Stephen Joseph Malkmus (born May 30, 1966) is an American musician best known as the lead singer and guitarist of the indie rock band Pavement. He currently performs with Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks.
My wife is a big fan of George Oppen and I got into him. I could have a career like his. It's not an alpha male situation, George Oppen. It's quiet. It's poetry. He just lived a life of an intellectual poet.
I do play soccer, but it's exhausting in a way.
I feel the most natural thing is for music to come that way because it's sort of like poetry. Though I do think with poets that I like, like Charles Olson or Ezra Pound, they were rewriting constantly, until the poem becomes a diamond. But with music I don't really feel that way.
Like the song "Stereo", to me that's like, kind of hip-hop in that slacker way. There's some slackerisms mixed in with that stuff, but it wasn't really conscious, I guess. When things would get more typical rock'n'roll that was my fallback to go to those kind of lyrics instead of the alternatives.
I'm not dying for everyone to hear everything we do. Forty minutes every two years is sensible.
I think most musicians know if they make the same record twice, even if they say they don't.
Yeah, on the records, the guitars are made melodic, and I try to make it memorable. There's not much just wanking, to be honest - it's mostly melodic parts. I try not to play too many notes. It's just more instrumental music. It's a totally valid criticism if you don't like that kind of thing. It also is maybe a little anachronistic or unnecessary in a certain way.
Besides, going on tour and playing songs and arranging things, going to practice, it's all I know to be productive.
You don't realize that when you're young, and you're surprised there's a lot of people at your gig - you just think it's general British-press hype.
I've wanted to not play as much. I would like to just sing now. Even though I don't think I'm a great singer, I wouldn't mind just - not being a frontman, per se, but singing and not playing.
It's hard to think back. I didn't even know I was going to do it, make actual records. But I was always making up songs, once I figured out that you could do it. I think it's pretty much the same, but there's less urge to get it moving out there. There was a time when it seemed like it was really super important to the audience and now it's just medium-important for people to like us. But that's okay.
My wife says that I changed people's lives or ways of thinking and that I should always be proud and grateful. If I'm dismissive of what we do sometimes, a little bit, she's like, "I was a fan, you changed my life," or whatever. That's what she says.
We care if people like what we did. If you're just making records for yourself, why put them out and do all these interviews and do touring? I'm a huge music fan, and this is what I do with my artistic time. It's all I really do, except hang out with my family. I value human relationships, and it's a way for me to interact with the world and feel like I'm part of something.
Obviously songs and musicians mean a lot to people.
I like visual imagery in my head.
I didn't really like confessional poetry or things. They seemed sort of dated to me, or just corny.
I think it's just entertainment for people that are interested in the form. To sing along to and be psyched by.
The word "down," is very musical. It just always comes.
I'm better when I'm an autodidact and things just come. Or you're just blessed. I'm not bragging or anything, it just comes to you.
I was a kid, I loved music, that was our social thing. That's what we bonded on. That's what my Saturday nights were, looking to see what bands were playing. And some of those people were the coolest people ever. I want to participate in that. And I hope other people feel that and they're like, "Yeah man, this is part of it, this is why I love music. "