‘King’ Kurt to get his day in City of Brotherly Love
Indie rocker Kurt Vile pretends he’s a king in his video for KV Crimes — wearing a crown atop his luxuriously tressed head, getting carted around on a portable throne, bashing garbage cans with a baseball bat, axing his guitarist.
On Aug. 28, the 33-year-old musician will get to be as kinglike as possible — when his hometown of Philadelphia celebrates Kurt Vile Day.
His plans, however, aren’t extravagant or malicious. No vandalism. No public firings/executions. No crown. (Video director Tom Scharpling has it.)
Low-key, in fact, will be the unofficial motto of Vile’s day. The former forklift operator will receive the Liberty Bell Award for his musical contributions, play a free show at City Hall, and then ... ?
“I’ll just be chilling with the family,” says the singer and guitarist extraordinaire, referring to his wife and two daughters, including threeyear-old Awilda.
She’s the cutie who makes a cameo in Vile’s “commercial” for Never Run Away, toddling in and out of the frame as he sits, legs folded underneath him, next to a record player.
Low-key is also the watch phrase of Vile’s two Pitchfork-approved albums on Matador Records: Smoke Ring for My Halo (2010) and Wakin On A Pretty Daze, released in April.
As the titles imply, they’re lo-fi, laid-back, and psychedelic — lazy-day, summer soundtracks of pulsating reverb, cowbell, squeaking guitar strings, and a variety of warm synths, wurlitzers and vibraphones.
His latest batch of songs, which range from 3 1/2 minutes to more than 10, are easy to get lost in — to the point of just letting his words drip over you without soaking them in.
When they finally do, you realize Vile is often singing about dark days or imperfections and trying to come to terms with them. (Or maybe not.)
“I couldn’t look myself in the mirror / Then again, why would I?” he drawls on Shame Chamber. “I will promise not to smoke too much and I will promise not to party ... too hard,” he sleepily sings, like he’s inhaled too much herb and hops, on Too Hard.
“Lyrics are definitely important to me,” he said. “I’m just as obsessed or as meticulous with them as I am with the music. I don’t like any kind of throwaway words just to fill the line. Sometimes, I’ll hear music in my head and I’ll think of lyrics — like when I’m travelling. Even if I don’t have an instrument, there’s some sort of music going on in my head — I’ll hear certain notes, riffs or some sort of floating musical thing going on.”
Songwriting and recording almost come too easy for Vile. Over the last five years, he has released four EPs and six albums, including one as a founding member of The War on Drugs, an indie-rock band featuring Adam Granduciel.
Less than four months after the release of Wakin On A Pretty Daze, Vile is already thinking ahead. He’s toying with the idea of picking up a banjo again — the instrument that set him on his career path. He received his first banjo when he was 14, courtesy of his father, a fan of bluegrass.
“Every time I play the banjo, it feels really good. With the high drone string, it sounds very ethereal and I can tap into this sort of folk thing. I’ve had a couple of banjo songs but I’ve never officially recorded them. I tried with Smoke Ring and I have a feeling I’ll do at least one banjo song on my next record.”
Don’t expect him to star in any shampoo commercials, though. Not for another decade at least. He’s already taken some guff from musicians and bloggers for letting Bank of America use one of his tunes, Baby’s Arms, in 2011. While Vile might have the kind of locks envied by men and women, the musician isn’t eager to follow in the follicles of NFL star and Head & Shoulders pitchman Troy Polamalu.
“People joke about that. I see (online) comments like ‘Give that guy a hair commercial already’!” Vile giggles like a happy, hiccupy child. “I think ... maybe ... I don’t know. Maybe when I’m 10 years older. I shouldn’t do it right now. I’d get mocked. The money probably wouldn’t be worth all the mockery at the moment.”
Nah, even a fake king can do whatever he wants.