Mark Kozelek (Red House Painters, Sun Kil Moon) and Ben Gibbard (Death Cab For Cutie, The Postal Service) are terrific songwriters who are also friends. That's why The A.V. Club figured it would be fun to have the have the latter phone the former and interview him about the new releases on his Caldo Verde imprint: April, Kozelek's first album of original material since 2003's Ghosts Of The Great Highway, and Nights Of Passed Over, a recently updated lyric book accompanied by a disc featuring alternate and live takes of songs like "Carry Me Ohio" and "Wop-A-Din-Din." Gibbard can be heard singing on April—Kozelek's third full-length as Sun Kil Moon, the moniker he adopted after retiring the Red House Painters name, following 2001's Old Ramon. The album finds Kozelek in his usual reflective mood, with a particular emphasis on his ex-girlfriend and muse Katy, who died several years ago from cancer. Their conversation eventually turns to Gibbard and Narrow Stairs—Death Cab's new album, which is due out May 13—as well as their forays into acting, including Kozelek's memorable turn as Stillwater bassist Larry Fellows in Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous, and Gibbard's appearance in John Krasinski's forthcoming adaptation of David Foster Wallace's Brief Interviews With Hideous Men.
Ben Gibbard: I'm really enjoying your new record. As I was trying to think of stuff to ask you, I was realizing that this has the potential to be either the most awkward interview ever, or—
Mark Kozelek: That's kind of why I wanted to do it through e-mail. But it could be all right.
BG: It's difficult to know what to ask somebody who you're friends with, when you're trying to provide information that other people may be excited about.
MK: This whole plan struck me as odd. And when it came up, I was like, "I don't think he's gonna want to do it." But then they said you would, and I thought, "Well, it could be interesting." It could be a little awkward.
BG: I figure we can just fuckin' talk it out, and if it turns out to be a complete disaster, we can just acknowledge that, and have a real journalist talk to you.
MK: Yeah. Gotcha, gotcha.
BG: When you said you were going to send me [Nights Of Passed Over], I didn't realize that it was a hardbound, properly released book. Most interesting to me were the forewords—both to the 2002 version, and then you writing about some of the new songs. One thing I've always loved about your music is that you have a very honest approach to writing lyrics, but I've always gotten the impression that you're reluctant to talk about the specific subject matter. So I was really struck with some of that: You talk about making the first proper album, which is the "roller coaster" record, and you mention how obsessive you got in the studio. Do you still have an obsessive nature when you make records, or are you able to let some of that go?
MK: As far as making records, it's definitely gotten so much easier since that time. That was just a time that I'll never forget, because I literally went from working front desk at the Chelsea Motor Inn to a week later, a record company in England wiring money to my bank account, saying "Make an album." I felt a lot of pressure. I didn't want to do things in sort of a tossed-off demo style like we'd done the other stuff. We finally had money. I wanted to experiment and do overdubs. We were just really going all-out.
I think that I've gotten a lot more relaxed, and I know how to go about getting a sound now. I know what to do to get the vibe right. As an example, when I'm doing vocals, I don't have six guys sitting out there in the control room, messing around, making faces. I know what to do now to get a production right, and that was just something that came in time. As far as the songs, and the prefaces, it's one of those things where—when you're putting a book together, you can do it however you want. You can talk about certain songs and you can not talk about certain songs. I think that's what I did in both the prefaces. I decided, "These are the songs I feel comfortable talking about, where I was when I wrote them, what was going on." And other ones, I keep to myself, because I'm just more comfortable with that.
BG: On the first handful of records, with a lot of the people taken from your life, this mythology started building around them, like Katy or Michael. Even today, there are fans of yours who want to know who these people are, and how they relate to you. Do you see a level of responsibility in how you relate to these people?
MK: For me, it's really a moment-to-moment, person-to-person experience. If a fan approaches me and I feel like they have some kind of agenda, I'm probably gonna get real closed-off and not talk to them. But if I feel a connection with someone, or if I feel a certain trust with somebody, I feel like, "You know what, I can open up to this person and tell them about an experience." It's like that with shows. I play shows sometimes, and if everything's connecting, I start blabbing to the audience about anything. Between songs, talking about things in my personal life, or whatever. But there are other situations where I feel a little closed-off. It's really kind of a day-to-day thing. It depends on the person and the situation. Sometimes I open up and sometimes not.
BG: There seems to be a real warmth and tenderness to a lot of the lyrics as you relate to what I would assume is your girlfriend, or the woman who's a central character in these songs. You never want to assume that when somebody writes songs like these, that they're the "happy" songs. But there is something refreshing and kind of reassuring about them. Do you feel like a lot of these songs are coming from a more comfortable place?
MK: I do. The songs on this record span a little time. It's not like all the songs were written within the same couple of months. But I think the reason that there is a peacefulness about the lyrics, or quietness… There are songs that have nothing to do with this, but a lot of the record is my attempt at—not so much putting what happened with Katy to bed, but what happened with Katy actually happened right at the very end of making Ghosts Of The Great Highway. It was just the last couple of months that I was working on that record, this crazy thing happened. And I think after she passed, for me to have written about it at that time, or for me to have dealt with it in a creative way at that time, it would have been very cathartic. I don't think it would have been beautiful. I think I needed some years to pass, and some time to pass, before I could handle it all, to write about it and sing about it in a gentle way, where I was actually sort of paying tribute to someone, rather than just moaning about someone being gone.
