Talking Kaput (a podcast by Kaput – Magazin für Insolvenz & Pop)

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Ramesh Srivastava: „My biggest wish is to keep moving forward with what I'm doing.“

Today’s episode of the Kaput podcast is a very personal one. I’ve known Ramesh for around 20 years now. We met through shared friends when he was part of the indie pop-rock band Voxtrot. Voxtrot split up in 2010 – and ever since Ramesh has been releasing beautiful music under his own name, most recently the brand new album „Eternal Spring“. While in Austin for the first installment of South by Southwest since the pandemic hit the world, Ramesh was so kind to open up for a long conversation about his musical career, including very honest insights of what happens in band that dissolves and is dropped by their label after not fulfilling the big dreams, and talking about current songwriting side paths for other artists like HAIM. We also talk about the heavy gentrification processes of Austin, his personal relationship with SXSW, and many other topics. I could keep raving about it here, but just listen yourself. And make sure to check out the new album by Ramesh and, spoiler, try to see Voxtrot on stage as the band is about to go on a little reunion tour.

This episode von „Talking Kaput“ is proudly presented by HAU – Hebbel am Ufer, kaputs favorite Berlin theatre and beyond, the place to be for theater, dance, performance, discourse, music and

visual arts.

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Linus Volkmann und Thomas Venker für das Team hinter Kaput – Magazin für Insolvenz & Pop

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TRANSCRIPT: Kaput x Ramesh

Hello Ramesh. So nice to be finally back in Austin back for South by Southwest.  There are so many things I want to talk to about, like music of course, and all your paths through those kinds of dimensions. But first of all, I'm interested in – as we are in Austin and this is the first SXSW after the pandemic and also an unusual South by in that sense as there were not so many people in town, like normally … do you remember what was your first SXSW?

Ramesh: You mean the first time performing? 

The first time you realized, „oh, there's a thing going on, there’s people coming in from all over the world.

I think I always knew about it because people talk about it in Austin a lot. So I knew before I went, I knew about it. But then when I was maybe 15 is when I was starting to get really into music.And I remember going to see – was it Mark Kozelek? I can't remember who it was., it was a singer songwriter showcase of somebody that was in a sort of big indie band that I didn't really know the music, but the clerk at Waterloo Records had told me like, „oh, you should…“ I think I was buying ta Kings of Convenience record and he was like:  „oh, if you like this, then you should check this out.“ And so I went with a couple of friends and I think like stood in a really long line to get in to see this person. And that's my first memory of SXSW. 

What year could that have been?  

Well, I was born in 83, so it have to be 1998. 

Kings of Convenience were already around in 1998? 

Well, it must not. Oh, I do remember buying if not in high school but shortly after … it might not have been the Kings of Convenience record I was buying, but I was buying something, maybe it was Belle and Sebastian, I was buying something and the guy Waterloo said, „oh, you would like [this].“

And you were still buying it a record store, which is like, maybe still not so unusual for Austin because you still have a really nice record store scene, but in a lot of like areas and for a lot of people that changed traumatically, and I always have to filling, it's just like the, the older guys still doing the vinyl thing and the young people are looking at you, like, „what the fuck is this?“ They only do Spotify and Itunes these days.

Right. But I think really young people do buy vinyl again. I think it's made a resurgence, but even back then, I would think like … I guess now because of disappearing record stores, it's lucky we still have them here, but back then in 1998, I feel other than the biggest cities there are probably not a lot of places where people in high school could go to buy Belle and Sebastian on vinyl. I think it's pretty unique, right? 

Yeah. Especially also that the people are talking nicely to them. Cause I remember being based Stuttgart, Germany – I was always afraid to go to the record store. Cause the guys were like handling us young boys as like we have no clue. You would ask for the new Flaming Lips record and they would laugh: „Dude, this was sold out three months ago, how can you come now?“ And then you go away again feeling like somebody put water over you. Did you have  one store you always went to and you would say that was really important for your music socialization.

Yes. I mean, Waterloo records is the one for sure. Okay. And it's still there. It's still, which is amazing and surprising to me just in terms of how prime the real estate is and how few people buy records, but it's still there. 

Are there some of the same people still working there? 

There are.

That's, that's kinda awesome. Cause that's how you like it, some changes are not changing; and they have like all the wisdom in the world. 

There used to be also another one, very close to the university that was called 33 Degrees, which now this is moved down south - i's called End of an Ear. Probably lots of people know it, I think it's pretty, pretty popular. 33 Degrees was where James Minor – who became our manager and who now of course is running the music part of South by Southwest – used to work at. 

