James Stewart Unleashed

I enjoyed Jamie Stewart’s music and personality during high school. We would go see his crazy fun band I.B.O.P.A., a.k.a. the Indestructible Beat of Palo Alto, which later morphed into Ten in the Swear Jar and Xiu Xiu. Eventually my band ended up recording some music at his house, Fort Awesome. We caught up before he headed to Europe, in the FALL of 2004. I forget if this ever got published.

PM: How are you?
JS: I’m feeling incredibly happy about music stuff but tired. It’s is kind of all I'm doing right now. It’s kind of awesome, kind of unnerving, just in so far as the scope of my life. There are not a lot of interesting things going on in Seattle, besides going on hikes.

PM: So you do live in Seattle?
JS: Yeah. My computer broke yesterday and it had all my work on it and I had nothing to do all day. It’s charming in a boho kind of way. What are you doing?
PM: I was playing this weekly thing at Jungle Copy in Palo Alto. It was cool. I went on a little trip, kind of haven’t gotten back into the swing. I hope to do more open mic-ey stuff.

JS: Where did you go?
PM: I flew to Mexico City. It was near the end of the summer, and I still think in terms of school year, and summer, you know. I flew down to Mexico City and stayed with some American kids. Mexico City is alright. I went on bus to El Salvador and Nicaragua -- a lot of busses. But it was fun, it was a good trip.
JS: That’s remarkable -- that’s really wonderful. I would love that.
PM: I’ll put some pictures on the Internet. I went fishing with these kids -- I didn’t get any pictures, but you know it’s like a fishing story, so, I mean, the fish were really big, you know.
JS: Where?
PM: Near the border of Costa Rica, in Nicaragua, in this bay, San Juan del Sur.
JS: Did you catch anything?
PM: Yeah, I caught a barracuda.
JS: Are you kidding? Omigod.
PM: Ate it, too, yeah. I thought they were joking when I asked what the fish was.
Where have you been this year?

JS: We did two full U.S. tours and then a full Europe tour, then a short tour of mostly Canada and a couple of U.S. shows for eight days. This year we played every major city in Canada, which is not that hard. There are only eight of them. Canada is strange and beautiful hard to describe. In two weeks, we’re going back to Spain and France and Portugal.
PM: I drove from Chicago to Vancouver, Canada. East of [Vancouver] is the prettiest place ever.
JS: We did one drive Chicago to Seattle in like one drive -- 38 hours. Someone had to get back to school. It was a beastly drive. It got to be like this thing on drugs after a while.
PM: Do you do much drugs?
JS: Do I? No. But driving for like thirty eight hours without stopping was like being on drugs, bad drugs, homemade drugs.

PM: I talked to Kimya Dawson. She liked being on the road alone.
JS: I definitely liked it. The transition between that and coming home is weird. It takes like a week to figure out what the fuck is going on again. But, yeah, being on tour is really great. It’s good stuff.
PM: Who have you toured with? Do you have a varying cast of characters in Xiu Xiu?
JS: Lately, my stuff has been me and Caraleena on every tour this year. I'm sure it will just be she and I [in the coming tour].

PM: Why did you get political on the last album, for the first time?
JS: It’s impossible not to have that conversation. It’s impossible not to think about the current situation in a desperate and terrified way and think about it pretty [inaudible].
PM: Pretty comfortably? Is that what you said?
JS: No, I said constantly but comfortably would be really perverse and bizarre.

PM: What do you think of the press you’ve gotten? Are you satisfied?
JS: I kind of had stopped reading it because it kind of freaks me out. My publicist works really hard and I appreciate that because if we get better press and better turnout. But if it’s bad, I get all bent out of shape. If it’s good -- reading a whole lot about what other people think about what you're doing, it disestablishes what happening in the present moment. I’m never averse to doing interviews, or people writing about it, I just need to keep it out of my brain or I get very spun around, whether or not it’s good or bad.

[I forget what was said here. - Ed.]
PM: My dad’s doing a marathon. I was gonna go out to Chicago.
JS: How is your dad
PM: He gets cranky a lot. I think it’s cause he gets up early to work out. But he’s doing good. He always talks about moving, moving houses.
JS: What do you think about that?
PM: I guess I could see where he’s coming from but I think it’s kind of a device -- a way to compare, get perspective.
JS: That’s not so bad, is it?
PM: It’s like with my job…I spend like half my time at work looking for another job.

