Music > Interviews
Jeffrey Lewis
25/11/15
Jeffrey Lewis, a native New Yorker, wears two hats. Firstly, he’s a successful and creative comic book illustrator. Secondly, he’s a popular and well loved musician, who’s supported the like of the Fall, Thurston Moore and the Super Furry Animals amongst others. An intriguing character well known for intelligent lyrics, his latest album, Back to Manhattan, is full of lovely lopsided, laid back songs. I grabbed a chat with the man himself ahead of his gig at Norwich Arts Centre this month.
How did you first come to become a musician?
I took some piano lessons when I was a teenager because I wanted to be able to play music with my friends, doing Rolling Stones songs and Led Zeppelin songs and Grateful Dead songs and stuff like that. I didn’t start playing guitar or writing my own songs until I was in my 20s, and I started very simple, just two or three chords on the guitar, I’m still a very simple guitar player.
How did you get signed to an English label, Rough Trade?
Rough Trade had signed the Moldy Peaches around late 2000 or early 2001, and the Moldy Peaches were doing really well, so Rough Trade asked the Moldy Peaches if there were other New York City acts whom they might recommend to the label, and lucky for me Adam and Kimya recommended me! So that’s how it happened.
You grew up in New York and your new album is called Manhattan. How has the influence of the city played a part in your music, particularly on the latest LP?
I think my environment would play a part in my music where ever I might be, and the past few years I’ve been living back in Manhattan so that has become part of the songs I’ve been making.
What’s the music scene like in New York at present? Anyone you’d recommend we check out?
There are so many music scenes in New York, I’m not very aware of 99% of what goes on, every night of the week there are probably hundreds of shows happening. The shows that I mostly go to are bands or acts that I’m friends with, a lot of little shows at the Sidewalk Cafe, or at indie venues like Shea Stadium or Palisades or Cakeshop, mostly to see people that I know. Acts like American Anymen, Barry Bliss, Diane Cluck, Prewar Yardsale, Peter Stampfel, these are all people whose shows I’ve been seeing for ten years or more, and for some reason that’s what I still like to go out and see! Or if I go see a bigger concert it’s usually an indie-rock band that I’ve been a fan of for many years, like Sebadoh or Yo La Tengo.
You’ve been described as being a part of the ‘anti-folk’ movement. What does that mean to you?
It just means anybody who has ever played the open mic at the Sidewalk Café!
Who has influenced you most, as a musician and also as a comic book writer/illustrator?
As a musician probably Yo La Tengo and Daniel Johnston, as a comic book maker probably Daniel Clowes and Rick Veitch.
You have an on going love for the graphic novel Watchmen, writing your university thesis on it, and also lecturing on it. What is it about Watchmen that really floats your boat?
There’s nothing else remotely like it, it’s still a unique form of literature that no other author including Alan Moore himself has ever attempted to create again. It was a doorway to a new language, a new way of reading.
Do you separate subjects or emotions that you want to express between comics or music? ie, do you only express thoughts about love, or more philosophical issues through songs or vice versa?
Songs are much more immediate, it has to be a powerful encapsulation of a thought or a feeling, but a comic book can be a lot more patient. Music is always in danger of becoming background noise, but when you read you are already making the choice to focus, so as a creator it means you have more leeway to build up your stories in a different way, or have a more intimate connection as one person to one person. That’s very different than a live musical performance.
What comes first for you when you’re writing a song; lyrics or music?
A little of both, I can’t write lyrics without knowing where the beats are going to fall, or where the melody creates certain emotional turns. I think what makes a song work can be the way the emotions suggested by the music or melody have an effective match with the words, it’s like the way art and writing are matched in a comic book. The two tracks, words and pictures or words and music, have to have a chemical combination that creates the art. So it’s very hard to make one part without an awareness of how it will fit with the other part.
Humour plays a big part in your music. Who do you find funny?
I don’t pay much attention to comedy, I know that stand-up comedy is very popular in the past few years, but I’m nor really aware of that scene, I enjoy it when I hear it but it’s not what I put on to listen to and it’s not what I go out to see, usually. I don’t think humour plays a big part in my music more than other human emotions, sadness, mystery, philosophy, history, stress, confidence, etc. All of these things are part of the palette of colors that you paint with when you’re trying to communicate something about life. You won’t find a great writer who isn’t funny, because that’s one of the human emotions. If you’re ignoring that, you’re not painting with a full array of emotional color-options. All the greatest songwriters are very funny at times - Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, Jonathan Richman, Daniel Johnston, Paul Simon, Mark E. Smith, Woody Guthrie, Kimya Dawson, Eminem, John Lennon, Morrissey, there’s quite a lot of humor in all their catalogues. Every one of them can make you laugh or make you cry or make you think. You can say the same about authors in other mediums too, probably. he only reason people are surprised when they hear humour in my work is because very few songwriters or rock bands nowadays seem to be creating from a full palette, at least from a lot of the stuff that I hear when I’m listening to some popular new band.
You’ve played and toured with some huge names over the years..The Fall, Thurston Moore, Super Furry Animals to name a few. What’s been the most memorable tour thus far, and why?
Opening for Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks on their Europe tour in 2008 was definitely a highlight, that was a crazy tour, really a thrill for my brother and myself because we’re big fans of that stuff. Opening for the Fall was a big thrill too, but it was only one show, not a whole tour.
If you were to listen to your first album When Madman Was Good, and then listen to your latest, how would you say you’ve developed your sound over the years?
I’ve gotten a lot better at playing and singing and recording and writing, because that’s what happens when you do something for 15, 16, 17 years; I didn’t know anything at all when I started. But I don’t know if I’ve become a better artist - my goals are the same and my percentage of hitting my goal is about the same, maybe. I just have different tools that I can use to try to reach my goal, but it never gets any easier to reach the goal. Every song is just as much of a challenge now as it was then. If I write ten songs maybe only one of them is good. That’s probably about the same now as it was in 1998.
Working as a comic book artist/illustrator and as a musician can be rather solo activities. How do you like to spend your social time when you’re not working on your own?
The same as anybody else, just wanting to spend time with friends, with my girlfriend, going for a walk, reading or sleeping. I don’t really have any hobbies because my two jobs are making music and making comic books, so those are both hobbies and jobs at the same time.
You’ve had some wonderful band names through the years, Jeffrey Lewis & The Creeping Brains, & The Junkyard, & The Jackals. To what extent does the name of the current band. & Los Bolts, reflect your music currently?
I wanted to have a band name that reflected the fact that my middle name is Lightning, so I though Jeffrey Lightning Lewis & The Bolts would be cool. But then we played one show as the Bolts and I got home and found an email from some Disney-sponsored band called the Bolts, and they said they live in California and they are connected to all this corporate stuff like Pepsi or Disney or whatever and they don’t want anybody else using their brand name. I’m friends with John S. Hall of King Missile, in addition to being a brilliant lyricist he’s also an entertainment lawyer, I asked him what I should do and he told me that you can’t fight Disney, they will defeat you no matter what you do. So I just changed it to “Los” Bolts instead of “The” Bolts.
Your upcoming UK tour is pretty extensive. Is there anywhere in particular you’re excited to visit?
I always love the drive from the north up to Scotland, when the terrain become hilly and the population gets sparse, that drive up to Glasgow is usually the nicest driving day of every UK tour! Through Cumbria, all of that area. Also, it’s nice to be playing a gig in Cornwall, it’s been a few years since I played in that corner of the country.
Jeffrey Lewis & Los Bolts play Norwich Arts Centre on 18th December. Tickets available from ueaticketbookings.co.uk