I always think like when I was working in a record store, that were the best years for really listening to music and discovering new stuff. Cause it's the only job where you have really nothing else to do than listen to the music and talk about it. While working as an editor, everybody seems like you have all the time in the world, but then you have like tons of meetings, communication, writing takes a lot of time and suddenly you feel like, „oh, my ass, so many new records I have to listen to – but when I do that? 

It becomes not so organic.I think it is a different thing too. It can be exciting to feel like, „oh, now I'm in the music industry and there's all this new stuff I know about and I want to know about all of it“ – but it's a very shallow investigation of each thing versus I think like, when you, especially before streaming, like back then 1998, like if somebody tells you, „oh, you should buy this Belle and Sebastian record“ and you spend, you know, $16 on this thing, and then you take it home, you listen to it many, many, many times and so it becomes like a very deep investigation. 

That's a very good point too, that you listen to some records like 50, 100 times in your life. How many new records do you have time to listen to that often? Like,  even if you really love it, you maybe have listened to them like three, four times. 

That's a primary change too. With all this charty 80s music having its revival, you recognize, you know all the lyrics, because they were so present in your youth and you were listening to this so much. It’s just really weird that I can probably tell you better Phil Collins lyrics, or George Michael lyrics than any Flaming Lips ones – because they were so significantly present in those years. What was the first music which made you feel like, okay, I want to do music myself.?

I think the first is probably the Beatles, which is like everybody's first – maybe not anymore. I think that's the first thing, cause I do remember, I mean, I can remember being 12 years old and having whole concepts about albums, like even like just starting to write songs, but having like whole concepts of albums that I would make one day, with the cover art and the title, and kind of planning it out from start to finish. And I think that started with my, like, getting very into the Beatles and then other like 60s and 70s music and stuff. I like this idea of bands like the Beatles or Pink Floyd and then the modern version would be Radiohead or something, I liked the idea of these bands that put tons and tons of musical work into making this thing; that with the music – which is usually made on a pretty grand scale – and with the cover art and even with the promotional campaign it becomes this big universe, you know what I'm saying It's almost like a museum exhibition or something. And I like that idea of, of treating each album as this event. 

Who introduced you to the Beatles? I guess not the guy in the record store. 

No, that would be very uncool of him. Well, we have one cassette tape that my parents probably like most parents, back then would make for the car, they would make cassette tapes from their vinyl, you know, from the record player. So we had a sort of a mix tape of stuff that we always drove around on car trips. I remember that it had some Beatles songs like „Blackbird“, and some Elvis Costello. So it would be my parents. But then when I was 12 – at 12 you are in Middle School in the United States – I met this friend who became my Middle School best friend and she really ensured – she was obsessed with the Beatles. She really started giving me books and it kind of kicked off my whole music career. Because it really started the fire.

You still have contact with her? 

Yeah, for sure. I don't see her often. She went a different … she has children, she lives a different life. But yeah.

So at that point you were already like, imagining like doing albums. You were maybe for yourself, like writing songs, but at which point did this get more ambitious? 

I started playing, I mean, the first things I did were playing little, like open mics at coffee houses basically. Cause I was at that time, by the time I was, yeah, 16 years old, I was then obsessed with Bob Dylan. I transferred many times in my life. I transfer it from the Beatles to Bob Dylan. So then I was really, really obsessed with writing tons of songs and wanting to be a solo folk performer. I went to the Kerrville Folk Festival, which is out in the hill country here and stayed for two weeks. But I didn't ever play with a live band until Voxtrot. 

Did you always feel comfortable on stage? Was it easy for you to just like go on and do that? 

It was pretty easy. I mean, I don't know if, actually “easy” is the word, because I would feel nervous sometimes, but I always felt that it was worth it. With fear, there's the difference between a fear that you feel when it's something, you know, you should do, but it's difficult. Like you walk into a room and think I'm afraid to talk to that person, like I feel nervous, but I can feel that it's something I should do. And then it becomes like a good professional or otherwise relationship, you know? And that's like a good fear. And then there's the fear,  something's telling you this is actively dangerous. But for me, like performing, even when it was fear, it felt like that's something I should do.

Well, I think I never told you that – and we know [each other] for a long time –: I find you're fascinating as a character because you have a shyness and you're very gentle, but then also you have a self-confidence. This is a rare combination: shy and self-confident. 

In that sense, it's kind of fitting the way you perform. There's still this boyishness, but there's also – like when I saw you on stage at South by this week – that feeling that you are there, the performance could also be in a stadium, you had like this presence.

Oh, wow, thank you. 

Which maybe leads me back to SXSW.  You performed here this week with your band and the new  album „Eternal Spring“. To me it felt like a miracle SXSW is happening. Cause I was coming to the States anyway, I wanted to see you in Austin – and then I see, „oh, South by is really happening. I remember I've been here a few years ago, the last time and I felt like, okay, this is not the South by I used to love, which was smaller, you could walk in and out of the venues, you were able to see tons of bands. You also run into unexpected stuff, it was so convenient to just do or you follow other people.

