confrontation.”
Nathan: In the end, me and Ryan are just trying to have fun and play music and that’s exactly what we’re doing. In my head that’s all that matters. All the bullshit that comes with it is just secondary to me. There’s nothing you can really do about, it is what it is.
Your music doesn’t really seem like something that would breed that confrontation in people. Even though there’s a lot of noise stacked on top, when you get down to it your music is pretty poppy. Is it interesting to you, then, that people have brought that confrontation to it? Did you feel like that was ever something that would be tied to you?
Nathan: I didn’t think about it. I just wanted to write some songs and have fun. But once you put yourself out there, there’s bound to be somebody that says something. That’s just the way it is. You take everything with a grain of salt.
It’s interesting though because you could argue that your music does thrive on some confrontation within itself, between both the dissonance and noise and the poppier tendencies you have. Was that something you consciously exploited from the start or was that something that organically sprung out from what you were doing?
Nathan: I think most of the things that people ask me about my music being intuitive just kind of happened. I never thought about any of it before. I just recorded songs that I liked and arranged them in the way that I thought sounded good. That was it. There was no real forethought to it or anything. I just wanted to make music that I would listen to if I hadn’t made it myself.
Your parents were in a band too, right?
Nathan: Yeah.
Did you always grow up with music in the house, was it always a presence? Because from what I had heard, this is supposedly a new thing for you to be doing, that it had only recently come up in your life. Was it because you were always surrounded by music that you decided to not actively pursue it until recently?
Nathan: I’ve always been playing music, but I didn’t really start recording by myself until a little over a year ago. But both of us have played in bands basically our whole lives, since we were 11 or 12. I grew up around music, we both did. Ryan’s dad is a recording engineer and owns one of the biggest studios in Virginia. My mom teaches music and my mom and dad were in a band together. Music has definitely been around me my whole life.
Ryan: I think ultimately that with playing music, people want to be able to tour and support themselves. To be in that situation is pretty cool.
On that note, you guys have been doing pretty well, touring non-stop…
Nathan: 70 dates…
That’s really great, being able to be on the road every night. Have you found that it’s changed the songs at all?
Ryan: We’re definitely working on new stuff while we travel, to keep things fresh, otherwise it gets pretty stale to you.
Nathan: Anyone who plays the same songs 70 days in a row is going to think that it’s stale. I can’t think of a record I’ve listened to 70 times in a row. I can’t even think of a record I’ve played back to back and didn’t think it was stale. But that’s part of it. And we play them a little bit different every night.
Ryan: Different speeds sometimes…
Nathan: Depending on how drunk we are…but we just haven’t had any time off to work on new songs. Maybe one or two.
Have you been working on the songs together?
Ryan: Nathan has been writing the songs on his own and I think what he’s done is let me put my spin on it. If you listen to us live, obviously that’s not how the drums are played on the record. It’s my take, just how I interpret the songs.
Do you think you’ll stick to the sound you have now or do you expect there will be a development? Maybe explore different sonic territories?
Nathan: As musicians we should always try to grow and do something new and different. Unfortunately, everybody’s a critic. But again, you just have to do what you think is right. At the end of the day, I’m just going to record songs that I like and that I think sound good. I know I’ve recorded a lot of acoustic stuff lately too, which is a departure from what people are used to. But fuck what people are used to. I put out two records, so…the world is an oyster. Or is it the world is my oyster? The oyster is the world? Is that how it goes? If a dog barks in the woods, can you hear it?
How’s it been touring with Vampire Hands?
Nathan: It’s been awesome. They’re really cool guys, and friendly. Just an overall good experience.
Ryan: It’s nice after touring this long to be with people who have a fresh outlook. They’re just jumping on the tour and we’ve been touring for two months. So it just kind of gives us…
A second wind?
Ryan: Yeah, exactly.
Any interesting road stories?
Nathan: Tons (laughs)…
Any worth repeating?
Nathan: Probably not on the record, no (laughs).
Nothing you want the parents to find out about, I guess?
Nathan: My parents already know way too much.
But they’re musicians, so they should be used to it, right?
Nathan: They’re Christians.
Ryan: We have been asked a lot of funny questions, and then they cut and paste the interview in a way so that what we say is really inappropriate or silly.
Nathan: You always have to make a story…Where’s the indie beef? Where’s the gossip? Where’s the part where we talk about masturbating?
by Morgan Davis
[Photos: David Harris]
