LCD Soundsystem

Whilst he is about to kill off his own band, James Murphy is trying to tell us how we can save the music industry. So you should probably sit up and listen

Originally published in Clash Magazine 
December 2010
Written by Matthew Bennett

James Murphy is talking quickly. His polished discourse is ranging widely, as it prefers to do. His one-man band, LCD Soundsystem, an existential experiment of “a band about bands” is finished as we know it. “I think it’s more about trying to figure out how to transition to whatever LCD becomes,” Murphy teases. “I feel like this is a good stop for those three records. The only thing that would be a continued goal would be to be bigger. But the price in time is too high.”

Time plays heavily on Murphy’s mind. After being a self-confessed “fucking idiot” throughout his twenties he discovered a way to expel all his frustrations as a thirty-year-old: “Me finding dance music for myself was like a supernova; it was a big explosion that gave me eight years of creative thrust,” confesses the now forty-year-old. “It’s a pretty long time to basically have a single idea of ‘how do we relate to the records on my shelf that I love - [Lou Reed’s] ‘Transformer’, or [Bowie’s] ‘Low’, or Suicide, or Can - then how do I make it a party?’”

“One of the reasons I want to stop is because I have so much shit to do.”

The short answer is fucking quickly. Angling to make a strain of stripped-back, danceable punk funk that no-one else was, Murphy launched LCD Soundsystem as a personal crusade. Discovering this channel cast him on a singular path as a unique musician who was obsessed with his own music, himself as a person, a ruthlessly creative vision, and his record label DFA, but delivered through an outrageously good live band populated by his oldest friends.

And this is exactly how LCD was born then grew under his egotistical, self-aware gaze into a bizarre abstract laboratory that deconstructed the theories of cool whilst the multi-instrumentalist and self-effacing singer deftly feinted into being one of the most well adjusted and normal rock stars ever. But time is now running out for the New Yorker.

As Clash’s year ends and our decade ends Murphy finds himself at the end of his last tour with the band, and possibly the end of LCD’s existence - we gleefully discover one of our favourite interviewees is as bullish and ready for a dangerously reductive and deconstructive scrap as ever.

In a warehouse studio in Glasgow’s desolate Tradeston area this protagonist reveals why globalised trends are killing rock and roll, why he’s the worst team player ever, and even though Obama needs a lesson in pop, how the E-munching Murphy may not be the man to teach him...

You seem to thrive on discomfort. Do you think the next record needs to be forged so far out of your comfort zone it’ll be a revolution for you as a person?

I don’t know. I really don’t know what’s going to make me make a record. I think on some level the impulse to make the three records were all very different.

Is there a fear that you’ll just kind of flop out of the other end of LCD and then collect dust for a bit?

No. I’m not a dust collector. One of the reasons I want to stop is because I have so much shit to do. That’s probably the prime reason I just want to get off the expectation treadmill to a certain degree. Just to get on things.

What was the most significant thing you’ve learned in the last ten years with your band?

This might sound stupid, but probably just that we knew what we were talking about in the beginning. We were like, ‘No! This is a fully functioning idea’, and that we stuck with it, with a mentality of ‘Well fuck everybody! This is the way it should be done!’ and then it kind of works and people enjoy it. That’s validating.

A lot of things thrive on such determination.

When I go see a band I want it to be at risk. I don’t want it to be too perfect. I want it to be loud and powerful, I want it to be a little bit long, and I want to be afraid that it might go wrong. I want to feel like they’re not lying to me, and I want to feel like it’s not a bunch of posturing ego nonsense that we as an audience are trained to respond to - I want it to feel like something actual is happening. And to create that exactly as we wanted to do it, and to feel like we’ve done it, and to feel like I’ve left nothing off the table; I feel like we’ve done exactly what we set out to do. And to have people think of us as a good live band is really, really satisfying. It’s like coming up with the formula on paper, making the chemical compound and it does the thing that it’s supposed to do. Much more than I ever expected.

What would you say is your most recurring mistake?

Just drinking too much. I was mostly in a blackout from 2002 to the end of the ‘Sound Of Silver’ tour. This the first tour where I’ve been able to remember the shows. This record is so much more singing; I just couldn’t do it. I’m still very, very afraid. Almost ninety percent of the shows I had my eyes closed the whole time. But that’s why the requirement for the physical element of our sound live is so important because if it’s not transporting in some way to me, physically, if I’m not caught up in what it ‘sounds like’, I can’t do the show. I can’t stand there and it be acting.