And then it got this big thing where like all the big brands had massive stages and everything was so loud and you just feel like, okay, and I'm in a constant advertisement. How does it feel for you a) to see it coming back? And b) do you feel this might also be a restart for the whole thing?

That would be lovely. Yeah. I think it could be like that. I mean, gosh, the last part of the question, it's really hard for me to know. If it is like a different phase or if it's just a nice serendipitous break, because it's in the end of coronavirus, I don't really know. But I agree. I liked the feeling.
And the first part of the question  I will say that because my previous band Voxtrot ascended at the same time as it was sort of really becoming a big thing – when we were ascending, it was great to be a part of that big thing. Because also I was 22, I went to everything and I played six shows a week and partied every night and just went to the best parties and it was so fun. But then after that, when it probably got the most, the biggest, it did feel overwhelming to me, but it also felt overwhelming probably because Voxtrot had fallen apart. So I had no purpose there anymore – I was just at this huge festival; I felt like, what am I doing here?

My own personal narrative is intermixed into it. It's hard for me to know if I had still been in a band that people wanted to see, even at the height, when it was the most crowded, if I'd still been in a band, people wanted to see, I probably would perceive it differently, but because my career was in such a dead point through that time, it felt twice as difficult.

Yeah, totally understand that.  So Voxtrot was mentioned a few times, so maybe we have to introduce the band properly. This was your first band –you got signed, you got international touring, you got like everything a young band is asking for. Maybe you can tell us a little bit about the process of like, like how did that happen? 

The last three years of it felt like a whirlwind, but Voxtrot actually existed for probably five years before all of it happened. It just wasn't on. I started the band when I was 18 and we were signed when I was 22. 

Signed to whom? 

To Beggars Group. It was a really kind of slow burn. I experienced it like a slow burn, but I guess — once we started getting attention, like blog attention, that did happen fast. Within one year we were signed. And within one year after that the album came out. And within one year after that we were dropped. That part is very, very fast. But the other part, the build up was very, very organic. 

How did the signing happen? Do you know what was the major moment the A&R saw you or heard about you?

At SXSW. 

You were a SXSW signing? 

That´s right. That was the greatest year for me of South by Southwest, because we played so many fun shows. We had a lot of buzz around us, and at the end of it Simon Ashcroft … our A&R guy who ended up signing us … he ended up staying with us for the whole week and partied with us.
And he came on tour with us after that. It was a proper old school A&R-ing, it wasn't like we had decided, yes, we're signing with this label. It was like, we met him and Martin Mills and a couple of other people in Austin and it was an ongoing talk and this really classic thing where like, you're getting to know the, A&R person. Like I went and lived with him at the Tribeca Grand hotel in New York for two weeks. It's like a courtship and you learn to trust the mutual vision. And I think that probably is not very common these days.

Also Simon Ashcroft is an one of a kind A&R – well, he was, now he is a manager and looks after Digitalism for example. Who else does he manage? He comes from a family who was involved in the Beatles, you know that, right? 

His dad, yeah. 

That's kind of nice that the storylines of you and your A&R kind of like brought things together. Have you thought about it before? 

Oh, yeah. I mean, it’s like a, a thing that feels almost … what's the word? Destiny.

Yeah, absolutely. 

Feels karmic, feels cosmic, basically. 

Did you talk with him about his dad and the Beatles? 

Yeah, I did. I mean, yeah. I talked to him a lot about that and, you know, Simon also worked – very, very, very young, like 16 years old Simon – for Tony Wilson.

Oh, I didn't know that. What did he do for him? 

He was at Factory 2. They had the second incarnation of Factory Records. Simon and I are very similar, we have both been very intrepid in music from a very young age. And weirdly, because I lived in the UK – I've been to college in Glasgow, but I'd never went to college, I went to [music] education in Glasgow, I went to Optimo –, I knew like all these club promoters across the UK and some in Europe. Plastic People, like this whole thing, because I partied and hung out with all those people. So when Simon came to the United States to meet Voxtrot – because we had a lot of internet buzz – and started talking to me about his world, which is all the same people. And I was saying, „oh yeah, I lived in Glasgow.“ And he's like, „oh, do you know Keith and Jonnie from Optimo“? I said, „yeah, they're really good friends of mine“. And it was like mind blowing, how close our worlds already were. So it made it a very natural thing that Voxtrot, when we start first toured in the UK, played all of those cool club nights. Because the network was already there.

As planets gravitate towards each other or around each other, same goes for humans.

Absolutely.

