LCD Soundsystem's Festival Life

LCD Soundsystem broke out in 2002 with its memorable single "Losing My Edge," in which mastermind James Murphy offered a pretty spot-on predictor of today's been-there, loved-it-before-you-even-knew-it hipster culture, all over top an irresistible electro beat. That song and dance-rock rave-up "Daft Punk Is Playing at My House" made LCD indie-dance night faves, but this year's "Sound of Silver" finds the band expanding its emotional range without sacrificing any of the crucial grooves. David Malitz, Music Producer for washingtonpost.com, talked to James Murphy in advance of the band's appearance Saturday at Virgin Festival.

washingtonpost.com: There's an unexpected sentimental streak to some of the songs on "Sound of Silver," was that a conscious decision or just how it happened when it came time to write the songs?

James Murphy: It wasn't a conscious decision. To me it doesn't feel like there's much of a change. I think it's maybe just some stuff is more visible. It doesn't seem much different to me really. It doesn't feel more sentimental or anything.

wp.com: Before the album came out you were trying to convince your fans to buy it the week it came out so it would debut at the top of the charts. Was that a serious goal?

JM: Sure, I'm always serious. I was fully aware of the unlikelihood, but I guess I'm always serious about stuff like that.

wp.com: Yesterday we talked to Isaac Brock and asked him how it felt to have a No. 1 record and he basically said he couldn't care less.

JM: It's gotta be funny at least. I'm sure he isn't sitting there waiting for the Billboard numbers to come in and when they come in No. 1 he goes, "Yes!!!" But it's gotta feel at least funny. Also, rich people don't care about money. Like, I've been asked a couple times how do I feel about getting good reviews and stuff. And I think I don't care because I think we get good reviews. You know what I mean? Maybe I'd be really mad if we didn't, but in general we've been pretty well-reviewed, so maybe I'm just a little spoiled, if that makes any sense.

wp.com: What are your feelings on the whole downloading/filesharing issue? Is it ruining things, is it letting more people hear bands, is there some sort of happy medium to be found?

JM: I don't know what's there to ruin, in some ways. It's not like music's so good that someone's strangling the great music. Nor do I think that having access to millions of [expletive] bands is all that enlightening. It doesn't seem that good or that bad, really. There's stuff that I like about being able to download. I mean radio sucks so bad that without downloading, what would you do? So I feel like a band like us, we've probably both benefited and "been hurt" by it, meaning that my record got leaked and got downloaded by a lot of people. But whatever, I don't know that I would have been in a position to release records on a scale that I've been able to if I hadn't had stuff illegally downloaded before. So I don't know. It's going to be interesting, for sure. I don't think it's going to be good but it's not necessarily going to be any worse than it is now.

wp.com: So you play Lollapalooza (in Chicago) on Friday, then have Virgin Festival on Saturday. How does it feel to be flying around from festival to festival?

JM: We played big festivals before we even had an album out. It's a little weird because it's in the U.S. and there really isn't the kind of festival world here that there is in Europe, which I think is actually too bad. Because though I kind of don't like festivals too much, just for reasons of my own, there's something really great about them for music listeners, I think. Coachella's a really special festival. It's the only one in the U.S. I've really played, I've never played or been to Lollapalooza or V-Fest. And I don't really count South by Southwest because that's a different kind of thing. But those 34-stage festivals in Europe, they allow them to be curated, like, well, we got the White Stripes. Check. We got a big draw and now we got another kind of big draw over here, like Bjork, or something huge. And now we can put all these other things in and people can kind of get a sense of checking something out that they normally wouldn't see and experience a band in a different way than just downloading music, or radio or video. Something you can actually be there for. You can find yourself interested in bands you might not otherwise have been interested in, and I like that.

wp.com: Do you like to watch other acts?

