Califone’s Tim Rutili on songs as people, fake psychics and a Spanish king’s “mushy face”
“Maybe I implode and wreck it when I need the band and my life to change” TIM RUTILI
What was the overriding vision for this album?
I’d nished a lm scoring job. The process of working quickly and making a whole bunch of almost old-fashioned movie music triggered some ideas that felt very personal. I’d gone a long time without writing songs, but this rst batch of ri s, melodies and words felt worth working on. At rst, the only intention was to dig in, write some songs and make demos. The deeper I got into it, little lyrical threads bubbled up and the songs became speci c people. Some
ctionalised, abstract versions of people that I know, and some other people that are built out of memories. As the whole thing took shape, the songs felt like the population of some hazy place.
What is it about playing around with elements that you wouldn’t necessarily see as compatible?
The whole mission statement has always been to combine elements together that shouldn’t be in the same universe. There was still some old beautiful-sounding instruments playing against brittle, digital sounds or cheap, broken Casio. This time there was more live playing and less looping and overdubbing. A lot of the friction came in the writing, arranging and feel of songs.
Were you listening to anything in particular during the writing process?
For one song we talked about it having a Dionne Warwick-meets-this Heat vibe. Another one we talked about J Dilla/ D’angelo making a Robert Altman movie. So lots of Burt Bacharach/dionne Warwick. Curtis May eld, The Fall. I kept returning to this record by Chico Buarque and Ennio Morricone, called Por Un Puñado De Samba [1970]. Always some Neil Young and Bee eart and VU too. I think watching that extralong Beatles doc, Get Back, crept into
everything as well.
Tell me about “Skunkish”, which includes an Arthur Conan Doyle sample.
I was picturing fragments of a movie about a fake psychic and their crew/family. It’s probably a decade or so a er the Civil War. They go town to town, doing séances and eecing sad folks overwhelmed by death and loss. The movie probably takes place in wintertime. There’s snow outside and no-one has seen bare sunlight for some time. There are velvet curtains and candles. Parlour rooms smell vaguely like burning hair. Everyone is a little bit drunk most of the time. There’s something about a fake psychic being confronted by real supernatural stu that gets me. Hopefully that’s happening in this song because it’s always happening in my head. We all have stories that we carry around and repeat like a personal mythology. I’m the hero. I’m the victim. I’m the trickster. I’m the lover. Like archetypal personal mythology tied into identity that is distorted and exaggerated over time to t whatever narrative you think you need to survive. Fake psychic and chosen family are sick of each other and tired of all the stories they’ve heard and told a million times. The resentments are causing problems. Séances are going wrong. It’s about to get worse.
How did “The Habsburg Jaw” come about?
I was listening to a European history podcast and wanted to learn more. There was something absurd, beyond horrible and funny to me about the inbred children of these people getting worse and worse the more they tried to hold on to power. It was like science ction. As I started writing, this idea of entitlement came out. I had some imaginary conversations with a version of Charles [II of Spain]. It was during lockdown. He had that enormous mushy face. He was in a shitty apartment playing video games. Feeling stuck and watching murder docs on Net ix. He’d complain. I’d say: “Everyone is going through a similar thing right now.” And he’d say, “We are not everyone!”
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the first Califone record. How has your attitude and approach changed since then?
Califone started as a solo project and then turned into a very busy touring and recording band for about a decade. Then things imploded and died. Then it kind of bloomed again, then it died again. Now it’s blossoming again. Maybe I implode and wreck it when I need the band and my life to change. I feel like I’ve fucked up many things with the band and in other aspects of life and somehow survived and somehow still have some great old friends and collaborators that are willing to hang with me. I try not to repeat mistakes, but I’m much less afraid in general. That makes everything more fun, even when things take a weird turn. In the beginning, the process of making this music de nitely started out mostly dark with some light spots. Now it feels mostly light with some dark spots. My whole life is in this body of work. I’m lucky, it’s still growing, changing, deepening and re ning, sometimes fucking things up. And there’s always some new thing to discover.