Interview with Angus Andrew of Liars

I recently interviewed Liars singer Angus Andrew for a piece I did on Spinner.com. It was a fairly interesting discussion, so I’m posting the entire conversation here. Enjoy.

What are you doing in Portugal?

Angus: We just played a show last night in what is actually the first city of Portugal. We played in a castle. It was quite an exciting event for us. We now leave today for Dublin. We’re kind of trying to wrap up Europe before we get back to America.

Are these festivals you’re playing?

Yeah, most of them are festivals. Actually, all of them, really.

I wanted to ask you a few questions about the new digital EP. Why did you decide to put this out?

To be honest, I can’t really tell you that much. What we wanted to do was get that song out a bit more, the “Freak Out” song. We were certainly finding that when we were playing live across America and Europe, that somehow was the audience favorite. So it would be good to get that out to people, I suppose, like a single, but not… I don’t know. It really is more of a record company decision. In the middle of the whole thing, we’re like, “Awesome. Do it. Whatever.” It’s got some videos. We’ve had some issues with getting the correct videos on our singles because we do videos that are late. But this is a bit of a compilation of the singles’ videos.

We’re in an age when videos aren’t the first thing on a lot of bands’ minds. But it still seems like an important part of the process for you.

We’re in the midst of a revolution right now in the music world. I think, at this point, it’s sort of like anything goes. When we were doing the Drum’s Not Dead record, we really felt like it’s a situation where the album or CD is kind of dying. People are all pointing fingers at each other. The listener’s pointing at the record industry, and vice versa. When it comes down to it, it seems that the responsibility rests on us to make something that is worth paying actual dollars for. Anytime we have the opportunity to further the medium and get more elements involved, then we do it. With today’s technology, it’s so easy to do it. In a bedroom, you can make three different versions of a song. It’s fun that way. And I think, finally, I’m sure it’s true people aren’t looking towards the video in the same we were once with MTV. But with YouTube and MySpace and the Internet, I find that the video is coming back very strongly, actually. It’s no longer the regular outlets that anyone’s looking to. It’s actually just the viral aspect and how it just gets out there. That’s where we’re out right now with the whole medium. Dealing with it is anyone’s guest. At the moment, it seems the best way is to get it to people and let them use it.

A couple of you went to CalArts. Did that influence your visual approach, as far as videos are concerned?

Yeah, absolutely. Being in art school is awesome, particularly CalArts. It’s not so stringent on defining a particular aspect of an art form. So even though you can enter in with photography, it’s a multimedia challenge. Going to art school, I was rifling through mediums, whether it be computers or sound or animation, even performance. It wasn’t until I came across music and the idea of functioning as a band that all these mediums could be utilized for the one goal. It seemed to me that actually music is the best umbrella to be able to work under.

Is the video for “Plaster Casts of Everything” influenced by David Lynch’s Lost Highway?

That would be my guess too. What was interesting about doing that video, particularly, was we had never really handed over the reigns of creativity to anyone before. Even remixes were difficult for us. We met up with Patrick Daughters, an old friend of ours, and basically just gave him free run. In the end, we were just directed as actors in it. It wasn’t until it was finished that we saw it. That was a really exciting process for us. I certainly saw that element in it. I think his vision of it possibly went beyond any… that anyone who had given him any opportunity would allow. He really got off on the freedom of it.

Is the process of working with someone like Patrick, more of an outsider, different than working with Julian or Karen?

It’s more like a decision that’s made beforehand whether or not we’re gonna be involved creatively. If you make that decision, that road is endless. Obviously, we’re all very creative people. We actually argued for months about it. If we, at the outset, make the decision that we’re not going to be involved, that’s a real big difference. It’s really enjoyable when you get to just participate in someone’s vision of your music. It’s a really exciting thing to do. A lot of artists don’t do their own video, but tend to get very involved in the details, much to the director’s chagrin. I think we also were excited about what would happen if we didn’t get involved at all.

Can you talk about the “Army of Me” cover you did for the Stereogum compilation?

We were on tour somewhere and I got an e-mail from Stereogum. They told us they were doing this project. All of us are huge Bjork fans. This prospect was so exciting for me. I couldn’t sleep that night, I remember, because I was trying to figure out which song we should attempt to cover. I don’t think we had a copy of the record, so we were all sitting there trying to come up with them all. I’ve always been in love with this song. It’s just a killer song with a killer bassline. As these things go, it’s sometimes misconstrued as an attempt to outdo the artist’s initial work. But that’s obviously nothing like it. It’s really a meager an attempt to try and understand what they went through when they were making it. That’s what’s exciting for any artist who participates in that type of covers project. It’s hard for the listener to understand or digest those projects, but for artists and the people who get involved in them, they’re really fun. It would be great if there were more of those. It’s tricky because people hold these artists in huge respect and don’t want to see them covered, really.

Have you done other covers?

Oh, yeah. We did this Doors cover of “The Soft Parade,” which is about 13 minutes long. We do a Germs cover. We do this Nirvana cover when we play live. Those things are fun to do.

Speaking of live… When you come back to the States, you’re touring with Radiohead. Last time I saw you was with No Age here in LA. What’s the adjustment you have to make between these types of tours?

You certainly start to think more about who’s out there in this massive audience. When we do our own headlining tour, we know the people in the crowd are there for a reason and want to see us do our stuff. Our goal on supporting tours is obviously quite different. We’re there to get these people ready for what’s gonna happen. They’re all so excited to see Radiohead. There’s a euphoria there that’s pretty palpable. It’s quite fun to work off that. We certainly tailor what we play. We’re not going to come out and do our most aggressive and abstract stuff. It’s a fine line, with the music we make. The best way for us is this idea of being there to watch and learn from a band that does so well at translating their records to the stage. We’re constantly faced with the challenge of how to recreate that atmosphere. It’s really what this tour is all about for us.

The bands Radiohead choose to take along are interesting. Playing in these gigantic venues must be really different.

It’s daunting and frightening, yes. It’s a whole different, flipside of it. It’s a different medium, referencing what we talked about before. When you play a regular show, people are in your face and you can look in their eyes. When we open up for Radiohead, there’s generally… All the people who paid for all the far-back tickets on the lawn, they’re all there. But the front area where people have more expensive tickets is empty. You find yourself projecting football fields away, which is a fantastic opportunity and challenge to be able to undertake. I really get off on every… It’s just fun.

One more question… are you working on any new stuff?

Basically, what we’re doing is theorizing and trying to conceptualize the steps that we need to undertake practically to start our next album, which will be recorded in LA around September. At the moment, we’re finishing up tour. We look to eventually record over the new year and then have a record out hopefully by about this time next year. But we’re not going to rush into anything. We want to get into the thick of the LA vibe.

It’s a very thick vibe here.

Oh, that’s where you’re calling me from?

Yeah, I live in LA.

Cool. Where?

I just moved to Glendale.

Cool, man. We’re gonna be there. It’s a good time. There’s lots of music coming out of there. And you’re calling from AOL?

Yeah, Spinner.com.

Do you know what AOL stands for?

America On Line.

I thought it was Australia On Line.

Maybe there’s two.