Carsick Cars' Photo Finish

Be it studio albums or photo albums, Shouwang Zhang loves to develop many different projects at once. Call it an addiction to eclecticism — one that leaves his friends complaining as if they were cold jonzin.’

"They think I made them all look like junkies," the Carsick Cars frontman says with a laugh about the candid Polaroid portraits he nonchalantly snapped for the Beijing bred alt-rockers' upcoming (still untitled) album cover. He admits the stills may have left his pals looking pale and bony, but adds: "I don’t really care if they look beautiful or not. I was just trying to catch who they truly were."

Below, Zhang discusses bringing that brutal honesty to his every endeavor, including upcoming gigs at Mao Live and Yugong Yishan.

Why go old school with a Polaroid camera?
I like how the Polaroid pictures look and feel because they seem very quick, and almost a little dirty and unplanned. I always liked the Polaroids that Andy Warhol took for that reason.

Do you have the same attitude in the studio with Carsick Cars, or your more experimental band White+?
I guess. I don't like to use pre-recorded music when I play because I like to work with whatever feeling comes out, and even if I take digital pictures I don't want to change them afterwards. There is something more real when you can't correct it. You have to be quick and take whatever happens.

Do your friends and mentors in other bands share that attitude? What did Sonic Youth teach you when they brought you on tour?
With Sonic Youth, we just realized they were ordinary. Like, their drummer Steve Shelley, he’s very shy. I remember after some shows he’d just sit on the roof alone, looking at the sunset, kind of like a Buddhist. I’m more close to their guitar player, Lee Renaldo, he was the one that listened to my older band White, and loved it so much he invited Carsick Cars on tour. But even after all that, I still feel like we haven’t got that much better. I didn’t even know how to play guitar in the beginning, I just felt like I had to because I loved the Velvet Underground so much. Even now, I still have to tune my guitar differently than other people do, and play it my way. That’s easier for me.

If you could choose one Carsick Cars song for Lou Reed to sing, what would it be?
"Invisible Love."

Why do you sing that song in English, and others in Mandarin?
Sometimes it’s awkward to say very personal stuff in Chinese. But if I sing it in English there's something I can hide behind. It’s like wearing a mask in the Peking Opera.

You seem to bounce back and forth between projects in the same way you do languages. Why can’t you sit still?
Without the others I’d be bored in Carsick Cars after five years. I recently scored an avant-garde play called Once, directed by my friend Chu Zhi. I played electronics and "Invisible Love," in the middle. Half of the audience really hated it, the other half loved it. It challenged them, there was not much of a clear story. It was more like a play for your ears. That’s what we wanted to do — something new.

Carsick Cars will perform at Yugong Yishan on Sep 21 and at MAO Livehouse on Oct 13.

Photo: Courtesy of Shouwang Zhang