You already mentioned the dropping. How did that happen? How did you experience that? Cause, I mean, there's a phase when everybody tells you that your are great, that you are fantastic. You see this here at SXSW all the time. I just saw Wet Leg – everybody tells that they are the greatest band in the world right now. If the record does not work – what I do not think as it is a great record, but you never know –, nobody will shake their hand next year. So, how did it feel for you when the whole thing collapsed? 

It felt bad. You feel the tide change at a certain point. I mean, Beggars Group, I still love those people and they were very, very good to us. They gave us complete artistic freedom, even when the debut album did not sell as well as they hoped for, they still gave us complete artistic freedom. So I have a lot of respect for Martin and for everybody there. But you do feel the tide turn. Like when we were no longer on the up, I would feel it, like the way the interactions would be, just like with most people in my life. And that, actually is the biggest test of your desire to really be doing this. You have to be the same person when you're being glorified – and you have to continue to be the same person when you are not, when the coin is flipped and you're being ignored and forgotten about. This is like when you were finding out, do you really, really love this thing? Music – is this really what you want to do in life? That is the truth. I'm not Hindu, but this is the whole premise of the Bhagavad Gita, they talk constantly about how you have to always remember the true self. Whether in fame, or in infamy, or in pleasure, or in pain – that all of those things are different states of being, but the true self is the one that's always there observing everything. So it's like my identity at that time was very, very tied, of course, to being this singer of a band that was signed to a big record label and was kind of famous,  that was my identity.

And least here in Austin, you must have been like really a status. 

Yeah, for sure. And even other places I would go, like a lot of doors opened for me. But then when you find out that stuff is temporary, then it's like, I think oftentimes the impulse is to say, „okay, well I've had a good run, it didn't work out, now I'll find something else to do with my life“. But I think if you're really committed to whatever your art form is – or even if it's not art, whatever your thing is that you do in life, your profession, your calling –, if you're really committed to it, I think life tests, you, and you have to keep showing up for it. And then there's more to life than what you think is the end. 

Did you have somebody like, telling you stuff and being on your side, or this is wisdom coming from the street and your self? 

I would say that I have had many people telling me stuff, but only because I was forced to start searching for answers.  First I felt like I lost whatever amount of fame I had. So I felt like I lost that, even though we know that fame is not really what is the important part, but it feels important when you have it. Right. And then I felt like, I mean, I lost, financially, I didn't have the money coming in anymore, so I was working regular jobs. And I felt like people didn't look at me anymore as a talented person, which is important to me as part of my identity that they think of me as a talented artist. So I felt like all of the ways that other people see me, I lost all of them. And so then I was really depressed for a long time, but eventually started to meet people who turned me on to things like, like meditation, Ayahuasca and different forms of therapy, different ways of trying to understand myself. And this is what has led me out of the woods a little bit. 

It's a tough call. Cause you realize at one point that for most people artistic capacity is like connected to the market value.
Who did tell you that you're dropped? I'm curious. 

So, at the end of the cycle for the self-titled Beggars Group album I went to live for eight months in Berlin and was supposed to be writing the next record – which didn't really happen. Later that year we did put together some demos of new songs that we submit, and then they decide whether there should be another record – and they just said „no“. Back then James was still our manager. So the communication came through him. Actually the American office did offer us the option, they actually said, „it won't be a worldwide deal that, you know, the worldwide says no.“ But anyway, that option was there just to sign with the US. We waited so long on it that eventually they dropped that too. But it makes sense that, I mean, I think it was right in a way that they did, because the band really wasn't in a place to make another record for anybody.That's the thing. It's not that talent or whatever. Well, the magic wasn't there. The people are still there, so whatever abilities you have as a musician or technically are still there, but the magic of the band had gone. So if I were a record label, I also would not have invested in one at that time, you know, „maybe like in a few years, we see the potential for another one.“

But at that exact time there, the chemistry was so gone, like it makes sense to me that it disappeared at that time.  A lot of bands – if they have a decent fan base – do keep making records because there is still a vibe, you can still make a living,. But we just weren't in the place to keep doing that. 

I know exactly which kind of bands you're talking about. Like you always feel like, yeah, but the fire is gone now, it is a job now – fair enough, because a lot of things are jobs. But with arts, we feel like it should be more, it should be the fire, and sure, also the income. So for you as a band, it was clear that it is over, or did you try to write new stuff and get the fire back? 

Well, we did write some new stuff. The last song that we did together is my favorite Voxtrot song: „Berlin without return“.

An excellent song. I love that song.

After that, it just felt like, sad. Like there was so much sadness about how much hope there had been, and then how much hope had gone away. There was just so much sadness. Looking back, I'm glad that I then went away and have had this whole other adventure of life. 