PM: You’re not religious at all?
JS: Me? No, I'm totally religious. I'm really private about it, it’s not something I wouldn't discuss but not something I would foist on anybody.
PM: Do you have practices?
JS: I pray a lot and I meditate a lot. I haven't gone to church in a long time. I've been kind of wanting to go back. I think all of the positive stuff about religion -- loving yourself and other people and God -- are the good parts. The crazy, judgmental, using-religion-as-an-economic-and-political-tool is ridiculous. Anything that anybody thinks is true is generally true in their spiriutual life, but i also think a lot of dangerous, damaging things abot religion are true. How about you?
PM: I like being able to give up sometimes, and just say, ‘God will take care of it.’ And living here with the family, I definitely see the worth of just like going to Church and being quiet, for like, an hour a week, together.
JS: I'm not totally averse to church, just not sure where to go. It’s hard to find the right place, that’s for sure. I think God's smart enough not to get freaked out about people needing to do something and not go to Church.

PM: What about music? Do you work a lot, on the computer?
JS: We have the same set up we've always had --
PM: -- like Pro Tools
JS: -- like, how much time? I try to work on music for at least eight hours a day, not always on purpose but writing stuff, Pro Tools, or work on stuff for touring -- not always touring but getting arrangements. That’s the goal: to put in a full days work [laughs].
I think because it’s my only job right now I feel some Protestant work ethic that I need to respect the position I am in, that I need to give it as much time as I can do productively during the day.

I also get freaked out that the fact it’s my only job, it will all come crashing on itself. And it also is incredibly satisfying and enjoyable to work on music every day, not like a burden, but kind of have to set this standard work week way of doing it.

PM: You will not tour as much next year?
JS: This year we will tour not anything as much as we did last year. Weirdly, I think the whole tour schedule for next year is kind of planned. Which I guess is kind of a normal thing to do but I was getting all freaked out about shows next August, but like, fuck, it’s October -- I need to chill out.

PM: There were rumors you were just moving north, that you were actually living in Canada.
JS: I wish! We will be in Spain on the next election. We certainly could stay. The reason I wanted to move back to California more would be to be with my family more, so obviously moving back to Spain would be the opposite.

PM: I hope they don’t pull some Cat Stevens on you.
JS: [laughs] Maybe that would be a sign from God. I'm really interested in geography. I bought all these flag stickers from Middle Eastern countries. I was going to put one on my guitar case, but they'd never let us on a plane, ever. It’s really gross to think about, actually incredibly gross to think about the potential effects of a piece of vinyl with glue on it.

PM: So you want to get closer to your family?
JS: Stuff didn't go as well in Seattle as I thought on a personal and social basis. There’s not a whole lot of reasons for me to stay here, I could never take this city very seriously. It doesn’t seem to be working that hard at being anything but pleasant. Some of my best friends from Alaska just moved back to the Bay Area. It’s not like any relationships here will go away. My sister in the Bay Area just had a baby.

JS: Where do you want to live ultimately?
PM: I think Hawaii was the first thing that came to my mind --
JS: -- not a bad choice.
PM: I went there once, it looked like Latin America but the roads were good. I’m going to Chicago next weekend.
JS: I love Chicago, it’s definitely someplace I would live if it were not for the brutal weather. I'm just not wired for it.

PM: Back to music. Is there anyone that you would like to tour with or collaborate with? And -- part b -- were you going to collaborate with The Police?
JS: The Police? No, but that would be awesome. I’m going to Italy next week to collaborate with Larsen, with this really beautiful Italian band, these humongous tribal goth leather daddies that play the most incredible delicate beautiful music I've ever heard. It’s really funny because it comes from these bear-loving black magic leather guys.
Xiu Xiu generally has turned into a collaboration with all my favorite friends bands...cows and 7yr rabbit cycle and deerhoof and all my fav bands, four fav existing bands generous contributions to the last record...setup with continuous collaborations with other bands which is really lucky for me.

