PAVEMENT BRING ON THE MAJOR LEAGUES

PAVEMENT ANNOUNCED their latest reunion in June… 2019. In 2022, they will finally play UK and American tours. But can they remember what the spur was to get back together in the first place?

“When we broke up in ’99, around 2000,” says guitarist Scott ‘Spiral Stairs’ Kannberg (above, far right), “[frontman Stephen] Malkmus said, ‘See you in 10 years.’ We reunited in 2010. And this was supposed to be 10 years later.”

Thus the reunion of one of the essential US indie acts comes to us. They still haven’t rehearsed yet, says Kannberg: “To be honest, I’ve probably only seen Steve Malkmus a few times over the last 12 years. I haven’t seen Bob [Nastanovich, keys and percussion] since we stopped. It’ll be like a family reunion! When I go back and re-learn these songs, memories and stuff will come flooding back.”

He anticipates they’ll rehearse 40-50 tracks to keep the setlists changing, and admits there’s a definite frisson to coming back to Britain. “It’s kind of where we started,” he says. “If it wasn’t for the UK, we would’ve maybe ended up like some forgotten band, who knows?!”

Pavement’s place in the firmament is on Kannberg’s mind, it seems. “We’ve become kind of a much bigger band over the years for some reason,” he says. “Like when I was in my twenties or whatever, I liked Big Star and Velvet Underground and bands like that who were nobody when they were playing live really – I’m not comparing myself to those bands, because those bands are legends – but they were much bigger as time went on. I guess more people can hear you now – pretty soon we will be huge in India!”

He adds he hopes to see original hand-standing drummer Gary Young – who is having a film made about him – in San Francisco, and that he has new Pavement music on his mind. “I did have a song that I’d like the band to maybe play on,” he says. “It’s called More Myths Than Hits.

I think it references it all – “I don’t know why people thought they were hip/ They were more myth than hit.” I think it would be fun, so hopefully I can talk the guys into doing it.

“I’ve tried to get away from it at times, and I have, but I always come back to Pavement,” he concludes. “It’s a big part of my life… my good friend who I grew up with tells me, ‘That band fucked you up, Scott.’ It did, but in a good way.”

Ian Harrison