Have there been other bands at the same time around which you would say were kind of similar and they made it and you always looked on their careers. This could have been us.

I mean, I would say a band that shares probably a lot of fans who I'm friends with, who definitely made it is Vampire Weekend.

Yes. They made it.

It's interesting to see how it works. You know, with Voxtrot I used to think, oh, if somebody had signed us right when the first EP came out, when the magic was … when the whole band was still … everything was like … then it would have just gone up like that. But I don't know. I mean, I do believe there is some element that things happen the way they're supposed to happen. Because weirdly over the years – I just know this from watching the Spotify numbers –Voxtrot  music has ended up having this constant slow growth.

What I consider like a Belle and Sebastian effect; that's a band that over the years, especially, rom the mid 90s to the mid 2000s, the word of mouth advertising of that band was just still this constant thing. It kind of defies time. Like the number of years going by doesn't really matter. The love of the music is so organic, is so related to people's emotional attachment to it, that new people, very young people will find it. It kind of doesn't matter what year it is. It just keeps growing slowly all the time. And I found that to be the case a little bit with Voxtrot, you know, messages I receive from young fans on Instagram and, yeah, just seeing the Spotify numbers go up, which is pleasantly surprising to me because I didn't know until recently that that was happening.

So seeing the numbers increasing on Spotify, had that an impact on you making the decision to do a little reunion?

Yeah. You know, it’s an idea that has come up every year for probably the last ten year. It's usually me that says no, because I just felt like it was over. I felt like even though I'm 38, I felt too young to do the reunion thing. It seems silly to me, but probably one year ago. I had a dream that I'm playing on stage with Voxtrot, which I've had dreams about this all the time, and it's always an anxiety dream. Like we've forgotten all the songs, nobody cares about the music or something, but, actually this time it was like a really good dream. I woke up and I still had the feeling of how much I loved that experience. And it was like really positive. And I thought, huh, I think I'm thinking about this wrong. It would be nice to do the shows, because there's still so many people that love it and it doesn't make sense to not do it again for all of these new listeners, like just do one, just do a few shows. Also because those old songs, like the most popular ones exist only online or are hard to find as they only exist on some seven inches or cds, but there's no really good product, there’s no great archive anywhere. It's all like scattered. 

So. It just, I, all of a sudden, like that morning, it just made sense to me that we should do that. And I was like going through Instagram and seeing like how many people of like many age groups were covering Voxtrot songs and had Voxtrot tattoos and stuff. Let's do it one more time!

Wow. That's nuts. How many records – if you mind asking – did you sell back in the day, like artifacts.

Well, we sold of the two most popular EPs which were releases as CD-EPs, like this is just from shows and mail order, we sold somewhere between ten and fifteen thousand of each of those. The album sold 30.000. 

That's enough to spread it out over time and make sure they are still in the collections, like in mine. So people constantly keep playing them and others are listening. 

Jason, our bass player, his job is that he is a rare record collector. And he sees the Voxtrot self-titled record … even if the have them used at Waterloo, when one appears, they go for about a hundred dollars, it's crazy how it works out.

So you were always in close contact with the other guys in the band?  So it was easy to reconnect? Or was it more likely: Okay, we have to call in a meeting here and see if the vibe is there.

Well, for a long time, we were not in close contact, but in the last, probably five years, it's softened a lot. And then we started hanging out a little bit, and now I see him a lot and now it's really good. Now I feel close again. But for a long time: no – I mean, there's a lot of, tension that comes with the collapse of a band. Always, I think. 

Yeah. Cause I mean, there must be a lot of complaining about each other, like, like: „if you would not have fucked up that gig, which was so important..“

I think everybody – at least at Voxtrot – sees that some decisions are so adamant. You don't always know exactly, like maybe sometimes you should listen to other people who you're working with. Sometimes it's good to stick to your guns. So this is like, how life is, you don't know anything until you see it in hindsight. 

And also so too many people, as you mentioned said: „you’re great, you’re fantastic, you are awesome.“ At that stage you are pumped up, you believe it. And then somebody tells you like, „maybe you should do that“ – like why? No, I know it better. Cause I'm great. I'm fantastic. And awesome. You know, where your first gig gonna be? Do you have a special place for it? Or do you play the first one in a garage in Tennessee, in case things don’t work out. 

Well, definitely not in the garage in Tennessee. It's at Webster Hall in New York City.

Hello. That's a nice venue for a comeback show.

Yeah, I'm trying to get them to this… So this town that Jason lives in  – a little town called Lockhart – is really cute. Anyway, I want to do one secret show there before. So I guess it wouldn't be a secret now…

Pssst, nobody heard it. 

Nobody from Germany will come to that show.

You never know, people are traveling again. 

It would be amazing.