JM: I very rarely watch acts. It depends on the festival really. Sometimes my head is a little too messy to be curious about another band. Not that I'm not interested but more like I don't have the head space for curiosity. I'm usually preoccupied with technical stuff or we have to play and that type of stuff. But the last festival we played in Europe was in France and I watched more bands at that one than I had at a festival in four years. It was really enjoyable. It was the last festival of our tour and we were there and Arcade Fire was playing so it was kind of nice because we played with them a bunch of times this last tour and we're friends. The Klaxons were there and we had played a bunch of festivals with them but through some series of misadventures I had always missed them. And I saw Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and I saw Animal Collective and I just got to watch a lot of music, I normally don't get to do that. And we played badminton.

wp.com: Badminton?

JM: In the pool.

wp.com: That sounds kind of bougie right there.

JM: Bougie? Badminton in the pool?

wp.com: OK, maybe not.

JM: I think it's phenomenal.

LCD Soundsystem, "North American Scum"

wp.com: I'm sure you're psyched to see Daft Punk at Lollapalooza, but are there any acts at Virgin Festival you're excited for? Do you even know who's playing?

JM: I have no idea who's playing. I kind of enjoy that, not knowing. I like when I get there, to know. You know what every festival needs to learn? They need to learn to put the [expletive] schedule on the back of the laminate. That would save so many bands' tour managers heartache. So you got your laminate and you go, "Who's playing what?" And you look on the back and it says "Red Stage, Daft Punk, 9 p.m." Then you can just wander around and watch stuff.

wp.com: I think you're actually overlapping just a bit with the Beastie Boys.

JM: Oh, my boys! Well I'm just going to jump up on stage and give them a little what-what!

wp.com: You're going to have to run a long ways to do that.

JM: I'm just gonna get a zip cord, or a jet pack.

wp.com: Do you approach festival shows differently than club shows?

JM: It's totally different. Even in the sense that we played a festival in Corsica and it was only 750 people, a tiny festival. And we've played shows of our own where it's 5,000 people but it's still different. It's not a matter of scale. It's just more a matter of when you're playing your own show it feels more like you're in a play or you're giving a speech. And when you play a festival it's like you're at a dinner at somebody's house in 1904 and everybody's got to get up and read a poem or something. It's not your house.

wp.com: You're just a part of something larger.

JM: Yeah and you can look at the crowd and you have a different relationship with them. Because you're like, "This isn't my crowd, this is just a crowd." And you can feel connected to an older version of yourself where you were just a wild underdog. And what the hell are we doing here anyway? Whereas with your own show it doesn't quite feel like that.

wp.com: Virgin Festival is held at Pimlico, which is the home of the Preakness, the second leg of horse racing's Triple Crown. If you owned a racehorse, what would you call it?

JM: If I owned a racehorse?

wp.com: Because clearly you've spent plenty of time thinking about this.

JM: Right, that's the bummer. I'm trying to think of which racehorse name I've obsessed over to really finally say is the name I would have. I'd call the horse ... My Chemical Jacket.

wp.com: We're asking each band to come up with a question for the next band we talk to, and yesterday I talked to Isaac Brock from Modest Mouse and I'm not trying to start a beef or anything, but he said he really didn't know who LCD Soundsystem was.

JM: Oh man, there's beef now!

wp.com: So I guess his question was -- who are you?

JM: I'm James, I ran sound for you at Webster Hall in 90-something. When he was like, [expletive], 20. That's so weird, too, this is a big change in life. I remember the remarkable thing was that he was this really young kid, and they were a pretty big band then, and I didn't know their name, didn't know anything about them. I still only know the song that's on the radio. But I'm actually very excited when bands like that do well. It's kind of a weird band to do well.

wp.com: OK, now you get to ask a question for Scott Weiland from Velvet Revolver.

JM: Isn't it better and more funny to have a totally good second-wind career than it was to have one the first time?

wp.com: That's a pretty thoughtful question.

JM: Well it just seems funnier, just like, alright, we're Velvet Revolver. Let's get a bunch of dudes who are in kind-of-not-related, really successful bands, and we know exactly what it means to be in a totally successful band. And it looks to me that they're actually having more fun than they ever did in any of their previous bands. It looks almost more punk rock and more retarded to me.

By David Malitz |  July 31, 2007; 6:00 AM ET Artist Interview
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Posted by: Todd | July 31, 2007 11:32 AM

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