Elliott Smith
a.k.a.
Steven Paul Smith
PERFECT SHAPE Elliott Smith's Long and Winding Journey to FIGURE 8
Populated by beautiful losers, introspective doubters, and Beatlesque hooks, Elliott Smith's moody, fragile tales of emotional turmoil have won a steadily growing cult of worshipful admirers. Smith's visibility brightened with his Oscar nomination for GOOD WILL HUNTING's "Miss Misery" and his hook-filled major-label debut XO. On FIGURE 8, the most accomplished album of his career, the multi-instrumentalist balances spare songs picked out on his acoustic with big productions that billow with tinkling pianos, sweeping string sections, and soaring harmonies. On the day of FIGURE 8's release, Smith spoke with bn.com's Steve Klinge about Nico, cover tunes, and the meaning behind his twisted title.
bn.com: FIGURE 8's arrangements seem to expand on some of the ideas that you began exploring on XO, your last album.
Elliott Smith: Yeah, in a way it's along the same vein as the last one, but it seemed easier and more instinctive this time.
bn: How was it easier?
ES: Oh, I was just more comfortable with it. [Making XO] was the first time I had access to so many tracks and so many instruments and people working with me producer-wise who would wear some of the hats. I used to wear all the hats in recording myself, so just having access to real strings or an orchestra still seems new to me, and I sort of kept going with it with this record and tried to make it more varied.
bn: Some songs, though, stay in that spare, stark style of your old albums, such as ROMAN CANDLE and EITHER/OR.
ES: Yeah, that's a style that I like. I like it to have at least a song or two like that. It helps to break up the more abstract, layered ones that lately I seem more inclined to make up.
bn: Some songs, such as "Stupidity Tries," start in a simpler style and then take a surprising turn into something different.
ES: Sometimes I think it's nice if a song can ramp up and take some twists and turns, like someone walking through a neighborhood and taking a turn into a more industrial area and then winding up in a beautiful park.
bn: It seems like the album might have been hard to sequence because the songs have a lot of dynamic shifts.
ES: Yeah, it was. We wanted to make it move and change as much as possible without becoming kind of difficult to listen to or bothersome in its changefulness. There were more songs recorded for it than wound up on it. At one point it was maybe going to be a double album, but then it seemed better to have it be a single and make it change and move as much as possible, like a boxer trying to move around so he doesn't get knocked out. I think this record's pushing things with [how long it is], but every time we tried to take something out it seemed to upset the little constellation of songs and make it work not quite as well.
bn: You play all the instruments on many of the songs, although sometimes you use other players, such as Quasi's Sam Coomes on bass. Do you just decide what works best at the moment?
ES: Sometimes it's that. Sometimes it's that even though I like to play all the instruments, I like to switch up ways of thinking about songs so that I can try to see [them] from the perspective of a drummer or a bass player. It makes it fun to try to be different people. But then it can also get a little claustrophobic if it's just all you, all the time. I used to record that way a couple records ago, where I did everything, including running over to start the tape machine and then running back to play the drums. I don't know, there's something nice about having some other people around, even if they only play on a couple songs. Or maybe they're the producers, Rob [Schnapf] and Tom [Rothrock], and they really don't play anything at all, but they're there and sort of like a band.
bn: What else are you listening to these days?
ES: I don't really keep up very much. I've been listening to a Nico record, THE MARBLE INDEX, for the last several months. I get fascinated by one thing at a time and obsessively consume that thing, first by being really overwhelmed by it, and then maybe later I'll wind up mentally taking it apart and trying to figure out how it was made. I don't care if it's a new or old record I'm really into.
bn: I recently heard you cover Big Star's "Nighttime," and it fit in neatly with your own songs.
ES: Oh, thanks. Sometimes I cover a song by them; there's a way that Alex Chilton sang in a higher register that really started to appeal to me a few years ago because I usually sang in a lower [register]. I never thought I could sing high, and I thought it was so beautiful that he could that it made me want to try, and now I find it really fun to sing in a higher register. So occasionally I'll cover a song by him.
bn: Jazz pianist Brad Mehldau did an album of covers, ART OF THE TRIO: THE SONGS, with songs by Radiohead and Nick Drake. It wasn't on the album, but have you heard his version of your song "Bottle Up and Explode"?
ES: Yeah, I have. It blew me away; I couldn't believe it. I've seen him play once or twice. It was extremely flattering that he found my song interesting enough to play in his show. He heard things in it, some of which I could hear in it but didn't feel I could do any more than imply because, after all, it's supposed to be a rock song. He brought out a lot of the implied harmonic things in it, and then added a bunch of stuff that I would have never thought of. And, of course, his technique is a million miles beyond mine. It was incredible. He's amazing.
bn: It's the other side of the cover versions, having someone do your songs.
ES: It's a strange thing. It makes them sound like real songs.
bn: Why did you call the album FIGURE 8?
ES: Just the idea of someone figure skating as an endless symbol of a self-contained pursuit of some sort of beauty that doesn't have a start or end.
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