Alexei Perry Cox in Conversation with Jamie Stewart of Xiu Xiu

Editor's Note: For people who were at the Strawberry Music Festival last year, you probably remember the absence of American experimental rock band Xiu Xiu (or were you too busy drinking from coconuts, man that tasted good). Well, this year they are scheduled again for Tongzhou Canal Park on May 3, and our guest writer Alexei Perry Cox (member of Canadian electro rock duo Handsome Furs) called the Xiu Xiu frontman Jamie Stewart before their trip to Beijing's eastern suburb. Here goes...

This being my first interview, I realized I should likely buy a Dictaphone to be able to record the event instead of trying to read through my lazy childish scrawl penmanship. I bought one that uses full-size cassette tapes and when I returned home my husband tenderly teased me about being so out of date. The minor task of recording while on speaker phone, the unintentional luddite that I am, had me on my toes so when I called Jamie and he said, “I’ll call you back in literally three minutes; I’m fixing something on my car,” I wondered if he could sense my unease about potential technical complications. But it went smoothly…

Alexei Perry Cox

A - Alexei Perry Cox
J
- Jamie Stewart

A: Hello?
J: Hi. It’s Jamie.
A: Oh hey how’s it going?
J: Sorry about that.
A: No worries. (panicked breathing) Uh, um, how are you?
J: I’m pretty sleepy but I’m hanging in there. How are you?
A: I’m good good. You’re working on your car?
J: Yeah. It’s fine.
A: No major disaster?
J: No. I got it sorted.
A: That’s good…So thanks a lot for doing this with me. You’re my first ever interviewee.
J: Oh. Well you already sound prepared.
A: Why’s that, because I sound nervous and geeky?
J: You sound infinitely less geeky than most people.
A: Really? Ah, thanks. So you’re coming to China right?
J: Yeah yeah. Very excited about it.
A: What’s the festival you’re playing?
J: Well we’re playing one club show in Shanghai and then a festival in Beijing called the Strawberry Festival. I think it’s relatively new. I was actually supposed to play it last year but I got sick and couldn’t go.
A: Have you played in China before?
J: I’ve never even been there.
A: Do you know what kinds of bands you’re playing with?
J: No actually. I don’t know very much about it. Last year I know it was one band from the US and then a lot of local Chinese bands.
A: Are you interested in any Chinese bands?
J: There’s one called Hedgehog that I really like.
A: Oh yeah. I really like them too. And you went to Russia recently?
J: Yeah I’ve been there a couple times but I went in December.
A: Where are your favourite places to play?
J: Oh no place too surprising. I mean all of the big and well-known cities all over earth are generally really great to play in. New York or San Francisco or Paris or London or Moscow or Berlin or Tokyo, they tend to live up to their reputations.
A: When did you play Tokyo?
J: I’ve played there a couple of times but not for a couple of years though. And I don’t think we’re going this year. Or we might go later this year but not in this round of touring.
A: Are there any places that you’re really wanting to get to play in?
J: Any place that we haven’t been. We got invited to Brazil but it seems to be unraveling. I’d really love to play there. There’s a possibility of doing some shows in South East Asia later in the year and I’d really love to do that. But, really, it’s always very exciting to play some place that you haven’t been. We will literally go anywhere that we haven’t been.

A: I understand that mandate very much. And who are you playing with these days?
J: Touring is Angela Seo. The band is officially comprised of her, Ches Smith whose still in the band and recording but not touring this year, and myself.
A: Touring is just the two of you?
J: This year, yeah.
A: How’s it been having line-up changes over the course of your Xiu Xiu career?
J: It’s a devil of sorts. Sometimes it’s a pain in the ass because you get used to playing with particular people, you start to understand each other’s musical feel and the band starts to sound good but, on the other hand, in some ways it’s also cool having new people because somebody’s fresh perspective on music and a fresh take on how to be creative in there is exciting. It is always kind of a disappointment and struggle when somebody leaves or becomes unavailable. Although, luckily, in the long run it’s turned out really good because I probably would not have ended up playing with Angela and she’s really fantastic.
A: Because there have been changes, has it been hard to have the weight of whatever success you have be on your shoulders?
J: (laughs) Oh we’re not so successful that it’s really much of a weight.
A: (laughs) All right. And what’s the writing process like? Is it autocratic or is it collaborative, with every one contributing?
J: It depends on the song. And it changes from record to record, depending even on where people live and things like that. This record, not entirely, but largely, I wrote by myself just because I had moved to this small town kind of far away from everybody that I knew. But Ches came from New York and worked on some stuff together and Greg came from Tokyo to work on some stuff and Angela lives in that town. She became involved in the band more towards the end of the record but she played on it quite a bit. So it kind of depends: some things I’m doing by myself and other things are done in a more traditional collaborative way.
A: With Dear God, I Hate Myself, what were your motivations? What were your intentions sonically and lyrically?
J: Topically, each song is about something very specific. There isn’t an overarching theme to the record. The title track is what the title track sounds like it’s about. This last couple of years I’ve really been struggling with super intense self-loathing and personal distress. One of the songs is about being overly obsessed with these two particular cartoon characters and, as an adult, feeling kind of really weird about that. One of the songs is about a friend of mine who was going through a really extraordinarily difficult period and trying to attempt, as an outside observer, to say the cliché, the true cliché, that time will hopefully heal all wounds. One of them is about wondering what the point of existence is (laughing) but not in an existentialist way, more of a practical way. I’m kind of overwhelmed about not being able to answer that question.