And that's really the main theme in the album for me, just getting to a place where I—I don't know. I'm more at peace with it than I was years ago. When someone important to you, someone that's played a big role in your life, when they're gone… When you write about them or pay tribute to them, you want to do it in a way that's thoughtful. I think I just felt that way with this record. Songs that I wrote about her in the past—"Katy Song," "Summer Dress," "San Geronimo"—some really beautiful things… And I think I wanted to continue that, where I want beautiful songs to be written about this person. I think that if I had tried to write this record three or four years ago, it would have just been a horrible mess. But I think that I got to a place where I was able to put it together the way I did. So maybe that's why it has sort of a peaceful, kind of serene feeling.
BG: There's something about a handful of the songs that feels very much like the calm of a weekend morning. And I think that's a far more relatable place to be, when you think back on somebody you were really close to, who isn't with you any more. Writing about those moments years after the fact removes a lot of the context that could give them a negative connotation, and allows them to exist in their own time and place.
MK: Right! That's exactly right. At the time it's all happening, you're not rational. You're not saying it all. For me, it just wasn't a time to be really vocal about it. And it's something that I've sort of kept a secret all these years, too. I didn't really talk about it in any interviews when I was promoting Ghosts. I didn't want it to be something that was viewed as some vehicle for promotion. Because I've seen that with other bands. Someone's grandmother died, and it becomes a source of attracting press or whatever. I didn't want to use it. I didn't want it to be any kind of angle that I was getting any kind of attention with. But then I think after a while, it gets to the point where it's like, "Well, this is something real. It is something that happened in my life. It is something I'm writing about."
BG:Would you categorize Katy as the great muse of your life?
MK: Absolutely. To this day, it's the longest relationship I've ever had. We were together for four years. I know it's probably an odd thing to hear from a guy that's 41.
BG: It's not an odd thing to hear from somebody who's 41 who's spent his life playing music.
MK: That's right. She was someone I was with for four years, and we shared a lot of things. A lot of the early records have her in them. And Songs For A Blue Guitar, I dedicated that album to her. Even though we were broken up when all this happened to her… When you've had that kind of connection with somebody, and it's somebody that you've made love to a thousand times, and then that person is taken away… It doesn't matter if it was something that was five years ago, you remember every place you went, every street you walked down, every trip up to Seattle for a gig, or down to L.A. You remember it all. But yeah, I would say you put that right. She's the great muse and will probably continue to be for some time.
BG: You obviously don't have to answer this if you don't feel comfortable, but how does that play in your personal life?
MK: You mean how does my current girlfriend like it? [Laughs.]
BG: Well, not specifically, but just in general. Has that been a point of contention?
MK: It could be, depending on the person that I had in my life. It has been. But I'm with somebody now who's just incredibly understanding. And also, my girlfriend's mother passed away a couple of summers ago, so I think that there's a part of her that's more understanding about this, and has dealt with her own loss, and is just very, very mature about these things. So I think I've got a pretty extraordinary girlfriend in that way. I have had situations where others weren't quite as understanding of me having things in the past that I'm still attached to.
BG: In the book, you mention the song "24," and it seems like maybe you're a little self-conscious about the sentiment at this point. I'm 31, and I have a number of songs that were written around that same age, early 20s, where I was just scared to death about what the next phase of my life was going to be. We still play those songs, and I still sing them all the time, but there are moments where I cringe—I can't believe that I talked about, even at 25, getting gray hairs. And now I'm starting to get them. And it's humorous to me that that was something I wanted to write about at a young age. So now that you're 41, how do you relate to those sentiments? Do you play those songs? And if you do, what's going through your head?
MK: Some of them, I do. It's probably the same with you, where there's just certain songs from back then that have some longevity. I don't know what it is, but there's some I still love singing. And I can always find a way to make them sound fresh. I wrote about that in the foreword, I think I said something like, "It's odd, whining about the hardships of old age then." But I think it's all just context. When I was 18, I dated a girl who was 24, and she seemed old to me! [Laughs.] And when I was 23 or 24, my band was opening for American Music Club; at that time, their guitarist was 40. And we heard that and we all just took a step back and went, "Oh my God. That guy's old." And now I'm dating a girl who's 27, her friends are 25, and I go out to eat with them, I feel like they're looking at me like, "Whoa. This guy's old." [Laughs.]
It's all context. At that time, when you're 24, you're supposed to have direction. You should probably be out of college and have your career started. And I think at that time, I hadn't been to college, I was working down at the hotel, just wondering, "What is going to happen to my life?" So I had that fear. Now, when I'm around people who are 15 years younger than me, that fear you're talking about, I can see it in them. They're questioning where they're at. And I think I was just sort of going through that stuff. I occasionally whine about being 41, and my gray hairs, and my protruding gut, my right knee that doesn't work like it used to or whatever. But I think it's going to be one of those things where one day I'll be 60 thinking, "Damn! I wish I was still 40. It wasn't so bad." But I still feel very attached to those older songs, and in some kind of fundamental way, I feel like they're still who I am now, and I still have some of that same stuff going on inside of me.
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