BG: When I was in my early 20s, I saw people in their 30s or 40s very differently than I do now. There's a level of confusion that is never really quelled as you get older.
MK: I hear what you're saying about the confusion of it all. A part of you feels like you haven't grown up as much as you should at this age. I'm really in a strange position, where I'm 41, still don't know how to drive a car, I'm not married, I don't have kids. When I go back to Ohio, that's where it really kicks in. Everyone around there is dealing with their mortgages and their kids and all these things. That's where I really feel the confusion, and I really feel like the odd man out. There, nobody really cares about my record deals or my little bit parts in movies or these little blurbs I get in magazines. Everything's more like, "If you don't have kids, and you don't have religion, and you don't go to church, and you don't drive a car, and you don't own a home, and you're not married, you just don't have shit." [Laughs.]
BG: It's exacerbated by the fact that you're from Ohio and you live in San Francisco. That alone is enough to probably isolate you from the majority of the people you grew up with. Then you compound that with the fact that you are a musician by trade, and like 99.999 percent of people earning a living playing music, you're not The Rolling Stones. Until you pop up on the cover of a magazine in their local supermarket, or you're on prime-time TV, it's hard for most people to have any kind of understanding of what you do for a living. When we had our first couple of records out, I was dating this woman whose parents never really cared for me. And at the time, we were making a living at this, but it was so meager it could barely be called a living. And we went to this music-business museum, the EMP, and there was a little 30-second movie running of our band and a handful of other bands that were popular at the time, that were up-and-coming Northwest bands. And when they saw that, in the context of a "museum," that's what it took for them to change their perspective.
MK: My example of that is my part in Almost Famous. I play in little bars in Cleveland, and it's hard for my family or relatives to put their finger on what exactly I'm doing. To this day, my dad still asks me, "Now, what are you doing in Europe?" It's still completely abstract. If my dad sees a TV commercial and I have a song on it, it's just a completely abstract idea to him that I've actually been paid for something like that. But I think for people back home, the common denominator was Almost Famous. Because you could actually go to a movie theater, pay the ticket, be surrounded by people who are like you, and then there I was. Even though I only had six lines and just kind of nodded a little through the movie, for them, it was a huge, huge deal. It was something where they could tell the neighbors and relatives, "Go to the movie theater, I swear to God, if you go, you'll look up and you'll see Mark in this movie." And that blew everybody's minds. So there are those little things that happen. I had a great time making Almost Famous, and I made some nice friends, but I don't put it in the same level of accomplishment as I do this album that I've just released.
BG: I'm still really fascinated with the fact that you don't do demos. Does that mean you just sit and write a song down on paper, and go into a recording studio and record it?
MK: Yeah. It's been years, maybe since Ocean Beach, since I've done any kind of demos where I sat down with a four-track. I would record a song or the initial idea to some little four-track or cassette player and take it into the studio, and we'd sit around the tape recorder and listen to it, and we'd try to put a click track against it to remember how fast I played it, or whether I had a capo on the third fret or whatever. It was always about trying to recapture these magical things that I did on these demo tapes. And I think that at some point, I just realized, "I'm just gonna write something, and I'm gonna go in and record it."
And that's what I've been doing for a long time. All of Ghosts, even Tiny Cities, which I didn't write, but I arranged. And this last one, literally, I just get the piece of music together and I go down to the studio. That works to capture the stuff when it's fresh. My home is just kind of my home. I've got my TV and my couch and my bed. I've never wanted to be the home-studio guy who has the recording room that I go into and spend—it feels like an office thing, where recording becomes like an office process. I've always been wary of that. I want my home to be a home, and I want the recording studio to be where I go and do that part of my life.
BG: Do you play every day? Do you work on songs every day?
MK: I pick up the guitar every day and play around with whatever tuning the guitar is in. But I don't actively sit down for certain periods of time every day and think, "Okay, I'm working on a song today," or anything like that. I do something musical every day, where I pick up the guitar, play a little bit. Sometimes things just hit me, it just comes out of nowhere. So many songs have been written like that. "Lucky Man" was written like that. "Have You Forgotten" is one I remember where man, there was just nothing happening, and then boom! This thing started unloading and unfolding. I wait for it to happen, but I don't dig for anything. The best stuff happens when I'm just not expecting it.
