AN AUDIENCE WITH BILL CALLAHAN
AN AUDIENCE WITH BILL CALLAHAN
“My transition into a domesticated human was kind of remarkable to myself”
FROM the garden of a rented house in Austin, Texas – his own home, a few blocks away, is currently being decorated – perennial outsider Bill Callahan is recuperating from the shock of having just headlined Hammersmith Apollo, one of the biggest venues he’s ever played. “I’m always surprised that anyone comes,” he says hesitantly, the modesty clearly not a put-on. “When you get to a venue, you do the soundcheck, you might go for a walk, and then you come into the separate artist entrance which is usually in a back alley. The theatre’s been empty all day, and then you come out on stage and suddenly there’s people there – a lot of people!”
Callahan admits that often it’s a struggle to make that journey back to the stage. “When you get to a club you wonder, ‘How can I do this again?’ But once the people are there, it’s kind of an alchemical reaction where everything fits into place. I think an unusual thing about my trajectory is that the audience has gotten slightly bigger from the start, in very small increments – another couple of hundred people every few years. For me, that’s a pretty cool thing. I definitely don’t take it for granted.”
There was a surprise, too, in the mood and subject matter of 2019’s acclaimed Shepherd In A Sheepskin Vest. Three decades after his first claustrophobic, lo-fi experiments under the Smog banner, via the twisted country fables he fashioned with producer Jim O’rourke and the expansive vistas of his first few solo albums, Callahan has found the walls closing in again – except this time it’s on a scene of relative domestic bliss with his wife and young son.
“My transition into a domesticated human was something kind of remarkable to myself and I just wanted to write about it,” he says, with a deep chuckle. “I know a lot of people have been through similar things, but there aren’t a lot of songs about it. I don’t wanna rewrite one of my songs and I don’t wanna rewrite someone else’s song, so that stipulation drives you into avenues you wouldn’t naturally go down.”
Do you still write all your lyrics first before starting work on the music? Kamil Singh, via email
I do. I’ve tried other ways and it just doesn’t work for me. I know a lot of people sing nonsense [over the music] and then try to form that into words, but I have a hard time sitting in a room singing nonsense. It’s like my anchor, to have a block of text that I’m happy with. Or my lifeboat. Which I can then push out on the ocean of melody, play some chords and all that stuff. And if things are going badly, I can jump in the lifeboat and sail off to a different melody.
At the end of his most successful year to date, the one-time Smog loner talks children’s choirs, Scorsese films, tabloid nudity and why he’d rather be a horse than a bird Interview by SAM RICHARDS
How do you make your guitar sound so polite, kind and inviting? Duncan Park, Durban, South Africa
That’s a sweet question. I think a guitar only speaks when it’s spoken to. I’ve tried not to be annoying. I guess that I don’t really know much about true guitarplaying. Maybe it’s just a matter of only playing a few notes, and stopping before you play too many!
I’ve always liked the line “It’s Ali vs Clay/both pummelling away” from “Feather By Feather” [on 2003 Smog album Supper]. Do you ever think in terms of Callahan vs Smog? And why did you decide to drop your earlier band name? Paul Mckenna, Dundalk
In a way, I’ve always felt like I’m battling my past records. Because when I listen to them I just hear the weaknesses. I changed the name to try to get a fresh start, like moving to a new city. It was partially that, and also because Smog had stopped meaning anything to me. I was just using it because it was there. But once I started thinking about it, I realised it’s an ugly word – in the way it looks, the way it sounds and its meaning – and I’m kind of imprinting this ugliness onto the listener by putting my music under that banner. Once I realised I was doing that, I thought I should stop.
What do you remember about growing up in Yorkshire, and has it influenced any of your lyrics? Patrick Turney, Retford
I wouldn’t say it’s influenced my lyrics. I was there from 7 to 12 years old. I remember a lot of things: the school uniforms, the way kids called candy “spice”… I had a paper route. I’d get up at five in the morning while my family were still asleep and get on my bicycle, five days a week. There was one person on my route who got The Sun and before I put it in there
I’d always look at the topless woman [chuckles]. Living there is more like a dream memory. After that we moved to Maryland, and when I go back to Maryland is when I feel a pull, or a natural sensation of familiarity. In England I was an outsider, so I didn’t really ever get too attached to it, because it felt like an alien land to me.
I was the manager and co-producer of The Replacements. Back in the ’80s, you published a fanzine about the band called Willpower and I arranged for you to meet them at a show in the Washington DC area in 1983. Just wondering if you had any thoughts about how Paul Westerberg’s songwriting influenced your own music? Peter Jesperson, via email
I mean, definitely Paul Westerberg was one of the first people who got me thinking about songwriting and music creation as something more cerebral than just a reaction. And also he had a lot of different types of songs: silly songs and funny songs and sad songs. What do I remember about meeting them? They were drunk! But Paul was super sweet to me – we sat at the bar and he tried to get to know me. I was super-duper shy at the time and wasn’t very good at meeting anybody, but I think he tried his best. It was exciting for me.
Who are the children who sing on Knock Knock? Matt, Oxford
I was thinking big for that record, just going for broke. We tried to get the Chicago Children’s Choir, but it was way too expensive. One of them said they would work off the book, and then she had some friends… who couldn’t necessarily sing, but we just gathered all the children that any of our friends had at the time. We bought them some pizzas and hired a clown to keep them entertained between takes. It’s probably got more energy, because they were untutored.
Shane Meadows’ use of “Vessel In Vain” in Dead Man’s Shoes is the best use of a song I’ve ever heard in a film. What’s your favourite use of one of your songs? Phil Tate, South Shields
I have to admit I haven’t actually seen that film, although a lot of people mention it to me. Most of the time, when I hear my music in something, I always think it’s too quiet. It just gets buried and I don’t really understand why [they used it]. My favourite is in the TV show Transparent – they had a scene with my song “Night” from Woke On A Whaleheart. The character was driving and singing that song, and that was pretty cool. I like it when my song is really upfront. Most of the time you watch a movie waiting for your song to come in and it’s like six seconds and barely audible. You want it to be more like a Martin Scorsese movie where the song is blasting and they’re kicking the shit out of somebody on the ground!
What are you going to miss most about David Berman? Katherine Street, via email
I think his love and appreciation of people. He was just endlessly adoring of the people that he loved, and endlessly curious. With David it was always fresh – he was always digging deeper into whoever he was talking to, or into himself. It was never boring to hang out with David, it was always a rollercoaster ride. It could be scary or exciting and you might wanna get off, but then you’d want to get right back on.
What advice would you give to the guy who wrote “The Orange Glow Of A Stranger’s Living Room” [from the 1996 Smog EP “Kicking A Couple Around”]? Vince P, via email
I would say stop writing such cliched songs! And also I would say, maybe go to more parties… I dunno, at that time I was very into solitude. And I definitely got a lot out of that; I got to learn who I was. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve realised that being around people is the best thing for me, and probably for a lot of people. But at that age – I was 25 or something – I was having a romantic time of walking around the city by myself. It isn’t what I’d wish for myself now, but actually at the time it was probably what I was supposed to be doing. So I would just tell that guy to carry on.
What would you rather be, a bird or a horse? John Candelli, South London
I guess I’d probably rather be a horse, because birds, even though they can fly, it seems they kind of have a miserable life because they’re constantly looking around for predators. If you’re a horse, you have a chance to be in a good relationship with a human. And you’ve got too big to really have any predators, except maybe a mountain lion. Yeah, I think the answer is horse.
Shepherd In A Sheepskin Vest is out now on Drag City
“Maybe guitar-playing is just a matter of stopping before you play too many notes”