To jump back in the in-between years, which are obviously also still happening, because you're working on your solo career – how easy was it just to be restart as a solo performer?

Not easy at first. I mean, there's the expectation that it will be easy because, because Voxtrot has a big following. There's the expectation that that will just naturally transfer over, but you find out very fast that that’s … I think I read it a Clive Davis book when he's talking, telling Paul Simon – when Simon & Garfunkel stopped – that it is almost impossible to break the power of the institution. Like if the institution is Simon &  Garfunkel, it's very hard, no matter what art you produce to break the love of the institution in the public's mind. It often doesn't work. But sometimes it works, like a Michael Jackson is a pretty good example. George Michael is a pretty good example. 

I was thinking of him too. But you should not forget: he was pretty young, e. So I think you have to break it early enough because otherwise you're right when the institution is already like a legacy, then it's, it's harder. If you have like three, four, five records in, because then people are, they have too much of their lives spent with you – and then a change? No, a change feels weird. 

Yeah, totally. So it's not easy at first and can be very demoralizing because you expect so much and, and you feel like you're not receiving it, but in the long run, actually, I feel good about it because it has challenged me to go back to the starting point of like wanting to really become a better and better musician. The more simple I make the relationship between me and music, the more it works. I find that if I'm really dedicated to working on my singing voice and to working on my songwriting and my playing, then it creates – when I'm working with other people on my solo stuff and I'm not thinking about the past, and I'm not thinking about whether it's difficult or easy for me to be a solo artist, – lots of good stuff. And it's like the potential for it to grow and grow and grow is actually there. I know from history, from a Clive Davis book that it's hard, you know what I'm saying? Like the potential is actually there. It's just that we're so used to thinking of life in what we know about it from the past.

If you talk to younger people who started at point zero, as you said: there are still so many possibilities out there, and they build up the same careers. To come back to Wet Leg as I saw them yesterday here at SXSW. I don't have the feeling that they think like, nothing is possible. They were standing on stage with the same big eyes as you maybe, or Franz Ferdinand in 2004 or Block Party, and are thinking: „What the fuck is going on? It's crazy. So much is happening.“ And of course, it's possible. It's just like, like you should have, you should think about the the the banks from yesterday.

Yeah. And, and it continues to be possible even after the initial buzz goes away. It continues to be possible, but I think it's a growth relationship. If you're staying with music for a lifetime, you're always you're growing with it, you know? I think it's challenging you to constantly go deeper into yourself.
It can sometimes feel incredibly difficult because I feel spread ,so stretched, so thin, you know, but, yeah, it makes life very clear because I feel very committed to something. And it's obvious to me, like, I feel very, very committed to it, and it's extremely empowering, because I see what I am capable of doing, which is a lot, like, I see that.
For example, like the video for „Eternal Spring“, which is the title track of the album, which is made at a pretty professional level, you know. I came up with the idea for the video, I went to new Orleans to scout the locations and then said, „okay, I have four months to put together $5,000 to make this video“ – which for me is a lot of money, because I work in a restaurant, you know, so: how am I going to do this?
I had the restaurant job and I was teaching at a private school during the day. What did you teach?  First I was teaching for reading disabilities, like dyslexia, but I was also teaching math and different subjects. So I was teaching during the day, and then on the weekends, I was catering weddings, like setting up and serving the food and stuff. I knew that I had to have these three jobs to create this video and just didn't have a day off basically for five months, but worked constantly through it and then went down there with this film crew and the choreographers and everything. It was like, everything just barely worked, but still, you know, was able to make this thing that normally in the past I would have thought, „oh, I must have the help of a record label. I must have other people to help me with the ideas.“ I mean, other people helped, like the cinematographer was like, incredible. I’m not saying I did everything by myself, but I'm saying the grand vision is actually achievable through individual hard work and then working with other people, you don't always need somebody who quote / unquote knows more than you do to make this possible.
And it is that way with the album too, it took a long time, but in the end I was able to create something utilizing orchestra players, like all this stuff that's that is difficult to figure out logistically how to make it happen. But I learned that you could do it by yourself.

Also one thing you just described: you learn over the years, like how much you can put in one day or one week or one month as well. I remember when I started writing, like writing a review was a day thing, or doing an article for a big newspaper was like something the week was dominated with.
And now like over the years you learn how much you can put in and still you get the quality out of it, because you're more experienced, but also you have a different approach of looking at things, maybe you are more professional you could say, or more experienced, you bring things together.
The one thing I recognized this week you played a big South by Southwest show. You work the day before, you worked the day after, you went to Houston for another gig and you worked the day after. I mean, this is like, if you compare that to the Voxtrot days, you would have partied after the gig and would have been totally destroyed and then you would have played the next gig and keep going and going partying. So it's a very different approach, but it's working too, right. 