BG: [My girlfriend] and I moved into a loft up on Capitol Hill a little over a year ago. There are sliding doors that mark off part of the place, and it's kind of like her art space and my music space, and I've got my little ProTools rig. And I totally hear what you're saying, 'cause I'm looking at all this recording equipment that hasn't been turned on in six months, because we've been finishing an album and mixing, and it hasn't been a time when I've been actively working on songs. So I have this stuff taking up space. It's very beneficial when I'm using it, but it's more just cluttering part of the house. I do kind of fantasize about a setup like you have, which is no setup. You have a couple guitars and you sit down and write a song. I'm a little envious of your ability to do that.
MK: In a way, though, I'm also envious of what you're talking about. Because there are times where I think it would really be great to have a room where I can keep my guitars. I don't even know how many I own, but a lot of them are loaned out. I've got a friend that probably has five or six of my guitars, because I just can't store them all. But as far as the studio part of it, I feel like what you're talking about, if I had a room that was all set up as a studio, it just probably wouldn't get much use, because I just don't work in that context.
BG: I'm curious how your experience has been running your own label so far, and exactly what that means for you. I can't see you packing mail-order boxes and running the website. I'm curious what your involvement in it is.
MK: It's slightly more work than when I was on record labels. I mean, it's all the same. I'm booking tours—just like with you, you've got a booking agent, but you're still approving the dates before they go down. I approve my artwork. I have a lawyer that does my contract. It's all the same things that I did before. There might be a few extra trips to the post office. But it's like any label. Any label you go to, whoever you're talking to, they're probably not the person that's doing the mailings, they're not the person who's doing the website. I've got a guy in Maine who does my website. My distributor's in North Carolina. My lawyer's down in Los Angeles. I've got some friends who are kind of broke and I have 500 CDs shipped to them and give them two or three hundred dollars and they're happy to stuff the envelopes and mail them for me. So it's just like any other label, it's just not all happening right here, in-house. I just oversee it all. But the difference for me is like, rather than the profits being soaked up by whatever these other labels are doing, with all their employees and the millions of bands they're signing, I make the profits myself. It's just kind of this no-brainer thing, like, "Why wasn't I doing this 10 years ago?" I pretty much sell the same amount of records no matter what. And I just had my highest first-week SoundScan ever.
BG: Oh, congratulations!
MK: Yeah, I'm not one to gloat. But it's kind of remarkable that it's like, "Whoa, my buddies are doing my mailings, and I'm just kind of doing what I've always done." And finally I've had this big SoundScan that came out of nowhere. It's been a really nice source of pride. Twelve years ago, I needed to borrow money from a label to be able to pay my rent or make a record. But I think over the years, with being able to license some songs to commercials and take some movie parts, I feel more like an adult. I'm in a place where I don't need to borrow money from anybody to make anything happen. That's the main difference now—instead of somebody paying for my record and then I'm obligated to them for however many years, I'm paying for it myself.
BG: It must be kind of nice that that you were able to utilize label resources to establish who you are and what you do, and then at the apex, basically take control of the ship. It's really interesting at that point where we all realize that there is an economic aspect to making music or art. And I think the earlier you take some responsibility for that, it will benefit you in the long run. I think it's awesome that it's working for you.
MK: It has been for the last couple years. I did an interview recently with Billboard where they contacted me, like, "How did this happen?" And I explained that it's been years. Ten, 12 years ago, I might have had a difficult time coming up with the money to make a record. I feel grateful that I've gotten to this place where I'm at with it now.
BG: I do think there's something about this record, it's just a really comfortable record to put on. And I'm just really proud of you, man. And I'm hoping our paths cross this week in Seattle.
MK: That would be good. And if you ever decide to do a Ben Gibbard solo record or something, let me know, cause I'd love to be involved in something like that. [Laughs.]
