Catching up with DEAN
WAREHAM on the
eve of his highly anticipated Dean
Wareham Plays the Songs of Galaxie 500 tour, ANDY
HAZEL learns about 80s music, looking back and Leeds.
“Man this call quality is
terrible,” says Wareham of the second time we’re connected for his interview.
“The sound quality of music and phone calls is awful these days.” Having been
producing music long enough to make a judgement like that, Wareham comes across
more like a man stating a fact than a grouchy elder statesman. Front-man for
the critically adored bands Galaxie 500 and Luna for the last years of 1980s
and best part of the 1990s respectively, Wareham has spent most of the last
decade working with his wife and former Luna bassist, Britta Phillips, under
the moniker Dean & Britta. This move saw him replace spacious washes of
guitar fuzz and minimalist articulations of malaise for a slower output of film
soundtracks (The Squid and the Whale),
occasional albums (L’Avventura, Back Numbers), and a live score for the
film project The 13 Most Beautiful…Songs
For Andy Warhol’s Screen Tests. Given that there is no chance of a full
reunion, and the success of their Screen
Test shows is bringing them to new countries and the strange new taste of
corporate gigs, it’s fair to wonder why this, and why now?
”Well,” he says with a sigh, “it’s
exciting to play these songs, it really is, and with the release of the
reissues it seemed the right time. We’ve been determined to get Australia no
matter what and that involves taking a risk. Often people want a big guarantee
on shows there, or they’ll have big label support, but I looked at it and it
was like ‘it’s going to do alright, let’s go’.”
Born in Wellington, New Zealand
and having spent a large part of his childhood living in Sydney, there is an
understandable importance to touring here. “I don’t get to New Zealand often,
every five years or so. Everyone there thinks I’m American because I have one
of those confused accents from living in confused places, like Sydney, New York
and Boston,” he says with his accent beginning to audibly shift across oceans throughout
the interview. “It seems the longer I’ve been away from Australia and New
Zealand, the thicker and heavier my accent got. But then I think it’s a
generational thing. I look at my cousins and their accents are far thicker than
my parents, and, no, I can’t do good impersonations,” he finishes, lying.
One of the most critically adored bands of the late 1980s,
Galaxie 500’s triptych of albums Today,
On Fire and This is Our Music were
released 12 months apart from 1988-1990 and found small groups of obsessive
fans wherever people in their teens and 20s congregated. “On this tour it’s
been strange finding where we’re popular,” he says lightly. “You find people
who’ve been waiting 20 years to hear a song played live all over the world. We
were always more popular in England so they responded especially well there, but
a few months ago we played in Sao Paulo and had 1000 people singing along to
every Galaxie 500 song, which was unexpected. In Hong Kong and Taiwan we seem
to get a lot of people to the shows and we never officially released a record
there, so you never know until you get there,” he pauses. “I always think that
you can feel when people are excited or if they want to feel something, you
give that energy back to them. Sometimes it’s the function of a Friday night in
a good bar though, and not every show can be that way. Sometimes it’s a Sunday
night and you’re playing in…Leeds,” he says laughing.
Witnessing the affection in which his songs are still held,
and deciding to evenly split the albums for the shows means mining his personal
history and assuming the role of a time capsule guide. “I do find it strange
that I play this role evoking this era,” he says carefully. “It was not a great
period to be making music, before grunge hit. At least in the US the popular
music in the charts was absolute crap; Bon Jovi, Huey Lewis…no indie bands
dreamed of cracking that or getting big or anything. Now you can have a band
like Vampire Weekend or Arcade Fire in the chart, it was a very different time.
The songs act as channels and as I sing these lyrics I wrote 21 years ago, it
takes me back to thinking about my life then, especially touring Galaxie 500
songs. When you’re touring you think of the last time you were in a place. It’s
strange, because now most of the audiences weren’t born when those songs were
written”.
A band long beloved by musicians and critics, it’s not
surprising that Wareham has a proliferation of ‘Best Of…’ chart rankings and
hyperbole with which to promote his music. That he chooses to use none of it
says even more. It’s perhaps more telling that this tour coincides with some
very nice (and nicely reviewed) reissues of Galaxie 500’s three albums. “I read
the initial reviews in Pitchfork and Mojo and Q, but I don’t have a drive to
read every review that comes out. Yeah they got great reviews, but I’ve seen
both sides of that. With Luna, there was a period in England where they built us
up and destroyed us. I had that experience with Luna at first that was hostile,
then the reviews eventually turned. There is a discussion on Pitchfork about us
and somebody was incensed by what they’d written or where they’d ranked us or
something. It’s funny; it’s such a subjective thing. Back then we didn’t think
we were the most important band or anything, but I look back at a list of
records that came out in 88 and 89 I think we are among the best that year.”
This music, which has always been divisive largely due to
Wareham’s falsetto (which he still has), has always been renown for its
simplicity, which was, as with a lot of great music, not by design. “I didn’t
feel like I was hoodwinking people,” muses Wareham. “But I thought it was
strange when people would write that I was a great guitar player. I was like ‘…wha?’
I like the way I play, but thousands of people can play circles around me.
Ultimately you learn it’s not about how fast you can play or styles, that has
its place, but sometimes it is your very limitations as a musician that is a
virtue. Practicing week after week, I feel like we stumbled onto the sound we
had, with the help of our producer Kramer.”
While celebrating the past gets old fans and readers of
music blogs into venues, Wareham is thinking more about the future as we catch
the tail end of this tour. “We’ve been touring so much, but I’ve not written a
song in about a year which is strange for me. That Warhol Screen Test show took off in a way we didn’t expect, as did playing
these Galaxie 500 songs. I wouldn’t want to do this forever. I like it of
course, but this trip will be the end of it. I’d like to go back to the future.”
