The Metropolis

One Minute With Jeffrey Lewis

Gavin Mecaniques | Monday 10 June, 2013 11:46

Meeting Mark E. Smiths mum, playing in donut shops and learning “real” guitar solos: New York singer-songwriter Jeffrey Lewis played 5 shows, in 2 days, at the Brixton Windmill, where he spoke to Snipe.

What’s the strangest show you’ve done? I usually think of the time I played on top of a bathroom with Tony Green in a tiny place called Voodoo Donut in Portland Oregon. It has since moved to a larger location, but in the old location there was about a 3-foot crawl space between the roof of the bathroom and the ceiling, where the two of us hunched and passed a guitar back and forth. About 4 people could fit in the donut shop total, so sometimes we had a “crowd” of 3 or 4 people who were coming in to buy donuts and lingered for a song or two.

What songs, of yours, are you most proud of? I really like Heavy Heart, it says a lot in a very short time with a very few words. It was one of the earliest songs I wrote that I still play, I don’t think I could write something like that again. I’m also very proud of the French Revolution piece (a spoken-word film & comic book work) – it seemed impossible to do at first, but I worked very hard on it and I ended up with a really good one.

Who is the most famous or surprising person to come to a Jeffrey Lewis show? Mark E. Smith’s mom was at our gig in London when we opened for the Fall in 2004 or 2005, we chatted to her a bit before the show.

What singers inspired you when you started? What ones still do? When I started in the late 90s I was heavily into Pearls Before Swine records, so I admired that kind of sparse delivery of music and vocals from Tom Rapp; I was also very inspired by Daniel Johnston of course for his directness, and Ira Kaplan of Yo La Tengo, also for a very direct and natural sounding delivery. I’ve widened my range and interests since then, but I’m still drawn to that sort of disarming, informal, conversational singing. Lou Reed is certainly an all-time idol, I have every album he’s ever made. I like when someone’s voice is not a barrier between singer and listener, but a direct conduit, without any fancy stuff blocking up the works.

What songs and lyrics impress you? The Seventh Seal by Scott Walker and The Ballad of Tom Joad by Woody Guthrie are two of my favorite songs, and both were based on movies, which is strange. Both songs are, to me, better than the films they were based on (though both are good films too). For impressive lyrics I just heard this amazing Eminem line: “I’m gonna introduce you to my power tools/ You know the drill…”

What musically have you learnt recently that surprised you? That I can play a bit more of a “real” guitar solo than I thought, not much better than any 15 year old who plays guitar solos with friends in a basement, but I have learned that after about 12 years of doing this I can now actually play a guitar solo that is made out of notes and not just noises.

You wrote your literary thesis on Alan Moore’s “The Watchmen”. How was that, and did you like the film? I had a few different things to focus on, rather than one overall focus, and I keep re-writing and re-editing the whole thing, eventually I hope to have it available in some form. I thought the film could have been a lot worse, obviously Watchmen is one of the greatest comic books of all time and the film is far from being one of the greatest. But it was the best anybody’s done so far in attempting to adapt any of Alan Moore’s books to the screen, which is a questionable activity in the first place.

What you do love and hate most about London? I love the smells everywhere, but I hate the stupid design of the public transportation; riders on the tube practically have their knees touching the person across from them, there’s really no room for people with luggage or baby strollers.

What’s next for Jeffrey Lewis? Can you recommend something for us? The great new album “Hey Hey it’s… The Jeffrey Lewis & Peter Stampfel Band”! I’m quite happy with it.

Jeffrey Lewis is great.: Go see him and buy his records.

All images copyright Gavin Mecaniques

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