A: I relate to a lot of your writing. A lot of the reading you do, with Mishima and Jelinek and in a lot of Japanese literature, there’s the idea of suffering and self-control as catharsis –
J: Yeah, yeah Jelinek has been a real massive influence on me.
A: She’s fantastic. She’s huge for me as well.
J: Have you read Greed yet? I just got it.
A: Yeah. It’s really wonderful.
J: Okay cool. I’m looking forward to reading it.
A: I love that you’re grappling with those ideas. I mean, I don’t love it for you because I know, personally, how much it sucks but do you feel like because you’re always dealing with elements of self-flagellation that that’s why you do your writing?
J: It certainly makes it bearable. Only in so far as there’s some place to put that feeling other than just turning it on myself or turning it on another person. Because I’ve been at it for a little while, it’s completely ingrained as my emotional coping mechanism. The feelings don’t go away necessarily but there’s a way to put them into a context that doesn’t turn into total destruction. If I didn’t have some place to put it, I’m quite sure it would. Not to be overly melodramatic –
A: No, no don’t worry. You’re not going to sound like a Goth to me.
J: - Or to sound like a rock cliché, but I’m really really thankful to have the opportunity to put those feelings some place.
A: Do you feel like you get to have that experience also in performance or is it more in the writing process that you get that?
J: It depends on the song. It depends even on that day with a particular song. Both of them [writing and performing] for me are pretty essential for getting through life.
A: Because we were talking a little bit about books, I don’t want to pass up the opportunity to ask you what you’re reading. I know you just got Greed, but what else are you reading right now?
J: Kind of embarrassingly, I’m reading Mishima, the Japanese writer who I’m obviously over-obsessed with! I’m reading a really kind of sweet and romantic book of his called the Sound of Waves. Most of his books are grim talks on suicide and rejection of society and things like that but this one is really kind of pretty and sweet.
A: I haven’t read that one of his.
J: I think it’s an earlier one. It’s really charming and romantic but in a very genuine way. And I just finished reading this book called On Killing which is about the psychological effects of committing murder by soldiers; the toll that murdering people takes on people in the military.
A: So, is it a non-fiction account from all different soldiers that are spoken with?
J: Exactly, it’s their different stories with analysis by this military psychologist. [Lt. Col. Dave Grossman]
A: Light reading. (laughs)
J: Always. (laughs) What are you reading?
A: I’m reading Serve The People by Yan Lianke.
J: How is it?
A: I just got to a scene where the couple is smashing all this propaganda, all these Mao busts and Party slogan posters, to prove their love to each other. It’s sexy and dark and counter-revolutionary –
J: Sounds good.
A: Yeah. Do you do any reading specifically for what you’re working on or do you more glean stuff from what you’re reading?
J: Probably the latter. I write copious stuff in the margins of whatever I’m reading and then rip stuff off.