PM: I saw Oxbow play last week.
JS: I really, really want to ask the singer if he could do something with us.
PM: Cool. I guess they played a bad show with Deerhoof. I know Dan, the bass player.
JS: He lent you that organ, right?
PM: Yeah.
JS: We still have some bell of yours --
PM: -- my tuner, too.
JS: [Laughs] As I remember, I got that in a fair trade. We still use it.

PM: Do you ever sit back and listen to your music?
JS: Definitely not, for the same reasons as the press. If I think it’s bad, I think I 'm a shithead. If it’s good, I think the new stuff I’m working on sucks. I feel confident we did the best possible job we could have when we put it out, I don't feel we slacked. Any post-perspective other than, ‘we did our best job,’ would be unproductive. Once in a while I hear it by accident. It takes me a minute or two to recognize it because live versions are so different.

PM: Do you ever wonder -- obviously, you didn’t have to be a musician -- but do you wonder about a different musical path you could have taken?
JS: The one we're doing is how I've always wanted it to be set up. We’re fortunate to work with the labels we are working with. Anytime I would want to do something different I could. I’m not in that position to have a label that wants like five more records that sound like the last three. I know that at some point I will stop working on pop music and work on more compositional based music.

PM: How would your composed music differ?
JS: I don't know. Probably, the emotional process be the same as far as doing something that comes from a very open place, hopefully. It’s not something I have any experience with whatsoever, besides listening to it.

PM: Your dad produced Billy Joel stuff?
JS: He did Tom Jones, produced Piano Player, he did good stuff. I learned a lot from him.

PM: Have you always been playing music?
JS: When I was about fourteen, I started my first band but I didn't get really serious about it till I was like 25. It’s been a pretty sort of slow and gradual ascent toward working on it all day obsessively which is where I'm at now.
PM: Did you say descent or ascent?
JS: Ascent, but [laughs] that’s a valid question.

PM: How did you meet [longtime collaborator] Cory [McCullough], for instance?
JS: I feel incredibly lucky considering how I met him. He went to San Jose State and was in a music program with a couple other people I was playing with, who recommended him as a guitar player. We tried played with him, but it wasn't working out. But there was nobody else, so we asked him again. He is the greatest musical partner -- I feel really lucky to keep working with him on stuff. I think more than anybody he understands what Xiu Xiu is trying to do -- another reason I want to come back to the Bay Area.

PM: I guess that’s what we’re working at, is what Xiu Xiu is trying to do.
JS: That is something I always refrain from answering. I have a very clear idea --
PM: -- but you can’t tell it to anybody?
JS: No, but I don't think it’s any of our business to change what somebody thinks that we're up to. We're trying to make music that is meaningful to people but not trying to tell anybody how it is meaningful. If anybody wants to attach something to us we're not going to fuck with that, work it into something we want it to mean. Subconsciously, knowing what we think can influence somebody's perspective.

PM: Your fans are probably pretty personal and give you a lot of feedback. I remember the story where somebody made underwear and sent it to you [stained with blood, for like a month straight]?
JS: When we played in Calgary somebody made silk screened versions of those panties, what they thought they would look like, and were throwing them at us while we were playing. I recently got a jar of urine, frog bone. Lately, people have been giving us artwork that they worked on. That has been incredibly wonderful. There's one artist I met just through mail, James Morrison. I actually had been a big fan of his, he's doing a cover for us. I don't know necessarily that I get a lot of feedback but people are really remarkably generous to us. It’s funny that the underwear thing is what sticks in peoples’ minds.

PM: A lot of people I know are turned off by your music.
JS: People definitely really seem to like it or not like it.
PM: You feel there are other bands they could listen to?
JS: Absolutely. I don't know. It’s really sort of an incredibly freeing feeling that you don’t have to make somebody like what you're doing. A lot of the other stuff I worked on previously was worried about making people like it. That really makes it not really ring that true.

PM: Have you found any new foods that you like lately?
JS: I’m not that into food. I’ve been making some collard greens in stir fry.

PM: I remember you went to Vietnam one time. Any more trips planned?
JS: I really want to go to Mexico and Mongolia and Brazil. Actually, I had been planning a trip to Iran before Sept. 11 and had gotten about half that together, but obviously Sept. 11th happened. If there is ever a Middle East again I would like to go there, anywhere.