What are you going to miss the most?

Probably touring. Being around people. I love the bus, I like being in different cities, I love being around the band and the crew; people that I like. I have friends all over the world.

What’s the most exciting thing about now?

Just not knowing what I’m going to do. That is super exciting to have kind of a blank page in the future. I haven’t had a blank page in the future for years. Going back to that 1999/2000 feeling of ‘What am I going to do?’ That’s super exciting to me.

What would be your biggest regret?

Not making more music. Not really putting time aside to generate more recording material. Or not putting enough new production into live. Not being able to do weird, funny things that we come up with as ideas. Like funny sets and lights and costumes. We have so many ideas that we joke about but it’s so hard to just get the show together. You never have time to be like, ‘Well, let’s fly in on a space ship!’

“I don’t make music so that I can live in a vacuum. Part of the reason I make music is a primal desire to not feel alone.”

Do you write on tour?

I write in my head. I write songs like every day. I just don’t record them. I’ve never felt like all of that’s supposed to be shared. Things like ‘New York I Love You’ was in my head for years, and I never even considered recording it. It was just something I sang to myself. The song ‘Yeah’ was in my head, it was just something I sang at clubs when dancing when I didn’t like the song. I just sang that over any stupid dance song with Luke Jenner from The Rapture; we would sing that on the dancefloor.

What’s been the most pleasurable experience with LCD?

Touring.

I was thinking more of a singular experience.

I don’t think the singular experiences can even come close to the general feeling. I make music with my friends, I get to travel with them, they know me really well and make fun of me, we make fun of each other, they put up with absolutely no shit from me. These are my friends from before we had a band, but I feel respected. I can’t express how big of a deal that is to have Pat [Mahoney, Murphy’s LCD cohort], who just rolls his eyes and mercilessly makes fun of me, all the time; he gives me a really hard time. I feel very vulnerable to that. To have him say ‘It’s a really good record’, to really be proud of me and have my friends be proud of me, I think is so far above any great tour or we’re all together surfing in Australia.

What’s the most shameful experience you ever had with LCD?

We haven’t had many shameful experiences, quite frankly. I got all my shitty shit out of the way before forming the band I think to a certain degree.

One of the more consistent things you’ve been saying through the years is that you’re only doing LCD until a youngster comes and kicks your ass. Now you’re at the end, how close did you come?

I’ve come around a little bit on that. I was just thinking that we’d make a statement and within a month we’d be out. And I also erroneously thought that music was the province of young people, because historically it always was, but I’ve come around in that thinking pretty significantly. The Rolling Stones were actually teenagers when rock and roll started. But you’re not that interesting when you’re eighteen or nineteen anymore. Forty years ago, a hundred years years ago, people were much more interesting at eighteen: they were adults. But now you’re a fucking idiot for quite some time; it takes a decade of thinking and living to shed some of the stupid shit you were told. Somebody has a very BIG interest in you staying afraid of being different. Whereas it used to be that nobody really had an interest in it; as soon as you stopped worrying it was able to go away, because you were over-thinking it. But now there’s a company that sells shoes and jeans that really wants you to keep worrying about this, and there’s a whole global economy based on you worrying about this shit. It took me until I was like thirty to have a fucking brain. So I’m not sitting there going, ‘Where is that kid?’ Because that kid is wondering if Carhartt is still cool.

Are you looking forward to not having to discuss the mechanics of cool in every interview?

Yeah, I’d rather just keep that to pub conversation.

Are you going to miss the relentless deconstruction of your music?

Sure. I think the cool thing to say, not to get on cool again, would be no, but I’ll be glad to have it done. I don’t make music so that I can live in a vacuum. Part of the reason I make music is a primal desire to not feel alone that comes with making music. So people putting effort into figuring out what you mean or why you do things, even if it’s frustrating, if it’s wrong, it can’t help but feel kind of…nice.

You obviously are going to make more music. What’s it going to sound like?

No idea. And I’m always wrong anyway, but for now I’d be like. ‘Ahhhh, lot of percussion, delays, or cold wave?’ I don’t know. I literally just don’t have any idea.

Is it going to be another solo thing?

I think going and making music with other people is so predictable that I don’t feel I’d let myself do it. Not that interesting.

The last time we spoke you said LCD was going to end because the way your brain works means you make music in a very specific mode. Would there be a fear that without that chemistry of a duo or trio, that you were going to make exactly the same sounding music?

I don’t care. If I’m not capable of making better music, then I should just knock it off. Because I’m a producer, I work with other people and it gives me different ideas. I just don’t necessarily want to make an album with somebody.