This to me is the difference between treating it as a lifetime career versus something that's just part of my youth. For me it's a life – this is what I'm doing with my life. That is a division that becomes very clear when you go into your 30s. All the artists you know, you see a lot of people, they say, „okay, that was part of my past. And now I'm on this different part of life.“ But if it's really your life and that's really what you're doing, you would adjust your life so that it's possible, you know, so that you make sure that it is possible for you to keep doing this thing that you love so much and you organize everything else around it.

To paint the picture correctly. You also do other things on the side, to make money: you write for other people songs, you write sometimes for advertisement, but you choose very carefully. And that's what I also admire – the restaurant shop is also part of a process of making sure you don't do bad stuff or stuff you don't feel like … cause the music has a certain holiness for you, it is not just about the pay check. 

Well, to be honest, I've tried to work on some less holy projects, like I always wanted to get – when I was in LA,  seeing people making money with licensing for  advertising – these gigs and earn $30,000.

I see, you are not the angel I thought. 

Sadly not. But actually, so far it never happened like that. When I've tried to go out of integrity, it hasn't really worked. There's some weird thing about it. 

It is not made for everybody. 

I was thinking writing songs with another band, like that's not really who I am.

Like, I do my own thing, but then it's humbling to see that actually some songs that I've written with other bands ended up keeping me paying the rent for a few months. Now I see it differently. Even if I write a song with another artist and it's not a song that is like coming from my heart, it's actually still a good use of my musical knowledge. Like as long as I'm having fun doing it, then it's a good thing. I just see it differently now. 

How do I have to imagine the process of writing with another artist? Because obviously it's not like with a band, where you meet every week, like two or three times, and there's a closer connection – you are meeting for one weekend session or like even one day only. Can you describe like maybe a significant one?

Yeah. Like, with the HAIM song … ..

so you co-wrote a song of HAIM? From the current album? 

The song is titled „Now I´m in it“. Yeah, I wrote … my friend Rostam Batmanglij who was in Vampire Weekend as a writer, producer etc … I remember I have been to the movies to see „Crazy Rich Asians“ and leaving the movies, it was like 9:30 or something.

Quality cinema.

I was leaving the theater and he called me and said, „oh, like we're writing the song and we're stuck on the lyrics. Like, can you come help us with the lyrics?“ And I went over there that night and, yeah, it was interesting, because it's kind of scary just, well, it's also funny because that’s a band of three sisters, you know. You are not walking into a room with one artist, It’s me walking into the room with my friend and three Haim sisters that are, they're all trying to write this song. And I'm thinking like, well, I'm one person, like how much will I be able to add to this already group of four people to write this song? They had the backing track, they had a kind of idea for the melody: And then I, I listened to her, you know, like not sing, cause they didn't have words yet, but like kind of mouth the syllables, how it should be. The first suggestion is like the scariest, because you really don't know if people will like this – it is so dumb or, this is so cool. It's like, you know, they're a popular band. So I'm kind of feeling like, I really want this to work. So the first thing that came into my head ended up being the first line of the song. Like it came into my head and I was like, here we go. They were like, „yeah, that seems good.“ And then from there it felt pretty … I don't know if easy is the word, you still hit these like roadblocks every hour or so. And then no one can think of anything; and then somebody will come up with something, but once it started going, then it made sense to me how it happens.

So you wrote that song lyrics in one night after you have been to the cinema, which will maybe was nice, cause you were not like the whole day thinking I'm going to the studio. 

Well, we wrote a lot of it that night and then we went back the next afternoon to finish it. 

Just to understand it right: This is kind of a linear writing process. You start in the beginning of the song and then you go on and on and on. And then you do loops again where you fix little things and change little things or?

Yeah, pretty much. And then they ended up doing the bridge like months later – the bridge is nice, very like short dreamy passage, but they ended up doing that months afterward before it came out. But, yeah, it's a weird thing because you're kind of always looking for continuity. You need it to make sense and stay in the theme and you don't want to repeat yourself. I mean, it's like that anyway when I work by myself, writing my own songs, it is like that also. But I would say: my songs tend to take, probably more poetic license, are like less bound to … I don't know how to explain it. Like, I give myself more freedom to work with poetic imagery without it being directly like within, like, this is what the song is about, you know? And also I think like my lyrics tend to be more like heart on your sleeve. Like big emotional statements, you know what I'm saying? So it's a different feeling working with them or working with Rostam is a different feeling, but it's interesting how it still works.