It would be really amazing to tour in Mexico. We put out a record on a Spanish label, but the publicist is Mexican. We've been doing a lot of interviews.

PM: Are there any instruments you want to play that you haven’t played?
JS: I've been listening to a lot of Appalachian music, which is where my family come s from. I’m not interested d in playing banjo in Xiu Xiu but interested in the instrument. I bought a little recorder a little while ago that I've gotten pretty good at playing. My cat hates it.

PM: Are you in a steady relationship?
JS: Not for about six months
PM: How long have you had the cat?
JS: [Laughs] I decline to answer.

PM: Do you ever go into the studio?
JS: No, just at home. The way that we work is slow it would economically impossible [to go into the studio]. We work on stuff in really, really tiny steps. We tried to do it once, just go in four days and bash stuff out ...it turned out good but compared to the other stuff we did it didn't fit in really well, was missing a certain feeling. We made an attempt to do something else, homestyle way works best.

A lot of stuff is written as it is being recorded. In a studio, it would take a lot of time. We don't make enough money to make that possible. KRS spends a lot of money having it mastered well, which makes up for any mixing foibles on my part.
PM: Mixing foibles --
JS: -- which I'm sure you know all about.
[He lost some music my band recorded with him - Ed.]

PM: [Back to the question about where I’d like to live], I would love Mission Bay [in San Francisco.]
JS: I think Oakland would be better, for the amount of space I need to work on music.

PM: Do you play sports?
JS: No.
PM: But you used to work out?
JS: I used to. After I move out I'll start going to the gym again.
PM: You can go with the Oxbow singer.
JS: I think I’d last about five seconds with him.

PM: What have you been listening to -- any pop, or mostly classical lately?
JS: Some composer I don't know how to pronounce -- Kinchelli, I think -- then, like, friends’ bands mostly.

PM: What do you think about iTunes?
JS: Because people like to pay for it, it is good. I have very mixed feelings about people burning CDs off the internet. For a band our size, it really cuts into us being able to make a living. On the other hand, frequently people will tell us that's how they heard about us then came to a show. I don't have any decisive feelings about it. But I think burning stuff for free is the same as stealing from a store or merch table. I don’t think music should be free. I think if someone wants it to be free, [fine]. But if someone wants it to be for sale, then circumventing that, it’s...

PM: What was your most memorable show in the last year?
JS: Not necessarily the best -- we played Napoli, Italy in a 2500 year old Roman aqueduct. It was underground, part of a church. The floors were not flat but at a pretty steep slant. Our equipment kept tilting, so we were holding them up with bricks and with roman carvings, things that could be in a museum. The show was mobbed, insanely sold out. We played in the remains of this peculiar arched venue. We were in the aqueduct beneath the church. I’m very certain I will never forget it.

PM: What’s the best thing you’ve ever heard about your bands, or music?
JS: We played at this metal club and they had posters of every show. Beneath the band names were descriptions: ‘Moth Rape, death hating speed metal from Austria.’ They were written anonymously. Under Xiu Xiu was written, ‘undisputed masters of introspective creepy noise pop.’ Next to all these metal bands it was out of context
-- next to, ‘Lightning Fad, blood spurting speed riffs.’ It was pretty funny.

PM: The Cactus Club closed down a few years ago.
JS: No love lost.

PM: What are you wearing?
JS: Underpants and a rock t-shirt. What are you wearing?
PM: Carhart shorts, a black sweatshirt and a IBOPA shirt.
JS: [Laughs] [IBOPA was Jamie’s band in San Jose years ago. - Ed.]

PM: The music gets you up every morning?
JS: Absolutely -- luckily, actually.

PM: You would study composition?
JS: I would need to. What I'm interested in doing, I don't know it.

PM: Do you have any idols -- [Frank] Zappa, your dad, a female?
JS: I definitely have idols, I don't think any in a careerist way, but musically for sure.

PM: What’s your favorite holiday?
JS: Christmas. What’s your favorite?
PM: Christmas. Wait, maybe Labor Day.
JS: [Laughs]