So you much prefer to carry on the policy of being completely withdrawn?

It’s not a policy, it’s just that I’m not very good at being a team player. I wish I was! I want to be, I don’t feel that I’m the best or always right, it’s just that something short circuits when I have an idea and we’re not doing it. I become fixated and it’s really difficult for me. So I’m not the guy you want for that.

Is this why with previous music other bands didn’t work?

Well, that and I was an idiot. If I’d had full control, I would’ve made shitty music anyway, so it’s more just that I’m just not good at it. I don’t know, I just shut down. There are people that have had ideas for things where I’ve had to say, ‘Fine! I think your idea might be better. I just don’t want to do it.’

So, at the end of the decade LCD Soundsystem as we know it is finishing. How would you describe the music industry’s health at this juncture?

[Mimics a doctor] ‘I think we’ve almost completely eradiated it. It’ll be going into remission, which is exciting…’ I care on a personal level for people will not have jobs. But as an industry in general, I don’t give a shit. I never expected to make anything, I expected to pay! I always paid to make music; it was a cost, an expense, it’s my hobby. The industry is dying away because it’s bloated and stupid and shot itself in the face. Again, LCD: I’m trying to say that without a total insensitivity to the generally good people for whom that’s their career, but on the other hand, whatever! It’s inconvenient for me because I’d much rather be able to make records and have someone show up with a briefcase full of money, ‘Thank you for your stroke of genius. Here’s your money, now you can just buy nice pants.’

But how much do you worry for the health of your label DFA Records?

DFA’s studio and DFA are the only things that have cost me money, so that’s fine. It’s a labour of love; it’s not a business, except it happens to be a business, unfortunately or fortunately. If we can’t make money out of it, it’s our job as people with brains to figure out a way to fix it up.

If you could change three things about the music industry, what would it be and why?

[Erupts] Everyone who’s afraid to be fired should be fired. It should be run by crazy people who like music, not by publicly traded companies. They should throw out the checklists of what artists have to do and start thinking creatively.

Wow! That came out fast.

I just picked the first three! I think this goes for everything, not just for the music industry, but everything: running a restaurant, a bar, putting together a soundsystem in a club; people should focus on doing things well. They should focus on doing things they love and care about and do it incredibly well, and the world will figure you out. Stop worrying about trying to second guess and treating your audience like a fucking bunch of morons, stop thinking for people and start being in love with what you do and doing it the way you think it should be done. If you just do the thing you really like and you get invested in it and you think about it, you get a little bit creative about what’s missing, a combination of what you love and what’s missing, you’ll be fucking fine. What drives me nuts is just people not fucking thinking, I don’t understand it. You see bands end up on labels where the people running the business don’t even like their bands!

That happens quite a lot.

Also, people thinking: ‘I’m in this department of the record company so I’m going to make this bunch of dumb shit that’s not going to do anything for anybody so I don’t get fired.’ Could everybody please think of some sort of positive role? Like, actually think about a fucking goal that is reachable and logical and based on quality that you can achieve, and then put your effort toward that. That seems like such a reductivist, simplistic thing but I don’t think people do it. They just make sure ‘it’s not their fault’. I think it’s a low form of emotional life and I think those people suffer, I don’t think they’re happy.

With all the new horizons, your profile, network, these general deep beliefs, have you ever considered going into politics?

No, there’s so much documentation of me being high on ecstasy for ten years.

Ok, your social awareness: ever thought of taking your notch of responsibility up a bit further on the basis that people would probably listen to you more than a compromised politician?

No, because I think that the wider the net, the stupider it gets. You find this fucking monkey with no self-awareness being wildly successful at something, then you’ll find the grump who knows everything about that thing. I feel like if I had an impact on the planet, it would be like getting all my friends who are like that [grump] to actually do things and to find optimistic kids under them to get excited and not be shitheads. The larger the group of people you communicate to, the dumber the message, typically. And it just typically doesn’t really work. If you’re a pop band, you have to recognise that people like hooks and the song has to get to that hook relatively quickly, and it doesn’t mean you have to make shitty music. I think Obama forgot to make a pop song. He forgot some of the rules of making pop hits, and forgot to sneak all the really good lyrics and music inside that formula…

Murphy’s ideas, rants, concepts and his rounded demolition of culture and idiocy continued unabated. But we bid him farewell at this point. Thanks for the music and a decade of incisive and provocative thoughts. We await your next move with delightful suspense.