BG: I think that's what we're thinking of doing. Get to work and brush the dust off this $10,000 worth of recording equipment that's sitting in my loft. I guess we'll see what the future holds.
MK: So what's happening with you guys?
BG: This record that we just finished, I don't think it's so crazy or such a departure that people who have been following the band for the last handful of years won't find some thing to really enjoy about it. The last record just went platinum, which is pretty wild. So many people are familiar with that record more than anything else, and that's also the quietest, most introspective record that we have. And this new record has a lot of big rock moments, some more expansive elements that I really like.
But I guess I'm really the most excited just seeing where everything levels out for us. Because I think there's been a little bit of early press about this being either the record that destroys our career, or "This is going to be the biggest thing they've ever done!" I really don't think that either of those things is true. Maybe there'll be some people, the newer fans, who really dislike it. We may lose a couple fans, but I think we'll definitely regain some old ones, and some new fans who probably weren't excited about the band before.
MK: Hey, one thing I wanted to ask you—the movie part that you had, with the guy from The Office—is that out?
BG: I don't really know where it is at this point. I filmed this part in December of 2006—it's a film adaptation of David Foster Wallace's Brief Interviews With Hideous Men. I was in the montage of friends the same way you were in the band in Almost Famous, where I had quips, and it was the group of people around the main character, to kind of humanize her. And in talking to John Krasinski, who adapted it and directed it, the scenes had to be cut out of the edit because they weren't working, but he recast me doing one of these monologues. It was really weird. After I did that first part—these ensemble scenes where it's like me and six other people, and everyone's kind of jumping on each other and riffing, it was really fun. I was like, "Oh, this is what acting is like. This is really kind of easy and fun." And I was obviously getting a little cocky about it.
Then I went back to do this monologue, and it was really uncomfortable. I instantaneously knew that I was in way over my head. It was funny, because I did the monologue and I did a bunch of takes, and John was coaching me through it. And I felt really vulnerable and uncomfortable. And then I finished, and he was like, "That's great, man, we got it. It's gonna be awesome." I'm like, "Really? Is it good? I can't tell." And then my friend Joey got up, and he's like, a professional actor, and he got up there and just killed it, just did an amazing job. And as soon as he got off the set, he was like, "Is it okay? I can't tell. Was it good?" And I was like, "This is insane! You people are all insane!" And then I got some texts from friends of mine who are actors, and they were asking how it went, and I was just saying how vulnerable and uncomfortable it felt. And they were like, "Oh, yeah. That's what it's like, acting." I was even thinking about you. I was like, "Yeah, Mark hops in on these kind of things. Maybe this will be something that I'll be asked to do more often. Maybe it will turn out well." And as soon as I got off that set after that second run of stuff, I was like, "Man." I learned a very important lesson. We'll see.
Is that something you've enjoyed? I mean, you've been in three or four movies.
MK: Yeah. But you know, Almost Famous, that was a long time. I was hanging out in L.A. for seven or eight months while that was being shot.
BG: Whoa! Are you serious?
MK: I flew down there late March of '99 and didn't come home until October. Cause Cameron [Crowe], he shoots everything from every angle, he does close-ups on everything that's happening. He goes all-out. A lot of money was spent on that. But Shopgirl was shot in 40 days. Vanilla Sky, I was down there for a week on that, but I had one line. So besides Almost Famous, my parts in the other ones were very fleeting, and I didn't spend much time. You know, I can't say with any of those experiences that I loved or enjoyed it, and had to get back down there. But that type of lifestyle is kind of fun. It's nice to fly first class once in a while, and the catering, and the money you make in the movies. It's kind of a treat to be able to go down there and hang out for a week. I would do it again if someone called me, and that's how it's always happened. We'll see. It's definitely nothing that I'm pursuing.
BG: So you don't have an agent?
MK: Not at all. Both of those were just—the guy that did Shopgirl was a fan, and Cameron was a fan. So maybe something like that will happen again. We'll see.
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