Did you leave the room after that session and have the feeling like, okay, that song is going to be for sure on the record, I made a great job here! And is one expecting that this will lead to a second song? Or does it more likely feel like „I´m the fix doctor“, my friend knows that I'm the right person to call in that moment, which is like genius as a producer. You are stuck and you call somebody and it works out and the song is there. Which is of course the best case and I am sure there are situations where it does not work out. „Whom did you bring in here?“ And there is another lost night. 

I felt like it was good. I’m not saying just because of me. Actually, even before I added anything to it, when they played the track to me, which at that point had only the chorus, I already found it was good.

So then by the time that we finished writing the verses and stuff I was like, oh yeah, this seems really good to me. And the song was stuck in my head for like a year. Like it never left my head. So I felt obvious to me. Eight months later or something, when I was in LA again, and I saw Rostam, he was like, „oh yeah, Columbia wants to make that song a single“. I was really happy, but also I had felt like that. It seemed clear to me that that was a single – even without having heard all of the record.

Have you seen them perform that song live?

No.

So now when they're touring you will …

Yeah. But I love the video by Paul Thomas Anderson, I thought it was really sweet. This is something I already know from my own career, but it’s nice to be reminded of this thing I once read this in a Fran Healy interview, and I think it's a very good, true statement: „All big songs start as little ones.“ Once you have success, it's easy to forget that, like you go into every new songwriting thing thinking: I have to make a big song. But you forget, it doesn't really happen like that. It actually happens from like very small moments of inspiration. It's like a weird psychological trick. 

The  same goes for writing, each time at a start you're like: how should I fill like four pages now? And then, when it's done, it's like, oh yeah. Cause somehow I got it in me, but every time in the beginning, you're like doubting it. Is this really working? Do I have enough material here? Did I do my research? Can I really kick it off? And then at the end you write too much .. But it's surprising because that's also a part of, like accepting the magic of the process, I guess, because this is magic: there is nothing and suddenly there is something there. 

Yes.

You mentioned Glasgow, you mentioned Los Angeles, you mentioned Berlin. So you've been living in three other significant cities. And now you're back in Austin, where you were also born. I would be interested in like, how does it feel to be back here?

As somebody who was saw Austin in the early 2000s for the first time when the Eastside was still like a no-go area, or some parts of it were like a nice neighborhood and now you would go back to neighborhoods and the houses are destroyed for big skyscrapers and everywhere there a signs saying „I buy houses cash“ – which is pretty much like taking advantage of people, try to get their houses. So what I wanted to say is like, this city is dominated by a very fast, very heavy gentrification.  At the same time it's one of the cultural hubs off of the United States of America. Here is so much music, here is a great university. How does all that feel for somebody who is not just like coming by here once a year for a week for south by, someone who is living here and who knows the history of the town? How do you feel about it and how do you feel being back after all the years in different cities? 

You take, like what is known about Austin, which is like that it is so physically naturally beautiful, and that it has this hippie ethos, you know, that Willie Nelson is the patron saint of Austin, you know, from this time in the early seventies when it was a very cheap, very relaxed, really liberal place with cowboys and hippies, this magic thing that people love so much. That is the spirit. The spirit is actually a really humble thing. The spirit of Austin I think is really sweet and humble. I don't know if the word is problem, but the reality now is that when people are attracted to something like that, and it starts to be seen … because I overhear conversations all the time where people are just talking about the city, as I'm sure they do with every city, as an investment.

Let's go back for the last question on your turf. There was developments the city's going through, what's the impact on the music scene? Do you have the feeling it's harder to establish here as a musician now? As everything is more expensive. Do you also have the feeling that less artists are coming to town from outside to live here?

I think that the days of people coming here to live a true artist’s life – that can be either sleeping on the floor or in a five-star hotel –, people coming here to live that like where they're really just in it for their art is probably a lot less. Because the promise of a cheap life in exchange for the freedom to make art is essentially nonexistent. The idea that an artist should be careerist is like, just considered to be the truth now. Like the idea that the artists should be thinking about Spotify numbers. And should be thinking about getting a manager. And a booking agent. And should be thinking about their brand quote, unquote, this is like considered to just obviously be true. Whereas I feel like in the past, I remember reading I think it was Noel Gallagher that was talking about how, like, in the early days of Oasis, he was like, „we were never thinking about our career. We were in what we were doing, we were like into being in a rock band and like really living that life.“ And then the career comes as a structure that supports that. And so, yeah, in a really expensive city, you can't move there and decide that you're just going to kind of solely be thinking about your art and not being materially oriented. It's impossible. Like you cannot survive.

So what's your biggest wish for 2022 from now on if you have one free? 

My biggest wishes is to keep moving forward with what I'm doing. You know, I finally feel like I'm back in life, I’m back in the world doing the thing that I love the most; and my wishes for that is to become a stable reality so that I can just live that life.

All best of the luck for that. Thanks for talking so long to me. 

Thank you.