Stephen Malkmus
Stephen Malkmus
Stephen Joseph Malkmus is an American musician best known as the lead singer and guitarist of the indie rock band Pavement. He currently performs with Stephen Malkmus and the Jicks...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionRock Singer
Date of Birth30 May 1966
CitySanta Monica, CA
CountryUnited States of America
regret firsts looks
I don't know if you look back on your life and just see successes, but probably the first things that pop up are the regrets.
song thinking want
I want to do some different kind of songs, but say I want to do riffs, but I don't come up with any riffs that I really think are great. Then I can't do a riff album. I'm more of a song, melody person.
kids doors play
When I was a kid I really liked the guitarist of The Doors [Robby Krieger]. He plays blues, but he plays a lot of melodic things. He plays scales that are kind of unusual, and some bent notes.
moving people goes-on
You know, it's people's lives, so as you get a little older, your own life narrative, I guess, invades a little more. It's not like we're traveling in separate buses to each show. It's a labor of love, so we just do it because we like it. Maybe someone's gonna move, or not want to go on a tour for some reason - that could happen, I guess.
doors band
I thought The Doors were the greatest band for a while.
imagery visuals visual-imagery
I like visual imagery in my head.
eye together narrative
I like a narrative, even if it's fractured, or kind of psychedelic. But my favorite thing is if I hear words and I close my eyes and the connotations or the image I get in my head, combine with the sound of them - sometimes phonetics. I'm just stringing those together.
song way virtue
Maybe I don't have the patience to make a virtue of necessity - the patience to carry something all the way through, and to actually say something. Lately, the songs are more jagged and they don't really lend themselves to that. I just take it one bit at a time.
lines way next
Usually [the lyrics] go from one word to the next word - there's no finish line. The music was that way, too.
thinking singing sound
I'm thinking, I'm singing like Ozzy Osbourne, but I don't sound like him enough, ever.
song made best-things
I don't really know where the songs are coming from often. Many of the best things I made up were just off the top of my head.
corny
I didn't really like confessional poetry or things. They seemed sort of dated to me, or just corny.
memorable guitar play
Yeah, on the records, the guitars are made melodic, and I try to make it memorable. There's not much just wanking, to be honest - it's mostly melodic parts. I try not to play too many notes. It's just more instrumental music. It's a totally valid criticism if you don't like that kind of thing. It also is maybe a little anachronistic or unnecessary in a certain way.
song voice style
The earlier stuff is more like "this is happening to me," but now there are more songs that are accusatory or something, or more declaratory. I don't know where that voice comes from, like, "I've been down the road, we've been there and done that." That's sort of like a tougher style, or a less vulnerable style.