A: Something else that I really love about your work is that I feel like even though your subject matter may be really heavy – I relate to that, I feel like there’s an assault that I feel in the world that other people don’t feel as acutely as I do –
J: I can relate. (laugh)
A: I know (laugh) and I love that. I adore it. So even though I find that you’re dealing with stuff that is horribly painful and lonesome, that there’s a certain amount of levity in your work. I think that you’re also very funny. I really like that. I guess, I’m just wondering if you try to put humour in your work for a particular reason?
J: For sure. I mean I’ve probably said this a bunch of times but, it’s not supposed to be a joke or anything like that but it’s certainly not without a certain sense of really dark humour.
A: Do you feel like people get it? Do people get your sense of humour?
J: Sometimes people do. (laughs) And I’m glad that they do and if they don’t I just hope they get something else from it. I would certainly hope that it was an individualized experience for anybody who might happen to listen to something of mine. It’s not important to me for people to relate to it in the way that I relate to it at all.
A: What are your plans this year touring-wise?
J: It’s a pretty busy year. We’re finishing up a US tour at the end of this week, and as we just talked about, going to China, and then Korea after that and then home for a couple days and then a couple shows in Israel and then a long European tour, then home for the summer and then go to Australia and New Zealand and possibly then that’s when we might be playing South East Asia, hopefully if it works out. If not, then we’ll do the US and Europe again. So yeah, a pretty busy year.
A: Are there any places you wouldn’t play, for say, political reasons?
J: That we wouldn’t play?
A: I guess it probably mostly depends on the promoters you’re working with and stuff. In my head, I was just thinking about what my response to that would be and there’s nowhere I wouldn’t play if I was working with the right people –
J: I mean there’s some places in the Mid-West of the United States that I’d prefer never to play again -
(both laughing)
- but there’s no place I’d turn down just from it’s reputation.
A: I read that you have an unfinished novel. How’s that working out?
J: It’s remaining unfinished. It’s not good. So I gave up on it a long time ago.
A: As far as how people are receiving this last record, how are, say, you’re family and friends liking it? What’s their feedback?
J: Well, I just try real hard not to talk with people about it. The longer that I play in bands the more sensitive I get about it. If I hear any sort of commentary on it, I tend to get my feelings hurt no matter what. The only person I play stuff for is my brother but he’s involved in designing stuff for the band so he needs to hear it. I certainly would never play it for my other family members. I just try to talk about other stuff with any body that I’m close to. I’m too easily embarrassed.
A: I understand that. Do you have the same reaction when it’s critics’ and fans’ feedback?
J: Oh yeah. It’s even worse. Probably more so because it’s out in the world for all time. I just try to steer clear of all that stuff. Occasionally I’ll come across something that makes me totally insane.
A: So you try not to read anything that’s written about you?
J: Yeah. When we first started, I thought it could be like constructive criticism or something like that but I just found it made me feel like shit so I gave up on reading reviews a long time ago.

A: I don’t even know how long I’m supposed to make this interview with you. (laughs) So I’ll end with, what are you reading about in the news these days? What headlines are pulling you in?
J: We’re pretty stunned by the fact that the entire Polish cabinet evaporated.
A: It’s fucking outrageous isn’t it?
J: Completely totally insane. I have a friend in Poland but I haven’t had a chance to talk to her about it yet. Normally I think about Poland about as much as I think about any other country but it seems a little closer to me right now. I’m very very very curious as to how that will turn out.
A: Me too. You’re going there soon-ish aren’t you?
J: Yeah, we have like three shows there which is probably also why I’m thinking about it a lot.
A: You’re playing Krakow, Warzaw and –
J: Poznan.
A: Cool. I like Poznan. It’s awesome there.
J: I like it too. Have you spent some time there?
A: Just with playing shows as well. I like those goats that come out in the square and ram their heads together. Did you see that?
J: Oh yeah yeah (laughing). What band are you in?
A: It’s called Handsome Furs.
J: Oh my god. Really? Cool. I really like your band a lot.
A: Oh fuck, thanks. Thanks. It’s going well I think. And I really am a big fan of yours so it’s so nice to have the chance for you to be my first interview subject.
J: Oh you did a totally great job.
A: Oh thanks. Well that’s it. Oh yeah: I love your new video. It’s horrible great, like all of the things I love about what you do. I think it’s fantastic.
J: Oh thank you.
A: Thank you so much for doing this with me. Really. I really really appreciate it.
J: And thank you for your time. And good luck with music.
A: Yeah, you too.
J: Talk to you soon.
A: Okay.
J: Bye.

Xiu Xiu play Tongzhou Canal Park at Strawberry Music Festival on May 3 (more festival details here). RMB 80. 3.30-4.10pm on Strawberry Stage. East of Dongguan Daqiao, Tongzhou District (8085 5509) 通州区东关大桥东

Comments

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Hair Rocket is calling for a "Hair Hit"on Xiu Xiu for encroaching on subversive enlightenment movement stance.
http://hairrocket.com/2010/04/29/indie-band-hair-rocket-calls-for-hair-hit-on-xiu-xiu/

I just realized how hopelessly out of it I am with popular culture -- I have no idea who Alexei Perry Cox nor do i have any idea who Jamie Stewart is ... hence I have no idea why I should be reading this post ...

Books by current and former Beijinger staffers

http://astore.amazon.com/truerunmedia-20