Tonight: Lambchop’s Kurt Wagner talks XX Merge, painting and to be or not to be a country band [plus video]
Lambchop's Kurt Wagner at XX Merge, preaching like he means it (Photo by Brian Vetter)
We spoke with Lambchop frontman Kurt Wagner Wednesday, on the eve of the announcement that his longtime band Lambchop would release its life-changing/affirming/ending/reviving set from this year’s XX Merge fest in Carrboro, N.C., as Live at XX Merge. Tonight, they’ll see if they can repeat the magic of that night at Duke University’s Reynolds Industries Theater at 8 p.m. Lambchop splits the sold-out bill with Alejandro Escovedo.
INDEPENDENT WEEKLY: Are you playing Asheville on the way to Durham, or Asheville on your way home?
KURT WAGNER: We’re playing Charolette first, then ya’ll, then Asheville. It’s like a tour of the state of North Carolina. We’re playing state-by-state, I guess. [Laughs.]
You’re like a touring Sufjan Stevens.
You know, he took that back and admitted it was a mistake. He probably wasn’t that serious about it to begin with, and people made much more of it than he did. That’s what happens when you say something, and people don’t forget.
What’s been Lambchop’s biggest mistake in terms of saying something that sticks to you?
Calling ourselves a country band early on. We were sort of kidding, and it sort of stuck pretty hard. Then I started thinking, “Well, we kind of are.” It was partially a joke, then we started thinking about it conceptually, and thought that it was not that outlandish.
Given the chance to do it again, would you have described Lambchop as a country band early on?
At the time, we probably would have. What was funny was we didn’t even know what a one-sheet was. Mac [McCaughan] and Laura [Ballance, both of Superchunk and Merge Records] told us we had to make a one-sheet. We asked our friend Ira [Kaplan] in Yo La Tengo, “What’s this one-sheet?” and Ira said, “Believe it or not, whatever you put in there will haunt you for the rest of your life.” I don’t know exactly what prompted him to say that. I don’t know if they had a bad experience where something was misconstrued early on, and it never went away. Oddly enough, he was right.
Well, music journalists are notorious for perpetuating the half-truths they’re fed.
Once something gets out there, it just kind of sticks whether it’s accurate or not. It’s a rare person that actually checks those facts, particularly with the advent of blogs and stuff like that. [Journalists] don’t seem to have the kind of ethics they used to have. I understand all that. Whether it’s true or not, it still exists. There’s nothing you can do. Continue reading »
